by Anna Maxted
My mother adores being teased by her son, so all hail to my brother, the evening is resuscitated.
That said, when Saul drops me in slow motion at my flat later on, I am too tired to invite him in for coffee. (By which I mean a cup of Nescafé.) Which is fortunate, since when I press the Play button on my large gray dinosaur of an answering machine, it whirs and clicks and grumbles before drawling—in a dry breathy voice that makes my skin tingle—“Hi, Natalie. I’ve been thinking about you…letting your hair down.”
3
I’VE BEEN SUSPICIOUS OF LETTING MY HAIR DOWN ever since Rapunzel let down hers and found a ruddy great bloke on a horse hanging off it. Let your hair down and before you know it you’re wearing elastic waistbands, eating pizza in bed, and justifying the purchase of an £800 coat from Harvey Nicks on the thin premise that you haven’t had children, a face-lift, a month’s holiday on a large yacht in Monte Carlo, and have therefore saved yourself a vast sum and are technically economizing.
Even so, I think of Chris and drool. After Frannie shattered the mood with all the grace of a demolition van, reality hit and I blushed. “I’m sorry,” I blustered to Chris, “I am seeing someone, I, er, you are lovely, but I shouldn’t be doing this. It’s bad of me.”
But Chris seemed unruffled by Frannie’s interruption. He stared at her and said, “Why are you so white?” When she withdrew, speechless and bristling, Chris tutted. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand,” he said, “it’s rudeness!” I hurriedly lit a cigarette and breathed in the nicotine like—well, like a drug. Chris added, “It’s bad of you? You don’t know the meaning of bad.”
Aware that I was coming across like Mary Magdalene at a mixed sauna, I replied squeakily, “Yes I do.”
“I’d like to show you,” said Chris.
“Actually, I—” I began.
“So do you have a number, or is it classified?” he said.
“I didn’t bring anything to write with,” I croaked.
“Well, princess, how about you scrawl it on my chest in lipstick,” he replied. I smiled as he removed a slender pen from his jacket and handed it to me. Then he pulled a rolling paper from its packet and gave me that too. Obediently, I scribbled down my home number. I’m sorry but he was so pushy and, for the first five minutes of a relationship, I like that in a man.
“Don’t use it,” I said, to salve my conscience.
I listen to his message again. My heart jumps like a cricket in a box. The man should come with a health warning and a free chastity belt. I won’t call him, though, it’s not fair to Saul. Saul is so trusting. If only he were suspicious I’d feel justified. No. I can’t call Chris. I mean, I really can’t—I don’t have his number. Then I press *69 and I do.
I stare at the pale blue walls of my hallway until they blur. I wonder. I still can’t call him. I won’t. I’m with Saul Bowcock. We’re in a sensible relationship (as Juliet said to Romeo). I can’t cheat on him. It’s not fair. I can’t end it. I don’t end relationships—it’s too upsetting. I’m fond of Saul. Really. He’s a sweetie. I mean, he thinks Jean-Claude Van Damme is cool. If only Babs were here I could bore her about it. She’d know what, or who, to do. I double-lock the front door and plod along the corridor to bed. Surely she’s got to be back from Mauritius soon, it seems like she’s been on honeymoon for the last decade.
The first thing I used to hear on walking into the office was “Your mission is to retake the building with minimal loss of life,” but not anymore. Matt—my immediate boss—has been promoted to head of press and marketing and now shuns computer games as “underplaying the pressures of the real world.” This morning he is hunched in front of his screen and acknowledges my entrance with a silent wave. His basset hound, Paws (full name, Pas de Quatre), is slumped at his feet chewing at a pinkish rag.
“Dinner okay?” says Matt, still tapping.
“Not too terrible.” I’m touched that he’s remembered. “How’s Stephen? Is he still in the hospital?”
Matt swings around. “No. He was discharged—mm, nice word—on Saturday.”
“How is he?”
“Crotchety, demanding, no change there. But the main thing is, I’ve escaped to the orifice, and you survived dinner. Were there lots of wedding questions?”
I nod. Matt rolls his eyes. “The bride, wasn’t she beautiful? That dress, wasn’t it faaabulous? The groom, wasn’t he a dish? Oh, I love a wedding, Natalie dear—Saul, such a pity you missed it! Am I warm?”
I giggle. “You must have had me bugged.”
“Your life fascinates me. And I’m gagging to meet that wicked boy Simon.”
“I’ll bet you are,” I say. A small sigh escapes me.
“Hey. Don’t be miz. She’ll come back. They didn’t live together, did they? Oh, lord. Six months of pooey pants on the floor and bristles in the bath and noisy wees and car rows and crusty socks stuffed down the side of the sofa and you’ll see more of Babs than you did when she was single. And I should know.”
“Aw, Matt, I am happy for her, but—”
I’m interrupted by a loud canine cough. Sounds like a basset hound choking on a dirty pink shredded rag—oh my god, it’s a pointe shoe!
“Where did Paws get the shoe from?” I ask, glancing in horror at what Matt and I call the junk cupboard. I’d like to blame Belinda, our assistant (a woman whose mouth never quite shuts, even when she’s not talking). Pity she’s on holiday in Crete for two weeks.
“What shoe?” says Matt. I lurch to the cupboard and start raking through the rubble on the second shelf.
“It’s the one signed by Julietta,” I groan. “He’s only gone and pinched the one signed by Julietta!” Julietta is our principal dancer. The Greater London Ballet Company has six, but Julietta is a principal principal. She has hair the shade of buttermilk (mine is tart blond compared to hers), moves like a wisp of heaven, and—as one critic put it—is “womanly, without it spoiling her line.” She is intelligent, intense, and has a thing about people thinking ballet dancers are stupid. She terrifies me. The media loves her, and once in a groveling while we’ll persuade her to sign a worn pink satin shoe, which then serves as a competition prize—supposedly for some ten-year-old girl, but probably for a middle-aged male.
“The shoes are on the second shelf,” I say. “Paws is the height of a toadstool. What did he do—stand on a chair?” By now, Matt is crouching beside Paws. He has thick black hair (Matt, I mean; Paws is brown and white) and five-o’clock shadow at 11 A.M. When he smiles his face creases with laughter lines. He isn’t smiling.
“You’s a bad dog,” he says lovingly. “Naughty, naughty boy!” To me, he says, “Did you lock the cupboard door on Friday before rushing off to the gym?”
I stop myself from pulling at my hair. “I was sure I did. But anyway, how could he could reach?”
Matt sighs. “Paws has diddy little legs, Natalie, but he makes up for them with his impressively long torso.” A pause. “What’s got into you lately? Nat, for someone in a senior position you’re doing a good impression of an airhead. You used to be so efficient. And now is not the time to be seen as dead wood. Lock the damn door in future.”
I flinch. Matt is more like a friend than a boss. It’s horrible when he asserts his authority and dispels the illusion. You used to be so efficient. I flashback to Matt buying me an orchid after I got a willowy senior soloist a picture spread in Hello. And to Matt kowtowing and crying “We are not worthy!” after I cajoled the Daily Mail into doing an interview with our artistic director and—the surprise bonus—printing it. Suddenly, I’m furious at my mistake. Especially as Matt is correct: now is not the time to be seen to be slacking—the company has exceeded its budget. (They went all out on Giselle, hiring a white horse and a pack of beagles to make the hunting party’s arrival in the village more dramatic. Unfortunately, the horse trod on a beagle and killed it, resulting in a lawsuit.) The rumor is that a “restructure” is imminent.
I blurt, “I can’t believe I was so stu
pid. What a thick, stupid, brainless prat.” Matt holds up a hand and says, “Easy on the sack-cloth, dear. What’s done is done. Wheedle Julietta into signing another shoe. Although it’s not my idea of fun, other people’s verrucas.”
I think Matt takes pity on me because after a pause, he says cheerily, “He’s my dog. I’ll ask her. Later. When I’m begging about the other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
He drops a copy of Hiya! magazine on my desk. There on its shiny toilet-paperish cover, nestling naked in a snowy heap of feathers, is Tatiana Popova, star of the Southern Royal Ballet—our main competitors, who for their winter season are staging Swan Lake. Normally, the Southerners are so stuck up, you’d think their every swan had laid an egg. But here is Tatiana, getting into bed with a downmarket rag. That’s our turf!
“The Southern have gone tabloid!” I gasp. “How dare they! No wonder Hiya! didn’t return our calls!”
“I’m seeing the boss in three minutes,” says Matt. “To explain our counterstrategy.”
“What counterstrategy?”
“Exactly,” says Matt, drawing a finger across his neck. “I bequeath you Paws,” he adds, marching to the door. “One thing, though,” he calls from the corridor, “The Telegraph is getting back to us re a possible shoot with Julietta. See what you think. The minute they call, see about getting it penciled into the ballet schedule. I’ll speak to the dancers, and then we’ll go to work on the details. Guard the phones with your life!”
I salute in the direction of his voice, and when the phone rings I leap on it. From now on my standard of work will be so high, I’ll make God look like a slacker. Resting on the seventh day indeed!
“Hellogreaterlondonballetcompanypressofficehowmayihelpyou?” I say breathlessly.
“Natalie? Germaine Greer is chairing a debate on Thursday at the Barbican,” declares Frannie through her permanently blocked nose. “I have a spare ticket and I thought you might benefit.”
“Oh! Hello, Frannie. That’s very kind of you. What a surprise!” I wince. That came out wrong. Or maybe not.
“Not at all. As I say, I thought you might benefit.”
I bite my lip. The problem I have with Frannie is that she refuses to be nice, even when she’s being nice. “What’s it about? It’s lovely of you to think of me.”
“Is gender a continuing identity or feature of personality?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, Natalie, really. I’m not asking you, that’s the title of the debate!”
“Right. Well. The thing is, Frannie, work is very busy this week and—”
“If you don’t want to come, Natalie, that’s your right and you can say so.”
“No, no, no, it’s not that I—”
“You don’t want to come. Not a problem! At least do me the courtesy of telling the truth. By the way, I spoke to Babs last night.”
“What!” I gasp. Eventually I say, “What, you called her at the Paradise Cove Hotel?”
“That would hardly have been appropriate. She and Simon flew home yesterday morning. Babs called me.”
“But…but—” I blurt. Then I stop. Cool as a cucumber, cool as a cucumber, I tell myself.
“But why hasn’t she called me?” I bleat, cool as a boiled cucumber.
Frannie sighs happily. “She can’t call everyone,” she replies. Having dealt her knockout blow, Frannie trips breezily on to other topics. But I am deaf with confusion and mute with pique. My nose is so out of joint I consider going straight to the emergency room. Call Frannie. Call Frannie and not me? Babs always calls me! Even when we lived together we rang each other three times a day.
I wait until Frannie has said her piece (and it’s a bloody big piece). Then I call Babs.
“Yeah?” says a sleepy voice.
“Babs!” I exclaim. “It’s me! Why haven’t you rung? How was it? Did you have an amazing time? Was it hot? Are you outrageously brown?”
There is a brief silence, then Babs says stickily, “Oh, hi, Nat, hello, love. What time is it?”
I glance at the clock. “It’s, er, it’s a quarter to ten.”
Babs groans. “I’ll kill you! It’s the middle of the night!”
I feel like I did age six when I blundered in on my father naked.
“Oh no!” I squeak. “Did I wake you up?”
“Forget it.” She yawns. “My fault. I should have taken the phone off the hook.”
“It’s just that I was excited about you being back. You…you rang Frannie, so I…I…”
There is no reply and I can make out a husky voice in the background saying, “Who is it?”
And then I hear Babs reply distantly, “Natalie Miller.”
Natalie Miller. How many other friends has she got named Natalie?
“Sorry, Nat,” says Babs, loud in my ear. “Him indoors. What were you saying?”
“Not much,” I reply grumpily. “I’d been expecting to hear from you, that’s all.”
“Give us a chance! We only got in last night!”
“I know,” I say hurriedly, “but—”
“Natalie,” begins Babs, “you’re worse than my mother. I was going to report back to you, the minute I woke up. The reason I rang Frannie last night was because she’d wanted to come round this afternoon, and frankly, I’m way too tired for that kind of excitement.”
I grin down the phone. “Oh, of course, Babs, I’m sorry. So…how was your honeymoon? Was it wonderful?”
“Mmm, yes, yes it was,” replies Babs, yawning again. “A-r-r-r-r! Thank you.”
I decide that as she seems to be in an unshakable trance, this isn’t the time to ask her how the sex was. I say instead, “Your wedding was gorgeous, Babs, really fantastic. Everyone had a lovely time.”
For the first time, there is real joy in her tone. “Oh, thank you! Did you think so? We thought so. It was wicked, Nat, I can’t tell you how brilliant it was! Mad but brilliant. We can’t wait to get the pictures back. It went so fast, though, but really, it’s true what they say, it was the best day of our lives!”
I giggle. I didn’t realize that marriage confers royalty alongside its tax benefits. “How do you know that when you haven’t yet had the rest of your life?” I say teasingly.
“You’re right,” says Babs. “I should say, second best. The best day will be when I give birth to our first child.”
With great self-command, I don’t faint. I whisper, “You’re not—are you pregnant?”
Babs giggles. “Not yet,” she replies. “We’re still practicing.” And then, “So you loved the wedding, then?”
“It was great,” I say warmly. “Wonderful. It was lovely to see Andy again. In f—”
“Arr! I know! I’m so happy he’s back! He was pleased to see you too, he said he couldn’t believe how much weight you’d lost—”
Bloody cheek. “So what’s he saying? That I was fat before?” I force a laugh. “But Babs, guess what, there was something I wanted to tell you about the wedding. You know the guy I was sitting next to?”
“Er, we had a hundred and fifty guests. Remind me.”
“Chris! Chris Pomeroy?”
“Oh yes. Chris. He’s an old mate of Si’s.”
“Well…” I take a deep breath and tell her about Chris. When, eight minutes later, I stop talking, there is no response.
“Babs?” I say. “You still there?”
“Oh, Nat,” she murmurs. “What about poor old Saul? He adores you.”
I don’t know what to say.
Finally Babs speaks.
“Look, doll,” she says. “Right now I’ve got a head like cotton wool. Let’s talk when I’m more awake. I’ll give you a shout later. You take care.”
I sit at my desk opening and shutting my mouth like a large wooden puppet and then I pull a small tear of paper out of my bag, smooth it defiantly in front of me, and dial the number scrawled on it. I replace the receiver just as Matt reappears.
“You look like a cat in a dai
ry,” he remarks. “I assume The Telegraph is champing at the bit?”
“No, sorry,” I say, “they didn’t call. I’ll give them a ring in a sec. But—I have a date. Tonight. With a drop-deader!”
“Naturally you don’t mean Saul,” says Matt. “Do tell.”
Matt, unlike Babs, is eager to encourage me on my way to sin. His mood is restored because our director of public affairs decided he adored the Telegraph idea—an exclusive pic of Julietta in Verona, for their Valentine’s Day issue—to trumpet our spring season performance of Romeo and Juliet.
Matt extends my lunch hour so that I can shop for a new me. And when I roll in disguised as a bag lady he volunteers to sort the retail wheat from the retail chaff. It’s a poor harvest. For instance: “Those boots are going back, you look like you’re standing in a pair of buckets. Oh lord, you’d fit both my aunts in that top. A skirt from Laura Ashley? How old are you, Natalia, forty-five?”
I wouldn’t mind but Matt is the worst-dressed gay man I’ve ever met in my life. (All his creative energy is spent on Paws.) He sighs, and clips the pampered one to his Gucci lead. Then he marches me to Whistles, and orders me into a clingy pink shirt. I feel like a large sea worm and try to sneak a baggy cardigan past him but he confiscates it. Like all my friends, Matt gets a kick out of spending my money, and within forty minutes has cajoled me into buying a tapering cream corduroy skirt, and a pair of tall brown snakeskin boots. It’s like being fitted for a first bra all over again except this time I’m paying for it. His last words are, “I trust you’re wearing decent knickers.”
When Chris shows up at 6:45 I am a new, if poorer, woman. And I’m ready to rock.
4
I WON’T WATCH TV ALONE. WHEN BROOKSIDE IS ON I have to have someone else in the room, or I feel like a loser. There are exceptions, obviously. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is allowed. But not Roswell High, it tries too hard. Martial Law is borderline. Wheel of Fortune is so utterly sad that you might as well shun society altogether and live in a caravan with a chemical loo. I suppose I’m not very good at being alone. But the truth is, I felt alone long before Babs left the flat to get married: she was so busy practicing her new signature and obsessing about whether the bridesmaids should wear roses or ribbons in their hair, that the radio was better company. Not that I’m saying I’m lonely, but—