by Anna Maxted
I thin my lips.
Andy glares at me. “Jesus, Natalie, I’m not an animal! I can keep it in my trousers! I am capable of exerting rational thought and a bit of self-control! Not all men think with their schlongs twenty-four/seven! Some of us even have brains in our head!”
“All right, okay, I didn’t say anything,” I mutter. “Anyway, animals don’t wear trousers. Calm down.” I try not to grin.
Andy continues in a quieter voice. “Sash is still in bits about her marriage breaking up. She was pretty pissed that night, she wanted someone to cry on. It was four hours of Mitchell this, Mitchell that. How he hurt her, how I hurt her. We stayed up all night, going through a lot of the old stuff. It was good, for both of us. There was no smoochy stuff. Ask Alex if you don’t believe me. And anyway.” He stops and looks at me.
I feel dizzy, so I look at the floor.
“I am getting out more,” I murmur. “I’m going to Australia in three weeks. Traveling.”
“Oh,” says Andy. “Oh. Right. Good for you.” He pauses. “Well. These are the meats. That’s Parma ham, prosciutto alle bonce, prosciutto cotto, speck, bresaola, mortadella, coppa di Parma, pancetta coppata, pancetta affumicata, salame Milano, salame fiocco, salame felino, salame aglio, salame ventrilina, salame finocchiona, carnevale sausage, spianata Calabrese, chorizo, and golosa sausage, and these are the cheeses; Pecorino Romano—”
“Andy,” I say softly, “this is very nice of you, but I can read the labels myself. I need to know what everything tastes like so I can tell customers, but there’s no point starting now. I’ve got to be at Babs’s in an hour, and I’ve got to go home and change. Thanks for”—I waggle my charred finger—“showing me how to make a cappuccino. ’Bye then.”
I turn away and say good-bye to Mrs. Edwards, who forces me to take a box of cantuccini con gocce di cioccolato (crisp chocolate cookies) for the dinner party tonight. “At least you have a nice biscuit with the espresso!” I thank her, I glance again at Andy and walk out.
“You’ve plumped out in the face!” says Frannie, giving me the fright of my life as I stand on Babs’s doorstep in a trance. Frances Crump—in “I’m Ugly So There!” Mother Hubbard shoes and no lipstick (apparently Roman prostitutes wore it to indicate they’d perform fellatio)—is the most disagreeable sight I’ve seen in a while. But her bristling presence doesn’t bother me. I’m too wrapped up in thinking about Andy. I want to kiss him or hit him, I can’t decide. Probably hit him. “And anyway,” he said. “And anyway.”
Why couldn’t he finish his sentence? I as good as told him he had an exclusive. I finally managed to use my mouth for its true purpose (to eat my sandwich, speak my mind) and he goes quiet on me! The biggest yap on the block, and suddenly he’s inarticulate! I broke the habit of a lifetime. I expected results. As for Alex. I’ve been so mean to her, although mainly in my head. Such a lovely woman! I’ll ring her tomorrow. Maybe we can meet for a drink sometime. I feel very charitable toward Alex.
“I needed to plump out in the face,” I tell Frannie smilingly. “Whereas your face looks more like a Halloween pumpkin every time I see it. Do the babies start crying on sight? The doctors must save hours of manpower in smacked bottoms.”
When Babs flings open the door to welcome in her guests, one of them is standing there, pale with rage, while the other beams ear to ear like a demented pixie. I mean, elf.
“Nat,” breathes Babs, “your hair looks great. Look at this! It’s so sophisticated! When did you do it? Frannie, doesn’t it suit her?”
“As much as a pudding basin haircut suits anyone.”
“It looks sensational, Natalie.” Babs sighs.
“Thanks.” I grin, not even caring about being called “sophisticated.” (It makes me feel like a nine-year-old having her frock praised by adults at a party.) “This is for you and Simon.”
As Babs coos over the wrapping paper, Simon hovers in the background, twiddling his wedding ring.
“Hi, Natalie,” he mumbles, shaking my hand and leaning forward to bestow a kiss on the air. “Good to see you. Frannie, how are you?”
“Worked to the bone,” lies Frannie.
“Can I get you a drink?” blurts Simon, clawing desperately at social convention.
“This is excellent!” shrieks Babs. “My parents used to have one of these except bog green! Si! Look what she got us!”
Simon regards the orange phone in bemusement. Then his mouth twists into a grin and he says, “A fine choice.”
Frannie, whose gift is a cactus, says nothing. Babs hustles everyone into the warmly lit lounge (plump russet sofas, sheepskin rugs, orange arc lamps), forces great goblets of red wine into our hands, and the silence melts like ice. Simon does the cooking and, to my surprise, the food is delicious. It’s a relatively new experience, thinking of a food as “delicious.”
“I was in the deli before and your mum didn’t have high hopes,” I say to Babs, forking a small heap of wild mushroom salad into my mouth, “but Simon is talented.”
“Aw, he is, isn’t he?” Babs beams, stroking her husband’s arm. “He’s been practicing, he used to be awful. I’m useless, I’ve always relied on men to cook for me. Men and my mum, and the guys on the watch.”
“I like men who cook,” says Frannie, whose plate is already stripped. “Although the kitchen remains largely the woman’s domain. Every female has one foot straddling the cooker whether she likes it or not.”
“It sounds rather kinky,” I say.
Frannie shoots me a death look.
“I enjoy cooking,” says Simon. “It relaxes me. And Babs is so appreciative. What was it I made that you really liked? Risotto with lentils and sausages?”
“Mm,” says Babs. She grins. “Risotto con lenticchie e salamini. Si’s been swotting up on northern Italian cookery in a bid to impress my mother. I’ve told him it’ll never work and to concentrate on impressing me. So what was she on about before? She didn’t tell you the Christmas pudding story again, did she?” (When Jackie Cirelli first came to England she bought what she described as “a horrible pudding” in Harrods. “I don’ know what dis is, exactly,” she scolded her husband-to-be, who worked at the food counter, “but I tried with it, and then I put it in da bin.” He found her honesty, and her huge brown eyes, endearing and offered to take her out for a pudding-free dinner….)
“No,” I say. “She might have got onto it, but the shop was busy and—”
“I can’t believe you’re eating,” says Frannie, resting her elbow on the table and jabbing her knife at me. “I should take a picture.”
“Frannie,” says Babs. “Fourth helping?” She nods at me to continue.
“And so she had to serve the customers. So”—I fantasize that saying his name will summon him like a genie—“so Andy, your brother,” I explain helpfully, “came by to collect something, and your mum made him show me how to make a cappuccino.”
“Don’t tell me,” murmurs Simon. “You burned your finger on that blasted machine.”
“Yes!” I cry, never so pleased to have burned a finger in my life.
Simon and Babs smile at each other and laugh.
“But it wasn’t Andy’s fault,” I add quickly, lest anyone should think I’m apportioning blame. “I mean”—I feel my face turning as red as the wine—“it was very sweet of him to show me, he was in a rush and I…I…I…he left one of his slippers in my flat, did I tell you, I nearly brought it along!” I realize I’m talking rubbish and stammer to a halt, under the collective gaze.
Babs sucks in her cheeks and places her fork on her plate. For a second I think she’s going to shout at me. But she doesn’t. She looks at me through her eyelashes and smiles.
“Well, I do declare,” she drawls. “That big ol’ brother of mine is a true gentleman!”
Frannie looks from me to Babs, appalled.
“You don’t mean Natalie’s got her sights set on Andy?” she barks, eyes bulging in pique. “My god, there’ll be no men left for the rest
of us!”
“I was under the impression you were fine on your own,” I mutter to my plate.
“We all want to find love, Natalie!” snaps Frannie, as if love is something that can be yanked out from behind the dresser drawer if only you pull hard enough.
Everyone nods meekly, but later, when Frannie is in the loo, Simon addresses me and Babs in a timid whisper:
“Natalie,” he says. “I know we’ve had our, er, differences. But if it’s going to be you or Frannie—please, I beg you, don’t let it be her.”
50
ALL LOVE IS CONDITIONAL ON SOMETHING. IT’S just establishing what conditions you’re prepared to accept being loved on. That makes it sound easy, but it’s not. When you want to be loved by someone and want to keep being loved by someone, you can find yourself accepting terms that, in an ideal world with no sharp edges, you wouldn’t stand for. There was a point when I’d say yes to anything even if, deep down, I didn’t agree with it. But I’m a lot fussier than I was and, what’s more, I’m not nearly so coy about making it known. I find it cuts down on bother.
This might be why I haven’t contacted Tony, and why Mum and I might feasibly last twenty-four hours in an airborne tin, squashed up like a pair of battery hens, without needling each other to death. This might be why I haven’t returned Andy’s calls. It’s been two and a half weeks since Babs’s dinner and he’s rung five times. He also turned up in my front garden last Friday at 2 A.M., singing a drunken solo—a travesty of Tom Jones’s “It’s Not Unusual”—while Robbie staggered around on the pavement with a traffic cone on his head. I’m not saying it wasn’t persuasively cute, but I’m harder than that. I’m certainly harder than Robbie bawling, “I’m so bloody bored of his moping, aw, Natalieeee, please!”
This might sound nuts, but I’m very busy with Visas and mini–sewing kits and water purification tablets (well, I don’t know what the water’s like in Australia), so right now a relationship is not convenient.
Not yet. It’s not easy, retraining to be normal. I still think about the caloric value of everything I eat. There’s still guilt, worry, twitching. I can’t imagine that I’ll ever feel wholly comfortable around cake. And forgoing the manic exercise in favor of a more holistic—I’ll never like that word—pursuit sucks up gallons of willpower. But I’m making slow progress and I want to reach a certain point without a placebo. If I can be fine without Andy, then I can be fine with him. I need to be sure that my mental health doesn’t depend on someone else. Not my father, mother, brother, Babs, or Andy. (Although if all five were wiped out in an earthquake, I suppose it might have some bearing.)
I feel quite calm about it. This may have something to do with Pilates—the boost I got from acquiring the ability to bend over an imaginary beach ball without squashing it cannot be underplayed—or it may relate to the fact that I now know that Andy didn’t lie to me about his ex. I guess I knew it in the deli. Anyhow, I asked Alex straight out. I suggested we go for a drink, relayed the entire story, and to my surprise, she said she already knew. Andy had told her everything after the café debacle. I asked if she minded, and she laughed and said, “Would it make a difference if I did?”
Actually, it makes no difference. Nor does the fact that Babs isn’t going to shoot me for trespass. (She’s said nothing on the subject since the dinner, and I’m assuming she’s decided to keep out of it.) Right now, I want to sort myself out at my own pace, and see what he does meanwhile. As well as untangling the food/body/mind/weirdo issues, I need to know that Andy wants me first—that I’m not a fallback because he’s over Alex. Then I’ll know what I want.
“You want to get yourself some new kit,” says Babs. “If I see you in that dreary pink top one more time I’m going to rip it off you and cut it up. Get yourself into town and burn plastic. Nothing shapeless or baggy, though, or it’s going back.”
“But,” I plead, “I’ve already spent about a hundred pounds on knickers.”
“What sort of knickers?”
“Your average ladies’ knicker, Barbara.”
“What! Common-or-garden pants?”
“Babs, this isn’t Debbie Does Dallas—I’m going traveling, it’s just so I don’t have to do washing every day.”
“Natalie, it isn’t Nuns on the Run either. Anyway, I’m talking about your leaving do. Do me a favor and go and get yourself some nice lingerie. Nice knicks are good for the soul. And some new shoes. Tarty ones. If you can’t find anything down the road, go to Selfridges. And a dress. A dress that stops traffic. People won’t start arriving till nine. It’s only 3 P.M., you’ve got ages, now go on, go!”
I put down the phone and check my list again. Crisps, got, carrots, got, dips, got, nuts, got, orange juice, got, alcohol, got, more alcohol, got, extra alcohol, got, reserve alcohol, got. What else do people need? Should I get extra toilet paper? I don’t know why I let Babs talk me into having an I’m Off party. The last “celebration” I hosted was my flat-warming—a disaster seared deep into my ego. No one turned up till 10:40, and the first guests to arrive were an ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. My mother had advised me not to move in the furniture until afterward—consequently, there was a vast and humiliating excess of space per person.
I hope I’ve learned from the trauma. Tonight’s ordeal—sorry, party—will be restricted to the kitchen and living room so however measly the attendance, I’ll achieve a deceptively high concentration of guests—no one can thin it out by sneaking off to the bedrooms, both of which will be locked. Also, last time I was picky. This time I’ve invited everyone I’ve ever met, including my enemies. I’ve practically handed out flyers on the street. I’ve also invited the neighbors so they can’t moan about the noise. I’m considering paying an escort agency to send people en masse. Or borrowing the cardboard Stallone from the video shop. My mother, Susan, and Martin the Raconteur are on standby.
I decide to stop fretting and go shopping instead.
Why am I going to Kensington? It’s the other side of London. And what am I doing paying for a pair of pink snakeskin mules? And tell me, how can a pair of sugar-spun knickers cost fifty quid? And I should know by now that if it isn’t navy it doesn’t suit me. What made me hand over good money for a sheer purple top with ruffle trim and only two pieces of string where the buttons should be? Of course it looked good in the shop, they tilt the mirror so far back, Roseanne Barr would look like a waif. The stark reality of your own mirror is a different, fatter matter. I scramble into the top, yank on my black trousers—Christ, they’re tight!—and dangle a foot in the mules. I bite my lip. I feel as heavy as a bus. But I look like a real woman. I take everything off and lay it lovingly on the bed. Then I leap in the shower, wash my hair, wiggle into my new extortionate knickers and high-concept bra, scrub my teeth, spend a good five minutes coaxing my new short hair into an elfin shape (it wants to go from elfin to goblin), and a further ten on makeup. (I can’t ever spend longer than that—I run out of features to emphasize and find my hand creeping toward novelty stuff like “gold hair mascara”). I don’t want to think about other people getting ready right now, I don’t want to tempt fate. Babs and Si are definites. Matt said he’d come—I told him Paws was welcome, he could even bring friends from puppy school, anything to make the place look busy. And Saul. Well, that’s five of us, plus dog, six.
At 8:15, I take off the purple top and put on an old navy one. I feel too exposed in sheer purple, I might as well attend stark naked. Should I start putting out dips? Are garlic dips the key to a good party? I fear not. I arrange the alcohol nicely on the table instead. Music. Elvis is safe. No one would dare object. But the shocking truth is, I’m not an Elvis fan. I like him, I don’t like his music. And I’ve met far too many people (Saul, although I’m naming no names) who fake an Elvis obsession as a populist cloak for their sad unpopulist personalities. I dig through my CD collection and put on Burt Bacharach instead.
I’ve just scraped the garlic dip into a bowl, then back into its plastic pot beca
use I don’t want to come across as chichi (whatever that is, but I suspect that garlic dip in pottery bowls is it), when the doorbell goes. Thank god now I can start drinking! I pull open the door and—
“I think there’s been an error, what is that?” booms Babs, whose hair is resplendent in a chic flyaway style—think Louis the Sun King meets Salon Selectives.
“Hi.” Simon grins, very establishment in a blue quilted down jacket. “Thought we’d get here on time, make the joint look, er, jumping.”
“It’s a navy jumper,” I say weakly.
“Yes, yes,”—she sighs impatiently—“and where’s the real top you bought this afternoon?”
“This is it.”
“Nee-nor nee-nor, it’s the fibber police! I repeat—where is the real top you bought this afternoon?”
“In my room,” I reply in a small voice. “How did you know?”
“Because I know you,” she says, frog-marching me to the end of the corridor.
“Help yourself to garlic dip!” I squeak at Simon.
“Will do,” he shouts back.
“Please wear the purple,” cries Babs, when she sees it, crumpled on the bed. “I implore you to wear the purple. It’s stunning, I love it, it’s so riaowww!” (She makes a noise identical to the noise next door’s cat made when I accidentally trod on his tail.)
I sigh heavily, throw off the navy, and pull on the purple. “You can see my bra through it,” I say grumpily.
“Hardly,” scoffs Babs. “Anyhow it’s an exhibitionist bra, it wants to be seen. And it’s your party. It’s your prerogative to dress how you want.”
“How you want, more like,” I mutter, doing up the strings.
“Doorbell!” trills Babs unnecessarily. “It could be Mark and Ben off the watch, I lured them here with the promise of ballerinas. And Si’s invited a few of the less cretinous guys from his work. Oh, perfect. Very bling-bling, darling! It so shows off your figure!”