One Day in the Life of Ivanka the Bitch, A Novel, Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Changing The World is Not Easy

7:48 am — Brandy Glow

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 networking with the ladies…

Lovely, just what I needed. Shit is that all there is? Ok, chill, eek it out over the next hour. What you just had will kick in in a min and everything will calm down for a while. Long enough to get through this anyway. At least it’s cool in here, should help.

Yes, just as I imagined. These toilets truly are an oasis of cool marble calm, a fantasy of black and white clear cut reality. Calming chromatic dualism, the eternal chess game beneath our feet, the Apollonian and the Dionysian strict lines of defence holding our bright quest for order and our dark surrender to chaos forever in squarely balanced play. There you see, you can rise above all this bullshit and see the bigger picture in life. It’s a wonderful gift just to be here. Now, be present. Don’t let silly little dramas get to you. You’re better than that.

And of course, that same eternal and universal tension must be tantalised by the softly beckoning fronds of gilt frames around oversized fake antique baroque mirrors. I ‘bloody loves it I do’ when decorators take classical design and crap all over it! All that’s missing is some plastic red roses with petals dipped in glitter. I may have shunned the design world, but moments like this… Maybe it is the Goddess, drawing me back with her ironic pencil. No thank you, my love, new worlds to explore now.

And yet, it works in an indulgent, escape to another world, playfully corrupt Stringfellow kind of way. I used to have a bathroom a bit along these lines but in fern green and graceful grey. It was peaceful rather than dramatic and my favourite room in the house. Great for meditation so let’s go for it, you used to manage it, try and remember. And yoga. And coffee enemas. Fairtrade and organic of course. I could hold in that healing elixir for hours. Hours. Hours of self-connection, no sounds, no phones, no screaming kids, no interface with the real world while flushing away toxin after toxin. Fuck Features hated all that, stayed away in disgust. My first discovered cold hard line in the sand. Temporary bliss.

Now I’m here imbibing any toxin I can get my hands on, hiding in what is probably someone else’s former sanctuary. Before they had to sell out to pay off greedy solicitors who probably sold it on to their fawning property developer cronies.

Look at me. I hate my puffy eyes and pudgy face. Stupid bobbly nose. I look like a clown. Who could fancy that? What the hell happened to me? I’ve put so much weight on and yet I hardly eat! No wonder Lisa didn’t recognise me, I don’t even recognise myself. My Mother looks younger than me!

You’ve fucked up big time this time. You can keep trying to hold it all at bay. But the truth will not shut up screaming. You’ve got no one else to blame but your stupid ego. If we don’t get this contract through this week, end of days. Then what’ll happen to the kids? It’s not just your future you gambled, is it? Even if Bill bloody Gates turned up miraculously at this meeting and liked your stuff, any help would probably take too long with all those running costs you took on.

If you hadn’t… No that’s not fair. It’s not one person’s or one factor’s fault. Just some poor decisions by well-motivated people, broken promises by others and a series of catastrophes no one in this country can believe we all voted for. Our greed fed by greedier billionaire puppeteers. Before you know it, you’re in too deep, hanging on and hoping for the best. Too ambitious I was or was it plain vengeful? The last solicitor you sacked did say to you, “promise me you won’t do anything for at least a year after you get through this.” And you promised and we hugged and you went straight out to prove them all wrong.

Changing the world is not easy, that’s why everyone gives up. That’s why the obvious never gets achieved. Come on, Artur keeps telling you you’re too hard on yourself, you should listen to something he says. I just thought I could work harder, sell our way out of it. I didn’t know Brexit was on the cards. Though I probably should have seen it coming. Too busy fighting court cases, trying to keep a roof over our heads. Now that roof is over the heads of countless strangers pecking at my liver as I change their bed sheets every night. I’m just trying to keep Tit safe in a job and Obie in uni, is it too much to ask?

Fuck meditation, it’s impossible. Need another brandy. Just a nip, no harm done. Take the edge off and push all the monsters away so I can focus. I will find a way through if I just focus, don’t let the side down, don’t let anybody know or suspect. Just remember when Dad got ill. His bloody customers coming up to the house demanding their money back. You thought they’d understand and leave him alone. But it was the worst thing you could have done. Word spread like an avalanche and that was that. Cardiff is just a village that never grew up. Business over. He was so angry. So was Mum. Sorry, Dad. Here. To you!

Yeah, chin up. There’s a fighting chance you’ll get through this if you keep your nerve. It got you through the escape when you finally found your balls, then the shittiest ever divorce, this is nothing. Come on.

All I want to do now is go back out onto the terrace and enjoy the setting, just look at the sea. But she might start grabbing at me again for her video.

I also want a fag, I just desperately fancy one. So what? Maybe one of the others will come in and I can cadge one. What would that look like though?

Thank God for old buildings and old bathroom windows you can actually open. There we go, there’s the sea. You can see right down to the bay from here and there’s not a cloud in the sky. Beautiful.

Forget fags, shut your eyes, take a deep breath of fresh, unpolluting air and practise your gratitude. You have great kids, you got away from a monster. You used to say you’d be happy with a fiver if you could get free.

I just can’t believe… stupid cow! He was right about me, he said I’d lose it all. So now, if I do, it will make a truth of all the lies he told about me. Stuff I could never upset his family or our kids by revealing and he bloody knows it. But it still doesn’t stop him from trying to extract the last breath from this body if I let him.

Shit, I can’t cry, my make-up is in the car. Breathe, focus on health and well-being and tap into that strength built on years of struggle. That has a value far above everything you’re about to lose.

Nah, balls to that, I’m still bloody annoyed! That was my safety tenner. Why do I go along with these things out of politeness all the time? They must see me coming. They take the piss. Nothing changes!

I should start my own networking group. I’d have educators to speak not snake oil peddlers. I’d ask the big questions and we’d explore them and work together to overcome… stuff, you know. Shit, that’s all the brandy gone, already. I should have put a decent amount in before I came. I’d better freshen my breath, just nip out to the car and get the mints. Top up your make-up while you’re at it.

I never thought, growing up, that I’d be back here. I had plans. I was going to jet-set around the world. I learnt languages! But the world stayed square. Four long streets, if I think about it. I hardly see anything outside work, The Grove and Mum. My Dedushka, what would he think of me? Used to say he could never understand how many people just stayed when they pulled down the gulag that he walked three thousand miles to get away from. The government had to start supporting them. What would he think of the state I’ve got myself into? Oh God, it really doesn’t take much to start with the tears does it? You’re letting yourself down. Shoulders back girl, head up high.

Remember the Walking Coach? Yes, she never returned your deposit, but she did have some good advice: “Stop looking back, stop looking inside. Take your focus outside yourself. What can you hear, smell, see?”

Cool breeze, cars, salt, fluffy white clouds… Dear Lord, all I ever seem to focus on is what’s missing and it just keeps crushing me.

Look down there. I know what we can’t damn well see anymore, the Braverley, chugging its way back and forth across the Bristol channel. Now there are some sweet childhood memories to tune into, when parents were together and Mum tried to take us out on adventures, on paddle steamers over to Bristol zoo. Before we found out the world was a pile of shit. No, come on, tune back into the happiness. I wish I’d done that with my kids. There was never any time. They missed out on so much. I should have taken them to Longleat. I’ll take my grandchildren, that’s a promise!

Stop it, get a grip. Get outside yourself. Pfff…

Google distraction technique here we go. The Braverley’s been out of commission for years, rusting away waiting for charitable donations to renew its boilers. Yeah like that will happen. Past her sell-by date and dumped in the mud. Not just me then, lol. The ‘beautiful icon of industrial ingenuity that has thrashed her paddles through every gale, squall and blizzard to bear her broods safely to shore ten times a day for the last seventy-odd years is now awaiting rescue…’

Oh my God, of course, why didn’t I see it?

You’re too wrapped up in your stupid self. Mum’s right, you don’t care about anybody else! Splash your face and get back in there. We’ve got this. Kind of relaxed now anyway. Lovely warm brandy glow.

Next Chapter…

To start from the beginning…

Copyright Alexis Behrend June 2021.