Heatstroke: an intoxicating story of obsession over one hot summer

by Hazel Barkworth

  Rachel turned to face the mirror. She didn’t look like herself at all. But it fitted. She was encased in the dress her daughter loved. The dress was as much about the flesh it revealed as the flesh it hid. Rachel had witnessed the hours Mia spent scrubbing her skin raw before slathering it with unctions that smelled edible in all the wrong ways, like the crackling on pork. They left her body glowing. Fake tans used to be treacherous, but technology ensured that Mia’s limbs had none of those streaks and bruises of orange. It worked. It made her look like she’d returned from a week in the Mediterranean. Mia’s skin looked nothing like Rachel’s skin, nothing like the skin she was born with.

  Mia’s make-up bag sat neatly on her dressing table. Rachel unzipped it and spread the contents over the wooden surface. The foundation smeared easily over her cheeks, warm and oily from the sun. She patted it in with the pads of her fingers until it was even. When she sat back, her skin was suddenly uniform, tanned without texture, a blank space to be filled. Rachel’s usual style was heavy on black liner, lips that looked bitten, cheeks pinched. Mia’s generation required so much more. Everything hung from the eyebrows now, and Rachel’s were still the wry arches of the nineties, so she seized Mia’s powdery pencil and filled the gaps, thickened the lines, stroke by stroke, into a heavy scowl, as if she was furious with the whole world. Once the brows were brooding, her lips looked wan, so she pasted on red straight from the stick. A glossy, cartoon mouth that could only say provocations, only shouts or whispers. The gap between her eyes and lips now seemed empty. There was a flat-headed brush, and a palette of eight varying skin tones. The darker ones scooped the flesh out; the lighter ones added shimmer to the bones. Rachel brushed new hollows into her cheeks, carved a new structure. With powder and paint and a dusting of mica, she turned her face into a version of her daughter’s. Only her hair was wrong. Rachel unhooked it from the rough bun she’d worn all day and shook out the kinks. Mia’s straightening brush heated up almost instantly, and a few minutes of deliberate strokes turned Rachel’s hair glossy and obedient. The effect was complete.

  Rachel turned to the full-length mirror. She looked younger, but not her own younger self. Her hair was silky, her face so painted it had become static. Only profound movements registered; the tiny flickers of brows or lips were smothered; the creases around her forehead and the puckers beneath her eyes had vanished. The lilac dress draped over her forty-year-old body, hiding the parts that had aged, had lowered, had widened. It scooped right down her back, but the structure of the front kept her breasts high, her waist tight. Staring at herself, Rachel wondered if this was how they looked, if this was how they felt. It seemed impossible that a swathe of material and a palette of shimmer could rub out twenty-five years, erase two scores of summers. Yet she could now walk into the Year 10 and 11 Prom and mix with those teenagers undetected. She turned to face her reflection at the angle she’d seen them all create, twisted so their chest and bottom stuck out and their middle whittled to nothing. She pouted her lips the way she’d seen them do so many times and, as her skin pulled taut and her cheekbones sharpened, she understood why. She slit her eyes until they were nearly closed, and tilted her chin forwards, lips puckered, until she was Marilyn Monroe, until she was Miley Cyrus, until she was Lily Dixon.

  It took an audible gasp for Rachel to realise that Mia was standing in the doorway.

  Every sigh of that old building would terrify them. Every creak on their stairs would convince them that it was all over. He’d have stopped leaving the flat, and the shutters would now be closed tight. He might have glimpsed news reports, or just known that with every passing day their fate was growing imminent.

  When the moment came, it wouldn’t be quiet. There would be no dignity. It wouldn’t be a knock on the door, then a respectful exchange. Black-clad police would burst in, destroying their door, those white shutters, sending their things flying, muddying the bed they’d spent their nights in, dragging them apart. The world they had created would be shattered. They would slam Mark against the wall, roughly binding his wrists with metal. He wouldn’t be able to reach out to her, wouldn’t be able to touch her one last time.

  She’d scream his name into the night, into the foreign streets, not caring who she woke. I love you, Mark. I’ll always love you. She’d need him to hear her. She’d scream herself hoarse with declarations, physically restrained by more than one officer, so she couldn’t get to him, couldn’t attach herself to him and refuse to let go, couldn’t grab a shard of the smashed mirror and threaten to slice her own throat unless they released him.

  Their last moments together would be hideous: heads twisting painfully to glimpse the face of the other before they were wrenched apart, before they were taken away from their sanctuary to endless grey rooms and questions and wretched people who had no idea what it had been like.

  In those moments, Lily would feel the brute strength of men’s arms on her body. She’d scream with outrage, telling them to get their hands off her, off her now.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Mia shook her head. ‘Oh my God, what have you done?’ Her hands were over her mouth, but her words were still clear. ‘What have you done? You’re such a freak.’

  Rachel flashed cold.

  ‘I just . . .’ There was no way to explain it.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? Why are you like this? You’re absolutely twisted.’ Her voice wasn’t raised, but slow and calm, like she was stating nothing but fact. She was looking at her mother with naked disgust. Her tone held the violence that can only arise between people so close. It was brutal. If Rachel moved her head, she’d see her reflection again. She’d see herself in that floaty dress; she’d see the make-up she’d layered on. ‘I can’t believe you took my dress.’ Still calm, still quiet. ‘I can’t believe you’ve done this.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I really am. I just . . .’

  ‘You banned me from the Prom and then you took my dress – you put it on and posed in it. What’s wrong with you? You didn’t even ask. You hardly speak to me any more. You’ve barely even seen me since Lily went.’

  There was no way for Rachel to tell her how false that statement was.

  ‘Dad’s been there for me more than you have. And he lives in America. He’s tried to understand at least. He calls me all the time.’

  Rachel felt the words as solid blows. ‘Mia, I’ve tried too. I’ve tried so hard to be there for you. You just dash away every time. You don’t give me a chance. This dress is the closest I’ve been to you in months.’

  ‘If you knew how stupid you sounded. Honestly, you’re ridiculous. You don’t even want me around. You wish I was still a little kid; you wish I still did whatever you want. You hardly talk to me. You hardly even think about me.’

  ‘All I do is think about you, Mia.’

  ‘Mother, that is, quite frankly, total bullshit. All you think about is him. It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic. You’re just as pathetic as Lily, as that fucking drama queen. I honestly hope she never comes back.’

  Her voice was slow now, little more than a whisper, talking to herself as much as anyone else. ‘I can’t bear it.’ She shook her head again, slowly, disbelief rather than disagreement. ‘You’re just as obsessed with him as she is. The pair of you just let him do whatever he wants, no matter how idiotic you become. All because of Mr Webb. Mr Webb? Really? It’s repulsive. I can’t stand to look at you.’

  Rachel was stuck on a single beat of the conversation. It was all she could hear. Mia knew. Mia knew about her and Mark.

  ‘How do you know?’ It was all she could think, all she could say. ‘How do you know? How do you know about us?’

  Mia’s eyes lit with a terrible smile. ‘I can read your phone too, mother, just like you can read mine.’ She nodded. ‘It took me a while to get the passcode. But then you just said it out loud. 1994. You told Aaron. “A hell of a year.”’ Her eyes were still abnormally bright. ‘I’ve read every messa
ge you haven’t sent to him. The ones in your outbox. He doesn’t message you much, does he? I saw your tickets to Rouen. Your little weekend away.’

  Rachel’s blood stalled in her veins. Mia just stared, unblinking, her thoughts visibly processing.

  ‘And you knew, didn’t you? You knew about them. You must have – you were obsessed with him – you must have known. You knew, and you did nothing.’

  Rachel couldn’t reply.

  ‘I’m not blind, Mother. I’m not stupid. I can see what’s in front of me.’ Rachel watched her daughter’s face tighten as she added up the words she’d just spoken. ‘I’m not like you.’

  8

  For the hours after Mia left – after she turned around and walked back down the stairs, out of the door, away from the house – Rachel didn’t move. She sat on the carpet, slumped against the bed, staring at the wall. There was nothing to do. There was no way of making it better. Her ears buzzed, as if her brain was providing itself with white noise. Mia had known. No matter how careful Rachel had believed she was being, Mia knew. Mia had carried that knowledge with her for days. It would have tainted every word her mother said. It would have sullied everything. She’d sat there, never voicing it, getting on with whatever else her day had thrown, but knowing what her mother was. Knowing what she’d done, and what she hadn’t done. It took hours before Rachel had the strength to remove the lilac dress.

  The following days blurred. Tuesday swiftly became Wednesday. Rachel phoned work each morning to say she was ill. Inflamed throat. Some sort of summer flu. She sat instead in darkened rooms, only flicking on the television when she couldn’t bear the silence any more. In the silence she thought of Mia. There was no way to reach her, and no way to know what she was doing. No way to see how she was wielding the knowledge she held.

  It was Thursday afternoon when Rachel clicked the remote control and it flashed automatically to BBC One, the six o’clock news in full flow. Rachel had no idea how it had become so late. The room was suddenly alive with brightness, with sound. The images themselves took a few seconds to penetrate, but when they did, Rachel sat upright.

  Lily, walking up the steps of an aeroplane, the arms of a woman in uniform around her, shielding her from the cameras. She had a hoodie on, was looking down at her feet on the metal steps. Lily looked unbearably young. Not a femme fatale, not a wild delinquent, just a pale fifteen-year-old who wanted her mum. She glanced up for a moment and it was possible to see the tearstains on her face, the shock in her eyes. The footage of Mark was no more than a flash, a split second of a face in the back of a police car. In the grainy image, he looked pale.

  The report was interspersed with footage of where they had stayed. A budget hotel. The type with packaged biscuits and sachets of hair conditioner. Rachel had been right about France, but not about the town. They hadn’t gone to Rouen. They’d driven to Lille. They hadn’t been near that ramshackle apartment. They’d been far from the cobbles she and Mark had walked on together. He hadn’t retrodden their journeys, relived their days together. He might not even have thought of them. He hadn’t ordered the meals they’d enjoyed, savouring the memories as well as the flavours. He hadn’t lain in that bed, recalling how she’d sprawled on it, how they’d lingered there all day.

  Rachel paused the television mid-flow, stopping time. She rewound until Lily’s face filled the screen. It wasn’t Lily’s grinning school photo, not one of her Instagram selfies, not the painstakingly created poster, but her caught off-guard. This was Lily as she was with her friends, as she was alone. Her hair was still blonde. She hadn’t holed up in a motorway service station toilet for thirty minutes, waiting for the dye to take. It was still golden.

  The anger hit Rachel like a noise, like a roar coming from within. It was as if it had been waiting there, poised, ready to deafen her when the moment was right. Rage coursed through her, tingling her legs, her fingers, her scalp with its furious tinnitus.

  She got to her feet and stumbled out of the room. Her bag was on the carpet, where she’d dropped it days ago. She knew exactly where to look; there was no rummaging. That picture of Debbie Harry. She unfolded it, smoothed out its lines. The blonde woman reached out to her, fingers stretched, pleading, goading. He had snipped this image from a magazine, a back issue of Mojo, and with every slice of the scissors, he’d thought of Rachel’s face. She’d carried the picture next to her body for nearly five months. It didn’t rip easily; the paper was too worn, too soft to tear with any traction. She had to pull it apart, tugging scraps away from the bulk. It was pointless, but it was the only violence she could enact upon him. With every tug, a part of the pictured body broke away; the feet in her T-bar shoes, her naked legs, the waist beneath her studded belt. Each of them falling like confetti to the floor. The breasts tight underneath her T-shirt. The head of messy blonde hair so similar to her own. Soon, it was all gone. The picture had been her treasure. The only thing he’d ever given her, crumbled now to nothing.

  The lilac dress was back on its hanger, suspended from the wardrobe in Mia’s room. It had come away miraculously unscathed. It had no idea of the emotions it had triggered. There was no visible sign of the humiliated body that had been encased so tightly within it. It was blank and pure, and would never get to experience the event it was created for. It wouldn’t get to cover the body it had first known, that it had been altered to fit, the body that had loved it so fully she’d wanted to wear it home, who’d hung it outside her wardrobe for a week, just to admire it.

  Mia was staying with Keira. Marianne had called every morning, liaising between them. The humiliation crushed Rachel. Marianne knew how far Mia was from her. Mia had made no contact for days. It was Friday now, and so many hours had passed since Rachel had last spoken to her daughter. She had no idea what Mia was thinking, no control over what she did. Mia could have told Keira and Dominic, told Marianne what she’d learned. They could be steeped in the horrifying knowledge of who Rachel was, of what she’d done with him. All of her shameful secrets could be spilled. The impact on her life, on her marriage, could be imminent. Rachel burned at the thought. But Mia would be mortified as well. They shared that trait. It would keep her silent. Surely, it would keep her silent. Rachel needed to talk to Mia. She’d listened as Mia’s phone rings bleated out, but there was never an answer. She’d sent texts, emails, WhatsApp messages, all saying the same thing.

  Keira would be getting ready for the Prom the following morning. It would take them all day. Dominic would be picking up a hired tux, invited as Keira’s guest and quietly thrilled to be included. Marianne knew Mia was forbidden to go. Mia would have to watch them all. She’d sit on a wooden kitchen chair, furious, whilst Keira’s hair was primped and shaped, whilst plastic fingernails were glued to her hands, extra lashes stuck to her eyes. She would take pictures of them all before they left. The lilac dress rippled in the slight breeze from an open window.

  Tim answered his phone after only three rings, even though it was the middle of his working day. Rachel barely let him greet her.

  ‘We have to let her go to the Prom.’

  ‘Rachel, what on earth do you mean. What is this?’

  His voice held the tension of someone being overheard. He’d be hunched at his desk, or facing the wall of a corridor, trying to keep his tone low and impenetrable. He and Mia spoke regularly. She’d said it. One call, one tumble of words is all it would take, one moment when Mia believed it was the right thing to do. Her daughter held the power to shatter her marriage. Every time they spoke, Rachel braced herself for his tone to turn icy.

  ‘Rachel?’

  He never used her full name.

  ‘Have you spoken to her today? Is she okay?’

  Rachel heard him inhale, exhale, swallow. She closed her eyes, and counted the beats before his response. The lag between their phones created so many seconds of silence. ‘No, she’s not.’

  Rachel’s stomach tightened
further. ‘No?’

  Every muscle in Rachel’s body was clamped firm. She was poised for her world to shift on its axis. She had no idea what would come after those words.

  ‘Sweetie, you know she’s not.’

  Mia hadn’t told him. The term of affection sealed it. He remained unaware. She was safe.

  ‘No?’ Rachel’s ears were buzzing. Nothing could relax.

  ‘She’s pissed off with you, she thinks you were too harsh about the party. I’ve explained it to her, you know that, but she wants to stay at Keira’s for a bit longer. I think we should let her take whatever time she needs. She’ll come round.’

  ‘We have to let her go to the Prom.’

  ‘Rach, you can’t mean that. You made it very clear she shouldn’t be allowed to go, so of course I’ve stuck to it. United front and all that.’

  ‘She should. She should go.’

  ‘But she’s being punished. I’ve been really harsh, really hard-line with her. It’s been horrible.’

  ‘I was wrong.’

  ‘So, wait, let me be totally clear: you want to go back on it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why, Rach? What’s she said? What’s possibly changed? If we go back on it, we’ll lose all credibility, all sense of—’

  ‘Tim, I know. I know. I know what I said. But I was wrong. You’re not listening to me. She has to go.’

  He seemed to clock that the urgency in her voice wasn’t dissipating. ‘Okay, if you’re totally sure.’