The Pissed-Off Parents Club by Mink Elliott

Author:Mink Elliott
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2009-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

13

I haven’t had any cigarettes since last night – the farrago that’s probably a) mined any friendships I’d been building in Riverside b) turned Anita against me and made her unwilling to babysit for us ever again and c) pole-axed my chances of getting any more work at Village Life.

It’s no wonder I haven’t smoked – must’ve puffed my way through at least fifty million. We probably totally depleted Riverside’s stocks – couldn’t get my hands on any even if I wanted to.

Which is a bit of a bonus, really, because I’ve just dropped Joey off at the nursery (only forty-five minutes late – definitely getting better) and I’m walking down to the hypnotist’s house.

Big day today – hypnosis to knock the smoking on the head once and for all, and a scheduled-in sex date with Jack tonight. Bit nervous about that, actually. I just can’t even imagine going from a cup of tea and a HobNob one minute to a snog and a real, actual shag the next. I mean, how does it happen? What are the steps?

Speaking of steps, once I’m in the back of the hypnotist’s house, in his study (a lean-to), sitting in a battered old leather chair, I’m completely taken aback to see him rolling a cigarette. This fills me with less than zero faith in him and his smoking cessation techniques, but I’m so muzzy-headed, I haven’t got the energy to enter into a full-on discussion about it – all I do is ask him why he, of all people, smokes. He tells me he’s actually a recovering alcoholic.

“Yeah, the good old twelve steps. Works for me – it’s not for everyone, granted, but it’s kept me sober for eight years,” he says, adjusting his John Lennon glasses. “I’m also an actor, you see, when ‘er indoors lets me. Need to keep a clear head for remembering lines and emoting and stuff.”

“But why smoke?”

“Lesser of two evils,” he says and takes a long, lusty look at his roll-up. The sight of which is just about enough to make anyone bag the fags on the spot.

“But listen, this isn’t about me, it’s about you. So tell me – why do you want to stop smoking?”

I look around the room and read some of the newspaper and magazine headlines he’s wallpapered the walls with. There’s SEIZE THE DAY! and FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY (with a big, fat capital ‘L’ angrily and heavily scrawled over the ‘f in ‘fear’) and ONE GIANT STEP FOR MAN – ONE BIG LOAD OF LAUNDRY FOR WOMAN! It’s like my room when I was fourteen – except the only headlines I had were ‘Woking Class Hero’ (about Paul Weller) and ‘Jam split!’ and ‘Why did Joe disappear?’ when Joe Strummer took off to Paris in the middle of a UK tour. All the posters and pictures I had on my walls were of my favourite bands, not meaningless cliches. And I was fourteen! Not forty-five, like this guy.

“Um, lots of reasons.

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