Dad’s 60th birthday party is different. It feels like a farewell: a rehearsal for the funeral. I try not to think of it as such, but the house has an air of broken past about it.
It was only when the words were coming out of my mouth during the interview – alone, in a room, with only a microphone and tape for company – that the reality of abuse hit me.
Barbie was my dream girl. A fantasy. The girl I thought I might become, who would live happily ever after with the man of her dreams, the penis-free Ken.
I thought during Covid, we might have seen a return to the traditional dinner party, albeit with only the people in whose bubble you were allowed to be, but there was none of it. Even when the weather turned cold and outdoor dining was the only option, people preferred to don gloves and scarves and watch their hands sticking like Super Glue to a cold champagne glass rather than eat at home.
Come on, mate. Get a move on, we yell! She’s halfway up the wall creeper, skirts hoisted up, and you’re flirting like Adam in the Garden of Eden before he realized there were other women in the world other than bunny boiler/snake charmer par excellence, Eve.
Looking at her life trajectory with our feet struggling on the bottom rungs of life’s great ladder, we can only gaze longingly at the hem of one of her tiny skirts disappearing ahead of us, one rung at a time.
What are these men trying to prove? Are they competing for Stud of the Century, defined by their ability to produce the greatest number of kids?
Charles had grown so increasingly red throughout, he looked in danger of self-combusting and you had to wonder whether it might be better if everyone hung around for a bit and avoid having to RSVP to forthcoming funeral invitations.
Seriously. Why did anyone ever think they were a good idea? Do you really want to sleep where you p**s? What are we? Cavemen?