Size Matters

by Judy Astley

  ‘It was all the dancing. It kept me in trim. You should try it, you can learn at any age, you know,’ Delphine continued, parting her robe and holding up a taut-muscled leg for Jay to admire.

  Something clicked in her head. Call it the champagne, Jay told herself, at the same time as she also, realistically, told herself that the truth was that old demon, envy.

  ‘Well it’s easy to keep trim, if you’ve only yourself to think about,’ she snapped. ‘When the rest of us are racing about being the family gofer, working, running the house, bringing up the children and hoping they’re going to get by, you don’t have a lot of time to spare for personal preening.’ Hardly fair, a small voice was telling her, seeing as she’d spent the last few weeks thinking about little else, all for the sake of impressing this got-it-easy cousin. How pointless was that? As Ellie would so accurately put it.

  ‘Oh, sorry, was it something I said?’ It was a classic teen Delphine moment, Jay recognized, yet another moment where she was left feeling that whatever she did, it didn’t quite come up to standard.

  ‘Yes, actually, it was. Do you know, Delphine,’ Jay could feel fury rising, ‘did you ever realize, ever, just how much you were up there as the great example of Perfect Womanliness when we were younger? And you know what? Even now you’re here getting the bloody better of me with your perfect body and making me wear Big Pants and your mother going “Oh she’s marrying a pilot” as if that was some goddam qualification on your part, better than a PhD . . .’

  ‘Hey, hey hang on a minute, what do you mean “perfect womanliness”? What the fuck’s all that about? You mean you ever, ever once, envied me? Hah!’ Delphine laughed and poured the rest of the bottle into their two glasses.

  ‘Cheers!’ she said, raising her glass. ‘Here’s to family misunderstandings!’

  ‘What misunderstandings? You spent your whole teen years – and even before, remember how you were with Cobweb? – being a complete cow, always so sodding superior, always getting the better. Everything you had, everything you did, there was either you or your mother crowing away. And me? Undersized, underweight, underachieving in the fields that you lot counted as important, pregnant as a student, no big, white, show-off meringue wedding . . .’

  ‘Well the marriage hardly lasted,’ Jay ignored this, up there on a roll she might never be on again.

  ‘Even now, Win gives me that look every time I cook something, as if I should have phoned you for the recipe before I even peeled a potato. And you should hear what she says about my job!’

  ‘You do cleaning. Someone’s got to do it. I never thought it would be you though,’ Delphine chuckled, taking a long deep mouthful of her drink. ‘You weren’t exactly born with a duster in your hand. That bedroom you and April . . .’

  Oooh such a satisfying splash! Jay was certain she had the yoga, Weight Watchers, Rosemary Conley, Dr Atkins and a sack of grapefruit to thank for the strength and balance that sent Delphine hurtling, in one swift move, from her lounger straight into the pool. What she hadn’t reckoned with was Delphine’s own flexibility and reflex (all that dancing, again) that enabled her to make a last-minute grab for Jay’s robe and send her, only a second later, flying into the water alongside her. Vaguely, Jay was aware of other swimmers, no longer gently breast-stroking up and down the pool in costly, exclusive serenity but scurrying away at a swift crawl, out at the other end of the pool and away to the safety of the steam room.

  ‘You stupid cow! Didn’t it ever occur to you that I envied you? So much for you being the clever one! Couldn’t even work that one out, could you?’ Delphine was shouting, flailing about in the water, tangled in her heavy towelling robe, the towel that had been wound round her head coming undone and starting to float on the water. Jay swam out of reach of Delphine’s windmilling hands, making for the steps. She could see big, astounded eyes watching them from the steam-room window. Hands had rubbed away the mist from the glass and the audience was lined up, enjoying the show.

  ‘What was to envy? Everything we’d got you’d got a better version. You got a new bike for failing your eleven-plus, you got Cobweb, sailing lessons, dance classes, ice-skating with your own boots not hired ones, endless fancy clothes . . .’

  ‘Endless mother input.’ Delphine said slapping her hand down on the water’s surface, setting up a tidal wave. ‘Can’t you imagine what it’s like to be so much the centre of someone’s life like that? Don’t you think I was absolutely deadly jealous of you for having April and Matt and a mum who just let you get on with it? And then later when we were all grown-up you had a husband who stayed the course and all those kids, and you’re getting a grandchild. Do you realize I couldn’t fucking fart in our house without Mum being there flapping and fussing that I’d eaten one bean too many!’ Delphine’s mouth hitched sideways, remembering, and laughter started to bubble out. And it was too much for Jay as well. She could feel her face twitching uncontrollably and the giggling rose up with no hope of stopping. Helplessly, she gave in to it, clutching the pool steps for support and watching the towelling robe float about her like a giant white lily pad. Delphine was completely convulsed and the two of them sat on the steps, weak with unstoppable laughter, trying uselessly to stand up and drag the seeming acres of soaking towelling out of the water with them.

  ‘Mrs Callendar?’ Delphine and Jay looked up and saw the spa’s front-desk receptionist staring down at them. She looked stern, increasingly appalled as she gazed about her and took in the scene of the soaking be-robed women, a towel floating far away across the pool, the empty champagne bottle on its side, an upturned lounger and the collected, smirking audience emerging (now there was someone safely in charge) from the steam room.

  ‘There’s been a phone call from home. And . . .’ she looked around pointedly, ‘I really think you’d better collect your things and leave.’

  ‘Oh Lord. I hope there isn’t too much damage,’ Jay said for about the fortieth time in the taxi.

  ‘We can’t know till we get there,’ Delphine reassured her. ‘They can’t . . .’ and another giggle escaped her. ‘They can’t be much worse than us,’ she said.

  But that was the difference, Jay thought, Delphine didn’t know that they could be much worse than them. They were teenagers; they could go far beyond grown-up limits because they had no limits. That’s what they were all about, teenagers, about finding their own level. Unless you’d been Delphine, of course, who hadn’t had a chance to make her own limits. Win had set them all out for her, laid down the rails and sent her gliding off smoothly along them. We should have taken her in hand, Jay thought now, April and I could have roughed up those edges for her a bit, helped her escape and loosen up.

  The police were still there, leaning against their squad car, two of them smoking. There couldn’t be much wrong, Jay thought, if they’d got nothing better to do than stand around smoking. There was movement in the shadows too, and she recognized the sneaky shuffle of guilty teens making a getaway.

  The fire engine didn’t seem to be in use either. There was only one man sitting in it and he was listlessly tapping the steering wheel in time to some unheard music.

  ‘Mum?’ Ellie came running out of the Swannery’s main door. ‘Mum? Tasha’s a bit hurt and they’ve made a mess.’ She looked at Delphine, tears in her eyes. ‘Sorry Delphine, I did try to stop them.’

  Up in the flat the smell of burnt food was overwhelming and the kitchen was full of wafting smoke. There was a chill breeze from somewhere high up and Rory was sitting on the desk at the top of the spiral staircase, looking at where three large uniformed firemen were dealing with something beside an open window.

  ‘Mum? Sorry and everything. I was just . . .’

  ‘He was doing a bit of entertaining.’ A pretty girl in a silver halter-necked dress and spiky sandals interrupted him. ‘It was really cool till they all turned up.’

  ‘They shouldn’t of,’ the other girl said, grumpily.

  ‘Shouldn’t have,’ Delphine and Jay s
aid both together, then laughed, stopping themselves, trying to be suitably serious.

  ‘What’s the damage?’ Delphine asked Rory.

  ‘Well the worst is Tasha. When the chicken caught fire she tried to open the window to let the smoke out. But the alarm had gone off so the fire people came. And she was a bit drunk so she . . .’

  ‘She sort of fell out,’ Ellie finished for him.

  Rory looked exhausted, Jay could see. Whatever scam he’d been up to, it was now far too much for him. That wasn’t to say he should get away with it, not at all.

  ‘OK! Pull her in!’ The biggest of the firemen lurched backwards towards them, swinging the window and a young girl with him. He hauled her upwards and she slumped to the floor in front of them, looking pained. ‘You’ve broken them!’ Tasha wailed as a scattering of pearls fell out over the top of her trousers and trailed themselves across the floor like droplets of mercury.

  ‘What’s that? Your necklace?’ Jay asked her.

  Delphine spluttered beside her. ‘It’s not her necklace! It’s her knickers! She’s got one of those pearl thongs on!’

  ‘She was . . . was hanging from them,’ Ellie told them. ‘She opened the window and sort of tried to climb out to get down to the balcony and got caught on the window catch. She was swinging there for ages. That’s why they had to come and get her down.’

  ‘Not enough elastic,’ Delphine sniffed. ‘You see?’ she said to a terror-stricken Tasha. ‘Now that’ll be a lesson you won’t forget. Sensible knickers. They can stop you getting into all sorts of trouble.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Delphine. We’ll clear it all up.’

  ‘Yes you will. And you won’t involve your mother’s workforce. It’ll be you and your mates. You’ve to do this by tomorrow afternoon and be there in time for my wedding. Understand?’

  EIGHTEEN

  Cake

  ‘And you’re wearing that?’ April whispered.

  ‘Well of course I am. I love it.’ Jay twirled in front of the mirror and adjusted the feathered headband. It wasn’t that bad. Not entirely her choice maybe, but when you’re just the bridesmaid, that’s the way it is. Anyway, how tricky could it be to slide a souped-up Alice band over your hair and do your best to live up to a bit of trimming? She really did like it (well, quite) – the feathers were the brick-pink of Delphine’s outfit and included a strand of seed pearls that toned in with her own dress.

  ‘OK – I give in. It looks great. That peachy shade though . . .’

  ‘April, don’t start. Delphine and I . . .’

  ‘. . . are new best friends. Yes, I get it. All you needed over the years was to beat each other up and get it out of your systems. You should have done it at ten. And again at eleven, twelve, and so on.’

  ‘Mum?’ A voice hollered up the stairs. ‘Rory’s back. He’s all filthy. How long have we got?’

  ‘About an hour. Plenty of time for him to shower and change, don’t worry about it Ellie.’

  Ellie came into the room, pretty as a thirteen-year-old could get in a short blue pleated skirt. It wasn’t so far off the sort of skirt she objected to wearing for games at school, on the grounds that it got the girls leered at by men who hung around the perimeter fence on netball days. She was wearing it with knee-length brown suede boots and a tight little flowery jacket.

  ‘This OK?’ Ellie said, suddenly conscious that her mother and April were staring.

  ‘Yes, fine. You look gorgeous, Ellie,’ Jay said, hoping she wasn’t going to do any crying. And this before the actual ceremony. ‘I’d better go and offer Delphine a hand,’ she told April. ‘I think that’s what I’m for, being matron of honour.’

  ‘Oh you are. And I know what I’m for – I’ll go down to the kitchen and pour us all a sharpener, just to get it all nicely under way.’

  Jay went carefully down the loft stairs, watching her step in the new, spindly-heeled cream shoes. She was happier in footwear that was more substantial and doubted she’d ever wear these again, but she loved the dress and jacket, just . . . the colour.

  Rory felt gruesome. All that cleaning. You didn’t want to do that on a Saturday morning, not ever, not that early. He’d scrubbed and polished and vacuumed and scraped the food off the microwave shelves and off the kitchen walls. And all the time he’d thought of Samantha Newton and how he hadn’t even got a snog. But . . . in the back of his mind he knew he’d got a score chalked up on the wall for later, however much later it was. It was there. She’d loved the place. She’d loved the risk he’d taken. She’d screeched a lot when it all went wrong; she’d left before he got to say anything to put it all right, but maybe that was cool enough. He knew, deep inside, that she’d got him down as someone who’d always try to show her the good – no, the excellent – time she deserved. It was just a matter of saving it for later, for the right time.

  ‘Ah. Sweet,’ April said under her breath to Jay as Charles put his arms round Delphine and did as he was ordered by the Registrar: kissed his bride.

  ‘Well it is, isn’t it?’ Greg said to her. ‘Or are you a hundred per cent cynical about this?’

  ‘No,’ she said, smiling. ‘Only ninety per cent. The man’s a pimp, no question.’

  Well they looked happy enough, so perhaps they would be. Jay tweaked her sliding headgear back over her ear and settled it into place. Charles looked exactly like a properly smitten bridegroom should. His new mother-in-law was beaming and triumphant in a pale blue dress and a navy straw picture hat circled with turquoise pansies.

  ‘Don’t they make a perfect couple?’ she trilled at Audrey and Jay as, later, they all took their places for lunch in the San Pedro restaurant.

  ‘Lovely, dear,’ Audrey agreed. ‘And third time lucky, let’s hope.’

  ‘Oh I don’t think we need to hope, this one’s got sterling qualities.’

  ‘It takes more than money, dear,’ said her sister, but Win was in full sail; nothing was going to sink her delight.

  They hurt, the magic pants. They might be compressing her tummy flat but they sure as hell hurt. Jay sat beside Charles feeling that if she stood up she’d leave the lower half of her body behind her. She was definitely being cut in two. In absolute agony she dutifully munched her way through a couple of lettuce leaves from the side of the pâté starter, a teeny sliver of the sea bass and managed to down a bit of the peach dessert by sort of sucking at it, in the hope that it would turn into mush that would take up no noticeable room in her insides.

  ‘No appetite?’ Charles muttered to her, watching a waiter take away a good forty pounds’ worth of food that she’d normally find luscious.

  ‘I’m fine. Just a bit . . .’

  ‘Yes it is exciting, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘I feel very lucky.’ He squeezed her hand and she smiled at him. Whether he was being new-cousinly or habitually letchy, it didn’t matter. She’d made the decision to say nothing to Delphine about her suspicions and she’d have to follow through by doing her best to think well of him.

  ‘You’re not eating much. You’re surely not dieting at a wedding?’ Delphine said as she and Charles prepared to leave for their honeymoon in Scotland. What was it about people? Why, today of all days, were they gawping at her food intake as if keeping a close eye on a budding anorexic?

  ‘No – just these knickers you made me wear. They’re killing me.’

  ‘You should wear them all the time. You’d be down to a proper weight in no time.’

  ‘Hey, what kind of a comment is that for your matron of honour?’ April cut in.

  ‘Only being cruel to be kind,’ Delphine said. ‘Though I’m not always right.’

  ‘God, that’s a first,’ April said. ‘Tell me what you’re wrong about, quick so I can remember for later!’

  Charles came up, claiming his bride and leading her to the car for the start of their honeymoon.

  ‘See you all in a couple of weeks,’ he said. ‘And thanks so much for being here, everyone.’

  ‘Bye, Jay. And thank you,�
�� Delphine said as she kissed her. ‘And you were absolutely right, you know.’

  ‘I was?’ About what? About her being a cow over Cobweb, about her having a charmed childhood, what?

  ‘Oh completely,’ Delphine said, hands on Jay’s shoulders and a look of sincere affection. ‘Peach does nothing at all for you. Makes your hips look like a side of pork.’

  Delphine disappeared into the white Mercedes and hurled her flowers into the family. Imogen caught them and Greg, beside Jay, groaned and said, ‘She’d better not be getting married, I can’t afford it.’

  ‘You would though, Greg, you would.’

  ‘Bugger a wedding,’ April said to Jay. ‘I heard what Delph said to you. Go and take those tight pants off right now. There’s only one way to deal with a comment like that.’

  ‘I know, you’re right,’ Jay said, laughing and wondering where she’d left her glass. ‘Cake and champagne. Diet another day.’

  THE END

  About the Author

  Judy Astley was frequently told off for day-dreaming at her drearily traditional school but has found it to be the ideal training for becoming a writer. There were several false-starts to her career: secretary at an all-male Oxford college (sacked for undisclosable reasons), at an airline (decided, after a crash and a hijacking, that she was safer elsewhere) and as a dress designer (quit before anyone noticed she was adapting Vogue patterns). She spent some years as a parent and as a painter before sensing that the day was approaching when she’d have to go out and get a Proper Job. With a nagging certainty that she was temperamentally unemployable, and desperate to avoid office coffee, having to wear tights every day and missing out on sunny days on Cornish beaches with her daughters, she wrote her first novel, Just for the Summer. She has now had eleven novels published by Black Swan.