Eh?

Well, you asked for it (well, Urban Chick did anyway, but I think she might have been drunk at the time), so here it is - a potted history of my family. You might want to go and have a wee first, or make a cup of tea, as this may take a while. And you might get to the end of it feeling a little uncomfortable, or maybe sorry for us. Don't - it's such a well-worn story now that it holds no emotions, and I'm not out for pity. Cash donations are always welcome, but pity ain't.

It all started in the late sixties. My mother and my father were still married to each other (in my mother's head this is still the case, in whatever weird parallel existence gets her through the day. She announced at lunch a couple of months ago that it would have been their forty-fifth wedding anniversary that day. They've been divorced for thirty-seven years but hey, who's counting? If I had stayed at school I'd have been there for twenty eight years this year. It's that sort of thing...) and my brother was born. He was followed by beloved sister Fifi, and then along came me in the early seventies. I was what's euphemistically known as a band-aid baby, in that I was supposed to glue my parents' marriage back together. However, me being me, this didn't happen. Not even a bit. When I was two, my father ran off with the Avon lady, in a terrible middle-class cliche. Said Avon lady was married with a small daughter at the time. Not to be outdone, my mother hooked up with the Avon lady's now-ex husband, and the fun began in earnest. I'm not entirely sure how much of this was known to any of the parties at the time; did my mother already have, ahem, knowledge of Avon lady's husband even as she was getting it on with my father? Did any of them know about the other indiscretions? Was it all a big jolly liberated seventies wife swap? Of all the possibilities I like the last one the least. Uurgh. So, as is the nature of these things, decisions had to be made. Between the two couples there were four children, with another on the way (happily gestating away inside the Avon lady). This is another part of my history that I really don't understand, particularly as a mother myself. There ensued a process that in my mind took the form of picking teams for netball. My father ended up with my brother, sister Fifi and the impending new addition. My mother gained me and the Avon-lady-ex-husband's daughter. My brother was seven, Fifi was five, I was two and a bit. My soon-to-be-stepsister was four. So the adults, satisfied with the arrangements, all went off and set up home and got married, and concentrated on raising the kids with an eye to minimising any damage caused by the events of their early years. Well, my father and the Avon lady did anyway. My mother and stepfather chose to either tell me, or to simply let me believe, that my father and stepmother were my uncle and aunt, and that my brother and sisters were my cousins, with my stepsister being my only "true" sister. We used to get together at Christmas and on a couple of other occasions throughout the year - lord only knows how that worked as far as the grownups went - a lot of polite small talk I expect. In addition to this familial obfuscation, my mother and stepfather set about drinking themselves into a coma at every possible opportunity. As their relationship worsened, so our evening and weekend routines evolved until my stepsister and I were cast in the role of peacemakers, endlessly placating and fruitlessly refereeing drunken rows. To this day I can't sleep if there's noise, only because part of me is still listening to make sure an argument doesn't break out. I first heard the "c" word aged seven, when my stepfather burst into my room in the middle of the night to tell me I couldn't go and stay with my school friend because I was a spoiled little cunt who thought I was better than him. We weathered Christmases in which the only salvation was that my stepfather would pass out at four pm, and social gatherings where we were lucky to arrive home alive, such was the frequency of drunk driving. I have a vivid recollection of sitting in the back of the family car with my stepsister, as my mother complained bitterly that the car had broken down. My stepfather was unconcious in the passenger seat, having rounded off the evening at a schoolfriend's parents' house by collapsing backwards over a low wall, knocking it down and taking a garden bench with him. It transpired that the car was fine - my mother was simply so drunk that she was pressing the brake instead of the accelerator. Armed with this helpful knowledge, she changed feet and drove us home. This and a thousand other horror stories that I won't bore anyone with now mean that I'm fairly sure that stepsister and I drew the short straw....

So, here we are. The Surly family tree contains a father who I don't call Dad, a stepmother who has been more of a mother to me than my natural mother despite never living with me, a stepfather who I haven't spoken to in nearly twelve years, a mother who I couldn't even begin to describe, a brother, a sister, a stepsister and a half sister. My stepsister is everyone else's stepsister as her father was married to our mother, and her mother is married to my father. My half sister is everyone else's half sister, as she shares a father with me, my brother and sister Fifi, and a mother with my stepsister. My mother and stepmother are sworn enemies owing to my mother's treatment of my stepsister when we were small. My stepfather has apparently gone a bit churchy in his old age. My mother is mental. My brother and half sister are the only children who haven't been through some sort of therapy, giving all the parents a better than fifty percent strike rate in officially fucking their kids up.

It's a wonder I've turned out so normal, isn't it?