Alice de Smith

Alice de Smith was born in Cambridge, educated at Oxford and now lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. Her stage plays include Our Kind of Fun, Briefs and The Cinderella Group. Her features and travel articles have been published in The Times, The Mail on Sunday, The Independent, the Express and Cosmopolitan. In 2007, she received a £5,000 Time to Write Award from New Writing North for her novel, Welcome to Life, which was published by Atlantic Books in June 2009.

Extract from Welcome to Life by Alice de Smith

Now that my mother is dishonoured and has been variously denounced as degenerate, irresponsible, a lush and a whore, it’s hard to believe that once she ruled my life with whimsied severity. Every night Millie wrote us a list, which she placed at the end of the bed. She could easily have confined herself to daily tasks, such as swim, feed rabbits, pick up repeat prescription. But she couldn’t help but include not-very-nice suggestions for personal development – smile more, stand up straight. No comeback or discussion was permitted. The year was 1989, the time when sale posters started hanging in shop windows all year round, not just in January. I, aged fourteen, had a long wait ahead before I could deal my mother her comeuppance.

We were supposed to throw the lists away, but I preferred to keep them, items left ostentatiously unticked. Hugh says he married Millie because of her lists, but he has to be lying. No one would choose a wife like that. As for me, I wished for a single day when I could just wake and breathe. Maybe she’d get bored. She’d realise it was stupid to corral our universe and control of our lives would be devolved to us at last. The tiny scraps of paper, written on the backs of envelopes, Post-it notes and fast food menus, penned in her curlicued hand, lie desiccating in my bedroom, like so many leaves of filo pastry. Even now, half a lifetime later, when I come in the front door, I half expect to find a querulous message printed across a piece of junk mail, insisting I declog the drain in the upstairs bathroom.

Those lists were permanent proof of Millie’s state of mind. Other parents could pretend they’d never promised to buy a pony or cancel Christmas. But even at fourteen I could cross-reference anything my mother said to an irrefutable, contemporaneous document. I never drew her attention to inconsistencies, however. I simply took note of them, knowing that one day, I’d be able to call her to account. Sadly, I waited too long for this day of reckoning. I missed my chance.

Now that I’m older I’ve started reading and rereading the lists, questing for subtext. The subject matter is revealing. For example, she emphasised the importance of swimming. I believe she was urging me away from her own bad habits. My mother couldn’t make it to the newsagent’s and back without getting breathless. ‘Everyone’s got their own idea of fun,’ she’d say. ‘Yours, Freya, is a crime scene or something. God knows. Nothing normal, at any rate. Mine’s a bit more traditional – booze and fags. S’not like I’m hurting anyone.’ Safe to say, she wasn’t like other people’s mothers.

When I’d ask my father why she was different he always said the same thing: ‘Can’t be helped, sweetheart. It’s because she used to be working-class.’

Published by Atlantic Books
ISBN: 978-1848870161
www.atlantic-books.co.uk