The Boy Who Fell to Earth by Kathy Lette

Resigned Mother look.
    ‘Dear, what I diagnose is chronic AAADD – Age-activated Affection Deficit Disorder. You have got to start dating again. Your bed, my love, is emptier than a supermodel’s refrigerator.’
    ‘Dating again?’ I cringed. ‘But I haven’t done anything wrong! Why must I be punished?’
    ‘Not just for you, darling. But for Merlin. He needs a male influence in his life.’
    ‘Not having to worry about men any more is the secret benefit of death,’ I reasoned.
    ‘Yeah, sure.’ Phoebe poured more wine into my glass. ‘You love being single … except for the no sex, no late-night laughter in bed, no rubbish taken out for you and no big and burly love god to hit the burglar over the head. Yes, it must be joy. Paradise.’
    ‘My darling daughter, how do you ever expect to meet Mr Right if you don’t go on the odd date?’
    I looked at my mother and sister in alarm. The reason I’m such a pessimist is because my family are such bloody optimists. ‘Mr Right? Who the hell are you all of a sudden, Mother – Julie Andrews? The idea that there’s someone for everyone is mathematically impossible. I found my Mr Right and he ended up being a Right Bastard. As did yours,’ I added.
    My mother talks with her hands. When she sprained her wrist whilst skydiving (don’t ask) it was as though she’d developed a speech impediment. She folded her hands in her lap now and looked down at them, and I instantly regretted my barbed outburst. What was wrong with me? When had I soured so? What happened to the frisky, free-spirited girl I used to be? The one who could do handstands whilst yodelling, and (in the right circumstances) naked? The only thing I had faith in now was that there was nothing to have faith in.
    Phoebe stroked my mother’s arm reassuringly. ‘Being hurt by a man doesn’t mean a woman has to keep her heart wrapped in crime-scene tape,
does
it, Mum?’
    ‘How
is
Jeremy?’ My mother imbued his name with utter contempt.
    ‘Who?’ I shrugged. As far as I knew, Jeremy was still living in LA indulging his inalienable right to the pursuit of life, liberty and leggy domestic goddesses. Tawdry’s US cable cooking programme had just won some kind of television award, worse luck. It was impossible to avoid the picture of her in the tabloids clasping the statuette to the fluffed-up fleshy soufflé of her breasts.
    ‘But darling,’ my mother rallied, gesticulating again, ‘it’s been over six years since he walked out on you. You’re a gorgeous-looking woman, Lulu. Pretty
and
witty. If you would just use your feminine wiles you could …’
    ‘Feminine wiles!’ I interrupted. ‘
Feminine wiles
means nothing more than whiling away wasted hours being pathetically feminine. It’s not for me.’
    ‘You see what I mean, Mum?’ Phoebe sighed. ‘She’s become so anti-male people are going to start thinking she’s a lesbian.’
    I snorted with laughter. ‘Just because I hate men doesn’t make me a lesbian. It makes me a realist.’
    ‘Darling, ours is a happy family,’ my mother reprimanded. ‘We don’t do dour.’
    I looked at my mother with love. Since my father’s untimely departure, her mantra had become ‘Live simply; laugh often; love deeply’. Mine, I suddenly realized, had become ‘Live complicatedly; cry often; hate always’.
    Phoebe is equally blessed with hopefulness. Ever since we were children, she’d collected wounded birds, frogs, lizards, squirrels … then, later, men who were all no-hopers and losers. She put them through college and helped with their visa applications and found them jobs. They all left her eventually, as soon as they’d become strong. Except for her painter-decorator husband. Danny was so devoted to my sister, he’d happily build kennels for all her underdogs.
    ‘You’ve perfected this kind of casual contempt for men, Lucy,’ Phoebe persevered, refusing to give up on her only sister. ‘But think about how this will rub off on Merlin: