Red Ink Read Free

it’s all meant to be calming. I just want to scream.
    Amanda sits on the only other piece of furniture in the room, another plastic chair, smoothes down the sides of her hair (a pointless thing to do, she is as frizzy as me), then switches on her very best sympathetic voice.
    “Hello . . . Melon.”
    There is a pause between the greeting and the name. I am used to that pause. Amanda pulls her face into an exclamation mark and double-checks her notes.
    “I think Social Services have misspelt . . .”
    “No, it is Melon.”
    “Oh.” She hides behind her folder.
    “My mum called me Melon.”
    There. I cross my arms as an end to it.
    Mum.
    Amanda stiffens at the word, like an actor who’s been given the wrong line and is forced to jump ahead in the script. I stare at her, working my chewing gum, realising this is what it feels like to be cocky.
    “Melon. Gosh! How lovely!”
    My chewing gum squeaks on my teeth.
    “I’m Amanda.” She thrusts her name badge at me and holds it there, on the end of its neck chain, waiting for me to say something. What can I say about her ‘Amanda-ness’? I nod.
    “And I’ve got here as your surname, Fu . . . Fu . . .”
    “Fouraki.”
    “Is that . . .?”
    “Greek? Yes.”
    “How lovely!”
    I wince.
    “So!”
    Amanda draws in a big, meaningful breath to begin, then stops. Her faces changes, as if she’s just remembered something awful. Has she left the iron on back home, the gas hob blazing? No. It’s tissues. She’s forgotten tissues. She gets up and grabs a box from the windowsill. Then there’s a horrible moment where she can’t decide where to put them because there’s no table and it seems a bit weird to put them on the floor. After faffing around for an age, she decides to plonk the box on my lap. I want to die. If I don’t sob like a baby now, I’ll be for it. So I do this little laugh. Amanda cocks her head at me, switches the concerned face back on.
    “So how are you feeling today?”
    “All right.”
    “Your social worker explained why you’ve come to see me?”
    “Poppy, yeah.”
    “Poppy?”
    “I mean, Barbara.”
    “You called her Poppy.”
    “That’s what she calls herself. Barbara Popplewell. Poppy for short.”
    Amanda looks all sorts of confused. “Oh, I see. Lovely.” But she’s thinking it’s unprofessional, Barbara using another name, I can tell.
    “Because it’s been,” Amanda goes back to her notes, “just over two weeks now.” She doesn’t carry on and add a ‘since’ and finish the sentence. Am I meant to do it for her, like some twisted version of Family Fortunes?
We asked 100 people the question, ‘It’s been just over two weeks since what?’ Our survey says the most popular answer iiiiis
 . . .
‘Your mother got whacked by a bus and was turned into tarmac.’
Round of applause. The set of matching suitcases is yours.
    “Yeah,” I say. “Fifteen days. Not that I’m counting or anything.”
    Amanda tilts her head again, sends me a silent
poor you
. I ignore it, look out the window behind her. In the distance, two school teams are playing football in fluttering bibs. Small cries and a faint whistle come through the glass.
    “So what feelings have come up for you since then?”
    The correct answer here I presume is sad, lost, suicidal, fetch me a noose. Something along those lines.
Our survey says the most popular emotion in the wake of your mother’s death iiiiis . . .
    “I’m a bit pissed off.”
    “Mmm, mmm.” Amanda is nodding like crazy. In TV dramas when the counsellor does this the other person finds they can’t help but carry on talking. Before they know it they’ve confessed everything. I don’t want to spill my guts, not here in this old house that was probably, long ago, someone’s stately home. It seems wrong that a building like this is where the sad and the mad hang out. I am in the wrong place.
    “Mmm, mmm.” Amanda is still a nodding dog.
    What feelings are coming up for you?
I