Adults. Emma Jane Unsworth

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       Look No Hands

       Hi Hi Hi

       Back at Home

       Exhibits A and B

       Good Famous People

       My Mother

       Still

       Life

       We’d Gone

       ‘Funny’

       Outgrown

       Art Said

       Bodies of Work

       Kelly Said

       Fake News

       Google Me

       Social Caterpillar

       Really Tho

       Deals with Strangers

       News Item

       Nicolette Says

       Half an Hour Later

       Ass Fizz

       That Night

       It Happened to Happen

       #Frotheh

       My Mother Says

       The Heart Crosses It

       Manchild

       Who Ya Gonna Call

       Naked Ambition

       Soho Square

       Chief Emotions

       She Says

       Kelly Says

       Genuine Question

       Life Drawing

       Relax

       We Lie

       Silent-Ish Night

       Thanks

       About the Author

       Also by Emma Jane Unsworth

       About the Publisher

       PROLOGUE

       SOHO SQUARE

      I sit and wait for her, my feet swinging under the bench. She’ll come soon, and she’ll know where.

      Adrenaline. I squeeze my own arms. Tap my toes. God, I hate waiting. Is that what I’ve been doing all these years? Waiting, for her? Maybe all those therapists were right. Maybe therapy isn’t just a bad stand-up show you don’t have the balls to take on the road.

      I look around, at the other people chatting and posing and repositioning themselves, whiling away this cold Friday. It’s a few weeks before Christmas and the city is all lit up. People are smiling too much, drinking too much, wanting too much, wearing too much tinsel. Nothing points to the ephemeral nature of life quite like tinsel.

      I look towards the north gate of the square and it’s then that I see her. Dishevelled, pulling on her coat. She scans the benches, spots me and freezes. I wave. She tilts her head to one side and bats her eyes, as though appealing to some ancient understanding between us; as though this has all been a scripted episode, some kind of brilliant shared joke. I stare at her emotionlessly. I am not playing. She stares back. It’s checkmate with the old queen.

      She starts to walk over. I almost don’t recognise her with her clothes on. Which is a strange thing to say about your mother.

       A FEW MONTHS EARLIER

       HELLO, WORLD!

      It is 10.05 a.m. and I am queuing at the breakfast counter of my co-working space in east London. The weather outside is autumnal but muggy and I have over-layered. I am damp at my armpits and wondering whether to nip out and buy a fresh T-shirt at lunch. I made dhal for dinner last night from a budget vegetarian cookbook I picked up in a charity shop, and let me tell you, it was astonishing. I am creating a social media post about a croissant that I am pretty sure will define me as a human.

      I stare at my phone. I am happy enough with the photo. I have applied the Clarendon filter to accentuate the photo’s ridges and depths, making the light bits lighter and the darker bits darker. I added a white frame for art. The picture looks – as much as pastry can – transcendental. However, the text is proving troublesome. I’ve tweaked it so many times that I can’t work out whether it makes sense any more. This often happens. I ponder the words so long, thinking how they might be received, wondering if they could be better, that they lose all their original momentum. I get stage fright. The rest of the world has fallen away around this small square of existence. It’s like that bit in Alien 3 where Ripley says to the alien: You’ve been in my life so long, I can’t remember anything else. I used to think it was about motherhood. Now I know it’s about social media.

      I stare at the screen.

       PASTRIES, WOO! #PASTRIES

      Is this the absolute best depiction of my present experience?

      I cross out the WOO, and the comma.

       PASTRIES! #PASTRIES

      I stare at it again. I try and recall the original inspiration; to be guided by that. It’s the least I can do. I interrogate myself. That’s what the mid-thirties should be about, after all: constant self-interrogation. Acquiring the courage to change what you can, and the therapist to accept what you can’t. What is it I really want to say about pastries? How do pastries truly make me feel? Why is it important right now that I share this?

      I delete the exclamation mark and stare at the remaining two words. They are the same word. The only difference is that one is hashtagged. Do they mean the same, or something different? Is there added value in the repetition? Is it worth leaving one un-hashtagged, so that the original sentiment exists, unfettered by digital accoutrements? It’s so important to get all this right. I want people to know instantly, at a glance, that this post is about pastries СКАЧАТЬ