by Anna Maxted
The doorbell shrills, a long bone-jangling blast. The noise is almost a trademark and for a moment I believe it is Tony. Until I remember who I’m expecting. I breathe deep—my rib cage lifts about a meter—set my face to neutral, and open the door. My social instincts urge me to say hello, but I crush them. Andy strides in without looking at me. A tube of mascara wasted. I shut the door quietly and try to rally strength. Come on, you spoke to Mum. You confronted her. After all those passive years. You can do it. And it made a difference. Yes, perhaps, but that particular memory makes me feel sick. The fear—it drained me. I can’t repeat it. You can. Speak, Natalie, tell him. You could still have a chance.
“Can you please ensure the room is left tidy?” I say coldly. “Last time you left it in a state.”
Andy gives no indication that he’s heard me. He drags a scuffed leather carry-all into the middle of the floor, roughly yanks drawers from their slots, and shakes their entire contents into the case. I wouldn’t mind being manhandled by him, I think. Instantly, I think of my mother, who said something once that shocked me rigid. (I was a prim nine years old. She was listening to Barry Manilow sing “I wanna do it with you,” and she suddenly blurted, “I wouldn’t mind doing it with him!”) I gaze at Andy and try to think cool thoughts, but each one sizzles.
I slyly check his neck for love bites. If I could, I’d rip off his shirt to check his back for scratch marks. And take a DNA sample from under his fingernails, to be thorough. Andy isn’t what you’d call a hunk but he has a beautiful solidity about him. He isn’t plaster-cast handsome either, but to me—I realize gloomily—his looks are perfect. The trust fund is now a lust fund. I retreat to the kitchen. It strikes me that there is no one in the world I want to tell this to but Babs.
Moments later he walks in. “Where’s the dustpan and brush?”
“Behind the door,” I retort, my face as poker as I can get it.
I swivel in my seat, as my desk faces the window. Andy gives me the sort of nod that Marie Antoinette might have given a peasant. Then he drones, “And that makes him a shmuck.” For one horrific second I think he’s read my mind. That’s the least of it, pal! I’m almost relieved to realize he’s read the big bold black capitals on the sheet of paper. I snatch it off the wall.
“I bet you think this song is about you,” I say.
“And you’re telling me it’s not?”
The blood roars in my head—eek, it’s a fight-or-flight situation!
Slowly I turn my whole self round to face him (not because I want to—I have a crick in my neck). The truth is I would quite happily argue with him till doomsday, just so long as he remains in my kitchen. I raise my eyes to his and I’m shocked to see the anger there. It’s not a game. I grope for a searing phrase to shrivel his arrogance, but he’s not even looking at me. I trace his gaze to the coffee cups and…Oh. A chunky silver ring placed neatly equidistant—possibly with a ruler—between them.
What. Andy thinks I…With Saul? Oh really!
I forget that—in my attempts to drill for jealousy—this is precisely the myth I’ve been promoting.
We snarl—unfortunately in chorus—“You’re pathetic.”
Andy trumps me by adding, “Clean your own sodding room, you little cow!” In fight-or-flight terms, I’m airborne and halfway to Jamaica, but this remark brings me skidding back to land with clenched fists. “You’ve got a nerve,” I shriek, “pulling a strop on me. After what you’ve done, you…you…you cheap tart!”
“Tart?” bellows Andy. “Takes one to know one!” His face is taut with rage as he hurtles out of the kitchen. “And I tell you what”—he roars, thundering down the hall—“that Saul bloke looks even more of a prick than Chris!”—thundering back up the hall, lugging the suitcase—“And you bloody deserve each other!”—wrenching open the front door so wide and fast it bounces on its hinges—“You’re even more of a psycho than your nut of a brother!”
Boom.
No way. I heave the door open and scream at the top of my lungs, “I wanted to get you out of a rut, I didn’t mean you to shag her!”
Andy pauses by his wreck of an Astra and tilts his head as if he’s heard a small bird tweeting. He waves a hand irritably, as you would to swat a fly—a bored dismissive gesture. Then he hurls the suitcase into the trunk (the car sags) and speeds toward the dead end. The army of parked Land Rovers make turning tight and I gasp as he hurtles toward them. To my annoyance, and relief, he performs a sharp, screechy handbrake turn—the Astra spins on its haunches—and roars off, in a cloud of dirty gray smoke.
“The Dukes of Hazzard come to Primrose Hill,” I say, wasting my wit on next door’s cat.
Then I shut the door quietly, run to my room, fling myself on the bed, and burst into tears. Brilliant, Nat, you really told him how you felt. Your eloquence is breathtaking. You really cleared up all misunderstandings, you, you, you—mute! I wail for three full minutes, decide I’m too distraught to be lying down, and stand up. I hobble into the bathroom and wipe the dirty rivulets of mascara off my face. My eyelids are already puffy. My cheeks look puffy too. Can crying make your cheeks go puffy? I pinch my cheek. Then I lift up my jumper and pinch my waist.
If you can pinch more than an inch. I suppose women are lucky “millimeter” doesn’t rhyme with “pinch.” I take off my shoes and step on the scales. I peer down at the verdict and whimper weakly. I’ve piled on another two pounds! I’m the tabloid cliché of a sad old cow! I must go for a run. Cut back. Yesterday. At that stupid café. I ate chips. Me, chips! This is tantamount to the chief rabbi eating a cheese and ham sandwich. With pork scratchings on the side. Off Claudia Schiffer’s stomach. On Yom Kippur. While driving. On the wrong side of the road.
I don’t know how it happened. (I’m sure the chief rabbi would say the same.) Maybe it was Andy’s inadvertent look of pity. Or something Babs said sank in at last. Maybe it was talking to my mother and what she said. Or watching Alex eat mousse. Or doing Pilates. Being away from Mel. Maybe I realized that there was no need to be bone-thin. Not anymore. It’s as if someone gave me permission to eat, and I can’t stop. Everything I ever denied myself, I’m eating. The guilt is not enough to stop me. Even the self-loathing is half-arsed. I’m bored of using my body to speak my pain. If only I could learn to use my voice instead.
I lift up my jumper again, and stand back from the mirror. I prod my stomach. Fatter. Softer? And my bosom (I can’t bring myself to say “breasts” or “tits”—too sensual, too raunchy, I prefer the safe Victorian alternative). I press my arms inward to squeeze a cleavage. Wow. I look almost, almost womanly. I step closer to the mirror, and lift a lock of fringe to inspect for damage. Tiny wisps of new hair, growing underneath. I pull on a few. They feel hardy. Rooted. I graze a hand across my collarbone. It’s still knobbly but not so…distressing. I straighten my jumper, tear my gaze from the mirror, and return to my desk.
“Oh, well,” I say, sighing, “back to work.” I try to put all thought of Andy and food out of my head. The only way I can do this is by putting Tina Turner on the CD at top volume. My other bright idea is to light a scented candle. I’ve never particularly liked scented candles, they remind me of my mother’s obsession with air fresheners—the need to choke nature from the room and replace it with stifling artificiality. But this is a posh candle, purporting to smell of “rain forest.” I lit it on my first day of liberty from the GL Ballet. Babs bought it for me, as a thank-you for sending her to a Kensington spa for a Thai yoga massage. It was her twenty-sixth-birthday present, and she loved it.
“Would I like it, do you think?” I asked, after listening to her rave.
She paused. “They don’t half yank you around, Nat. This way, that way, cranking your legs open and shut like a pair of bellows. At one point I said to the bloke—a young geezer, in his twenties—I said, ‘I’m telling you now, I won’t be held responsible if I let one off—’ ”
I interrupted. “You actually said that to him? You actually said it?”
“I can’t believe you did that!” I squeaked. “I’m mortified.”
“Nat.” She grinned. “He’d been a masseur for ten years. He’s witnessed more than a few farts!”
I shuddered. “Still. I’m horrified.”
“Ye-es.” She sighed. “That’s why I can’t recommend it to you, Nat. If you accidentally did a fart, even a small nontoxic one, the loss of face would be so great you’d have to kill yourself. And him. It would be the only honorable recourse.”
I put my head in my hands and laugh, a half-hysterical laugh that could turn soggy at any time. Pilates isn’t entirely fart free. How will I feel when students start farting at me? Good Lord, I’d better get some practice in. The phone rings. Listlessly, I pick up the receiver. Thanks to the whirlwind exit of romance from my life, the telephone—that magical purveyor of thrills and glorious opportunity—is reduced to a humdrum business tool.
“Hello?” I say dully.
“Is that,” replies a voice, meek but unmistakable, “by any chance my old friend Nat?”
46
I REHEARSE IN THE BATH FOR MOMENTS LIKE these. I could have said, “No.” And put the phone down. Or sneered, “You and your brother—are you taking it in turns?” Because it was like watching two little figures on a weather vane, the forecast veering from sunny to stormy, to sunny again, each figure sliding out to scold or soothe me, scold, soothe, one after the other. But when she rang I was reeling from the very obvious effects of not speaking. I wasn’t about to sacrifice another soul mate to silence. I was just glad to have my friend back and I had the excellent sense to say so. She didn’t call me her best friend, but it no longer mattered.
“It might be me,” I say gruffly, jiggling in my seat.
“This is Babs,” she adds, still in the same deferential whisper, “ringing to say I’m a complete pillock and I understand if you don’t want anything to do with me ever again.”
“Ba-abs.” I beam. “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you. You’re not a pillock at all, you are my very great friend, and I’m thrilled to hear from you. Where are you?”
“At home, feeling ashamed of myself. I’m a friend-beater.”
“Babs, I condone that slap. I understand it. So don’t be ashamed. I was”—I search for words dramatic enough to express my stupidity, dig about, retrieve something from a long evening with Saul watching Hamlet—“a rash intruding fool.”
“I don’t ’ave your book learnin’, Miss Miller!” replies Babs. “Hey. Andy told me about Sasha.”
“As I said.” I add hastily, “Yes, actually he just, er, came by to get his stuff.”
“I think it’s amazing!” cries Babs. “It was so kind of you.”
“I think so. So, er…”
“I had another talk with Si. I take back, um, quite a lot of my accusations. I’m sorry, Nat. It was all too much. Everything’d got on top of me. Except my husband. Oh hush my mouth!”
“How is Simon?” I ask. I also want to know when she last spoke to Andy. Not in the last five minutes, I suspect.
“He’s good, thanks. He’s all right. I believe we are progressing.” She says this last bit in a silly posh voice in case I should imagine she’s taking herself seriously.
“So, Nat, what are you up to right now?”
“Me? Oh, working.”
“Of course you are! Sorry, why didn’t you say? I’ll let you get back.”
“Nonononononono, it’s okay, I didn’t mean it like that. Do you want to come round?”
“What, now?”
“Well, not if you’re bu—”
“Don’t be daft, I’m on me four-day break—I’m knackered, we had a fire yesterday, it was a shock to the system!—I’ve been training, now I’m sat in front of the box eating tea cakes and popping bubble wrap.”
I feel a twinge. I should have been training. Not the bulk-you-up training that Babs does (circuits, weights, cycling, running). My kind of training: Running. Running. Running. Running.
I sidestep the irritation and say, “Tea cakes?”
“Mini-marshmallows, covered in milk chocolate, biscuit base, peel the chocolate off first?”
“I didn’t think they made those anymore,” I breathe, impressed. “I used to love them!”
“You have to know where to look,” replies Babs happily. “And I’m a pro. I’ll bring some—I’ll just bring myself, shall I? But are you sure I’m not disturbing your work? I know what you’re like, you’ll say it’s fine, and all the while you’ll be fretting about how to make up the time, and will it put out your gym schedule and—”
“Babs,” I say sternly, “priorities, please. I’ll put the kettle on.”
I jump up to clean the flat, but it’s already squeaky. Except for the coffee cups. My fingers start to itch. But I leave the cups—Babs will be so proud—and try to do a little work. But, what with the good and bad stuff squiddled up like spaghetti, there’s insufficient space in my head. Andy said she would forgive me—good—I earn a gold star for matchmaking him and Alex—good, bad—she must assume I asked him to leave—good—when in fact he left of his own huffy accord—bad—she hated the idea of me and Andy—bad—although now I’m no longer Bitch Number One, maybe she won’t mind me getting jiggy with her brother—great.
But then. I’ve got more chance of getting jiggy with the archbishop of Canterbury. I feel gloom at the thought (no offense to the archbishop). Forget him! (Andy, that is.) When the doorbell rings, I’m there. After a short, self-conscious head bobble, we hug. I’m so happy you’re my friend again, I say in my head, I’m so so happy. It translates as, “Good to see you, Barbarella.” Which isn’t terrible. Babs pushes me away.
“Natalie!” she gasps, one big grin. “Looking good!”
I run a hand through my hair, tug at my jumper sleeves, and mumble my thanks at the floor. Compliments embarrass me. Then again, Babs only gives a compliment if she means it. Equally, if you look a fright she’s happy—as I’m only too aware—to say so.
“Seriously,” she continues as I scurry into the kitchen, “you look, you look…I don’t know what it is, you look less shriveled. I mean—”
“Thank you very much.” Babs frantically rakes her hair forward until it hides her face.
“Come out of there,” I order. “I know what you meant.” She flicks her hair back, hangs her head, and says, “The stuff I said on Sunday.”
I turn from the cupboard. “Babs. Don’t. I deserved it. I’ll be totally honest. When you got engaged it was the biggest shock—the second biggest shock of my life. I didn’t want to lose you. When Dad left…it’s muddied everything since. I know it’s ridiculous. I know things change, obviously, I didn’t want them to. To me, change means loss when often it just means…change. I suppose barging into the Pitcher & Piano to sort out your marriage made me feel necessary. And Simon was…”—I decide to be charitable—“vulnerable. I caused you a lot of misery and I apologize.”
“Nat,” Babs says. “Things do change. But, you know, deep down, you’ll always be my best friend.”
My heart curls like old paper. I want to clutch my stomach and groan from my soul. I pour the kettle instead. “Yeah,” I reply. “You too.”
Babs clears her throat. “You know,” she exclaims, dragging out a chair screechingly, with zero regard for those in the basement flat. “You’ve changed. I don’t just mean how you look.”
“Do you think I’m looking thin on top?”
“Well, Nat, you were never Dolly Parton, but at least if you’re small people don’t classify you as ‘frowsy,’ and you’re still too thin, but you seem to be—”
“No, Babs, that’s very sweet of you, but I was talking about my hair.”
“Your hair? Oh! Er, no. You’ve got a fine head of hair, from where I’m standing. Or sitting. Why shouldn’t you have?”
“It’s been shedding. You don’t th
ink it looks sparse or—un-stable?”
“No, Nat. As hair goes, it looks reasonably sane. You eejit. So what happened?”
I jerk guiltily. “What do you mean?”
Babs tilts her chair onto two legs, and I bite back my reflex response (“don’t tilt!”). “I mean,” she says, “what’s happened to you all of a sudden? The place is”—she nods at the two stained coffee cups on the gleaming table—“a filth pit. And you seem more…sure of yourself. I’m not knocking it.”
“Do you think?” I reply, pleased. “I’m training myself to be a bit less tense. Gosh, I—”
“I take it back.” Babs grins. “You haven’t changed at all. You still say ‘gosh.’ ” She adds, “Does this mean you’re going to ask if I want a yogurt with my tea?” I make a face like I’m trapped in a wind tunnel. “Did I really ever ask you that? I’m sorry. I was going to say did you want a biscuit?”
“You did, and I do. What sort?”
“Plain chocolate digestives?”
“Mm. Okay. Although, for future reference, I prefer the milk chocolate sort.”
“Yes,” I say. “So do I.”
Babs looks intrigued.
“That’s why I got these.”
“Right,” she says slowly, as one might say to a child who’s too old to insist on his invisible friend. “Although. I’ll say it, I’m impressed you got them in the first place.”
I squirm. Even at my worst I always bought biscuits. Only I never ate them. I’d squirrel them away at the top of the larder in the tin box. They were there to urge on other people, or for me to stare at or sniff. Like a parent sniffing the clothes of a dead child. How did I get like that?
“I lost control,” I say teasingly. “As prescribed. I went mad in the shop.”