So Lucky

by Dawn O'Porter

  ‘Could I? You weren’t taking any notice of me.’

  I don’t know what to say.

  ‘It’s not how women should behave.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘From the moment you got pregnant it was all about you. How you were feeling, how birth would be for you. How I would take care of Tommy, so you could work. Being a mother has made you selfish. Sex-crazed.’

  ‘OK, Michael, I think you’re really upset. I didn’t mean this conversation to turn nasty. I just wanted to talk about our sex life.’

  ‘No, you wanted to tell me it’s my fault.’

  ‘No, I … for God’s sake, people are out there hurting each other. Cheating on each other. And I don’t want that to happen to us.’

  ‘Are you cheating on me?’ he asks, his eyes squinting.

  ‘No, that isn’t what I said. I said people are, and I don’t want us to …’

  ‘To what? To cheat on each other? Are you threatening me with infidelity?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t do that. I’m just saying that—’

  ‘You’re just saying that if I don’t have sex with you, you’ll cheat on me? Great, I feel really horny now.’

  ‘You’ve just twisted everything I’ve said.’

  ‘Well, that’ll go well with your twisted brain, won’t it?’ he says, like a petulant teenager who I will never be able to reason with.

  ‘Michael, stop it. You’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘Am I? Well maybe this marriage is ridiculous.’

  Wow.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry if that’s how that sounded, but it isn’t what I meant. I am not cheating on you, and I have no plans to.’

  Maybe that was a lie.

  ‘Good,’ he says, heading to the living room door. ‘Because with all the childcare that I’m doing, I know which parent would get the judge’s vote for custody.’

  ‘What did you just say?’ I ask him slowly, every hair on my body standing up, my spine breaking through my skin and the Mumma Bear in me preparing for attack.

  ‘You heard me,’ he says, standing firm.

  ‘You’re not doing childcare, Michael, you’re being a parent. Can we at least get that straight?’

  ‘Don’t test me. If you cheat on me, I’ll not make it easy for you. And I’ll take Tommy, you can bet on that.’

  He leaves the room. I am left dumbstruck.

  I came home to try to and work things out. Now, to be quite honest, he can go fuck himself.

  Ruby

  WhatsApp chat

  Group name – Falmouth Forever

  Yvonne: Feel fat, hate my clothes. What are you all wearing?

  Jess: Urgh, me too. Kids ruined me. Jeans, grey top with puffy sleeves, boring.

  Sarah: You are NOT FAT. Me, on the other hand. I was doing so well but I’m too busy to go to Pilates. I’ll probably wear what I wear every time I go out … a black smock.

  Ruby: I was thinking about wearing some velvet, maybe? ;)

  Yvonne: LOL. Can’t wait to see you in velvet Rubes, can’t imagine it ;)

  Every time I meet my friends for dinner they send a flurry of text messages explaining why they will look terrible. Very often the complaint is dress-size related. As if they will walk in, and one of us will scream in horror at their weight gain.

  I went to university with Yvonne, Jess and Sarah. We were at Falmouth, all doing degrees in Fine Art. I very much enjoyed the course, but living by the coast in a place that had a rampant surf scene was more challenging than I’d envisaged – when I first applied, I hadn’t realised my condition would get worse.

  But I managed to make good friends, and twenty years later we’re still in touch. We are all busy but manage to meet two to three times a year for dinner. I generally arrive kicking and screaming but quite enjoy it by the end. It’s always a little surprising when I get invited as, since they witnessed Liam’s outburst at the wedding, I have been even more cagey than usual. But they seem pretty determined to keep me in the group, all reminding me regularly of the times that I apparently ‘saved them’ from total despair.

  I’m not capable of giving myself that much credit. But I suppose what they are saying is true. I have, at different times, rescued them all from something. Jess’ experience is the one I remember most clearly. We all shared a house, which I hated because women seem to want to walk around wearing just towels or underwear. They never saw me in anything less than full-body velvet. It was at university that I truly made it my ‘thing’. Dressing gowns, trousers, tops, coats, dresses that I made, vintage discoveries. Looking back, I realise I looked like a sofa, but it got me through university. Like a punk who pierces her face, or a biker covered in tattoos, I claimed velvet as my look. I couldn’t afford full-body waxing back then, and the hair growth was still quite recent. I didn’t have a grip of it at all, and one stupid night I decided to shave. I had shaved my legs and armpits before, of course. But this night, I shaved everything. My legs, my arms, my stomach, my nipples. I even reached around to my back and shaved that. I felt like I had won the greatest prize on earth. I came out of the bathroom with just a towel around me. There was no one else home to see it, but the walk from the bathroom to my bedroom, with my shoulders exposed, felt like the most joyous victory lap imaginable. My friends were in a pub and I hadn’t wanted to go because my need for solitude was starting to develop. But that night, I felt free.

  I joined them in the pub. I even drank alcohol. Three drinks in total, my first in ages because I’d developed another fear of losing control. The drinks went to my head pretty quickly. I found myself flirting with a guy at the bar. He seemed to find me attractive, and I’d not flirted or been flirted with for a long time because I hadn’t allowed it to happen. I told myself to enjoy that night, the skin underneath my only sleeveless velvet dress loving the sensation of the air on it. I felt like I could fly.

  Jess was getting off with one of my guy’s housemates. At around eleven p.m. they suggested we went back to theirs to continue the party. We said yes. Jess and her guy went into the living room, me and my guy went into the kitchen. He made me a disgusting cocktail, which I drank because I was already feeling loose and had managed to convince myself that I was someone else. After a while we began kissing. It got quite heated so – most out of character but obviously fulfilling an unconscious desire – I asked him to take me to his room. I was a young woman, I had my needs. He did as I asked.

  He took off all of his clothes and got into bed. I stood looking at him, my velvet armour clinging to me as if it knew what was about to happen. He asked me what I was waiting for. I told him nothing. I took off my dress and my tights. I got into bed. He kissed me, and laid his hand on my stomach, then leaped out of bed, shaking his fingers like there was something sticky on them that he wanted to get off. He yelled, ‘What the fuck was that?’ And pointed to my belly.

  I ran my hand over it. Stubble so sharp it made a sound when I rubbed it the wrong way.

  The guy, Jonny, was now switching between laughter and obvious repulsion. ‘Did you shave your gut?’ My presence in his bedroom was impossible to understand. What was I even doing there? Why did I think this could be me?

  I got out of bed and got dressed. I didn’t say a word. He laughed at me as I left.

  I felt I couldn’t go without letting Jess know, so I quietly peeked into the living room, very aware that I could walk in on my friend having sex, which was not something I wanted to do. What I saw was Jess fast asleep on the sofa, and the guy she was with lying naked next to her. One hand in her underwear, the other hand wrapped around his penis – he was about to have sex with her.

  I immediately ran to the couch, pulled his hand off her and shook her as hard as I could.

  ‘Jess, wake up,’ I yelled, repeatedly. Shaking more and more violently until she came around.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing, you crazy bitch?’ the guy said, still naked. Still with his hand on his penis.

  ‘She was asleep, you animal,’ I said,
wanting to spit on him.

  ‘She was gagging for it,’ he groaned. No care for the damage he could have inflicted.

  I did the button up on Jess’ jeans, and put her arm over my shoulder, managing to get her out. We staggered with great difficulty for the fifteen-minute walk home. My back was killing me, but it wasn’t worse than what we had escaped.

  The next morning I told Jess exactly what I had seen and what had happened to her. She found the whole thing very hard to cope with, but was back at the pub and getting off with guys again within a few weeks.

  I didn’t get intimate with another man until I met Liam. And I never drank again.

  We are all mothers now.

  I have to do a little mental preparation before I meet Yvonne, Jess and Sarah. It isn’t that I don’t like them, I do. But the more time you spend alone, the harder it is to be sociable. These women see each other a lot so they’re quite relaxed with each other. Because I see them less they ask me a lot of questions and I find it quite overbearing.

  There is an awful lot of pressure to be a ‘woman’s woman’. Everyone’s talking about ‘women supporting women’, and ‘the power of female friendship’. It’s enough to make me stop reading the papers. Female relationships being written about like a bond men could never understand. How we are ‘stronger together’, how ‘magical things happen when women unite’. How girls run the world, according to Beyoncé. I don’t know if I’m particularly on board with any of that. I’m not sure I particularly like women, just because they are women.

  My relationship with the fairer sex has always been extremely complex. For most of my life they have fought against me. It started with my mother, then the girls at school, picking on me in the changing rooms and making monkey sounds at the very sight of my flesh.

  These women, my friends, are not cruel to me, despite me being quite unpleasant a lot of the time. After Liam said those awful things at our wedding I was so embarrassed that I barely saw them until Bonnie was born. They turned up unannounced at my house, like they were hosting some ridiculous intervention. Luckily, I was wearing my dressing gown. I allowed them in. They gathered around Bonnie like mad aunties. I didn’t admit it to them, but I enjoyed their visit. I told them I would resurface on the proviso we never talked about the wedding, that they never asked me any questions relating to what happened, and that they never showed up at my house unannounced again. They agreed to all of the above. Each stating again how much I had helped them at various times, and how they all owe me their support.

  Maybe they are right, because as well as helping Jess to escape rape, I once punched one of Sarah’s ex-boyfriends in the face because I saw him kissing another girl outside the college library. I went home and told her right away. She cried and accused me of lying, then went to his house where he opened the door with a black eye and a half-naked girl standing behind him. Sarah apologised to me and said that I could rely on her friendship forever. She’s kept this promise.

  I am wearing a black velvet version of the usual dress this evening with extensive costume jewellery and a fantastic Saint Laurent shoulder bag. When I am this hairy I go full throttle on my accessories. They’re the ultimate distraction. I was supposed to be freshly waxed for this dinner. I wanted to cancel, but they always give me hell if I try to do that.

  ‘Ruby, you look so skinny,’ says Yvonne, as I walk into the tapas bar in Soho. My instinct is to snap at her. What a hideous way to greet a woman. ‘So skinny’ is a loaded ‘hello’. ‘So skinny’ is not a compliment. It’s oozing with, ‘What is the matter? Are you depressed? Do you eat? Are you ill?’

  Women go on and on about wanting to be valued for more than their looks, but they do this to each other. They greet each other with compliments, often fake. I don’t want to look like a praying mantis. But if I gave in to food I’d swell up like a pregnant rhinoceros. Staying thin is a consistently agonising task. All women know that. Yvonne is projecting her own delusions about her size and possibly hoping I greet her with the same false positive. I don’t. She’s put on weight and it’s not worth denying.

  I am the last to arrive and they all stand awkwardly for me. They’ve all been told to get off me when they have touched my body. They’ve all been snapped at, told to shut up. Warned not to mention things enough times to be wary of how to be around me. I don’t feel good about being so demanding, but there is no doubt my time with them is easier since I set such boundaries.

  Their children are older than mine because it didn’t take them as long to find husbands. They all live in Queen’s Park. All living the dreamy London mum life, which centres around their kids’ social activities and dinner parties.

  ‘So how is Bonnie?’ asks Jess. She had her babies at home and runs a charity for pregnant women who live on the streets. The charity ensures they get the best chance possible for a safe delivery. She likes to tell stories about how homeless women, who have everything against them, still have wonderful experiences of birth. I have asked her many times not to relay them around me. She gets upset – once she even said I was selfish, which I suppose is true. But I explained about Bonnie hammering down onto my birth canal for hours, before being cut out of me, and how I now have a high chance of prolapse if I stand still for too long. That put an end to the happy birth stories.

  ‘Bonnie is alright. She was ill this week though, and we had a terrible time with her nursery so I was forced to find somewhere new.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Yvonne says. And I immediately wish I had lied, because then she does that thing that people do when they are very happy with something in their life, and start recommending it to you over and over again despite you telling them it isn’t right. ‘I can speak to the ladies at the nursery Florence used to go to, they’re so lovely. Oh God, I miss them. I can ask them on Monday.’

  ‘No, don’t do that,’ I say. ‘I’ve found a new place and I live in Kentish Town anyway, I couldn’t take her down there every day.’

  ‘Oh, but it’s so good. Seriously, worth the commute,’ she says, not listening to me.

  ‘I can’t take her to nursery in Queen’s Park, I don’t live there. I found a new place. She just needs to settle in.’ I’m trying to stay calm and rational.

  We all stop to order some drinks as the waiter has been hovering over us. The others order a bottle of wine and I order an Arnold Palmer as a special treat.

  ‘Oh, you know who I could ask,’ says Sarah to Jess. ‘I could ask Mary, the one who runs the place Sammy used to go to, she’s got an extension I think, so she has more room.’ Jess nods cheerily, as if it’s a great idea.

  ‘Where is it?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, just off the park,’ Jess says.

  ‘Which park?’ I ask, preparing my eyes for an enormous roll.

  ‘Queen’s Park,’ she and Sarah say in unison.

  ‘I don’t live in Queen’s Park,’ I say. Again.

  ‘Yes, but this place is sooooo good, you could just …’

  ‘No. No, I can’t just. I don’t live there, I don’t want to go there. You can stop making suggestions now, I’ll work it out.’ I don’t like being mothered, it makes me uncomfortable. It is a side-effect of never having been mothered. It makes me feel like someone is putting a hot, heavy blanket over my head. Being cared for is very claustrophobic for me.

  There is an awkward silence. There are always awkward silences. I actually don’t find them that awkward because the thing that I want to stop, has indeed stopped.

  ‘Are you OK, Ruby?’ Sarah asks. ‘You seem even more tense than usual.’

  They all find this funny. I tell them there is nothing wrong, but they insist I share whatever’s on my mind.

  ‘Liam said something,’ I say, causing them all to take sharp intakes of breath. They have been warned countless times not to talk about Liam. They obviously tried to investigate further after the nightmare of the wedding, but I shut it all down. I shut them down, then I had Bonnie, and I shut the marriage down.

  ‘It’s OK. In thi
s particular capacity I’m happy to discuss him, you can all breathe out now,’ I say, reassuringly, and they all do. Jess’ eyes light up; for some weird reason she reminds me of the mouse.

  ‘He made a comment that has upset me,’ I say.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Jess says, darting her eyes at Yvonne who makes a ‘yikes’ face. ‘This is never a good start.’

  ‘What did he say, my love?’ Yvonne says gently. She definitely owes me a sympathetic ear.

  The time I ‘saved’ Yvonne was possibly the most remarkable. I walked in on her making herself sick in our third year. She had lost a dramatic amount of weight and insisted it was just the stress and pressure of the final exams. When I walked into the bathroom and caught her, fingers wedged firmly down her throat, she looked at me with a look that maybe a murderer would have given me, had I have walked in on them mid-stab. She was scared, threatened, but also determined to carry on.

  She ran to the door and slammed it shut, almost trapping my fingers. I hammered for her to let me in, but she wouldn’t. So I sat on the floor in the hallway and talked to her until she calmed down. I told her I could hear everything she was doing, and that if she was sick I would know. Her problem was a secret and she couldn’t bear for me to hear her do it, so she slumped on one side of the door, and I sat on the other. We stayed like this for hours not saying anything, while she cried and cried. I never left, not even once. Eventually I coaxed her out. She held me and cried some more, admitting to having done this for years with no one knowing, that she hated herself for it, that she wanted to stop. I sat with her and held her hand while she called her mum and told her. Something that very much came from her. I can’t imagine calling my mum when upset, it would be like burning my toe and then jumping into a fire. I forget other people receive comfort and support from their mothers in times of need. I then drove Yvonne to Bristol to her family home, where she stayed for six weeks until she felt like she could return. To my knowledge, vomit-free.