The Shape of Us: A hilarious and emotional page turner about love, life and laughter

by Drew Davies

  ‘Not exactly…’

  ‘Where’s it gone then?’

  Dylan pokes at his plate.

  ‘I wasn’t using it much anymore,’ he says, with a shrug, ‘so I sold it on eBay.’

  Dad drops his fork with a clatter.

  ‘You begged me to buy that – it was all you could talk about for months.’

  ‘I didn’t like it that much.’

  ‘You cried when you opened it. I videoed it on my phone.’

  ‘That was years ago – I was a kid. You promised you’d delete that too!’

  ‘Dylan – serious talk now – you should have asked me first.’

  ‘I’m starting school in a couple of weeks,’ Dylan says with a stoic expression. ‘I thought it would help me focus.’

  ‘That’s very admirable… What about all your games though? We only got that one recently. Battlefield… Battleground whatsit. You were desperate for that.’

  ‘I sold them too.’

  ‘For how much?’

  ‘With the money from the Pokémon cards – three hundred and fifty pound.’

  ‘What? You sold your cards? Not your rare collectable ones? What about the one you were so happy about, which looked like a fancy fox?’

  ‘Delphox. Sold it. Wasn’t that rare anyway.’

  ‘What about the one I had to drive over to Carshalton to pick up? With the holograms?’

  ‘Sold it too.’

  ‘Not the legendary card, I thought there’s only five of its kind in the world? The one that boy in Japan rang up about in the middle of the night?’

  ‘I want to give up all my kid stuff,’ says Dylan with another shrug.

  Dylan’s dad picks up his cutlery again and turns his remaining cannelloni tube 180 degrees.

  ‘What are you planning to spend the money on?’ he asks quietly, cutting the pasta into pieces.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ replies Dylan, biting his bottom lip.

  ‘Maybe you could put it towards a tutor to help you catch up at school?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe…’

  His father plonks his cutlery down and pushes his plate away.

  ‘You know, when I was in the army I played a lot of poker, and you learned a lot about someone over a pack of cards. Most people have a “tell” when they’re not being exactly forthcoming with the truth. They touch their nose or scratch their ear. Your tell is you bite your bottom lip.’

  Dylan, currently chewing his lower lip, stops immediately.

  His father crosses his arms. ‘Normally, this is where I should give you a lecture about not buying something you’ll regret – like that ninja sword I saw you looking at on the computer last week,’ Dylan, who is about to argue, has a sip of his Vimto instead, ‘but I won’t. I just want to remind you to take things slowly. If you had a relapse now, where would we be? Your health is worth more than all the money in the world, remember that. When I think about you getting sick again – lying there, unable to move…’ his voice starts to tremble.

  ‘I won’t, Dad. I’m taking good care of myself.’

  His father balls up the sheet of kitchen towel and throws it on his plate.

  ‘Good,’ he says, ‘so whatever you’re planning, whatever scheme you’ve cooked up, I trust you, Dylan Moon. I trust you. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I. Trust. You.’

  ‘Stop looking at me like that, it’s creepy.’

  ‘Trust, Dylan.’

  ‘Okay, I get it, I get it,’ Dylan says, realising he’s chewing his lip again, and taking another big gulp of his glass of Vimto to hopefully disguise the fact.

  JoJo is no prude. She had several lovers before Frank and although she never bought into the hippie trippy movement, she smoked enough weed in the seventies to disqualify her from ever joining the Mary Whitehouse Brigade – but standing at the threshold of Ann Summers, she feels daunted. The shop layout seems to follow the same structure as the Mothercare: tiny pieces of frilly fabric on the ground level (in satiny blacks this time, like a photo negative of the baby clothes) and contraptions in the basement, so she scuttles down the stairs into the ‘Pleasure Emporium’, glad to find it’s empty of customers and only a female assistant in the far corner, unpacking boxes.

  JoJo doesn’t know where to start. At first viewing, they’re more abstract than she was expecting: more like Alessi kitchen utensils than anything sordid. Someone’s had fun naming them: one is called ‘Average Joe’, while another, a slanting purple device, is called the ‘Learning Curve’. Others are modelled on Alice in Wonderland characters: the Pleasurepillar, the Kinkykat and the White Rabbit. It’s an education.

  The pornography is relegated to a small, slightly apologetic-looking display of DVDs. JoJo picks one up. It’s called Honolulu Honeys, the women naked except for skimpy grass skirts. They remind her of the joke hula girls she and Frank buy on their anniversary and other important milestones, the only gifts they allow each other. As their honeymoon had been so grim (a stuffy weekend in nearby Brighton – all they could afford at the time), they’d celebrated their tenth anniversary in Hawaii, and the hula girls had become a running joke – the figurines were sold everywhere and were so dreadfully tacky. In a moment of weakness at the airport, JoJo had bought a few as mementos and when they’d returned to London, Frank would sometimes hide the hula girls around the house for JoJo to find unexpectedly: sitting, waiting to ambush her in the water closet or wrapped in her knickers. In revenge, JoJo had bought him a new hula girl as his next anniversary present – wrapped in an oversized box – and it had become an annual tradition, points scored for tastelessness.

  She thinks of Frank now, sitting in his office at Mercer and Daggen (or Purses and Daggers, as he always called it). There was a time she might call by his office for lunch, but not now. They can’t be seen together for fear of Belinda finding out. The girl still didn’t know the full extent of hers and Frank’s reconciliation, and it was best to keep it that way. She and Belinda had obviously decided to keep Frank in the dark about their meeting. He would only overreact, and that was useful to neither woman. Outwardly, they would be civil and take things one step at a time, while inwardly, they were both plotting their counter-attack. Or JoJo was at least…

  ‘Can I help you?’

  JoJo nearly jumps out of her skin – the poor assistant, a curly haired Asian girl, is equally traumatised.

  ‘You’ll give me a myocardial!’

  ‘I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to…’

  JoJo realises she’s still holding Honolulu Honeys so plonks it back on its shelf guiltily.

  ‘Are you looking for anything in particular?’ asks the assistant, now recovered.

  JoJo considers how to reply. ‘Just browsing’ might make her sound like a pervert.

  ‘Is there anything here for the more (she hates the expression, but uses it anyway) mature woman? Something that’s not too… frenetic?’

  The assistant – she has no name badge – walks over to one of the stands, picking up what appears to be a large nutcracker.

  ‘The Viber is very popular.’

  She switches it on and the thing starts to buck and writhe.

  ‘It doesn’t seem very happy,’ JoJo says, taking it from her.

  ‘It’s for maximum clitoral stimulation.’

  ‘Very good then.’

  JoJo stares at the Viber, its undulations hypnotic.

  ‘Is this more of a solitary thing?’

  The assistant shakes her head.

  ‘You can use it with a partner too.’

  ‘And how would that work?’

  The assistant goes into quite graphic and considerable detail about how that would work: the many permutations, while suggesting other products to support the first: lubricants, items to tickle, to probe, for her – and so it seems – for him.

  ‘I don’t think this one’s for me,’ says JoJo, handing it back.

  ‘How about the SheLuxx?’

  ‘No,’ JoJo says, ‘to
o shiny – it looks like something a gynaecologist might use.’

  The assistant suggests more mechanisms, but they’re either too loud, too long or too strange. JoJo, it seems, is the Goldilocks of fake cocks.

  ‘But what’s your favourite?’ she asks finally.

  The assistant smiles. She walks to the far stand and picks up what looks like a garlic press.

  ‘My girlfriend and I love this one.’

  JoJo takes the mechanism, and turns it around in her hand. It’s smooth and fits into her palm and has two – handles maybe? levers? – at the top. It starts to vibrate gently.

  ‘How is it…?’ asks JoJo, startled – but now she can see, the assistant is holding a wireless control.

  ‘You can choose any speed and setting – or your partner can too.’

  The device purrs in JoJo’s hand, the levers pulsate.

  ‘What’s your girlfriend’s name?’

  ‘Talia.’

  ‘Talia… That’s a lovely name.’

  The assistant turns the dial on the controller, and the device is nibbling JoJo’s palm now. It reminds her of the baby animals she used to hold as a child: the chicks, the puppies, naked and translucent. Their bulbous eyes and tiny claws. How they would nestle into the warmth of her grasp.

  ‘This one,’ she says, cupping it with her other hand, as if it might escape.

  The assistant smiles.

  Ten

  (To be read as a prayer):

  O gentle presence, bless your lovers today // Feeble or strong, short or tall, seen or unseen. // May their toast land butter side up. // May their requests be accepted and their photos liked. // Give them 30p for the toilets, or help them change a fiver without too much hassle. // By your blessing, grant them a dry yoga mat, a last-minute cancellation, an umbrella in the rain. // Let them avoid all those with BO // Yea, the men and the women (and the unwashed youths). // Protect them from charity muggers, from rogue pigeons, from paper cuts. // Approve them for a Master’s degree in endocrinology, and let them continue to live in a city with no wars, no plagues or natural hazards. //

  [Together:] May we be early. May we be on time. May we not be late. //

  Greatest of all, O blessed presence // bestow on them that rarest of gifts; //

  Grant them a second chance.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘You look beautiful.’

  ‘Thank you. I like your suit, your hair’s shorter.’

  ‘What would you like to drink?’

  ‘I don’t mind, whatever you’re having.’

  ‘Champagne?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  * * *

  ‘Here you go.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘So, how are you?’

  ‘I’m okay, I’m good.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

  ‘Me too. I want to apologise, properly.’

  ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘But I want to explain…’

  ‘It’s in the past.’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I had a whole speech prepared in my head.’

  ‘If it helps, just picture me naked…’

  ‘…I’m sorry, I really am. I don’t want to be that crazy emotional girl. I hate being that person. It’s like – you know when you’re a kid and you realise Santa Claus isn’t real?’

  ‘Santa Claus isn’t real?!’

  ‘You’re joking, but I was fourteen when I found out the Easter bunny didn’t exist.’

  ‘Hang on, are we talking about Santa Claus or the Easter bunny here?’

  ‘The Easter bunny. Big rabbit?’

  ‘Do the face again. That’s priceless.’

  ‘What? It’s my impression of a rabbit eating a carrot.’

  ‘Ah, so that’s what it’s doing…’

  ‘Anyway, I was fourteen, and I already knew Father Christmas and the tooth fairy weren’t real. I mean – come on – Santa Claus has flying reindeer and the tooth fairy is, well, a fairy. But there are actual bunnies in the world. I just imagined one with a big bow around its neck and a basket full of eggs. In my mind, it was as real as baby Jesus or the Queen.’

  ‘Some might question the realness of baby Jesus too, but I can see your logic.’

  ‘So, I was at school and I asked my friend Emma how many chocolate eggs the Easter bunny had brought her, and she looked at me funny and said: “You know it’s not real, don’t you?” And I was floored, completely devastated. I knew the moment she looked at me there was no Easter bunny, but it was as if the last piece of my childhood had been ripped apart.’

  ‘What did you say to Emma?’

  ‘Nothing, I didn’t speak to her for a week.’

  ‘Children can be cruel.’

  ‘But don’t you see, that’s exactly what happened in the car. I’m told something which changes the image in my head, and I fall to pieces.’

  ‘So, I’m the Easter bunny?’

  ‘In a way, yes.’

  ‘Except I have opposable thumbs – much more efficient.’

  ‘Aren’t you angry with me?’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘So, you were angry?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I wouldn’t blame you.’

  ‘I have one question for you though.’

  ‘Okay, sure.’

  ‘You do know money doesn’t make someone a different person despite popular opinion?’

  ‘I know. I’m such an idiot. I think I’m still working through stuff from my childhood – some horrible stuck-up girls at school that made fun of my poxy tights. In the car, I was triggered, and I projected and reacted – all the things you’re not supposed to do when someone lovely is trying to whisk you away on a romantic weekend. I’m so sorry. Can we forget it ever happened?’

  ‘I think that’s the worst thing we can do. Let’s get everything out in the open instead. Come on, ask me something.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About my inheritance.’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s none of my business.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong – if I’m your business, it’s your business too.’

  ‘It’s too personal.’

  ‘Money isn’t personal, it’s the opposite of personal. You here, sitting with me now – this is personal. Money is money. Go on, ask.’

  ‘My mind’s blank.’

  ‘Don’t you want to know how much it is?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I get an allowance of £3,500 a month. Slightly more or less depending on inflation. You see, it’s not a fortune. I’m luckier than most, I own my flat outright, but I live pretty frugally. Or more frugally than many people in my situation.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because I don’t want it hanging over us. I know I can trust you. And it’s only money. Ask me something else.’

  ‘I don’t know – what’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?’

  ‘A Maserati Spyder on my twenty-first birthday.’

  ‘I thought you said you lived frugally?’

  ‘That was frugal. I could have bought two.’

  ‘But you don’t have the car anymore?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Twenty-one-year-olds shouldn’t be allowed to drive anything with a top speed of 177 miles per hour. Give me your hand.’

  ‘Are you sure? You usually don’t like me touching that shoulder.’

  ‘It’s okay this time. Can you feel the metal plate here?’

  ‘I can – you’re a cyborg. Were you in an accident?’

  ‘I was – a bad one. A very bad one. I don’t want to get too heavy, because tonight is a celebration after all, but I wanted to show you exactly what I carry round with me every day. Just here. Just under my skin… Do you want your hand back, by the way?’

  ‘No, you can keep it, if you
like… I do have a question though, but it’s not about money. How did you know which studio I was shooting at, to send the card to?’

  ‘That was easy. You mentioned working with a Samira, so I did some snooping and I found her on Twitter. She has, how can I put this kindly, the online equivalent of verbal diarrhoea – I’ve never seen someone tweet so much in my life! Samira not only named the studio you were at, but posted a lovely picture of you too – nice fanny pack and overalls, by the way.’

  ‘What was I doing in the photo?’

  ‘You seemed to be attacking a tree. I’d always picked you as a friend of Nature, but this one must have really ticked you off.’

  ‘Oh my God, I’m going to kill—’

  ‘Daisy?’

  Hearing her name, Daisy swivels around on her stool, and sees – it can’t be, but yes, balls and bollocks! – walking towards them is her ex-shag, ex-boyfriend, whatever you want to call him – Warren.

  Voicemail received from Patrick at 7.44 p.m.:

  Hey, mate, how’s it going? Big news. One of the partners retired, and there’s been a reshuffle and somehow I’m getting a promotion. It’s more work, and not a whole lot more pay, but it means I’ll be sticking round this side of the equator for a few more years! Are you around Friday for a celebratory drink? Bring your workmates, we can have a good old-fashioned piss-up – mad men vs. wanker bankers, last man standing. Also, Mrs J called. We had a long chat – she’s worried she hasn’t spoken to you in a while so I told her you were curing world peace or making cancer or something, but give your poor mum a call. Oh, and the landlord wants to send a guy over to fix the boiler – could you organise it with him? Thanks, mate. Longest phone message in the world, eh? Laterz.

  ‘Warren!’

  ‘I thought it was you. Not interrupting, am I?’

  ‘Of course not!’ says Daisy, her voice squeaky with panic. ‘Chris, this is Warren. Warren, Chris.’

  The men shake hands in the gruff, rigid way men have – and something in Warren’s manner – the way he’s sizing up Chris and glancing furtively at her – makes Daisy wonder whether perhaps he had liked her even more than she’d guessed.