The Salad Dressing and Other Disasters

Expelled Part 2

Now I was a bright, young, freshly disgraced 'expellee', none of the family knew how to act around me. Dad tiptoed in the door when he came back from work, and took safety in his 'den' with the widescreen TV and the brown sofa that swallowed you whole. Dad wished to be swallowed whole anyway, he was so embarrassed. I heard him focusing enthusiastically on Joe. Even discussing the accomplishments of the cats with his golfing friends.

Mum regularly knocked imperatively on my bedroom door, bringing me tea and Bobby Brown products. She'd say things like 'it's all for the best love. The Lord will have a plan. Have you tried this new salmon blush. It's just your color' then she'd shovel so much sympathy food into me I was gaining weight by the day, a fact I would have been able to confirm had I cared enough to weigh myself, which I didn't, being so thoroughly crushed under the heavy weight of shame.

Only Joe remained basically the same: completely indifferent to the fact I was alive in general unless it involved any interference with his addiction to screen slaughter. His central gripe was that soon strangers would be living in his bedroom, the biggest room. He was anxious about dismantling the video game dream palace he'd created, a sort of small city made out of bean bags. He also seemed to have abducted my one source of comfort, the cats, and the one eyed Dierdre Herself especially seemed to have acquired real estate in the dark video game cavern. Granted it was probably due to all the left over pizza boxes that were littered around. Martin, bless him, still remembered me and slunk around my legs and jumped up for cuddles now and again when he decided to pull himself away from preening and narcissistic self-obsession.

I was also discovering that quite a few of my 'friends', (granted, a word I used quite liberally to encompass mainly superficial people whose parties I frequented) had disappeared from the pages of my social media overnight.  This was perhaps not as surprising as how little I found I actually cared.

The name of the boarding school was announced over breakfast. 

'Barbara Betty's School for Female Borders'. 

I laughed out loud

'Is it some sort of Alliteration preservation project, Dad?' 

Dad, who still couldn't properly look me in the eye, simply ignored me and announced in his most threatening voice: 

'20th August, you'll be on that train Clare. It'll be an adventure'

I really was in some sort of Enid Blyton nightmare. I was to catch the 1.33 at Charing Cross station where I was to meet some girl called Jemima Wren. It all sounded so hideous, I couldn't listen to any more of the details. Presumably this Jemima would escort me to the school or seomthing. 

Preparations for this day were thoroughly depressing. The uniform was hideous. I wanted to vomit. The woman serving us in the shop felt so bad for me she could hardly make eye contact, and kept offering me polo-mints. Mum looked like a sort of cross between neurogenic shock and Princess Diana on Jonathan Dimbleby. She grabbed my hand and dragged me straight to the hairdressers afterwards. New highlights would make it better, she said, and this one particular hairdresser provided coffee on tap. She felt so guilty she was giving me her appointment and that's a very significant gesture if you know my mother and her hair. 

The highlights didn't cheer me up. I can't actually stress enough how bad things were. My life had gone straight down the swanny in three straight days. I was sinking into an impressively deep level of depression. This was protective in some ways as it had the effect of me not caring about anything, not even a tartan skirt (kilt) to the ankles a lime green and orange blend and a purple beret, (kill me now), purple socks, (with a sledge hammer!) The blazer - bright orange - sorry, an amber wool blend- as the woman corrected me, gave the general impression of an indecisive traffic light. I wasn't indecisive though. My entire countenance had settled into a big fat red red full stop.