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

by Drew Davies

  ‘I can’t believe a room full of spotty boys would have made you leave,’ Belinda says. ‘You’d have eaten them for breakfast. And twenty-nine isn’t that old.’

  ‘It was a lot of things.’

  ‘Was it Frank?’

  ‘Frank? No, he couldn’t wait to have a doctor for a wife.’ JoJo takes a deep breath, releasing it in one long huff. ‘When I started at Imperial, there wasn’t even a women’s toilet in the building – I had to cross over to the secretary’s office and use theirs. It was a different time. We were told no self-respecting man was going to let a woman near him with a stethoscope – let alone a scalpel – and my classmates never let me forget it. I opened my bag once and found a severed penis inside. One of them must have visited the morgue. They thought it was hilarious.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have told the professors?’

  ‘They were even worse. There was one – Patterson, his name was: horrible man, breath like turpentine – had a “reputation with the nurses”. That’s what they called it back in those days. He tried it on with me in his office, and I knocked back his advances – using the pointy end of my knee. But I knew if I told Frank, he would overreact. You know what he’s like, all his bluff and blunder. And there was a slight chance he might actually try and kill the man. Patterson wasn’t going to make things easy for me either. So, I left.’

  Belinda is quiet for a moment. She’s about to say something, when JoJo holds up her hand.

  ‘It’s in the past,’ she says firmly, ‘let’s leave it there.’

  From the other side of the classroom comes the voice of Mary locked in a heated debate with Ponytail woman.

  ‘Someone should go and save her,’ JoJo says, shaking her head.

  Belinda chuckles in response.

  JoJo surveys the couples around the room: ‘You’re much smaller than the other women here,’ she notes, thoughtfully.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get bigger.’ Belinda props herself up on one elbow. ‘My doctor suggested I come to classes earlier as a precaution.’ JoJo gives her a quizzical look and Belinda shakes her head. ‘There’s a slightly greater risk I might have complications. Everything’s fine,’ she adds quickly. ‘The doctors are being overcautious. It’s standard practice when…’ She stops short. ‘When you’re having twins.’

  JoJo lets out another long breath.

  ‘I wanted to find the right time to tell you,’ Belinda says, her eyes like saucers. ‘You should have seen Frank at the ultrasound – slapping the doctor on the back, offering everyone cigars… Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ JoJo says, getting jerkily to her feet. ‘It’s hot in here – I need some air.’

  ‘Do you want me to…?’

  ‘You’ve done enough,’ hisses JoJo, as she bolts for the classroom door.

  With lunch over, Jack enlists his son to help him in the shed, leaving the ‘girls’ to tidy up. Ignoring this slight, Daisy stacks the dirty dishes with Evelyn, and follows her through a narrow hallway. They arrive in a large eighties-style kitchen, considerably less impressive than the dining room.

  ‘Shall I stack the dishwasher?’ Daisy asks, after they’ve made a few trips.

  ‘I’d rather not,’ replies Evelyn. ‘We’ll do them ourselves.’

  She runs a hot sink and, without donning gloves, starts to wash up, checking each dish carefully and passing it to Daisy to dry. They work together in silence, staring out onto the wet gardens. The rain has stopped and a wind has come up, sending the dark clouds racing overhead.

  ‘Christopher tells me you work in fashion,’ Evelyn says, passing Daisy a large soapy plate.

  ‘I make props and things for photo shoots,’ she replies, wiping the bubbles with her tea towel. ‘It’s not very glamorous. People always assume it must be glamorous if you work in fashion.’

  ‘I imagine it’s a business, like anything else.’

  ‘Exactly. Everyone’s very tight with money – no one gets to take home designer dresses anymore. I even had my bag searched once. Not just my bag, by the way – everyone’s was searched. The designer was paranoid and it was all a misunderstanding. Anyway, they didn’t find anything.’

  You’re rambling, Daisy, she thinks to herself.

  ‘And where do you see yourself in, say, five years?’ Evelyn asks, rinsing a wine glass and placing it on the drying rack.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe working in New York? I’m not conventionally very ambitious – I sort of fell into this job. I helped out a friend one day, and it all went from there. I actually studied biology at Warwick.’

  ‘Really? Now that is interesting.’

  ‘I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I get seasick even looking at a picture of a boat.’

  ‘Don’t you want to do something with your degree?’

  ‘Not right now – it’s something I can always fall back on.’

  ‘You’re really very interesting, Daisy. You have a proper grasp on life. And so young.’

  Daisy feels herself start to blush. She picks up a handful of washed cutlery without realising how hot they are from the sink, and almost drops them.

  ‘Christopher was never ambitious,’ Evelyn says, scrubbing one of the serving bowls. ‘He was always distracted so easily. Music lessons, rugby, football, choir – he tried everything, but nothing would stick.’

  ‘That’s one of the reasons I like Chris. His energy is very…’ Daisy searches for the right word: ‘encompassing.’

  ‘It makes me sad to think of him wasting his skills. He has talent – he could become something, take part in the world for once. But Christopher’s like his father – they’re both big kids. They’ll be in the greenhouse now, getting stoned together.’

  Getting what? thinks Daisy, startled.

  ‘Marijuana,’ Evelyn says, reading her expression. ‘Jack grows it for me. I have a bad hip and I’m too young for a replacement, so I have to wait for my operation until I can literally no longer walk. Unfortunately, the pain gets the better of me, so Jack started growing a few plants. He bought the seeds off one of the local boys in the village.’

  Daisy doesn’t know how to respond. ‘I’m sorry about your hip,’ she says finally.

  ‘Thank you. It’s hereditary. My mother would have had the same issue if she’d lived long enough. Chris will have it too, regrettably. Which is why I don’t use the dishwasher any more. I can’t bend down, you see?’

  Daisy shakes her head, annoyed with herself: ‘I should’ve come earlier and helped you make lunch.’

  ‘What?’ Evelyn says with a laugh. ‘I didn’t cook lunch, Daisy – I had it delivered. I’ve never enjoyed cooking – don’t have the knack for it. The boys tease me about it mercilessly.’

  They fall into a slightly awkward silence again.

  ‘Christopher was always a lovely child,’ Evelyn says at last, finishing the final serving bowl and pulling the plug, ‘but he went astray when he was younger. I don’t know how much he’s told you, but he made some bad choices. We all do as teenagers, that goes without saying – but in his case, they had consequences.’

  Daisy can’t imagine her loveable goof with a dark past, but she remembers the metal plate in his shoulder, the haunted look in his eyes as she touched it, and the new image of Chris that forms in her mind scares her.

  ‘Meeting you is a step in the right direction, Daisy. I can see how much he cares for you. He’s hard on himself. And as a result, he can be very hard on us too. But Christopher is still missing something, and I’m afraid when the time comes…’ Evelyn smiles again, a sad faraway smile. Odette, thinks Daisy, cursed to become a swan each day, returning to human form at dusk.

  Outside, the clouds part for a brief second, exposing a pale beam of light before vanishing again for good.

  JoJo throws open the front doors of the building with such force, they crash against the sides of the alcove, startling a group of pigeons. Her impulse is to flee, but she has to pause at the gate to get her bearings. Belinda had ended up driving
them here and JoJo realises she hasn’t paid enough attention to their route in the car. They’re in north London, near Hampstead, but that could be anywhere. Chalk Farm? Golders Green? The road is mostly residential and none of the shops – a small French restaurant, a pizzeria and a dry cleaners – appear open. No bus stop either. If she starts walking in any old direction, there’s no telling where she’ll end up. She ferrets in her handbag, but her battered mini A–Z is missing. She could call a cab, but how long will that take? JoJo wants away this very second.

  Twins! The word comes back to her like whiplash. Two little Franks running around. Twice the ignominy. And what is JoJo doing? Practising breathing exercises with the woman. I’m an idiot, she fumes – no, worse than that: an idiot who thinks she’s being shrewd.

  Crossing the road, she peers through the window of the dry cleaners. A note is stuck on the door: ‘Back in ten minutes’, so JoJo heads back over the road and takes out her phone.

  ‘JoJo!’ She glances up to see Belinda at the main doors. ‘Do you want me to drive you home?’

  ‘I’m fine. Go back inside.’

  Belinda seems stricken, and for an instant JoJo regrets running out of the class. Pregnant women seem to elicit an involuntary sympathetic response, and JoJo doesn’t like it.

  ‘I want to thank you for coming today. If there’s something I can do…’

  ‘You don’t owe me anything,’ JoJo says, with a wave of her hand.

  ‘Yes, but if I can…’

  Something distracts Belinda, and JoJo turns to see a man walking towards them along the footpath, holding a camera with a long lens attached. In one swift movement, he lifts the camera to his eye and takes a succession of pictures with a whirring click-click-click.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ asks JoJo, flabbergasted. ‘Is he taking photos of the building?’

  ‘He’s a snapper for The Sun,’ Belinda replies, stony-faced.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A pap.’ Nothing Belinda is saying has computed yet. ‘It’s this silly thing with Teddy, the Duke – that’s in all the papers, and now I have one of these morons tailing me every time I leave the house. Hey, mate!’ she yells at the man, ‘why don’t you do us both a favour and get a proper job?’

  ‘In journalism? No such thing!’ he calls back. ‘Why don’t you do me a favour and give us a smile, dahling?’ Belinda gives him the finger and he snaps away happily. ‘That’s it, dahling.’

  ‘Don’t encourage him,’ JoJo says, covering her hand. ‘Where did you say he’s going to publish these photos? In The Sun?’

  ‘I doubt they’ll actually print any.’

  ‘But Frank could see them!’

  ‘He won’t,’ Belinda says, but a seed of doubt creeps into her face.

  JoJo starts to walk towards the man, prompting him to back off down the pavement.

  ‘Can I have a word with you?’ she calls to him.

  ‘You can try, dahling.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘What’s yours?’ he parrots back. The paparazzo is wearing a turquoise puffer jacket, black jeans and scuffed trainers, and he has dark rings under his eyes – he obviously hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in days.

  ‘Leave him,’ Belinda calls from behind JoJo. ‘He’s a bottom feeder. Not worth the hassle.’

  ‘Cheers, love,’ he responds.

  ‘Listen here,’ JoJo says angrily, ‘you can’t sell those pictures.’

  ‘Just watch me.’

  ‘Fine,’ she says, stopping. ‘I’ll pay you a thousand pounds if you give me every roll of film. Right now.’

  ‘Sorry, love. It’s digital, innit.’

  ‘A thousand pounds for the memory stick. Belinda says it’s an open secret in your industry that this Duke is a homosexual.’

  ‘Possibly…’

  ‘She obviously can’t have anything to do with him then.’

  ‘What makes you so concerned? A grand’s a lot of money…?’

  JoJo preloads the next sentence in her mind, and winces at it.

  ‘I’m her mother,’ she says. ‘It’s my job to protect her. I’m sure even people in your line of work have mothers.’

  The smarmy expression fades from the man’s face.

  ‘She’s not well,’ he says, and pauses. ‘I don’t take cheques.’

  ‘You’ll have to drive me to an ATM in that case.’

  JoJo calls back to a puzzled Belinda: ‘It’s alright, he’s going to give me a lift. I’ll see you later!’

  Thirteen

  Welcome, at last, to the festive season, the golden quarter… when all good lovers fill their sacks to overflowing and London is bountiful, and bursting at the seams. Forget your woes and worries until the cold dark void of January – cast aside your thoughts of hangovers, high cholesterol and empty bank accounts – for now we shall drink! And be merry! But, most importantly, eat!

  Chicken crouton lollipops and chocolate cherry cups. Sticky prawn twisters, mini kebab skewers and pulled pork stacks. Scorching mince pies, branding their mark on the roof of your mouth. Limited-edition sandwiches bursting with spurious festive fillings: tofu-turkey feast, artisanal polenta stuffing, some misguided brie. Oh, the cheese! Wagon wheels – no, tractor wheels – no, Ferris wheels of the stuff: Barkham Blue, Rothbury Red and a lovely Stinking Bishop. Great barrels of imported nuts – brazils, macadamia, a few gourd-like walnuts – which will sit untouched and unshelled for yet another year; or roasted chestnuts from a grubby cart behind the British Museum, slightly stale and out of season (but good enough to Instagram). Whipped winter squash, purple yam gnocchi and hot ‘reindeer’ pie. Braised turkey ramen, Thai ginger dumplings, Brussels sprouts with soy. Booze-soaked cakes, meats wrapped in meat, chocolate-covered everything! Eat, my friends – eat while you can! Fill your mouths and hearts with only the most tempting of morsels, pour mulled wine onto even the smallest of problems. Eat and eat again. Because, deep down, we all know that once it’s gone, it’s—

  Gone. Adam stares at the empty table, crestfallen. All those vital calories – the refined sugars, the hydrogenated fats – not a single crumb of the Yule log has escaped the cleaners’ purge. Very thorough, thinks Adam bitterly, it’s almost as if they know…

  He hovers near the closest bin, wary of the security cameras, and peers inside. Vigilance is key – he doesn’t want to be discovered elbow-deep in a rubbish bag – but there’s nothing in this one anyway: they’ve already been emptied. Stomach growling, he doubles back on himself and heads for the kitchenette.

  It’s been three weeks since he last stepped foot outside the building – 30,240 hermetically sealed, air-conditioned minutes. Adam knows the precise location of every edible item around the office: the packets of chewing gum, the canisters of mints, the chocolate bars, but there’s not much he can eat safely – a Tic Tac here, a Rolo there – slim pickings. The communal kitchenette is the obvious destination, and boxes of long-forgotten cereal have become Adam’s staple (luckily, fresh milk is plentiful and replaced daily), but the supplies of stale cornflakes and weevil-infested porridge oats are dwindling, forcing him to dip into the fresher, fancier mueslis with their flame raisins and yoghurt-coated almonds, skimming off a tablespoon at a time to avoid detection.

  The refrigerator holds the greatest bounty of food, but it was also where people stored their lunch, and Adam knew from experience – people took notice if their lunch went missing. Some attrition would be blamed on the cleaners, but Adam couldn’t tip the balance – it was all about stealth. His first step was to identify food that had been forgotten or abandoned (rather than simply saved for later). This was crucial. Next, came concealment – he might strategically move some chicken pasta salad behind a tub of margarine, or an apple onto another shelf – burying items in the vegetable drawers, Adam felt, would eventually arouse suspicion. Finally, harnessing every last ounce of resolve, he would wait – if the article of food hadn’t been claimed in two days, it was all his.

  Adam opens the fr
idge now to see what’s ready for harvest. A half-eaten Greggs’ cheese and ham baguette, positioned behind a jar of mayonnaise, has been inching past its use-by-date for days. Shakily, he unwraps the baguette and takes a massive bite: the dough is tough, the cheese hard and the ham flavourless, but to Adam, it tastes Michelin-star good. After wolfing it down and licking his fingers, he pockets a few of the shrivelled grapes from a punnet on the second shelf and scours the fridge for anything else. Scurvy is a growing concern. Fruit is scarce, and vegetables – aside from limp brown lettuce leaves – are rare as hens’ teeth. For the first time in his life, he craves broccoli, and some nights he can’t sleep for visions of sautéed green beans or steamed cauliflower cooked al dente.

  When Adam wasn’t obsessing about his stomach, he fixated on grooming. Keeping clean was a never-ending challenge, especially because he only had the clothes he was standing up in. Using one of the disabled toilets as a makeshift laundry, Adam washed his socks on a Tuesday, his boxers on a Thursday and his shirt on Sundays to make sure everything wasn’t wet at the same time. Fortunately, there was a heating vent in the toilet, but the results were crinkly at best and at worst, frustratingly slow – sometimes he had to quickly put on the damp item and wear it back to the corner office before the security guards resumed their rounds.

  General hygiene was an issue too. Pirate baths left him vulnerable (what if someone knocked on the bathroom door while he was naked and dripping wet?) so he preferred to wash with a supply of cleaning wipes he’d found stashed in a cupboard. Razor blades were almost impossible to come by, so Adam had decided to let his beard grow out, keeping it trimmed. He kept his hair short too – by snipping some off every day, he could keep the shape relatively even (with only a couple of missteps – a bald patch on the first attempt, and a nicked ear on the second). The discovery of a discarded tube of toothpaste in a wastepaper basket meant Adam could brush his teeth (using a piece of paper towel wrapped around his index finger), and there was a good stock of mouthwash, and even dental floss, in the office. Despite all these efforts, he noticed a definite musky aroma emanating from his person – particularly his feet – and his suit was developing a kaleidoscope of stains that no amount of dabbing and sponging could remedy.