Delilah Explains... Bonfire Night

We usually go to the local park on Bonfire Night but, due to cutbacks, the annual bonfire and fireworks display had been cancelled.

'Never mind,' Mum said. She isn't a big fan of the park's bonfire festivities as she spends the whole evening clutching her handbag in case the local feral youths snatch her purse (I'm always telling her that they'll only toss it back when they realise it holds nothing more than a couple of quid in shrapnel).

'Never mind?' Dad had roared. 'Never mind? That isn't the attitude a member of the James family!'

It's exactly Mum's attitude, actually. The toaster is on the blink - never mind. The cat from across the road has scratched a chunk out of the doorframe - never mind. The wifi has gone down - never mind. Mum just doesn't get irate like the rest of us (unless she misses an episode of Coronation Street or we forget to pick towels up off the bathroom floor and then she throws a hissy fit party for one).

'Never mind? We can't miss out. It's Bonfire Night, for heaven's sake.' I'm not sure when Dad became so passionate about the day. He usually huddles into his coat, moaning that he's cold and his feet are aching whenever we go to the bonfire at the park. But passionate he was. 'We'll have our own. In the back garden. Dougie from across the road has just put a new fence up. I'll see if he still has the old panels. He owes after that damn cat destroyed the bloody front door.'

So Dad went on a mission and filled the garden with neighbours' bits of crappy old wood. I'd never seen him as happy as they day he strode into the house brandishing a pair of battered dining chairs.

'There's a skip around the corner. I'm going back for more. Give us a hand, Delilah.'

I'd declined of course but Dad managed to rope my little brother into helping (I suspect money was exchanged). Mum worried that he'd collected far too much wood that we'd never be able to burn it off and we'd end up having to hire a skip of our own, which Dad said was nonsense.

With the bonfire going and an assortment of fireworks waiting in an old biscuit tin, our little Bonfire Night Party began.



My little brother Justin had invited a few of his mates, I'd coerced Lauren and Ryan into joining me and my sister Clara and her boring boyfriend Graham had been talked into coming too. The bonfire had taken up most of the garden but we managed to squeeze around the edges at a reasonably safe distance from the flames.

'Does your Ryan want another jacket potato?' Mum asked me as she edged crab-like around the perimeter of the bonfire with a plate of luke-warm potatoes and congealed cheese. 'I've made far too many.'

'I think he's had enough. And I keep telling you he's not "my Ryan". We're not together.'

'I don't know why not. He's a handsome chap.'

Ryan, who had nipped inside to the loo, was making his way back out of the kitchen door. I thought about grabbing one of the potatoes and shoving it into Mum's gob but settled on a hiss to keep it quiet.

'I'm only saying.' Mum gave a sniff before she shuffled away, pointing her plate of potatoes in boring Graham's direction.

'That's bad for the environment, you know.'


Ryan groaned as his mother appeared at the garden fence, wrinkling her nose at the sight of the blazing bonfire.

'Excuse me?' Mum shoved the plate of potatoes into Graham's boring hands and leapt across the garden, disregarding any thoughts of fire safety in her haste to reach the fence.

'That.' Ryan's mother thrust a finger towards the bonfire. 'It's bad for the environment.'

Despite Ryan and I being best friends, our mothers had never got along. It all started when Ryan and his family moved in twenty-odd years ago and Ryan's mother snubbed us.

'How many cars do you have?' Mum knew the answer to this. Ryan's mother and father owned a car each.

'Two.' Ryan's mother was incredibly proud of the fact that she and her husband could afford to run a car each.

'And don't you think they're bad for the environment?' Mum didn't wait for an answer as she knew she was triumphant on this one. 'Well, Ken and I don't own a car between us so we're entitled to have one bonfire a year without having our ears chewed off about the environment, don't you think?'

Ryan's mother didn't bother to answer (again). She simply pursed her lips, stuck her chin in the air and flounced back inside.

'Right.' Mum clapped her hands together as she turned away from the fence. 'Who's going to finish off these potatoes?'

Delilah Explains... Clara's Halloween Party

I have done a very stupid thing. Extremely stupid and I can only assume there was a full moon this Halloween.

It all started when my sister Clara hosted a Halloween party. I usually avoid Clara's parties (they're usually dinner parties of the pretentious kind) but this one sounded fun, especially as it was fancy dress. I roped my best friends, Lauren and Ryan into coming with me (safety in numbers and all that) and off we went.

I was dressed as a vampire (and a rather sexy one at that, if I may say so), Lauren dressed up as a witch (a v. sexy witch) and Ryan went as a Frankenstein (no sexiness involved here. It'd be like describing my brother as sexy. Bleugh). All was going well. The three of us stuck together as planned and worked away at the booze and the nibbles (I have to say, Clara knows how to shop for canapés) and we even had a little boogie to The Monster Mash. It was proving to be quite fun.

And then disaster struck.

Patrick arrived.

Patrick is a friend of my sister. We've met on a couple of occasions when I haven't been able to wriggle out of Clara's dinner party invites and he's a complete sleaze. He has the personality of a chewed up tennis ball and he has a whiff of onions about him. And he doesn't even have good looks to help him out, the poor bastard.

Anyway, Patrick arrived so I obviously made a dash to the kitchen, hoping to find a convenient yet comfortable hiding place. There wasn't one. My sister lives in a flat with a kitchen the size of an unusually small postage stamp.

'Hide me,' I hissed at Lauren and Ryan, who were busily munching on mini spiced chicken skewers. 'Patrick's here.'

'Who?' Ryan didn't have a clue and so didn't react in time. Lauren had heard all about Patrick and his wandering hands and slobbery ways (so had Ryan but Lauren had actually had the grace to pay attention) so she jumped heroically in front of me, shielding me from the nasty onion-aroma-man.

Unfortunately, Lauren is a tiny woman who couldn't hide much more than a twig.

'Ah, Lilah! There you are!'

Nobody had ever called me Lilah before (it not being my name and everything) but Patrick had taken it upon himself to shorten my name upon our initial meeting. I'd told him not to but listening was clearly not his strong point.

'Yes, here I am. With my boyfriend.' I pulled a startled Ryan towards me, clinging onto his arm with a vice-like grip. If he attempted to dismiss my little white lie, I would snap his arm in two.

'Boyfriend? Clara never mentioned a boyfriend.' Patrick gave a little laugh. If Clara hadn't supplied him with the information, it couldn't be true.

'That's because Clara doesn't know. About us. Yet.' Bless Ryan. He was playing along! I wouldn't have to injure the boy! 'It's been a secret.'

'A secret?' There was Patrick's laugh again. 'Why would you keep it a secret?'

I looked at Ryan. Why would we keep it a secret? Was I going to have to hurt him after all? And I was so fond of him too.

'Because he was my boyfriend.' Lauren jumped to our rescue, dramatically whizzing around to face Ryan before slapping him across the chops. 'You complete shit! You've been cheating on me with my best friend? How could you?' With a sob, Lauren flounced from the room, pausing at the doorway to grin at me and Ryan behind Patrick's back.

'Well, Lilah. Who knew you were such a little minx, eh?'

So now Patrick thinks I'm seeing Ryan. And of course he had to tell Clara, who couldn't keep her gob shut and told the whole world. Including Mum, who thinks it's the best news since they brought back Family Fortunes (she has a bit of a thing for Vernon Kay). I've tried telling her it was nothing but a great big steaming lie but she won't have it. She's thrilled. Over the sodding moon.

'I couldn't ask for a better son-in-law,' she tells anybody who will listen. She thinks Ryan is the bee's pyjamas or whatever. He's lived next door to us for nearly 30 years but she's suddenly taken to calling him 'your Ryan'.

So now it looks like I've got a pretend boyfriend, which wouldn't be quite so sad if it wasn't Ryan.

Help!

Delilah Explains... Clara

Clara was four when I was born. Up until that point, she'd been an only child and resented the fact that she was no longer the centre of attention. Nobody has actually said those words out loud but I know it's true. The evidence is clear:

• In every photo of me as a new born, Clara is scowling in the background
• Clara had a notebook dedicated to the scrawling of 'I hat my babby sistur' and similar
• I had to be taken to hospital when I was 11 months old after 'falling' down the stairs while playing with Clara
• Clara called me 'it' (it wants a biscuit, it's crying, it fell, Mummy, I promise) until I was 7

So Clara and I have never been close as sisters. Clara pretended she was still an only child and I eventually gave up trying to earn her approval. When I was 14, Clara moved out. She'd got into a university close enough to home to commute but she wanted to live the full student life (eating Pot Noodles, not washing and sleeping in until lunchtime from the sounds of it). Mum had been distraught - how could her grown-up daughter leave home? I think she expected Clara to still be living at home when she was married and popping out babies (funny, she's quite vocal about the fact that I'm 27 and still at home).

So Clara moved out and the distance transformed our relationship. We would never be the kind of sisters who swapped clothes and shared secrets but at least now we can be half-way civil to one another. I don't necessarily like Clara (she's bossy, pretentious and thinks she oh so sophisticated since she bought her flat with her boring boyfriend) but I don't hate her and we can tolerate each other for short bursts of time.

Clara is an accountant. She met her accountant boyfriend (the dull Graham) at some sort of conference and they moved in together a year ago (Mum had still been harbouring hopes that she'd return to her bosom until they arranged the mortgage for their own flat). Since then, Clara has hosted a total of 14 dinner parties (I've thankfully only been invited to one), gutted the kitchen (she couldn't stand the 'dated' look) and replaced it with a shiny new one that hurts my eyes. She tried to get us to go over to her flat for Christmas (the ambience in her living room was much more festive, apparently) but Mum was having none of it. She'd had Christmas lunch around the kitchen table at our house for over thirty years and she'd continue to have Christmas lunch around our kitchen table as long as she was still breathing. I'm sure Clara will have another bash at persuading her this year too but I don't fancy her chances.

Delilah Explains... Best Friends: Part One

I have two best friends (greedy, I know), Lauren and Ryan. I've known Ryan forever. He's lived next door to me for as long as I can remember. According to Mum, Ryan and his family moved in on a sunny Saturday in June, 1989 (she remembers it was sunny because she was wearing a pair of cut-off denim shorts and a bikini top. It was definitely June because it was about a month before my birthday - she'd been discussing having a pool party to celebrate my turning 2. We don't have a pool, Dad had pointed out, what with us being a very working class family from Manchester. We'll get one of those blow-up pools and dangle our feet in, Mum said. Which we did. Thankfully I don't remember it).

Anyway, little Ryan (because he was little back then, being two-and-a-half) and his family moved into the house next door. It had once belonged to an elderly couple who banged on the wall if you dared to sneeze, so Mum was delighted to see a young family replacing them. She thought they'd be able to chat over the garden wall and invite each other round for dinner parties and the young chap could come to my birthday party.

It didn't happen. Ryan's mum is a snob. She took one look at Mum's shorts and bikini top, stuck her nose in the air and scarpered into the house. She declined Mum's offer of a casserole (That's very kind of you, but no thank you. We're very picky about what we eat), Ryan couldn't come to my 'pool' party (My Ryan is a very chesty child. I don't want him getting a chill) and the dinner invites never materialised.

Mum said she wasn't going to mention the fact that the elderly neighbours had died in the house - the old man in his chair in the living room and the old girl in the front bedroom. They'd been dead for at least three weeks before they were discovered (and only then because Mum had alerted the police twice over the lack of banging on the walls. When she'd played Dad's T-Rex at top volume as a test and received nothing in return, she badgered the local coppers until they checked on them). But she accidentally dropped all of this into conversation as she and Ryan's mum hung their washing out. I do hope the smell hasn't lingered, Mum had said before she took her basket back inside.

Ryan and I probably weren't destined to be friends. Our parents certainly weren't. But Ryan was sent to an all-boys school so I was a bit of a novelty. We hung around together after school and at the weekends, either at my house (we weren't allowed in Ryan's. His mum feared we'd get the place dirty or something) or on the wasteland behind our houses (it doesn't exist anymore. There are a load of three-bedroom houses the size of shoeboxes squeezed onto there now).

Ryan is a PE teacher now (so not so chesty after all. He could have dangled his feet in my inflatable pool all those years ago). He has a passion for football and women, although the women aren't so passionate about him in return. It isn't that Ryan is ugly - he's quite cute at the right angle - but he always seems to go for the wrong sort of girl.


Bitches, he goes for bitches. There, I've said it. If they deign to date him at all, they use him for a week or two then spit him out. It's a shame because Ryan's a pretty great guy (although I call him a knobhead frequently. It's my duty as his best friend to keep him grounded and not to let his ego get away with him). He just needs to find the right girl.

In case you're wondering, I am not that girl. And no, I am not protesting too much. Ryan and I are friends. Best friends. And that's all we'll ever be.

Delilah Explains... Dating

So I've been single for two years. Ages, right? Mum is distraught about this fact. She's forever telling me that she met Dad when she was fourteen, they were married at eighteen and my sister Clara had popped out by the time Mum was twenty. I think she's using this tale as motivation or inspiration but it only causes relief that my life isn't as dull as Mum's.

I've had relationships in the past. None of them have worked out (obv) but they were fun while they lasted. Apart from Mitch. He was never fun. I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, those relationships made me who I am. I wouldn't change them. Apart from Mitch. That was a if-I-had-a-time-machine-I'd-go-back-and-never type of relationship.

I'm quite happy being single (really. Mum doesn't believe me either but it's true). It means I get to go on fabulous dates. Although it does mean I get to go on some not-so-fabulous dates too.

Some stinkers have been:

• Being taken on a motorbike ride. Without an extra helmet. We were thankfully pulled up about fifty yards away from my house. Mum was fuming. The neighbours thought I was being arrested.
• The picnic in the park where I was served cheese-slice sandwiches and a warm bottle of coke. There wasn't even cake
• The cinema trip where we were accompanied by the bloke's sister (she'd just broken up with her boyfriend and didn't want to be left alone. When I asked - discreetly - why she couldn't hang out with her mates for the evening, I was told she didn't have any)
• Being set up with the brother-in-law of my sister's boyfriend. He was 22 (I was 26), still had braces on his teeth and he quoted Star Trek or Star Wars (I couldn't tell but they're both as bad as each other) for the entire date
• My first internet date where the bloke turned out to be 59 (he'd told me he was 32). It was my last internet date.

My latest date was with Philippe, which took place last week. I met Philippe in town the week before, when I was out with Lauren and Ryan, my best friends. Ryan was trying to chat up this stunning red-head (he didn't stand a chance, poor sod) and Lauren had gone to fight her way to the bar. Philippe approached, introducing himself with an exquisite French accent. My legs turned to jelly. I love an accent and he was gorgeous. Seriously.

We got chatting (me melting every time he spoke) and we had a dance (the boy had moves) and at the end of the night, I gave Philippe my number - and he actually called me. The next day. We arranged a date (a casual trip to the cinema. Nothing can really go wrong. Unless your dates brings his snivelling, heartbroken sister with him). I was so looking forward to this date. I waxed, plucked, soaked and used my best perfume. I wore my 'good' bra (you know the one, ladies. It gives you a cleavage up to your eyeballs) and slipped on a dress that was tight and low in all the right places without appearing sluttish.

'Your sister's just given me a hard on,' I heard one of my brother's friends whisper (I never know which is which - they're all as unclean as each other) as I passed Justin's bedroom. He whimpered a moment later as Justin evidently thumped him.

'Wow, look at you.' Mum was impressed as I waltzed into the kitchen. I wondered if I should go and change. 'You look very modern. Off out on your "date", are you?' Mum made the quotation marks and everything. 'What was his name again?'

'Philippe. He's French.' I was very proud of that fact. Maybe, if this worked out, I'd get a free holiday to France to visit his parents. I'd always wanted to visit Paris.

'Well, as long as he treats you well. That's all that matters.'

I left then. Mum didn't know a thing about what to look for in a man. She'd married Dad, after all.

I was meeting Philippe at the cinema, which I didn't mind. I'm not one of these girls who wants picking up at her house. It's sometimes better if a date doesn't know where you live until you've sussed him out. I learned this the hard way when I was practically stalked (for three days but it was annoying) by a date I'd decided not to contact again (his teeth had a greenish hue and he smelled of pork).

Philippe was a bit late. I waited for 20 minutes. Then half an hour. Finally, 40 minutes after we'd arranged to meet, Philippe turned up, apologising profusely.

The date went downhill from there.