The Biggest Female in the World and other stories

by Wendy Perriam

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ she’d countered

  ‘It makes everyone too greedy and demanding. They expect too much and expect it instantly. And it’s getting worse and worse, what with mobile phones and email. When I was little, we didn’t even have a phone.’

  A blessing, perhaps, she mused, as the same recorded message was repeated for the seventh time. ‘All our operators are still …’

  All their operators could well be in a call-centre in Delhi or Calcutta, enjoying an extended lunch-break, eating chapattis or stretched out on their prayer-mats.

  More music. Well, at least she was getting a free concert, although, given a choice, she would have opted for Bach in preference to Vivaldi. But she ought to count her blessings. She had six whole weeks ahead of her until school restarted in September, so a little wasted time was of no real consequence. Besides, waiting was simply part of life, and there were many grimmer aspects of it than merely waiting to order a few items from a catalogue. She might be waiting for an operation (up to two years on the National Health), or waiting for the results of a biopsy (was the tumour cancerous?), or waiting for the AA to arrive (having broken down in a blizzard in the wilds), or waiting by a hospice bed for some beloved friend to slip away, or waiting to hear news of a missing child or kidnapped relative, or waiting for the rescue team to arrive, stranded on Mount Everest with a collapsed lung or broken leg.

  ‘All our operators are still ….’

  She sat down heavily, the receiver still clamped to her ear. Although she’d been fortunate enough to avoid all such catastrophes, she had still spent much of her life waiting for things that hadn’t yet materialized. A partner, for example. Of course, when it came to marriage and relationships, you had to be willing to compromise, but not to the extent of a total (fatal) mismatch. She reviewed the past contenders, wondering if she’d been too hasty in dismissing them. Barry? No. She couldn’t live with a man who read the Daily Express. Daniel? No, again. His devotion to the gym bordered on the obsessive. Three hours each day pumping iron would leave little excess energy for pumping her, in bed. Michael? Yes, a possible. Indeed, more than that – much more. They had truly been in love, even started planning a future together, then all at once he’d changed his mind and ended the whole thing. And, most recently, Francisco, who was Spanish, hunky, cultured and amusing, but wedded to his (female) therapist.

  A total of four men wasn’t exactly impressive. In fact, just last week she’d read a survey claiming that in the ten-year period between the ages of sixteen and twenty-six, women had, on average, seven different sexual partners. And she was pushing forty. Still, she always tried to spin the line that she was perfectly happy with her current single state. Any hint of bitterness would only drive a man away. And as for loneliness – the very word was taboo. ‘There’s no risk of being lonely in a school the size of yours,’ her mother once remarked. Which was patently untrue. Besides, working with a thousand children and fifty other staff was a completely different matter from finding your one own special someone.

  ‘We are sorry to keep you waiting, but we are experiencing an unusually high volume of calls …’

  Ah, a change of message now – a fourth recorded voice, still maddeningly upbeat. She was tempted to ring off, but she did desperately want that scarlet dress in the catalogue. It was dramatic, different and perfect for her fortieth. She was planning a little party and wanted to make it clear that although she’d reached a significant birthday – the start of middle age, no less – she had no intention of greying into pathetic anonymity. Anyway, although the chores were piling up, and she ought to start the lengthy process of preparing next year’s lessons, she had no actual engagements today – nor any day this week – so she might as well continue with the call.

  Most of her friends and colleagues had already gone away: Geoff camping with his children in St Ives; Ella and her husband touring Tuscany; Claire and John caravanning in Wales. Easy for them, of course, with company built in. Holidays for singles were a contradiction in terms. Who would choose to eat alone each night, or wander round churches and museums with a crowd of uncongenial strangers, all eyeing up each other with suspicion and distaste? And there was also the little matter of paying a single supplement to get a room to oneself. Easier and cheaper to dispense with a proper holiday and simply spend a long weekend with Great-Aunt Kate. OK, the shabby Shropshire cottage didn’t have quite the ambience of Bali or Barbados, but at least her aunt was extremely hospitable, and even the old spaniel always barked a croaky welcome. Which was another reason to continue hanging on. She had found the perfect present in the ‘pets’ section of the catalogue: a very superior dog basket – actually styled a ‘designer sofa’ – in burgundy leather, with velvet-covered cushions. Although horrendously expensive, it was particularly recommended for older and less agile dogs and, since Rex was even more decrepit than his owner, would make a very suitable gift.

  The Vivaldi had come round again – although she didn’t much care for the recording, which was lush and over-romantic. The Four Seasons sounded better on authentic baroque instruments, which gave it more astringency and bite. Not that she played it overmuch. However, Vivaldi had his uses, if only in her frequent father-fantasies. Vivaldi had been taught music as a child by his violinist-father, and she enjoyed swapping places with the favoured little boy. Several times each week, the loving, caring father would be sitting at the harpsichord playing her a lullaby before she went to bed, or tenderly restringing her child-size violin, so they could perform duets together.

  ‘All our operators are still …’

  So it was back to the old message. She ought to keep a tally of how many times it was repeated, so she could complain to the managing director, giving facts and figures. It wouldn’t make the slightest difference, though. He’d merely pass on her complaint to some minion, who would respond with a bland letter – probably full of the same grammatical errors she found herself correcting every year. Mind you, she could mark the letter and send it back: ‘C-minus. Must try harder.’

  ‘Must try harder’ had always been her own motto – not that it had got her anywhere. It was a scandal really that Rory should have been appointed Head of Department, when she was better qualified. And it wasn’t just a matter of qualifications. Rory always shot off home the minute he’d finished teaching, whereas she stayed on, evening after evening, typing up new handouts, photocopying books, or giving extra tuition to any needy pupils. And even when she did get home, she found herself still worrying about Angela’s dyslexia or Abdul’s lack of social skills, and wishing she could divide herself into a thousand different pieces, so she could help every member of every class with all their different problems all at once.

  ‘… please hold, and one of our operators will be with you as soon as possible.’

  She winced at that final phrase. ‘As soon as possible’, like ‘do one’s best’, was far too vague to be meaningful. When people said, ‘I did my best’, she was invariably tempted to challenge them. ‘You really did your best? You spared no effort, toiled night and day, sweated blood, strained every nerve and muscle?’ Unlikely in the extreme. The words were so much guff – indeed sometimes spoken defensively to disguise actual negligence.

  Appalled by her own idleness, she sprang up from the chair and, using her free hand, tried to tidy the top-heavy pile of Times Educational Supplements. Would she ever get promotion? And how long could she afford to wait, without considering a move elsewhere? But, if she moved, who would bother about Angela or Abdul, or the difficult children from dreadful homes, or those, like her, who’d had no father in their lives?

  She had always longed to have children of her own – another type of waiting, and one almost at an end if she didn’t meet the right man fairly soon. Her ovaries must be flagging by now; her egg-supply decreasing daily in both quantity and quality. And even if modern technology developed to the point that allowed her to give birth in her fifties, she’d be too old to deal with her off
spring’s teenage tantrums and too poor to pay their college fees. Though, once again, she never said a word in public about broodiness or biological clocks, but let it be assumed that her job was so fulfilling, she simply didn’t have the incentive (let alone the time) to start a family. Fortunately, many of her contemporaries did truly feel that way, so at least she was in tune with the Zeitgeist, rather than pitied as a childless spinster, as her great-aunt would have been. Yet although she kidded all and sundry, it was much harder to deceive herself. The sad, stark truth was beginning to hit home: without a husband and a family, she wasn’t fulfilled and never would be.

  ‘Thank you for calling “Happy Endings”. We …’

  Lord, back to the beginning again! Perhaps she’d held on for so long, the whole sequence of recorded messages was about to be replayed. Or maybe her luck had changed for once and a real-life person would come on to the line. A happy ending from ‘Happy Endings’ would definitely be welcome: a helpful, willing operator who’d dispatch her order this very afternoon.

  ‘… please hold, and …’

  No, foiled again.

  Still chained to the receiver, she wandered to the window and stared out at the communal garden. Well, hardly communal. On the rare occasions she’d sat there, she hadn’t spoken to a single soul. Still, it was a bonus to have a decent view rather than look out at a bare brick wall and, with the roses in full bloom and the fuchsias cascading pink and purple, the flowerbeds looked magnificent.

  The Vivaldi had restarted – the same short section repeated ad infinitum between the recorded announcements. She’d been wrong about the seasons. It was still the beginning of Spring and, at this rate, would continue to be, long after the roses had shrivelled and the fuchsias were covered in snow.

  Well, she’d better use the time to learn some patience – probably a more important virtue than fortitude or temperance. After all, the whole of life could well be regarded as just a series of different periods of waiting: waiting to be born, waiting to grow up, waiting to leave school, or college, waiting for the right job, waiting to get married, waiting to conceive, waiting for your children to become grown-ups in their turn, waiting for retirement, waiting to enter a geriatric home, waiting for decay – and death.

  She remained standing at the window, watching a pair of blackbirds peck around the lawn. The sun was actually shining today, in contrast to the recent drizzly showers. In fact, she was tempted to sneak out there, if only for five minutes, just to feel the warmth on her face. But it would be madness to ring off when her call was being held in a queue and must, if there was any justice, be almost at the head of it by now.

  ‘… please hold, and …’

  For heaven’s sake! Was the queue a million-strong? – hordes of thwarted customers glued to the phone in their offices or sitting-rooms in every town and village in the land, trying desperately, heroically, to get through before they expired from sheer frustration.

  ‘All our operators are still busy, but your call is important to us …’

  ‘Rubbish!’ she retorted, her newly developed patience suddenly snapping at a stroke. If her call were truly important, they would hire a load more operators, or overhaul the entire ordering system. Anyway, since they hadn’t a clue who she was, or what her call was about, how the hell could they claim it was important? It reminded her of those people in her life who had told her that she mattered, then disappeared without a backward glance. Oh, yes, she’d been desperately important to her father – his cherub, his pet lamb, his favourite little girl in all the world – but that hadn’t stopped him walking out. In fact, he hadn’t so much as penned her a brief letter in the ensuing thirty-five years, to find out how she was. And what about her friend, Suzanne, who had never stopped enthusing about how precious their relationship was, and how much she’d always treasure it – until she found a husband. Now she couldn’t even be bothered to send a Christmas card. And Michael, of course, swearing eternal love, even planning all the details of their wedding, before getting cold feet and fleeing back to Mother.

  She slumped onto the sofa with the phone. Why was she still hanging on? Did she really want that dress? Wasn’t it too blatant and seductive, when her normal style tended towards the sober and the safe? Besides, the things you bought on mail order were often disappointing – the colour or style quite different from the illustration, the quality less good. Then you had to go to all the trouble of packing the stuff up again and trekking down to the post office (often waiting in a lengthy queue again) just to send it back.

  Come to think of it, did she even want the party? Why go to all that trouble and expense for friends who might not bother to turn up? And she certainly didn’t want the dog-basket because she wasn’t going to stay in Shropshire with an ailing aunt and an arthritic dog. The welcome might be warm, but the cottage itself was invariably cold, not to mention damp, and her great-aunt’s cooking centred mainly on potatoes.

  In fact, the longer you waited for something, the less its appeal. You could look forward to a holiday all year, only to find yourself beside the Seine or Danube, feeling homesick for the Thames. And birthdays were a letdown – just another day, no different from the one before, except you had to grapple harder with self-pity. And even promotion would probably end in tears. Any Head of Department job was bound to bring extra stress and strain, with few advantages to compensate. As for finding a man, there was no guarantee that he would actually be congenial, and you could hardly package up a husband, like a party-dress or dog-basket, and send him back for a refund. The same with giving birth. Your longed-for child might turn out to be delinquent or just plain difficult. Far better to have nothing and thus no chance of disillusionment. And far better to stop waiting, in order to free yourself to live.

  ‘… your call is important to us …’

  ‘Bugger off!’ she yelled, and banged down the receiver, though with relief instead of fury. She had her happy ending – at no cost whatsoever and without ordering a thing: she would no longer hope, or wait, or wish, or even keep pretending – there wasn’t any need. From this day forth, she would be perfectly content with what she had and who she was.

  And today she would spend in the gloriously sunny garden, not preparing next year’s lessons or catching up on reading, but doing nothing more demanding than making daisy-chains – and revelling in her new self-satisfaction.

  Robin

  Reaching out in panic, she pushed at the coffin lid. It was pressing down, pressing down, enclosing her in darkness. Cramped and claustrophobic. She could hear clods of earth thudding on the wood. The gravediggers must be filling in the hole.

  ‘Help!’ she screamed, but no sound came out. Her voice had gone. Her eyes had gone. Even the gravediggers had left now. She was all alone, alone for all eternity.

  Her hand snapped on the bedside light. Its beam dispersed the darkness, replacing the coffin with the marital bed, the graveyard with the bedroom. She opened her eyes to large pink cabbage-roses blooming on the walls, neatly drawn pink curtains, mahogany chest of drawers. For a moment she lay still, just listening to her heartbeat. Then she groped for Robin’s pyjamas, which she kept folded on his pillow, and buried her face in the stripy cotton fabric, trying to gather strength from him before she dared to look at the clock. If it was only 2 or 3 a.m., she would be plunged back into nightmare. In the early hours the normal world mutated; became a grotesque, deformed, hallucinatory void.

  Fumbling for her spectacles, she finally forced herself to check. Ten to blessed five. It would be light in less than an hour, and light was like a kindly mother, soothing away the terrors. It was time to get up, in any case. The alarm-bell would be shrilling any moment.

  Turning it to mute, she eased herself out of bed, trying to remember what day it was. Tuesday? Wednesday? Not that it really mattered, since all days were much the same now. She buttoned her thickest woolie over her long white nightgown, deciding to stay that way till bedtime. No point getting properly dressed when there was nobod
y to see her. Besides, it was becoming increasingly difficult to do up her bra or fasten her suspenders. She was as stiff as one of Robin’s wooden coat hangers.

  Having washed her face and cleaned her teeth, she went downstairs to make the tea, setting out the usual two cups, and opening the big, square tin with the picture of the Queen on, in her coronation robes. She doled out Robin’s three biscuits: one ginger nut, two custard creams. They had gone very stale and crumbly, but she refused to throw the packets away when Robin’s hand had touched them. Yet food was now the enemy – all those hundredweights of meals she had cooked over fifty-seven years: Cornish pasties, chicken pies, apple dumplings, steamed jam rolls. She had made them in her innocence, producing all his favourite things – and killing him in the process. But then how could she have known? In her day, sugar gave you energy and fat helped to oil the joints. You rarely made a sponge cake without filling it with jam; never served up mashed potatoes without a generous dollop of butter. Those were simple little luxuries, not poisons that clogged arteries or led to heart attacks.

  She drank her tea – and Robin’s – spooning the half-melted sugar from the bottom of the cup, the way he did himself. Then, putting on his anorak, she unlocked the back door. She had taken to wearing his jackets, even indoors in the warm. Being enveloped in his faint, intimate smell made him feel much closer, and she liked finding his small treasures in the pockets: lengths of string, old stained and faded handkerchiefs, the odd nail or screw, even, once, a dead beetle in a matchbox. The beetle was now precious, since presumably it had been alive when he had. Maybe he had spoken to it, as he often did to creepy-crawlies. (‘Not so fast, old boy. Where d’you think you’re off to?’ ‘Look, I don’t mind sharing the bath, but …’)