Читать книгу Boys on the Brain - Jean Ure, Stephen Lee, Jean Ure - Страница 9

Managed twenty pages of War and Peace last night. It is rather hard to get into, but I suppose that’s because it is a classic. Classics are not meant to be easy. Anyone could read them if they were.

Harry the Hunk seems to have become a permanent weekend fixture. He stayed overnight on Friday and was still here this morning. And I don’t think he sleeps on the sofa. Mum used to pretend that he did. She used to make this big production out of lugging bedclothes downstairs and saying how inconvenient it was living in a two-bedroom terrace and not having a spare room. But I used to lie awake and hear the stairs creaking, so I’m sure it was just for show. Now he’s, like, here every weekend, all weekend, Friday night till Monday morning.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. OK, I guess. I mean, if it makes Mum happy. She’s had lots of boyfriends over the years. Most of them have been dire; some of them have made her cry. And they’ve all regarded me as a definite impediment. Like, “Oh, that horrible spotty snot-nosed brat.”

Harry just accepts me, like I am trying very hard to just accept him. It is not always easy, as I said to Pilch. It is all right for her, as she is used to living with a man, i.e. her dad. But when you are not accustomed to having a great hairy male about the place there are certain things that you have to try and remember. Like for instance you cannot just leave your underwear and stuff dripping over the bath. Well, I mean, you can. You could. It’s not like there are any rules about it. But then I would feel embarrassed, and it is the same with the loo. To think that you are sitting where a male bum has been sitting. Not that there is anything very much that you can do about it, unless you carry your own portable loo seat with you.

Pilch giggles when I say this, but I am serious! It is a big intrusion into one’s life. However, I will accept it for Mum’s sake. She is obviously one of those women who needs a man to make her feel complete, and it is probably too late for her to change now.

But just imagine! If she didn’t spend all that time snogging on the sofa she could be educating herself. She could be going to evening classes! She could be taking an OU course! She could be doing almost anything. And then instead of just being a bank clerk, she could be the actual manager!

I did once suggest this to her, but she said, “I cannot think of anything more boring!”

It is strange how different Mum and me are. I have this burning ambition, while Mum, it seems, is content with her lot. All she asks is a man in her life. And now she has one! So I must be happy for her and not worry about trivial things such as lavatory seats.