“Louisa! Get your arse down here, NOW!”

Sighing, I pick up my bag and coat and head into the living room. Sitting on the sofa is my mum and snuggled up next to her a rather drunk Dom, or Fred, or whatever the hell this new client, I mean boyfriend, is called. “What is it, Mum?” I ask, trying not to notice that Dom has his hand up her top.

“We need more booze. Do us a favour and go grab us a bottle of vodka from the off-licence.” Noticing the look of disgust on my face, she pushes Dom’s hand away.

“Oy, not in front of Louisa. She’s a prude.” The sound of her laugh sets my teeth on edge.

“I’m not a prude. I just don’t think it’s appropriate to be all over each other like a couple of teenagers while I’m in the room.”

Mum looks at me, her eyes bloodshot. “You’re twenty-two, Louisa, isn’t it about time you got yourself a fella? Might loosen you up a bit.”

“I don’t need a boyfriend. I don’t need loosening up. I need a mother who actually gives a shit about me. I need a mother who doesn’t spend her whole existence getting pissed and shagging the next bloke for a few quid!”

Mum pushes Dom off her and attempts to stand, but she is so drunk she only manages to fall forward onto the coffee table, ending up on her arse on the floor. I stay where I am, too angry to help.

“Don’t you look down your nose at me!” she screams from her spot on the floor. “You’re lucky you got a home to live in, girl. Now make yourself useful and go get me some fucking vodka!”

I sigh and hold my hand out for the money whilst Dom heaves her off the floor. For as long as I can remember she has been a drunk. My real father left us when I was a toddler and her drinking has got steadily worse over the years. Her addiction isn’t helped by the fact that she always has a stream of so-called boyfriends who seem to encourage her bad habits; drinking and being a shitty mother are two of her worst. There was only one man who almost turned my mother around, but she ruined that relationship too, just like she ruins everything else. I am still in touch with Richard, he hasn’t abandoned me even though he gave up on my mother five years ago. In fact, I am on my way to visit him now. He has a job opportunity that he thought I might be interested in, and given I am broke and in desperate need of cash, I agreed to hear him out.

When I look at my mum now, sitting in her stained tracksuit, her blonde hair greasy and her skin tinged grey, I am reminded that I will never have the mother I always wanted. Before the alcohol ravaged her looks, she had been attractive, beautiful even. In her soberer moments, she would tell me that I looked just like her when she was my age and would brag that I was even better looking. I miss my lucid mum, but she isn’t around much anymore. Whether I like it or not, the woman before me is all I have.

“Are you alright, Mum?” I sigh.

“Now the fucking sympathy. Just take the money and piss off,” she screeches.

Dom leers at me, his own eyes hazy and unfocused. “That’s a good girl. Do what Mummy says,” he titters, blowing cigarette smoke at me. I want to smack the look off his face, but I don’t. I take the money and leave.

* * *

“Louisa, love, it’s good to see you,” Richard says as I enter the café, mum’s bottle of vodka in my hand. “That for Lorna?” he asks, pointing to the bottle.

I place it on the Formica table and shrug off my winter jacket. “No, it’s mine,” I say sarcastically, pulling off my beany hat and scarf, my blonde hair tumbling free.

“Stupid question.” He smiles kindly at me and I feel guilty for being such a bitch. “Rough day?”

“You know what Mum’s like. She’s got herself a new boyfriend, and she’s worse than ever. She’s so pissed right now that I doubt she’ll even remember asking me to buy her this bottle of vodka.”

Richard looks at me with a worried expression on his ruggedly handsome face. He is a couple of years older than mum, who’s forty-nine, though she looks far older. I never understood why Mum made him leave. He had been good for her, for us, and the only man who ever really gave a shit about her. Mum tolerates our friendship, when she is bothered enough to stay relatively sober, that is. Otherwise, she curses both me and Richard for all her problems. Most days his name is mud, just like mine.

“If I thought I could help her get dry, Louisa, I would…” His voice trails off as the waitress arrives with a cappuccino for Richard and a latte for me.

“Thanks,” I mumble.

“Can I get you anything else?” the waitress asks.

“That’s it for now,” Richard says. She leaves us in peace and I take a sip of my drink.

“So, you said you might have some work for me?”

“You know the offer still stands, Louisa,” Richard says, ignoring my question for the moment. “You can come live with me if it gets too much.” He pats my hand, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from bursting into tears. I don’t look at his face, I can’t. His kindness and his friendship have been the only things that have kept me sane these last five years.

“She’s my mum, Richard. Despite everything she’s done to me, I can’t leave her.”

Richard sighs. “I understand, Louisa, truly I do. But she’s a grown woman. She must take responsibility for herself. It isn’t up to you to fix her. You can’t do that, love.”

I press my fingers against my eyes. “I know, but I have to try.”

Richard gives me a moment to gather myself, then slides a holiday brochure onto the table. On the front of it is a picture of a ski slope with people dressed in colourful skiwear. They are all smiling. I look at him with a frown.

“What’s this?”

“This is what I was talking about. I’ve been working as the marketing director for a ski resort in Alpe d’Huez, France. My friend Bastien is running the resort. One of the chalet girls has had to go home, and he needs to replace her fast. He owes me a favour, so I called it in. I asked if he would hire you for the job.”

My mouth drops open. “That’s the work you were talking about? But…”

Richard holds his hand up. “Don’t rule it out just yet, let me tell you about it first.”

“I can’t possibly go. You heard what I said about Mum. Besides, Christmas is three weeks away. You know what happened to Mum last year,” I say, shaking my head. I glance at the brochure again wishing, not for the first time, that I had a mother who isn’t a deadbeat drunk. I am tired of the role-reversal.

“Hear me out, Louisa. That’s all I ask.”

“Fine,” I say, but I know I won’t take the job. Every Christmas Mum loses her shit. Last year was by far the worst. She’d gone on a bender for a week and was taken to A&E after some little old lady found her unconscious at the local park, covered in cuts and bruises. The police thought she had drunk too much and passed out, knocking her head. But I saw the marks on her skin and I knew that more had happened to her. It was the only time I thanked God she was a drunk, at least she wouldn’t have remembered anything.

“The job starts next week and will run through to the new year, longer if you want to stay until the end of the season. Flights are covered, and you will stay the whole duration in the chalet your guests will be holidaying in. You will need to provide breakfast and dinner for your guests, tidy their rooms, that kind of stuff. But between the hours of ten thirty am and five pm you’re free to do as you please. Most other staff spend their time skiing. Once the evening meal is finished and you’ve tidied up, the rest of the night is your own. What do you say, Louisa?”

I look from Richard’s eager face to the brochure and back again. It sounds so wonderful. The thought of spending a whole month away from my mum and her shitty ‘boyfriends’ is so tempting. I’ve never been abroad before let alone out of London, so the thought of living in a beautiful wooden chalet nestled in the hills of some snowy mountain is like a dream come true. Yet I push the brochure back to Richard.

“You know I can’t.”

“Louisa…” Richard starts, just as my phone begins to ring. I look at the screen. It’s Mum. I swipe across and press my ear to the phone.

“Where the bloody hell are you? Dom and I have been waiting for fucking ages. Bring us the damn drink you useless, good for nothing piece of sh...”

I don’t bother to listen to the rest of the call. I hang up and grab the brochure from Richard, who is about to put it back in his bag.

“What time’s the flight?” I ask.