One Day in the Life of Ivanka the Bitch, A Novel, Chapter 18

Chapter 18:

10.36 am — Dangley Porn

Join businesswoman Ivanka Tupolevka on the day she’s about to lose everything in the apocalyptic gulag of her divorce, with Brexshit to deal with, no HRT and surrounded by ‘fuckers’, will she ever escape the psycho ex and save her daughter?

Still at the hospital with Artur…

Ok, back into the routine: he pops to the loo to do his sample and I bag us two seats together if I can find them, otherwise, we stand together and hover until someone has the good grace to move over and create a space for us. You’d be surprised how ignorant some people can be.

I get two plastic cups and fill them from the tap in the corner. It’s a tap that’s supposed to work by pushing or kicking a panel in the front of the unit, but you have to be very careful to only gently brush past it as if you wanted nothing from it, or it just noisily pours and pours litres away and you have to crouch there enduring everyone’s judgement until it ceases. Maybe I should mention that in my report to Watkins-Jones? Hmm, what I really should do is get organised and bring in bottles. No, I mean re-usable cups, obviously. I’d better pick some up tonight, ones without sunset stripes... You know, it’s about time the whole team had branded thermos flasks. But then I’d have to make mention of the impact of production of such in my report... One day I’ll have the time to sort my life out! And here’s another flush, dammit!

It’s good they have daytime TV on up in the corner. Gives you a sense of home comforts, unless you’ve recently kicked your scumbag husband out and he’s forgotten the apple TV is still logged into from his iphone and you get to see all his latest photos bobbing up and down the screen every time you switch it on. Bits of furniture he’s proposing to buy to furnish her house (price tags on show of course), views from his plane, pictures of a page from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin sent no doubt to him by new victim, sweet words about the true meaning of love to comfort him while he’s away poor love, accompanied by pictures of her legs in a steaming bath (why??) that, what a shame, they in no way compare to the pics he’s just taken of the women he’s meeting while he’s at his destination and their variously angled dangley bits, so numerous a whole CSI team would struggle to reunite the bodies. Quite literally an orgy of evidence. Sad. But, well she wouldn’t listen. Just as well I have them all printed out for her when she's ready just in case he logs out in the meantime.

Maybe I won’t put my phone on just yet, take Artur’s advice, chill. Get some perspective. All that’s behind you now. Listen to Karen the weather girl. Cool down.

“Oooh she’s looking good for her age, isn’t she?” Mr Asda’s off again, smiling lasciviously around the room for approval.

Honestly! Even on your fucking death bed you’re going to be judging the women around you and pronouncing who’s up to snuff.

“And it doesn’t look like she’s had any work done does it?”

My stomach is like a rock. He doesn’t look like he’s had any work done either unless it’s to look like Mr Magoo! But no one’s bleating judgement on him! Jesus Christ, I need a fag! Fresh air. Fresh air!

“Isn’t that so and so?” Artur is out of the bathroom, “You worked with her didn’t you poppet?”

Nooooo!!! AAaaaarghh!!!!!! You had to go there, didn’t you? For fuck’s sake!

The thing is with Artur, the lack of filters goes both ways. You can give him a look or full-on kick in the balls under the table when he’s starting but he just won’t stop when something has entered his head.

“She used to be an actress you know did Ivanka here.”

Well, you’ve bloody asked for it this time…

“Really?” — Aaarghhh, wait for it, the inevitable — “Anything I might have seen you in?” The terminator has locked on.

Fuck it, “No.”

Truth is, it was all a long time ago and Piss Face put the kaibosh on it, but do I have to elaborate on all the stuff people wouldn’t understand? About the endless questions when agreement is yearned for, validation, understanding and nurturing— Yes… but what’s it leading to? Yes, but what’s that going lead to, and then what? We all know where that’s leading… everyone looking at my wife, that’s what you really want isn’t it? And what will that lead to…? And round and round till you’re just too tired to argue and there are kids to feed and was my little escape into fantasy land going to pay for that?

The gut-wrenching content of my writing, then physical exploration of character, of life, philosophy, the feeding of my starving soul reduced and dismissed as dangerous wandering from the path he had set out for me.

The crushing of my dreams is not something I like to talk about, share pleasant reminiscences about or serve up on a platter for other people’s delectation. I’ve warned him about this before but he just doesn’t listen.

He won’t do it again after this:

“No. I doubt it very much.” I lean in, flick the hair, “you wouldn’t have seen the kind of films… I made…” And cue pout, suggestive removal of my jacket and unbuttoning of top of blouse and in best husky voice... “It’s so very hot in here, don’t you find…”

“Oh really, not Corrie then? I like Corrie. Don’t go in much for the cinema. If my mother and I are in the mood for some entertainment we like to pop into…”

Kill me, kill me now! How abnormal is that man? If you could call him one! He didn’t even bat an eyelid, he didn’t even draw breath, not even a blink! Like he meets porn stars every day of the week and I happen to be the most boring one he’s ever met!

Or maybe, it’s just so preposterous that anyone could ever have wanted to stick something in me that that possibility didn’t even occur to him! Look at me, pathetic. Screen siren to pudgy faced clown… It’s official! That bloody hairdresser… took my best asset and… why, why do we let men do this? Why do we invest ourselves in their ideas?

Well, Artur is finding it all very entertaining, can’t stop giggling, so that’s alright then! I’m off!

“Where are you going, they’ll call me in in a minute!”

“Now ‘in a minute’ is it? Or when you’ve returned from your latest undercover mission to Afghanistan? I can’t… I just need some air.”

He looks totally confused, or is that just an act as well? Like pretending he cares about me. What am I just a booty call and a lift to the hospital? Oh, please stop being your Mother, Ivanka, it’s just too easy to run all those tapes. You really are better than that. Once you get your patches back, the world will be full of rainbows again, you know it.

“I’ll be back, it’s the phone, work, they won’t let me go in with you anyway, so I’ll meet you out front, after you’re done with the angel of death. I gave her your basket by the way and she’s after a date with the lonely soldier, so enjoy!”

The entrance foyer is packed. There are people sat everywhere. So many people. Some with loved ones even little kids playing. Some completely on their tod. I wonder if they see what I see when they’re sat there waiting? I very much doubt it or they’d run a mile from the tar dripping walls and yawning chasms that keep opening beneath my feet.

Play with your phone, block it all out. Let’s just compose some new opening lines for the tender… Tit does rather tend to be very conservative like her father. You need to make an impact in life if you want your tiny speck of space dust to make any mark on the world.

Oh shit, what’re all these messages from Tit?

Next Chapter… 10.45 am Ivankarella

To start from the beginning…

Copyright Alexis Behrend June 2021.