Material Girl

by Louise Kean

‘Love your life, poor as it is,’ he lisps through his remaining teeth.

  ‘Right. Love your life, poor as it is. What does that mean, that I shouldn’t change it? I should just accept it?’ I ask, exhausted.

  ‘LOVE your life, poor as it is,’ he says once more, and takes my forty pence.

  ‘Or does it mean that you should make sure you love your life, make it the best that it can be?’ I ask.

  ‘LOVE your life,’ he says.

  ‘Okay, fine,’ I reply, shaking my head, grabbing my paper and walking off without a smile towards the tube.

  I flap along Ealing Broadway, my tired toes fighting desperately to keep me in my shoes as I pass flower-sellers and the North Star pub, and Marks & Spencer’s end-of-summer sale and a nightclub, and gaggles of giggling schoolgirls and shifty-looking texting teenagers in hooded tops who’d rather faint than look a woman in the eye. It’s not quite dark, yet, but the moon is out, round and fat already. It’s magnolia tonight, not neon like last night. It’s always one or the other. Plain or wildly exciting. Ordinary or full-fat with possibilities.

  Sometimes I feel like I have made the same mistakes as my mother and trapped myself in my own life, and they are my own teeth marks in the tape that binds my wrists and my feet. But of course she was married, and had me and my brother, and she still found a way out. My bonds are only as tight as I make them.

  God is locking up Plump and Feather. She is dressed head-to-sandal in white linen, and her face is red and shiny like a washed tomato. She glances at me without recognition. I am never home this early.

  ‘Are you a friend of Ben’s?’ she asks with a smile so wide she must have to practise it at yoga, as I put my key in my door.

  I ignore God and shut the door behind me. She’ll have to forgive me, that’s what God does.

  Scene II: Wife Wanted

  ‘It’s me,’ I say, walking up the stairs. ‘I’m … home.’

  Ben pokes his head out from the kitchen. ‘Why are you so early?’ he asks, holding a saucepan. He is wearing his Everton shirt. He went to Blackpool once, on a stag do, but that’s the extent of Ben’s travels in the north.

  ‘Well it’s nice to see you too,’ I say, determined to smile.

  ‘It’s just a surprise.’ He shrugs and his eyebrows raise as he licks a spoon with his whole tongue, and it looks flat and battered like the flap of an old leather shoe.

  I step forward to kiss him hello but he turns back into the kitchen.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, following him in, ‘I was going to kiss you hello.’

  ‘Oh, hello,’ he replies, and pecks me on the lips. With his eyes closed.

  I lean back against the kitchen counter and pull off one of my shoes, rubbing my foot with my thumb.

  ‘I can get home early sometimes, Ben, it just always depends on the cast. But I think this theatre thing is going to be different. Dolly gets tired so I can finish sooner. It might be different once the play actually opens, but for this week at least … Oh my toes hurt! These shoes have been playing me up all day – I might have to get you to rub my feet later.’

  ‘No thanks,’ he replies, carefully escorting pasta tubes onto a large navy blue plate.

  ‘Are you makin’ dinner?’ I ask in a silly American accent – I don’t know why, maybe to seem cuter than I am.

  ‘Yes, I am. I have. But I didn’t think you’d be home.’ He grinds pepper onto his plate. One plate.

  ‘Well, I’m not crazily hungry, can’t we just share yours? What are you having anyway?’ I tug at his arm to get him to turn around, but he resists and shakes me off.

  ‘Don’t, Scar, I’ll spill it. Tuna and pasta,’ he addresses his plate, dusting on parmesan like he is sifting for gold, ‘but I’ve only made enough for me.’

  He turns around, plate in hand, and gives me an apologetic shrug. The EEC pasta mountain steams before him. I didn’t realise there was a European pasta surplus until now, but there it is, on Ben’s plate.

  ‘My Goodness! Training for a marathon, Ben?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Well, can we share? Have we got any bread? We could dip that in some oil, we’ll be stuffed before you know it and …’

  He sighs and looks at the wall, as if summoning up the energy to explain applied physics to a glamour model.

  ‘Scarlet, I made this much because I want this much.’

  I look at him and try so hard, so very hard not to let my smile slip. He looks down at his plate, back to me, at the cooker, back to me, at his plate.

  ‘Can I have one mouthful, Ben? Just one?’ I reach for a fork on the side.

  ‘Jesus.’ He whistles under his breath. ‘Yes, if you want, but that’s not going to be enough, is it?’ He sighs and looks away again.

  I’m done with smiling.

  ‘Christ, Ben, what have I done that is so bloody bad? When did everything I do begin to irritate you so much that you can’t even let me have a mouthful of fucking pasta? If it’s such a huge sodding deal, don’t bother! I’ll starve!’

  He shrugs and walks past me, plate in hand. I consider tipping it up; just for a second I entertain throwing the whole damn thing on the floor. But I don’t seize my moment. I have a feeling Dolly would have let him have it. I have a feeling another man would have let me have a mouthful of his pasta.

  ‘We do have other food,’ he says, turning and standing in the doorway, his loaded fork poised before his open mouth.

  ‘You know what Ben? I don’t even care. Eat your shitty student meal, I’ll have cereal, thanks.’ I slam the fork down and throw open the cupboard.

  ‘Oh here we go,’ I hear him mutter as he walks off towards the living room.

  ‘Is bloody Iggy coming around again tonight?’ I ask, slamming my Alpen down on the counter so ferociously that the top bursts open and I am covered in a dusty muesli shower storm. I say ‘shit’ as a flake flies in my eye, and I try not to cry. I take three deep breaths. I yank open the cutlery draw as noisily as I can, grabbing a spoon, slamming it closed again.

  There is practically silence from the other room. Occasionally I hear the fork clink against the plate. Once I think I hear Ben gulp.

  I shake Alpen into my bowl, and then milk, and dunk in my spoon. I lean back against the counter and take a breath. I don’t want an argument. Maybe I was just hungry, low blood-sugar levels or something. I take four more deep breaths, and carry my bowl into the living room.

  ‘Is Iggy coming round?’ I ask again, in more measured tones.

  ‘No, I was just going to watch this.’ He gestures at the TV with the remote control, flicking it on. He doesn’t look at me, but concentrates instead on shovelling a huge mouthful of pasta into his mouth without dropping any, while simultaneously not missing any of the riveting BMW advert that is now playing.

  ‘Okay then … I’ll watch it with you.’ I walk around our coffee table, which is loaded with PC and gaming magazines, plus a new and alarming addition that looks to be an instructional magazine that promises to teach the reader how to make his own Lord of the Rings figurines: part one comes with a Gandalf mould and grey paint …

  I sit on the other side of the sofa next to Ben, trying not to think about him making pottery action figures that can fight with Iggy’s pottery action figures to their broken pottery death. I repress a shudder.

  ‘So, what shall we watch?’ I ask with a smile.

  ‘The football’s on.’ Still I get no eye contact.

  ‘Oh … can’t you tape it? And we can watch something else together? Maybe there’s a film on the other side, check Teletext,’ I say, reaching forwards for the remote, but he grabs it.

  ‘But Scar, it’s England …’

  ‘Okay, Ben, you’re being a bit weird.’ I stare at the remote control but he doesn’t hand it over as the adverts finish and the ITV football theme plays. I am running out of time. ‘And it’s not often I get home this early. I just thought we could watch something together tonight …’

  He stares at me. Then he rolls h
is eyes and sighs.

  ‘But it’s England, Scar,’ he says again.

  ‘Okay, fine,’ I whisper.

  He turns back to the TV and puts the remote control down next to him, on the side furthest away from me. If I want it, I am going to have to fight him for it.

  ‘FINE!’ I shout, standing up. ‘I’ll eat my cereal in the bedroom and go to bed! Lovely spending the evening with you, Ben!’ I holler, my hands shaking my bowl with rage.

  He puts his plate down on his lap and throws his fork down on it. ‘Jesus Christ, here we go! I had my evening all planned out, you don’t tell me that you’re coming home, how the hell was I supposed to know? If you had called and told me I could have made more food, and I could have told you the football would be on. You know I don’t like surprises …’

  ‘It’s not a surprise, I live here! And it’s my flat too, what if I don’t want to watch the football?’

  ‘Scar, for Christ’s sake! It’s one night!’

  ‘That’s right, that’s exactly right! One night that I am here and everything is just too much trouble! Anything to do with me is just too much damn trouble!’

  Ben sighs. I hear Gary Lineker say, ‘… and now over to our commentators.’ Somebody blows a whistle. Ben picks up his plate again.

  I storm out and into the bedroom with the remainder of my cereal, grabbing InStyle from my bag in the corridor.

  Two hours later, with no sign of Ben even at half-time, I wander up the hallway. Gary Lineker is talking about the match. The room is dark and Ben is drinking a cup of tea. The only light is the blue haze from the television.

  ‘Did we win?’ I ask quietly, hanging in the doorframe.

  ‘No. It was a draw,’ he says evenly.

  ‘Oh no, what does that mean? Are we out of something? Or does there have to be a … replay?’ I walk around the coffee table to the sofa and sit.

  ‘No, it’s fine, it was only a friendly.’ He takes a gulp of tea.

  ‘A friendly?’ I ask, incredulous.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says innocently, nodding his head.

  ‘With who?’ I ask.

  ‘United Arab Emirates’ he says.

  I bite my tongue. I didn’t come back in here for an argument. I might not apologise this time, for the first time ever, but I won’t start another row.

  ‘Are you excited about the zoo?’ I ask, shifting in closer to him on the sofa. I rest my head on his arm but he doesn’t move it to let me under.

  ‘Excited?’ he asks, sounding confused.

  ‘Okay then, not excited, but we haven’t spent a day out together for ages and …’

  We pause, as if God hit a button.

  After thirty seconds, God presses play.

  ‘I don’t know. Look, Scarlet, do you really want to go, because the weather is going to be bad and I wanted to buy a new magazine rack from IKEA, and …’

  ‘I’ll see if we need tickets – let’s try and go early!’ I say, jumping up and walking into the kitchen as fast as I can. God presses pause again, and there is a moment of heavy silence in our little flat, but then God presses play, for Ben at least, and he turns the volume up on the TV.

  In the kitchen I am trembling. I hold my hands out in front of me and as I see them shake it makes me want to cry even more. When did I get so pathetic? When did I get so scared? But I am determined: there will be no tears.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ I shout.

  I hear a muffled ‘Night’ from the other room.

  Thursday. I decide to walk to Ealing Common station this morning for a change, and because I am wearing comfortable wedges that allow me the luxury. Still high, just with a better grip and straps that hold me in. Plus, I am ludicrously early. I wonder how much I could actually achieve in a day if I were to go to bed before eleven o’clock each night, as I did last night. I was even awake before Ben left this morning, although I stayed in bed, one leg tucked over the duvet, my pillow doubled up beneath my head, and I didn’t say anything when he came back in the room to swap his cufflinks over. All of Ben’s cufflinks are Everton blue, I don’t know what could have prompted the swap. I could hear him rooting around in his drawer, whistling quietly to himself, some Aerosmith song that I hate. Isn’t whistling the sign of a carefree heart? I’ve never been able to whistle. I just put my lips together and blow, like they tell you to, but nothing ever comes out except air. My heart isn’t quite carefree enough to allow power ballads.

  I walk past the common and cross the North Circular at the traffic lights. There are a few houses dotted along the other side of the road. I think that they must all be double-glazed, being this close to the noise and the dirt and the smog that burps and wheezes out of the constant stream of traffic circling inner London twenty-four hours a day, every day. There are yellow and orange ‘For Sale’ signs dotted along by open, expectant garden gates. Every other household seems to want to move, and I’m not surprised.

  There is one white sign that stands out. It has been carefully hammered into the lawn outside a perfectly ordinary three-bedroom ex-council-house semi. The nets look clean, the driveway is neat, the wheelie bin is tidy, and there’s a row of small multi-coloured flowers running up each side of the path to the yellow front door. At first glance, with the sign hammered in the lawn, I think this house must be for sale as well. But something makes me look and read it again. It says, in big black letters on white board, ‘WIFE WANTED. PLEASE KNOCK.’

  I walk up the path and lift up the knocker, but decide at the last moment to ring the bell instead. I hear it buzz inside the house, and it seems like a song being sung in somebody else’s head. Through the frosted glass in the door I see a man trot briskly from the kitchen at the back of the house. He answers with a smile, and a ‘Can I help you?’

  He is in his late forties, early fifties perhaps. He is kindly average. His hair is dark grey and thinning on top, he is nearly six foot and one of his front teeth is very slightly discoloured, but not terribly so. He wears grey trousers and a blue shirt. There are toast crumbs on his chest.

  ‘Have you found a wife?’ I ask.

  ‘Maybe. I have a date on Saturday night.’ His smile is bashful, but full of pride. ‘I haven’t had a date on a Saturday night for twelve years.’

  ‘Where will you go?’ I ask.

  ‘I thought a drink in a nice pub on the Green, then maybe Thai? I have to broaden my horizons. There are a couple of them along the Broadway, my son recommended a good one, and I wouldn’t expect her to drive with me anywhere, not on the first date, so that seems like a good idea. And women like Thai, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they do. It can be healthy, and very tasty,’ I say, smiling and nodding my head.

  ‘I thought so,’ he says.

  ‘Have you ever had a wife?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh yes.’ He nods his head.

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘She died five years ago. Breast cancer.’

  My eyes fill up.

  ‘What about the internet?’ I ask.

  ‘I thought of that,’ he says, smiling again, still nodding his head. ‘But I thought I’d be original, try the sign first.’

  I gulp and bite my lip. ‘Good luck,’ I say, ‘I hope she likes Thai!’

  ‘I hope she likes me!’ he replies, and closes the door.

  He had a nice smile. He is willing to try Thai food. He has hope.

  Walking back down his path, leaving his gate slightly ajar for the postman, or other potential wives if this one doesn’t work out, I remember something that my mother used to say: ‘Hope, and beautiful shoes, will carry you forwards.’

  I walk my route through Soho to the Majestic. I contemplate a quick detour into Grey’s, but decide against it. Maybe later. I try the front entrance of the theatre and the door swings open when I push it. Stepping through those doors feels like pressing a button on a time machine. There is something maternal about the entrance, it’s as if the curves of the building hug you as you enter. And there is something about this
theatre that seems to muddy the time and the date as well. What’s happening outside doesn’t happen in here.

  ‘Morning, Gavin!’ I walk up the aisle towards him and smile.

  My skirt is black cotton and sparkled netting layers that stops and flares at my knees. My shirt is light cotton and fitted, baby blue with short sleeves. It’s a contacts day today, with a streak of baby-blue eyeshadow across my lids and a lash of midnight-blue mascara on both eyes. My hair is pulled back into a dirty blonde ponytail with wisps escaping around my face, pushed back behind my ears. My earrings are tiny pearl hearts. My lipgloss is called ‘Heartbreak Blue’. It’s more of a shine than a colour, it’s hard to describe, but then so is heartbreak.

  Gavin looks up briefly and then back at the plans laid out in front of him on the front of the stage. ‘You look nice,’ he says, deadpan.

  ‘Oh, do I? Thanks.’

  ‘Making an effort for somebody special?’ he asks, as the swing doors at the back of the room flip open and Tom Harvey-Saint breezes down the aisle like a catwalk model.

  ‘No,’ I reply, trying not to look at Tom as he sings the ‘La’s’ in ‘Loving You’ to attract our attention. I stare at Gavin, determined not to look around. But Tom screams a series of high-pitched notes, and my eyes dart towards him quickly.

  ‘Really?’ Gavin asks, rolling up the plans and walking away.

  Tom irritates me for showing off and Gavin irritates me for seemingly deliberately catching me out. It’s as if he did it on purpose, just to prove a spiteful point. Or maybe he just feels like he loses everybody to the better-looking boys. Except he has Arabella, so what’s his problem anyway? Tom sniggers and exits stage left.

  I run up the steps towards Tristan, who is sitting on a battered cream and green chaise longue, back and centre stage, hunched over a laptop that has wires like veins poking out of it and into the wings. His hands are locked together, his two index fingers pointing upwards and pressed together like a gun beneath his chin that is about to fire through the roof of his mouth. Every now and then he moves the gun down to the keyboard and taps something.

  I stand a few feet away and wait for him to notice me. I check my watch – it’s only nine forty a.m., but that’s what early nights will do to you. I think Ben fell asleep on the sofa because he didn’t come to bed until after three a.m. He didn’t touch me, climbed in with a minimum of fuss, kept to his side and faced the wall. All the usual routine.