by Ivan B
“No reason I suppose, it’s just unusual.”
“How do you know”, said Amy, “How many people’s tits do you see?”
Brian chuckled to himself as he let his heartbeat get back to normal, Amy’s form of comfort might not have been on his agenda, but it certainly got his pulse racing. He went downstairs to the kitchen to scrub Amy’s sticky gooey pink lipstick from his hand and made a cup of tea. Twenty minutes later Bau walked in and joined him. Brian pointed at the ceiling. “Is she OK?”
“I think so, she didn’t want a sleeping tablet before she went to bed and I decided to take the risk.”
“You were marvellous.”
She sniffed saying; “Do you always grope your guests?” Before grabbing hold of Brian’s hand. “Sorry Brian, that was unjust. She must have startled you.”
“I think in her mind what she was doing was perfectly rational, but you’re right it was unexpected.”
She sat down and Brian spotted a blue blob on the inside of her left knee. “Whale?”
“Owl.”
He pointed to one on her right shin, “Elephant.”
“Giraffe.”
Without warning she stood up, dropped her dressing gown in the floor and took of her sleeping tee-shirt. She put her hands up in the air and like a ballerina pirouetted around. “Does my body revolt you like Amy’s body?”
He watched her pirouette. What captured his attention was not the numerous shapeless blue blobs on her arms and legs, or the blue blob on her left breast, or the traditional tattoo of a sailor’s ship’s anchor in the centre of her back just above the panty line. It was her general skeletal appearance that filled his eyes and almost screamed at him. She was so thin all her ribs stuck out as if they wanted to escape. Her elbows and knees ballooned out from almost naked bone and her hip-bones, small as they were, protruded like a pair of captured eggs. He stood up and stroked another sailor’s anchor on her arm. “Nanette?”
“I said it wasn’t quite what I wanted.”
He stroked her forearm, “And these, these are you aren’t they? You did them yourself.”
She nodded, “As I said I deserve them.”
He put a hand on each side of her lower rib cage. “And how long have you been anorexic?”
“Since I was thirteen, it was the only thing I could do that my parent’s couldn’t control. You must have noticed how thin I was in the Rocqettes.”
“Not at first, it was the clothing that fooled me, you wore a body stocking.”
“We all did. Pamela’s mother was a seamstress and she ran up the clothes for us. From a reasonable distance, certainly to an audience, they look like bikini tops and gym slips, but they were attached to a body stocking and we used same colour skin make-up to blur the edges.”
Brian moved his hands up and down slightly feeling her ribs. “And you never grew out of it or sought help?”
“No, I guess it’s a form of self-punishment or insanity. Even like this I look in a mirror and worry about how fat I am. Have you noticed my bum, it’s far too large, at least it is to me. I don’t think I ever got above ninety-five pounds till I met Amy. We made a pact; I would try and get to a hundred and ten pounds if she tried to get down to a hundred and fifty pounds. By the time Lucy died I was up to just over a hundred and seven pounds and she was down to a hundred and fifty four. It’s the heaviest I’ve ever been and she has been the only person that’s both encouraged me to eat and made me feel good about myself. It was also the first and only time in my life that I’ve had regular periods. That’s how I came to get pregnant, I confused lack of period with lack of fertility. Nanette tried to make me put on weight, she used to make me eat a bar of chocolate every night. She had mountains of the wretched stuff, used to swap all our tobacco allowance for it. I had to eat a whole bar straight off. If I was sick I had to re-eat it, also straight away. I suppose I should be grateful, it might have kept me alive, I certainly struggled to eat the prison food.”
He kissed her on the forehead. “Well you look gorgeous to me, a bit too slender, but sumptuous.”
He moved his hands down to her bottom and put a hand on each buttock. “And your bum could do with a little more to get hold of, but it’ll do.”
He pulled her to him and kissed her forehead, before wrapping his arms around her and pulling her right up against him and kissing her on the mouth. They stood and kissed for a few minutes with each kiss getting more passionate than the one before. Eventually Brian pushed Bau away and placed his hands on her lower rib cage again. “If we keep this up I’m going to end up wanting to ravish you.”
“Then go ahead and ravish me.”
He ran his fingers up the side of her body, “If I do, you know I’m going to want to marry you.”
“Then the answers yes.”
Without further ado he scooped her up and carried her upstairs to be bedroom and laid her on the bed before they made love, mad passionate and mutually rewarding love, while Amy listened and smiled in the room next door.
Chapter 8
Running Into Danger
Brian opened his eyes to the view of Bau’s back. Even on her back the ribs were visible and each vertebra stood out in perfect clarity all the way down to her final coccyx. He studied the sailor’s anchor tattoo in the nape of her back and the way the rope did one slow twist around the anchor’s stem. Eventually, after resisting the temptation to kiss the back of her scrawny neck, he turned over. What was happening to him? Yesterday he’d not only completed an operation depriving the police of evidence of a double suicide, he’d also tried to blackmail and threaten a probation officer and, finally, slept with a woman to whom he was not married. Were these the actions of a man of the cloth? How could he advise against intercourse before marriage when he was doing it himself? He thought about the night before and smiled at the recollection of their coupling. He sighed, it had been mutually enjoyable, but that still didn’t make it morally legitimate, but as Amy would say, it had provided comfort, mutual comfort.
Eventually Bau woke up and rolled over, he turned to face her. “Did I imagine last night?” She said half sleepily.
“No, I hope not.” He tickled her chin, “And you’re a little minx, you’d already got some condoms.”
“Be prepared, besides I don’t want another unplanned pregnancy.”
She moved towards him, “On the other hand, I’ve got plenty more.”
This time the lovemaking was slower and so passionate over a longer period, but the length of passion brought a greater reward.
Breakfast was all smiles. It took Brian one and a half pieces of toast to both realise that Amy knew of him and Bau, and had probably listened in. Bau just laughed, “No secrets Brian, no secrets.”
He wasn’t sure how he felt, lovemaking to Bau was one thing, lovemaking to Amy by proxy was quite another.
Bau eventually made for the shower on the top floor and Amy collected the plates together. “Any carpet tiles left?” She asked as she started running the hot water.
“A few, not enough for a room.”
“How about round the edge of the carpet in my bedroom? I trod on a tiny screw this morning.”
“Probably enough.”
She flashed him a wide open smile. “I don’t suppose you’d be the he-man and lay them for me?”
He would have liked to say ‘no.’ He would have liked to have told her to go home and stop being so homely and so understanding. He would have liked to have told her to do it herself as her bedroom was her territory. He said yes.
So, for the second morning in a row, Brian laid carpet tiles, but this time to absolute silence. To save time he cheated and didn’t cut round the edge of Amy’s little pink piece of fitted carpet, instead he tucked the tiles under the edge and only cut the tiles around the doorway and the window alcove. He was clearing up the remnants around the head of the bed when he spotted Amy’s bright pink diary. It was on its edge lying between the bed and the bedside cabinet. He listened out and then, much agains
t his own judgement, he reached out for it. It was of the Seven-year type and on its last year. He listened for movement below and then, with his back against the bed, started to read. The first couple of years’ entries were all inconsequential rubbish as far as Brian was concerned. Amy had obviously been concerned about her weight and her eyesight. He counted no less than six visits to an optician in the final eight months. He checked the bedside cabinet and, sure enough, there was a contact lens holder there. The third year entries stopped abruptly two months in and resumed in October. On every page, for every day, for the next four months there was only one phrase, ‘Lucy’s dead.’ Then there was an abrupt change and the entries started counting down to Amy’s trial in March. After that there were two months of entries of the single phrase, “Bau’s guilty,” again on every page for every day. Then the diary started to fill up with incoherent garbage. There were pages and pages of it, all scrawled and all incomprehensible. On the seventh on June the entries stopped completely. There was nearly a whole year of nothing then some weird drawings, all of men with hideous leers and smirks. Then, once again, nothing for three months. After that the entries were all about flowers. Each day there was a different flower with a drawing and a description. The flowers ranged from daisies to camellias and dandelions to orchids. It was almost as if pouring her attention into these descriptions was a form of therapy or, perhaps, a diversion from reality. Brian turned to the current year to find another two months of blank pages followed by lucid and accurate descriptions or a number of varieties of trees. In April, just three months before, the proper diary entries started again. They talked of hope of Bau getting a pardon, of hope that Bau would be set free, and of hope that Bau would still love her. Brian got to Monday of the current week and here was an entry in bold capitals and underlined twice. “Bau’s out!” On Tuesday the entry was about the house and finished with the poignant words, ‘Bau still loves me, I know it, her love hasn’t changed despite being with Brian. Brian’s nice and I think we’re all going to get along nicely.’ He turned to the previous day and winced. The entry was in two parts. The first part stated that life was good again and that she felt safe and secure with Brian; apparently this was because of his big hands. The second entry was short and sweet, it said ‘I wish Brian would make love to me like he makes love to Bau, but I must never say.’
“In the habit of reading personal diaries are you?”
Brian jerked at the strident words and at Amy’s hurt voice.
He looked up at her standing like a fish-wife with her arms crossed and her foot tapping. “I…” he started and stopped when he knew that excuses were useless. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s unforgivable.”
“Just how far did you get?”
Brian’s eyes told her all she needed to know. “Oh shit,” she said, “shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!”
She sat on the bed. “It’s a fantasy Brian, we women must have fantasies, they keep us going. If you actually tried to have sex with me I’d probably freak out. I want to imagine the joy; I don’t necessarily want to experience the reality.”
He put the diary back in its resting place. “Does Bau read it?”
“No, we have an agreement, I don’t read hers and she doesn’t read mine.”
“She has a diary?”
“Used to.”
“I really am sorry Amy, I don’t know what came over me. I promise I won’t say a word.”
“You don’t need to, the damage is done isn’t it?” Her voice was stern and full of rebuke and reprimand.
Brian put his head in his hands, “I don’t normally do things like that, it’s just that it’s all happening so fast. Last Saturday I left home expecting a quiet holiday, it’s only Thursday and my life has been turned totally upside down.”
“You should be so lucky,” she said miserably, “People like me spend our whole lives wishing for something to happen. Wishing that I could play the guitar like Bau, wishing that I could have a figure like a film star, wishing that I hadn’t developed breasts like watermelons, and wishing that my life wasn’t one endless grind of nothingness.”
She placed a hand on Brian’s shoulder, “Bau changed all that for me. Life with her and Lucy was good. I know I can never go back to that time Brian. I know that the past can never be recreated, but please don’t take away what little I have.”
He leant against her chunky legs. “Do you want me to leave?” He whispered hoarsely.
“Of course not. Bau would never forgive me and as I said in my diary I feel safe with you around.”
They sat in silence for a while, each deep in their own thoughts. Brian was first to break it. “I’m lost Amy, really lost. All the precepts I held true I’m gradually breaking.”
She ruffled his hair; “You’re a man besotted. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the ways your eyes follow Bau. Perhaps I’m only asking that you notice me once in a while. Once in a while is enough, but I need to know that I’m not just part of the wallpaper.”
Brian heaved himself off of the floor and sat beside her, after a moment’s hesitation he put his arm around her shoulders. “Believe me your not part of the wall paper, living with one voluptuous female is every man’s desire, getting a two for one bargain is probably on par with one of your fantasies.”
She snorted, “You can’t really find me sexy.”
“Not like Bau, no. It’s a deeper thing, call it corny, but it’s not the body, though believe me you’re breasts do you no harm, it’s an inner quality. I’m attracted to you as a person.”
He pushed some hair aside so he could see her eyes. “Tell me honestly, if I’d met you in another time and another place would I have really been wasting my time chasing you?”
“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “I really thought that I’d never want a man in my life, that’s why Bau was so safe – is so safe. And I do love her Brian, it was just when I heard you making love last night, I wondered what I might be missing.”
“Relationships are more than intercourse,” he said, “it’s about finding the right woman with the right personality. And you are attractive in that way, very attractive.”
“Even though I’m stark raving bonkers at times.”
“Perhaps because you’re stark raving bonkers.” He gave her a squeeze, “Except your not bonkers. Unpredictable, alluring, winsome, yes; bonkers no, just recovering from an illness.”
She sat transfixed and whispered despondently, “But I might never recover Brian, I might always be like this. People who catch malaria never fully recover; perhaps I’ve got the mental form of malaria.”
The last words were said on a rising inflection and Brian worried that she was starting to panic. “So what? People who have malaria lead fulfilling lives.”
Her chin wobbled and she threw her arms around Brian. “Just hug me once in a while,” she whispered, “just hug me.”
He hugged her for a good five minutes till she broke away. “Better check lunch,” she said as if nothing had happened.
When she’d gone Brian put his head in his hands. What was wrong with him? Now he’d started to woo two women at the same time; was it him that was going insane; morally insane?”
When Brian finally arrived downstairs the kitchen was full of steam and cooking smells. Amy looked up from a steaming pot, “Ten minutes, you’d better find Bau.”
“Any ideas?”
Amy shrugged, “She took your car keys.”
Fearing the worst Brian fled outside. Amy was sitting in his car with the CD player full on listening to Madeleine Peyroux sing Dance me into love. Tears were streaming down her face. Brian opened the door and turned the music down. “It’s so lovely,” she sobbed, “it’s what you’re doing to me, dancing me into love.”
“Then why the tears?”
“Because I don’t deserve to be happy. In reality I split up the Rocqettes, if I’d stayed they’d never have tried those dreadful off the shelf techno melodies. I killed Lucy, maybe through neglect, but just as su
re as if I’d throttled her. I caused Amy to have a nervous breakdown. I took my wonderful friend, my prop, my paramour, my lovely Amy and turned her into a mental unemployable unstable wreck. Why should I be allowed to be happy?”
For the second time in the day he took a woeful woman into his arms. He tenderly murmured in her ear, “Because all that’s in the past. I know you can’t forget it, and might regret it, but it’s the past. This is now. Would Lucy want you to be miserable for ever? Does Amy look unhappy now? Do I look unhappy?”
“She sniffed and smiled, “I know, I’m just being a silly feeble woman.”
He kissed her gentle, “A woman who’s coming out of a nightmare; enjoy the daylight.”
Amy appeared on the front steps, “When you two have finished canoodling, there’s steamed fish mornay to be eaten before it gets cold.”
Bau laughed, “She can be quite stern you know.”
“I know,” replied Brian, “I know.”
Brian wiped up the last of the cheese sauce using his finger and licked it off. “My that was good.”
“Ugh,” commented Amy, “What disgusting manners men have.”
Brian just grinned. Bau stretched her arms upwards, “So anything on the agenda this afternoon? I might do some gardening if there isn’t.”
“You hate gardening,” snapped Amy.
“Did. Prison sort of changes your perspective. A nice wide open garden with no doors and no bars is fine by me now.”
“Actually,” said Brian casually, “I’ve got to got and see the Bishop.”
Two pairs of eyes swivelled onto him and he felt like a hedgehog caught in headlights. Bau furrowed her brow, “Which Bishop? Your school's in Essex isn’t it? That’s a different diocese. You going all the way to Essex?”
Brian chuckled, “Actually Essex is not too far down the road from here. No it’s the local Bishop, Bishop Dermot.”
Bau sensed he was hiding something. “So why would you want to see him, or is it a her?”