‘OK,’ she muttered nervously, as she stood watching Rob depart. The old crone took her arm and led her through a door marked ‘Private’ into a gloomy, cluttered room that seemed to combine the functions of snuggery and storehouse. Piles of cardboard boxes full of toilet rolls and paper towels jostled against a shabby, battered sofa and a couple of past-their-prime armchairs. Stale cooking smells lingered in the air, maybe from a nearby kitchen, although there was no one else around save a mangy cat dozing on the windowsill: a skinny creature with matted, off-white fur.
Demetra sat her down on the sofa, plumped a couple of cushions behind her, then examined the injured hand, all the while letting out a stream of soothing words. Despite the grim surroundings, Amy gradually felt herself relax. Although she couldn’t understand a single syllable, she did grasp the obvious sympathy in the woman’s kindly tone. And she appeared to know exactly what to do. First, she fetched a bottle of vinegar and swabbed some on to the sting, which helped reduce the itching. Then she made a compress by wrapping several ice-cubes in a towel and holding it against the swelling – the shock of the cold assuaging at least the worst pangs of the pain.
Trickles of cold water were dripping on to the woman’s lap, though, to Amy’s surprise, she didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned. Her own English grandma, Nadine, would have jumped up in alarm, worried about her expensive clothes being spoiled by watermarks. Demetra’s old black frock, however, looked as if it had already taken centuries’ worth of punishment and was expecting plenty more. Nadine and Demetra must be roughly the same age, though the fact was hard to credit. The former, with her make-up and her Botox and her sessions in the gym, looked twenty-odd years younger, whereas Demetra was a shapeless sack, with an undefined though massive bosom drooping down onto her belly, and veiny, pockmarked legs. And what on earth had happened to her teeth? Nadine spent a fortune at the dentist, opting for every cosmetic enhancement from whitening to veneers, and her hair was professionally blonded, then larded with conditioner to give it shine and body. Demetra’s hair, in contrast, was scanty and lacklustre; the iron-grey locks scraped into an unflattering bun. Her face was a mass of wrinkles, and her bulging calves were clad in woolly pink socks, which looked utterly incongruous with her scuffed black lace-up shoes. Yet this total lack of concern about her appearance was somehow very comforting. What freedom it must bring, not to give a toss if you put on weight or your clothes were decades out of date or – dare one even think it? – not to care if you were sexy. Demetra didn’t care. She was at ease in her own body, and in her role as respected matriarch. And since she had given birth thirteen times, she must once have been desired.
Amy was suddenly aware of tears pricking at her eyelids. Horrified, she tried to blink them away, but they began streaming down her face, unchecked.
‘Ssshhh, sshhh,’ the woman clucked, putting her arms around her and rocking her to and fro.
‘I’m not crying because of the sting,’ Amy sobbed, her voice muffled in the pillowy folds of flesh. ‘I’m crying because we can’t have children. We’ve been trying for over a year, but nothing ever …happens. Rob wants them even more than me. Not thirteen, of course, but three or four. And I’ve let him down, you see. I know it’s all my fault because …’
Although Demetra couldn’t understand, it was a relief just telling someone what she’d kept secret for the last eighteen months. No way could she confide in her mother, let alone in Nadine. How could you admit that you’d faked every single orgasm since your wedding day, including those on honeymoon; that you’d almost come to dread sex, mired as it was in worry and deception? Which is why she hadn’t conceived. It was down to stress – she was sure of it – and the more she lied to Rob, the more the stress increased. If he didn’t know how she felt, then they were strangers rather than lovers; she acting the part of the sensuous, responsive wife, who actually often longed for single beds.
‘Making love’s become like an exam. Will I pass or fail? Will I fall pregnant or won’t I? And I’m so keyed up each time, I simply can’t let go, let alone enjoy it. I’m no good in bed, in any case. I know it’s meant to be a natural thing and you just trust to instinct and stuff, but it doesn’t seem to work – not for me, in any case. My friends can come – they discuss it all the time. In fact, I’m sick to death of hearing about their orgasms. It’s just me that’s weird or frigid or something. I can’t blame Rob. He’s great in bed – never rushes me or anything. But instead of feeling close to him, or grateful, it’s as if we’re in two separate worlds, especially afterwards, when we’re lying there together and he’s all out of breath and sort of smug. I don’t say a word, of course, but underneath I’m really mad because he can’t see I’m putting on an act, and assumes I’m just as starry-eyed as he is. Yet if he ever got to know I’ve been pretending all this time, he’d be bitterly upset.’
Scarcely pausing for breath, she continued pouring out her dilemma: being forced to lie to the person she adored. A great weight was lifting from her chest simply by this process of confessing to a stranger who couldn’t grasp a single word and therefore couldn’t judge. ‘I’m scared I’ll lose him anyway, because if we never have a baby, he might – you know, piss off. He was adopted, you see, and his adoptive parents weren’t exactly loving, so he’s always longed for a proper happy family. In fact, that’s probably why we married in the first place. I wasn’t like the other girls he’d been with, who mostly wanted money and careers, and refused to be tied down. It’s ironic in a way – me the only one who wanted kids, and I turn out to be infertile. Oh, I know we haven’t been trying all that long, and the doctor says there’s heaps of time. They won’t even let me have the tests for another year at least, but suppose they’re wrong and I end up as … as …’
The words stuttered to a halt, at last. She could barely breathe, in any case, pressed as she was against Demetra’s bosom, and hoarse from the long outburst. Finally forced to lift her head, she saw the woman nodding emphatically, as if she had, in fact, understood the gist of it. Oh, no, thought Amy, blushing in confusion. This stuff was highly intimate, and she had never told another living soul.
Then, all at once, Demetra lumbered to her feet and shuffled out of the room. Amy watched in consternation. She must have walked out in disgust, sick of listening to the spiel. After all, most hotel guests didn’t demand first aid, then, instead of saying thank you, start sobbing, sounding off. And, anyway, she must be really busy, involved as she was in running the hotel, so why should she waste her precious time comforting a cry-baby?
Amy wiped her eyes on her sleeve. Without the relief of the ice, the sting was nagging and throbbing as fiercely as before. She had better make a quick retreat, sneak up to her room and wait till Rob got back. But, just as she moved towards the door, Demetra bustled through it, holding something on her palm: a small, highly polished stone, deep glossy black in colour and perfectly round in shape. She slid it into Amy’s hand – the left, uninjured one – speaking very solemnly. What on earth could she be saying? A stone was no damned use. Yet, as she closed her fingers round it, she felt a peculiar sense of peace suddenly flooding through her body. Could it be some lucky charm or talisman, like the miraculous medals she had believed in as a child? Intrigued, she glanced at Demetra, but the wrinkled face gave nothing away as she led her to the sofa and sat her down once more. However, she was still talking with that same high-flown intensity; the words sounding like a religious rite or mantra. And Amy could certainly sense a difference in her own mood. She felt purged, revived, in some way; even the frantic pain beginning to dull down. It was as if she’d become a chrysalis, safe in some dark, meditative place, encased in a protective sheath that nurtured and cocooned her, until she could emerge again in different guise.
The spell was broken by a tap-tap on the door, and Rob’s voice calling from outside.
Jolted back to reality, her first emotion was embarrassment. Suppose Demetra told him that she had broken down and cried? As the woman went to greet
him, Amy, too, sprang up and tried to catch his eye. ‘What’s she saying, Rob?’ she demanded.
‘That you’re beautiful and I’m a lucky man!’
She flushed. Demetra was still addressing him, wagging her finger vehemently, even tugging at his arm. ‘Rob, what’s she telling you now?’
‘That these pills I’ve got from the pharmacy could make you rather dozy, so you ought to go to bed and rest. In fact, she wants you to have a good long sleep and not do a single thing.’
‘OK,’ she said, nodding in relief. Clearly Demetra hadn’t said a word about the tears. She gave the woman a grateful hug, but Demetra took her arm and linked it solemnly through Rob’s, as if joining them symbolically. Then, ushering them out into the foyer, she stood gesturing to the staircase, as if saying, ‘Up to bed.’
Amy opened her eyes with a start. Some furious, vengeful presence was lodged in her right hand, spitting at her, letting fly. The sting! She stared down at her fingers, now as thick as small bananas, despite the antihistamine. Had Rob’s Greek let him down and he’d brought back the wrong pills? No – she had actually managed to get to sleep, which itself was a minor miracle.
She fumbled for her watch to check the time. Half past four. Brilliant light was streaming through the gap in the curtains and the room was stifling hot. She had gone to bed with nothing on, yet her whole body was flushed and feverish, the skin covered with a film of sweat. So much for Demetra’s magic stone. She had put it under her pillow with a sense of total trust, yet her hand was worse than ever.
‘Hey, darling, are you awake?’
She jumped, not knowing Rob was there. He was sitting in the corner, on the floor, studying one of his Greek books. The hotel was so basic it provided only a bed and a row of hooks for clothes, not any sort of chair. ‘Oh, Rob!’ she said. ‘You look terribly uncomfortable.’
‘Well, I didn’t want to wake you.’
‘You should have gone out for a walk or something.’
‘No, I felt I ought to be here, in case … How’s the pain?’
‘Vile!’ she snapped, suddenly furious with herself and her stupid, swollen fingers, furious even with him: his kindness and concern, his constant maddening decency.
Scrambling to his feet, he came to sit beside her on the bed. ‘Let me see.’
‘No.’ She held her hand behind her back, deliberately out of reach. ‘I’m sick and tired of the bloody thing.’
‘I don’t blame you. I only wish it was me that was stung, so—’
‘Kiss me!’ she demanded, cutting off his words. He looked surprised and hurt – with reason. Never before had she ordered him about or used that peremptory tone, let alone when he was offering sympathy.
He kissed her very gingerly, as if she were an invalid but, seized by a wild impetuousness, she forced her tongue inside his mouth, ran it round the sharp edges of his teeth, bit his lips, then thrust her tongue still deeper. ‘Take off your clothes.’
‘But surely you don’t want to …?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do.’ It wasn’t a question of ‘wanting’. She was being driven by the venom in her body – the venom left by the wasp, which was now throbbing through her with a seething sort of rage: rage at her own barrenness, her failure to conceive.
And her fury had affected Rob, roused him in the best sense. Excited by her dominance and by her edgy, febrile mood, he began tearing off his T-shirt, tugging at his belt, trying to kiss her breasts while still dragging down his jeans. She knocked his hand away, too het up for preliminaries, then rolled on top of him, legs astride his hips.
‘Amy we can’t do this!’ he faltered, suddenly catching sight of her red and swollen hand. ‘Just look at you! You’re probably running a fever.’
‘I’m not, I’m not. We must!’ She grasped his penis and tried to stroke it stiff again – not easy, with one hand out of action. Frantically, she used her mouth instead. Her usual passive, bashful self had vanished, and she was now forcing the pace, bearing down on top of him the minute he was erect, and ramming him inside her, then moving in long rhythmic strokes. And he, too, started thrusting with a wildness and abandon she had never seen before. Of course her hand was hurting – the pain was near unbearable – but pain was simply part of it. Only now, with that wasp venom inside her, did she understand that making love was really making war; that she had to forego all tenderness, had to heave and wrestle, bite and scratch. This was the only way to conceive – not to hope and plead and piss about, as she’d been doing for so long, but to demand a child, force one from the fates above, insist on her God-given right to it. And at last she’d got the knack. All distracting thoughts had gone; all pointless, paltry head-talk. She was as sharply, intently focused as the wasps; her body burning with anger, pain, desire.
‘Wait!’ she cried, pausing for a second to reach beneath the pillow for the stone. She clasped it in her fingers, desperate to release its magic. It was Demetra’s stone and it had worked for that old crone, thirteen times, for God’s sake, so let it work once more. It would – it bloody must.
Then, all at once, even thoughts of the stone were stifled and engulfed, as she was swept into a rhythm – some essential, ancient rhythm, in tune with the very movement of the earth, the circling of the planets, the ebb and tug of tides. The rhythm was taking her over, carrying her along, building up, building up, with a force and sheer fanaticism that couldn’t be resisted, couldn’t be denied, until suddenly she was arching her body, screwing up her eyes, screaming out, ‘I’m coming, Rob! I’m coming!’; nails clawing at his shoulders, the injured hand erupting in a maddened lash of pain. Who cared? After eighteen months of faking, this was the real, amazing thing. Her whole body was exploding in a sort of fizzing, spitting triumph: stupefying, savage, outlandish, gross, exquisite.
And he was coming, too – the most powerful come of his life, because any second, any second, his sperm would shoot out into her, with the same force and fury as the sting – make her swell and swell.
Yes, their child would be born in blessed nine months’ time.
Happy Ending
‘Thank you for calling “Happy Endings”. We are delighted to welcome you as a customer—’
‘Cut the cackle,’ she muttered under her breath.
‘And we wish you a pleasant shopping experience with our—’
Couldn’t they just get on with it? Most people were far too busy for such vacuous pleasantries.
‘To contact our call centre, please press the star key on your phone.’
She jabbed it irritably, using her other hand to wipe a trail of dust from the bookshelf.
‘Hello. Welcome to “Happy Endings!”’
They had welcomed her already. Once was more than enough. ‘Happy Endings’ was a peculiar name, in any case – maybe suitable for maternity wear, but not for general mail order. On the whole, she mistrusted happy endings – in films and books, at least. They seemed not only contrived, but often a form of self-delusion.
‘In order to continuously monitor services, your call may be recorded for quality or training purposes.’
She noted the split infinitive. At the end of last term, there’d been a heated discussion in the Staff Room about split infinitives, Geoff maintaining that if Shakespeare split them, so could he. But then Geoff taught Physics, not English.
‘To reduce waiting time for services, choose one of the following options. To place an order, please press “one”. For queries regarding—’
Quickly she pressed ‘one’, in order to interrupt the second recorded voice, which sounded even more inanely cheery than the first.
A third voice then piped up – recorded again, of course. A person actually addressing her would be too much to expect. ‘You would like to place an order?’
‘Yes,’ she said to empty air. ‘I’ve just pressed “one”, for heaven’s sake!’
‘Please hold the line. An operator will be with you shortly.’
Thank God, she thought, continuing her im
promptu dusting. Now that she had broken up, she must get down to some serious cleaning. She had been too busy marking essays to bother about the state of the flat. It was the state of the essays that gave real cause for concern: misspellings, execrable grammar, cribbings from the Internet.
‘All our operators are currently busy. Please hold, and your call will be answered as soon as possible.’
‘Currently’, she repeated, reflecting on its etymology: from the Latin currere, no doubt. Though wouldn’t it be simpler to say ‘at present’?
The inevitable music came next. Why was it always Vivaldi? Though perhaps, on reflection, The Four Seasons was wonderfully apt. If she held on long enough, summer would fade into autumn, autumn freeze to winter, winter fanfare into spring, and spring laze into summer again – and all before she’d specified the first line of her order.
‘All our operators are still busy, but your call is important to us, so please continue to hold.’
Patience had never been her strong point. She remembered as a child, working herself into a frenzy waiting for Christmas or her birthday, or for her father to come back (which he never did, of course), or waiting to be old enough to have ice-skates or a dog.
‘When I was a child,’ her mother used to say, ‘there were more serious things to worry about – when meat would come off ration, or the street-lights be turned back on.’
The war had been her mother’s favourite subject – the bombings, the privations, the danger, the adrenaline – but to a kid of eight or nine, it seemed as long ago as the Battle of Hastings, and every bit as boring.
Even now, her mother took a perverse delight in living in the past. ‘And, of course, we didn’t have supermarkets, with all that bewildering choice. There’d be Cheddar – mild or strong – not hundreds of fancy cheeses from all over the world. “Like it or lump it” was the attitude in those days. And we had to wait for fruit and vegetables to come into season – things like strawberries or runner beans. Whereas today you can buy anything at any time of the year.’
The Biggest Female in the World and other stories Page 7