The Venus Trap

by Voss, Louise

  ‘Sorry. But you are my baby. Dad’s working away this week, in Germany. Even if we were still together, you wouldn’t see him until the weekend.’

  ‘Huh,’ she said, the seven-year-old cynic. ‘I don’t believe you. You’re just saying that. Can you bring Lester here, please? I need cheering up. But don’t feed him, because I want to.’

  I was relieved that we seemed to be off the subject again. ‘You’d better get up, then. He’s hungry—listen to him.’

  ‘Let me play with him first, just for a minute?’

  ‘Oh, all right. I’ll let him in.’

  The truth was, I wanted him to come in too. It was part of our routine. Insane as it sounded, Lester goes quite a long way to filling the gap left by Richard and then, for me, Sean.

  I plodded down the hall and opened the kitchen door, on auto-pilot. Same thing every morning: switch on the radio, fill the kettle, pour crunchies into the cat’s bowl, make Megan’s sandwiches. That part of our lives at least had been unchanged by the divorce—Richard was always up and out before either of us girls surfaced.

  I miss it so much. Particularly now, when I can’t plod anywhere except in here to the bathroom, four paces away. I think longingly of the simple pleasure of making tea and feeding the cat.

  ‘Interview you?’ Claudio repeats, breaking my reverie. I can’t be bothered to explain, though. Fortunately, Lester joins Claudio and me now, climbing into his litter tray and starting to rake and shuffle enthusiastically. He’s been a fellow hostage with me since Claudio gave in to my pleas to bring his bowls and tray into my bathroom yesterday. He—Lester—is delighted. He rarely uses the cat-flaps I installed in the flat door and the downstairs back door and has become a house cat anyway.

  ‘That’s something else that Megan and I do in the mornings. We hang out with the cat,’ I tell Claudio as Lester squats, pointedly avoiding our gaze. ‘He must be almost out of dry food by now. Please could you go out and buy some more?’

  He looks at me suspiciously. ‘I’ll check,’ he says. ‘Bloody hell, it’s getting it everywhere.’

  Lester’s post-poo paw raking has indeed become even more enthusiastic, and cat litter sprays around the floor. ‘That’s my cue to leave,’ Claudio says, standing up. I could kiss Lester.

  ‘If you bring me some more plastic bags, I’ll scoop his tray out.’

  ‘Yes, dear.’

  I can’t tell if he’s saying it sarcastically or not.

  In a self-pitying sort of way it occurs to me that Claudio is like a hideous fairytale mutation of a husband: I went to sleep one night with a lovely husband and daughter and awoke to find them gone and in their place an ogre with bad breath and nylon shirts who keeps me captive in the bedroom. But I can’t even blame Claudio. He didn’t wreck my marriage: I did that all by myself.

  ‘Before I go, though, I want your diary back.’

  I have to make a colossal effort not to let my eyes fill up again. ‘Why?’

  ‘You said you’d talk to me, but you hardly say anything. I’m going to have to find it out for myself.’

  ‘I am talking to you, Claudio! I’ve just told you about Megan! Ask me whatever you want. But I need it. I’ve not had time to read more yet. Let’s talk later—you were in the swimming club with me, weren’t you? We could talk about that?’

  I hope I don’t sound too desperate. It’s so hard to get the balance right of how I speak to him.

  ‘Doug the trainer. Going to galas in a coach. I remember all that,’ Claudio says nostalgically. ‘Do you still swim? I haven’t been swimming for years.’

  I nod. ‘Yes. Donna and I go every week.’

  He laughs. ‘You still see Donna Barrington-Brown? How funny.’

  Why? I think.

  ‘She’s still my best friend. Although she’s now Donna Hayden. She married a guy called Henry Hayden—he’s a policeman.’ I say this pointedly, but Claudio doesn’t react.

  ‘Well, I suppose you can keep the diary again for today,’ he magnanimously agrees.

  Big of you, arsehole.

  He yawns. ‘It’s still really early. I’m going to go back to bed for a bit.’ He looks pointedly through the open bathroom door at my rumpled bed. ‘Unless I could . . . ?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘OK then,’ he says sulkily. ‘See you later. Glad you’re feeling better.’

  I manage not to snort. But at least he’s still asking permission for intimacy, and accepting my refusals. I wonder how long that will last before he loses patience.

  When he’s gone, I climb back into bed and try to get back to sleep, but I can’t. Megan fills my thoughts like a lost lover, and my yearning for her becomes almost physical.

  It occurs to me that the morning Megan interviewed me was the same day as my second date with Claudio. It seems like ages ago but it was only last week. After I picked her up from school I asked her opinion on the outfit I’d chosen for the date, the tight red dress that Richard had bought me, high wedge red espadrilles, with a big clashy bracelet with lots of fat coloured glass beads on it. The look I was going for was smart, but slightly funky.

  She came into my room, not even noticing what I was wearing but away like a greyhound out of the traps on a train of thought: ‘Mummy, so, will you test me on money? We’re doing that at school, I need to learn about my change, I can do it using sticks and blobs, go on, give me one, but nothing too difficult just something that I can probably do like maybe say if I had one pound of pocket money then I bought something in Poundland, some glitter pens or something for another certain amount then how much would I have left? That sort of thing.’

  ‘Say you went into Poundland and bought some glitter pens that cost 79p, and paid for them with your one pound pocket money. How much change would you get?’ I asked obediently, twisting round to check how my backside looked.

  ‘Mummy. They wouldn’t be 79p because everything in Poundland is ONE POUND.’ She grinned, delighted at catching me out.

  ‘Oh yeah. So it would. OK, Tesco’s then.’

  ‘OK, right, so I give the lady on the till my one pound which is ten sticks, and it costs 79 pence which is seven sticks and nine blobs or sometimes we call them chocolate bars and sweeties, so it’s seven chocolate bars and nine sweeties but not Licorice Allsorts cos I don’t like them, maybe Maltesers or something instead . . . ? No, not Maltesers cos that’s chocolate so it might get confusing. Jelly babies. Seven chocolate bars and nine jelly babies. One makes ten which adds up to eight sticks . . . . nine . . . ten . . . that equals a pound . . . So that’s—um—three sticks and one blob—31p?’

  I just about managed to remember what the original sum was. ‘No, sweetie, that’s not right.’

  ‘It is!’

  ‘No—it was one pound take away 79p.’

  ‘Yes—31p!’

  ‘No—because 31 and 79 equals 110. One pound ten pence. The right answer is 21 pence.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’ Megan’s voice was crackly with outrage. I realised I’d better try to head off this new tantrum at the pass.

  ‘Hey, Beans, guess who’s coming over tonight?’

  ‘Father Christmas and Taylor Swift?’

  ‘Um . . . no. Guess again.’

  ‘Sharon Osborne and Professor Dumbledore!’

  ‘No. A real person, not from books or on TV. Someone you already know.’

  ‘Sharon Osborne and Taylor Swift are real people.’

  ‘Yes I know, but—oh, never mind: Zuzana!’

  There was a pause. ‘To babysit? You’re going out?’

  ‘Yes. I’m going for a drink with a friend.’

  Megan’s voice raised into a wail. ‘Why can’t I come?’

  ‘It’s a grown-up evening and you don’t know my friend.’ Nor do I, I thought, not very well. ‘You’d be bored out of your brain. Anyway, you have lots of treats c
oming up.’

  ‘Yes.’ Megan sniffed. ‘So does that mean it’s my birthday next month, because you said me and Daddy were going to Disneyland for my birthday?’

  ‘Nearly. It’s July now, and then you’re going at the end of August, in time for the first of September.’

  ‘So, my birthday is on September first which means that from September to December I am seven and a quarter, then from December to April I’m seven and a half, then until June I am still seven and a half, and then from June until September I’m seven and three quarters! Which means that I’m seven and three quarters now because it’s July so it’s my birthday soon and can I have another make-over party but this time with the cinema too and maybe some pony riding? Daddy said I can.’

  ‘But I thought we agreed he was taking you to Disneyland for your present?’

  ‘Yes. But I need to do something with my friends too.’

  ‘Well, yes, I expect so. So—what do you think?’ I gave her a twirl.

  ‘Ye-es,’ said Megan, head on one side, scrutinising me. ‘You look quite nice, Mummy, but . . .’

  ‘What, sweetie?’ I allowed myself a small daydream about me and Claudio really hitting it off, and going for weekends away to Paris on Eurostar. Oh, the irony.

  ‘I think you need another colour. Red on its own is a bit boring. Can’t you wear your pink scarf as well?’

  ‘I don’t think that would really go, angel.’

  ‘Can I wear it, then?’

  ‘OK, but only until Zuzana comes. Then you take it off and go to bed when she tells you. Yes?’

  ‘Yes, Mummy.’ She skipped off triumphantly, Lester trying to pounce on the tassels of my lovely pink scarf, which was trailing down behind her back. She was too quick for him, though, so he gave up and settled down on the bed, hoiked up his back leg, and proceeded to lick his own penis instead. All right for some.

  I look at the clock—6.00 a.m. There’s no way I’m going to get back to sleep now, so I obediently open the diary again and find the entry where I talk about the swimming club. I’m already dreading having to talk to Claudio about it later.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Day 3

  29th December 1986

  Things I can do when I’ve got smaller boobs:

  – Wear a bikini

  – Wear a vest top

  – Wear wide belts (although would they make my bottom look huge?)

  – Little lacy bras!!!!

  – Wear strappy dresses

  – Go jogging

  – Stand on the poolside at training without my arms crossed

  I’ve been thinking about this one thing for months, long before the attack, but it’s the memory of those cold, grabbing hands on my chest that has made me decide that I’m really, definitely, going to do it: I’m going to get a breast reduction.

  They still don’t seem to have stopped growing, even though I’m sixteen. They just get bigger and bigger. It’s like living with a pair of starving hungry twins. I’m a 34H! I’m not sure bras come any bigger than that. I remember the first time I ever noticed them, in a photograph when I was eleven, at the last sports day of junior school, triumphantly winning the three-legged race with Hannah. Hannah was tiny and neat, and her shins so twig-like, it looked as though she would have just floated away if she hadn’t been tethered to me. In the photograph, I am a huge galumphing elephant, dragging Hannah along to victory in my wake. But the worst thing about the shot was my terrible prepubescent breasts. They were small then, but still flapping about in opposite directions on my chest as I ran. Mum confirmed my fears by marching me down to Just Jane to get my first bra fitted the day after we’d got the photos developed.

  From then on my boobs just grew and grew. It’s like they too are taking part in some kind of race, straining towards an invisible finish line. It doesn’t matter how I try to contain or hide them, there’s no disguising their disproportionate size.

  They are truly terrible. And since two weeks ago when I walked through that alley, it’s even worse. They’re like an obsession. I can’t bear to look at them in the mirror, clothed or unclothed, and I definitely couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else looking at them, either.

  It’ll be so great. Imagine not having to squash these things into my tight Speedo any more, or having to walk out of the changing rooms with my arms crossed. I might even shower naked after training like the other girls do, and not in my swimming costume! As long as the scars aren’t too bad, of course . . .

  Doug (aka Slug,or Sluggage) won’t be able to talk straight at them any more. Ugh. Doug and his nylon navy tracksuit, spittly whistle around neck, chlorine-saturated bald spot on head. I won’t have to worry that as soon as I get out of the pool, they’ll all stare at my boobs. All those horrible boys, letching after me. Claudio Cavelli and Nigel Weston and Peter Henrich, all thinking it’s fine to stare at me, because Doug does it.

  That stranger touched them, squeezed them, and manhandled them, in the alley. Perhaps that was why he chose me to attack? He’d noticed them, sticking out in two big fat lumps even through my duffel coat. If I’d had neat little unobtrusive ones like Donna’s, he’d have left me alone.

  They have to go, these ungainly mounds of flesh. I feel like taking a carving knife and cutting them off myself. I was afraid before; afraid of the surgeon and the anaesthetic and the embarrassment of having doctors and nurses see my naked breasts in all their mammoth non-splendour—but now, none of that matters. Not after what that man did to me. I just want rid of them.

  Plus, dare I say it, John might fancy me once I have the operation—another good reason to have it done, and soon.

  I went to see Dr Hamber this morning, pretending to the receptionist that it was about that wart on my finger. I asked him how much it would cost, and if you have to be eighteen. When I got into his consulting room he made me lift up my shirt while he inspected my boobs, in their ugly grey bra, and my cheeks burned when I held the shirt in front of my face. I was so glad of its cover so that I didn’t have to look at him. He’s known me since I was a baby. It’s weird.

  ‘Yes, well, they’re certainly large enough for you to have the operation on the National Health,’ he said cheerfully, and I wanted to cry. My boobs are so big that it wouldn’t even be considered vanity to have them reduced!!! He said I didn’t have to be eighteen as long as I had my mum’s permission, but that there was a waiting list of a couple of years so if I wanted it done sooner, I’d have to go privately and it would cost about two and a half thousand pounds.

  Two and a half grand! I asked him to put me on the NHS waiting list and came home in tears, but when I told Mum why I was crying, she said something incredible: Daddy left me some money in his will! She hadn’t planned to tell me about it until I was eighteen, but she thought I could use it for the op!! I hugged her so hard she squeaked. Then I rang Donna to tell her, and this was her response:

  ‘You’re off your head! Why? All that pain, and being in hospital, and having scars—are you sure?’

  Then I didn’t want to discuss it any more, not if she was going to be so negative. So we got onto the topic of how many verrucas Nigel Weston’s got. You can see them when he tumble-turns next to us. His spotty back, bum, and legs rise up into the air and sink down again out of sight, like a whale blowing. Then when he swims off you catch a glimpse of a foot, the sole all peppered with black verrucas.

  ‘Why are all the boys in this club so disgusting? Nigel Weston—acne and verrucas, mmm, attractive. And don’t you think he looks like he’s got a chipolata in his Speedos?’

  ‘He fancies you,’ I said, grateful that Donna could make me feel even halfway normal again. Although I’m a bit annoyed that she hasn’t taken the news of my operation seriously. Bet she thinks I won’t go through with it.

  ‘Yeah. And Claudio fancies you. Aren’t we just the lucky pair?’

  We cha
tted for a bit longer but I wasn’t concentrating. I just kept imagining myself with small, pert bosoms, and smiled down the phone to Donna without her knowing. At least something can make me smile.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Day 3

  I thought he wanted to talk about the swimming club, but when Claudio storms into my room later that morning, slamming the door behind him and dangling the key menacingly, tantalisingly, in front of me in between his thumb and forefinger, I can see that reminiscing is the last thing on his mind. I’ve been sitting on the bed reading my diary, and I drop it to the floor with shock.

  ‘You’ve been lying to me, Jo.’ He looks furious.

  I’m too frightened of him to refuse to reply. I draw my knees protectively up to my body and hug them tight. ‘What? No I haven’t! Why do you say that?’

  He continues as though I haven’t spoken. ‘I won’t have it, Jo, I just won’t have it. We have to have absolute trust!’

  Trust? Yeah, right.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  He sits down next to me on the bed, not touching me, but putting his face so close to mine that even in the dim light I can see all the open pores around his nose and the stray hairs in his eyebrows.

  ‘You told me you and Sean had finished . . .’ he hisses.

  ‘We have!’ My voice is a squeak short of panic.

  Frigging Sean, still causing trouble for me.

  ‘That’s not what it sounds like.’

  ‘Claudio, you have to explain. Sean and I split up six months ago.’

  He takes an exaggeratedly deep breath, as though I am a particularly stupid pupil and he is a long-suffering head teacher.

  ‘Then why would he send you a text saying “Good to see you last week, kiss kiss kiss”? Last week we went out. Last week we almost kissed! How could you, Jo? How could you? I didn’t have you down as a cheat, I really didn’t.’

  I sigh too. ‘Claudio, I did see him last week, but it was for about five minutes. All that happened was that he told me he’s got another girlfriend now. We just . . . bumped into one another when I was going into my office. He was coming out of the gym.’