by Anna Maxted
“No. You’ve done enough, thanks.”
“Where shall I sit?” asks Alex.
“Wherever you like,” I say silkily. “Next to Robbie.”
I hurl everyone’s soup into their bowls like a toddler throwing paint at a canvas. A green splash lands on Andy’s shirt.
“Sorry, let me wipe it off,” I snarl, grabbing a smelly dishcloth and grinding in the stain.
“If you’re not careful, Nat,” he murmurs, “you’re going to erase my nipple.”
I throw the dishcloth in the sink and sit down. I realize that Andy has seated himself opposite Alex. The prime seductive position! I am facing Robbie.
“This soup is delicious, Natalie.” Alex beams. She has finished her champagne and is sipping red wine. I hope that it stains her teeth crimson. Red wine stains my teeth and my lips—whenever I drink it I end up looking like a pig in a blackberry bush.
“Good.”
We all embark on drinking our soup. I want to let off a social stink bomb—something like, “So was Mitchell better in bed than Andy?”—but my rigid training won’t let me. Instead, Alex tells the boys what a natural I am at Pilates. She glances at me now and then, as if for approval. Andy and Robbie make encouraging noises, and I manage to crack my face. Despite this, you could cut the tension with a knife. Which is more than can be said for the lasagna. (Which, had I not cooked it to fossilization, would have been delicious.)
“Nat,” says Andy. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what did you use to bind the pasta? Concrete?”
I am fighting my tongue—which seems to have swollen to fill my mouth and prevent speech—when Alex chips in: “Natalie, ignore him. He always says, ‘I don’t mean to be rude’ before coming out with the mother of all rudenesses. For some inexplicable reason he thinks it excuses him.”
She smiles and smooths her hair, which is pulled back into a high, sexy ponytail and doesn’t need smoothing. Argh! It’s a preening gesture!
“Oh really?” I tinkle, with a falsetto laugh, “how funny!”
I cut into my lasagna like I’m stabbing it to death. I am blown away by her sheer nerve. Already she’s acting like he’s her property, her responsibility, her boyfriend, apologizing for him. Seems like Alex has a low alcohol tolerance and a short memory. I dearly want to throw down my (blunt, useless) knife and run out bawling, but even at this moment of madness I’m aware that if I do I’ll regret it, almost as much as I regret hosting this ludicrous dinner.
“Just leave it,” I say. “I’ll serve dessert.”
“Is that a threat?” inquires Robbie.
“That’s funny,” I say again, stupidly. I hurl great dollops of brown mousse into three bowls and plop a small dollop into the fourth.
“You know,” exclaims Andy, “I believe that if you think something’s funny, you don’t say, ‘That’s funny.’ You either laugh smile or—you don’t think it’s funny.”
“So what are you saying?” growls Robbie. “Nat’s pretending she thinks I’m funny?”
“Robbie, mate.” Andy sighs. “Do I have to spell it out?”
“No,” I blurt. “No you don’t. Would you like an orange with your mousse?”
Robbie starts sniggering. “I don’t know why, but that sounds obscene!”
I itch to slam Robbie’s good-natured face into his mousse.
“This,” drools Alex, licking her spoon, “is unspeakably good. It was sweet of you, Nat, to remember my New Year’s resolution.”
She flutters her eyelashes in a parody of ecstasy and shivers. I sneak a look at Andy. He’s watching her. Oh god, do men think women liking mousse is sexy? I’ve had enough. I spit in the face of protocol (it’s either protocol or Alex) and light a cigarette. Fuck the Bendicks mints.
“Does anyone want coffee?” I ask, trying to sound friendly. Everyone reacts like “coffee” is code for “arsenic” or “a game of charades.”
Robbie cries, “Nah, not for me thanks, I’m still knackered after last night, what’s the time, jeez, that late”—I glance in surprise at the clock, which, if my nursery teacher was all she claimed to be, reads 9:37—“I’d better head off, but it was great, Nat, good to see you, see you, Andy, and very nice to see you again, Sasha, sorry, Alex—be seeing you.”
With that he kisses me, then Alex, briskly on the cheek, raises a hand to Andy, and disappears out of the front door.
Alex rises from her chair, stumbling slightly. “I should get going too, Natalie. I’ll call a cab.” She smiles. “It’s been a hell of an evening, doncha know!”
“Oh I do.”
She hugs me tightly. I exert a feeble pressure in return. Andy hovers. I catch his eye and he smiles. I want to slap his face.
“Thanks,” she breathes into my ear. “Thank you, Natalie.”
To a person with no understanding of the word subtext, Alex is thanking me for the rock-hard dinner. She pulls away and smiles into my eyes, a meaningful smile. There is no doubt she’s telling me she wants him back. Oh god. If she weren’t so bloody nice, this might be less of a wrench. If she weren’t a friend, at least I’d win the consolation prize of hating her. As it is, I resent her while resenting myself for my lack of grace. Thanks to Alex, I’m embarking on a career change, I’m making the new start I never thought I’d make.
Then again, thanks to Alex, the other new start I might have made has been gunned down Mafia-style: blam, blam, thank you, ma’am.
But the truth is, even as I brood on this, a part of me hopes I’m a pessimist prone to insane illogical exaggeration.
This part is speedily disappointed when Andy declares, “You don’t have to bother with a cab, Alex. I’ve only had one drink, and that was hours ago, I’ll drive you.”
“Are you sure?” she asks bashfully. “All the way to West London? You don’t have to.”
“It’s fine,” he says—as I scream in my head: One drink is still dangerous! “Have none for the road!”—“if you don’t mind a Vauxhall Astra.”
“A Vauxhall Astra?” She laughs. “You’ve changed your style.”
“I’ve changed a lot of things,” he replies, and grins at her. I might as well be a fly on the wall. Swat me, somebody, please.
Sadly no one does, which means that as the lovebirds flit into the night, I hear Alex giggle, “You’ve forgotten, Andy. I never judge a man by his car.”
44
MATT IS UNREPENTANT ABOUT HIS BEHAVIOR on Monday night. He says he was practically drowning in testosterone and it was his duty to be cabaret queen for the night; everyone expected it. He had fun with Andy and Robbie, and intimidated Chris. He also claims that Tony needed a lesson in humility. He says Mel wasn’t offended, so why am I? I say Mel wasn’t offended because she thought you were fighting over her. I’m not offended, Matt, I’m concerned. Cabaret queen, indeed. Killer queen, more like. Matt says, I did it for you.
“I knew that,” I manage, finally. My brain is milkshake, but I sense his frustration, and rush to make amends. “I—I only wish I’d punched him. Thanks, Matt.”
“So you should be. Stephen was furious with me—getting into scraps, behaving like a lout.”
“He can talk!” I splutter. “He’s got two broken legs and a fractured hip from falling out of a window, pissed!”
“I did point that out to him. Anyway, let’s not waste time—what about that gorgeous lodger of yours?”
“Well. There is news and—it’s not great.” I yap it all out.
“Naughty Andy,” says Matt, just about panting with intrigue. “He’s just a boy who can’t say no.” I want to reach down the phone and throttle him.
“But maybe he was just being polite. Maybe he—”
“Hold the front page!” cries Matt. “Man Doesn’t Want a Shag! He’s Just Being Polite!” He laughs and adds, “Sorry, darling, they don’t make ’em like that anymore!”
I slump. I still have trouble accepting that even nice guys carry the bastard gene, which can be activated without warning. Even though Andy didn’t ret
urn home last night (it’s now 10:02 A.M. Wednesday), I continue to flail around for reasons to excuse his absence without condemning him. I can’t believe that a man could swear undying like for a woman one day, and elope with another the next. How could he? Easily, it would seem. I now know there’s no such thing as a safe bet. Yes, I set them up. But all I wanted to do was lay a ghost. I didn’t expect him to lay it. I thought if I tidied up the loose ends, I could happily proceed with my future. I blame myself, but I blame him too. He could have rung. Surely he owes me that much?
Maybe the engine fell off the Astra and AAA said it would take days to fix, so Alex suggested he sleep on the sofa? Maybe they stayed up all night talking until Andy fell asleep on the sofa? Maybe Alex realized she still loved him but he realized he didn’t love her and said so and then she got upset so Andy stayed out of pity but slept on the sofa?
What if there is no sofa? Why didn’t Andy ring? Maybe he was on his way home and had a minor accident and is in the hospital. I don’t want to think about whether I’d prefer Andy to have a minor accident than sex with Alex.
“Do you think he could have had an accident?”
“Oh no,” replies Matt. “Andy seems like a sensible boy. I’m sure he used a condom.”
When I put the phone down I’m a squeak away from storming to the fridge and plundering the remains of the chocolate mousse. I feel angry and full of spite and I want to self-destruct the old way. I rip open the larder door and the box of Bendicks mints winks at me. Go on, you know you want to. I imagine tearing off the cellophane, fumbling open the lid, pulling out those fat chunky little chocolates, the creamy fondant, stickily thick, that irresistibly gunky mouth-feel. I reach out and take the box. Dull the pain. I pick and scratch at the wrapping.
I throw it in the bin. As I’m not above retrieving food from the bin (my complaint turns you schizoid—part drug fiend, part alleycat—a hard habit to break), I tip the remnants of the mousse and lasagna on top of the Bendicks mints as a safeguard. I want to scrape out the lasagna dish, lick the mousse spoon, eat, eat, eat, everything, anything, including my Kiehl’s milk, honey, and almond scrub, just cram it in—so I swish on the hot tap, dump it all hastily in the sink, and I’m safe. I refuse to replace Andy with an after-dinner mint—he may be a tart but give the man some credit. It’s tempting, though. My blood roars loud in my ears. The urge to binge and vomit—not, on paper, the most alluring prospect—is like a pact with the devil. I know it’s the worst possible thing I could do, but ache to do it regardless. It’s like any compulsion, I suppose. It becomes your best friend, when you were under the impression that it was merely a passing acquaintance. You ignore the undercurrent of wretchedness, you shove the “no no no” to the back of your mind, and submit. You’re spellbound. You don’t give a stuff about later, you are embroiled in stuffing yourself now. I suppose I might have had the odd lapse I haven’t told you about. You get a few precious seconds of relief—in my case, this occurs postyak.
I’m sorry. It’s crazy trying to explain my peculiarities to normal people. I don’t mean to sound patronizing (actually, that’s a lie, I feel like a crack addict consoling someone who smoked a cigar, once), but maybe you get a similar high buying a sinfully expensive handbag when your overdraft is at break point. There comes a point where you physically cannot stop yourself. Your entire existence is geared toward this handbag, your soul is screaming out for it. You’d risk your home, your reputation, you’d lose your job, go to debtor’s prison for this handbag, yeah, yeah, whatever, keep talking, just swipe the card, sweetheart, hand over the m*****f***ing—purrrrr—baaaaag!
That monomaniacal madness, that stripped-of-dignity desperation is a millionth of what the act of bulimia feels like. When you’re happy, you could resist a roomful of bags, marzipan, crack, whatever. But when you’re low, your demons find you. Rejecting temptation then—that’s the test. So far, I’ve failed fatly. Yet today, something stops me—me. I realize that I don’t want to be a loser twice over. I will not. I steel myself by pretending I’m being filmed by a hidden camera. One doesn’t lapse in front of people. After Andy left, viewers would have seen me tidy up to the tune of Tina Turner. Quite right, Tina—love is a secondhand emotion.
They would have seen me spray, scrub, and sanitize the flat, until the lingering scent of Alex’s perfume—Chanel No. 5, could she be any more annoying?—was eliminated. But again, to viewers it would have seemed normal. They might have seen me stare into the fridge once or twice or forty times, but that could be explained away as boredom. As could the frenzied glances at the clock. And what of the channel-hopping till 2 A.M. in full makeup? One likes to look one’s best for…oneself. As for the intermittent pillow punching. I could be an amateur lightweight boxer. Or possessor of a very hard pillow. I even ate a prescription breakfast this morning. (They probably thought the milk was sour, they weren’t to know I was hallucinating about pancakes.) I’m not going to ruin my public’s impression of me by morphing into a psycho. No, indeed.
“Where are you, you miserable sodding BASTARD?!” I screech, slamming both fists down on the table. “I bloody haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate you, you ARSEHOLE!” And you’ve ruined my television debut, I add silently, scowling for the camera’s benefit. I try not to feel bad about it. My Tourette’s outburst wasn’t ideal but, I tell myself, as breakdowns go, it could have been a lot worse.
I should start work but I’m too ruffled. I’ll ring my mother. She’ll be itching to know if everyone enjoyed her lasagna and—were it not for our council house fracas—she’d have rung me at dawn to find out. So I call her at the office, endure a three-day grilling on the appetite of each guest (I tell her what she wants to know: yes, they all had seconds, no, there wasn’t a scrap left, yes, everyone cleared their plate, no, it was the perfect consistency, yes, I remembered the Bendicks mints), then ask the question I keep forgetting to ask.
“Mum,” I say shyly. “You wanted to ask my advice about something.”
“So I did.”
I wait.
“Mum? You still there?”
“Wait!” she hisses in a hammy whisper. “Susan’s loitering by the Rolodex!” There is a pause, during which I assume my mother gives Susan a look to indicate her cover is blown, then: “Natalie. I’ve made a decision. I’m going to Australia.”
“Mum! That’s great news! When did you decide? When are you going? Do Tara and Kelly know?”
“I made up my mind on Sunday night. I booked the flights first thing yesterday. It’s all settled. Of course Tara and Kelly know, dear. You don’t descend on people without warning! I haven’t told Tony yet. I’ll get around to it, I haven’t had a moment. I’m leaving a fortnight today, and staying for three weeks. If I’m going all that way and for that price I might as well make the most of it. Kelly invited me to stay at her house—apparently she’s got a lovely little town house in an area called Paddington, she’s lived there for years and years—but, well, I said I’d book into a hotel for the first week and we’ll see how we go.”
“Mum, well done,” I exclaim, wondering if there are further revelations in the pipeline. Purple hair extensions? Stop-off in Ibiza? A dolphin ankle tattoo?
“However,” adds my mother, “there is a small fly in the ointment. Your father.”
“Dad?”
My mother sighs, as if this is a dim response. “That was what I wanted to talk to you about. I had words with your father on Sunday, after I spoke to you. And I suspect he’d like to come too. He would love to meet his granddaughter. I know your father. Even if he has refashioned himself into a Julio Iglesias–Bertie Wooster hybrid.”
“Mu-um,” I say reprovingly.
“So. The question is, should I invite him? Or should I let the silly old sod stew in his own low-fat juice?”
“Mother!” I gasp. “I think…I think it would be the right thing to invite him. If”—I gulp—“you think Kimberli Ann would let him go.”
“Natalie,” replies my mother, “I was married to that man
for sixteen years. And I’d bet my bottom dollar, as I suppose they say in California, that little miss silly knickers is not head honcho in that relationship. Even if she thinks she is. Your father makes all the right noises but he’ll do as he likes. The only thing stopping him from hopping on a plane to Sydney is his pride. He won’t come unless I invite him. And I’m not sure he deserves to be invited.”
I suck in my cheeks and bite gently on the flesh. I want to yell, “Invite him!” but I know that my father is not the only one who does as he likes. Also, I realize that I’ve been fighting the wrong battles for too long. I tell her I’m flattered to be consulted but I feel the decision isn’t mine to make. Irksomely, my mother doesn’t appreciate the ethical piety of my response and ends the call abruptly. Or maybe Susan was loitering by the Rolodex again.
I try to concentrate on my latest commission but am distracted by the urgent need to, e.g., check my teeth for abnormalities, remember the names of everyone in my junior school fourth-year class, find my snowman egg cup. I am appalled at this drop-off in drive. Once I’d have set my alarm for seven, been at my desk by 8:30—having sped to the gym for a ten-mile run—determined to make every minute a success. As it is, the last time I faced the StairMaster was three days ago and every step was heavy hell. My heart felt like an overdone steak inside my chest. This is me, who used to flit through aerobic boot camp six days out of seven! Pilates is tiring but not skinnifying. Why don’t I care? Well, I do care but not to that crucial degree of doing something about it.
Talking of which. I must ring Robin, confirm my Pilates appointment for 5 P.M., and write a large check. Although my mother has sanctioned my decision to roll my future to a cliff edge, I now have another worry to chew on: signing up with Alex’s contact means tangling in her love life. But I suppose, one way or another, I’m already tangled in it. I’m her friend. I don’t suppose I will be for much longer, once she knows about our tussle over Andy. Then it suddenly occurs to me that Alex might not know about the tussle.