Red.

Chapter 3

So what was I just saying – Oh! Yes. That the evening was going to be interesting? Well it was more than interesting – it was positively demented.

So like where to sit. It was just the three of us, right, and you know what they say, two’s company, and three – well don’t even go there – I was definitely the three in this particular crowd.

Like the TDL’s not bad enough depressed and tipsy, but in this mood, she was positively scary. Made Cruella look like everyone’s favorite auntie.

Okay so she didn’t approve of my particular taste in evening attire, but like who was it wanted me smartened up? Well I smartened up okay and I reckon the TDL had a touch of the old green-eye. 

Anyway, she got to sit opposite him and I got to sit next to her where she could keep her eye on me.

To say it was awkward would be a bit of an understatement. Not helped by that strange warm glow I got every time Tony cracked a smile. What was happening to me – could I be going down with something? And then there was the way we both kept looking away every time we caught each other’s eye. 

And his voice was to die for – that soft lilting Scottish twang like Robin Williams pretending to be Mrs. Doubtfire. Shit, I wonder if the seemingly perfect Tony was actually a psychotic axe-wielding psychopath – or worse. And like what did he see in her. 

However, I had more immediate issues to deal with. It would appear that my brain had lost all communication with my body. I knocked over a glass of wine and splashed gravy all over Mothers ‘special’ tablecloth. She gave me one of her frenzied looks like she wanted to kill me there and then. Then to top it all, when Tony asked me some dumb question about school, I’d suddenly lost all power of speech. I opened my mouth to speak but like nothing came out. And I’d SO wanted to sound sophisticated and intelligent.

– Oh! Red’s not used to company – my bitch of a Mother cut in.

Not precisely the image I wanted to portray. I smiled sweetly instead but he turned away to make some nerdish remark about the TDL’s eyes. Red, blotchy and worse for wear, I would have said, but he described them as ‘heavenly’ or some such shite that put me right off my food. Suddenly I lost all appetite, so in desperation mode, made a grab for the wine bottle.

She, the evil one, grabbed my arm to prevent me, so I yanked the bottle from her hand and poured myself a large glass giving her my evil (lay off you bitch unless you want an unholy row) look. It worked. As I expected, she thought better of taking me on in front of Tony – which left me in peace to get quietly shredded.  

After dinner, we retired to the room the TDL optimistically referred to as the lounge. It took me a few minutes to realize what she was rattling on about and then I guessed she meant the room where she spends most of her life getting slowly drunk and watching daytime TV, while I’m annexed off to a small corner of my bedroom to do homework… or whatever.

– I expect you’ve got lots of homework to do Red, she asks me hopefully.

– Dun it, Mother, I respectfully reply and with my most endearing smile. Then moving into our recently established ‘lounge‘ and being comfortably sloshed by this time, I throw myself down onto the sofa right next to Tony. I can feel his body heat and it gives me a strange sensation. Yup! I was definitely going down with something. 

The TDL reluctantly sits on the single chair opposite and gesticulates that my low cut dress had just gotten even lower. I re-adjust myself provocatively, knowing that Tony is giving me sneaky sidelong glances. 

So Mother dear sits pulling faces, winking and making strange jerking movements with her head in the direction of the door. Perhaps she was going down with something as well – something terminal with any luck.

Anyway, when it’s clear to her that I’m not going nowhere, she gets up in a suppressed fury and says, looking at me daggers.

– Let’s go down the pub Tony, I‘ll get my coat and bag.

Then she exits the room leaving me sitting there in silence with Tony.

Then before I have time to think of anything to say he places his hand firmly on my bare thigh. It feels like an electric shock passing though my entire body. I grab his hand and pass it back to him.

– I think this belongs to you! By the way, I’m only sixteen. How old are you exactly? 

– I never tell a woman my age he replies and winks – like a real slow wink. Then she comes back in and he’s holding out his hand beaming a smile,

– Delightful to meet you Red. I do so hope we meet again soon.

And then he’s gone, into the night and I run upstairs and burst into tears and I don’t even know what I’m feeling, just confusion, anger and a horrible feeling that things are going to get very much more complicated.