‘I’ve just bumped into Renka, a friend of Mark’s, and she’s told me he wants to dump her!’
I read the last text then looked down at the heap in the shabby chair. Tatiana looked up at me again.
‘What else am I supposed to wear? For example, your grey dress with the magenta pink twirls around the border – sorry I wore it on Saturday, but I did look amazing.’ She returned to her hands and I returned to my text messages so I could hurriedly type:
‘She has admitted it was her who wore my new grey dress!’
‘I know she walked out in it and met Mark last Saturday, the first I knew about it was when she returned wearing it – apparently Mark went onto see someone else after seeing her that night!’
‘What do we do with her? She’s now really upset – come home!’
There was a brief respite in Tatiana’s rants so that she could suck on her wet cigarette. I squeezed her shoulder.
‘Maybe you could talk to him and ask him what he means by all this? That’s what I’d do.’
She looked up at me and scowled. ‘No way! I’m not that pathetic, maybe you are but I’m not!’ I smiled my reply and returned to the buzzing phone and another text from Carolanne:
‘Aah don’t make me! The dumping is imminent and I’m trying to stay out with Renka to avoid the inevitable screams.’
‘Where are you? I’ll join you instead.’
‘Coffee shop around the corner.’
I looked back at Tatiana, ‘I’m sorry I’ve got to go out, you’ll be fine. Wear the blue jumpsuit.’
Tatiana looked up at me, ‘Wore that last Tuesday.’ Her head flopped back into her hands, ‘Life is sooo hard!’
‘You left yet?’ came another text.
‘Maybe he’s not for you?’ I said.
‘Don’t be silly, have you met him?’ There was a momentary silence broken by a whisper to herself.
‘How can he not want me? Me, Ol?’ She sighed and her head returned to the sanctuary of her hands.
I met Carolanne and Renka in the coffee shop and we indulged ourselves with coffee and gossip about Tatiana. The conclusion we came to was Mark was young, very handsome and he was enjoying life so why shouldn’t he flit from woman to woman and what right did Tatiana have on him? She was demanding, difficult and she needed to start thinking about using mousse to bolster her hair as it was too straight and needed volume so, actually, the final conclusion was Tatiana had bought this on herself and Mark should not be blamed.
The winter was in full swing; the summer rain had been replaced with drizzle in the autumn then strong gusts accompanied with sharp cold stabs from the air by early January.
When we entered the downstairs communal hallway Carolanne and I laughed at our windswept appearance. There was a broken and tarnished mirror hanging above the apartment’s letter-stacking shelves and I agreed with Carolanne that my cheeks were as red as my disorderly hair which had doubled in size. We shrugged at one another as it was Wednesday night and we had no plans to go out so it was only the television and the shower head that would see my hair.
I walked into our apartment behind Carolanne and kicked off my shoes but instead of being welcomed by Tatiana I was greeted by Mark. He was sitting in the same armchair Tatiana had sat in a few hours earlier. Without consciously thinking about it my hands were rapidly straightening my hair; like an army officer my heart beat to bark orders at my arms to straighten my suit and hide the bush on my head.
‘Hi, sorry for the intrusion,’ he said, ‘but Tatiana was upset so I thought it best to come up.’ He had risen from the chair and walked over to give a kiss on Carolanne’s cheek. She welcomed him whilst I was cemented to the ‘welcome’ mat by the front door.
‘How are you Mark? We’ve not seen each other since before Christmas when you came to pick up Tatiana for a works do or something like that?’
Mark looked tired and unhappy like a small child after a long hard day at school. His hair flopped about his eyes which were drooped down to his cheeks. His ears looked as if they had been struck by his angry mother and they too seemed to be slipping down his neck.
‘Yeah. yeah, I remember.’ Mark released Carolanne to look at me. I was still standing on our front door mat. He smiled and glided over. My heart barked its last orders in vain to straighten my hair, it then conceded defeat and wildly beat against its cage as Mark grabbed my arms and lent in to kiss my cheek.
I could smell his musk and the smoky barrel whiskey he’d had before coming up to our nicotine dive.
‘I haven’t seen you in months Olive. You seem to be out whenever I’m here. I always leave disappointed, but now I’ve caught you,’ he said.
He still had me in his grip and I fluttered a form of reply from my dry mouth.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked softly, but instead Carolanne curtly replied for me;
‘She’s usually out with her mate James. He’s a sweet lovely man, you don’t know him.’ She looked at me and smiled, ‘They’re good friends. Is Tatiana around?’
‘I think she’s getting ready.’
‘You okay, Ol?’ She edged towards me which broke me out of my paralysis. Mark let go of my arms and walked back into the room.
‘Yes?’ I was confused by her question and walked into the flat, finally closing the front door behind me.
‘I’ll go in and see her.’ She walked towards the hallway and as she did she brushed next to Mark, she then looked back at me; ‘I won’t be long.’
I busied myself with taking off my name badge and placing it safely in my designated work drawer.
‘James, eh?’ he said and I turned to face him. His eyes had brightened and I could see the slight hint of a returning smile. My stomach was clenched and my brain was busy trying out possible answers and testing each one for level of intelligence versus level of credibility about my friendship with James. The bit test on answers produced a pitiful, ‘He’s a friend.’
‘I can’t believe any man would want to be your friend. I know I couldn’t.’ Mark’s eyes released themselves from me and darted towards Tatiana’s room, ‘I know I couldn’t be your friend.’
‘Excuse me? I’m a nice person.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,’ he brushed his hair from his face and looked sheepishly at his feet. He then looked up and stared through my eyes and into my head. ‘I meant I would want more than friendship. Out of curiosity, does he want more than friendship?’
‘Er I don’t know. He’s my friend he…’
‘Fair enough, either way, he’s a lucky man and I’m jealous of him.’ And then he winked.
I opened my mouth as a gesture to offer a witty response but nothing came out as my brain had jarred shut. The only part of me that moved were my eyes, which followed Mark who had turned to greet Tatiana emerging from her room wearing my pink dress.
After they left Carolanne bounded out in her pyjamas with a bottle of wine in one hand and two glasses in her other hand.
‘Girlie flick and girlie drinks, my sweet friend Olive.’
‘I think Mark was flirting with me?’
‘He likes the cutesy ladies and, Ol, you are a cutesy, even with your hair fuzzing away from your head – I literally think it has trebled in size.’ Carolanne kissed my cheek then placed a video in the machine before jumping onto the yellow armchair.
‘My hair – I looked a state, I looked hideous, he must have been teasing me, after all, why flirt with a woman who has wrestled with the wind and lost when he has Tatiana?’
‘For kicks my sweet, for kicks. Enjoy the moment as he is gorgeous but I suspect he makes sport out of collecting women.’ Carolanne looked at me and continued, ‘Stick with James or if not James then find someone like James. Don’t look glum just ‘cos I said stick with James, He may not be Mark or look like Mark or have Marks’ money but then Mark doesn’t have
James’ loveliness or purity.’
I smiled and left the room to change from the day. I wish I could have settled my beating heart and calmed my brain but I couldn’t. That night, all I was capable of doing was to shower, drink wine, watch a movie then stay awake all night recounting the conversation I’d had with Mark.
CHAPTER TEN
I experimented with boob enhancers from silicone bra inserts to sucking machines. The silicone inserts moved throughout the day and I was paranoid I was going to drop one from my bra onto the feet of a customer. I envisaged discreetly peeling off the sticky blob from their shoe so as not to distract them from buying a Persian rug for thousands of pounds.
I tried padded bras but the problem with these they were expensive and didn’t fit me properly. They certainly pushed my breasts up but my own breasts would gradually spill over the top of the bra as the lining dug into my bosom. Within a few hours it looked as though I had four breasts that needed to find a line of piglets to feed.
The most extreme form of enhancement was a machine which sucked at my breasts. The advert had promised that within three months my bust would appear to have increased by a whole cup size. To reinforce their claim the manufacturers had a happy beautiful, well-endowed woman in a bikini top printed across the box.
For twenty minutes every day, I sat religiously with this machine sucking on me making a whirring noise. It was not only painful but painfully boring as I was confined to my room holding the suckers to my chest and staring at the wall. After three months I concluded there was ambiguity in the description of the results. I suspected if I had sued the ‘Wonder Enhancer’ company for fraud they would have pointed out that their only claim was: ‘breasts appeared to increase but only in a certain light, time of day and if there was a full moon rising in the Azores and therefore, Ms Olivia, you do not have a cause for complaint’. Either way I had wasted £32 and thirty-five hours of my life staring at my powder pink bedroom wall.
The only thing that helped my confidence was seeing James, who would tell me I was, ‘beautiful so please, for the last time, shut-up.’ I was seeing him regularly and we even ventured outside London on holiday. I had little money so the holidays were not extravagant and James always made up my financial shortfall with loans at zero per-cent payback.
One holiday was just before seeing Mark in my flat. It was a weekend away walking in the Lake District. The village of Grasmere was serene: Jack Frost had lain throughout the village and crisped the January air. It frosted my nostrils with every breath. I could smell winter encrusted in the pine trees that lined the walking paths. The sky was a deep blue without any clouds spoiling the hills that gently rose over the village skyline. Our bed and breakfast was perfect to pick up any walking trail we chose and it was also convenient for James to pick up the Grasmere gingerbread biscuits which were freshly made each morning in the same shop to the same recipe since the 1800s. The smell of these biscuits filled my stomach each morning and on occasion I would allow myself a biscuit savouring every bite so that it lasted until at least halfway up a hill walk.
My concern about my body disappeared on these holidays mainly because of James battering me to shut-up, but it would always re-emerge as I approached London. Each time I said goodbye to James outside my apartment block I would confirm, then reconfirm, the next time we were meeting for coffee. He would then kiss my cheek and say, ‘goodbye my Olive and shut-up about your boobs.’ Then he would drive away leaving me behind.
As my key clicked in the door I would feel despondent at the prospect of re-entering my weekly cycle: Work beckoned each day, interspersed with nights out to clubs and meeting men who were inferior to the man I had briefly met on a summer’s eve.
On this occasion I was unaware my depression would last just a few more days; just until I found Mark in my flat and he winked at me. Secretly, I replayed Marks words around my head and together with the memory of his dark, almost black eyes, I began a fantasy about his secret love for me. These fantasies were my new drug; they were far stronger than coffee with James or the feel of new clothes. I didn’t tell James that he had been downgraded to mere paracetamol in favour for this new addictive medicine constantly swirling in my veins.
However, I did develop a new worry in life and that was the fear of actually meeting Mark again.
I knew he was rarely around as he travelled with work for most of his week and when in London he worked long hours in the office, plus his weekends were taken up playing golf at Weybridge golf club (I knew all of this as Tatiana was more knowledgeable about his life schedule than the diary Mark’s personal assistant had.) Yet daily I pruned myself in case he would be in the flat when I returned from work, but this time I feared he would not wink at me or whisper for me to tease him; and then my drug would disappear for good and I would have to go cold turkey from my daydreams.
Some weeks later I was in the Pack Horse pub close to Richmond (it’s the pub, Jason, you used to run up and down on the balcony outside shouting at the boats that sailed by whilst your mother and I sat under a willow tree with branches shielding us from the summer’s sun). On this day, the winter rain had whitewashed the London streets overnight, the willow leaves had left the trees and the closed balcony was covered in crystal ice. It was a magical bright Sunday morning. The snow made London quiet as people slowed their pace, donned their warm winter clothes and headed for the comfort of an English pub with a roaring fire.
I was one of these Londoners, feeling cosy on a huge leather sofa with James. He was discussing the possibility of trying for our wreck diving certificate out in Taba, Egypt. The wrecks were not too far off shore with one shipwreck only a short swim away. I was listening and working up the courage to tell him I was wearing the deposit for this diving holiday and I was hoping that he would find my new white cashmere polo-neck (which was the perfect accompaniment to a snowy Sunday morning) an amusing alternative to a diving holiday.
‘Don’t worry! I will save again, but James, this was a bargain, an absolute steal. I saved nearly £110 and so, in a way, I made £110 by buying it!’ I smiled and fluttered my eyelids at him as a comical apology.
‘That’s warped logic Ol, only you and all other women could come up with that. You know one day you will have to prioritise your money for little things like, I dunno, bills instead of clothes.’
‘Never! With bargains like this jumper? How could I? After-all, who needs to pay for the trivial things like gas, electricity, water and food?’
James tried to hide his slight laugh and I knew he would be fine at a slight delay in me producing the deposit for our April dive. I sipped on my hot water with lemon and leant my head on James’ shoulder as he drank his dark bitter beer.
‘The wreck course goes someway to getting our master certificate, I think, but don’t quote me on that. Anyway, we can then choose holidays based around what wrecks there are to dive. There’s a book I want, but I can’t remember the name – but it has all the world wrecks, plus history…’
As he was enthusing about all the diving holidays we would take together, my phone beeped in my pocket. I reached for it and read the message on the face.
‘So that’s James eh?’
It was from a number I didn’t recognise. I was confused by it and assumed the message originated from someone in the pub. I sat up away from James and looked around.
‘You okay?’ James asked. The phone beeped again before I could show him the strange message.
‘Quiet now, you don’t want to upset your boyfriend. Sit back.’ I did as my phone told me but still I looked around, which prompted James to look around with me.
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘Oh, nothing, just… oh nothing. So where are we staying on holiday?’
James re-engaged with the sprawl of holiday paperwork on the table and again I looked at my vibrating phone.
‘You look particularly beautiful today.’
James interrupted me, ‘Seriously what’s going on?’
‘James, do you remember me telling you about Mark? Tatiana’s boyfriend? Really good looking and rich and successful…’
‘Yeah, poor bloke.’
‘Haa haa!’
‘I was referring to dating Tatiana, but go on.’
‘Well, Carolanne told me ages ago he’s breaking up with her and now he’s over there at the bar.’
‘Is he the one texting you?’
‘Yes, but I have no idea how he got my number and… don’t look, he’s coming over to us.’
Mark had left his party and was walking towards our table. It was the first time I had seen him out of a suit. He was wearing dark jeans with a tight black V-neck jumper over a white shirt. His eyes were a piercing black and framed by his strong cheek and eyebrow bones. His black hair flopped around his face and as he got to a foot away from our table he combed it away from his face with his hand.
‘Olive, it’s so good to see you.’
He came behind my chair and leant down to kiss my burning cheek.
‘And you must be James, perhaps?’ Mark grabbed James’ hand and shook it without looking at him. I noticed James’ quizzical look as his hand was returned to him.
‘I came over to say a quick hello and I’m sorry I can’t stay otherwise I would join you for a beer,’ Mark said.
‘Hey, mate, stay if you can,’ said James, ‘we’re not going anywhere as beer plus fire means I’m here for the duration.’
‘Tempting but I need to go.’ Mark’s tone of voice was slower than James’ which made James sound childish in comparison or alternatively, it made Mark sound patronising to James, I couldn’t decide which way round it was though I suspect from James’ snarl that it was the latter.
The Society Game Page 11