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We were at our local multiplex cinema when I realized that I’d become an interfering old woman—or at least, I was practicing to be one. We were there with our teenage son—simply selecting a film to watch as a family had been traumatic: he wanted guns and gore, I wanted world cinema, and my husband prevaricated between the two of us. We compromised on something that we all really wanted to see, but weren’t willing to admit to fancying—a kid’s film about talking dogs.
Tickets purchased, we turned to the food stalls and the next battle began. Kid wanted popcorn and fizzy drinks; I wanted good chocolate and decaf latté; husband wanted hot dogs and juice. As we stood in separate lines for our junk food of choice, two teenage girls talked and giggled alongside me.
“What does she look like?” the first said.
“…Hennes Kids…saw it myself,” the second mumbled.
They were talking about me, referring to my cotton sweater—purchased, as number two had said, from the junior section of the local Hennes and Mauritz department store. I was proud of myself—justifiably proud—still the dress size I was at fourteen years old. I thought it was a matter of some note to still be able to get into clothing that was "slim-fit" in my forties, without suffering drastic diets, enduring liposuction, or swallowing amphetamines to burn off excess weight.
I looked at the girls. Both were larger than me—which was neither here nor there because they were teenagers and the last thing they should be doing was trying to control the vagaries of their hormones by fighting their weight. One of them wore a nose stud and the other sported aubergine hair.Then I saw myself as they saw me: a middle-class, middle-aged woman with a comfortable family, probably smug, certainly utterly unaware of the raging troughs and soaring highs of adolescence.
And then the busybody I didn't even know was inside me spoke up. You can’t let them get away with that, she muttered so quietly that only I could hear her. It’s a terrible idea to let them go on thinking the most important thing in the world is where you buy your clothes.
Before I could stop her, she turned and raised her voice—my voice. “Excuse me,” she said, in the kind of carrying tones my own mother used when she was going to put somebody in their place. “But do you have a boyfriend?”
Aubergine blushed, but nose stud smiled. “Yeah…” she said, adding an implicit and-what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it tone to the monosyllable.
“Okay,” the interfering crone who had stolen my vocal cords said. “Imagine you’re with…what’s his name?”
“Ash,” replied aubergine, who now matched her hair beautifully. “Her boyfriend’s name’s Ash.”
“Ash,” the crone continued. “Let’s say you’ve been married a few years, and here you are at the cinema with your kid? Kids?”
“Kids,” nose-stud said. “I think parents who only have one child are selfish. It’s important to have brothers or sisters.” Then she scowled, apparently realizing she’d bought into the story I was telling.
I nodded—the busybody within was now sure that nose-stud was an only child with all the certainties and insecurities that brings. “Two kids then. Ash is off buying the popcorn…” Both girls instinctively glanced over to the popcorn queue as if expecting to see him there. “And you’re over here at the frozen yogurt counter, when you hear two girls laughing at you because you’re wearing something you bought in a shop for teenagers.”
They both scowled, fearing they’d fallen into a trap. Then the crone surprised me. She smiled, using my facial muscles, and put on the kind of self-deprecating face that girls always use when they’re trying on new clothes.
“And, you know, at the time you thought it was pretty great you could still get into the same size clothes as before you had the kids, and you’re still married to the same guy who is their father, and how common are either of those things nowadays…but now you feel like dreck.”
Nose-stud tossed her head. “I wouldn’t—I’d say they were stupid bitches. You can’t judge somebody just on appearance.”
The crone inside me nodded, and I nodded too. Nose-stud thought about the conversation and cracked a wry grin. “You got me!” she said.
I felt the busybody smile, and I smiled too. Nose-stud shrugged. “Okay, maybe we were wrong,” she offered.
“No,” I heard the crone say. “Opinions are never wrong as long as you’re prepared to change them.” I turned back to my queue, but something made me stop and face them again.
“When I was your age, I never would have had the courage to admit I might be wrong, or to argue with an adult in public. You should be proud of yourself for that.”
Well really, I muttered to my inner busybody as I paid for my coffee, have you embarrassed us enough for one day?
That’s not up to me, she replied smugly. I just speak as I find.
With a sigh I accepted that every opinionated teen must one day face the arrival of her own internal crone. Can we try to get through the film without any more upbraidings? I queried plaintively. Only if you buy chocolate, my inner busybody replied. Some things never change—and nobody is too old for chocolate.
BIO: KAY SEXTON's website www.charybdis.freeserve.co.uk gives details of her current and forthcoming publications. Her current focus is 'Green Thought in an Urban Shade,' a collaboration with the painter Fion Gunn that explores and celebrates the parks and urban spaces of Beijing, Dublin, London and Paris, in words and images.
Contact Kay: kay@charybdis.freeserve.co.uk
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