Page 12 of People Skills

The mirror is right in front of me, and I look at myself as I listen. Pink-cheeked, eyeliner slightly smudged, hair not sitting quite right but it never is. I rub at my eyeliner with my finger.

‘Why would you break up with her?’ Hillary continues.

‘Because things weren’t working. And I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘What wasn’t working?’

‘Did you hear the part where I said I don’t want to talk about it?’

‘Xavier, I just—’

‘What?’

‘I’m worried, that’s all. You give up on writing, you give up on Lana—’

‘I knew you’d make this about the book.’

‘You always run away when things get hard. It’s a pattern of behaviour and I’m concerned.’

‘I’m an adult who is making choices about his life, that’s all. Choices you’re not involved in.’

‘Bad choices!’

‘I have a headache. I can’t have this conversation right now.’

‘A headache. Well, that’s no surprise. I can see that you’re hungover, sweetheart.’

‘Add it to all the other ways I have disappointed you. The list must be getting really long.’

Now I’m really stuck in here because there is no way I am walking back out to the middle of that.

‘I can’t have this conversation with you right now, because I am about to walk onto the stage in front of hundreds of people,’ Hillary says.

‘You’re always about to walk onto a stage, or a TV set or do an interview—’

‘What does that mean?’ Hillary’s voice is high and jagged.

‘It doesn’t mean anything. I’m going out to get some air,’ he says, and I hear him walk out and then Jamila walk in.

‘Hillary, Antonia has just arrived.’

‘Great, bring her in, thanks Jam,’ Hillary says, and her voice is back to being smooth again, calm and unruffled. You’d never know she’d just had a blow-up fight with her favourite child.

I wait another few seconds and then open the bathroom door, hoping to slither out without her noticing, but she’s looking at the door as I walk through it.

‘I assume you heard all of that,’ Hillary says.

‘Yes, sorry, I know I should have—’

Hillary waves a hand at me. ‘It saves me recapping it for you. I can’t believe he broke up with Lana. What could he possibly be thinking?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How did he seem when you picked him up at the station?’

‘He was. Um. He seemed a little tired.’

‘He’s clearly been drinking all night. I think I need to intervene.’