Stranger Still

by Marilyn Messik

  As the sickness started to recede, I sat up straighter and smiled my thanks to Trudie, who’d slipped through the small space Brenda left in the doorway, with a cup of tea and a plain biscuit, she put her arm round my shoulders and gave a squeeze. As a mother of five, she’d taken it upon herself to give hugs whenever I was near enough. At the beginning I hadn’t been keen, but she meant so well I couldn’t hurt her feelings, and after a while I got used to it and found it oddly comforting, although I did have to ask her to hold back if clients were there; it just didn’t look professional.

  “You mean Joy?” I said to Brenda.

  “Of course,” Brenda came fully into the room and Aunt Kitty, who’d just turned up, although I couldn’t think why, this was another one of not-her-days, followed her in, parking her trolley-on-wheels in the doorway where someone else was bound to fall over it.

  “She’s right, you know.” Kitty, standing next to Brenda usually made me grin. Brenda, a tall woman shaped as she put it ‘for comfort over speed’, towered above Kitty who’d only been five foot in her heyday and was certainly shorter now. I wasn’t smiling now though, because they were right, there was something very wrong with Joy.

  When she’d joined us, nearly three years ago now - blonde bobbed, red lipsticked, more energy than the Duracell Bunny and a distinctive, pink candy-floss scent – life spilled out of her. Despite mock-cursing her late parents for their name choice, it couldn’t have suited her better, but it was more than just her name that had changed over the last months and yet I knew she was happy.

  “How can you say that?” queried Brenda, “You can’t ever know what’s really going on in someone’s head?”

  I shrugged, “Just a feeling I suppose.” But it wasn’t a feeling, it was a certainty, I’d stake my life on it. I don’t like to take liberties, but in Joy’s case I made an exception and automatically checked her whenever our paths crossed. It had become a habit of which I wasn’t proud but the result was I knew how she was, at any given time of the day.

  “But you’ve only got to look at her,” Brenda was saying now, her voice low, aware Joy could nip up from downstairs at any time. “It can’t be right.”

  It wasn’t. Joy was shrinking in every possible way, inches, attitude, confidence. She’d always made most of her own clothes – she had a great figure, innate taste and style and knew what suited. Changes in how she now dressed had been gradual, not immediately noticeable. I knew Trevor enjoyed taking her shopping, said he didn’t want his wife sitting at a sewing machine when she could buy whatever she wanted. Apparently he’d scoop up an armful of items in a store, bringing them all for her to try on, one after the other, until she didn’t know where she was and he’d tell her not to worry about choosing, why not take them all? The assistants, busy wrapping, would tell her she didn’t know how lucky she was, and she’d laugh and tell them that actually she did. Maybe it wasn’t surprising how, over time, his taste and preferences were reflected a little more than her own and perhaps suited her slightly less.

  Trevor had said he’d love to see her hair a softer colour, maybe she’d even grow it a bit? Then he wondered if that softer colour didn’t call for a whole new range of make-up. They’d gone up to Harrods one Saturday afternoon and, sitting on a high stool she’d been thoroughly Mary Quanted; quite a pale look but apparently very ‘now’ and Trevor loved it, said he couldn’t get over how gorgeous she looked. There was a pile of stuff they’d used on her face; moisturiser, toner and goodness knows what else and that, she’d said, was before they’d even started with the actual make-up. Trevor had winked at the Quant lady and said they’d better take it all or he’d never hear the last of it. Joy had laughingly protested; said she honestly didn’t need all that and when on earth would she find time to put it on? But Trevor had jokingly put his hand across her lips, told the saleswomen to take no notice of her, told Joy he’d never had anyone to spoil before and that if she loved him, she’d let him.

  Trevor thought it was wonderful that she’d started a patch in their garden to grow herbs and vegetables the way she’d done before they were married. He did worry though about her getting earth right up under her nails, there were infections you could pick up from soil, he said, and after all, you never knew quite where next door’s cat was doing her business. Joy didn’t want him worried, so took to gardening when he was out, but inevitably there was less and less time for it and it was true, her hands did benefit and he’d pointed that out, said her nails were growing beautifully and she must start having a weekly manicure – but he was also terribly concerned she may be missing out on something she loved, so he went straight to the newsagent to arrange for three different, glossy gardening magazines to be delivered every month. That way, she had the best of both worlds, elegant hands and not missing out on the pleasures of gardening.

  It was Hilary, delving for a sneaky snack one morning who discovered Joy had emptied her desk of its previously always-to-be-counted-on stock of Walnut Whips. Joy came downstairs, just in time to catch Hilary’s displeasure, laughed and said not to worry, she’d get Hilary some for her own desk. Apparently, Hilary told us later, Trevor hadn’t said anything, but Joy could tell he was concerned about something and eventually got it out of him. He was worried she might be getting just the teeniest bit stout – sure sign of a happy marriage, he said, but if they were going to start a family of their own, she wouldn’t want to spoil their chances in any way, would she?

  There was no disputing; Joy felt Trevor was the most wonderful husband any girl could have had the luck to find. At the same time there was no doubt she was looking, sounding and acting like a completely different woman. But a completely happy woman. We had no right to comment, let alone interfere in any way. Although that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to keep checking. And that was what I told Brenda.

  * * * *

  I wasn’t sleeping well, so neither was David. He said it was like being in bed with a family of squirrels fighting over breakfast, an odd analogy I thought, but not one I had the energy to question. Not only couldn’t I get comfortable in bed, but during the day my head felt muzzy and lazy a lot of the time. That lasted until I climbed into bed, whereupon all hell broke loose and I was on full red alert.

  My concentration wasn’t what it had been either. I did silly things like floating a basket of washing ahead of me down the stairs, forgetting what I’d done it and tripping over it. Another day I’d lifted a box of Sugar Puffs from the larder because I couldn’t be bothered to get up from the table. Halfway across the room, I must have been distracted for a second or two, it was a nearly full box with contents not easy to clean up due to stickiness and we were treading on strays for days.

  I was missing Ruth and Rachael dreadfully, which was plain silly. If it was a chat you wanted, Rachael was never going to be your woman and Ruth, on the odd occasion I tried, never seemed to be there. After Glory’s warning-off, I was also acutely aware I shouldn’t say too much, so it was ages since we’d spoken. I was dreaming a lot, tangible stuff - sounds, smells, tastes, colours, it was like sitting in the front row of a crowded cinema for several showings and all rather exhausting. I could never remember them clearly when I woke, only the uncomfortably unpleasant after-taste they left, along with a background headache from sitting too close to the screen. And the whole time there was a rhyme going round and round and up and down in my head. I didn’t have the words, just the rhythm and I didn’t know whether it was a nursery rhyme or a song I’d heard, but it was driving me nuts.

  I’d woken David and Kat a few times by screaming loudly. He said I wasn’t properly awake and was babbling about ‘the smiley one’. When it happened for the fourth night in a row, he muttered something about me making about as much sense asleep as awake, which I felt was unnecessarily snarky and uncalled for.

  We’d originally discussed and decided against having Kat sleep in our room and David purchased a splendid, purple cushioned basket for her. He brought this out nightly with great ceremony and
placed it temptingly in the hall, next to the radiator, exclaiming loudly - he read that if you enthuse, your dog will pick up on that and want a bit of whatever you’re enthusing about. Kat must have missed that article because she paused only to briefly sniff the basket on her way to the bedroom.

  David thought she just needed training. For a few days he picked her up, no easy task and placed her gently in the basket where I softly stroked her head and murmured soothingly for a minute or two, before a mad dash was made for the bedroom. There should only have been two dashing but in fact it was three, and one of us always got there first, dived under the dressing table and refused to come out. After a while we gave up and gave in and the purple basket was moved to a corner of the living room where it took up service as an unorthodox and not very efficient magazine rack.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I’d settled nicely into my routine visits to Midwife Mavis, although however hard I tried, I always seemed to turn up late and that never went down well. ‘Only person round here allowed to be late is Baby!’ she was fond of stating.

  That day, when I left for my appointment. Joy was on the phone at the front desk. She was in a brown and grey check pinafore dress over a high-necked cream blouse with a pussycat bow. Her hair was pulled tightly back from her face and combined with the pale, off-white lipstick she’d adopted, made her look a little drained. She smiled up at me without interrupting the long-winded holiday query that was going on. I mimed I was off to the surgery and she thumbs-upped me. In days gone by, she’d have whipped open her desk drawer to offer me sustenance on the way, although it was probably better for the general health of all that she was on her diet.

  Quite apart from what she kept in her drawer; Joy used to be sugar-sweet scented; pink candy-floss textured but there was only the merest hint of that now. I’d never come across anything like it before. It felt to me as if she was in an imperceptibly shrinking space; walls, ceiling, floor, fractionally yet inexorably closing in. The impact of that impression was so strong I stopped. She put her hand over the mouthpiece.

  “Stella, you OK?”

  “Fine,” I said, “thought I’d forgotten something, but I haven’t, just baby-brain!” she smiled and turned her attention back to the call. They were busy in the travel agency, despite Martin wandering around exuding doom and gloom and muttering ‘this was their worst year ever’. Hilary said ignore him, he said the same thing annually. Today both Hilary and Martin had clients at their desks, currently in that state of blissful anticipatory sun-kissed stupor brought on by glossy brochures. Hilary spotted me and beckoned me over.

  “Stella, do me a favour? Passing Michele’s?” I nodded and she burrowed briefly, apologising to the couple in front of her as she handed me a paper bag, “promised I’d get these back to her, d’you mind awfully?” Young’s was a few doors up the road. It was, Martin said unkindly, the place buttons went to die but the fact Hilary spent far too much time and money there, probably accounted for the cynicism.

  Michele was behind the counter telling a customer that if she thought zig-zag trim would go with that jacket, she needed her eyes testing. Michele was never slow in coming forward with an opinion and most customers didn’t seem to mind. She maintained those that did mind needn’t bother coming back, which I suppose was one approach to customer service.

  Having come to my rescue outside Mac Fisheries early on in my pregnancy, Michele always looked slightly anxious when she saw me. She wasn’t a hands-on sort of a woman and preferred a counter’s distance between her and anyone else.

  “You heard about last week, I suppose?” she said pursing her lips, “shocking fuss with your women.” Michele ran a continuing war of attrition with our group of temperamental and often irascible clothes-alteration ladies, who were even more opinionated than she was. I wished she wouldn’t keep calling them my women - made it sound like I was running a brothel.

  Our ‘alterations department’ were five ladies who met by chance, attending weekly English conversation classes at the Town Hall. Amongst a lot of men and younger people, they’d formed their own little clique. Their English, at the end of the course was no better than at the beginning, but they had established a mutual understanding and a great friendship. Two were Polish, one Russian, another hailed from India and the last of the gang was French. None could speak the language of the others, apart from the two Poles, naturally, but by coincidence each had been, back home, a skilled seamstress and it turned out there was nothing they couldn’t design; make, alter, embroider or bead.

  Kitty came across them when treating herself to tea and a chocolate slice at the Florence Lounge in Hendon. They were all of a similar vintage and they’d invited her to join them. With broken English supplemented by Hindi, Yiddish, Russian, Polish and French; a lot of miming and much hilarity, they explained what they did; she told them what she did and then she brought them to see me, which was how Simple Solutions came to have the best design and dressmaking team this side of Chanel! Every commission was, it has to be said, accompanied by obligatory haggling over rates and deadlines and often greeted with head shakes and hysteria before being impeccably completed. The amount of business we gave them was growing and as a consequence, so were their dealings with Michele, who’d found to her annoyance that her opinion was neither wanted, needed nor listened to. Last week’s stand-off apparently was over specially ordered pearl buttons which were found wanting. Multilingual heated recriminations were exchanged and apparently insults and a lot of buttons had been thrown before resolution was reached.

  “I did hear,” I said, “And I know they can get excitable.”

  “Excitable’s not what I’d call it,” Michele arched her neck like an offended swan, but I could see she wasn’t that bothered, she felt there was nothing like a good argument to get the energy flowing. I left her to further castigation of the zig-zag trim lady, and made my way to where I’d parked the car.

  David had taken it upon himself to make a car change and one day with maximum drama and a blindfold had presented me with a surprise waiting in the road. It was enormous.

  “What do you think?” he asked. I thought I’d never be able to climb up into the driving seat; I thought even if I did, I stood no chance of seeing over the steering wheel; I thought I wouldn’t be able to park it in a month of Sundays; I wondered if the garage would take it back and I thought wasn’t it good thing David couldn’t read my mind. I plumped for honesty.

  “I’m pretty speechless.”

  “Quite something, isn’t it?” he said patting it proprietorially.

  “It is indeed quite something.”

  “It’s a Rancho. Lots of room for a carrycot in the back and I’ve had straps put in, so the baby won’t fall off the seat.

  “Thoughtful.”

  “And look, there are fold down seats at the back, we could probably get as many as ten people in.”

  “Good to know.”

  Unsurprisingly, David was in no way open to the idea of taking it back, even when he suggested I took it for a spin and climbing in proved as problematic as I’d feared, and was only finally achieved by a two-handed heave to my rear end. Once in, with the seat cranked high, I could in fact see over the steering wheel – just. The vehicle had the widest tyres I’d ever seen, other than on an armoured tank, so any manoeuvre was enough to make a strong man weep, let alone an eight-month pregnant woman. When we were together, David drove, and when I was on my own, provided no-one was watching, I had to elevate myself, bump and all, drift sideways into the seat and add a little extra something to the wheel turning – my own version of power steering.

  Now, aware I was running late for Mavis, I made good time to the clinic car park and was relieved to find and fit into a parking space. I was having my usual battle of wills with the steering lock which had a bloody mindedness all its own, when there was a sudden sharp metallic rapping on the window, right by my ear. I jumped. The woman who’d used her car keys to noisy effect was shouting and gesticulating,
I thought maybe she was in trouble of some kind and wound the window down hastily. Turned out she was just angry.

  “That’s my parking space,” she yelled.

  “I’m sorry?” I wondered if she was one of the doctors who had allocated places, although if she was, I didn’t think much of her bedside manner. “Actually I didn’t see it was reserved.”

  She glared at me, “S’not reserved, you snooty cow, I saw it first, then you drove in and took it.”

  I really didn’t need this. “I’m so sorry,” I said, I know how annoying that can be, but it was an empty space, perhaps you could go to that other one, look just over there.”

  “Why should I? You go.” This was getting silly and I didn’t have time for silly. I opened the door, forcing her to move back, I could see she had problems, the least of which was the parking space issue. In her head there were an awful lot of grudges, I was just the latest. She raised a threatening fist with the sharp key protruding between her clenched fingers, I don’t think she actually planned to hit me but I lifted her up and shifted her sharply out of my the way, setting her down by her car, which had stopped askew behind mine with the door hanging open. A toddler was standing in the front seat watching solemnly.

  “Don’t you bloody shove me” she snarled.

  “You’re not setting a very good example are you?” I pointed out, looking at the kid in the car and she spat out an instruction as to what I should do next, which I probably deserved. The child had now climbed down from the car and was crying.

  “Shuddup!” she whirled and bent to give him a swift, stinging slap on the back of his legs. Now that wasn’t necessary, it wasn’t his fault. She was tightless and there was a lot of pale, goose-pimpled flesh showing below a mini-skirt, so I showed her just how painful that sort of slap could be on a bare leg. She swung round baffled, but of course there was no-one behind her.