I was having a slobby brunch with some friends. “I invited Katy Charleston,” said Lina. I rolled my eyes and Lina told me off. “You just don’t like her because she’s a rival English girl,” she said, “you like being the only Brit in town”.
That’s not true.
So Katy arrived, and from what I can remember, this is the gist of what happened-
“Sorry I’m late”, said Katy, dumping her bag on a chair, “you’ll never believe what happened”,
Lina motioned to the waiter to bring them more coffee. It came in a kitchy retro percolator jug, which fitted in with the mock-diner décor.
“God, I’ve just been standing in line at the bank for like an hour”, Lina liked Katy’s British accent more when she was cross, it got posher, and she tended to swear more,
Katy threw herself down on the squishy banquette, her eyes were almost popping out of her head, she was so irate. She was averagely pretty, but with really perfect skin, and expensive bobbed hair, which was naturally shades of dark blond, and straightened every morning, even when she was in the middle of a shoot.
“Is it Gareth?” asked Lina, referring to the young Scottish Banker Katy had been casually dating,
“Oh god no, I’d never get this worked up over him……no….I just spoke to my next door neighbour in England, Nosey-Erica, turns out, my Dad’s business has just been taken over by administrators….and the best bit is, due to some fuck up, known as pollution of trust, all his personal bank accounts have also been seized to pay of creditors”,
“Fuck”, said Lina, sympathetically, “is he ok, personally I mean”,
“God knows, he’s gone awol, police think he is still alive, just lying low, but they would say that”,
“I’m sure he’s fine”, Lina sipped her coffee and tried to look hopeful,
“Why were you at the bank?”, she asked, looking up,
“My landlord called to complain that the rent hadn’t been paid, I said it should have been paid on the first by my dad, he said well it wasn’t”, explained Katy, “that was when I called home and found out what happened”,
“How is your mum taking it?” asked Lina, remembering that Katy’s parents were still happily married, which she regarded as a bit of a freak show, (“I bet they swing”, was her only possible explanation,)
“She’s ok now, apparently she ODed the day after it happened, and ended up in psychiatric, but she’s been moved to an apartment now, with a health visitor to look after her”,
“OK”, said Lina, unconvinced.
Katy said all this very calmly, which I found weird. I guess when people are really traumatised they go a bit numb. Their inner robot just takes over.
The Playground 
Or she’s a sociopath with zero empathy or conscience. (Just my first take to this point in the blog.) 🙂
It’s hard to say with Katy. I spoke to Gina about this and she said Katy would switch off a bit if something difficult happened. I don’t think she was sociopathic, just emotionally immature. Also, you have to bear in mind that her mom was quite difficult. She’d been having breakdowns on and off since Katy was a kid, so I think Katy had just zoned out to it. Gina’s theory was that Marianne didn’t actually OD, she “probably just drank too much wine and fell over.”