I dried my hands. They were so cold it felt as if I was touching another person’s hands. I looked at my reflection and thought my eyes looked more like the eyes of some small domestic creature. Perhaps a hamster’s or a rabbit’s. Or the eyes of the last unsold kitten in a cage at the market. A kitten that understands the truth about the waiting, brimful bucket and the stallholder’s strong, competent fists.
When I got home I dug out his phone number. I tried to keep it simple and low key. I tried not to sound needy or tearful. I put a CD on so that he would hear it in the background and think I was a normal girl. Someone who had decided, on impulse, to ring a guy she thought was nice. I left a voicemail asking him to call. I suggested we meet for a chat or something.
I gather at the river
IT WAS THE end of the third week after I’d left my message. Just as I thought I would have to ring again he got in touch. He didn’t say much. If you want, he said, when I suggested we meet. I spent a long time getting ready; it was important to strike the right note. I wanted to look gorgeous, irresistible, eatable even, and not as if I’d tried too hard. It was a tough one. But after messing about in front of the dreaded mirror for half an hour I was unhappy with my make-up. My eyebrows looked like two wrong words someone had tried to scribble over with a black felt-tip pen. One was higher than the other, which made me look like a joke chef in a cartoon. My cheeks were way too pink, and my eyes were starey; haunted somehow. I washed it all off and started again. It was safer to go down the ‘no make-up’ make-up route that all the magazines were talking about. When I’d finished it looked as if I wasn’t wearing any. But not in a good way. My blank canvas was still blank. I wasn’t sure if I’d failed spectacularly, or it was a startling success. I told myself if you had to ask, then you knew the answer.
I drove to the pub in town he’d said he’d be in and waited outside for him to appear. As I sat in the car I listened to a whole episode of The Archers. I watched the pub door repeatedly open and close. Each time it opened I thought it was him, but it wasn’t. On the radio two old, posh agricultural people were making love. The Archers had changed since I used to listen to it in the kitchen with my mother. The sound effects were so real I felt embarrassed, and all the love action seemed to be occurring on horseback. It was difficult to decide who was huffing and puffing, the lovers or their mounts.
Just as the closing music came on he got in beside me. I couldn’t say a word. He filled the car with the smell of beer and cigarette smoke. I revved the engine madly and shot off. He asked me if I was OK. I nodded. I couldn’t look at him. It was as if my eyes were locked on the road. He put his hand on the back of my neck and massaged it. He asked where I was taking him but didn’t sound at all curious. I told him to wait and see. Fine, he said. I don’t care where I go. I had planned a walk by the river. I wanted to make things more ordinary; more like other people’s relationships. It seemed like a good idea to take him to one of my favourite haunts.
We parked the car under some pines and started off. I began to explain to him how I felt about the river, and he listened, smiling. He said he had places he felt like that about. I stopped and looked at him. We were holding hands. The river was behind him, the evening air leaf-sweet and cool under the trees. He gazed steadily back at me. It felt like a miracle, as if I’d caught something everyone had warned me was dangerous, which instead was gentle; as if something wild had calmed down. You are beautiful, I love you, I said. I wasn’t sure if I’d spoken the words out loud or if my heart had blurted them silently.
He didn’t react, so I repeated them loud and clear. He smiled and put his arms round me. I could feel his gorgeous, strong heart thumping. I burrowed my head into his neck. I felt as if my spine were turning into a rippling, honeyed liquid and I was about to slide down his body into a pool at his feet.
We walked again, holding onto each other. Along the riverbank we passed people with their dogs, parents helping their children learn to ride bikes. He was quiet and relaxed. I kept my arm round his waist, and he rested his arm round my shoulders. Everything was so lovely. I could see how we looked together. After a while I asked him if he was having a good time; I’d begun to think he might be getting bored. But he didn’t answer me. I don’t think he heard. I started to feel jumpy and nervous. I had that feeling you get when something is slipping away, and you can’t stop it. Like the light on a short winter afternoon. I needed something to happen. I thought probably he was being nice because he was going to dump me. His arm on my shoulders felt dead. I started to think he didn’t want me any more.
It was getting dark, and the little bats that live by the river began to flit about like animated leaves. It was always a sad time when that happened. We stopped by the bridge and looked down at the water flowing fast and smooth, the same colour as the sky, but full of sparkling streaks. We watched the sky turn a creamy cerise that slowly leached into the water. As we stared at the river it began to look weird: solid and slow moving, silent and muscular, more like dry sand than liquid. I pushed my hands into my pockets and found a sweet. It must have been there a long time. He turned away from the water and looked at me.
In the half-light he looked unfamiliar. The sunset made his skin glow and his hair paler. He still looked like his other, good, gentle self. The one I didn’t know. What have you found? he said. I held up the squashed sweet in its ragged paper wrapping, and he took it from me. These used to be called Opal Fruits when I was kid, he said, do you remember? Then he put it in his mouth. We stood on the bridge together and he held me tightly. Here, he said, kissing me, open up, and pushed the warm gooey sweet into my mouth with his tongue. Strawberry! I said, but really I felt as if it was a little chunk of him, and I could eat it. He hugged me to him. I wanted to stay on the bridge, out there, suspended, but I knew that was stupid. It was dark now, and the river beneath us held onto the last glow of the sky.
Gradually I realised I was gripping him so tightly my arms were trembling. I told myself to chill out, it was obvious the moment had passed. He wasn’t responding to me any more. I let my arms drop. I wasn’t surprised when his phone shrilled, the little screen shining bluely. Yeh, he said, yeh, yeh, OK. Then he listened for a moment. Nothing important, he said, looking at me without recognition, concentrating on his conversation. Yeh, mate, you fuck yourself, he said, and laughed. Pick me up in, say, ten minutes at the usual place. No probs. The blue light died. Without it the evening felt pitch black, the trees along the sides of the river bent over.
Gotta go, babe, he said. But it’s dark, I said, and a long way to the car. So? he said. You’re a big girl. He was already walking away from me. I started to cry. Don’t leave me, haven’t we been having a nice time? I called. I couldn’t help myself, even though I knew it would make him angry. He strode back towards me and grabbed my shoulders. Nice, he said. Nice? Shut the fuck up about nice, and pushed me away from him so hard I collided with the railings of the bridge. Suddenly it seemed essential I make him stay. Like some sort of test I had to pass. I’m sorry, I could hear myself shrieking, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you mad. Please don’t go.
He came back towards me, his footsteps resonating on the wooden bridge. I thought he was going to do something, hit me perhaps. Instead he wrapped his arms round me and kissed my forehead. Don’t cry, he whispered. I didn’t mean it. You’ll have to get used to the fact that I’m a cruel bastard. He wiped my tears away with his warm hands. No, you’re not, I said, and kissed his cheek. Then he was gone. I stood with my hands glued to the metal railings and strained to hear him running away until I couldn’t hear him any more.
I do some double-talking
FOR FIVE DAYS I didn’t go out. I ignored the phone and erased all messages without listening to them. God, that tiny winking eye! Like some creepy uncle at a family party. Anyway it seemed as if I’d reached some place – a precipice or something – where I needed to think. What was this problem I had with men? Why couldn’t I be a regular girl? But mostly the ques
tions were unaskable. Just long, confused rafts of why? And how? And why not? I sat for hours in front of the mirror, gazing. The mirror was on the inside of the wardrobe door, so I had to prop it open and look, perched on the end of the bed.
I was fairly pretty, cute even, and that was the truth. Sometimes I really liked my reflection. Hey gorgeous! I said. Or I asked, affectionately, questions like, What’s your problem, lovely one? And, Who rattled your cage, you bird of paradise, you? Or even, but this was early on, So many people would kill to have your life, you ungrateful girl, go and stand in the corner. I looked at myself from all angles. Everything was groovy. Everything was in its proper place.
I remembered watching some intense woman on a morning TV chat show talking about strategies to aid self-knowledge and subsequently move forward. So I got my hand mirror and looked between my legs. Hello, I said, greetings. The whole enterprise seemed a little heavy, so I tried to be jaunty. Who do you think you’re staring at? I joked. The thing didn’t blink. It certainly didn’t talk back. I opened it up a little, though I felt squeamish. Then I got spooked; it seemed so sad and angry. The whole area looked like a punched eye. I thought I detected a look of reproach. In the end I whispered, Goodbye and good luck. I felt we both needed that. Then, at the last minute, quickly, Have a nice life.
I was feeling hungry all the time. I stocked up on the things I wanted to eat: lots of meat, like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby. Chicken and chops, sausages and burgers. Big slices of ham, each piece hanging out of my mouth like the tongue of a camel. Faggots like lumps of roasted brain. I ate everything in front of the mirror. It was amazing how stupid my face looked when I chomped. I vowed never to eat in public. How could the people I’d eaten with keep a straight face? Or even prevent themselves from sicking up? God! I was glad I’d had this opportunity. I could at least save myself that embarrassment ever again. Drinking wasn’t much better. As I sipped my face looked simultaneously wounded and emotional. And nauseatingly pious, as if I’d been insulted for my faith and might break down. But this was all good, I thought: self-knowledge, and then the moving forward thing.
I decided it would be interesting to conduct an experiment. You know, go over to the dark side. So I stopped combing my hair. This was a big concept for me, and really out there. The stunning thing was that as the days rolled on and my hair got wilder and wilder, it began to look better and better. Why had I ever bothered? My slavish attachment to straighteners suddenly seemed insane. The new look was more grown-up. More don’t-fuck-with-me-ish. Even a bit rock-chicky. The messiness said something to the world. I felt like maybe I was a dangerous bitch, someone very temperamental. Someone men would fall passionately in love with.
It was a joke, of course. And I told the mirror, So who are you kidding, you loser? I knew I had to get tough. Get out of your bedroom, you adolescent twit, I shouted. You with your bird’s nest hair and your horrible vulva and your stupid, stupid chewing! Nobody likes you! You can’t even stand yourself! (I said everything with an exclamation mark attached.) Take a long, hard, honest look at yourself for once! The portion of my room reflected in the mirror was so impoverished, so drab, so totally full of aloneness, it pierced me to see it.
I gazed at the discarded plate of bones on the bed next to me, the straighteners on the floor, and I cried with complete abandon. Me-in-the-mirror and I cried bitterly together. I felt for her, she felt for me. But even as I blubbed I knew I would have to stop soon. I swear that once, after a sobbing bout in which I cried into my hands like someone in a Victorian painting, I peeped out through my laced fingers and she was greedily watching me with the faintest of smiles on her face. The second she saw me looking she dropped her shaggy head and started bawling into her cupped hands again.
I sat up and hiccuped. Why doesn’t he love me though? I asked her. Why? Why? It felt comforting to indulge in repetition. I sounded like someone in a play. Why? She shook her head slowly and shrugged, miming one of those haven’t-got-a-clue faces, which was surprisingly annoying. Perhaps he does, I suddenly thought. Perhaps he does, and he can’t show it. Perhaps he needs me to help him. She looked sceptical. And also maybe you should get lost? I said. Honestly, what do you know about anything? You miserable, insincere cow! In a flash it occurred to me. Maybe he’d been trying to tell me something. Perhaps he wanted us to move in together, something huge like that, and he found it difficult. That’s why he’d been a little touchy. It made sense. I reluctantly glanced in the mirror. My reflection had her hands over her ears and her mouth open.
I got up and slammed her into the wardrobe. There was another mirror on the outside, and things looked much better in it. I showered and dried my hair. Then straightened it to a luxurious shine. I rang Alison and we chatted. Her voice sounded faint, as if she was up on the surface of the ocean and I was down on the seabed in a submarine, but it was lovely to speak to her. She wondered if I would do a favour at short notice and mind the baby. I asked if she really wanted me to be sole carer for another of her children, after the bread incident. That wasn’t your fault, she said. You can take him out for a nice walk in his buggy; he’ll be asleep the whole time. I won’t be long. It seemed like an excellent way to get back into the real world. Though I didn’t say this to Alison.
I indulge in retail therapy
MY HOUSE NEEDED sorting out. The baby probably wouldn’t notice, but it didn’t feel right to have him in a sad, dishevelled place. And who understands what babies see? Maybe everything. Maybe we all start off very wise and far-sighted and end up stupid. Anyway I was worried the invisible, dark mood clouds swirling around might get to him. So I opened the windows and pushed the vacuum around, sucking up more than dust and cobwebs. I picked some rice pudding-coloured dog roses from among the undergrowth at the bottom of my garden. Their open faces looked like gentleness realised. They had the frondiest of leaves, and when I sniffed them they gave me the most honeyed, creamy distillation of rose I have ever known. I put them in a sage-green bowl and they arranged themselves perfectly, the leaves spraying out in perfect collars around each flower.
I had lunch because when the baby came I didn’t want to think about things like that, then I sat in the kitchen near the roses and drank some tea. The warmth in the room and the flowers’ fragrance made me feel drowsy; sort of heavy and thick-tongued. I rested my head on the table and drifted off. The doorbell rang and I leaped up and ran down the hall. There was Alison, a bit breathless, and the lovely baby in his buggy. So, I’ll see you at five, she said. You’ve officially saved my life, and pushed the buggy up over the doorstep whilst handing me a bag of equipment. It’s a good afternoon for a walk, she called back as she got in her car. He loves a walk. Then she was gone and the baby and I were alone in the silent house.
In the kitchen I had a good look at him. Crikey, I told him, you are the most scrumptious baby I have ever seen. He smiled kindly at me, and sighed, looking around calmly, his pudgy hands resting like two pink cakes on his lap. He seemed to be interested in the roses so I picked up the bowl and brought them near him. He laughed and grabbed at them, then let out a sharp and shocking scream. I dropped the vase and it smashed, spraying water over his little brown legs. He stiffened and started bellowing.
His tiny hand was still closed round one of the rose stems and I realised with a razor-sharp slice of fear that all the thorns on the spine were hurting his tender palm. I burst into tears and sat beside him in the spilled water. Somehow I forced him to open his hand and took out the strangled rose. I got cold water and bathed his palm, singing to him through my tears. He quietened and watched without malice as I soothed his hand, shuddering rhythmically.
Everything had gone wrong and I’d only been in charge of the baby for ten minutes. I kissed his head and tried to look at his hand again, but he wasn’t going to allow me. Little boy, I said to him, I’m so, so sorry. His cheeks were shiny with tears and I gently wiped them. I felt as if my heart would break, he was so sweet. I emptied the bag Alison had left and found a cup
with baby drink in it. He drank it all. I sat on the kitchen chair and shook. Inside it was as if I had emptied out, like a cloud after a downpour. I wondered how to explain to Alison about his poor hand. Little man, I asked him, would you like to go for a nice walk?
I pushed the sleeping baby in his buggy through town. The wind barrelled round and round the concrete walkways. I went in nearly every shop. They were all playing the same music. The shop assistants were dusting shelves and rearranging things, talking about their weekends:… anyway, he said, then I said, then he said, then I said … lowering their voices when I passed by. Girls, girls, girly girl girls, I wanted to say, as if I give a damn what he said and you said. All the shops were empty; I didn’t see one single, other shopper around. It was as if the real people had been spirited away. I concentrated on keeping the buggy moving, otherwise the baby might wake up.
There were lots of lovely things to buy. I wanted a scarf patterned with blobby circles; a pair of caramel leather sandals; some chicken marinating in olive oil, chillies and garlic; a dusty, plaited loaf of bread; a long Cossack coat with a fur collar, but I didn’t want to disturb the baby. In a department store I decided to stop and sit down; my legs felt decidedly dodgy. The café was empty, and the food looked artificial. I ordered a cup of camomile tea and perched on the edge of the chair, rocking the buggy. As I drank I worked out how much time was left till five o’clock.
True Things About Me Page 6