by Anna Maxted
“Bloody nora! What the fuck’s that you’re wearing?”
I close my eyes, then open them. Chris is giving me the sort of look that Daily Mail readers reserve for beggars on trains.
“You look like Norman’s mother out of Psycho,” he splutters.
“It’s Donna Karan,” I lie.
“Oh, right, cool,” he says, reassessing. “Nice one.”
I scowl. “How did you happen to be in my bed?”
Chris seems startled. “I, er, I…I’ve no idea. Oh, yeah, I do. I was up Camden way, trying to sort out a…and, uh, it got late, and well, you’re just up the road. That prick let me in. I don’t like him, princess, I don’t like him being here.”
My mouth clanks open. “Chris,” I shrill, “he’s here because I need the cash—I lost my job, remember?”
Chris shrugs. “I don’t like him being here,” he repeats sulkily. He swivels out of bed and rubs his eyes. “And yesterday, you were well out of line. I hope you’re cool today though because we gotta talk. Here, look, happy late Valentine’s Day”—he waves to the old-lady chocolates—“Right, I’m going to shower, then we’ll talk. You’ll talk Tony round, princess, you’re good like that. Look, man”—pause—“you’re my woman, yeah. You and me, babe. I don’t want Andy around. He gets in the way.”
Having delivered this imperious address (although I was half expecting him to add, “We got plans to make, we got things to buy, we don’t waste our time on some creepy guy”) he plods off to my bathroom. I stare after him and the queasiness shifts to my throat. I yank off the fright-nightdress and pull on my baggy comfort clothes. All my life I have been dictated to. Told who I am, what to be. And I’m fed up. I am not taking orders from some nit who, as we speak, is dolloping great squirrely worms of my priceless Aveda creme conditioner onto his ungrateful free-loading head. I make my bed, lie on it, and await his return.
Fifteen leisurely minutes later Chris pads in, drilling a corner of my fluffy white towel into his earhole.
“That new conditioner you’ve got stinks!” is his greeting.
“What new conditioner?” I say, sitting up.
“That white stuff, in the shower. I had it on my hair for ages and it stank.”
“White stu—?” I start, then stop. “Chris,” I say boldly, “I’ve had a think, as you said—”
“Good girl.”
“Well.” I smile. “That’s the problem. I’m not a good girl.”
“What are you talking about?” says Chris in the voice of a persecuted saint.
I clear my throat. “Well,” I declare, “I like Andy being here. And I’m not your woman. So.”
Chris, who is toweling his hair dry, stops mid-rub. “What?” he snaps. “What are you going on about?”
“I am saying,” I trill, “that the Big Use is over. Finished. We are done. Yesterday’s fish and chip paper. I am not your PA and I will not be speaking to my brother to sort out your business problems, not now, not ever. So you can get out of my flat now, and I don’t ever want to see you again.” A “please” nearly pops out but as it lingers on the tip of my tongue I replace it with—“Capisci?” (because, unlike Chris, I didn’t learn my Italian from Goodfellas).
After much spluttering and “But what about the band?” and “You evil little cow” and “Can’t I just use the hair dryer?” Chris leaves the building.
I wave him off forever, whimpering with relief. Sayonara, baby! The power of speech! While these may well be the biggest bravest words I’ve ever spoken, I am well aware that bravery and stupidity are very closely linked. In this instance, my bravery was fueled by fear, by the fervent desire for Chris to be far away from me and any candlesticks when he rakes his hand through his dark shiny locks and discovers that the tube of “white stuff” in my shower was not a new stinky hair conditioner but the finest and most effective hair removal cream that £5.99 can buy. That’s the trouble with men. Too damn cocky to read the label.
I lean against the door and breathe in the silence. He’s gone, and I ditched him.
“Mornin’,” says Andy, bouncing out of his room in a horrible tartan dressing gown and old man’s slippers and spoiling the moment.
“Did I hear”—he draws a baroque squiggle in the air—“drama?”
“I’ve just dumped Chris.”
“Good move,” drawls Andy, clapping his hands. “What a loser,” and then, “Hope you don’t mind that I let him in last night. He said you’d arranged it and I was too knackered to defend the castle.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter,” I say. “Um, but I think he’s going to be very upset.”
“Too right he will be,” exclaims Andy, rubbing at his stubble. “You were too good for him. You were the, the Breitling Emergency to his fake Rolex.”
Assuming this is a compliment—although I’m not so sure I like to be referred to as an emergency—I grimace.
“Thank you,” I say, “but actually I didn’t mean that.”
I explain about the hair removal cream. We laugh so hard and honkingly that I forget it’s supposed to be awkward between us. Andy disappears into the shower, and I decide to write off yesterday’s chaos and start again. The wisdom of this resolution is proven when my phone shrills at 9:31 A.M.
“Hello?”
“Simon.”
“No, this is Natalie,” I say, thinking, do I really sound like a man?
“No, this is Simon.”
“Oh!” I cry.
“Natalie, I wanted to apologize for last night. I’m dreadfully sorry. I was out of order. This whole marriage malarkey has been, ah, what you might call a shock to the system, and I’ve not dealt with it as well as I might, but I…I’m not really an AP”—I search my file labeled “poshspeak” and it presents me with “AP=awful person”—“I’m getting it together, no more outrageous scenes like last night, I assure you. Babs is a top girl, I behaved like a prat. So, so this is strictly entre nous? I can trust you not to say anything?”
What is he, mad?
“Simon,” I croak, “cross my heart hope to die, there’s no way I’m going to tell Babs”—what a pillock she married, I add in my head. “You, you do mean what you say, though, don’t you?”
“Absolutely,” he says curtly, and puts the phone down. I grasp my peppermint tea in unsteady hands and thank God for deliverance. That’s that then, and we all live happily ever after. But I thank the Bully in the Sky too soon because a minute later the phone trills again. This time it’s Frannie.
“I saw you,” she says, “kissing Simon.”
27
IT’S LIKE LETTING A CAR OUT IN FRONT OF YOU. There’s no obligation, it’s your right of way, but you’re feeling holy, you want the world to live in harmony, so you selflessly wave them into the traffic. And what do you get for your trouble? Trouble. Without exception, you have let a lunatic into your path who dawdles along at 15 mph, braking erratically for invisible obstructions, rolling reluctantly toward the green lights as if they’re booby-trapped, making a mad break for it just as they turn red, leaving you, the benefactor, stranded and late for your urgent appointment, and possibly incurring a three-pound fine at the video shop.
Except this is a million times worse. I stare wordlessly at the phone and feel frantic. No, Frannie, you don’t understand—it was meant to be a good thing!
“No, look—” I croak, recognizing my impotence.
“I saw you,” repeats Frannie. “And you know what? I thought you were better than that. But I was wrong, Natalie. You’re that self-obsessed I wouldn’t imagine you even comprehend the depravity of what you’ve done.”
“But I didn’t—” I start.
“Please! don’t! make! it! worse! by! defending! yourself!” spits Frannie. “There is no excuse!”
I feel a chill flutter of fear at who I’m dealing with. Anything you say will be taken down as evidence and used against you at a later date. I do as I’m told and shut up. She then takes my silence as an admission of guilt.
; “You,” she adds, “are the most narcissistic creature I have ever encountered, but not for one minute did I think that even you would—”
“No I’m not!” I cry—this is one slur too many—“I hate the way I look!”
“Crap!” shouts Frannie. “Your whole existence is about the way you look! You take the womanly masquerade to the limit! You define yourself through men! You live only as an object of the male gaze! Your self-esteem is fed solely on the penis! You’re so damn ravenous for reassurance you’ll even seek it via the phallus of your good friend’s husband!”
Frannie, I can’t help thinking even at this pivotal moment, is obsessed with penises. I say, “But Simon w—”
“I am beside myself about Simon!” yells Frannie. “I am appalled about Simon!”—at last, something we agree on—“It makes me sick, and I wish it didn’t, but it goes to show, you could put a goat in a blond wig and men would ask it to dance, how dare he betray Babs like that, how dare he? As for you! You have to prove to yourself that every man fancies you! Robbie and now Simon! My god, I dread to think what you’ve been up to with him, but I am so going to put an end to it, the second my shift is done I’m going straight round to Holland Park, and let me tell you, it will give me great—I mean, no pleasure to impart the vile truth to Barbara, none at all!”
I buckle under this barrage of insults, but manage to salvage a grain of common sense. I blurt six strategic syllables—which I pray reach Frannie’s ears before being shot down—“Don’t tell her, for her sake!”
“Your sake, more like!” Frannie puts the phone down with a click.
I cover my face with both hands.
Horrible. The thought of Babs thinking that I would do that to her. I imagine that surreal nightmarish sense of betrayal creeping up on her. I picture her bewildered face, the disbelief and the hurt, and a great lumpen pain swells inside me. I want to rush round to the fire station and gush out the truth. But then the truth is as distasteful as the misconception. And I am to blame. I rushed in, a fool, a silly naive fool. Did I really think I was doing Babs a favor? I wanted to be peacemaker because I needed a role in Babs’s marriage. I had to stake my claim on their lives. In some way, Frannie was right.
My mother rings three times, no doubt to badger me about Eeesy-Kleen. I let the answering machine deal with her. I sit at my desk, which is in fact my mother’s old dressing table, in the corner of the kitchen, but I can’t do any work. (This is aside from the fact that I have no work.) I lean on my elbows and stare at the wall. I’m a coward. I can’t face a fight. I think of Babs and feel a dragging ache. I try to white it out, but it won’t go, it clings. At 1 P.M., I surrender. I snatch my bag and go to the gym. I need to get on the running machine and run. I change into my kit in a blur, arrive breathless at the row of treadmills, and they’re occupied. I glance at my nearest rival. Stringy leg muscles, lean torso, set jaw, long-distance look in his eye. He looks close to death, and I hate him. As Tony says, line a group of marathon runners and a bunch of smack addicts against a wall, and who could tell the difference. This junkie’s body language reads Do Not Disturb.
I assess his neighbor. Glutinous legs, a protruding belly, and the tiniest shiniest shorts you ever saw. A houseplant that’s outgrown its pot. At every thunderous step, his body shakes and the sweat flies off him. I can smell his breath from here; sweetly rotten, like compost. He keeps eyeing marathon man and increasing his speed, so I deduce that, even if it kills him, he’s going nowhere fast. Get off, I want to scream, I’m piling on the pounds just standing here!
“Give up,” murmurs a husky voice to my left. “I would.”
“Alex!” The sight of her soothes my irritation like a soft breeze. “How are you?”
Alex grins. “I’m good. It looks like you’re free to attend my class, Natalie!”
I laugh. I am suspicious of any form of exertion that threatens to mess with your head, and my brief acquaintance with Pilates has done nothing to disabuse me of my prejudice. Also, it crippled me for three days.
“I’d like to but I…I need to sweat,” I say. “There’s this big black scribble in my head, I feel like a Jackson Pollock. I need to run it out.”
Alex presses her lips in disapproval. “Sounds like Pilates is exactly what you need. Go on, it’ll be good for you. It’s like sex. It’s usually a lot better the second time.”
The words “It’ll be good for you” imply a deeply unpleasant sensory experience. I envision my mother standing over me wielding broccoli.
“Go on,” purrs Alex. “It is hard work, you won’t be slacking. You’re working deeper muscles. I know you felt the effects last time.”
I hesitate.
“One class,” she wheedles. “It’s like a mental massage. It’ll help clear your head. But not in that mindless run, run, whack-it-out-of-you way.”
I sag. I am comfortable with my neuroses and wish to hang on to them. It’s why I’ve never tried yoga. I have no intention of letting my guard down. Pilates, yoga, judo, I don’t trust them. I don’t want well-honed fanatics poking about my mind, disturbing whatever lurks beneath the murk, changing the way I think. I like my exercise pure, straight up, unemotive, no additives.
Mental massage! It sounds like a cult. But then.
Some of the gunk in my head needs clearing. Much as I hate being urged to do things (it’s the “It’s a lovely day, you should be outside” syndrome), I admit that, mentally, I need tuning. My brain feels like a congested plughole. My whole existence is about the way I look, apparently. Frannie, you were close. But Babs knows me better. She said something a few weeks ago, which loiters, however hard I try to shake it off. It’s not so much about how you look, she said, it’s the feeling inside. That feeling inside, a bored goblin hunched and malevolent, urging me on to further destruction. And, oh my, have I been destructive.
“Okay,” I say to Alex. “I’ll give it another go. But then Pilates and I part ways.”
“How did you find it?” says Alex afterward as I roll up my mat.
I nod dumbly. “Painful,” I manage, “and the breathing is still a problem. But better. Definitely better.”
“How much better?” She laughs.
“I feel like kneaded dough,” I whisper.
“That’s what I like to hear,” she says. “Will we be seeing you at the next class?”
“Oh, yes.”
I drive home, wanting to skip. Pilates was as exasperating as before. My transversus abdominis muscles wouldn’t behave themselves, I couldn’t maintain a “neutral pelvis,” and I kept going into an anterior tilt (i.e., sticking my bum out). But I feel warm in a way I haven’t felt. I sit at the wheel and try to connect with the earth’s gravitational force. But I’m floating. Back in that studio I felt…capable. Not like in a step class where twenty-nine other women skip through ten thousand knee-twisting moves and I feel like a carthorse. I didn’t have to conform to Pilates. Pilates conformed to me. It was much the same as last time, all very understated: no sudden lunges, no messing about with huge elastic bands, small focused movements, a lot of torso work, endless punitive stretching. The difference is, this time it felt right. It was meditative, without being spooky. And Alex is an excellent teacher. She reminded me of a cat licking kittens into shape. (Only the fish breath was absent.) I feel calm and ruffled at the same time.
This unexpected high grants me ten minutes’ grace, then I’m back to agonizing about Babs. I pray that Frannie’s sense has overcome her rage and righteousness, but I fear it hasn’t. Then again, Babs hasn’t rung my mobile screaming, so I can only hope. I try to block the creeping thoughts of betrayal. I have betrayed Babs. Not in the way Frannie thinks, but I have. As an antidote to my soiled conscience, I spool back the Pilates experience and luxuriate in the memory. I’d like to tell Alex that I’m hooked, but I don’t want to sound silly.
To be honest, I feel foolish. I’ve always believed that you need other people to make you feel special. I never considered that you could make yourself feel
special. (And I don’t mean that in a Babs “I lost my virginity to myself” sort of way.) No matter how conceited you are, unless you’re Tony, you can’t feel special in a vacuum. You need backup. But then, I suppose you can’t feel special if you are a vacuum. And often I am. I feel like a fake, staging a sunny show for friends and family. As if no one really knows the dark, empty me. Yet, that class I did today. It made me feel different. Not special or anything Hollywood, but solid, as if I could be something. I felt a ripple of calm, inside. That class might have injected warmth into the emptiness. And I made it happen.
I park my car, bursting with Disney thoughts. I’ll call Dad, and Kimberli Ann, tell them of my progress. I am eating more, even if my main motive is to stave off baldness. I resent every bite, I feel like I’ve sold my soul for nice hair, but I am eating more. And Mum. I haven’t even spoken to her about getting in touch with Tara and Kelly. I should visit Hendon, show off my new portly figure.
Although I don’t know if I’m stable enough to stand her offensively obvious glee at my two-pound weight gain. I can’t bear how other women are pleased when you gain weight. Even with my mother, it’s hard to know what’s concern for my health and what’s competition. My mother’s satisfaction at seeing me eat while she abstains makes me want to slap her. That’s my trick, making other people eat. Oh, Natalie, stop it. Maybe I’ll take up her offer of nepotism and do a few days at Eeesy-Kleen.
I am a step from the front door when I realize that Andy might be home. A dilemma: if I’m trying to feel good about myself in ways that are not to do with lipstick, is it cheating to check my nose for boogers? I decide no. I reason that you could spend a fantastic evening holding court to a swath of friends, secure in the knowledge that your heart and soul are second to none, then waltz home, glance in the mirror, realize that your nostrils are gummed green, and be forced to reappraise your night. You now realize that as you regaled the crowd with fabulous anecdotes like, “Guys, did you know Isaac Newton invented the cat flap?” your audience was, in fact, preoccupied: “What a loser, she has a snotty nose!”