‘One day,’ says Dad firmly, just as Mum says, ‘Two months.’

‘Chris!’ says Mum. ‘One day?’

‘Well, I don’t know!’ says Dad defensively. ‘Don’t put me on the spot.’

Mum and Dad go off in a huddle and start whispering, while Frank and I wait awkwardly. I could go inside, I suppose, but I want to see how it all works out.

This is pretty lame, though, having to stand here while they whisper things like ‘Really get the message across’ and ‘Make it count’.

When I’m a parent I’m so going to work out the punishment first.

‘OK.’ Dad eventually emerges from the huddle. ‘Ten days. No computer, no phone, nothing.’

‘Ten days?’ Frank gives Dad one of his death-ray, please-die-now stares. ‘That is so out of proportion.’

‘It is not.’ Mum holds out her hand. ‘Phone please.’

‘But what about my team-mates? I can’t just let them down. All that bullshit you give me about “team spirit” and “all pull together”? And now I just let the side down?’

‘What team-mates?’ Mum looks confused. ‘Is this the cross-country team?’

‘My LOC team-mates!’ Frank expostulates. ‘We’re practising for the tournament, like I’ve told you a billion times.’

‘A computer game tournament?’ says Mum, in supreme disdain.

‘The international LOC tournament! The prize pot is six million dollars! That’s why Linus comes round the whole time! What do I say to him?’

‘Tell him you’re busy,’ says Mum crisply. ‘In fact, I’d rather Linus didn’t come round any more. I think you should find some friends with wider interests. And he upset Audrey.’

‘Linus is my friend!’ Frank looks like he wants to explode. ‘You can’t ban my frigging friends!’

OK, ‘frigging’ was a mistake. I can see Mum drawing herself up like a cobra ready to strike.

‘Please don’t swear, Frank,’ she says icily. ‘And yes I can. This is my house. I control who comes in and out of it. You know Audrey had an attack when he was here?’

‘She won’t have any more attacks,’ says Frank at once. ‘Audrey’s getting used to Linus, aren’t you, Audrey?’

‘He’s OK,’ I say weakly.

‘We’ll discuss it,’ says Mum, giving Frank another icy stare. ‘For now, can I trust you to carry on with your homework tonight, and not produce another power cable, or do I have to cancel my birthday dinner – the one Dad and I have been looking forward to all month and which has already been half ruined?’ She looks at her legs. ‘My tights are totally ruined.’

When she puts it like that, you do feel guilty. I mean, I feel bad and I didn’t even do anything, so I expect Frank feels worse. Although you never know, with Frank.

‘Sorry,’ he mutters at last, and we watch silently as Mum and Dad head back round the house to the drive. We hear the car doors bang and they’re off again.

‘Ten days,’ says Frank at last, closing his eyes.

‘It could have been two months,’ I say, trying to make him feel better, and immediately realizing that this is a really lame and annoying thing to say. ‘I mean . . . sorry. That sucks.’

‘Yeah.’

We go inside and I head towards the kitchen. I’m putting the kettle on for hot chocolate when I hear Frank at the door: ‘Listen, Audrey, you have to get used to Linus.’

‘Oh.’ I feel a weird little flip inside. It’s that name. Linus. It does that to me.

‘He needs to come round here. He needs a space to practise.’

‘But Mum won’t let you play.’

‘Only for ten days.’ He waves his hand impatiently. ‘Then we need to get some serious hours in. It’s the qualifiers coming up.’

‘Right.’ I spoon hot chocolate powder into my mug.

‘So you can’t freak out when you see him. I mean, not “freak out”,’ he amends at my expression. ‘Have an attack. Whatever. I know it’s really serious. I know it’s an illness, blah blah, I know all that.’

Frank was dragged along to a family therapy group thing a couple of times. Actually, he was really sweet at it. He said some nice things to me. And about me, and what happened, and—

Anyway.

‘The point is, Linus needs to come here, without Mum getting on my case,’ Frank is saying. ‘So you have to be able to look at him and not run away or whatever. OK?’

There’s a pause. I pour boiling water into my mug and watch the powder swirling round, turning from a dusty nothing into sublime hot chocolate in seconds. All it takes is one extra element to transform it. I think about that every time I make hot chocolate.

Which is not a good thing, by the way. I think too much. Waaaay too much. Everyone’s agreed on that.

‘Try, at any rate,’ Frank says. ‘Please?’

‘OK.’ I shrug, and take a sip of hot chocolate.


MY SERENE AND LOVING FAMILY – FILM TRANSCRIPT

INT. 5 ROSEWOOD CLOSE. DAY

Mum, Dad and Frank are sitting round the breakfast table. Mum is reading the Mail. Dad is on his BlackBerry.

The camera zooms in on Frank. He looks thunderous and sulky.

MUM

So, Frank, what are you doing today after school?

Frank doesn’t reply.

MUM

Frank?

Frank is silent.

MUM

FRANK?

She nudges Dad with her foot. Dad looks up, bewildered.

MUM

CHRIS!

She nods meaningfully at Frank. Dad cottons on.

DAD

Frank, don’t be so rude. We live in a family here. We communicate. Answer your mother.

FRANK

(rolls eyes)

I don’t know what I’m doing after school. Not playing computer games, clearly.

MUM

Well, I want you to go through your shirts. I don’t know what happens to them. Chris, we can go through yours too.

Dad is working on his BlackBerry.

MUM

CHRIS? CHRIS?

Dad is too absorbed to hear.

FRANK

Dad? Family? Communicate? Family?

He waves a hand in front of Dad’s face and Dad finally looks up. He blinks at Frank.

DAD

No, you CANNOT go out tonight. You are grounded, young man.

He looks at the blank faces. Realizes he’s got it wrong.

DAD

I mean . . . stack the dishwasher.

(He tries again.)

I mean, put your laundry in the right basket.

(gives up)

Whatever your mother says.




It’s the next night that Frank appears at the door of the den and says, with no preamble, ‘I’m going to bring Linus in to say hello.’

‘Right,’ I say, trying to sound relaxed and casual. ‘OK.’

Relaxed and casual? What a joke. Already my whole body is tense. Already my breath is coming faster. Panic is rocketing around my body. I’m losing control. I hear Dr Sarah’s voice, and try to recall her soothing presence.

Allow the feelings to be there.

Acknowledge your lizard brain.

Reassure your lizard brain.

My damn lizard brain.

The thing about brains, which you might not know, is they’re not just one ball of jelly. They’re all divided up into bits, and some bits are great and some are just a waste of space. In my humble opinion.

So the one I could really do without is the lizard brain. Or the ‘amygdala’, as it’s called in the books. Every time you freeze in fright, that’s your lizard brain taking over. It’s called the lizard brain because we all had one of these even when we were lizards, apparently. It’s¸ like, prehistoric. And it’s really hard to control. I mean, OK, all bits of your brain are hard to control, but the lizard brain is the worst. It basically tells your body what to do through chemicals and electrical signals. It doesn’t wait for evidence and it doesn’t think, it just has instincts. Your lizard brain is totally not rational or reasonable; all it wants to do is protect you. Fight, flight, freeze.

So I can tell myself rationally that talking to Linus in the same room and everything will be fine. No worries. What’s the problem? A conversation. What could be dangerous about a conversation?

But my stupid lizard brain is all, like, Red alert! Danger! Run away! Panic! Panic! And it’s pretty loud and convincing. And my body tends to listen to it, not to me. So that’s the bummer.

Every muscle in my body is taut. My eyes are flicking around in fear. If you saw me now you’d think there was a dragon in the room. My lizard brain is in overdrive. And even though I’m telling myself frantically to ignore the stupid lizard brain, it’s kind of hard when you have a prehistoric reptile banging away inside your head, yelling, Run!

‘This is Linus.’ Frank’s voice breaks into my thoughts. ‘I’ll leave you two together.’

And before I can escape, there he is, at the door. Same brown hair, same easy smile. I feel kind of unreal. All I can hear is my own brain saying, Don’t run, don’t run, don’t run.

‘Hi,’ he says.

‘Hi,’ I manage to reply.

The thought of facing him or looking at him is impossible, so I turn away. Right away. Staring into the corner.

‘Are you OK?’ Linus takes a few steps into the room and pauses.

‘I’m fine.’

‘You don’t look that fine,’ he ventures.

‘Right. Well.’

I pause, trying to think of an explanation that doesn’t involve the words weird or nutty. ‘Sometimes I get too much adrenalin in my body,’ I say at last. ‘It’s just, like, a thing. I breathe too fast, stuff like that.’

‘Oh, OK.’ I sense that he nods, although obviously I can’t look at him, so I can’t be sure.

Simply sitting here and not running away feels like riding a rodeo. It’s taking a major effort. My hands are twisting themselves up in knots. I have an aching desire to grab my T-shirt and start shredding it to bits, only I have vowed to Dr Sarah that I will stop shredding my clothes. So I will not shred my top. Even though it would make me feel a ton better; even though my fingers are dying to find a place of safety.