Material Girl

by Louise Kean

  Mickey Mouse says it’s six twenty-three a.m. I roll over heavily in bed, expecting to see the moles on Ben’s back, but he isn’t there. He hasn’t come home.

  Despite my nagging anxiety, I drift off again, my body automatically shutting down at the ungodly hour. I wake up again a couple of hours later. Forcing my eyes open I register through a sleep blur that Mickey says eight thirty-two, as suggested by the light streaming in through the curtains. I hear somebody crashing up the stairs, and I know that it was the front door slamming that woke me. The bedroom door creaks quietly open, and seconds later so does Ben’s cupboard. I hear him swear softly under his breath, ‘bollocks’, followed by the sounds of him frantically kicking off his trousers and scrambling into a new pair, and throwing on a clean shirt. He tiptoes out of the room and closes the door behind him. I hear him bash about in the kitchen, say ‘bollocks’ twice more, and still I don’t get up.

  I check my phone at nine a.m. while munching on a bowl of Alpen, leaning on the kitchen counter in a vest and knickers. There is a text from Ben, sent fifteen minutes ago, which reads: ‘I STAYED AT IGGY’S’

  It’s to the point at least.

  I consider a thousand quick replies, but then simply text back: ‘DON’T FORGET THE ZOO TOMORROW’

  Ten minutes later, as I am about to step into the shower, my phone buzzes. Ben’s text reads: ‘ARE WE STILL GOING? WHY?’

  I take a long and deliberate shower and scrub at my scalp, opening up the follicles so that the fury can get out and not cause my head to explode. I sometimes think that showers should be fattening, high-calorie indulgences. The water pushing you away and soaking you and warming you is just too good a feeling to be fat free.

  Dripping on the bathroom mat, I reply: ‘WHY NOT’

  No question mark, I don’t want a reply.

  I moisturise my body with cocoa butter and spray perfume in all the right places. I take my time on my hair – first blow-drying, then straightening, then curling the ends. I apply my make-up base, ready to be added to later for full effect. It feels important that I look my best today. I need to compete.

  I wear a flimsy pink silk shirt-dress with floppy collars and cuffs, a men’s black cummerbund, and high black rattan court shoes with toe cleavage. I have painted my toenails baby pink, and I pull my hair back into a loose ponytail, posting two pearl drops through the holes in my ears. At the last second I disregard ‘Heartbreak Blue’ gloss for ‘Grapefruit’ Juicy Tube. Today is not a day for heartbreak.

  Riding the tube with the Saturday shoppers and tourists up into town I think about Ben’s text messages. You can be a ‘why’ person or a ‘why not’ person. You can seize things, do things, or not. You can look for the positives or the negatives. If Ben asked me, today, ‘Why do you love me?’ I think I would be inclined to say ‘Why not?’ just to prove a point. It doesn’t have to be explained to me, or justified, or dragged out of me begrudgingly. Why not?

  I take the tube all the way to Covent Garden station and walk the short distance back down Long Acre to the theatre, glancing in shoe shops and clothes shops as I go. For the first time in what seems like an age I don’t feel emotionally exhausted. I see a young girl walking towards me and before I can stop myself I wince and whisper ‘Oh no …’ She is breaking one of the new and as yet undeclared public decency laws. They haven’t been advertised on the tube next to the poetry, or leafleted on lampposts, or inserted into HEAT alongside adverts for women’s car insurance, but we all know these laws. This late-teenage girl with a sour face has a tight ponytail, gel-scraped back from her head aside from two long, stiff poker-straight sections of hair that hang either side of her centre parting like switchblade curtains that cut each of her cheeks in half. She is striding towards me with, and here is the illegal bit, an entire rubber ring of stomach flesh naked and spilling over the top and out of her jeans, squeezed out further still by the tight cropped top that has been forced over her chest. The protruding rolls at her stomach are translucent, veined and fatty like sausage meat that’s just been piped into its skin casing.

  I see a couple of women on the other side of the road glance over and double-take in shocked horror as they pass her. I can only imagine how many insults she will have to endure today, as they are clumsily hurled at her out of white van windows, and from scaffolding platforms, and outside McDonald’s and Burger King and KFC. Just for wearing clothes that don’t fit, on a frame that bulges, she will shock mostly everyone that she passes. Perhaps she won’t care about any of those remarks; not knowing their perpetrators will enable her, perhaps, to dismiss them as soon as she hears them, like water trickling out of her ears. Somebody might say that she looks disgusting; another will ask her, rudely, to put her fat away where they don’t have to look at it; someone else still might heckle her as ugly without even noticing her face. Every put-down that she will undergo will be generated by the way that she looks. Strangers will think they can comment on her, to her, in the street. We are all that shallow now. I didn’t mean to hurt her feelings but perhaps she just saw me wince? We all sit in judgement, like some undisclosed beauty council in constant session, passing out rulings and sentences: Imperfections should be hidden at all times! Not hideously exposed like a museum of the grotesque! I don’t even know how not to judge this girl any more, and how not to be that shallow? I don’t know to stop myself being repelled by the bad judgement she made this morning while getting dressed, very possibly in the dark …

  Tristan is dancing backwards and forwards at the front of the stage as if he’s rehearsing a samba but he’s lost his partner. Ordering the young crew around to move props and stage minutiae that nobody will notice but him, he manages to chain-smoke his clove cigarettes and eat a hamburger while constantly ashing the carpet beneath his feet. Gavin stares at each flicked amber with alarm, terrified that it may be the spark that brings the house down.

  ‘Is Dolly in yet?’ Towering above him in three and a half inch heels I tap Tristan on the shoulder. He spins on one foot and stares at me in disbelief, as if I just popped out both of my eyes and gave them to him as an early birthday present.

  ‘Are you taking the piss?’ he screams, an octave higher than I have ever heard him before.

  ‘No,’ I say, alarmed, taking a hasty step backwards. Gavin, who is unscrewing a vent at the side of the stage, looks over towards us with blank concern, if there is such a thing.

  ‘Is she fuck, Make-up! We only open on Monday, it’s the last day of rehearsals, it’s a quarter to twelve, and she hasn’t turned up yet!’

  Gavin stands up straight, his screwdriver in hand, and takes a couple of steps towards us.

  ‘Okay, calm down, Tristan,’ I say, ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. Have another cigarette.’ I gesture at the pack in one hand and the smouldering cigarette butt in the other.

  He takes a long and agitated drag on the butt, smoking the filter, but breathes it out slowly. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says to me.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I console him, patting his arm. ‘It’s completely understandable. On a separate note, Tristan, your black eyes still haven’t gone down: do you want me to put some make-up on them on Monday night? If you tell me now I can make sure I bring the right concealer?’ I lean forwards to touch one of the bruises that circle his eyes like coffee rings on a wooden table, but he ducks out of the way.

  ‘I couldn’t care less about them, Make-up,’ he says, flicking his cigarette nervously. ‘Some of us couldn’t give a shit what we look like. Some of us have careers that are about to …’ he snaps open his Zippo lighter, and takes a drag on a fresh cigarette, ‘… go up in smoke.’ He exhales from the side of his mouth and a stream of smoke slithers like a ghoul up into the Gods.

  ‘All right, Tristan, I was only trying to help.’ I glance around and realise that everybody is looking at us, and I feel foolish and shallow and of no consequence. I turn on my heel and head towards the door at the side of the stage.

  ‘Look!’ Tristan shouts after me. ‘Look, don�
�t take offence, Make-up, you know me by now. You have to understand the pressure I’m under. You know that I like you, but your crazy old lady is pushing me to the edge! And I am not used to kowtowing to crazy old ladies! Apart from my mother, and you can always go upstairs if she gets too much, and turn off the Stannah stairlift.’

  I suppress a smile. ‘You can be mean,’ I say to him sternly.

  ‘Not mean, Make-up, Byron-esque.’

  ‘And what does that entail?’ I ask. ‘Being rude and snapping at the crew and making people feel trivial?’

  ‘No! God no! Well, maybe a bit. But I’m anti-establishment, love. I’m a loner. I don’t care about black eyes! In fact I like black eyes, if it’s going to shock a few people, make them think how I got them. I’m like George Gordon himself.’

  ‘Who?’ I ask, looking around for some new member of the cast I haven’t noticed.

  ‘George Gordon,’ he says, nodding.

  ‘I thought we were talking about Byron?’ I reply, confused.

  ‘We are,’ he nods enthusiastically.

  ‘So who is George?’ I ask, starting to feel silly.

  ‘That’s his real name,’ Tristan says, trying to suppress a smile.

  ‘Not Byron?’ I say, feeling ridiculous.

  ‘No. Well, he was Lord Byron.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  Tristan can’t fight his smile any more, and it spreads all over his face like a plague. He isn’t wearing his hat or his beads or his glasses today. He looks positively normal in a grey roll-neck sweater and a black suit, except for his high hair and black eyes.

  ‘Let’s be honest, you’re Make-up. You don’t have to understand.’

  ‘Okay, that’s rude,’ I say, and turn to leave again.

  ‘I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it! Come on, I’m sorry, accept my apology,’ he wheedles, running around in front of me. ‘I’m just nervous, Make-up! What if it all goes wrong? We preview on Monday! Monday!’ Tristan screws his hands into fists and holds them at the side of his face, squeezing his eyes shut. ‘What am I doing, what am I doing, edelweiss, edelweiss, edelweiss,’ he mutters to himself.

  Gavin takes another giant step towards us.

  ‘You’ll be fine, Tristan, you’re too passionate to fail. It will all be wonderful. You’ll see.’

  ‘But why?’ he asks, his eyes snapping open, red from smoking or tears.

  ‘Why not?’ I reply, and shrug and smile.

  Tristan nods and points at me as if I’m on to something. Gavin seems sufficiently relieved to kneel down and continue unscrewing the vent.

  ‘And you know, if it starts to feel like too much, just stop and think, What would Byron do?’ I say.

  ‘Oh, love, he’d be off shagging the principal boy, and girl, in a cupboard.’

  ‘Well then, there’s your answer,’ I say, but I can’t help a quick grimace. The runners look on nervously.

  ‘You got it!’ Tristan replies, biting his lower lip and firing a finger gun at me. ‘Pow,’ he says.

  ‘Right, can I go now, or do you still need me?’ I ask, my hand resting on the door, poised to leave.

  ‘Do you want something that’s just for you, Make-up?’ he asks with a wink, that obviously sends a shot of pain through his face because it is quickly followed by a stream of expletives.

  ‘I’m not sure …’ I say. It makes me nervous. The kids on the stage have stopped moving lamps and vases and rugs, and they are all staring down at him expectantly. I realise like a sandbag falling on my head from a great height that they worship him. For all of Dolly’s derision, and Tom and Arabella’s disdain, these kids think he’s a genius, and I should let him show it, revel in the opportunity. It is not often that you meet men of passion these days, especially one that claims to have no libido.

  Tristan composes himself with a cough and looks up, fixing me with his big brown vein-infested crazy eyes:

  For the sword outwears the sheath,

  And the soul outwears the breast,

  And the heart must pause to breathe,

  And love itself have rest.

  He winks.

  I don’t know what to say, so instead I say, ‘Tristan and Byron sitting in a tree,’ childishly, and I hear a runner tut at me like I’ve just sworn in front of the Pope.

  ‘Yes, it’s true,’ Tristan says, nodding, laughing.

  ‘“The heart must pause to breathe.” I like that,’ I say. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure, Make-up, but at a guess I’d say that sometimes even love has to stop and catch its breath.’

  ‘Even love?’ I say.

  ‘Even love,’ he replies.

  ‘You see, now, that is beautiful,’ I say.

  ‘To love!’ Tristan shouts, then spins on his heel and lights another cigarette.

  An hour later Dolly is sitting comfortably in her chair, practising her lines.

  ‘Blackie! Blackie, don’t leave me alone!’ she says. She keeps looking down at the play, and then off into the distance, and then at me when she delivers her line.

  ‘Blackie! Blackie, don’t leave me alone!’ she says again, as I dab highlighter on what I can find of her cheekbones.

  ‘Is Arabella playing Blackie?’ I ask as casually as I can.

  ‘Yes, she is,’ Dolly answers absent-mindedly, looking back down at her script, muttering.

  ‘What do you think of her?’ I ask.

  ‘What do you mean, Lulu?’ – except it’s ‘Whatsdoyoumeanslooloo?’ She’s had two gins already this morning to my knowledge.

  ‘I mean, she is obviously very beautiful, of course, but in a horsy kind of way …’ I wait for her to tell me if she likes her or not, but instead she says, ‘My mother always used to say to me, Lulu, “Pretty is the wallpaper, but wallpaper won’t hold up the wall.” Now, did you have it out with your chap, finally, Lulu?’

  ‘No, I wanted to, but he didn’t come home.’

  ‘Oh, do you think he stayed with somebody else?’ she asks, but with little obvious concern.

  ‘He might have done.’ I pause, a brown eyeliner hanging in the air between her face and my fingers. I feel sick. ‘I don’t think he would lie to me,’ I tell her, but more to control my own nausea.

  ‘But have you asked him, Lulu, outright?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then he hasn’t had to lie. Ha!’

  ‘Don’t laugh at that, Dolly, please,’ I say, and she purses her lips but stops talking.

  We are silent for a moment.

  ‘Well, you should know by now, anyway, Lulu, if he is an honest chap or not. Because you can’t tell the truth to a liar, it doesn’t work. The truth bounces off a liar like a tiny rubber ball on a tennis court, quick and uncontrollable. The only way to communicate with a liar is to lie a little too.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I say.

  She sighs. ‘Honestly, Lulu. I mean, is it easy to be honest with him, or does the honesty slip off him, and you find yourself telling half-truths as well?’

  ‘I do keep trying to be honest, but you’re right. It just doesn’t work. It doesn’t come out. And more than that, I can’t be honest half of the time, because I’m trying to cover up all the little lies in my head: that this is enough, or that we are enough, or even that he is when he acts like he does. I don’t want the world, Dolly, but I want more than this. How do I say that and still keep him? How do I tell him that and not have him leave me? How do I do any of this and not have it hurt us?’

  ‘I don’t know, darling, but I have to go upstairs now or that strange little man will have a hernia. I’ll have a think. Ask somebody else as well. Another man, perhaps?’ She shuffles out of the room.

  I grab my phone and make my way upstairs. Wandering down the road, staring into LK Bennett and Reiss, I call my dad.

  It rings three times before he answers in his telephone voice. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi Dad, it’s Scarlet,’ I say.

  ‘Scarlet, how are you?’ He always so
unds genuinely pleased to hear from me.

  ‘I’m okay, Dad, how are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. Fine!’

  ‘What have you been doing?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, you know, just pottering around. Fixing the car. Playing some darts with the lads down the pub. Watching some football. I see Everton lost, I bet Ben’s not happy! How about you?’

  ‘Just work really. I might go down to Sussex and see Mum soon.’

  ‘Right, right.’ My dad has never once said a bad word about my mother, not to me anyway. I think that he might still love her, even after all this time. He loves her enough not to attack her, at least, for leaving him, when women didn’t really leave, with two kids to look after. My parents shared us soon enough, but Dad had the hard shift, during the weeks, because Mum couldn’t get a place that close to our school. So Mum got us larking about at weekends, and Dad got us moaning about having to go to bed early every night, and doing our homework on the kitchen table when he was trying to serve up fishfingers.

  ‘How are you, though, Dad?’ I ask again.

  ‘Yeah, I’m all right, Scarlet, I just said I was all right.’

  ‘And how’s the house?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s all right. Richard came down, brought Hannah and the boys last weekend, which was lovely, because they’ve got so big! But how are you, Scarlet?’

  ‘I’m fine, Daddy, fine. Lots on, but I’m okay.’

  ‘Right, right. And how’s Ben?’

  ‘He’s okay. Well, not really. I don’t think he loves me, Daddy,’ I say.

  ‘Right. Right. You should speak to your mother about that sort of thing.’

  ‘Can’t I speak to you about it?’ I ask.

  ‘You know I’m no good at that stuff, Scarlet. I’m a man.’