by Anna Maxted
But all she says is, “Yeah, well. I thought you’d get on. What with your matching mood swings.”
“Oh,” I say. What I ought to say, what I should say, what an assertive woman would say to such a snide little dig is “And what do you mean by that?” But all I say is “Oh.”
I think Babs realizes she’s out of line because she adds hastily, “Ah, don’t mind me, Nat. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today. No, it’s great, Andy living with you. I think it will be nice, you’ll get on great. The only thing is, he’s still pining for Sasha, so all I’m saying is, watch out.”
23
WATCH OUT. I DON’T SAY IT OUT LOUD, BUT I SAY it at least twenty times in my head that night and the following day. What do you mean by that? I excuse myself and go to the bathroom and brush my teeth and floss and gargle until all taste and trace of tomato bread soup is eliminated. What do you mean by that? I tear off my orange jumper and black trousers, dirty with the scent of greed, and scrub until my skin tingles. I bow to the modern equivalent of a Roman emperor and step on the scales. (The same. I live!) I huddle in bed and try to sleep. What do you mean by that?
I know precisely what she means by that. Don’t go getting any funny ideas about my brother. The cheek of her. Demoted, but still reckons she’s the general. Sorry, Babs, you’re a foot soldier now. When you stopped phoning five times daily, you lost your right to give orders. I wouldn’t mind but you’ve already broken rank once. Get this: you’re my ex. When people are intimate, they can say exactly what they think of each other, no matter how sadistic. It’s one of the perks of a close relationship. But when they split, it’s back to being civil. So. I can do whatever, whenever, and my mistakes are none of her business. Well, some of them, anyway. I wonder what it would be like to kiss Andy.
Mel has suggested I meet her in the GL Ballet reception at 6 P.M., which isn’t ideal, although it does mean I can hand-deliver Matt’s press releases.
“Going-home time!” she tinkles. “How are you coping? You don’t look too downbeat! How was your Valentine’s Day? Mine was such fun! I got heaps of flowers from fans, but look what Tony gave me—I am so so lucky!” Mel digs in her purse, flaps a first-class Eurostar ticket at me, and does a perfect pirouette of joy. Her blue eyes shine bright in her pale face. “We’re going to stay in an amazing hotel—it’s called Hotel Costes—it’s on the rue St.-Honoré, and loads of celebrities go there! And his PA checked with the ballet schedule so I don’t miss a single show, isn’t he sweet? Oh, Natalie, your brother is so clever, shall we go for a coffee and talk about Paris? I said to Tony we’ll meet at his place at seven, it’s too dark to go to the park. Oh please say yes!”
Two excitable minutes later, Mel and I are sitting in the shabby corner café on poky metal chairs. Mel asks if I’ve ordered carrot cake with my peppermint tea.
“No,” I say, still raw from the gluttony of last night. I glance at Mel’s hopeful face, and a twist of spite escapes me. “Are you having carrot cake?”
“No,” says Mel quickly, her entire body a spasm of panic. “I’ve had lunch. I’m stuffed.”
This goads me. Why should I be forced to eat because my stupid hair starts shedding?
“Are you sure, Mel? You should eat. I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re…you’re looking a bit…a bit”—I search for a non-derisive term—“scraggy.”
A frightening expression settles on her face. Nervously, I wait for her to speak. When her rosebud lips part I flinch.
“I love boys who make romantic gestures!” she cries, as if I’d said nothing at all. I sag with relief as she rattles on about Tony and Paris.
That’s one mistake I won’t make again. I light a cigarette with shaking hands. What a fool! Mel doesn’t want to be rescued. She yatters on and I watch but don’t hear a word. No, I will not be having carrot cake with my tea. I sit there stiff and sour, warming my ever-frozen hands on the teacup, until Mel says, “Natalie, are you okay? You look all funny.”
I say brightly, “No, yes, I’m fine.”
“You can tell me, I won’t tell anyone!”
While not convinced, I am beyond caring. Anyhow, my fast fading friendship with Babs has no bearing on Mel. She probably won’t tell anyone. I regurgitate the tale, with express reference to the various dinner party affronts. I avoid referring to my, hmm, issue. It’s like trying to dodge raindrops.
“I don’t get it!” squeaks Mel. “Why is she being so mean?”
I sigh. What is the point unless I relate the whole story, fresh, plump, and unfilleted? And if so, how do I broach the taboo? I am not a taboo broacher. I pride myself on my ability to tiptoe around the elephant in the living room, the hippo in the living room, and the anorexic in the coffee shop. It’s safer that way. Wild animals and obsessional women are unpredictable and—as I know after a single prod—best not tackled by amateurs.
“Well,” I begin, focusing on a chocolate-brown crumb on the table. “We had a row. Babs sort of accused me of, of, er, not eating.”
I fully flesh the story, without looking Mel in the eye once. I’ve taken a paintbrush to the elephant, and daubed him red from trunk to tail.
I stutter to a halt. Mel hisses, “Tony says that your friend Babs is a big beefy girl, so it’s obvious she’s jealous of you! You’re naturally thin, Natalie, you’re very feminine—Babs must be as jealous as hell!”
I nod vigorously, yes, yes, this is what I want to hear, sod eating more, I am right. If a little grossed out at the word feminine. But. I don’t feel right. As Mel rants on, I notice the gray tinge to her teeth, and the dreadful pink rawness of her knobbly knuckles, which, though tiny, seem giant and bulbous compared to her twiggy fingers. Her hair is dry and lusterless. And I realize that no one in their right mind would be jealous of either of us.
I’m relieved when it’s time to go to Tony’s.
The cab draws up in front of my brother’s crumbly white stucco-fronted penthouse (or, for laypersons, “top flat”) in Lad-broke Grove. Mel rings the buzzer, and we plod up the Prussian blue carpeted stairs, she tracing a finger along the dark red flock wallpaper. Faded grandeur is the charitable way to describe the hallway. Grubby and threadbare would be meaner, but more accurate. Today, its fustiness is overpowered by the smell of fried meat. “Poo-ee!” cries Mel, waving a porcelain hand in front of her button nose. She raps hard on the white door and, after a fashionable sixty-second delay, Tony yanks it open.
“Hey, sugar pop,” he murmurs to Mel, who tilts her cheek to receive a kiss. I stand patiently behind her in the cold dim hall—my best smile primed to burst into bloom—until my brother deigns to greet me.
“Hi, Tony,” I say hopefully, as our eyes meet.
“Hi.” The word drops from his lips stillborn. He turns back to Mel and I follow him inside, my heart a pebble of impending doom.
Mel settles in Tony’s white leather sofa between two blue Elvis-print cushions. She lies on her back, her head hanging off the seat, her legs gracefully propped against the back of the sofa and up the blood red wall. As Tony doesn’t question this batlike arrangement, I assume he knows she’s “draining”—the revolting ballet term for getting rid of the lactic acid that stiffens your muscles after exercise.
“My back hurts,” she says suddenly.
“Poor Ikkle Lambkin,” cries Tony. “Does Ikkle Lambkin want a rub?”
Mel smiles from her upside-down position. “No fank yoo, Big Daddy Bear! Iss too sore. It feel wery hot.”
“Does Ikkle Lambkin want Big Daddy Bear to get her some ice?”
At this point, I would dash from the room to vomit, but aural trauma pins me to the spot.
“Oh no!” cries Mel, in her normal voice. “I’d better drain, otherwise I’ll get all puffy and stiff and probably injured. And then they won’t let me dance, and I’ll feel like an elephant and I’ll miss loads of performances and then when I start dancing again I’ll feel all fat and tired and it’ll be like I’m moving in slow motion.”
“Christ,
” says Tony.
“But will you light the candles?” lisps Mel. “It’s so pretty when you do that!” My brother crosses his ebony-wood-stained floor in three strides, and skims his lighter across the row of black candles that line the mantelpiece. I sigh, and plop into a black furry beanbag (pardon me, a 1,500-pound Black Mongolian sheepskin beanbag). A short-lived squeeze once told Tony his flat was a cross between “a tart’s boudoir and a Gothic dungeon.” He was thrilled. I think it bought her an extra day.
“Can we have a joint?” asks Mel, lighting a Camel.
I quake at her audacity but Tony purrs, “Coming right up.”
He gets to work with a rolling paper, smiling at her and scowling at me in one look. I sit stiff and miserable and bum level with the floor, spinning my fag packet over and over between two fingers, like a rectangular wheel, flick, flick, flick.
“Will you stop messing with that friggin’ fag packet,” growls Tony.
“Sorry,” I mutter, dropping it.
“Is there champagne?” squeaks Mel, who appears to have acclimatized to Tony’s bacchanalian lifestyle in record time.
“Sure, sweetheart.” Tony smiles—back to Dr. Jekyll. “There’s a bottle in the fridge. Want me to get it for you?”
“Oh no, it’s okay,” says Mel, on her gnarled feet in one fluid move. “I’ll get it.” I feel a lurch of terror as Mel exits the room, as silently as a cat. Alone with the killer who knows I suspect him!
“Did I tell you, Piers Allen is interested in Blue Fiend?” I gabble, to save myself.
Tony smirks.
“Have you…have you talked to Piers?” I ask, confused.
“Mm,” says Tony, “I have. And you’re right. Piers is very interested in Blue Fiend.” He cackles, a short venomous burst. Very Captain Hook.
“W-what?” I stammer. “What’s the joke?”
“You’ll have to wait for the punch line,” says Tony sharply, pinching a great tampon of a spliff into shape.
Mel pads back into the room, holding a bottle and three old-fashioned champagne bowls. “I’m back!” she cries. “I hope you talked about me!”
Tony takes the champagne bottle, prizes it open with a loud pop (Mel acts the part and squeals) and pours the frothing liquid into the bowls. “Sweetheart,” he murmurs to Mel, “why don’t you go into the bedroom. I went shopping today. There’s a little surprise for you on the bed.”
Mel gasps, “Is it a present? For me!”
“Might be,” says Tony gruffly. “Neglected childhood,” he tuts as she speeds out of the lounge. “Criminal. Needs lots of attention to make up for it.”
He brushes a hand across his eyes. I nod slowly, wondering at this spectacular display of fluffiness from the man who, by reputation, makes Clint Eastwood look like a big girl’s blouse. And that obscene baby talk. In front of me! If I didn’t know better, why, I’d think he was in love! Mel as a sister-in-law. I take a medicinal gulp of champagne and choke.
“I’m not happy with you,” says Tony, watching me clutch my throat, turn purple, and wheeze for air. He inhales deeply on the spliff, and doesn’t pass it to me.
“What have I done now?”
“Did you think it would just go away?” he says, his blue eyes as cold and dark as the North Sea.
“What go away?”
“When did you last speak to Mum?” he asks.
“I…I…I speak to her every day, uh, this morning, she phoned to see how Andy was settling in.”
“She wants to write to Tara.”
Of course she does.
“She wants to fucking go and visit them.”
She wants to turn The Simpsons into The Brady Bunch.
“You are in serious shit with me, Natalie, I do not need this hassle. I like my life and I do not want it complicated. You have complicated it. Do you get what I’m saying?”
My brother is hunched and breathing smoke through his nostrils and looks poised to spring at me like a gargoyle come to life. I am praying that the spliff will reach his brain in the next millisecond and paint the situation Disney when he suddenly roars, “SAY SOMETHING!” and I jump clean off the Mongolian beanbag. What can I say, Tony? Your drugs are inferior. I did a bad thing. On my list of regrets it’s right up there with:
→ confidently introducing a friend of Saul’s to Babs by the wrong name
→ resisting for a year then submitting to the stifling hype and wasting 150 quid on a big hairy pashmina, just as they were outed as scarves and kicked out of fashion
→ greeting Kimberli Ann and my dad and his bright black hair at Los Angeles airport with the words, “Dad! What have you done to your hair?” and—when he croaked, “Ah! I accidentally spilled something on it”—whimpering the feeble addition, “Because it looks terrific!”
But as my life’s errors churn around my head, I realize that if I had the chance to yell “Surprise! Secret grandchild!” at my mother again, I would. I am not sorry. I regret annoying Tony. Rather, I regret making Tony annoyed with me. And I feel guilty for hurting my mother. But she deserved to know. It was short-term pain for long-term gain. And she will gain. I’ll bet that large pointless pink scarf at the back of my cupboard that Kelly and Tara will welcome her to the underground branch of the family without so much as a “where were you?”
I know, though, that I didn’t do it for my mother. I blabbed for me reasons. And how can I say that to my brother? Tony, who has always come first. Tony, who never struggled to be golden because he just was. Whereas me, I’m silver girl. I was born second and that’s where I’ve stayed. Mediocre, nothing special, average, ah, well, you did your best. I couldn’t even come last and fail in style. That fleeting mash-and-liver madness wasn’t madness at all. I wanted to knock the king off his throne and scramble up there myself.
But how can I say that? I look at my furious brother and all I can think is, when I was eleven I made scones with lard in home economics and brought them home for tea. Mum took one bite, made a face, and spat my love into the sink. But doubtless if they were your scones, Tony, she’d have eaten the lot.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, “I’ve got no excuse. I’m an idiot.”
I claw my way out of the beanbag just as Mel charges into the room waving a flimsy pink cardigan and gossamer vest in one hand and a mass of deep pink tissue paper in the other and squealing, “Oh, dese are so beautiful, Big Daddy Bear, oh dey fit Lambkin perfectly, oh, Big Daddy Bear, he iss so kind, Lambkin love dem, she will be so pretty, she iss going to wear dem to Paris!”
I smile queasily and say to my brother, “I’m sorry. I’ll go home now.”
There are several sorts of crying. One is the loud wailing snotty see-what-you-did-to-me disciplinary sort—i.e., performed in front of the guilty boyfriend who reaps the sniveling whirlwind of his cruelty and neglect and is traumatized into solicitude forever.
Another is the quiet headachy screwy-faced self-satisfaction sort: a luxury, strictly speaking, forced out even though your tear ducts are parched, because you believe you deserve a blub and are determined to feel sorry for yourself.
And the third is the mournful mopey weeping Madonna sort (the Virgin Mary, just so we’re clear): shedding innocent tears of woe against a harsh world (NB: it helps to have lank hair for this one) that roll sorrowfully down your face and plop unchecked (your disposition is too mild for tissues) onto your wimple.
The only disadvantage of number three—my boo-hoo of choice—is that it is uglifying. It makes my eyelids and, oddly, my nose and mouth, deepen in color and swell and puff until I look like Veruca Salt on becoming a blueberry. Naturally Andy walks in at the final monstrous moment of metamorphosis.
“Shit!” he yelps. “Are you okay?”
“Oh gosh, yeah,” I sniff, hurriedly smearing the grot off my face with my sleeve. “I’m fine.”
He regards me suspiciously. “Are you sure?” he says.
I assess him from behind my hand and a decade of reasonably well-founded prejudice shrivels. Since ye
sterday this man is confounding his rude and stroppy reputation with charm. And—as I always take nice people for granted but gratefully fawn upon nasty ones who slip out of character for five minutes—I find this quite beguiling. And he was apologetic about the kiss in the cupboard.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he repeats.
My lower lip trembles. “Yes!” I manage, in a hysterical warble.
“No you’re not,” says Andy.
I surrender to his impressive observational powers. My shoulders start shaking and the tears gush through my hands.
“Toe-oh-ny! Is an-noyed with me!”
The injustice of my dignity being smashed to even tinier pieces because this wail accidentally rhymes makes me sob louder.
“Tony?” says Andy, stepping closer. “But he’s annoyed with everyone. He’s been annoyed with me for the last ten years! Don’t listen to him. It’s just his way of reminding you he’s important.”
“B…b…b…” I embark on the ambitious word but.
It proves too challenging. I shut my eyes tightly to block the tears, and a warm hand strokes my hair. My hair. Andy’s hand! I’m not sure whether to open my eyes or keep them shut. If I open them I’m sure I’ll do something inappropriate like stick out my tongue and shout “Gerroff!” So I keep them shut. To my surprise, my blood starts from its usual sluggish meander and begins to speed round my system. I don’t move as Andy tightens his arms around me and kisses the top of my head. Please let there not be a bald patch.
I am shocked out of my crying fit. I stand still, and he pats my back and says, “So what was he annoyed with you about?”
“Oh, I said something I shouldn’t.”
My face is flat against his chest so when I open my mouth to speak I nearly champ down on a nipple. Andy loosens his grip and rubs my arms briskly, as if to warm me, and says teasingly, “I can’t imagine that.”