by Louise Voss
God, I wished I could hear them; I would give anything to be able to turn myself into a fly so I could go buzzing in there and spy on them. Or to make myself invisible – stand beside them and hear exactly what they were saying. Was Siobhan telling her about the clothes I bought her? The time I – and it makes me sick typing this – hid in her wardrobe? She might even show her the card I wrote her. It’s bad enough for any man when his current girlfriend meets the last object of his desires. It makes it a little bit worse when the current girlfriend doesn’t know that her boyfriend was formerly a stalker. Because that’s exactly the ‘well-chosen’ word Siobhan will use to describe me.
I had a sudden impulse to rush into the café and shout, ‘Don’t listen to her. It’s all lies.’ But then I pictured Emily turning to me, brow furrowed, saying, ‘What’s all lies?’ Because surely - common sense, arriving late as usual, told me - Siobhan doesn’t know who Emily is? How could she know? It’s not as if she’s been spying on me, is it? And then it hit me – the reason for this universe-crunching event: Emily works for a publisher; Siobhan is a writer. Emily’s company must be publishing Siobhan’s new book. It had to be a coincidence – nothing more.
But then I had another spasm of panic, another wave of paranoid thoughts making me reel: What if Siobhan finds out that Emily and I are together? Emily might mention that her boyfriend is a writer too; she might even say my name. I expect Emily talks about me at every possible opportunity. And if Siobhan discovers that this sweet, harmless girl is going out with a man she thinks of as a stalker, surely she’ll tell her about my past, try to warn her off.
I was paralysed by all those ifs, not knowing what to do. And while I was paralysed, I realised that Siobhan was standing up and heading my way.
I rushed around the corner of the café and ducked down an alleyway. This was where the Aroma Therapy dustbins were kept. Hell, I was going to need therapy after this. I heard something move beside me and jumped, clutching my chest. A rotund moggy blinked at me then returned to the remnants of the tuna baguette it had dragged out of the dustbin.
I figured Siobhan must have gone by now, so I poked my head out of the alleyway, startling an old woman. I considered going in to the café to see Emily, but I knew how I must look: wide-eyed and flustered, smelling of sweat on a frigid London afternoon. I didn’t want to arouse any suspicion in her. I really wanted to go home. I really, really wanted a cigarette. On the way back to my flat I stopped off and bought a packet of Marlboro – full strength. I smoked three of them before I got home.
Simon was there – he’d taken the afternoon off work – and he was playing loud music that echoed the pounding inside my head. He gave me a quizzical look. ‘Are you alright, mate?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah. Fine.’
‘You look like you’ve just witnessed a car crash or something.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Could you turn the music down a bit? I’ve got a really bad headache.’
‘Sure. No problem.’
‘I’m going to go and lie down.’
I went into my room and lit up another cigarette. Now I would have to wait. It was all I could do.
Later
By the time seven o’clock crawled around, I was working on my last remaining fingernail. Emily had told me she’d stop by on her way home. I was sitting here at the computer, playing Solitaire, when the doorbell rang. I heard Simon go to the door, and then there was a light knock on my bedroom door. As I opened it, I took a long, deep breath and muttered a two word prayer.
She was smiling.
That meant Siobhan hadn’t told her she was going out with a psycho. I’d been terrified that the only reason for this visit was so Emily could a) shout at me and tell me I was a bastard and a loser and that she never wanted to see me again, and b) collect the pair of knickers she left here this morning. She wouldn’t want to leave them in the hands of a pantie-sniffing freak like me, would she? (Actually, Siobhan knows I’m more likely to buy underwear than sniff it, but who knows how she might embellish the story?) But Emily was smiling, and that meant that Siobhan hadn’t told her anything. Thank you, God.
Of course, that didn’t mean I was in the clear completely. What if Siobhan and Emily had arranged to meet up again? What if they got really pally and Emily invited her to come out with us? Just thinking about it gave me goosebumps. So I knew that any reprieve might only be temporary.
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ Emily said, bestowing a firm kiss upon my lips. ‘How was your day?’
‘Oh…okay. Did some writing. Went for a walk. Nothing exciting.’
‘Did you call me earlier?’ She sat down on the bed and kicked off her shoes, wriggling her toes inside her tights.
‘I… yes, I did. I wanted to see if you wanted to meet for lunch, but you’d already gone.’
‘Oh.’ She leaned over and kissed me again. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
I shrugged. ‘It’s okay.’ I gave her my most innocent smile. ‘So, did you have a nice lunch?’
‘Hmm. Actually, I was talking about you with someone.’
My blood went chilly. ‘What? Who?’
She hesitated. ‘I hope you don’t mind me telling people about you. I was just telling Sara from work about you and your mum.’
My sigh of relief must have been audible.
‘You don’t mind, do you? You had this really strange look on your face just then.’
‘Did I? I was…trying not to fart.’
It was Emily’s turn to pull a face. ‘Of course I don’t mind. As Oscar Wilde said, there’s only one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about.’
‘Ooh, I love it when you talk literary to me. Speaking of which, I took your stories in to show Pernilla.’
Shit – I’d forgotten all about that. But after meeting up with that moron Brian and finding he’d set Kathy’s bloodhound of a friend on my trail and then seeing Emily with Siobhan, the worry about an editor seeing my stories before they’re ready seemed pretty trivial. I said, ‘I was going to talk to you about that.’
Emily nodded enthusiastically. ‘She said she’d try to read them this weekend. I kept telling her how brilliant they are, and she said she’d read them if it was the only way to get me to shut up.’
So it sounded like it was too late to get them back. Oh well. Like I just said, it’s the least of my worries. I’m just thankful that none of the stories are about people falling off of fire escapes, or stalkers. All my stories are set further back in my past: my childhood and my schooldays. This journal is my only piece of contemporary autobiography, apart from a couple of stories about a guy who falls in love with the tutor at his writing class which I haven’t let Emily see.
‘Wouldn’t it be great if she liked them?’ Emily said. ‘You might be a real, published writer. Imagine it!’
I did, and smiled.
‘I bumped into a writer at lunchtime, actually.’
My blood temperature plummeted again. ‘What was her name?’
She gave me a look. ‘Her? Why did you say “her”?’
Well done, Alex. ‘I don’t know. I just assumed.’ What a brilliant excuse. That’ll really fool her. I wanted to punch myself.
But Emily didn’t seem that bothered. ‘It was weird, actually. She said she knew me from somewhere. Then we had this odd conversation which ended with her telling me I had something on my teeth. I didn’t really like her, to be honest. I got this bad vibe off her, like there was something wrong with her. Attractive, well-dressed – but a bit strange.’
‘Did she tell you her name?’
‘Well, yes, she did. But when I got back to the office I looked her up on Amazon and couldn’t find her. So I can’t have remembered her name correctly.’
‘What was it?’
‘I told you, I didn’t remember it properly. But I thought it was Jessica Thomas.’
Nothing like Siobhan McGowan, then. But why had Siobhan – and it had definitely been Siobhan; I’m sure
I hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing – given Emily a fake name?
There’s something very odd going on. And whatever it is, it certainly isn’t good news for me. I’m sighing as I type this: sighing long and hard. Fuck, if I could turn the clock back, I would never have signed up for that writing class.
Tuesday
I haven’t had a chance to write here since Thursday because I’ve been with Emily most of the time; and when I haven’t been with her all I’ve wanted to do is sleep. This whole thing is sucking away my energy, wearing me down and leeching me dry. Because things have got worse. I don’t know how much more my overworked heart can take.
On Friday, a day I spent working on my new short story and sleeping, Emily called me at six and told me she wanted to go to the pub. ‘I need a drink,’ she said.
‘Why? Have you had a bad day?’
She paused. ‘Do you think I’m fat?’
‘What?’ I was taken aback.
‘Do you think I’m fat?’
‘Of course I don’t.’
I haven’t had much experience of this kind of thing, but I’ve read in numerous men’s mags that you should never ever tell a woman she’s fat. Even voluptuous is pushing it. Apparently, you can’t even say things like, ‘I like women to be a bit curvy,’ without triggering an outbreak of tears, gym membership and ultimately anorexia and death by starvation. So I said, ‘You’re not fat at all. Why on earth are you asking me that?’
She sniffed and said, ‘I’ll tell you later.’
I grabbed my coat and headed out the door, waving goodbye to Si and Nat. It was arctic outside, a chill wind blowing nobody any good. The streets were quiet, sensible people huddled inside with the central heating turned up full. I thought about what Emily had said on the phone and hoped we weren’t going to have a long conversation about her weight. I would rather be running my hands over her flesh than talking about it. The truth is, I guess Emily is a little bit overweight, certainly compared to the whippet-women who populate the magazines she reads. I know I’ve commented on it here before. And the truth is, I really do like her body. Her heavy breasts, her soft thighs. Yum. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to use the words heavy or soft if she was having a body-image crisis.
I got to the pub and went inside, enjoying the smell of many kinds of beer and the warmth from the open fire as I searched for my girlfriend. There she was, sitting on her own in the corner. She had a half-full glass and a bottle of tonic in front of her. I gestured that I’d seen her and bought myself a pint of Guinness. As I waited at the bar, practically licking my lips in anticipation, I touched my own belly. The word ‘six-pack’ didn’t spring to mind.
‘Hi,’ I said, kissing her as I sat down. I nodded at her glass. ‘Tonic water? I thought you said you wanted a drink?’
‘There’s gin in it,’ she said grimly. ‘Though I shouldn’t be drinking alcohol at all.’
I acted the innocent. ‘Why not?’
‘Alcohol is one of the most fattening things there is.’
‘Yes, I know that. So why shouldn’t you be drinking it?’
She didn’t smile. Instead, she reached into her bag and pulled out a couple of magazines. One was called Your Diet, with a picture of a smiling housewife and a pineapple on the cover. The other was called Flesh, which, from the picture of a half-naked woman with the largest breasts and the biggest chins I’d ever seen and the tagline (‘For men who know that big is beautiful!’) was clearly a porn mag for those who appreciate the larger woman.
‘Where did you get these?’ I asked.
‘They were sent to me.’
‘What?’
‘Somebody sent them to me at work. They were waiting in my in-tray, in a brown envelope with my name typed on the front. I thought it was just going to be an unsolicited submission from an author. Some of them have my name because sometimes Pernilla gets me to pp the rejection letters. So my in-tray is usually overflowing with thick A4 envelopes. I couldn’t believe it when I opened it and found these inside.’
I picked up Flesh and leafed through it. The women inside were enormous, rolls of flab covering the part of the anatomy that most blokes buy porn mags to look at. It was mind-boggling really, thinking that some men must find this stuff a turn-on. Still, it’s less harmful than a lot of the shit out there.
It wasn’t harmless as far as Emily was concerned, though. I turned to her and saw that her eyes had filled with tears. ‘Somebody’s trying to send me a message – tell me I’m fat. That I need to go on a diet – or I’ll end up like one of these disgusting pigs.’
I couldn’t stop staring at the magazine. Eventually, Emily snatched it away and stuffed both the magazines back into her bag.
‘Was there a note with it?’ I asked.
‘No, nothing. I guess the magazines delivered the message well enough on their own.’
Suddenly, I felt angry. I didn’t know who had sent these stupid mags to my Emily, but I knew that I wanted to hurt them, to get back at them for the pain I could see on Emily’s face.
‘Who the hell would do this?’ I said.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Somebody in your office? Have you got any enemies there?’
She looked at me, mouth open. ‘What do you mean, enemies? Why would I have enemies at work?’
I didn’t reply, just thought about my own former workplace, and the porn sites to which I had subscribed my old boss. I felt sick.
‘Pernilla said the magazines were probably sent in by an aggrieved author – someone we’d turned down. But maybe people do hate me at work,’ Emily said, staring into the distance. ‘Maybe they all got together and sent me these, hoping to drive me out. Get rid of the unsightly fat girl.’ Her lower lip was starting to tremble.
I put my arm around her. ‘Emily, you’re not fat. And of course they don’t hate you at work.’
‘I am fat.’
‘You’re not.’
‘I am.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re beautiful.’ I could feel tears welling up in my own eyes now, caused by the emotions that were building up in me. ‘So beautiful. I love you.’
She looked at me. ‘You’re not just saying that?’
‘No, of course not. I love you and I love your body. I really love your body.’
She smiled.
‘Why don’t we go back to your flat and I’ll show you exactly how much I love it.’
This time she giggled, although the laugh and the subsequent joke did sound a little forced: ‘You’re just turned on from looking at the women in that magazine.’
‘Shit. You caught me out. Can we take it with us?’
We drank up and left the pub, splashing out on a taxi. Back at Emily’s, we made love: intense, wordless sex that made us both sweat despite the chill in the room. We said goodnight and after a little while I turned over to sleep. A few minutes later, I realised that she was crying.
I turned around, pressing up against her back. ‘Emily,’ I whispered, ‘what is it? What’s wrong?’
She didn’t reply. I held her until she fell asleep.
The weekend was fine – we didn’t mention the magazines at all; Emily dumped them in the dustbin outside. Then, on Monday morning, someone banged on the front door. I had just woken up and was lying in bed with a book that I was only half-reading, wondering if I might hear something from Pernilla about my stories. I sat up, images of a wild-eyed Siobhan or a troop of armed police at my door. I’m not sure which would be worse. There was another bang at the door and I forced myself to get up, commonsense telling me it was probably only the postman.
Commonsense was right. The postie handed me a plump brown jiffy bag and a couple of pieces of junk mail. I closed the door and chucked the envelopes onto the side table, then inspected the jiffy bag. It was addressed to Emily, c/o me. How odd. Why would somebody send something to Emily at this address? Then I realised – she had probably ordered something on the Web and used this as her postal address, knowing that I’m u
sually here in the mornings. Maybe, I speculated, she isn’t allowed to receive personal mail at work.
It didn’t even cross my mind that this could somehow be connected to the magazines she’d received at work. As Pernilla had said to Emily, that was probably just a malicious piece of revenge-mail from an author who’d seen Emily’s signature on a rejection letter. I took the package into my room, dropped it on the desk and went back to bed.
Emily came round that evening at seven. I greeted her at the door with a kiss which made her smile and press herself against me. A minute later, we were in bed, and a few minutes after that I was inside her, her teeth grazing my neck, her fingernails sharp against my arse, heating each other’s winter-chilled flesh and making the headboard bang against the wall.
When I came I saw a flash of white light.
‘Mmm,’ she said, afterwards.
I kissed her, then remembered: ‘Oh, a parcel came for you earlier.’ I hopped out of bed, grabbed it and handed it to her.
She smiled. ‘You bought me a present? Oh, Alex…’
‘It’s not from me,’ I said, wishing I had bought her a present. ‘Didn’t you order something online?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I haven’t ordered anything.’ She turned the parcel over in her hands. Then she said, ‘Can you pass me my T-shirt?’
I did.
‘I feel less vulnerable with some clothes on.’ She pulled the T-shirt over her head, covering her breasts. She looked scared.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
She looked at me. ‘I don’t know who would send me a present here. If it is a present.’ She swallowed.
That’s when I remembered the magazines. A small shudder ran through me. ‘Do you want me to open it?’ I asked. We were both staring at the package as if it might contain a bomb.
Emily said, ‘No, I’ll open it. It’s addressed to me.’ With trembling hands, she tore it open, then peered inside.
‘What is it?’
‘I can’t see yet. It’s in a black bag. Looks like – feels like – a bin liner.’