by Julie Cohen
‘Oh, I know, it’s my mum, she’s crazy about them. She has pigs on everything. It’s pretty sad actually. Want to come up to my room?’
‘OK.’
There were framed cartoons of pigs on the staircase wall. Near the top there was a large one, of three pigs, two large and one smaller. The caption read Three Little Pigs: Alan, Charlotte, Bailey. Lydia didn’t see any particular resemblance to Bailey in the littlest pig, but she thought about Bailey posing for this picture with her mum and dad, all the time knowing that she was going to be drawn as a pig, not as herself, and she felt a wave of pity for Bailey, stronger than anything she’d felt so far.
‘We can listen to music if you want,’ said Bailey, pushing open the door to her bedroom with her elbow because she was holding cans of Coke in her hands. ‘What do you like?’
‘What do you have?’
‘Oh, I can just find anything on Spotify.’ She put the Cokes on the bedside table and opened up her laptop, which was on her bed. The duvet cover had pink polja-dots, like a little girl’s. There was a matching shade on the bedside lamp and a pink fluffy rug on the floor, a collection of cheap make-up in front of the mirror. The walls were magnolia and there was only one poster on the wall, of Five Seconds of Summer. It was pristine.
‘You like Five Seconds of Summer?’ Lydia asked.
She felt Bailey gauging her quickly before the other girl replied, ‘Oh, I used to, that’s an old poster. I’m so over boy bands, you know?’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Susannah used to love them. She bought me that poster.’
‘Why don’t we listen to one of the bands you’ve seen at one of those gigs in Southampton? Did you buy the CDs?’
‘Oh yeah, but the CD player on this is broken. I’ll just do a Spotify. What do you like?’
‘I like sixties’ and seventies’ stuff mostly. The Rolling Stones, the Kinks, Aretha Franklin.’
‘Really?’ There was a slight note of scorn in Bailey’s voice. ‘Nothing new?’
‘My dad was crazy about all of that music and I still have all his CDs. I listen to them a lot, so it just became my favourite.’
Bailey shrugged. ‘OK, that’s cool. I’ll make a list.’ She cracked open her Coke and sat on her bed, fiddling with her laptop. ‘Athena who?’
‘Aretha. Aretha Franklin.’ There was nowhere else to sit, so Lydia opened her own Coke and sat next to her. She looked around the room.
There weren’t any CDs. Or books, or clothes littering the floor. There was nothing to show anything of Bailey’s personality except for the little-girl pink things, and the one poster that you could buy off any website, nothing different from any other teenage bedroom anywhere else in the world. She wondered where Bailey’s stuff was, if it was crammed into the wardrobe or hidden underneath the bed, in case someone actually came round. She wondered if Bailey had planned to invite her since this morning, and she’d prepared her room especially.
There was nothing here. Nobody. The pigs lining the rest of the house were weird, but they were at least something. This room reflected no personality whatsoever. She sipped her Coke and watched Bailey’s profile as she chose songs online from the list that Lydia had given her. She saw all the hours that Bailey must spend in this room alone, experimenting with that make-up maybe, maybe surfing the net to keep up with people she used to know in Southampton, if they even existed.
She was lonely, and working so hard to hide … what?
‘Those boys teasing you,’ she said suddenly, though she hadn’t planned to talk about it. ‘You shouldn’t let it show that it bothers you. If they don’t get a rise out of you, they’ll stop.’
‘Oh, I know,’ said Bailey, not looking up from her laptop, but colouring.
‘Basically you just have to give them nothing to talk about,’ Lydia continued. ‘Either that, or just not give a shit at all.’
‘I don’t give a shit.’
You do, Lydia thought. You give an enormous, colossal shit. And that’s exactly what makes you their target.
It made Lydia feel sad.
‘There,’ said Bailey, and the laptop started to play ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’. She put it on the bedside table, under the lamp, and settled back on the bed next to Lydia, their backs against the wall. Their shoulders just touched. Lydia looked down at their legs: hers slim and tanned, Bailey’s pale and shapeless, with those crumpled white socks.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘your legs would look even longer if you folded down your socks, or didn’t wear any.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Definitely. And if you found black ones, they’d be even better. See what I do with mine? I fold them down over my heel so they don’t show.’ Lydia toed off her shoe and showed Bailey.
‘Maybe I could try that, yeah.’
‘And Avril showed me this thing you can do with eyeliner so it doesn’t even look like you’re wearing it, but it can really make your eyes look bigger. I can show you if you want.’
‘Yeah, OK.’
Bailey sounded quite pleased. She took off her own shoes and tried folding her socks over her heel like Lydia did.
Lydia wasn’t so foolish as to think that socks alone were going to make much of a difference to Bailey’s life. But maybe if she felt more confident, if she looked like less of a victim, she would be able to resist the name-calling better. She might be able to make some of her own friends, instead of having to tag along with Lydia. Or maybe she could just relax and be herself.
‘I don’t think my legs are ever going to look as long as yours,’ said Bailey.
‘Well, that’s because I run.’
‘Ugh, I could never run.’
‘It’s not so hard, really. And after the first couple of times, it’s fun. You just put on music and zone out. The girls on the cross-country team are pretty nice. You’d probably like some of them. It’s an easy way to make friends.’
‘Hmm. I’m not sure I could do it.’
‘You can come running with me sometime. I’ll help you.’
And that would not be fun, but who knew? Maybe Bailey would take to it, and she might join the team next year and make some friends.
Maybe you’ll need Bailey as much as she needs you, said a little voice in Lydia’s head. If Avril keeps going out with Harry.
‘Is Erin on the team?’ asked Bailey.
‘Erin? God, no. She doesn’t like being seen when she’s sweaty.’
‘I wonder if I should mention to Erin that I know this girl who is just like her. In Southampton.’
‘Maybe,’ said Lydia doubtfully. ‘Could she be mean sometimes, like Erin?’
Bailey looked at her in confusion. ‘I thought Erin was your friend?’
‘Yeah. Ignore me. Do you want to try that eyeliner thing?’
Bailey nodded and got up to fetch her make-up. ‘I Say A Little Prayer’ came on as she sat on the bed, cross-legged, facing Lydia. ‘This isn’t bad. Sort of retro.’
‘Yeah, it’s … one of my favourite songs.’ It was the song she played when she thought of Avril. Sometimes on her iPod, over and over and over again, as if playing it and listening to it were a prayer of its own.
Avril and Harry snogging in the bushes behind the Geography block. She swallowed hard.
‘Anyway, close your eyes,’ she said, picking out an eyeliner. Bailey tilted her head up so that Lydia could work on her. Lydia was slightly taller.
Bailey wasn’t that bad-looking. Her face was round but her skin was good, smooth with hardly any spots. The paleness that looked pasty on her legs was more delicate on her face. Blue veins traced faint lines under her eyes. She had some freckles on her nose, and her eyelashes made fans on her cheeks. Her lips were plump, slightly open as Lydia stroked the eyeliner on her eyelids. Lydia put her left hand on the side of Bailey’s face to steady it.
She’d done this same thing with Avril, her heart pounding so hard she could barely draw the eyeliner on. She’d allowed her thumb to briefly
caress her cheekbone; Avril hadn’t seemed to notice, but Lydia had wondered if she’d liked it.
She did the same thing with Bailey, feeling how soft her skin was. And then she felt silly. ‘OK, open your eyes and look up now, I’ll do the bottom.’ Bailey opened her eyes and she met Lydia’s gaze for a second, before she looked up. Her irises were pale blue, and her breath feathered on Lydia’s wrist as she drew a fine line. Lydia was suddenly conscious of the pulse beating in Bailey’s throat above her school shirt, how their knees were brushing each other as they sat close together on the bed.
‘I know what it’s like to feel that you don’t belong,’ Lydia said, keeping her voice conversational. ‘I feel that sometimes, too.’
Bailey was still looking up at the ceiling.
‘But you’ll find someone who understands you,’ said Lydia. ‘You have to. There has to be someone. It would be too unfair if there wasn’t.’
She’d finished drawing on Bailey’s eyelids – she hadn’t done a great job, to be honest – but Bailey was still staring up at the ceiling.
‘I don’t know who it is,’ whispered Bailey. Her bottom lip wobbled.
Lydia dipped her head and kissed her on the mouth.
She was thinking of Avril: of sitting beside Avril as Avril cried, of sharing a bed with Avril as Avril slept. Of the weekend at the seaside when she and Avril had sat side by side on the beach at night and made different wishes on the same shooting star. Thinking of Avril. Kissing Bailey. Her heart hammering and tears burning in her closed eyes.
Bailey’s lips were slightly sticky. They were plump, softer than the lips of the boys that Avril had kissed because she was pretending. Her skin was entirely smooth. Her breath tasted of Coke. She was the first girl that Lydia had ever kissed. Her first real kiss, with someone she didn’t even love, thinking of the person she did.
Oh God, a mistake.
Her eyes snapped open and she drew away, quickly, to the end of the bed. Bailey was staring at her, wide-eyed, her mouth open.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lydia. ‘That was a stupid thing to do.’
‘I don’t—’ said Bailey. ‘I’m not—’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking about.’
A tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away, hoping that Bailey hadn’t seen it.
‘Is that why …’ said Bailey. ‘Did you think that what they said was …’
‘No! Of course not. It was a joke! But a stupid one. Anyway, I’ve got to go.’ Lydia scrambled off the bed and grabbed her phone, nearly tipping her can of Coke over Bailey’s laptop, but she caught it in time. ‘Whoo! Close call,’ she said cheerfully, in a voice that sounded just like her mother’s to her ears. She shoved her shoes on her feet, feeling Bailey staring at her. Feeling her lips still warm. ‘OK, well, see you around.’
She fled down the stairs, past the cartoon pigs, and out of the house. She ran down the street, ran in her school shoes as fast as she could with her hair whipping around her face and her bag bumping on her backside, ran until she was out of breath and rounding the corner of Shakespeare Drive into Keats Way, and only then did she realize that she hadn’t told Bailey not to tell anyone what she’d done.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Honor
Emma Bovary, arsenic.
Anna Karenina, train.
Maggie Tulliver, river.
Lucy Westenra, stake.
Tess D’Urberville, noose.
Porphyria, her own hair.
Desdemona, pillow.
Clytemnestra, son.
Fictional fallen women, a long line of them, all the way back to Eve and her apple.
For most of her life, Honor had learned about the world through reading. And in most of her reading, from a very early age, she had learned that if you were a woman, and you desired, you died.
And yet when she’d been a fallen woman herself – desiring Paul, snatching stolen moments with him – she had never felt so alive. For three years, she had been so happy she had glowed. Strangers had commented on it. She tripped lightly through life, the right words appearing on her lips, her body finally understanding why it was made. Her intellect had never been so sharp, her research never so instinctive. She had never felt she was doing wrong, never even thought of his obligations or her sins, until that evening when she visited his house and met his family.
Jo, with her secret liaisons with who knew what man, was less than subtle. She giggled over text messages and glided around the house, singing. She had a spring in her step, a sway in her hips. She whistled, picking up her children, changing nappies, scrubbing the surfaces, folding laundry. Honor could not see her clearly but she could see the glow; she could almost feel it emanating from Jo’s skin.
Because the truth was this – despite Honor’s reading, despite what men and a few chosen women had written for hundreds, even thousands of years: for a fallen woman, the right kind of falling was not torture. It was the best part of life.
And for most fallen women, the punishment wasn’t death. It was living long after the falling was over.
They only read one Christmas card at a time. Sometimes she had Lydia read the letters twice through, and then after she was gone Honor pored over them again, the words jumping, but familiar enough, memorized. Last night Lydia had read her this:
‘I think about how precious my time with my children has been and I know that if your mother had told me of your existence, I would not have had the same time with my three girls. I would not have been able to play with them every day, or seen every small change as they grew. But I would have had time with you. How can you choose between children? You’re all grown now, and it’s too late, but I can’t blame your mother. She must have known that she could be enough for you.’
Lydia put down the letter. ‘He forgave you.’
Honor reached out her hand for the letter, as if she could absorb the words by touching them.
‘I have yet to forgive myself,’ she said.
‘Are you certain you don’t mind looking after them again, Honor?’ Jo paused in the doorway. She was nearly on tiptoe from the force of the desire driving her out of the house.
‘The physical therapist told me to stay active,’ said Honor. ‘It’s either this or go out and join a netball team.’
Jo made a sound that was half a laugh, as if she weren’t sure whether Honor was making a joke or not. ‘Well, if you’re sure. It’s a lovely day. There’s a chair out in the garden if you want to take them out there.’
‘Stop fussing. Go.’
‘And there are snacks in the fridge, some yoghurt. Oscar likes the kind with no bits in, and Iris likes the kind with bits in. And some cheese strings. And—’
‘It is looking after children,’ said Honor. ‘Not rocket science.’
‘Well, to be honest, sometimes I think looking after children is harder than rocket science. At least in rocket science you get to sit in a quiet room.’
‘I can manage. Go.’
‘I’ll have my phone,’ said Jo, and gave her children a last kiss before she left them, as if she were leaving for a week, rather than a snatched hour or two with her lover. To her surprise, Honor felt Jo swoop down and plant a kiss on her own cheek, too.
‘Thank you,’ she said, squeezing Honor’s hand, and then she was gone.
Honor paused, taking this in. Had Jo ever kissed her before? Perhaps once in the early days, when she and Stephen were young and fresh in love. Or out of duty on their wedding day.
A little hand tugged at her sleeve. ‘What are we going to do, Ganny H?’ demanded Oscar.
‘Honor,’ she told him. ‘My name is Honor.’
‘OK, Ganny H. Can we play Angry Birds?’
Iris crowded up against her legs, too. Children had no sense of personal space. Their little bodies were warm against her and they smelled of milk and biscuits.
‘Your mother said we shouldn’t spend all our time playing video games.’ But what did one do with children, how did
one occupy them? ‘Why don’t you play with your toys for a few minutes and we’ll work out what to do?’
‘No!’ said Iris, but both of them wandered off. Working in tandem, they pulled their toy box open and began excavating items.
It had been over forty years since Honor had been in charge of a very young child. Despite what she’d said to Jo, she had little idea of what it entailed. What she remembered best about her own early motherhood was that it had been hugely, overwhelmingly, despair-inducingly boring.
She had loved Stephen, desperately, from the moment he was born. And yet nothing in her life had prepared her for the tedium of feeds, cleans, burps, walks, sleeps. The lack of any time to herself, hardly any time to think. She was aching for Paul – even more so because Stephen looked just like him, right from the first. She wondered every minute whether she’d done the right thing in not telling Paul. She mourned the person she’d lost, even as she was caring for the person she’d gained.
And she couldn’t work, of course. There were no lectureships available in London when she’d returned, and she couldn’t bear the thought of writing to Paul to ask for a reference anyway. She’d decided to take a career break whilst she looked after Stephen. But the work had been her life, and without it, she felt invisible. Lost.
Her father was a revelation. Shimon Levinson changed nappies, prepared feeds, went for walks with the pram up round and round Clissold Park. When Stephen could walk, he used to lead Shimon around by the hand. Her father brought his grandson to shul even though Honor protested that she was not bringing up her child in any superstitious religion – no, not even Reform. And then her father had his second heart attack, and she lost him, too.
When she’d thought about it since, she believed that she might have had a touch of post-partum depression, though it wasn’t the sort of thing that was talked about then. Mostly it was the boredom, and the dark dragging time before dawn, and the days with hours and hours to fill with nothing. Waking up and thinking Oh God, what shall I do all day? The other mothers in the park were so young, so married.
She began to work when he was napping, once he was a toddler and settled into a routine. She began researching, reading, planning articles to write so she could build up her publishing history for when she was able to apply for a lecturing post again. In her head she would translate from Russian into English as they walked, as Stephen exclaimed over a bug or slipped pebbles into his pocket.