A Likely Story

4. flyleaf

The morning sun came streaming into the kitchen at ten past five, and I stumbled to the sink and threw up the nothing that had been in my stomach. 

I realised too late as I retched that I hadn't had any lunch or dinner the day before, and the banana for breakfast really wasn't making a difference.

I'd been hungover enough times to know the drill, and I sat with my back against the cupboard under the sink, sipping a tall glass of water. That was how the morning went, with me sipping water, trying to keep as still as I could as I listened to the chiming of the grandmother clock that my parents had been given as a wedding present by an old aunt. I skipped hastily away from the memory that wasn't even mine; my mum in a white lace dress with a big skirt, my dad looking dapper in a navy suit.

My mum always woke up at half past eight, coming downstairs wrapped in her white dressing gown with her t-shirt and sleeping shorts underneath. I couldn't stomach the thought of seeing her, and I meant that quite literally; as my thoughts brushed upon what had happened last night, I had to run to the sink again, this time throwing up water.

The clock struck eight, and I walked to the downstairs bathroom, which was located next to the kitchen. Mum and I had come to the agreement long ago that us sharing a bathroom had the very strong potential to lead to a homicide, and I'd been given the short straw of having to lug my arse down the stairs every morning, with the exception of going to the loo.

I was genuinely a little surprised that the mirror didn't develop even a tiny crack as I stood in front of it. My face was so pale I pretty much matched the white wall behind me, and my hair was more matted and greasy that I'd ever seen it. I could have thrown up a third time looking at myself. I stripped, chucking the same clothes I had worn the day before into the laundry bin, and walked slowly into the shower.

After five minutes of standing underneath a jet of water with the temperature turned up to the highest it could go, I felt only marginally better; cleaner would have been a more appropriate word. The colossal headache, like someone was hanging pictures with a hammer on the inside of my skull, remained. I wrapped a towel around myself and traipsed upstairs, trying to be as quiet as possible as I pulled a long sleeved dark blue cotton dress out of my wardrobe. 

Once it was on, and I was fully dressed, I tiptoed back down the stairs into the downstairs bathroom. Eyeliner proves to be very difficult to apply when you're trying to do it with hungover hands that won't stop shaking, and it took ten minutes to get wobbly lines on my eyelids and waterlines.

I was attempting to brush the knots out of my hair when I heard the sound of the bathroom door close quietly upstairs. I ran into the kitchen and tugged on my old black plimsolls that lived by the door most of the time. I pulled open the kitchen door and ran out the back, trying to ignore the thumping of my head. I didn't stop until I reached the main road.

***

The door of the shop was unlocked when I pushed it, the peeling dark olive green paint bathed in a generous wash of morning sun. The bell tinkled above my head, and after what couldn't have been more than a few seconds later, Maureen's voice rang out through the shop.

"Who's that? We're not open until ten, not a minute before!" I noted with some amusement that she had basically said the same thing as yesterday, and wondered if she had a script of acceptable things to say to random people who came into her shop, tucked away in the pocket of whatever cardigan she had on.

"It's Lula," I called back, shutting the door quietly behind me as I walked in. There was the sound of quick footsteps on the stairs, and Maureen's small figure appeared. Today she was wearing a long skirt with brightly coloured flowers on a black background, and a white blouse covered by a yellow cardigan. A lavender coloured satchel was looped around her shoulder. Her face fell into a surprised smile when she saw me standing hesitantly by the front desk.