I asked what was going on and the three of them laughed. One of the Lolitas grinned and said it was material unfit for a girl like me. The cheek of it. She meant a woman as ‘settled’ as me and it made me feel a million years old. It must’ve shown on my face because Alanna, sweet Alanna, with the bouncy ponytail and squeaky-clean soul said, ‘Ruthi, it’s just silly stuff. The girls are being silly. I’m just not looking for stability right now.’
The Lolitas quietened. She has that kind of authority over them.
I watch her exquisite profile as she tips out the bedpan.
‘Where did you meet?’ I say.
‘He’s a good guy, Ruth,’ she says, inconsequentially. Had I asked? She looks right at me. I freeze.
‘If he makes you happy,’ I say.
‘He will. And anyway, I think I’d like to have a party.’
Because of course she is having a party. A hen-do. I’m sure the Lolitas are over the moon.
‘I’ve not told the girls about it yet,’ she says, ‘and that’s the other thing.’
‘What other thing?’ I say.
‘Well, we go back, don’t we! We’ve been in this together, y’know? The shit and piss and all the rude bullshit we’ve got to put up with.’ And it’s true. We do put up with a lot of bullshit; people are sometimes rude, they do sometimes soil themselves, do die eventually.
She shakes her head like she’s trying to remember a thought. ‘Come on, Ruth. You’re one of my oldest friends. You showed me the ropes. I would’ve been lost without you. You’ve always had my back, Ruth.’
What does she want? Why does she keep saying my name?
Her eyes are very blue.
Another time I watch her while she undresses out of her work clothes. I’m not sure this second dream is a dream.
Alanna with huge black pupils on her ninth or tenth day in the job; a new franticness about her, like a rodent, a spaced-out little bunny. I pulled her into the towel cupboard before anyone else could see her. She flattened herself against the back wall, looked up at me with her round, dark eyes.
‘I am just so tired,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to make sure I could keep going.’
It was the most infuriating excuse she could’ve offered. I lost it.
‘Everyone gets tired. You have to teach your body to get used to it,’ I said, my mouth close to her ear, her Swarovski earring. I crushed her body against the bath towels, her tiny bones, tinier than mine. If I’d pressed down a little harder, I might have heard her spine crack. I felt her breathing hot against my neck.
The next day I found her at my desk, sober and conspiratorial. ‘I owe you one, Ruth Beadle.’ She pushed a bucket of Cadbury’s Roses towards me. I told myself I wouldn’t eat a single one. I left them next to the kettle in the kitchen for everyone else to share and then, when the tub was empty, I brought it back to my desk. I keep it there for paperclips and as a warning to Alanna. She has always behaved since then.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I say. ‘You were a very quick learner.’
‘Listen, I wanted to ask you something,’ she says.
‘Of course I’ll cover for you,’ I say. I might be bitter, Alanna, but only a monster wouldn’t cover for you on your wedding day.
‘No, Ruth. What? You silly cow! I want you to be my maid of honour.’ Her eyes are very large, very earnest, and I surprise myself by wanting her to mean it – wanting me, Ruth Beadle, her oldest friend, as her maid of honour.
But then the wariness hits. I check myself. I swallow. I remind myself that I’m the more experienced nurse. I keep it together.
‘Are you kidding me?’ I ask.
‘Kidding you?’
‘Rebecca and Emmeline will never forgive you.’
She sighs, ‘Look, there was never going to be a way to get that right. You only have one maid of honour and there are two of them. They can be bridesmaids.’
‘Surely that’s not a good reason …’
‘No. It’s not. And the real reason is this isn’t about Emmy and Bex. I want you.’
Alanna is quiet, eyes focused on the bedpan she’s rinsing out, eyelashes pointing downwards, milky gloves squidging against steel, scrubbing away the invisible bacteria. Am I supposed to say something? She hasn’t asked me a question. Anything I say now is tantamount to admitting I am keen on doing something I am not technically keen on doing. But the longer I am quiet, the deeper the notion sinks, like an oar in a puddle of murky water, dredging up detritus that I don’t particularly want to look at.
Winning at life, isn’t she? That’s what everyone will say. Alanna is getting married. I’m single now. It hurts. The implications: no plus-one, terrible hair, only ate her starter, look at the old maid, look at her dance. Who even is she? Have some wedding cake.
‘You can’t be serious.’ I try to make the question sound like a statement. I need to find a way to turn the invitation down and I need to do it quickly if I want to protect myself. Looking at her, so small and so pretty, you’d think she might need protection herself.
‘Of course I’m serious,’ she says. ‘Look, this isn’t the way you’re supposed to react, Ruth.’
I’ve had the wrong reaction pretty much every time anything notable has happened in my life: I’m never going to get this one right. But I haven’t said no, not yet. I take a deep breath.
Hypertrophic scars can appear while a serious burn is healing. The skin grows out too thickly, too fast, overcompensating for the damaged layers. It’s impossible to know in advance whether the scar will resolve itself, in months or even years, and leave a rosy section of neat child skin, or if it’ll stay dry, shiny and crumpled, like fresh papier mâché. You do everything you can to aid the healing process. You soak your cotton wool swab in disinfectant to clean around the surface of the burn daily. You wrap a compression bandage around it to keep it flat and then you do your best to forget that you are carrying an open wound on your body. You hope it doesn’t get infected, that there are no complications. I’ve been trying.
Even though I can’t help but drown in sleep. Even though I can’t think of eating without feeling terrible. As if by restoring full proficiency, surviving correctly at this moment in time, I run the risk of being pulled further away from the future I thought was awaiting me. In which I am the woman at the altar. Instead, I am an actual bridesmaid, as Alanna and I hurtle towards the fulfilment of our respective destinies. Me, forever on the sidelines. Alanna, right here, waiting for me to say something.
I realize I haven’t answered her.
She’s waiting.
‘Babe. I’m so sorry,’ I say and I know from her face that I’m not supposed to react like this either. Why am I apologizing? ‘Look, I’m just so honoured, so honoured, I don’t even know what to say.’
‘Say you’ll do it,’ she says. She holds out the wet bedpan.
I wrap each of my hands into a pristine white towel.
The cotton is very soft on my skin. With my tourniquets I receive the first bedpan. I begin to dry it. I don’t say anything.
‘OK, listen: think about it,’ she says. ‘Shall we say one week. If I don’t hear, I’ll take it as a yes.’ She smiles sweetly.
PIZZA
Nearly Ten Years Earlier
03/06/2006
Dear diary,
…
Cuz apparently that’s a thing I do now, write in my fucking diary. That’s how exciting this year’s been, I’m literally just one step away from talking to myself out loud. I can’t wait to get away. That’s the big news: we are actually really leaving!
Rome baby! Two whole weeks!
Honestly until the end I thought Beadle would chicken out which fuck me would’ve been SUCH a massive let-down, given how hard it’s been to convince her to come in the first place. She’d convinced herself we had to stick around school for ‘summer term projects’, can you fucking believe??? We’re not in drama school. What would we even do? Take an egg home for ten days and change its bandages daily? I showed her th
e term dates on the prospectus, where it clearly states that school is not on, like properly shut, dead, kaput, until September, but she looked at me with that weird bird face, like she hadn’t heard a word I said. She’s a nice girl really but sometimes I really wonder what her problem is.
So to clear any doubts and because the guy at the agency said we should book soon I asked Mike to tell her, since he’s doing a PhD. Then of course I had to be nice to him for like a week to make up for it and he got super clingy. He’s lucky there are no interesting guys on this course or I would’ve called the rape police on him a long time ago and then BYE BYE funded research post. But anyway he said to Beadle something like, Do you think any of us want to teach extra classes during the summer holidays? Academics are people too! Which is something he says at least once every time we hang out to remind me he’s not so old after all. Actually all it does is remind me that I’m not sure they are. People, I mean. And he IS old. He only says that because he’s behind with his PhD and feels bitter about it. I mean WHO. CARES. Mike is so boring.
Everything about nursing school is boring. What a waste. Honestly had I not maxed out not one but two card overdrafts (I know!!!) I would be out of here in a second. I’m not supposed to have a boring life. I miss dancing so fucking much sometimes it makes me want to cry. Still can’t quite believe the girls ditched me like that. I always knew Trace would do well enough for Oxbridge but honestly Franki at Goldsmiths? What do they even do there? Bet all she does is take ketamine and glue her pubes to a canvas. She sent me a care package with these terrible taxidermy postcards, a dry red rose and an old copy of Alice in Wonderland. Is that supposed to be ART or something? She can be so gross. So now Beadle is as good as it gets for me, in terms of mates.
Rome! I would’ve rather gone somewhere a bit more lively, like Ibiza, or I don’t know, Amsterdam. But I looked up prices for June and Spain costs crazy money cos it’s already high season and Amsterdam is always high season ha ha. I can just picture myself getting stoned alone while Beadle swoons over the beautiful tulips, so maybe it’s for the best we’re not going there either. Rome’ll have to do. I’m going to eat all of the ice cream and find myself a GLADIATOR for a boyfriend! That’ll show Franks! She may be an artist now but I bet my left tit she’s still boy crazy. Two whole weeks! Roma bambino!
Xoxo Ally
16/06/2006
OK, so, we’re off tomorrow! For real!
I’ve managed to convince Beadle to stay over at mine tonight so that it’ll be easier to get to the airport tomorrow. (Trace would say that I need her there to wake me up at 5 a.m. because I hold the World Record of Snooze Button Presses.) It’s also good because it gives me an excuse to tell Mike not to come over tonight. He was all upset. I don’t know WHAT he was thinking, that we were going to have a tearful goodbye? I’m only going away for two weeks. And then what? If he thinks we’re staying together over the summer then he is even dumber than I thought. I’m not spending the rest of my life with a lab rat (even if he looks hot in a lab coat).
Thought Beadle and I could have a sleepover type thing. I was even going to get us Domino’s. I thought it might be nice to eat together, to share something. I’d have paid. Can you believe? Beadle looked moderately excited when she turned up at the flat, which is huge news for her, she’s always got that lost expression and I thought oh yay! But obviously as soon as I managed to put Mike off, Beadle informed me she was hitting the hay. At half nine. She’s been asleep since then, which made me regret telling Mike not to come, because what am I going to do now. I’m all excited to leave with no one to talk to.
Xoxo A
WHOLE CHICKEN
Ruth
Now
I pick up the rotisserie chicken on my way. I go to Sainsbury’s and not Tesco, though I’ve always considered myself more of a Tesco girl. Mother is a Sainsbury’s girl, which is perhaps why I prefer Tesco. Or perhaps it’s because there was one next to my student halls when I first lived alone. Either way, Sainsbury’s is closer to my childhood home and so I buy the chicken there. I hold it in my arms and cover it with my scarf. It’s windy and I like feeling its heat radiating through the layers of clothing, against my chest, breast against breast. I’m like a beggar holding her lovechild in her arms, a belated Christmas carol in late January, both of us trying to keep warm.
I’ve put the coleslaw in my handbag. I check that it hasn’t spilled, before climbing the three steps to her door. It opens before I have a chance to knock. My mother and I thrive on punctuality: it’s something that runs in the family, deeper than a habit, like our brown eyes, our straight backs, the way our lips chap and are sore throughout the winter months. Her dry mouth brushes against my cheek as she gives me a hug no longer than usual, holds me back by the shoulder to look at my face, takes a moment to gauge the right distance so her astigmatic eyes can focus. I don’t like it when she isn’t wearing glasses: the similarities surface in our faces and I don’t like the feeling that she can read mine.
She is holding me the way all other mothers hold their grown children. There is nothing strange in her manner today and these measured gestures are a kindness she is paying me. She knows, of course, about the break-up. I called her to tell her two nights ago. I waited until I knew I was going to see her. I couldn’t have foreseen the other thing, that happened only two days ago, and I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t need to ask her: I am sure that my mother was never a bridesmaid.
On the phone, she asked how long it had been since Neil and I ‘parted ways’. I said four weeks and she said, ‘Oh Ruth! Why didn’t you mention it?’ She is upset that I didn’t call her earlier and so she won’t ask me why he left me in person. If I hadn’t waited to call, she would’ve had to find another reason not to ask, so my calling ahead and the delay in telling her are kindnesses that I am paying her.
We don’t talk about these things in my family. We work together to avoid this kind of stressful conversation. Why dig it all up? Life is hard enough. My mother doesn’t ask me about the break-up, but this doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care about the conditions regulating my life and how they have shifted over the last month. Quite the opposite. Her nonchalant manner is her way of conveying that she knows that I am strong and require no external support: she trusts me to be all right. Right now, my mother knows that it is crucial that the lacquer of our routine remain unaltered, even though there is no one here to witness our exchange. Our Sunday evening dinner is a family tradition. Sunday rotisserie chicken might not seem like a tradition that amounts to much in those families with more than two people – a favourite restaurant for big occasions, a set date for decorating the Christmas tree, or threefold Christmas gifts: something silly, something sweet and something to use in the bathroom – but they have seen us through my first period, my first exam, my first holiday abroad and its aftermath. They are going to see us through this and we are going to be just fine.
‘Ruth,’ my mother says, holding me by the shoulders.
She uses my name as punctuation, a full stop that ends this. I shut the door behind me and listen out for the neat click. Polishing the metal mechanisms around the house was my chore when I was little. My mother imagined it was a chore that would appeal to a child, so she assigned it to me at the age of five, as soon as I could be trusted not to pour the furniture polish into my mouth. When I left home the task reverted to her and even now all her doorknobs are shiny. Some people are capable of resuming full proficiency once they are left to fend for themselves. I hope that runs in the family too.
‘So Ruth,’ she says, as we slip past the American film-star portraits lining the walls of the hallway. I swing my hip to the side to avoid the long low table. She keeps twin Art Deco lamps at each end, a doily in between and a crystal dish of ancient sweets on the doily. Though narrow, the table is too large for this small corridor and the lamps rack up a substantial bill considering her modest, bread-and-butter lifestyle. But their light is the glow you see through the half-moon window above
the front door. It says, If you lived here you’d be home now.
In the kitchen we busy ourselves with dinner. We do this urgently because the chicken is already getting cold. We don’t speak until the task is completed. We are removing the tinfoil, balling it up, binning it. We are sliding the chicken, whole, on to a serving plate. Pouring the coleslaw into two small shallow fish-shaped bowls, the ones we use for coleslaw, never fish. Putting the napkins out: squares of kitchen roll that we fold into triangles. What is the point of buying both kitchen roll and napkins? What is the point of buying both cotton wool pads and cotton wool balls? My mother and I are thrifty: we save money, time and space. We work as a team: no dishes, one carving knife. We sit before one another in opposite fold-out chairs. Two others remain against the wall, where they have left a grey smudge, dust accumulating between plaster and plastic until it turns into grease. Don’t get me wrong: the house is well tended, in its well-used spaces. There is always so much to do, no need to go rooting around in dark corners. The kitchen surfaces are always pristine.
‘Ruth,’ my mother says.
‘What can I say, mother,’ I say. I raise my palms, upturned. I am vexed; I have to remind myself that there is no need to be. My mother looks at me with her bad eyes. I carry on. I tell her about the colony of moths that have settled into our bottom drawer, the one that housed Neil’s winter jumpers, the one he has vacated. It’s still empty. I don’t need the extra space; I have nothing to fill it with. I withhold the meagre satisfaction of knowing that all the expensive jumpers he took with him will be full of holes by the spring. Baby moths are breeding invisibly in their woollen folds right at this very moment.
‘Furry little turds,’ I spit out. I feel my face contract into a mean little smile.
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