Looking for Andrew McCarthy. Jenny Colgan

No-one liked to go round there too often, particularly not Ellie, who had a bit of a conflict going on between her love for red wine and her red wine’s love for other people’s carpets.

      ‘What I’d really like,’ said Ellie, ‘is for something really dramatic to happen. An earthquake or something. Hmm, no, a non fatal earthquake. Oh God, I don’t know. Just something.’

      ‘How about you fall out with your boyfriend in public at your own birthday party have a yelling match with him then lock yourself in the bathroom?’ said Arthur. ‘Oh, no, hang on …’

      Ellie’s mobile rang.

      ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Maybe this is it. Maybe somebody’s seen me in the street and wants me to go to Hollywood and become a movie star!’

      ‘I bet that’s who it is,’ said Siobhan. ‘Or maybe it’s Prince William telling you he’s in love with you.’

      ‘Could be anything,’ said Ellie, peering at the phone. ‘Oh. It’s my dad. Oh no! I take it all back! I don’t want anything to happen at all.’

      Ellie’s dad lived alone. Ever since Ellie’s mother had left he drank rather too much whisky and relied on seeing his only child often, otherwise he tended to live in string vests and eat cold beans straight out of the tin.

      ‘Hey?’ she said tentatively, then listened patiently as he described his extremely bad heartburn.

      ‘And how many sausages? Uh huh. You know, Dad, I think nine sausages is probably too much for dinner.’

      She listened some more. ‘Okay, no, they’re on the top shelf of the cabinet. Well, look again. No, I did get some. Listen to me … Oh, for God’s sake.’

      She put the phone down. ‘Sorry everyone but I think I’ve got to go and burp my father.’

      ‘But it’s C!’ said Arthur. ‘Your favourite round: Cosmopolitans.’

      ‘I know. But I’d better go.’

      She shouldered her bag, downed the dregs of her Bloody Mary and headed out of the door, face set against the rain.

      ‘This isn’t fair,’ she thought to herself, walking down the darkened suburban street in search of a taxi, as the wind blew gusts of rain across her face. Anyone passing her would have thought they were looking at a very upset four-year-old. Her lower lip stuck out tremulously. A bus crashed along the road, spraying her skirt with water, and ploughed on. Ellie stopped in the middle of the street.

      ‘I’m not happy, okay!’ she yelled at the open sky. ‘I don’t know why, but I’m NOT! And I don’t know who I’m talking to, because my generation doesn’t even believe in GOD anymore!’

      ‘How are you today, my favourite Hedgepig?’

      She gave herself up for a hug inside the gloomy house. An old terrace, it was musty and undecorated, and her father had a thing about putting on the central heating and very rarely did, preferring to stomp about in several layers of faintly grubby pyjamas.

      ‘Hey Dad. Little bit grumpy. What’s the matter with you?’

      ‘I think I had a bad sausage.’

      ‘I told you before: you eat too many sausages.’ She poked him in the belly. ‘Why don’t you have something healthy?’

      She went into the bathroom and dug out the bottle of milk of magnesia; as predicted it was on the top shelf.

      ‘They make healthy sausages?’

      ‘Not exactly.’ Ellie checked the grill was off – he’d already had a minor fire – made him take the medicine and made them both a cup of tea.

      ‘How could you not find this? It was right on the shelf.’

      Her dad squirmed and tried to look as if he hadn’t done it on purpose so she’d come over and see him. Ellie told him about the party fiasco, and her general sense of being miserable.

      ‘Well, you’d better do something about it then. Haven’t you been saying since the day after you got your job that you really want to switch jobs? Why don’t you do that?’

      ‘Not this month. Not until they forget about the customer services rep and the bottle of quink.’

      ‘Explain exactly what it is you do again, Hedgepig?’

      ‘Business Development Manager. Oh, never mind. God, they should have a Bring your Parents to Work Day.’

      ‘My theory is, right, if you can’t sum it up in a sentence, it’s not a proper job. Like, “I nick thieves”.’

      ‘Dad, that’s a movie pitch, not a career.’

      ‘“I fix hearts” – cardiologist, see?’

      ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ve cottoned on. Nobody has simple jobs any more.’

      ‘That’s true,’ mused her dad. ‘Nobody does. What is it Julia does again?’

      ‘She’s a systems analyst consultant.’

      ‘That’s exactly what I mean. That doesn’t even make sense.’

      ‘There’s too many people in the world. They have to make up stuff for us to do.’

      ‘Ah. That would explain computers.’

      Ellie thought for a second.

      ‘God, you know, I think it does.’

      ‘Okay then, if you’re looking for something new to do, why don’t you paint the front room?’

      ‘Daad! And eat this tomato. It’s better than nothing.’

      ‘Shan’t. Why don’t you …’

      ‘… get myself a nice young man? Because there are none, Dad.’

      ‘In the whole of London, there isn’t one single nice man?’

      ‘Nope.’ And I have personally checked most of them, she silently added to herself.

      ‘I know lots of nice coppers I could introduce you to.’

      ‘Yes, but on the whole my motto is the less Freudian the better.’

      ‘Nothing wrong with a nice copper.’

      ‘Nothing wrong with a nice bit of tomato either. Eat!’

      He took it reluctantly. This was a constant battle between them. Deep down, he liked his daughter’s chiding at him. It showed she cared. In the same way, Ellie liked his bothering her constantly about all the bad aspects of her life. As an only child and an only parent, they’d done the best they could. Which wasn’t, Ellie reflected, looking at the congealed-egg washing up, that great when you started to think about it. She squirted the remnants of a dusty bottle of Original Fairy into the sink.

      ‘Dad,’ said Ellie, plunging her hands into the lukewarm water. ‘Am I a Thatcherbaby?’

      He shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose so. Do you remember Callaghan?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘That’s why people your age are always blaming me for voting in Thatcher.’

      ‘Why did you vote in Thatcher?’

      ‘Well, because it seemed right, you know? At the time. It seemed the right thing to do: work hard, don’t give all your money to the government, get a nice house, get a nice car.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘And then you get comfortable and then you get bored and then your wife runs off to Plockton with an accountant called Archie.’

      Her dad shifted in his seat and looked uncomfortable.

      ‘Oh,’ said Ellie. They rarely discussed her mother and she hated upsetting him.