by Judy Astley
‘Or for lying. Think how many people must swear they’re a size ten when what they really mean is they hope to diet down to it.’
Jay laughed. ‘I can relate to that, Barbara, don’t knock it. It’s not called Goal Weight for nothing!’
Barbara steered the van round the corner and pulled up at the house. Jay looked up at the mimosa tree that waved its graceful slender branches out over the pavement. ‘This reminds me of somewhere . . . Heavens, surely it can’t be the place I saw in Rory’s magazine?’
‘What, the one you said was a brothel?’ Barbara peered out of the van window, checking out what looked like an ordinary family home. ‘Looks perfectly normal to me. Nice and big but nothing special.’
‘It does doesn’t it? The real one’s probably nowhere round here. Pity, but all the same let’s get inside quick, have a shufti!’
‘I keep rooms,’ the proprietor of number thirty-six announced as soon as she’d opened the door to Jay and Barbara. The term had a grand Edwardian ring about it, as if the house was a warren of gloomy bedsitters each containing a gas ring and a genteel governess of good family, who had fallen on harder times than her upbringing had led her to expect.
Mrs Howard was a small, bony woman in her mid-sixties. Her head darted forward and back, nose leading as she spoke, reminding Jay of a skinny budgie on a perch. Disappointingly, she was nothing like the brash bawdy-house madam Jay had been hoping to meet. It would have been great fun to have been greeted on the doorstep by an aged siren with fluffy high-heeled mules, a long cigarette holder, scarlet slit skirt belted with wide black patent and a deeply cut translucent black frilly blouse. A classic caricature definitely, but nothing wrong with that, it was very Beryl Cook, and if it was good enough for her . . . The vision should have been topped off with piled-up ginger curls and a filthy laugh. This lady was all tidy Marks and Spencers box pleats and high-necked crisp white blouse and looked very much as if she would order Jay and Barbara from the premises if they so much as accidentally flashed a leopard-print bra strap. Men who visited the house wouldn’t be punters, they’d surely be referred to as ‘gentlemen callers’.
‘. . . girls who work in the theatre, they’re mostly from abroad,’ she was continuing as she showed them into her sitting room. This sounded more promising. What on earth would girls ‘from abroad’ be doing on the stages of London theatres? Unless you counted all those bouncy Irish ones who’d been recruited for River-dance a few years back.
‘These days,’ she seemed keen to explain, ‘the younger girls are on such short contracts they need somewhere to stay where they won’t be molested or get lonely, and they tend to move on so it’s not worth their while setting up home in flats. Being so close to the station, we’re handy for the West End, you see, and cheaper than central areas.’
Jay looked around the room, taking in the fact that it was meticulously tidy and that there were relatively few knick-knacks on the surfaces. There was something mildly impersonal about it, as if paintings (Lake District landscapes, a 1920s Thames pleasure-boat scene) had been chosen to match the decor. There was a decided preference for Laura Ashley. The walls were papered with a sort of pale terracotta, patterned to look like rag-rolling. Her aunt Win would be pleased by the many floral cushions, the creamy damask curtains and the peach-striped sofas. Jay tried for a second, and failed, to imagine herself wearing this colour to Delphine’s wedding. She was more of a grey-blue person really, absolutely not this. She’d have to wait and see what Delphine was intending to wear and tone herself in with something.
‘It’s really only the communal areas that need your services, and then the girls’ rooms as and when they’re vacated. Some stay a while, some are off after a few days,’ Mrs Howard went on, leading the way up the stairs. ‘The girls like their privacy so while they’re here I have to trust them to keep their own rooms up to scratch.’ She turned and gave them a wry smile. ‘Some of them though, frankly you wonder where they were dragged up. And if you say anything you come up against the language barrier. What does it take to run a duster over a shelf?’
Jay bit her tongue to stop herself from blurting out, ‘About ten quid an hour.’
The three bathrooms – two on the first floor and another one between the two attic rooms – were all strangely void of real signs of habitation. There were no toothbrushes on the shelves, no Tampax boxes, shampoo bottles, towels, shower gels, flannels or loofahs strewn about. Jay imagined the inhabitants behind the closed bedroom doors, shyly peering out to see if the coast was clear before scuttling into the bathroom, clutching sponge bags and towels and trussed up in big velour dressing gowns. It was probably miles from the truth – when the occupants were around, the place would surely be vibrant with polyglottal girly chat, the air full of clashing scents and shower steam. Just now, though, with everything quiet and empty there was a strange air of deadness and sterility – like, she imagined, an old boarding-school dormitory a day before term began. The kitchen was a jollier place – the dresser hung with a lively selection of brightly coloured mugs, the walls a pretty sky blue and a big noticeboard covered with photos, messages, lists, postcards and fast-food flyers.
‘It would have to be afternoons, for the cleaning,’ Mrs Howard told Jay and Barbara. ‘The girls sleep late,’ she said with a smile. ‘They need their rest, you see, working so hard at night.’
Oh if only, Jay thought, catching Barbara’s eye, if only it were true, that behind those ordinary cream-gloss doors upstairs there were chambers all kitted out with exotic, erotic delights. It would make such a change from the tame suburban tastes of most of their clients. She imagined running Henry’s nozzle under a bed and clanging it against abandoned handcuffs or tangling it in the laces of a leather basque. Instead of the usual bedroom shelves holding books, photographs, make-up, she pictured a row of vibrators, arranged neatly in size order. The big snag would be finding staff who didn’t have scruples about polishing them . . .
Rory waited till the morning break. It had been hard to concentrate in French (bloody Jacques again, up to nothing much with his cousine Dominique, taking their chien to the village to buy some crêpes and eat them by the rivière).
‘Freddie?’ Rory whispered into his mobile, even though he was under the trees on the far side of the football pitch and miles from anyone. ‘Freddie can you hear me?’
‘Whassup? It’s early, man.’ He’d woken him. Didn’t you have to go to school during your last year? Was hours of free kip-time the way they got you to stay on after sixteen? Well punted, that.
‘Freddie it’s nearly eleven.’
‘So? Got nothing till two. Whaddya need, cousin?’
‘That house, that one we went to with the tarts, except they weren’t and I shoved that bit of paper through the door, they’ve only rung Mum and she’s gone round there.’
‘So? It was just a house. What’s she gone there for?’
‘Someone phoned about cleaning. I just said.’ He felt slightly silly now. He’d overreacted. It was just a house. An ordinary big family-type place. The cleaning was just a job. Life was boring, predictable, unthrilling. He so wished it wasn’t. He so wished that house had been crawling with stonkingly gorgeous pouty Albanian hookers offering porno services he’d only (so far) dreamed about. It was very handily local – he’d be tempted to save up and make a visit. But better than that, much better, he so wished – and his heart actually squeezed itself extra hard, he could feel it – he so wished Samantha Newton thought of him as more than the dim tosser at the back of the class who’d had trouble that morning translating ‘Mon chien est noir et blanc’. He’d looked at her as he wrestled with the language. She had her hand over her face as if she was trying not to laugh. He couldn’t blame her, if he wasn’t the one being so lame, he’d be laughing too.
‘Maybe you’ll be able to find out what that Charles bloke’s connection is,’ Freddie said, sounding a bit more awake. ‘You been back to his swanky pad yet?’ Rory heard him lighting a cigarette, t
hen inhaling deeply on the first blissful one of the day.
‘I’d forgotten about him. He probably just knows the owner. Dull as. And no, I haven’t been back. Seen it, done it.’
Even to himself, his voice sounded gloom-filled. Someone should be taking care of him, treating him gently, feeding him Prozac before he turned into one of those teen suicide statistics. He sighed, reminding himself of one of the olds you saw on the bus every morning who sighed their annoyance at having accidentally got on before the pensioners’ free travel kicked in and then sighed that schoolkids were in their space (sighed even more if someone let them sit down, as if they’d hoped for a bit of lively confrontation about Manners These Days). Then they sighed at having to get up off their comfy seat when they’d got to their stop and sighed when they made it safely to the pavement. God, if he was like this now, what would he be like at seventy? He’d be all sigh, no breathing.
‘You all right Rory? You sound a bit down, man.’ Rory could hear Freddie peeing, then the flush of the loo. He pictured him striding about in his boxers, wandering between the bathroom and his bedroom, idly scratching his balls and flopping back on top of his bed, flicking the remote at the telly. Freddie, at ten, had had a Ryan Giggs duvet cover. He’d taken it with him on a school trip, unable to be apart from it and bravely oblivious to teasing. Rory tried to imagine the grown-up Freddie lying on Ryan. It was a bit of a gay picture he was conjuring up there, not at all like Freddie. He’d probably got a Kylie one now, which could pretty gay as well, he supposed. Could you get J-Lo ones? Or Beyoncé?
‘I’m OK,’ Rory muttered eventually. ‘Just . . . life, you know.’
‘No luck with the chick?’
‘No, none at all. Not a hope. Given up.’
‘No don’t do that. You see it, you want it, you gotta make it happen. Gospel according to Freddie.’
If only it was that easy. Getting a snog off Samantha Newton would be the equivalent of being a sub for some part-time club in a minor league being called up to play for Man. United. She was going to be the sort who only went out with men born under the Amex Platinum sign. When she was an independent grown-up she’d never get on a plane and turn right. She was destined to be forever pursued by drooling rich suckers who’d fork out to shower her with life’s most expensive things. He’d have to impress her something massive even to get a look-in.
Rory trudged back across the soccer pitch trying to get himself in the mood for Geography. Not easy. When he thought of mountain ranges all that came to mind were the superb rising mounds on the front of Samantha Newton’s body. Scaling those peaks, now that would be something. But first, she’d got to notice him. Got to be impressed. A small idea was taking shape. A very small idea that was uncurling and gently feeling the air like a butterfly’s damp new wings. And it all fitted perfectly with the gospel according to Freddie.
Jay changed out of her work jeans and into a lightweight unlined linen skirt, ready for the Weight Watchers weigh-in. OK, she conceded that Paula had warned them that they were only fooling themselves with the clothes thing, but surely you wanted to come away from the meeting feeling that your subs weren’t entirely a waste of money? Putting on something that weighed next to nothing was only human nature, and would make it the nearest thing to getting weighed stark naked in your own bathroom. She drew the line at abandoning her underwear in the pursuit of offloading a couple more ounces, but she could sympathize with those who did.
Pat had told her about a woman who’d been weighed at her first class wearing a big fake-fur coat and gradually over the weeks had shed bits of clothing till she was down to a strappy sundress and nothing else. She even got her long hair cut short. Only then did she confess she’d actually lost nothing at all over the entire time. ‘And,’ Pat had said in real outrage, ‘she’d been awarded her seven-pound pin! Bloody nerve, bloody mad or what?’ Jay could only agree; if you could get applauded as slimmer of the week simply for putting your coat on a table, what was it all about?
She looked in the mirror, pulled her stomach in and turned sideways to see if she was noticeably skinnier. Hard to tell. Surely by now everyone she knew should be shrieking with amazement at her svelte shape? What was the point if even she herself could barely tell any difference between her body-plus-eleven-pounds and her body now?
Jay didn’t hang about after the weigh-in. She was meeting Greg for something to eat at All Bar One and besides, didn’t feel much like staying to be taught ways to Make Friends with Tuna. She’d already had enough tuna to last a lifetime. If every dieter on the planet was scoffing the stuff at the rate she’d been eating it then soon there’d be an environmental crisis for the poor fish, and they’d be as protected and mollycoddled as dolphins. Holly (still mountainous but sticking to the diet and very optimistic) asked her where she was going and had looked doubtful. ‘All Bar One isn’t listed in the Eating Out Guide,’ she warned. ‘Do you think you should be going there? You won’t know what to have. You’d be better going to a Harvester.’
‘Ye gods,’ Jay said to Greg as she took her first sip of the champagne he’d ordered. (Why? Were they celebrating or was he feeling guilty about something?) ‘I’m never going to one of those classes again, somehow I’m just not a team player. I can see it makes sense but . . . hell’s teeth, I’ve had it with adding up points for every mouthful and bargaining with myself: “If I run up the stairs instead of the escalator at Oxford Circus, please may I have a Twix bar?” Aaagh!’ She gulped the tingling wine, savouring the creamy biscuity flavour and half longing to glug down the whole bottle in minutes, like a chilled beer on a hot summer day. She’d only hiccup, she told herself, she’d feel sick and past hunger. And she didn’t want to be past hunger.
‘You never go to Oxford Circus,’ Greg pointed out. ‘Well you haven’t for ages anyway.’
‘Oh I know, I know. It’s just a what-if.’
‘And you never eat Twix bars.’
Was he being deliberately obtuse? ‘You never order champagne without a good reason either, come to that,’ she told him.
He smiled and took her hand. ‘I just fancied some. I thought you might. But I think I’d have clouted you over the head with it if you’d said “Ooh I can’t, the diet, the diet . . .” ’
‘No chance,’ she said, squeezing his fingers. ‘No bloody chance. So what is this about?’
‘Oh nothing, just felt like celebrating being a lucky bastard. Getting another baby in the house without it being you having to go through being pregnant, being glad the kids seem to be coming along OK.’
‘You sound like those people in Bridget Jones’s Diary that she describes as Smug Marrieds.’
‘Yeah, well so what?’ Greg laughed. ‘I am. And by the way I left Mog and Ellie sorting out those soft toys you wanted cleared from the shower room.’
‘Well that’s a minor miracle and worth celebrating on its own. Did they have binbags? Had they put anything in them?’
‘Now that I couldn’t say. They were giggling about when they used to play Animal Hospital with them and line them all up with bandages and Elastoplast and invent gruesome operations for them.’
‘I remember that. Not long ago for Ellie, really, and even Mog doesn’t seem that many years past that stage. Odd to think she’ll have her own soon.’
‘She said she’s looking forward to playing with the baby,’ Greg told her. ‘At least she’s young enough to still remember how. She’ll be fine.’
‘She’ll need a lot of back-up,’ Jay said, wondering how it would all work out.
‘I know, but that’s what we’re for. But for tonight let’s not feel all grown-up and responsible. What do you want to eat? And as we’re not driving anywhere, shall we have another bottle?’
Excellent idea, Jay thought, having a look at the menu and a bit of a think. She wasn’t giving up though, not quite yet. Just about everybody swore by the Atkins diet. No carbohydrates, low carboyhdrates, modified versions and the nicest of all where you could still drink wine. T
he steak would be suitable, lots of lovely protein there, she thought, and delicious with the tomatoes and caramellized shallots. Not chips though, absolutely not. Her tummy rumbled its own opinion on this and she sympathized with it. Well maybe chips tonight, she thought, giving her middle a reassuring pat. She could start it all off properly tomorrow, and leave Weight Watchers with a glorious bang at approximately thirty-six points for the day.
The house was almost in darkness. Apart from the unevenly flickering bluish glow coming through the windows from at least two televisions, there was no sign of anyone being home. It wasn’t particularly late, just typical that teens who were sprawled on beds and sofas almost comatose with TV viewing could never be bothered to reach out a hand far enough to switch on a light.
‘When the house needs light they never switch them on, but once on they never think to switch them off again,’ Jay commented as she slid the key into the lock.
‘That’s teenagers for you,’ Greg agreed, laughing. ‘But don’t be hard on them, it’s their job to be awkward sods. Bloody hell, what’s all this?’
Each side of the glass staircase was lined with soft toys, leaving only a narrow pathway up the middle. Pandas and elephants and the outsize tiger Imogen had won at the fair were there, Pooh and Piglet and Eeyore were cuddled up together and a family of Pound Puppy beagles spilled over onto a Bagpuss.
‘Would you look at this?’ Jay said, picking up a pale grey seal, long-ago souvenir of the Cornish Seal Sanctuary. Each one of the animals had been ‘treated’ in Animal Hospital style, all carefully bandaged and plastered and splinted. It must have taken the girls all evening.