Larger Than Life

by Adele Parks

  Jessica gives some instruction about what to eat to maximize iron absorption and then she hangs up.

  I rush around the flat trying to locate my maternity bathing costume and a big towel, which, after some unseemly dashing, I find and push into a waterproof bag. Actually, when I say dash, I mean move around the flat in a clumsy lumber, which is as near to a dash as possible if you are carrying an extra three stone.

  I start to hunt for twenty-pence pieces and pound coins for the meter and locker. At the point when I am precariously balanced on a dining-room chair, reaching up to a small shelf above the door in the kitchen, the phone rings again. I know that behind the pile of old Economist magazines there is a tin in which I used to save twenty-pence pieces when they first came out; there’s probably a fortune in there. I feel around blindly and have only just located the tin when Sam’s (woeful) tones float up towards me. Bugger.

  ‘Hi, it’s me. If you’re there, pick up.’

  It’s probably just yet another crisis about the wedding, something along the lines of she can’t source table linen to Gilbert’s cravat. Big tragedy. There’s a pause during which I try to decide whether it’s worth my while making the effort to get down off the chair. Will I accomplish this feat in time to pick up the phone before the answering machine cuts out?

  ‘I know you’re there.’

  It’s depressing that she assumes I have no social life. We haven’t seen much of each other and I’m not sure why. We’ve played telephone tennis for weeks, leaving messages on one another’s machines, but never actually getting to talk. When we do fix up a lunch or supper Sam cancels at the last minute. She’s very wrapped up in the wedding plans and I’m very wrapped up in the pregnancy. For the first time ever, our lives are moving at a different pace and in different, although not opposing, directions. This shouldn’t be enough of a reason to dissolve a thirteen-year friendship, should it? I lower myself down off the chair and rush into the hall to pick up the phone; the moment I get there the line goes dead. I decide against calling her straight back. I’ll ring later tonight when I have more time to talk.

  I climb back on the chair and seize the tin, the contents of which are unhelpful, mostly buttons, paperclips and about £2-worth of Lira. I look in all the usual change-gathering receptacles in the flat – soap dish in the downstairs loo, the fruit bowl on the hall table, a coffee mug on the breakfast bar, my desk drawer. Not a penny. In desperation, I start to hunt behind the cushions on the settee and under the bed. God, look at this, my box of old diaries!

  In the past I’ve always been a strict and dutiful diary writer. Ever since I went to university, I’ve religiously made an entry every day, sharing my thoughts, experiences, hopes, dreams and fears with myself – at least this way I could guarantee a receptive and sympathetic audience. I haven’t looked at my diaries for weeks. I stopped making entries shortly after I found out I was pregnant. The early days were so miserable, entry after entry describing vomit; the reading was too boring and, frankly, if your own diary is boring, then you are the last person who should remind yourself that this is the case. I may now start keeping a diary again to detail the amazing changes in my head and my body, which, I now concede, are fascinating.

  I pick up a heavy brown leather diary for 1999 and hold it close to my nose to drink in the familiar creamy, warm smell. The pages are well worn on this one. I can’t resist, I lower myself to my knees and then my bottom, every movement is as tricky as a three-point turn, and I sit on the floor with my back against the bed and start to read.

  Oh yes, we went ballooning! God, that was terrifying! And here’s a whole section on our holiday in the Maldives. That was an amazing holiday. What times we had! I can almost feel the sand between my toes, and everywhere else for that matter! Sex on the beach, sex on loungers, sex in the pool and, almost disappointingly, sex in the hotel. I’m suddenly thrust back into a world of skinny limbs and scanty underwear. I smile fondly to myself. I turn back the pages of the diary. My birthday. Sam arranged a big dinner at Titanic. Everyone came, Julia and Karl, Drew, Brett. Not Hugh. So many people; yet I remember the birthday as being excruciatingly lonely. I rush on. Christmas. The Christmas Hugh ate two dinners and didn’t tell me until he was sick on Boxing Day! He was still living with Becca and he nipped to my flat for an hour or so on Christmas Day in the evening, under the pretence of walking the dog. That was good of him. Wasn’t it?

  Was it?

  Suddenly the euphoria starts to dissolve. The hair on the back of my neck twitches then stands up and my tongue feels sticky and dry. If I didn’t know better, I’d identify this feeling as guilt or, more accurately, shame. What was Becca doing on that Christmas night when Hugh was walking the dog? Was she pleased with him for getting the dog out from under her feet, or did she resent having to struggle to bath and put two over-excited children to bed on her own? How come I’ve never thought about that before?

  I shiver.

  I can’t help thinking about the fact that Becca wanted a Thorntons egg when she was a girl and although it seems unrelated to my present state of uneasiness, it isn’t. If she wanted an egg, what else did she want out of life? Almost certainly not to be a single parent. Because who wants that?

  It’s Becca, for God’s sake.

  What am I doing feeling sorry for Becca?

  She can look after herself. It’s all history now. And we are where we are. And she did have a fling with her tennis coach. Or at least she probably did; she always denies it but Hugh is almost certain. And she’s dating again now, isn’t she? She’s happy. I turn to another page, desperately trying to recapture the delicious feeling of euphoria that I felt when I first opened the diaries. I know which bit always cheers me up. I pick up the cream suede diary for 1998 and turn to March 5. It’s a bit about a party. The party actually. The party when Hugh and I stepped over the boundary from ‘just good friends’ to ‘very good friends’.

  It was a party to celebrate my promotion at Q&A to President of Neoteric Enterprise; I’d invited Sam and Hugh and Becca. Becca, predictably, turned the invite down, said she couldn’t get a babysitter. She pretty much handed Hugh to me on a plate. Q&A had hired a limo to drive me home, anticipating that I’d drink so much I’d be incapable of getting a cab, let alone remembering my own address. I suggested Hugh share the limo home. We didn’t exactly live near each other (he was north London, I was south), so by accepting the offer he was making his intentions clear. I’ll never really understand where that first kiss came from. One moment we were talking about the fact that 5 4 per cent of carbonated drinks are consumed by under-24-year-olds, and the next he was kissing me. All those years wishing and wanting and waiting and sounding like a 1960s track, then suddenly it was happening and it seemed the most natural thing on the earth. As innocent as bending to tie his shoelace. Well, actually, not so innocent, as we ended up having sex in the back of the limo.

  ‘We could barely contain our wanting. I felt so sexy that the action of crossing my legs in the back of the limo nearly sent me into orbit.’

  I reread the phrase. Four times.

  We could barely contain our wanting.

  It doesn’t make me feel euphoric.

  It’s my handwriting and it’s my diary. I assume, then, that this was my life. But I’m not certain. I don’t recognize it. I flick through April, May, June. By the summer, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other; every opportunity and, hey presto, knickers down. I return to the 1999 diary. We had sex in five countries before I broke my New Year’s resolution not to drink more than three units in one night; now that is what I call going some. God, and what detail I went into! If I ever get fed up at Q&A I might seriously consider a career in writing hard-core Mills and Boons. I read another passage and then another. They are all the same. They either detail us having- sex, or reasons why we couldn’t meet and have sex. I pick up the year 2000 diary and start to make a list of the places we made love. Besides beds – in numerous hotels, mine, the spare one in Sam’s flat – t
here was also my office, his office, my boss’s office, my bathroom (shower, bath, floor), kitchen (breakfast bar, washing-machine – on top, not inside, ha, ha), sitting room (settee, chair), dining room (table, floor), and stairway. Aside from the fact that I bought this flat before the property boom, it certainly appears that I’ve had my money’s worth from every single room. I continue with the list. In the year 2000 we made love in greenhouses, sheds, swimming pools, laundry rooms and pantries, in parks, cottages, cars, cinemas, beach huts and on beaches. On planes, trains, ships, yachts, in rowing boats and once, most uncomfortably, in a punt.

  The adventurous nature of our rendezvous naturally came to a close in the middle of 2000, when Hugh moved into my flat. The urgency fell out of the relationship, although the frequency was still impressive. This year has scored pretty poorly on both counts. I snap shut my diaries and place them back in the shoebox and push the shoebox back under the bed.

  I’m depressed. Not just because I can’t remember when we last made love but because I can’t remember when I last wanted to.

  Yes, I can, it was Easter. I wanted sex with Robert Powell.

  The phone rings again; this time I do get there in time. It’s Hugh, who has called to tell me he’s working late. I suppose that it’s progress that he’s called at all. He sounds really pleased that I’m going to the gym, which cheers me up somewhat. For reasons I can’t explain, even to myself, I keep him on the line longer than necessary. For reasons I’ve never been able to explain, it does the trick – as it always has – his voice cheers and soothes me.

  ‘Are you happy?’ I ask. It’s a risky, unadvisable question, but his answer heartens me.

  ‘No, I’m Sneezy,’ he jokes back.

  Of course it doesn’t matter if we don’t have acrobatic sex any more; I certainly don’t miss the carpet burns. Nor does it matter that Hugh once ate two Christmas dinners. I thought it was funny at the time. We pass five minutes more in pleasantries and then he hangs up. I place the phone back in its cradle and try very hard to hang on to the uneasy calm that the conversation has reinstated.

  I check the time. I’m really going to have to get my arse in gear if I want to make it to the water-confidence class on time.

  Now, what was I doing before the phone call? I know, looking for money for the meter and locker. Ah ha, Hugh’s jacket pockets. I often find loose change in the pockets of his jackets when I’m taking them to the dry-cleaner’s. I lumber back upstairs and start to rummage through the numerous garments. We really need a sort-out. We’ve both got far too many clothes, and we won’t have as much space when the baby comes. Nor can I imagine I’ll need my extensive, exclusively black, dry-clean only wardrobe. I rummage through his jacket pockets. Spare office key – he can never find that when he’s looking for it. Chewing gum. Condoms; God, they must have been in there for ages. Block buster membership card. Receipts for taxis and restaurants and clothes. I can’t believe he thinks he’ll get that through expenses! That’s odd, we’ve never been to the Lucky 7 restaurant. I wonder when he went there? I must ask him what he thought of it. I’ve read rave reviews in all the lifestyle mags. Eventually I find two pound coins in his sports jacket. I pocket them and rush out to meet Libby.

  I know what you’re thinking. Condoms and a receipt for a restaurant. A bill that comes to about £80, a bill that means a meal for two. You think Hugh’s having an affair.

  Me too.

  It’s not just the baby that’s opening its eyes.

  35

  Libby, Millie and I settle down to hot chocolates and king-size Mars bars. The beauty of going places with a seven-year-old is that I don’t have to apologize for this gluttony. Despite showering, we all still smell of chlorine and disinfectant. Only Millie has bothered to blow-dry her hair; I do this as infrequently as I possibly can nowadays because it requires exhausting arm-raising. Nor have I reapplied my make-up. Why bother? It’s nearly nine o’clock – we’ll have to take it off again in a couple of hours. Still, I feel beautiful.

  Radiant.

  For the last forty-five minutes I’ve just floated and bobbed about in a pool with about a dozen other mums-to-be (at least four of whom were actually bigger than me!) and I feel fantastic.

  ‘I thought I’d die laughing when the instructor told us to jump but keep our legs together, and you shouted back, “It’s a bit late for that”,’ says Libby.

  We both giggle uncontrollably and cackle unattractively until snot comes out of our noses and tears out of our eyes.

  You had to be there.

  Millie, who I now try to regard as ‘a splash of colourful, wonderful joy’, looks at us with contempt and suggests that we’ve lost the plot. Then she asks, ‘Are you going to get married? Because then I could be your bridesmaid.’ Since she discovered that Kate is being one of Sam’s bridesmaids it has become Millie’s greatest ambition in life to be one too. I know how she feels.

  ‘It’s tricky,’ I comment, and stall by blotting a tissue on all the damp bits of my face.

  ‘Why?’

  Her directness no longer takes me aback. I’ve now realized that this is how children operate. They have a sixth sense that identifies which question you’d least like to be asked, and then they ask it.

  ‘He’s still married.’

  ‘Is he planning on getting divorced?’

  ‘Oh yes, we’ve lived together for nearly two years now.’ I barely blush as I use Sam’s technique of rounding up; in fact we’ve been living together barely over a year. ‘It’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘How much time? What’s the delay?’ Normally Libby would step in at this point and tell Millie not to be impertinent. The fact that she doesn’t suggests to me that she also wants to hear the answer.

  I really don’t know.

  I fall back on ‘It’s tricky’ once again.

  ‘Is Becca making things difficult?’ This time it’s Libby who asks the question.

  ‘I can’t honestly say she is. Her lawyer has been a bit tardy, but… ‘I don’t know what else to say. I try and remember what Hugh says to me when he is explaining the delay. I can remember the words he uses. Something about minimizing the disruption for the kids, trying to coincide it with a school year. But we’ve had a new school year and, anyway, Tom hasn’t even started school yet. Hugh goes on about financial implications and I know he wanted to wait until his grandmother passed away, but she’s been pushing up daisies for eight months now. When he explains it to me it always sounds so perfectly reasonable, but repeating it back, even to myself, the delay is inexplicable. I patch together a party line from the things he’s said to me in the past. Surely, if I can make Millie understand then I’ll have a chance of getting it too.

  ‘There are a lot of people to consider, that’s the thing about marriage and divorce, it’s not just about two people or even two people plus two kids.’

  ‘But you must have known that before you started the affair,’ points out Libby, with irritating reasonableness.

  ‘Yes, I did, but no, I didn’t,’ I sigh. ‘His mother is distraught – she loves Becca.’

  ‘Even after she had the affair with her tennis coach?’

  I admit that I might have misled Libby a little bit here. Upgrading a probability into a certainty.

  ‘Oh God, Hugh hasn’t told his mother about that; it would break her heart and he is far too considerate.’ That’s probably why Hugh is careful to minimize my visits to his mother too, just out of respect for her sensibilities. ‘I see quite a lot of his father,’ I justify. ‘His attitude is slightly more accepting.’ As I’m talking I slurp my hot chocolate. I think the conversation would have rested there; perhaps we’d have started to talk about the virtues of a crib versus a Moses basket – only I add, ‘Of course, there’s the little matter of him having an affair.’

  ‘Another one?’

  Despite Libby being one of the coolest and most liberated people I know, this does get the net curtains twitching. ‘Another one,’ I sigh.


  It was something about saying aloud that Hugh was considerate that prompted this confession. It is after all a great big fat lie. I used to think he was. But I don’t believe it any more.

  I tell Libby about the restaurant receipt, the condoms, and that he has been doing unreasonably long hours in the office recently. I ask her where else could he possibly be channelling his sex drive; it’s certainly not coming my way. She knows about the endless rows. I’ve already decided that these are not things that I’ll be telling Sam or Jessica. How can I? They’ve listened to me worshipping Hugh for a lifetime.

  ‘What do you think?’ I ask Libby. ‘do you think he’s having an affair?’

  ‘Sounds as though you do.’

  ‘Well, it’s pretty conclusive evidence, isn’t it?’

  She moves her shoulders – it’s a cross between a nod and a shrug; I’d say sixty-forty in favour of a nod.

  ‘So, what are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  And I don’t. I could confront him, ask questions, demand answers. Scream, shout, rant, rave, cut up his clothes, scratch his car. Theoretically I could leave him, although, if I’m honest with myself, this is unlikely. I mean, not only have I spent all my adult life trying to be with this man but now I’m having his baby; it hardly seems to be the optimum moment to pack up the old kitbag. I could ignore him. I could ignore the evidence. I could wait. After the baby I’ll be sexy and thin and interested and interesting. I could order another hot chocolate. I decide to do that.

  It’s easiest.

  36

  I get home at ten. Hugh is still stood in the hall, flicking through mail; it’s obvious that he hasn’t been home long.

  ‘Another late night?’ I ask and only just resist adding ominously, ‘At the office.’