Lena doesn’t like the word “alcoholic.” He smells like trouble and dried vomit. Lenin's mother was an alcoholic. All her life she hated their unprepossessing town, their unprepossessing Khrushchev apartment building, and their medical colleagues with nails black from constant weeding and twisted viscose stockings. Lenin's mother felt in that little world like Princess Tarakanova in the Petropalov Fortress. Born to shine, fate thrust her into a damp cell with a window in the ceiling, leaving her rich imagination, ambitions and a hairy chicken for dinner for mockery. When multi-colored imported liqueurs appeared on store shelves, my mother first bought them “for design” and put them on the shelf next to the armless Venus and the fox hat mounted on a jar. And then she began to slowly apply herself. Soon, a dashing couple burst into the country's alcohol market, dancing: gin and tonic. They say that it was thanks to them that in the “troubled nineties” an entire army of Soviet Tarakanov princesses drank themselves to death. This cocktail in blue jars did not make the tongue bloom treacherously lilac and purple, as from liqueurs, this is a plus, but it hit my legs hard - this was a minus, since it interfered with work. And Lenin’s mother left work. Fortunately, retirement age has come. And the father, although he was not Count Orlov, of course, provided the family regularly. He got it hot, brought it - and, out of harm’s way, into the garage, along the way grabbing a garbage can full of empty blue jars. The mother was left alone, talking to Chubais on TV. What happened next, Lena does not like to remember. She left home early, and then emigrated to England. Behind is sour Riesling in the hostel, water at the farewell to the army of courtyard friends, Derbent cognac before the first trip abroad. Standing apart from this wine list of separations was half a jar of ruff, in which her sixteen-year-old girlish innocence drowned with disgust. Another life, it’s disgusting to remember. Lena says that she dedicated this life so as not to become like her mother. No homemade gin and tonics, no candlelight poetry evenings with crazy girlfriends. Beautiful hobbies, travel, expensive French wine. The last one is five times a week. Exclusively for health and full communication. Lena has become friends with wine, knows how to choose it (she even took a special course), warms a glass in her hands correctly, and loves going to all sorts of tastings. “My favorite time is the evening,” she says, “when the whole family is already asleep.” I open a bottle of some Shiraz, sit down at the computer... There, on the computer, Lena has her whole life. Books, music and films, stunning news, friends on Facebook, blogs and Odnoklassniki.ru, all of them handsome and witty. When asked how many glasses or, as they call it here, “units” of wine she drinks in an evening, Lena evasively says that it can be different, that yesterday’s drink has a completely different taste, it’s not cabbage soup. And that even “today’s” wine sometimes leaves your mouth disgustingly sour in the morning, your head hurts, and the world rubs against your eyelids like sandpaper from lack of sleep. But Lena doesn’t like the word “hangover,” because it’s also from that past life that she doesn’t like to remember. “I am completely in control of the situation,” she assures. – I don’t have problems with alcohol. I’m just a person with a rich inner world, and twenty-four hours a day is sorely not enough for everything, I have to borrow it from sleep. It’s easier to hold on with wine; you get a second wind. Several times Lena was unable to get up for work in the morning because she was ill. The bosses started to look askance and put pressure on me, so I had to leave. But she has something to do: London is not a Middle Volga province, there are opportunities and entertainment around every corner. It happened that she fell asleep on the train after a fun evening spent with friends. I passed the desired station and lost things. Once the “podshafe” came to a parent meeting. And she drank a little, and the teacher, a plebeian, turned away and shrugged her shoulder. husband?