Finding Audrey

A month earlier

It all begins with the Daily Mail. Quite a lot of things in our house begin with the Daily Mail.

Mum starts twitching in that way she does. We’ve had supper and cleared away and she’s been reading the paper with a glass of wine – ‘Me time’, she calls it – and she’s paused at an article. I can see the headline over her shoulder:

THE EIGHT SIGNS YOUR CHILD IS ADDICTED TO COMPUTER GAMES.

‘Oh my God,’ I hear her murmur. ‘Oh my God.’ Her finger is moving down the list and she’s breathing fast. As I squint over, I catch a sub-heading:

7. Irritability and moodiness.

Ha. Ha ha.

That’s my hollow laugh, in case you didn’t get that.

I mean, seriously, moodiness? Like, James Dean was a moody teenager in Rebel Without a Cause (I have the poster – best film poster ever, best movie ever, sexiest movie star ever – why, why, why did he have to die?). So James Dean must therefore have been addicted to video games? Oh, wait.

Exactly.

But there’s no point saying any of this to my mum, because it’s logical and my mum doesn’t believe in logic, she believes in horoscopes and green tea. Oh, and of course the Daily Mail.

THE EIGHT SIGNS MY MUM IS ADDICTED TO THE DAILY MAIL:

She reads it every day.

She believes everything it says.

If you try to take it out of her grasp, she pulls it back sharply and says ‘Leave it!’ like you’re trying to kidnap her precious young.

When it runs a scare story about Vitamin D she makes us all take our shirts off and ‘sunbathe’. (Freeze-bathe more like.)

When it runs a scare story about melanoma she makes us all put on sunscreen.

When it runs a story about ‘The face cream that really DOES work’, she orders it that moment. Like, she gets out her iPad then and there.

If she can’t get it on holiday, she gets major withdrawal symptoms. I mean, talk about irritability and moodiness.

She once tried to give it up for Lent. She lasted half a morning.

Anyway. There’s nothing I can do about my mum’s tragic dependency except hope that she doesn’t do too much damage to her life. (She’s already done major damage to our living room, after reading an ‘Interiors’ piece – ‘Why not handpaint all your furniture?’)

So then Frank ambles into the kitchen, wearing his black I MOD, THEREFORE I AM T-shirt, his earphones in and his phone in his hand. Mum lowers the Daily Mail and stares at him as though the scales have fallen from her eyes.

(I’ve never understood that. Scales?

Anyway. Whatever.)

‘Frank,’ she says. ‘How many hours have you played your computer games this week?’

‘Define computer games,’ Frank says, without looking up from his phone.

‘What?’ Mum looks at me uncertainly, and I shrug. ‘You know. Computer games. How many hours? FRANK!’ she yells as he makes no move to respond. ‘How many hours? Take those things out of your ears!’

‘What?’ says Frank, taking his earphones out. He blinks at her as though he didn’t hear the question. ‘Is this important?’

‘Yes, this is important!’ Mum spits. ‘I want you to tell me how many hours you’re spending per week playing computer games. Right now. Add it up.’

‘I can’t,’ says Frank calmly.

‘You can’t? What do you mean, you can’t?’

‘I don’t know what you’re referring to,’ says Frank, with elaborate patience. ‘Do you mean literally computer games? Or do you mean all screen games, including Xbox and PlayStation? Do you include games on my phone? Define your terms.’

Frank is such a moron. Couldn’t he see Mum was in one of her pre-rant build-ups?

‘I mean anything that warps your mind!’ says Mum, brandishing the Daily Mail. ‘Do you realize the dangers of these games? Do you realize your brain isn’t developing properly? Your BRAIN, Frank! Your most precious organ.’

Frank gives a dirty snigger, which I can’t help giggling at. Frank is actually pretty funny.

‘I’ll ignore that,’ says Mum stonily. ‘It only goes to prove what I was saying.’

‘No it doesn’t,’ says Frank, and opens the fridge. He takes out a carton of chocolate milk and drains it, straight from the carton, which is gross.

‘Don’t do that!’ I say furiously.

‘There’s another carton. Relax.’

‘I’m putting a limit on your playing, young man.’ Mum bats the Daily Mail for emphasis. ‘I’ve just about had enough of this.’

Young man. That means she’s going to drag Dad into it. Any time she starts using Young man or Young woman, sure enough, the next day there’s some ghastly family meeting, where Dad tries to back up everything Mum says, even though he can’t follow half of it.

Anyway, not my problem.

Until Mum arrives in my bedroom that evening and demands, ‘Audrey, what is Land of Conquerors?’

I look up from Grazia and survey her. She looks tense. Her cheeks are pink and her right hand is all clenched, as if it’s just come off a computer mouse. She’s been Googling ‘computer-game addiction’, I just know she has.

‘A game.’

‘I know it’s a game’ – Mum sounds exasperated – ‘but why does Frank play it all the time? You don’t play it all the time, do you?’

‘No.’ I’ve played LOC and I really don’t get the obsession. I mean, it’s OK for an hour or two.

‘So what’s the appeal?’

‘Well, you know.’ I think for a moment. ‘It’s exciting. You get rewards. And the heroes are pretty good. Like, the graphics are amazing, and they just released this new warrior team with new capabilities, so . . .’ I shrug.

Mum looks more bewildered than ever. The trouble is, she doesn’t play games. So it’s kind of impossible to convey to her the difference between LOC 3 and, say, Pacman from 1985.

‘They show it on YouTube,’ I say in sudden inspiration. ‘People do commentaries. Hang on.’

As I’m finding a clip on my iPad, Mum sits down and looks around the room. She’s trying to act casual, but I can sense her beady blue eyes scanning my piles of stuff, looking for . . . what? Anything. Everything. The truth is, Mum and I haven’t done casual for a while. Everything is loaded.

With everything that’s happened, that’s one of the saddest things of all. We can’t be normal with each other any more. The tiniest thing I say, Mum’s all over it, even if she doesn’t realize it. Her brain goes into overdrive. What does it mean? Is Audrey all right? What’s Audrey really saying?

I can see her looking closely at a pair of old ripped jeans on my chair, as though they hold some dark significance. Whereas in fact the only significance they hold is: I’ve grown out of them. I’ve shot up about three inches in the last year, which makes me five eight. Quite tall for fourteen. People say I look like Mum, but I’m not as pretty as her. Her eyes are so blue. Like blue diamonds. Mine are wishy-washy – not that they’re particularly visible right now.

Just so you can visualize me, I’m fairly skinny, fairly nondescript, wearing a black vest-top and skinny jeans. And I wear dark glasses all the time, even in the house. It’s . . . Well. A thing. My thing, I suppose. Hence the ‘celebrity’ quips from Rob our neighbour. He saw me in my dark glasses, getting out of the car in the rain, and he was all, like, ‘Why the shades? Are you Angelina Jolie?’

I’m not trying to be cool. There’s a reason.

Which, of course, now you want to know.

I assume.

OK, it’s actually quite private. I’m not sure I’m ready to tell you yet. You can think I’m weird if you like. Enough people do.

‘Here we are.’ I find a clip of some LOC battle with ‘Archy’ commentating. ‘Archy’ is a YouTuber from Sweden who makes videos that Frank loves. They consist of ‘Archy’ playing LOC and making funny commentaries on the game, and as I expected, it takes me for ever to explain this concept to Mum.

‘But why would you watch someone else playing?’ she keeps saying, baffled. ‘Why? Isn’t that a complete waste of time?’

‘Well. Anyway.’ I shrug. ‘That’s LOC.’

There’s silence for a moment. Mum is peering at the screen like some ancient professor trying to decipher an ancient Egyptian code. There’s an almighty explosion and she winces.

‘Why does it always have to be about killing? If I designed a game it would centre around ideas. Politics. Issues. Yes! I mean, why not?’ I can tell her brain’s firing up with a new idea. ‘What about a computer game called Discuss? You could keep the competitive element, but score points by debating!’

‘And that is why we’re not squillionaires,’ I say, as though to a third party.

I’m about to find another clip when Felix comes running into the room.

‘Candy Crush!’ he says in delight as soon as he spies my iPad, and Mum gasps in horror.

‘How does he know about that?’ she demands. ‘Turn it off. I’m not having another addict in the family!’

Oops. It may possibly have been me who introduced Felix to Candy Crush. Not that he has any idea how to play it properly.

I close down the iPad and Felix stares at it, crestfallen. ‘Candy Crush!’ he wails. ‘I want to play Candy Cruuuuush!’

‘It’s broken, Felix.’ I pretend to press the iPad. ‘See? Broken.’

‘Broken,’ affirms Mum.

Felix looks from us to the iPad. You can sense his mind is working as hard as his four-year-old brain cells will let him. ‘We must buy a plug,’ he suggests, with sudden animation, and grabs the iPad. ‘We can buy a plug and fix it.’

‘The plug shop’s closed,’ says Mum, without missing a beat. ‘What a shame. We’ll do it tomorrow. But guess what? We’re going to have toast and Nutella now!’

‘Toast and Nutella!’ Felix’s face bursts into joyous beams. As he throws up his arms, Mum grabs the iPad from him and gives it to me. Five seconds later I’ve hidden it behind a cushion on the bed.

‘Where did the Candy Crush go?’ Felix suddenly notices its disappearance and screws up his face to howl.

‘We’re taking it to the plug shop, remember?’ says Mum at once.

‘Plug shop.’ I nod. ‘But hey, you’re going to have toast and Nutella! How many pieces are you going to have?’

Poor old Felix. He lets Mum lead him out of the room, still looking confused. Totally outmanoeuvred. That’s what happens when you’re four. Bet Mum wishes she could pull that trick on Frank.