A Tiny Bit Marvellous

by Dawn French

  So then, that must have been me.

  The shock of this realization slowed me down ’til eventually I stopped. Right outside the estate agents. I turned to look again, this time in a different window, which was full of property details suspended in clear plastic, behind which was an office of eager, attractive young liars at desks. I wasn’t looking at them, I was confirming my suspicion that the reflection I’d already seen was in fact me. The stack of haggard grey was indeed staring back at me with frightened eyes in a face that was similar to mine but much older, and more like Pamela. No doubt, though. It was definitely me, just not the me I imagine myself to be.

  I suppose that if I think about it at all, I would imagine that if anyone met me, they’d meet an above-average-height woman with a good French-ish shortish darkish haircut, a long face with large very green eyes (often commented on), a fine nose, and a large mouth with lots of tidy teeth. A face that says I’m clever but not intimidating. I have never relished being tall, so I don’t think I read as a tall-and-therefore-more-important-than-you sort of person, but I’ve somehow always imagined my physical persona permits people to know I’m in charge if needs be, that I’m not to be messed with.

  I’m not super-fashionable and of course I have to wear the appropriate clothes for work, but even so, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a fairly good sense of style. I know how to wear tonally correct, simple classic clothes. I wear a lot of linens and layers, subtle blues and greens and browns. I like a pashmina and, unlike many tall women, I like a heel. I love jewellery that makes a strong statement. Big necklaces hewn from amber and tiger’s-eye are among my favourites. I prefer stockings to tights (sole reason Husband proposed), and a fountain pen to a biro. I wear fresh sharp citrus scents, nothing sandalwood or musk. I always have one very good coat that I’m prepared to spend a month’s wages on once every two years.

  Today I was wearing that good expensive coat, which is one of the reasons I was so shocked to see a tired middle-aged woman in a cheap coat looking back at me. An ill-fitting dreary grey coat. How could I have misunderstood the grey so thoroughly? I thought it was an elegant, mysterious, timeless rich grey, for rich people with immense taste. It’s not, it’s ageing and wersh and weak. My coat is insufficient, and so am I. Everything I have always feared becoming was staring back at me. I seem to have already become it while I am pointlessly fearing it. I looked tired and desperate somehow. I look as if I have been savaged by life. This shouldn’t be happening. Not ever, never mind yet. I look like some bad clothes wearing a woman. I am tall, yet I seem to be a woman of impoverished demeanour. How the hell have I ever assumed that I am even slightly powerful? Evidently … I am a wreck.

  Why hasn’t anyone told me about this? Why hasn’t Husband shown signs of shock and dismay? Why hasn’t Pamela given me a warning shot across the bows? Did it happen so gradually, imperceptibly, and that’s why I haven’t seen it? I’ve noticed the surrendering of my face, but when did the entire person give up? I am walking about in this body believing that I am underpinned rather well, but obviously I have subsided, and no one has got the inspectors round or informed me. Is it that I only ever really look in small mirrors, so I haven’t seen the full-length effect?

  I was so supremely shocked by the sight of myself that I attempted to walk off several times to escape the reflection, but I had to keep returning to that window, to confirm that what I’d seen was in fact true.

  Eventually, one of the young pretty liars emerged from the gloom on the other side of the glass to flash a knowing smile at me. He was mouthing something … What? Smiling and beckoning. Oh Lord, he thought I was looking at one of the properties in the window, when I was actually looking at myself. He came to the door and invited me inside. I was so taken aback by what I’d seen and so embarrassed by what he’d thought I was looking at, that, for some inexplicable reason, I meekly followed him in. Forty minutes later, I emerged from there with a handful of particulars for gorgeous little country cottages that were, apparently, in my price range. My entire lunch break was misspent with a young man I didn’t like, looking at houses I don’t want, pretending to be a person I’m not. What the shitting cock is going on? That’s forty minutes I won’t get back in a life that’s already six months in arrears.

  I hurried back to work and spent the few precious remaining minutes of my lunch break in the toilets dabbing away furiously at my face with make-up, in a vain attempt to staunch the horror, applying my own Boots-sponsored mask.

  I was amazed that none of my afternoon clients recoiled in shock, so I can only deduce that I am correct in thinking the decline has been gradual and no one wants to be the first to notice it. Or perhaps, worse, none of them ever actually take any note of me whatsoever. They listen to me and they hear me but they don’t really look at me – is that it? Have I become invisible? Would I be more effective as simply audio? Have I become so unfortunate to view that it’s simply easier for everyone to slightly look through me, just as you do when you are face to face with a person with a disfigurement of some sort? We sort of look beyond, we distract ourselves with the importance of what we are saying rather than dwell on the difficulty of the looking.

  No one is looking at me, they’re not seeing me. I’m a ghost.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Oscar

  This week I have been on close terms with Master Regret and his mother, Lady Shame. How could I have treated Wilson so shabbily? I have cast unbecoming aspersions on him ceaselessly. I descended to depths of such despicable arrogance when I actively deplumed him in the presence of Hargreaves.

  True, Wilson was revealing himself to be an unquestionably tiresome hobbledehoy, but I wasn’t to know the seat of his grand sadness. A suffering that has undoubtedly eaten up his confidence and joie de vivre. How can he possibly learn anything when he is so very sunk in misery?

  I am a clumsy bungling insensitive fool. It is usually beneath me to be so singularly odious, but on this occasion I have surely triumphed as the world’s unkindest twot. I ought to be beaten by psychopathically violent nuns and have my eyes stabbed out by deranged woodpeckers. My heart should be wrenched from me by slavering wolves and I should be grateful to have my limbs removed by a drunk woodsman with a blunt axe. I am a treacherous hateful shitcock who should, at the very least, be murdered instantly.

  Wilson is a prince, a ravishing masterpiece and an utter cutie. I should heap adorations upon him and drown him in valentines.

  Yet. I cannot. For I am besotted with another. I am prepared to die at the mercy of this greedy infatuation. Noel. He is the flame. I am the moth.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Dora

  Think only eating white food is going like really really well? It so 120% works, and I can’t believe all the great stuff you can eat. In the last day, I’ve had bread, pasta, egg mayonnaise, bagels, white chocolate, vanilla milkshake, white candy floss, marshmallows, white cheese, milk and loads of other stuff. What’s amazing is that when you’ve had a meal, you feel so like bloated that you don’t want to eat anything else ’til the snack or the next meal. I can’t feel that my clothes are any looser yet, but in the next few days I expect the pounds will just like, start to drop off. Can’t wait.

  This week has been one of the most boring of my whole life so far. Everyone is moaning on about exams all the time, school, home, everywhere. Do revision, do learning, do exams, do school, do prep. That’s all I hear. Well, sometimes, I would like to take a break if that’s OK? I heard on the radio that if you, like, stop for fifteen minutes every hour, it like really helps you to study better? So if you are going to study for like six hours that’s

  15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 + 15 = 90 minutes

  I just think it’s best to take that time in one lump chunk, just after my lunch hour but NO, apparently that is a sin and an ‘utter misuse of time’ according to Mum. So, I sat down to make a study plan this morning. Got out the card, the felt-tips, glitter, etc. and by teatime I’d finished it and it is so like beautiful. It’s one
of the best things I’ve ever made. I’ve used neon felt-tips to make the grid, and different-coloured fabrics to indicate the different days and subjects and stuff? Then I got some of Mum’s ribbon from her wrapping drawer to connect up all the subjects with the study sessions. I’ve made flaps to go over all the subjects so that it will be like a little surprise when I lift it up and see – oh, OK this morning I have to do Home Ec. theory, that’s a surprise, wonder what it’ll be this afternoon? It’s like a giant advent calendar and at the end of each revision session I have stuck on a little matchbox with a suggested snack inside (white only, of course).

  So, say you have studied art stuff for forty mins, you slide open the box and ta-da – ‘Hi Dora! – you are allowed 8 white chocolate buttons’ etc. etc. Y’know, for a treat for working so hard. Then, at the bottom of each day, is a sliding door-type bit of cardboard I made with sellotape and Post-its which you open when you’ve finished and it says stuff like – ‘Hey well done Dora! You can watch an episode of True Blood coz u’ve earned it, lady!’ then, all over it I’ve done like, little sayings and work mantras to cheer me up, like WE DON’T DO PERFECT HERE! OR EXAMS ARE FOR SCHOOL, NOT FOR LIFE! OR STUDY YOU HORNY BITCH! Stuff like that.

  I went on Facebook to tell Lottie all about it and posted up pictures of it for everyone to see. It’s sooooo cool. Everyone wants one now, so it looks like that’s my weekend gone. I’ve got such a cool idea for Lottie’s one – to put like all furry stuff everywhere coz she like so loves fur, that’s SO her.

  I bloody hate bloody exams. What is the bloody point of them? And the teachers are a load of bloody hypocrites because they keep telling us how bloody important it is to get these subjects coz apparently they ‘open your horizons’ and stuff but look at them! What did they bloody do? They learned bloody Geography at school then went to uni to learn harder Geography and now they’re teaching loads of kids who hate it – Geography. Yeah it really opened your horizons Mr Parker.

  And I’ve got hormones at the moment as well, which makes revising bloody impossible even if you do get a treat every forty minutes. And my back aches, and I’ve got bad eyes, and I’ve got period pains, and anyway, my Psycho. Ed. Report said that I’m a kinaesthetic learner, so the bloody teachers aren’t supposed to give me notes, I have to do mind maps, I’ve told them that, but no – just get on with it Dora and do the hard slog. I WOULD IF I COULD YOU BLOODY MORONS!

  Anyway, the point is, there is no point me even taking the bloody exams because nothing I’ve been taught, except in Music, is going to be any use to me. Ask Leona Lewis when she last used some English language? Never! That’s the point! If I get through those X Factor auditions to the next round, then they’ll see …

  When I’m a huge mega world star, I’m going to go back to school and ask the Head if I can have a meeting with all the teachers in the staff room. When they’re all sitting in there with their special mugs and Ryvitas, I’m going to say ‘Yeah, thanks very much for teaching me Maths and English and Geography and History and Home Ec. and Art and everything, but guess what? – I haven’t used a single word of anything you’ve ever said you losers and what’s more – I’m a huge star, and every three minutes – yeah click your fingers – every three minutes – I earn more than all of you put together do in a whole year. Revise THAT, you mothersuckers, and spank you for coming. Goodbye!

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Mo

  Today was full of surprises. I am allergic to surprises. Nothing makes me feel sick to my stomach more than a surprise. It’s a good thing a surprise is a surprise because I would dread it long ahead if I knew about it.

  Actually the start of the day was far from a surprise. Breakfast, kids, Husband, dog – same old same old. Sometimes I find a kind of comfort in the familiarity of it all. Knowing for sure that Husband will go to the cupboard, intent on wholesome muesli but will submit at the first sign of bread or croissant or the night before’s left-overs. If he maintains his resolve and has the muesli, he looks terribly dejected as he sits with his Independent and his jacket on the back of the chair, as if he has been denied any last jot of joy in his life. If he gives in to temptation and has a plate of something he really wants, he is like a naughty schoolchild who’s just been let off detention. He bounces about, cracking gags and kissing us all. Such simple, small, easily attained pleasures are the stuff of life to him. Personally I think he should abandon all attempts to eat healthily and just be happier instead, but every morning he puts himself to the test. Oscar asked him once why he bothers with the notion of the healthier option at all?

  Husband replied,

  ‘Well, thing is, as the dad of this family, I am the protector, the provider, the hunter-gatherer.’

  I couldn’t stifle my giggles at that.

  ‘What am I? Chopped liver? Think you’ll find I do a fair bit of providing, mate …’

  ‘Shut up, cave-wife, or I will have to club some respect into you. I am the man here, I am head of the cave, and as such, it is my duty to stick around as long as possible.’ He started lurching around the kitchen doing a silly caveman impression, looking more like a gorilla than a Neanderthal.

  ‘I go out, kill sabretooth with ug bare hands and ug drag home to cave to eat. I haul massive boulders for many ug miles and heave into circle forming ug blockade around home enclosure to ward off all other cavemen and beast attacks. Ug. Ug. This is my purpose, so must eat muesli and keep body fit.’

  His body is long past fit. Although, actually, he was very fit at one time. His passion for all things rugby demanded it. In fact, I think rugby players have to be extra fit because they are most certainly going to test their fit bodies with lakes-full of Guinness in the bar after each and every match. They have to be in prime condition to fight off the effects. He did that very successfully for many years but now he sports the full Guinness look. The paunch, the jowls, the heaviness about the thighs. These are added to the rugby look – the broken nose, the thick neck and the relentless beard that is never EVER totally shaved, even the second after it’s been shaved; it is always there, just under the skin ready to power through with testosterone as its fuel.

  Unlike so many of his beefy cohorts though, Husband is a minor miracle because Husband still has hair on his head. Loads of it. Thick, steely, could-use-it-to-scrape-stubborn-dinner-off-pans grey hair. It is warrior hair, Spartan hair. It will not die, it will fight and kill first.

  It’s curious then, that with an ex-rugby-player’s physique, a perpetual five o’clock shadow, a broad back, a thick neck and a hint of broken nose, that he isn’t more imposing. His very greyness has swallowed him up and, like me, he has become neither attractive nor unattractive – just middle-aged. The years have stolen his features, and somehow returned them to him after too many boil washes. He still has the bearing of the man I knew, but in a kind of soft focus.

  Oscar prefers to breakfast on Coco Pops or any brightly coloured toddlers’ cereal, followed by huge doorsteps of bread toasted and dripping with butter and jam. But the jam must be scooped out with the small silver spoon he received on his christening. Dora was genuinely addicted to Pop Tarts for five years and refused to try anything else but since the whitefoodstuffsonly regime has begun, she too is scoffing the white bread. With white marshmallow spread. Yeuch. The dog dined this morning on a bowl of croissant with bread and jam and had Coco Pops for afters. I wish they would all understand that Poo is a dog, not a bin.

  Anyway, after a banana, which is my breakfast of choice, I drove to work. I am never bored at work, quite the opposite, but sometimes the habits of my life – the breakfasts, the squabbles, the same faces around the table, the same old journey – left, right, left, second right – past the same old places – shops, school, cricket pitch, war memorial – just exasperate me.

  I had hoped that writing my book would wake me up but even that seems to be an exercise in churning out the same information I’ve been thinking about for years. I suppose we all get a bit weary of ourselves from time to time
. Don’t we?

  SO – it was at least a little bit different to arrive at work to discover that George had planned a surprise. We were due to have a share and support session in the afternoon. None of us had clients booked in, so George had decided that since the warm weather was now upon us, we should take a picnic down to the river and have our session in the open air. I found myself resisting with pathetic reasons like:

  I’m not in the right clothes.

  What if the weather changes, do we have brollies?

  A mosquito might bite one of us, and it might go septic.

  We might get grass cuts.

  There could be adders … or worse … voles.

  The look of disappointment on Noel and Lisa’s faces was enough to jolt me out of my doldrums and when I saw the effort Jess had put in to prepare a splendid picnic for her husband’s workmates, all her home-cooked hard work, I felt ashamed to have even questioned it.

  Off we went, all squishing into George’s estate car. I had a momentary pang of irritation and yes, I admit it, jealousy when Veronica climbed in the front with George. In the front. Where the parents go. George and I are the parents, aren’t we? Then I realized how preposterous it was to think like this and, anyway, huddled up between Lisa and Noel in the back wasn’t so bad.

  Oh give me someone funny any day. You can’t help but love them in the end. They will laugh you in towards them and you are helpless to resist. I can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed so much. It’s intoxicating. I remember that quote my father always used to repeat – it’s J. M. Barrie, I think – ‘Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.’ That’s right. Lisa is sunny. She assumed the role of a tank commander, issuing loud navigational orders to the lowly, dim and blind tank driver, George. She guided us to the site where the picnic was to be with some pretty impressive map reading.