How long had Charlotte actually been staring at some random speck of
dust, on one apricot wall in her, somewhat cluttered, bedroom?
She felt like shit. Her head, along with almost every
muscle in her body, ached acutely. How much of it was due to the booze? And how much to the stress of all the
things she had been through, over the past week? Ever since Mum had taken her latest "OD".
Why? Why was she always doing things like that?
Everyone got low sometimes, didn't they? Charlotte certainly did.
But why did her mum do stuff like getting drunk, shagging
around - taking bloody tablet overdoses? She never seemed to consider at all, what effect her behaviour might have upon
Charlotte, or Lisa, or anyone else. She just wallowed in self-pity, and performed the same old attention-seeking rituals.
Looking at herself now, in her full-length mirror, Charlotte
couldn't help but see a younger, slightly less attractive version of Valerie Fisher, glaring back at her. They had the
same eyes, and the same voluptuous-going-on-plain-overweight frame. Their hair might even have been a similar colour,
if Mum wasn't so partial to blonde hair dye - although perhaps not, nowadays. At thirty-four, Charlotte's mother was
beginning to go grey, as Charlotte had noticed, the last time that Val had "lost it" for long enough to let herself go.
The latest overdose had been Val's most serious to date,
and the shrink who she had seen, on her discharge from A. and E., hadn't been at all happy that she wasn't liable to take
another, if they let her go home.
And so Charlotte's mum had been admitted, for the seventh
time in as many months, to the hot, smelly psychiatric hospital, with which her fourteen-year-old daughter was becoming far
too familar.
She had gone in, as per usual, on a so-called "voluntary
basis" - secure in the knowledge that the medics would have sectioned her otherwise.
Very "voluntary", thought Charlotte, bitterly.
Not that she would have wanted her mum to stay at home,
in that state.
So, Mum's twenty-nine-year-old sister, Lisa, had moved in,
yet again, to "look after" Charlotte - as if she needed any such thing, having spent most of her life playing "baby-sitter"
to her bloody mother.
That was part of what had first attracted her to Richard
- his independence, and yet, at the same time, his vulnerability. Charlotte had always sense that things weren't great
for Rich at home, and she knew, of course, about his dad being in hospital, although he had never talked much about his dad's
illness.
This side of Charlotte's life was something that Emma could
never have understood, with her big, close-knit family, where the pet gerbil was pampered more than Charlotte had ever been.
And John's background was very much the same, from what Charlotte could tell.
John - shit. She hadn't want to think about him.
Last night had been such a mistake, and now her best friend wasn't talking to her. Neither was Bryony, who
had naturally sided with Emma.
Not that Bry had ever really liked Charlotte that much,
in the first place.
Lisa poked her frizzy blonde head around the door.
"Charlotte, darling, I'm just popping out for a while. I said I'd go and see if Faye needed an extra pair of hands in
the shop this afternoon."
"Oh - er - hi, Lisa. Yes, yes of course - fine.
I've got a friend coming over, anyway."
"That's nice, love. Emma or Bry?"
"Richard."
"Richard? Oh, yes - I know. He goes around with
Emma's boyfriend, doesn't he?"
Charlotte nodded.
"Well, anyway, you have a good afternoon. I'll see
you between five and six - or six-thirty, depending on how busy things are. Or maybe seven, if Faye and I go for a quick
drink afterwards, although..."
She'll be back by half-ten, at the earliest, decided Charlotte.
Lisa was more responsible than Val, but not significantly so.
"I'll see you when I see you, Lisa - no problem."
Three minutes after her aunt's departure, the doorbell rang,
and Charlotte raced downstairs to answer the door to-
"John!"
