Chapter 10
‘What do you think?’ Amy was whispering so loudly she almost seemed to be shouting.
‘About what?’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘He’s nice, he’s nice looking,’ Leela said. She felt thrilled, but put-upon.
‘Did you talk to him?’ Amy was singing out her words in aggressive exuberance. She dabbed powder on her face, stretched her mouth, reapplied lipstick. Leela looked at herself in the mirror, recoiled, wondered if the skin under her eyes could really be so dark.
‘Pub mirrors are horrible, aren’t they?’
‘Ugh.’
They began to leave the lavatory.
‘So are you going to pull him?’
‘What?’
‘Rob. Are you going to pull him?’
Leela felt rattled and became aggressive in turn. ‘What are you on about? Leave me alone.’
‘I’m just trying to help. Jesus.’ Amy marched away, and a marooned Leela watched her. Without her friend, she was helpless.
Leela and Rob had a conversation. He was tall, dark-haired, fair-skinned, a bit awkward.
‘So what do you do?’ Leela asked abruptly. She had Simon after all, or whatever, she didn’t need this. Nevertheless, Rob’s attention, what she saw as his slightly rat-like smile, unnerved her. He continued to meet her eyes.
‘I’m in gardening.’
‘Right. Do you like that?’
He shrugged. ‘It’s all right. Pretty boring.’ He grinned at her.
They were upstairs in the pub. Crowded: Christmas Eve. She and Amy had come up to Stratford the day before. That was when Leela had met Rob, the elder brother of Amy’s chirpier, but less good-looking friend Jason, and a few of Amy’s other numerous friends from home. Like Leela, perhaps like everyone, Amy had a different persona for college and for the town where she’d grown up. At home, many of her friends were the easy-going, down-to-earth young men she’d worked or drunk with: Jason and she had waited tables at the Grillhouse, a steak place in a retail park. Jason still worked there, and was now the junior manager. Amy hadn’t met Rob, but had told Jason to bring his fit brother along. Rob was reputed to be serious. He and Leela sounded ideal for each other, in the short term.
They were standing up now, wedged against a small table with a stool near it. The stool was covered in coats. The pub was smoky. Leela shrank into the passage. Rob put an arm around her, just brushing her shoulder, as three men walked by. They skirted Leela and Rob as a couple.
‘What about Simon?’ Leela had checked with Amy when they were getting ready.
‘Well, has he asked you to be his girlfriend?’
‘No, but, I mean, we see each other almost every week. Sometimes more than once a week.’
‘Has he had a conversation with you about seeing other people?’
‘No.’ Leela had felt sick.
Rob looked at her now and, as though straining a group of muscles, made a conversational foray. ‘Have you been to Stratford before?’
Leela’s heart sank. ‘Yeah, a few times, yeah. To … visit Amy and stuff.’
‘Oh, right.’ He nodded. She examined his hair, which was impeccable with gel. Jason must have told him Amy had a friend who was single. Last night they’d smiled at each other; today Amy had reported that Jason said Rob thought Leela was fit. It was on, then.
‘He’s a nice-looking boy, love,’ Amy’s mother had remarked.
There they were. She smiled at Rob. He smiled uneasily back.
‘I think I feel sick.’
‘I feel really unwell. Here, do you want some cheese? Mm, so fattening and good.’ Amy cut herself a piece of stilton and ate it. Leela removed orange peel from her sweater and lay prone on the sofa.
‘We can do the Mr Motivator video tomorrow,’ Amy said.
‘That bloke in Lycra?’
‘He’s brilliant. It really tones you up.’
‘Okay.’
They lay near the fire, and outside the lawn and garden darkened; late winter, Christmas Day. Leela was sandwiched between the softness of the sofa and the hot blast of the fire and aware, further away, of the cold beyond the French doors. It was like Jane Eyre, she thought groggily, but without the cruelty. Surely they would now start reading enormous picture books, or look at maps, then fall into a frowsy and terrifying dream. England at Christmas was always like this: a fictional place into which she, Gulliver-like, had fallen. But Amy’s family and their warmth cushioned her.
Orange peel, pips, and cheese rind sat on a plate. Leela and Amy drank tea.
‘I’m seriously going to lose some weight.’
‘Yeah, as soon as New Year’s done.’
‘So we’ll be fat for New Year?’
‘It’s inevitable, with the way it comes straight after Christmas.’ Amy pressed her stomach down and towards her groin, as though willing it to flatten.
‘I feel sick,’ Leela repeated.
‘Cheese?’
They both started to laugh.
‘Maybe just a bit.’
Leela went up to stash her presents, throw away the wrapping, and tidy up – they were later going out to the sole pub nearby that would be open, with Amy’s father and a friend of his. Just then, the telephone began to ring. Amy’s mother’s silvery voice called up.
‘Lee-la!’
‘Yes?’
‘Telephone for you, love. It’s your mother.’
She ran down the stairs, slightly embarrassed. She’d given her parents the number when she had still been in Paris. But she’d half hoped they wouldn’t call. She had a vague sense that Amy’s parents disapproved of hers, but couldn’t be sure. She felt mildly guilty about it, and shifty, as whenever different areas of her life converged.
‘Hello?’
She held the cordless phone Amy’s mother had given her, and stood looking at the dresser in the kitchen.
‘Hello darling,’ said her mother’s voice, unexpectedly melodious and soft.
‘Hi,’ Leela repeated.
‘Happy Christmas. We thought this’d be a good time to catch you. Are you having a good time?’ Her voice, dissociated from her physical presence, was flexible and slightly cracked.
‘Happy Christmas,’ Leela said.
‘So how is it?’
‘It’s nice, I’m having a really nice time.’ She was, but her voice sounded flat and resentful.
In the hall she heard Amy and her little brother squabbling.
Later that night she and Amy lay in bed together, a habit from earlier in their friendship, and talked in the darkness.
‘So has what’s-his-name been in touch?’
‘Simon?’ Leela could tell she had her friend’s attention. ‘No. I don’t really know what’s happening.’ She stretched out one bare foot and a pyjama’d leg. Amy in sleep was assertive about the covers. Leela usually tried the stealth pull: loosening the duvet from Amy’s grasp, then rolling over to cover herself. It rarely worked for long.
‘Did he speak to you before you left?’
‘Well, we saw each other a few days before that.’
‘Did he say when he’d be in touch?’
‘Uh, no.’
‘Oh, right.’
Silence.
‘So you didn’t fancy Rob?’
‘He was fit, sort of. Do you think the lower half of his face is a bit ratty?’
‘Well – no, I think he’s lovely looking.’
‘We didn’t have anything to say to each other.’
‘You didn’t have to say anything.’
‘Yeah. I dunno. I didn’t want to. What did he say? Did he say anything?’
Amy rolled over, taking much of the duvet with her. ‘Dunno. Jason said, Rob said he thought Leela fancied him, then she didn’t get off with him.’
Leela mused on this. After a minute or two she said, ‘But listen, right –’
Amy was asleep.
Leela lay with one leg under the covers, then got up and walked around. She went to
the window and put her head under the heavy velvet curtain, a little away from the icy pane. Outside it was nearly dark, except for the acid-white glow of a street light. In the garden, the leaves of a small tree next to the wall appeared to be dead still.
She went back to bed, thinking wistfully for some reason of the discomfort of sleeping at Simon’s. He never stayed at her house, of course; she thought of the platform bed and didn’t miss it. She annexed part of the duvet, and rolled to the side, to avoid Amy, who was saying something indistinct and violent in sleep, and tossing from one side to the other.
LONDON
Chapter 11
‘Can we take it a bit shorter?’
The stylist put down the hand mirror. She looked annoyed. ‘Shorter than that?’
‘Yeah, a bit, yeah.’
‘If I take it shorter it won’t look feminine.’ She seemed exasperated. This was the last appointment; Thursday nights there was a special offer.
‘I want it shorter,’ Leela said.
‘I’ll have to use clippers.’
‘Fine.’
No one else was left in the salon. Its chrome fittings glinted in the night. The steam that lingered smelled vanilla, like hairspray, or teen perfume. Leela went into the cold, defiant but suspecting once again she’d done herself a bad turn.
She stood outside Amy’s door ringing the bell and ignoring the waiters who came out of the Indian restaurant downstairs to smoke.
‘Not there, ah?’ said the waiter on the doorstep of the Bombay Tandoori.
‘She is there,’ Leela mumbled. ‘We arranged. She – I –’
There was a heavy flurry down the stairs. The door shot open.
‘Sorry! Come up. I just – aw!’ Amy hugged Leela.
The waiter looked on with interest. The rain carried on falling, cold and sharp, just enough to make Leela’s neck glow.
‘Come in, come in, sorry, I was just on the phone to Mum.’
Leela followed as she ran up the stairs. At her door, Amy turned. ‘Oh my god, your hair! Come inside. I’ll get the kettle on.’
Leela sat on the broken futon and the rain rained. What if there were floods, and she had to stay here forever? She had a sudden urge to text Richard. She typed, ‘Hi sweetie’, then dropped the phone when Amy came back in.
‘Do you hate it?’
‘Well, gosh! It’s short, isn’t it? But it’s cool! Very cool!’ ‘Cool’ was a word Amy used to denote things that were foreign to her. She now used another. ‘It looks really trendy.’ She peered at Leela. ‘It’s very short, isn’t it?’
Leela knelt on the futon so she could see herself in the mirror. She pushed her hair around. ‘Do I look like a 1980s footballer?’
‘No! Don’t be silly. You look lovely. It’s just –’ Amy’s eyes narrowed, and she darted back into the tiny kitchen to hasten out the tea bags, slop the tea, put in skimmed milk, and bring out the mugs.
‘Can I have sugar?’ Leela asked accusingly.
‘Oh shit, sorry.’ Amy went back into the kitchen and returned with an aged packet of caster sugar and a spoon. ‘Here.’ She plonked it next to Leela and turned up the music. She sang along, then turned it down, lit some candles, and sat next to Leela.
‘It’s just –?’
‘It’s just probably a good idea to, to, definitely wear make-up. And, you know, more skirts and stuff. Which you’re doing anyway! You dress so much better than you did. What made you do it?’
Leela pushed bits of hair around to see if there were ways of looking more mysterious, less startled. ‘I don’t know. I’d been thinking about it. I thought it might feel lighter, it’d be fresh. Why not?’
‘Do you think Richard’ll like it?’
Leela sat down. ‘Yeah,’ she said. She caressed the near-shaven back of her head, and felt uneasy.
At some point in the night, Richard joined her in his bed; his cold hands and feet crept towards her legs. She flinched and withdrew. He chuckled and persisted.
‘What time is it? Stop it, your hands are freezing.’
‘I don’t know, about two. We had to work late. The presentation’s done though.’
He fell asleep soon. Leela lay watching a parallelogram of light, ugly, indifferent, from the road. Slowly it moved across the ceiling. She felt helpless against the threat of loneliness, and replayed part of her conversation with Amy.
The morning was both more and less frightening. Grey light came under the blinds; she made out the comforting shape of the large duvet, but the day was about to begin. She woke with Richard’s hard-on tucked between her legs from behind. He sighed, and rocked closer as though to jog her memory. Leela tried to edge away. She craned her neck to look at the clock on the bedside table, but couldn’t see it for his head.
‘What time is it?’
‘Come here.’
‘I don’t know if I –’ The duvet, the room depressed her, but she would have liked to stay in bed for a long time, and get up after he’d left, as on days when the agency had no work for her and she sat in the flat, using the internet, reading, or writing things on pieces of printer paper. By mid-morning, all traces of him gone, she could wash up, tidy, then enjoy a sullen complicity with the furniture, and the blush-coloured carpet.
His fingers rooted about between her legs.
‘Your nails –’
‘Sorry sweetie, I’ll trim them today.’
She tried not to think of the infection she’d had, which never showed up in tests, but reappeared to make her sore. She’d begun to simulate orgasms a while ago, she’d forgotten why; now she worried she couldn’t remember how to come normally.
‘I’m really turned on,’ he said.
‘Do you want me to go down on you?’
‘Do you want to?’
‘I can.’
‘Not if you don’t want to.’
‘I want to.’ She wanted to pretend the morning hadn’t yet happened. She snaked under the duvet towards his crotch, and he began to masturbate and to palpate one of her breasts, eyes closed, while she stuck out her tongue. His fist accelerated; she moved back so it wouldn’t hit her nose. Underneath the duvet, the air was warm and humid, a strange alternative world. When he came it was salty and viscous.
She resurfaced. He put an arm around her and kissed the top of her head. ‘That was lovely.’
‘Did you smoke yesterday?’
‘Only half a sneaky fag outside the office. Could you smell it?’
‘You taste different.’
She lay against the pillow, the padding of her sleep gone.
‘I’ve got to have a shower, sweetie.’ He got up, mock-groaning, and peeked through the blinds. ‘Ugh, still raining.’
She watched him walk, tall, hairy, thin, out of the bedroom. Suddenly his head reappeared. ‘Jesus. What have you done to your hair?’
Leela watched his expression. ‘I cut it.’
‘Yesterday?’ He came closer.
She turned to show him the nape. ‘I like the back.’
‘The back’s nice.’ He stood, irresolute and naked, a towel in his hand.
‘It’s my hair.’
‘It makes your shoulders look nice,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to get ready.’
Leela, unbreakfasted, opened her bag. Yes. Lurking at the bottom, with a couple of wrapped tampons and one glove, was a slim dark chocolate wrapped in cellophane. ‘Merci,’ said the label in faux-cute serif font. Richard’s ex-girlfriend had left them for him on a visit. Leela had mocked the name; she ate the chocolates with cannibalistic satisfaction when she was hungry, which was often. Richard ate irregularly, though he ate well, and his fridge was full of things Leela didn’t consider food, like smoked cheese and salami.
The phone call came when she was returning from the park at the end of her lunch hour.
‘Hi sweetie!’
‘Hi sweetie,’ he responded. ‘Listen, I’ve had an email from Dad.’
She took the news well, stopped in the doorway of a shop, and had t
o move aside when young men came out with cigarettes and bottles of Lucozade. Friday, the end of the week.
‘When’s he here? How many days?’
Richard’s father lived in Germany. He owned the flat where his son and, unofficially, Leela lived. He would be coming to London on work the following afternoon, and staying for a few days. Leela would have to gather her things and take them back to her house.
She didn’t say, ‘Are you going to tell him about me?’
Richard had a strange relationship with his father. Typically, when he and Leela fought about his not having disclosed Leela’s existence, he would say, ‘I’m not even that close to him. There are a lot of things I don’t tell him.’
But Leela suspected he enjoyed the time away from her and with his father, out to nice dinners and strolling around exhibitions. She had more or less moved in with him, and abandoned the daily carrying of a change of clothes, toothbrush, hairbrush etc with her to work, then out, then back to his house. She wanted to be settled; she didn’t want to have to think so often about the small objects that supported her life.
In the afternoon, while the rest of the office grew skittish after a Friday lunch in the pub and sent round droll email forwards, she brooded on those objects. Her hairdryer. Her underwear. Socks, tights, clothes, superannuated make-up, shoes, trainers, a disposable camera that wasn’t yet ready to be disposed of. She dreamed of having few possessions. But it would be the usual degrading scramble of things stuffed in supermarket plastic bags, and Richard, probably, left holding out to her a pair of knickers that had fallen from one of them.
‘Come home and I’ll cook you a nice dinner tonight,’ he said at the end of the call.
‘It’s not my fucking home, is it.’
She left work, disregarding the injunctions from her temporary colleagues to have a good weekend. Was a weekend not merely an opportunity to have long, unfurling arguments and dilatory sex; to spend a long time apologising for things one had said, and a shorter time in the warmth of apparent forgiveness?
On the tube, she was distracted by the profusion of stuff. She tried to read the magazine she’d bought, and scanned the pictures of things with alluring, slightly threatening legends: Pointy-toed boots, Dune, £49.99. Should she wear different nail polish? Change her eye make-up?
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