ILLUMINATION Book Chapters
One Day in the Life of Ivanka the Bitch, Chapter 20
Chapter 20: 11.22 am — Resistance is Futile
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?
Driving to The Provincial Club in search of Watkins-Jones…
What the fuck is he on? Come fishing! Honestly! Like I have time to…
Jesus, is that a booking for The Grove pinging now? Or just another complaint? Fingers crossed…
No, I’m not going to look at my phone while I’m driving, I promised. Focus on getting where I want to go for a change, instead of in everyone else’s directions to almighty fuckdom and beyond! They can wait. They can all wait.
Don’t. It’ll only upset you if you look now. You know it’s the Aussie couple, on the fucking want the entire time. Bound to be. Can we check in early? Yeah, I’ll just get up at the crack of dawn, turf out sleeping guests and get it all ready for you, don’t mind anyone else’s state of knackeredness. Any chance of a lift? What’s for brekkie? Can we have a new high chair for our li’l ankle biter? Yeah, it’s not like I’m up to my eyes in loads of other non-profit activities. Please feel free to strip the bones of this one! How do you turn off the jacuzzi? How did you turn it on? What do you mean all the walls are soaking?! JEEEEEEEZZZZZZ!!
But what if…? Hmm… No cameras… that I can see… Aw, fuck me, after all that!
7/10 for cleanliness! 6/10 for convenience! No locks on bathrooms.
What? Who are you locking yourself away from? It’s always the ones who ask for the most… always the ones with the sob stories! You bend over backwards to help and this is what you get!
Deep breath! Turn up the aircon. So glad I bought myself this car. The one good thing I did… Hmm, at least we’ve moved up from the bad old days of: 3/10 Found knickers in bed.
See, I could make a decent profit at this if I could just trust Mum to help me properly. But it’s like she gets a kick from cutting corners, “Just sniff the sheets love.” You can’t do that in hospitality, everything gets put on the internet nowadays and there’s no coming back from something like that. You have to close the account, lose your bookings and obliterate every trace of it and start it all over again. All that work! You have to do all new photos because they know somehow if you use the same ones, and then spend days filling out all the various pages, restaurant recommendations, area guides… And then you get caught out missing a tiny bit of info on a rate scheme or forget to tick a box somewhere and it costs you a fortune in missed deposits, or you forget the rugby’s on that weekend, and all your planned and already spent bunce swills down the drain, whatever, there’s so much that can go wrong. She has no idea!
I’m not ungrateful for all the help, I couldn’t manage without her, but why can’t it ever be straightforward? Normal even? She offers her help for free but extracts payment in pain and after fifty years of it, I still have trouble seeing it coming because my brain just doesn’t want to work that way.
She was the one who always taught me that you can’t run a business remotely and she was right! Cannot leave her to it and I’m knackered checking everything twice and doing all the bits she misses and, doing so without her seeing otherwise… well no one likes to be told they’re doing a poor job when they’re just helping you out… But, honestly, she should know better.
You know if I was a more paranoid person… Though it’s hard to believe she would deliberately…? To keep me here?
The price of escaping hell seems to be falling into someone else’s hell hole, or back into a previous hell-hole or let’s face it, one of your own making. Letting all your money get sucked into the Medrecycle vortex, trying to save a planet that no one will let you rescue, leaving nothing to pay for staff at the good business you have so you have to leave it to the tender mercies of Mum’s charity, a definite two-edged sword that. You can’t make a suggestion or say anything to rock the boat or God knows what she’d leave undone tomorrow, to prove some unfathomable point.
That’s the thing, it’s always unfathomable which is why it ambushes you every time, completely unpredictable. With some people, there’s never any working it out. That’s one thing the divorce process illuminated for me. The ‘thing’ is never the ‘thing’, it’s something else. It’s not a problem presented in the hopes of finding and agreeing on a solution. It’s a trap.
It’s either an invitation on their part, “Oh, would you possibly be so kind as to let me borrow the van, there’s some stuff… that needs moving…” (who knows what the implication of ‘stuff’, left hanging in the air free to be juggled, reinterpreted, reinvented and re-presented in any way shape or form to inflict most “insert strong negative emotion” possible depending on how you bite back) or an opportunity seized from you, “oh, you mean you can’t…., is… that… right? I see…, so what you’re saying is… you’d like me to do…whatever… because you have failed to…” and repeat all the above, while she sits back to feed freely from the comfy seat and enjoy the matinee.
Can’t believe it’s taken 52 years and a horrific divorce to start seeing the patterns. The phrases constructed to put me immediately on the backpedal of guilt assumed, so that in that moment of ambush, I feel I must allow them to drive their point home, whatever seems to be the overarching concern of the bully at that moment because I’m a fixer by nature and can’t change. Just want peace. You learn quickly that the best way is to think to yourself, oh, ok they’re upset about so and so, so I’ve just got to take the pain until it’s out of their system, then I can go home and lick my wounds, it will soon be forgotten so I’ll just agree to get this thing done and over with. Or at worst you just walk away or argue about it, in which case you’ve proved your guilt, stupidity or unreasonableness for the world to see. And Lord, don’t think it’s over there… there will be months of pain to endure until remember to just comply to get it over with quickly. Set up for failure, you lose either way.
But more, much more pitiable an agenda than that, it’s a canvas upon which to paint a new labyrinth to chase you down, one with no exit other than humiliation to some degree determined by them and the confirmation for all that you are something less. There’s no logical shortcut or quick escape. Try to fly out and she’ll stub her cigarettes out on your wings and there’s always another deeper and more terrifying labyrinth into which to fall.
It’s infinite. Safer to stay on the virtual levels floating above the game. You quickly learn that resistance is futile and can and will end in various degrees of incarceration mentally and/or physically until you finally break and agree with them. I learnt long ago that ten minutes of ‘yes Mum I’m an idiot’ gets followed by a nice cuppa and some sort of resolution that frees you up to escape back to what you really want to be dealing with in your life. So it goes on, you let it slip unchallenged as they steal your life.
I’m probably too close to see what’s wrong with her, and it’s not all the time, but when whatever it is gets a hold of her it’s toxic and the only real answer is non-engagement of any kind. When you’re married and your kids have grown up, you can hope to escape it and never jump back in, though I’m still finding that very difficult. But when it’s your Mum, who brought you into existence and she lent you money towards helping you escape at great sacrifice to herself and her own future, stayed up countless nights heroically supporting you through the worst of times, non-engagement is not viable, unless you fake your own death. …. But… no, I couldn’t upset the kids like that… though it does bear… No! You’d never get away with it. They wouldn’t let you.
No, for some of us being born into this world, these challenges are the price of admission and we owe it ourselves to find the way to overcome it. Other people have different challenges, who are we to judge? Maybe I’m the crazy ticket to someone else’s redemption? I mean, somewhere floating in the Mediterranean at the moment there’s a shrivelled up ouzo soaked Dalek turd spouting terrible accounts of betrayal by me and he will go to his grave believing it if he repeats it enough.
It’s my fault. I should never have married to get away from my family. I just fled to more of what I knew. Then they recognised each other, teamed up and doubled down on my pain. The labyrinths of rebellion led as deep as ambulances being called, threats of being committed to institutions, losing the children and even jail at the end, each party confirming the justification of the other. But in one of his tempers, thank God, he made the big mistake of threatening to take my Mother down there with me and he’s no match for her. She may have forged me into a useful mould for him pound on, but she will brook no threat to her position of power and he didn’t have my training in withstanding the pressure.
She’d say she prepared me for life. But a life of what? I’ve spent my entire life just existing, trying to keep floating on the right side of an event horizon, circling the black hole almost indefinitely instead of forging my own true path.
I went from being a dutiful child who believed I really was ‘useless’, her piercingly excruciating word I can hardly bear repeat, to a sulky, depressed teenager convinced she had an omniscient agenda to twist my melon at every opportunity, to later putting her behaviour down to a mood disorder for lack of any associated logic in its presentation, although listening to her she could create a convincing argument for anything. She sadly missed her vocation, should have been a barrister.
When she’s good, she’s intoxicating with her enthusiasm and support, everything is forgiven and understandable and together you’re going to take over the world. This can last for days, months, years sometimes, till you forget. Then, once your guard is let down on a really big life-changing issue or a trivial matter, (who can foresee the trigger?) the honeymoon wanes, who knows when or why but you suddenly need to be told ‘your fortune’. I remember Pops using that term frequently when it was time to deal with somebody. His mother claimed Romany roots and at some point had a stall in Cardiff market as a fortune teller so I suppose that’s how it came to be family shorthand for the complete dismantling of your personality and prospects that can only end with your complete submission, humiliation and agreement with their current assessment which can only end when she deems enough blood drawn that day.
Ah, here we go, a perfect example… This now is a total non-issue and should be as simple as me picking up the phone to a locksmith and replying to the reviewer: Thanks for the suggestion this issue has been addressed and corrected. Looking forward to hosting you again. But, if I upset her now suggesting that maybe we should put some locks on the bathroom doors, as simplistic as that sounds, these will be the likely outcomes depending on the phase of the moon, how much take-out she’s eaten recently, a sudden drop in nicotine levels, who knows, any of the following:
“Got money to burn, have you? Why not start paying me back then? My list is getting longer… Doesn’t look like I’ll be retiring anytime soon does it… I’ll probably have to sell my home… Got no pension to live on now have I?”
“My locksmith is not good enough, that right? Oh dear, see that? (crunch) It’s definitely broken now…”
“What do they think this is? The fucking Savoy? If they want the Savoy they can pay Savoy prices! Or have you not described it properly? Too busy messing around with old Poles eh? No time to pay attention to real business…. Some people just don’t have what it takes… Come on let’s have a look at the listing… (pointless and unwarranted criticism) Well, what do you expect?”
“You can’t live your life listening to people tell you how to run your business! I didn’t bring you up to be a pussy! Tell them where they can shove their locks! What do they know? Who is he? Egon fuckin’ Ronay?”
“So, one sad little pervert makes a little complaint and you have to go running up your credit cards to impress him? Grow some balls! Get on there and tell him. You don’t need locks on bathrooms, nobody does. You’ve got a right to reply, haven’t you? Right, I’m not lifting another finger, I’m going to sit here till I see you tell him. Tell him! Tell him, he’s a pervert!”
“What? Do you actually think anyone reads reviews? What kind of businesswoman listens to reviews? You wanna get off your high horse, stop looking at all that internet shit and get back down to earth. Go on! Get down on your hands and knees and show me you remember how to get that hoover under a bed. When was the last time you did a deep strip out anyway? We’ll see, shall we…? Get a screwdriver/crane/tractor/ladder…”
“You, my love, need to value yourself! Look around you, this place is a palace! Why can’t you see how talented and wonderful you are? Why can’t you use that amazing brain of yours to look after yourself? What’s wrong with you? I’ve always supported you in everything you ever wanted to do from XXX to that ridiculous XXX, everything! But there’s only so much I can do! It’s exhausting. No wonder that fat fucker couldn’t cope with you, who would want to? Must be a terrible strain on the kids… Did you remember to XXX with them? Thought not, sigh…”
“So, you think that by putting some locks on a bathroom door, you’re suddenly going turn the business around? Yeah Ivanka, they’re going to flood in! The whole hospitality world has been waiting with bated breath for your innovations! What next, you going to bring them tea in bed? Oh, look at me getting my amazon app up. How many kettles shall we order eh? Do you want the ones that change colour when they boil, or that sing a song maybe? After all, it might get you a nice poxy little review!”
“I fucking told you from the start to put some bloody locks on the doors, but you’ve got cloth for ears! It’s a miracle you got any bookings! Business has moved on you know. Have you never stayed in a hotel when you were off with your fancy Polish parasite? Too busy spending my money ‘having a break’? Pah! Fucking jokesville! What’s he need a break for?”
“Eleven court cases and this is what you’re reduced to? This is what it was all about! Is this what I lent you money for? Letting another man treat you like a dishrag! All down the drain! I thought I’d given birth to a winner! Tell bookingsite.com they can go fuck themselves, you don’t need them! Go on! I’m waiting!”
“You want to spend how much? On locks? Do you know how many arses your grandmother had to wipe in that fucking hospital to buy you French lessons? And you want to throw it all away doing up this shit hole? Who do you think you are, the Aga Khan? Trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear! I don’t know what was going on in your head when you bought this money pit, I mean who buys…”
“Where’s that waste of a space fucker you’ve been throwing your life away on, can’t he do anything useful? Get him on the fucking blower now or I will! And while you’re on there you tell him, that piece of shit cupboard he put up for me last week is pointless. Piece of tat! You’re all fucking pointless! Pass me the phone I’ll tell him his fortune!”
“Sigh… I’ll just have to get the boys in… Don’t worry about the expense, I’ll just add it to my list…”
Then I will wait months for the matter to be eventually forgotten or resolved at great expense and poorly, by one or two, depending on who was in the pub at the time, of a raggle-taggle bunch of ready-to-retire-know-it-alls who couldn’t give a fig how many more disastrous reviews I have to suffer in the meantime.
And breathe…
Even if she would let me, which is not as easy as it may appear, her having an emotional attachment to the building and a hero complex that needs to be satisfied whatever the cost to my mental health, I have no means currently to employ anyone else to do the turnarounds if I wish to eat and put diesel in the car, and if Tit and I have to leave work to do it, it will only be a matter of days before the accounts and other stuff get fucked up, which will cost more in the long run or even jeopardise the entire business, like a house of cards my life! And, Tit, bless her will let it drop to her dad that I’m ‘treating her like a slave’ and the list goes on.
Why do helping hands always come bearing weapons? There’s always a twist of the knife to fear from any of those directions if I don’t sail this ship straight. Pops was a desert rat and always warned me that handing tools to the very people you’re protecting in the hope they can use them to provide for their families, could be very dangerous as they were just as likely to attack you with them. Always a consideration to bear in mind. I just have to keep ploughing on, check again, shut up and keep your head down, keep the good reviews coming till I get both businesses profitable and can employ more staff.
So much for best-laid plans, Ivanka the Terrible! Why did I do it? Why? I could have sat pretty, instead of continually fucking everything up, sticking my neck on one chopping block after another. Artur keeps saying, ‘you have to drop something if you want to get your hand back out of the cookie jar’. Simpler said than done.
The Greeks gave us the secret to wandering a labyrinth not of your choosing: leave an almost invisible thread behind you, to follow when you’re ready and never look back, a subtle retreat, no noise, no damage, no attention sought. I think it’s entirely more profitable to let her win by choosing to play in a labyrinth you’re maybe, considering, almost ready, to let go of. But I always think, in temper, that I can let go of something, but then cold harsh light of hunger always pulls me back to the Neville St days and I’m trapped not knowing which way to turn.
During the worst times and injustices of the marriage, being vaulted from him to Mum and back, I used to think I could see a spider in the middle of my brain, eating it away. It was a horrific image and I don’t want to think about it too much in case she comes back, because I have arachnophobia from as long ago as I can remember, can’t even abide a wall light that casts a shadow in the shape of a spindly leg. I remember telling my mate about it and she tried to convince me it was a definite sign that I was having a psychotic break and bunged me a zopiclone to ‘ward it off’. Slept for 24 hours I did.
Then I made the mistake once of telling Tit about it. I was trying to get her to understand how people can drive you crazy if you let them and not to pick boyfriends that remind her of her father. But that resulted in another ‘evidence loaded’ trip to the hospital. Kids!
But now I’m thinking… what if my spider was the real me, me hiding in the darkest recesses of my mind, eating away the bad bits of my conditioning to regurgitate into a silken thread to find my way back? Maybe the spider was an angel. Maybe what really terrifies me is the challenge? The long walk back, to a forgotten destination, trekking through starvation snow with only rags to protect you like my grandfather, elated to escape the gulag at the hands of Russian gangsters who’d broken into the stores, only to find he’d been taken by them as a source of food for when their rations ran out. A trek of three thousand miles or more, other humans predating on him the whole time. And I think I’ve got problems, I don’t know I’m born. Woman up Ivanka! First world problems!
Brexit may have swept me further down the labyrinth but the tide will turn in my favour when I get this contract with Watkins-Jones sorted and then we’ll see. Then I can start letting go of what doesn’t work anymore. Time for me to start dismantling my gulag and make him proud. He didn’t survive all that to watch over me folding my hand now.
Meanwhile for the sake of sanity and energy preservation I give her her head. I do truly want her to be happy and fulfilled in her hero narrative, I love her she’s my Mum and champion in her own way and I know that when she’s being good she’d be devastated if she understood how she makes me feel when her shadow visits. There’s no joy quite like seeing her happy. Plus, if she wasn’t sorting The Grove for me, she’d be all up in my Medrecycle business torturing grown men who may have fought in Afghanistan or on the rugby pitch but will still never have encountered a foe such as this. Never mind the torture my customers would suffer! The business wouldn’t last a week.
So I try to contain the damage, let her continue her cycle on a smaller scale if I’m honest. I call it ‘throwing the dog a bone’. You keep yourself busy there Mum… I can take the pain, I’m used to it. Stay away from the rest and maybe Tit and Obie will get half a shot at recovering any sense of a normal life.
I may know the script inside out, done enough therapy in my time, but I can’t undo the damage her family did to her, I feel her pain, I knew them and I know that what she’s attacking when she lets fly at me, is a projection of herself at various ages and the repressed rage she harbours is real but it can be uncontainable, irresistible once unleashed against a child you’ve been trained to take it.
Right, snap out of it, nothing you can do about The Grove, but you can focus on good ol’ Watkins -Jones…! Shake out the shoulders, open windows, get some air. That’s right. You’ve got your limbs, your kids are OK really, just a bit bruised.
Sing for me bitch! The world’s a stage … Own it… Yeah… Bowie!… “It’s just a God-awful small affair’ louder! “to the girl with the mousy hair… … … It’s the freakiest show!”
Next Chapter… 11.38 am — Chasing Fairyland
To start from the beginning…