by Naomi Joy
I lost myself in the crush of commuters on the Victoria line, steam from our tightly packed bodies condensing on the windows. I thought of my parents; I really needed to call and tell them what was happening, but it was almost as if too much had gone on in such a short space of time to unleash it all at once. I hadn’t spoken to them for ages and one thing had led to another and another and another and now it was all just a bit ridiculous. I resolved to tell them a simplified version of events when I got home: things had been getting worse between Charlie and me, we’d had a fight, I’d moved out. Perhaps I’d leave out the bits about living in my dead colleague’s apartment – which happened to be owned by my company’s CEO – for now. Mum would be disappointed enough as it was.
I watched the sign for Pimlico station fly past the tube carriage windows as the train grinded to a very noisy halt at the platform and enjoyed the rush of air against my skin as I exited the station. My cheeks glowed from the summer humidity as I walked briskly back to the place I now called home.
My ears pricked up as I sensed someone closing in on me, like the air had compressed against my back, but, just as I turned my head slightly to my shoulder to steal a glance behind me, a man hurtled past on a bike, almost knocking me off my feet. I pushed forward, willing my legs to carry me as fast as they physically could, checking obsessively round me as I fit the key into the lock and let myself in.
A crumpled letter sat ominously on the doormat as I pushed open the door. I knew immediately who it was from. His horrible texts had turned into dropped calls, hate mail in the post, eyes in the darkness. I needn’t have left through the back exit; he’d already found me. I picked up the paper.
Is this where you came when you were working late? Is this where you came when you pretended to go away with your friends? Is this where you will come to betray me with him over and over again with my ring on your finger?
Come back to me.
It’s not too late.
Please call.
All my love,
Charlie
12
Jade
Josh and I were messaging during work hours now, mere metres apart, playing it cool, not looking at each other. There was something so sexy about keeping it a secret: our burgeoning relationship like the sweetest forbidden fruit. I wondered if we’d be able to keep our hands off each other at the office party. His latest text was still tattooed across my mind. I’d been flirting with him about summer holidays and bathing suits and he’d said:
I’d like to see that though… you know, you in a bikini. Maybe you could send something?
It had left me with quite the problem, however, as now the only logical next step was to acquiesce to his request. I had to show him ‘me in a bikini’ otherwise the conversation would die.
I rushed out after work to buy what I’d need to make any bikini of mine look acceptable. I prowled up and down the aisles of a nearby beauty store like a cougar with tunnel vision. I flung instant tan, hair removal cream, bronzer, a shiny leg brush – what the hell was that?! – and even one of George’s ‘brow brushes’ into my basket. Who set the rules on which parts of us were supposed to be hairy now? And how had I missed the memo about eyebrows? At least I’d found out in time. I needed to have the photoshoot of my life. This was no time to look unremarkable, or ordinary. I had to look good. I had to look my absolute, glittering, best. The cashier racked up my items, showing me glimpses of her chewing gum as she opened her mouth comedically wide with each bite.
‘D’ya ‘ave a loyalty card?’
I handed it over, paid on my debit card and hurried out of the store. I saw my bus pulling into the bay at the other side of the road and dashed like a maniac across four lanes of traffic to catch it, dodging in and out of cars and buses like a hare on a country road.
*
I pushed away the post clogging the entrance hall. No time for that tonight, I thought for the gazillionth time, and ran upstairs, stripping off as I did so to make the most of every available minute. Apply to clean, cool skin and leave to dry for five minutes after applying. The tan is instant, so use a mitt to ensure the product doesn’t stain your hands. Obviously I’d forgotten a mitt. But it would be fine, I’d just wash my hands between each limb’s application.
First, I jumped in the shower with the hair removal cream covering almost every inch of my body: I didn’t want to take any chances. And, as the box round me heated up, so too did the rancid smell of rotten fish corpses currently smothering me from head to toe. How could they sell something that smells so horrific? I waited for the seemingly endless eight-minute application time to pass. Eventually, my timer sounded and I used the tiny scraper tool provided with the packet to start shovelling off the lotion. It took quite a lot of force to dislodge the hair, so much so that when I jumped out of the shower my body looked as though it had been through a tumble dryer: red raw and streaky where the hair remover had achieved varying degrees of success in clearing me of my patchy brown body fuzz.
I grabbed the shiny leg brush. Maybe this would help remove the dregs? The thing was ridiculous – a little eraser-sized tool – designed, presumably, for the legs of a Milanese catwalk model and I dutifully scrubbed away at my calves, reasoning that the fronts would be the only part in shot, but, even after fifteen minutes, couldn’t notice even the slightest bit of shine. I chucked the stupid thing in the bin and proceeded with the rest of my preparations. I rubbed the instant fake tan over each leg, ensuring both received a generous coat, moved up to my belly, spreading it over the lumps and bumps that existed even though I wished so much that they didn’t – I bet Ava’s stomach didn’t look like this – then washed my hands after every inch of me had transformed from ghostly to golden. I scolded myself as the product stubbornly refused to remove itself completely from my palms and realised I’d forgotten to wash between limbs. Curses! I ran into the bedroom: nail varnish remover. That ought to do it. I picked up a cotton pad and poured the alcoholic solution all over it before transferring it to my hands. Not much better. Oh dear. Well, that was that: my hands could not be in the shot.
I set up some subtle mood lighting in the bathroom with a few strategically placed candles and lamps that I’d brought from all over the house to sit in the hallway outside. I flipped the camera round so I could see what it was capturing. I started off sitting on the toilet, looking up. Snap! I studied it. Not the right mood, really, sitting on the toilet, it implied all the wrong things. I moved to the bathroom floor, balancing the phone against the hideous pink floral tiles which encased the sewer-green bathtub and lay down side-on to the lens. Eurgh, you could really see the bits you miss cleaning when you got down on the bathroom floor. I really had to clean behind the toilet more. I bent my knees and pushed my bottom to the ceiling. The phone’s flash illuminated – Snap! – and I studied the image: cellulite, double chin, a flash of full-frontal brief. Disgusting.
I stood up, sucked in my gut as much as possible and angled the camera to a diagonal. Snap! It grabbed the bottom of my face and my body up to the top of my thighs. Too much midriff. Too bad I couldn’t wear a pencil skirt: the garment really worked to hold everything in place. God, I really needed to lose weight. I grabbed my phone and tried another angle. I faced the camera head-on, my shoulders closing in, pushing my voluptuous chest together, cropping out my lower body entirely. I let the bikini top come a little loose as I squeezed my breasts tighter together still. Snap! OK, getting there. Sort of. The plus part of being fat was it made your boobs look good, I supposed. If you were into cow’s udders, cackled the voice within me. I studied the image close up. Could I really send this? I was having doubts. I read his message again. No, he wanted this and, besides, this was sexy, this was fun, this was exactly the kind of thing I needed to do to bring Josh and me closer together. I needed to take a risk, take a chance. It wasn’t just our future relationship that depended on him liking me, but my job, too.
After half an hour procrastinating, scrubbing feverishly behind the toilet,
I sent it.
13
Ava
David had invited me to meet him for a drink at The Whive again this evening and, as the doorman greeted me with familiarity, I wondered if this place was fast becoming my local. I wondered what people at work would think if they saw me here and I worried about everyone getting the wrong impression about our sudden friendship. I took a moment in the entranceway to pull my hair up into a ponytail.
David was sat in the same seat as last time: a deep leather chair with intricately carved wooden armrests. His expression was downcast, his stare fixed to the floor, his shirt collar over-starched and upright, stiff, his hand locked round a tumbler of amber-coloured liquid. As he saw me approach, he feigned a smile, shielding his real expression from me. I guessed he’d been thinking about Olivia and my heart broke for him: how sad it must be to bury your only child.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, by way of greeting. Unusually for David, he didn’t get up, didn’t kiss my cheek, didn’t pull my chair out.
‘Is everything OK?’ I asked tentatively.
‘I’m just—’ His voice broke between the words. ‘Excuse me—’
‘You don’t need to excuse yourself. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.’ I cringed at my enthusiastic use of my favourite refrain. ‘Olivia and I had only reconnected again for a few, too short, months, and the impact she had on me was incredible. I just wished we’d kept better touch after university.’
He smiled with damp eyes and stared off into the distance. I remembered how the body-bag they’d brought for Olivia had been too small, the end of it flapping loose in the wind as she’d been wheeled into the back of the ambulance that morning.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were engaged, Ava?’ His eyes met mine, wiggles of red streaking the white. My expression changed and my brain whirred. Had he been upset about Olivia or upset about my engagement? His stare was intense and accusatory.
‘How did you—’ I asked, slightly taken aback.
‘Charlie,’ he cut in.
‘When?’ I asked.
‘Does it matter?’
He shot back the rest of his drink, pressing a napkin to his mouth afterwards, breathing in through the cotton.
I was surprised by the tension between us.
‘It’s not what you think,’ I said slowly. ‘It wasn’t as though I accepted. He ambushed me.’
‘So why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I—’ I struggled to find the right words to say. The phrase Because it’s none of your business sprung to mind but didn’t seem appropriate. Even if it was the truth. ‘I didn’t tell you because it wasn’t important… it meant nothing, it was just one of Charlie’s games.’
He considered my answer for a moment. ‘Don’t lie to me again,’ he said firmly, then relaxed. ‘Not while you’re under my roof.’
I was taken aback, colour rushing to my cheeks, burning pink as he told me off. ‘Of course not, I just, sorry, it all happened very quickly. Charlie asked me to marry him, I didn’t say yes, then seconds later he found the break-up note,’ I said, slipping back into the role of subservient woman far too easily.
‘Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?’ His sadness had been replaced by something more sinister. He knew something. He played with the edges of his serviette, fiddling, took his cheek between his teeth.
My pulse quickened. Telling him my secrets hadn’t been part of the deal. And he didn’t know the half of it.
‘You told me Charlie was convinced you were seeing someone,’ he started to say when I wasn’t forthcoming. ‘Is there anyone else?’
I’d let my guard down to tell David about Charlie’s accusations and now he was using them against me. Was this the kind of tight leash he put on Olivia, too?
‘Like I said, Charlie’s been obsessed with that theory for as long as we’ve been in London. He won’t leave it alone.’ I paused for a moment. ‘Where is he?’
‘Do you care?’
I lowered my voice. ‘He left a note.’ I pulled Charlie’s poison from my pocket. I wanted David to understand how nothing Charlie said was true, that he was unhinged and unstable. I also wanted to fall under his favour again, and I knew he liked me vulnerable. ‘I’m scared, David. Look. He’s found me.’
A flash of fury crossed David’s face and his brow tightened as he unfurled the crumpled note. But he was happy I wasn’t keeping this from him and I watched his pupils skip excitedly over the words.
‘I destroyed my phone, too, I was worried he’d put a tracker on me or something.’
‘Should I put some protection on you? I could stay in the spare room for a while, if you like?’
It hadn’t occurred to me he’d offer to stay.
‘No, no, that’s not necessary,’ I said hurriedly, now regretting telling him about the note altogether. ‘I just want this whole thing to blow over with as little fuss as possible. I know him; he’ll get bored soon. No reaction is the best reaction.’ Great, in order to deter David from getting too involved I’d talked myself into a corner: now I wouldn’t even be able to go to the police with my concerns. If you’re that worried Ava, I should stay, just until he’s found. Or longer, if you want.
David shook his head.
‘You must let me know if he tries anything else. And I’ll send a new phone to the house.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, relaxing. ‘And thank you for all the clothes you left me. They’re beautiful. I feel like the luckiest woman alive.’
He tried hard not to smile too wide. ‘I knew you’d like them. They used to be Olivia’s, I had them all dry-cleaned before you moved in.’
My heart stopped and my gut convulsed. I’d been wearing a dead woman’s clothes all day. My skin started to itch and the material of her tux clung horribly to my skin.
‘Why would you want me to wear her things?’
‘She’d have wanted them to be worn, don’t you think? She took great pride in her outfits. She wasn’t one of those people who’d want her clothes tucked away, turning musty and moth-bitten in the wardrobe.’
I felt sick, violated, lied to, but still I sat there, with no choice but to pretend I was OK with it.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, as though nothing were the matter.
‘Fine, I’m fine.’
‘Did I get this wrong? Should I send new things?’
‘No, David, it’s fine.’
‘Darling, you can talk to me if anything’s wrong, you know that, don’t you?’
No, I don’t.
I imagined myself then as David’s doll, plucked from a disordered supermarket shelf to live in his gorgeous townhouse: wardrobe full of dressing-up clothes, beautiful four-poster bed to lie in at night, perfect white picket fence encasing the perimeter. I thought of his hands reaching in, moving me from room to room, undressing me for bathtime, redressing me for dinner, plastic food on the table, a mini-comb for him to brush through my hair at night. And, just like a doll, I needed him in order to survive. My life depended on him wanting to play with me, to keep me in his house, to find me interesting, pretty. I had to keep it up: at least until I didn’t need him any more.
‘Of course I do. I told you about Charlie, didn’t I? I hadn’t told anyone about him.’ David’s mood shifted, happier now, and he changed the subject.
‘Are you looking forward to the summer party?’
I matched his incredible change of pace by feigning excitement too but, to be honest, I couldn’t think of anything worse than getting drunk at a work-do while things with Charlie were still fresh and things with David were so weird.
‘I can’t wait to see what you’ve organised this year,’ I said, avoiding answering the question directly.
‘You won’t be disappointed, although it’s a shame Josh can’t make it. I’ve had to send him to Monaco… I’ve set him up with a new business lead that’s just perfect—’
David’s mobile rang and he answered it mid-sentence.
He cup
ped his hand over the receiver. ‘I have to take this,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll see you at the party.’
I took it as my cue to leave and The Whive’s heavy timber door swung shut behind me as I left the restaurant, and the bill, behind with David. It was coming up to ten o’clock and the sun had finally given up for the day, the headlights and streetlights outside dazzling and slightly disorienting as my eyes took some time to adjust. I negotiated the bustling crowds outside Sloane Square tube station, picking my way through the rush of post-theatre tourists gathered in the square, trying to work out how to get back to their Chelsea hotels. For a moment, I thought I saw Charlie’s face in the crowd, and froze, ready to confront him. But he was gone just as soon as he’d appeared.
*
Sitting in the bedroom, hand clasped round the landline, I rang off the phone to my mother – I’d finally found the time to fill her in on my car crash week – and her wiry, worried voice rattled round in my mind. This all seems like a lot of change. Are you sure you don’t want to give things with Charlie another go? Aren’t you a little old to be starting all over again? I read an article the other day, Ava, it said you should be starting to try for a baby as soon as you turn thirty. It was never a problem in my day, but now, well, it’s as if you girls have all forgotten what God put you on this Earth to do.