by Alison James
She walked to the end of the bed, and waited a couple of seconds to ensure she had Rachel’s full attention. She took off her shoes, then the baggy trousers and shapeless roll neck sweater.
Rachel stared, wordless.
Harland was wearing a padded rubber garment that shrouded her body. It extended down from the neck, over shapeless drooping breasts and rotund belly, to the tops of chubby thighs and flabby arms. Nothing too grotesquely large; just enough bulk to give her a shapeless form. To make her a woman unlikely to turn heads in the street.
‘A prosthetic fat suit,’ she explained needlessly. ‘Pretty commonplace in the movie industry, when characters need to grow smaller or larger as part of their story, or actresses are too vain to gain weight for a heavy role. Or to fake pregnancy, of course.’
She reached behind her head and released a Velcro fastening before lifting off the whole contraption. ‘Always good to get out of it, the damn thing’s heavy.’ She held it up for Rachel to look at more closely before leaning it against the wall. Without the fat suit, Harland was slender and toned, her stomach flat and her naked breasts unnaturally perky. Harland cupped them with pride. ‘Great, aren’t they? The work of a top surgeon.’
She took off her glasses and reached into her mouth, pulling out a dental plate that had been giving her a mild overbite. She smiled broadly at Rachel, showing straight, perfect white teeth. Rachel’s mind raced back to Phoebe’s expensive veneers, bearing witness to her vanity amid her sad skeletal remains. She closed her eyes, unable to utter a word.
‘Open your eyes!’ Harland barked. ‘I’m not done yet.’
Rachel obeyed.
‘Wait there.’ Harland flashed her now pretty teeth in a grin. ‘Like you have a choice.’
Harland went into the walk-in closet and came out wearing black lace lingerie and carrying a box. She placed the box on the bed next to Rachel and indicated she should use her free hand to open it. Rachel jumped out of her skin; her adrenaline-loaded brain seeing a human head.
It was a long blonde wig. Harland was already pushing her short brown hair into a nylon skullcap, then she reverently lifted the wig and stood in front of the dresser mirror, positioning it with the expertise of long practice.
‘This is a custom wig modelled on my own skull measurements and natural hairline. Real hair of course, chosen to be the same texture as my own.’ She picked up a brush and ran it through the honey-coloured locks. ‘Cost six thousand dollars, but worth it, don’t you think? It’s no good wearing a wig that looks like a wig.’
‘Very clever. But I can see what you did,’ Rachel said. ‘So you can stop now.’
The hair looked entirely natural but the face below it somehow did not. It had an odd, foetal appearance; the forehead stretched, cheeks a little too pronounced, lips a little too full. The result of an aesthetician going to work with injectable fillers and toxin, Rachel guessed.
‘Not quite done yet.’ Harland reached into the dresser drawer and took out a long flat box, holding it up so that Rachel could see the contents. Contact lenses in various shades of blue, grey and brown. Of course. Those jade-green eyes of Harland’s were far too distinctive.
‘Brown eyes, that’s what your little English actress had. That’s what brought you over here, wasn’t it? Phoebe?’ She lifted out a pair and with swift, delicate movements inserted them in her eyes. ‘Almost done.’
The next stage was to sit herself at the dressing table and get to work with her make-up, applying it with the zest and proficiency of an expert. Light-reflecting primer, foundation skilfully blended with a brush and set with powder. Then shimmering highlighter, three different shadows to create a smoky eye, eyebrow pencil to create perfect arches, eyeliner and false lashes, peachy blusher and finally the Tangier Nights lipstick.
‘Harland!’ Rachel’s voice emerged as a croak.
She held a finger to her lips. ‘Wait. Almost done.’ She went back into the closet for a few minutes. When she emerged, she was wearing a short red dress and high-heeled sandals. It was, definitively, the girl in the shampoo commercial.
‘What do you think?’ Harland asked rhetorically.
That you’re beautiful, Rachel decided. It was an artificial, contrived beauty; a beauty that worked on camera but would always look slightly strange in the flesh. And then it came to her. She knew who she had been reminded of at their first meeting: Bette Davis as the plain Charlotte Vale in Now, Voyager. The reveal of the formerly frumpy Charlotte as a poised swan of a woman with a lush mouth and huge eyes was a moment of immense cinematic power, yet it was the image of Davis’s downtrodden spinster with her dowdy bun and thick spectacles that had triggered something at the back of Rachel’s mind when she first saw Harland.
The swan incarnation twisted and turned in front of the mirror, her movements graceful. Rachel remembered something.
‘What about your limp?’
‘Oh, that’s simple.’ Harland sashayed over to her orthopaedic shoes and held one out to Rachel. On the inside a nail was just visible sticking out of the inner sole. ‘Having that stuck in your foot all day long will make you limp, no problem at all.’
Harland put the shoe down again and struck a pose, waiting. She clearly wanted endorsement, praise.
Rachel reached her free hand over to the pinioned one and clapped slowly. ‘Quite something,’ Rachel told her. ‘A real piece of work. Literally.’
Harland couldn’t keep herself from smiling.
‘But at what cost, Harland, for Christ’s sake? What fucking cost?’
‘Well, let’s see now…’ she started to count on her fingers. ‘Rhinoplasty: six thousand dollars. Breast augmentation: ten thousand dollars. Liposculpting: five thousand dollars. The wig: six thousand dollars—’
‘I meant what about the human cost of what you’ve done, you deluded woman! The suffering. The unbearable grief.’
Harland’s eyes narrowed, and Rachel wondered if she had pushed her too far. But all she said was: ‘I have to go out.’
Rachel was forced to watch as Harland took off the dress, heels and underwear, tossed the wig onto the bed and climbed back into her fat suit, fat clothes and ugly shoes. It was impossible not to be appalled, but also fascinated. The lenses and eyelashes were removed, the make-up wiped off and the glasses and dental flipper replaced.
‘All righty then,’ said plain Harland, more amiably. ‘I won’t be long. You try and get some rest.’
Rachel fought sleep as hard as she could, desperately trying to free her left arm, but the residual drugs in her system and the after-effects of shock overcame her once more and she fell asleep, the blonde wig lying on her right foot.
* * *
When Harland returned, it was dark again.
‘I guess your flight will be taking off right about now,’ she observed.
To react would be a waste of what little energy Rachel had left, so she pretended not to hear. Harland seemed cheerful, buoyed up by the earlier enactment of butterfly emerging from the prosthetic chrysalis.
‘I’ve brought you some English muffins,’ she said, after positioning and then removing another cardboard bedpan. ‘I thought you might like those. And I’ve made tea. I know you British love your tea.’
She held out a plate of buttered muffins, and Rachel managed to take one with her free hand and make a decent job of feeding herself.
‘I’m not going to let you hold the tea cup in case you spill it; the angle you’re at.’ She said this as though it were Rachel’s fault she was in a semi-reclining position. Tied to a serial killer’s bed.
The cup was lifted to her lips but was too scaldingly hot to sip. ‘Can you let it cool down a little?’ she pleaded.
‘Well, all right.’ Harland placed the cup on the bedside table and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Now that you’re comfortable, we can have a proper talk. I’m going to tell you a little bit more about me.’
Chapter Fifty-Two
‘Raymond Rowe was a grifter.’
Harland settled herself comfortably as she began to talk. ‘Shiftless. Feckless. Unreliable. All of that. There were no jobs in rural Oregon unless you were a farmer, so he moved here to get employment at the docks. There was always plenty of casual work in cargo handling. It paid okay and there was no responsibility or commitment involved. So it suited my father perfectly.
‘My mom was not the sort of girl you would expect him to go for. Her father was a minister and her mother was a teacher. I guess they were comfortably off, and quite strict as parents. She grew up in Guilford, which is one of the nicer neighbourhoods here. It’s toney, conservative. I suppose he had something of the wild west about him, which made him different to other men my mom met. Actually, when you think about it, she probably didn’t meet many men. And he was handsome. Very handsome.
‘He went back west for a family gathering when I was about three or four, got involved with Kathleen Starling and stayed out there. They had a son, Ethan. Then he left her and took up with Debra and they ended up coming out here again. For the work, I guess. He’d been working as a mechanic in Oregon, but was barely scraping by.
‘I saw him a little when he was back here; that was when I got to know my sister Kaydance. But my mom didn’t encourage it. She had a job as a librarian, a nice enough home thanks to help from her parents, some friends. She didn’t want to be reminded of her failure. She didn’t really want to have to raise Raymond Rowe’s daughter either, especially a homely one who had his eyes. I guess looking at me was all part of being reminded.’
Harland stared into the middle distance for a few seconds, as if stirred by a particular memory, then continued.
‘In many ways she was a good mom. She fed and clothed me well, she took care of me if I was sick, she made sure I always got to school on time and encouraged me to study hard. But we were never close, you know? She wouldn’t let me get close to her. For her it was all about the duty and obligation. Zero about emotion and affection.
‘And I knew deep down that I wasn’t the daughter she really wanted. I got good grades and my report cards always said how smart I was, but I was heavy and had buck teeth and needed glasses. I sucked at sport. If I’d been pretty like Kaydance, maybe she’d have been different towards me; I don’t know.
‘I liked school at first. I mean, I liked the lessons and the learning and the teachers. If you were smart, there were teachers who took an interest in you, no matter what you looked like. They enjoyed encouraging you. So that was good for me. But I didn’t have friends. The other kids teased me. At middle school they called me Walt. I don’t know why. My mom kept my hair cut short so perhaps it amused them to give me a boy’s name. I just learned to ignore it. To not look round when they shouted “Walt! Walt!” I really loved drama; I was desperate to act in school productions. But I never got picked. The female roles always went to the pretty girls, even though I could have delivered the lines a hell of a lot better.
‘At high school things got a lot worse. A hell of a lot worse. As the hormones kicked in, there were deep divides between the jocks and the non-jocks. The popular kids and the non-popular kids. I was seen as a dweeb. I had things chucked at me when I walked down the hall. The boys would do this thing where one of them snatched my bag and ran off with it and when I tried to run after them, another boy would stick out his leg and trip me up. I did talk to my mom about it but it just ended up confirming to her that her daughter was a disappointment. She’d tell me the best policy was to ignore them. But how? It’s impossible to ignore someone who’s tormenting you: that’s the whole point. They’re in your space.
‘The leader of the popular girls was called Christie Becker. I think you can imagine what she looked like…’ Harland gave an ironic smile. ‘Tall and tanned with great legs and breasts. Long blonde swishy hair, dazzling smile. She planned to become a model. Of course. That kind of girl never does anything original. If she’d joined the Peace Corps or tried to find a cure for cancer, then maybe the world would have owed her something. But girls like that don’t think that way. They’re not capable. They’re happy just to rest on pretty.
‘Anyhow, Christie made it her personal mission to taunt me and humiliate me every chance she got. Boy, how it made her laugh! It got worse and worse, and by our senior year she wasn’t happy with putting glue in my hair, sticking my sanitary pads to the back of my sweater or making the boys smear boogers on the pages of my books. No, she wanted to go big, do something that would really make everyone say how hilarious she was. How cool.
‘She was dating one of the jocks. Big surprise, right? He was called Josh Anstead, and he was good-looking but pretty stupid. He did great on the football field but his grades always sucked. So one day, when we were studying for final exams, he asked me to help him with calculus. He didn’t get it at all, and I found it pretty easy. So I spent some time helping him. And he was nice to me. Told me I had pretty eyes, and he liked hanging out with me. Then one day after we’d finished studying, he kissed me. I said: “What about Christie?” He said, “Me and Christie are breaking up.”
‘I enjoyed the kiss, it felt pretty nice. I was surprised, of course I was. But so excited. I remember almost running home afterwards and going straight to my room to write in my diary. I wrote something like “I think I love Josh Anstead” and a load of hearts. Practised writing “Harland Anstead”, which I thought had a lovely ring to it. You know, the hokey stuff teenage girls do.
‘The next time, he told me to meet him outside behind the bleachers. I wanted to do more kissing, but he pushed me away from his face – quite roughly – and told me he wanted a blow job. I said I didn’t really want to. He told me that Christie used to give him head, and if I wanted to be his girl then I needed to do it too. So I did the only thing I thought I could do. I got down on my knees and started… you know, sucking him off. I hated how it felt. It was taking him ages to get hard and he was getting mad at me; telling me I was doing it wrong and I was dumb. And then I heard laughing and I looked over my shoulder and there was Christie and some of Josh’s friends, and Christie was filming me. This was thirteen years ago and people didn’t have video on their phones, but a bunch of the kids at school had those little hand-held camcorders. And Josh pushed me away, and he was laughing too. “You didn’t really think I’d be interested in you did you? You moose!” That was what he said.’
Harland looked down at her hands and shuddered.
‘I was crying so damn hard my throat closed right up. I couldn’t even see. I made it home somehow. Cried for about fifteen hours straight, till my eyes were like golf balls. But it wasn’t over, oh no. Christie put the footage of me on tape, and invited everyone over to watch it one night when her parents were out. They gave it some dumb porno title like Ugly virgin’s first time. No wait: Gonzo gobbles. That was it. Gonzo gobbles. When I walked down the halls the boys would be making turkey gobbling noises. Some of the girls started calling me Harlot instead of Harland. Christie thought that was pretty funny. Of course she did.
‘And from then… all I can say is that I was completely broken. For years I’d done my best to do what Mom said and just ignore stuff. I had gotten quite good at putting up a front. I had a thick skin. And during senior year I’d made a couple of friends amongst the other uncool kids. I was just about okay until this happened. But afterwards I was frozen. That’s the only way I can describe it to you. I walked around like a zombie. There were tears in my eyes all the time. All the freaking time. I was constantly swallowing or holding my breath to stop the tears coming. These days I’d be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder – I think that’s what they call it now, right? I’d probably be put into therapy. But back then nobody cared. I didn’t dare speak to anyone, didn’t interact with anyone. I ate lunch on my own. Then I stopped eating lunch. I couldn’t even eat. The few friends I’d had stopped talking to me because they were afraid to be seen near me. Except for one guy, called Marty Pogrow. But he’d been accused of touching some nine-year-old boy, and was such a pariah t
hat being seen with him was worse than being alone. So I avoided him too. There are probably prisoners in Guantanamo who are less wretched than I was then.’
Harland gathered herself, forced a little smile.
‘But… it was the last year, so high school ended. That’s the only good thing I can say about it. I got a place at college to study biochemistry, then started working in the labs at Johns Hopkins. My mom died and I inherited money from her and from my grandparents and was able to buy this place. I worked hard, and I saved. I didn’t go out and spend money, I had no hobbies, so aside from what I spent on food and bills I saved. I’d started losing weight during that last semester at school when I was too miserable to eat, and I kept it going. I went to the gym at work.
‘I met a guy there and we dated for a few months, but it didn’t work out. He didn’t get it. He didn’t get me. I had this rage inside me, but it had gone from that burning white-hot pain I felt at school to something cold. It was a cold kind of anger that I carried like a piece of rock inside my heart. What is it they say? Revenge is a dish best served cold? I get that totally. The anger turns cold in you, it turns hard. You know you’re going to act, but you also know you can wait.
‘And in the meantime I had stuff to do. I worked hard in the gym, and I augmented my efforts with lipo. I saved to get my boobs done. I got my nose done; it used to be big and hooked. Like a witch’s. I had my teeth fixed and a cosmetologist worked on refining the shape of my face. I practised with make-up and I bought the wig. And size 6 clothes for my real shape.’
She waved at the wardrobe. ‘I try them on in here. I like to experiment with different looks. I wonder what Josh Anstead would think of me if he saw me now. You know, I looked for him online, and he’s lost almost all his hair. Not so cute now.
‘I stopped using the gym at work and started wearing loose, bulky clothes. Colleagues thought I was gaining weight. Eventually I had the fat suit specially made by a theatrical effects business in New York. I told them I worked for a theatre company and we needed it for a production of Hairspray. I was going to be Tracy Turnblad. So to the world out there, to my co-workers, I was just plain, dumpy old Harland, with her lab coat and her protective goggles and her limp.’