Being my own Shark

Rather than my mother’s pilot fish.

I have always challenged Eirwen, my narcissist ne plus ultra mother. And, as we often must when dealing with a narcissist, I have fought to be my own shark rather than that pilot fish mooching along at the shark’s gills.

NB — we have Royal Marines Commando, Stacks, to thank for that analogy.

Eirwen was an unreasonable, raging, physically violent mother.

I read and re-read Charlotte’s Web. One teatime Eirwen, leering, simpering, was telling family friend Connie Practically Bedridden Presland how Charlotte famously spun words into her web.

‘Words such as “splendid”, “magical” and “brilliant”.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Charlotte spins “Some Pig”, “Terrific”, “Radiant” and “Humble”…’

Connie’s features shrunk on my behalf.

Eirwen shouted at me, ‘I’ll thank you — snivelling fatso — not to question your elders and betters.’

‘“Some Pig”, “Terrific”, “Radiant”, “Humble”,’ I repeated.

‘I beg your pardon. This is Eirwen Silcox you’re arguing with.’ She seemed to transmute the act of hitching her knitting yarn somehow into a memsahib’s snort. ‘We’ll carry on this discussion when our guest has left. No, Connie, you mustn’t go yet — there’s bananas, Pink Angel Delight and tinned evap for afters. He’ll wait.’

She meant I would wait for her to beat me with the blue stick. I can still see myself at seven or so, in my underwear, downstairs in the communal area, flinging that blue stick (once the handle of my toy broom) into the dumpster.

Eirwen was also conniving, telling her friends lies about me. All those Lillians: Big Lil, Little Lil, Welsh Lil, Lives the Wrong Way Round the Balcony Lil; Inner Brother Joan of the Lodge and, of course, Connie ‘Practically Bedridden’ Presland.

‘He’s been vandalising my knitting again, jealous I have my artistic outlet. He punched Whiskey the cat in the face. He can stage the most convincing asthma attacks. He’s tried now to convince each of his childminders in turn to adopt him. I said to him — you get adopted by Aunty Daisy, mind, and you’ll end up retiring with her to Basingstoke. There’s no Battersea Funfair in Basingstoke. He was born lacking a fully observable penis…’

See how narcissists concoct details to corroborate their lies? Also, see (hear:)

‘Yes, it grew only from the time he was exposed to the elements outdoors of my womb, Big Lil. That’s why in his baby photos, either his father or I has our hand over his groin area. Or when he’s on the rug in front of the gas fire, we have his Welsh shawl draped across.’

Instinctively, I knew from an early age to keep my own record of my life. I wish anyone in close proximity to a narcissist would do the same. I’ve needed often to refer to mine to refute this or that parental invention.

If nothing else, the process has developed my capacity to remember things. My friends are often amazed at my exact recall of past events; Eirwen and Terry almost always frustrated.

Eirwen and I are to this day in a loop, performing our ongoing version of the song “I Remember it Well”.

We met at nine

We met at eight

I was on time

No, you were late…

You tried to run away to Barry Island all on your own when you were eleven. I was beside myself.

No, it was arranged I would go with Allison, Plunger and Evan for the day. You just weren’t listening again.

You were barred from studying C.S.E. French ever again for being rude and disruptive to Dr Cross; because you’ve always been just like your Nancy Ak. Nancy Ak never got up before midday. Slagged around in her housecoat stinking of wee. Could never make scrambled eggs from scratch. You cheated at Catchy Fishy got up onstage at the ten o’clock children’s show at Butlins, Skegness. You begged and begged to look after the school rabbit in the holidays but then got awful asthma, allergic. When we let you go and watch the circus aged nine at Shepherd’s Bush all by yourself on the bus with Robert Martin, you managed to get overexcited, run into the road without looking both ways, car ran you down on the wrong side of the roundabout. And you’ve never thought, ever, of cleaning out the cheese drawer in the fridge…*

No, mum — I took French at A Level with Mrs Beach. You went to the school and she told you it was six of one and half a dozen of the other when it come to me with Mr Cross — he never passed his doctorate — so she took me out of his class. Mrs Beach was a retired actress. She once played Fay in Joe Orton’s Loot; and remembered the actor playing Truscott being docked pay because, even after a warning from the director, he broke two of the prop wardrobes by attacking them too violently. And Mrs Beach — Janet — believed her first date with her future husband had been a disaster because she had thrown up on his shoes. ‘We both knew, he and I, that I hated, but hated those shoes. White winkle pickers.’ Oh, and she taught me the Viennese Waltz in exchange for me teaching her the Space Invaders dance from our school discos.

See — corroborative detail — fighting fire with fire.

Perhaps all the stories I tell onstage, the blogs, vlogs, aspects of the memoir My Tutu Went AWOL! are my attempts, in the face of Eirwen’s narrative, to record the truth about myself.

Eirwen talked recently about writing her own memoir. ‘There are companies these days who will get you to say it all aloud and then put it through a computer. It won’t be all over-formalised, shall we say, like your book, Iestyn. Just natural. More for the people to read. Because, let’s face it, what did informed critics have to say about your book?’ By which she means her friends. ‘You completely misrepresented our very loving relationship, is how Welsh Lil’s daughter saw it. She’s newly religious, so prays over a slice of ham. Inner Brother Iris from the Lodge though you well and truly went to town on me. As did Mari, who’s had her leg amputated. Of course, as we know, I never got a copy of the book for myself…’

She did. I sent it to her.

My Tutu Went AWOL! doesn’t have an index. In her copy, Eirwen has added one:

Mention of yours truly: 4,9,16

Miss out the mentions on 6, 14, 139. Very rude about my waters breaking, my glasses and my hessian cushion covers.

Eirwen said, ‘Anyway, I’m asking around for ideas about what I should call the memoir of my life. People say they’ll be ever so thrilled to read it, they can’t wait.’

I couldn’t resist suggesting, (sorry), ‘Call it, Here Lies Eirwen Silcox.’

She thought I was being serious. Typical narcissist, she has no humour. Never being able to laugh at herself means she has missed a gag that’s now been running for two twenty-two years longer than the Mousetrap.

Paraphrasing Nabokov, my own laughter at her has often been very much from the dark.

The process of keeping track has always been for my benefit only. When I face Eirwen with the correct versions (as I see them, two sides to everything…) she cannot, will not process them.

They contradict her narcissist’s view of herself — ‘This is Eirwen Silcox you’re talking to…’ as perfect.

Keep your own record straight.

Be your own whale.

#narcissist#narcissisticabuse#narcissisticparents#psychology#selfhelp#childhood#parents#parenting#humor#talks#publicspeaking#narcissism#advice