by Voss, Louise
‘And who’s that?’ I asked casually, jerking my head in the direction of the green-eyed younger one playing hackysack. Not that I was interested or anything – I was happy with my Ivan.
‘Billy Estes. He’s real cute – for a hippie. I had him, too, and his brother Tom.’
‘Tom Estes? What’s the deal with all these weird names? T. Estes. Didn’t his parents realize when they had him christened?’
Raylene looked at me blankly.
‘T. Estes. Testes. Testicles,’ I explained.
Billy waved at me. I waved back. He was cute, if you overlooked the grimy torn T-shirt. Lawrence men often dressed like Third World refugees: collapsing sandals and ragged shorts which looked as if they’d never seen the inside of a washing machine.
‘He looks quite young,’ I said, trying not to sound disapproving. I felt quite envious, actually.
Raylene shrugged. ‘I like ’em fresh,’ she said. ‘Makes a nice change from the oldies. I reckon he’s about twenty – he and his brothers have lived here all their lives. Known ’em all since they were preschoolers.’
‘Oh,’ I said politely, biting my lip to prevent myself adding, ‘Not in the biblical sense, I hope.’
I had soon learned that there were few males in town with all their faculties intact for whom Raylene hadn’t unlocked her mailbox, but she was refreshingly upfront about it. In fact, I had been wondering for some time if perhaps the only reason she had remained friends with me was because she had her beady little eye on Ivan. My room-mate Corinna and I weren’t very nice to Raylene sometimes, making sly digs about her several boyfriends a week. As an insurance policy, I told Ivan that she had herpes, which wasn’t very charitable of me.
Ivan and I had been sleeping together for some time now and, although I was crazy about him, I had to admit that the experience wasn’t entirely satisfactory.
I know they say that size doesn’t matter but, as most women will concur, unfortunately it does. I wondered if that was the reason Ivan had held back from me for quite some time, although he didn’t seem self-conscious about it. He was an enthusiastic lover; rather too enthusiastic, if the truth be known. Perhaps it was overcompensation, but the tender, lingering kisses he’d bestowed upon me in the months of our cautious courtship became full-on writhing assaults once we hit the sheets. He’d snog me so hard that he practically dribbled into my mouth, and he sweated copiously while we made love.
There was also an undercurrent of something more sinister, which bothered me. I didn’t have the sexual experience to be able to articulate exactly what it was, and I thought perhaps I was just being over-sensitive, but he was into role play, to the extent that I sometimes wondered if it was because he wished I were someone else. He used to get me to dress up as a French maid, or a naughty schoolgirl –he was always trying to spank me, which irritated the hell out of me – and he’d get a sort of glazed, frantic look in his eyes.
Whatever it was, it didn’t feel like love; not when he was contorting my limbs into strange positions and telling me sternly I’d been a bad girl.
But he was only my second lover, and I couldn’t say that the first (my sixth-form boyfriend) had been any more proficient. He’d certainly been less imaginative.
When I tried to quiz Raylene, with all her vast experience, to find out if it was normal to feel vaguely unsettled, even when one’s partner seemed completely happy and sated, she roared with laughter.
‘You’re complainin’? Honey, you’re lucky he don’t just lie on top of you and hump away for hours, like most of ’em do. You got a good one there.’
I decided that she was right. Things were OK with Ivan. Most of the time I adored him, and, as Raylene said, ‘Hell, no one’s perfect. He’s hot.’
Yeah, he is, I thought, turning away from the sight of cute Billy and his beanbag and gathering up my backpack. ‘Anyway, I’d better go. I’m meeting him after his Economics class. See you later.’
‘See you later,’ said Raylene, waving prettily at either Shag, Roger or Phil, who all waved back. I tried to imagine being in bed with any of them, and it made me shudder. Bet at least one of them had white hair all over his back. Then, disloyally, I pictured myself in bed with Billy, stroking that soft nut-brown skin of his. He smiled at me again when I passed him on the way back to campus, and I felt his eyes bore into me as I walked away. I bet he wouldn’t make me dress up in cheap nylon frills, I thought. Those green eyes…Not as nice as Ivan’s brown ones, though, I decided hastily, forcing myself not to turn around.
But was it possible to be attracted to someone when in love with someone else?
Chapter 31
Rachel
When Gordana told me and Dad that she had a lump in her breast, I don’t think it really sank in at first, with either of us. She didn’t say she had cancer. She didn’t say she’d have to have treatment and a mastectomy – typical of her to underplay it – and somehow, even though we both knew what would be involved, it took the sting out of the initial revelation. I think Dad is so preoccupied by his situation, and my bloody knee was hurting so much, it was as if we couldn’t take any more bad news.
Even so, Dad managed to react as if she had made this announcement solely to complicate his own life further. He swallowed a bit and seemed to turn a shade greyer than he’d been before. Then, after giving Gordana a quick, wordless kiss, he left, muttering something which I think was supposed to be sympathetic, but I couldn’t make out any of the words. We sat listening to his car tyres squealing away up the gravel driveway. It was as if he were fleeing the scene of the crime.
Gordana tutted. ‘I wish he would not do that. Now I must get the gravel raked again.’
‘Perhaps this will give him another focus,’ said Pops sadly. ‘Rachel, beautiful, are you all right?’
I nodded dumbly, gazing at Gordana.
‘Would you like to go and have a nap now?’
I hesitated. It seemed that something more was called for under the circumstances than me rolling off to bed …but I had nothing else to offer.
‘I’m so sorry, Gordana,’ I said, my voice wobbling. ‘If there’s anything I can do, just let me know …You’ll be OK, though, won’t you?’
‘Of course I will! It’s just an operation. I will be fine. Thank you, darling.’ I accepted the hug she gave me (She comforted me! Shouldn’t it have been the other way round?) and then allowed Pops to wheel me out of the kitchen and into my room, where he helped me on to the bed as if I were the OAP. We both seemed dazed, speechless with worry and our individual pain.
I refuse to believe that this is anything which could in any way get the better of her. The mere thought is preposterous. At the time, though, I couldn’t say anything much. I felt too emotionally drained.
‘She will be OK, won’t she?’ I repeated plaintively to Pops. He sat heavily down on the bed, and I noticed his brown speckled scalp beneath the thin strands of white hair. Like a warm brown egg, I thought. When he raised his head, there were tears in his eyes. I couldn’t cry. I mustn’t cry, I thought, because if I started, I wouldn’t be able to stop.
‘Oh, I hope so, Rachel,’ he said fervently. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without her, you know.’
Then he left the room and I was alone, the only sound in my ears the sound of my knee throbbing pain around my body. I let its nasty singing hum take over the worry in my brain; chase out the fear for another day. There was no room for it today. No room for anything except the escape of sleep.
Somehow I didn’t expect Mark to turn up quite so soon, but the next morning there is a message on my mobile phone from him, saying that unless he hears otherwise from me, he’ll be over to see me at Ted and Gordana’s this afternoon at three. With a present for me. I’m almost surprised; I’d convinced myself he wouldn’t come anywhere near us after Dad’s scandal. Perhaps I have underestimated him.
He certainly seems excited about this present. I wonder what it is? Why is he bringing me a present at all? I suppose it’s his a
ttempt to be supportive – and not before time, either. The sound of his voice gives me a very strange feeling in my throat: a soaring sensation which I instantly suppress, overriding it with the old caution telling me not to let myself get hurt again.
Mark’s absence when I really needed him; his lack of response to my plaintive messages (I left a couple more, to my shame) on top of him finishing with me – on my birthday, lest we forget – has left me feeling distinctly …damaged.
‘Damaged,’ I say out loud, putting my phone back on top of a nest of shiny mahogany tables next to Gordana’s huge chinzy sofa, into which I have just gingerly lowered myself. The room feels as though it holds its breath in anticipation of Mark’s visit. Where will he sit? Should I bring him in here to sit among the fat, shiny striped cushions, or ought we to go into the more informal kitchen? Perhaps I will open the front door to him and he’ll carry me wordlessly up to a bedroom …The thought arouses and terrifies me in equal proportions. Am I ready, finally? And even if I am, will we be able to manage it with my knee in a brace, sticking straight out in front of me?
I hadn’t realized Gordana was passing the room at that moment. She comes in. Since her revelation, she has made a big effort to look as if everything is normal. The only thing she asked was for me not to be upset. ‘I have a problem. It will be fixed. If it is not fixed, then you may be upset. Not now though. Now we have other things to worry about.’
I guess she’s right. She’s having an operation to remove the tumour, and while we can be concerned at the discomfort she’ll have to endure, it is a means to an end. We may have nothing at all to fear, once the treatment is over. I shiver. Everyone knows that the treatment is horrendous, and I can’t bear the thought of her going through that pain.
‘What’s damaged, darling? Do you still have the receipt?’
‘Oh. Nothing. Only me; and I don’t have a receipt for me. If I did, I’d have taken me back and changed me ages ago.’
She laughs and ruffles my hair. ‘Darling, I wouldn’t change you for anything, even if you were still under guarantee.’
I lean my head back and look up at her from the back of the sofa. I just don’t know how she manages to be so breezy, with the double whammy of Dad’s…little problem, on top of the prospect of major surgery for a life-threatening illness in a few days’ time. We haven’t heard from Dad since yesterday. When I awoke from my nap last night, Gordana, Ted and I watched television with great trepidation, but there were no reports of Dad’s arrest in the main news, or the local news.
Classical music swells softly around us from hidden speakers, something melancholy and familiar, full of foreboding.
‘What’s this music? I recognize it.’
‘It’s Samuel Barber, “Adagio for Strings”.’
For a moment, I am none the wiser. Then I realize how I know it: it is the music that the BBC used to accompany their coverage of 9/11. As I listen, I see again the planes’ impact, the fireball against a clear blue sky, then the great grey clouds of dust, people running and falling. Another great way to put my problems into perspective.
‘Your knee will soon be better, darling.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘But actually, I wasn’t talking about broken bones. I was talking about how Mark made me feel. He’s coming over this afternoon, with a present for me. What do you think it will be?’
Gordana comes around the sofa and sits next to me, opening and reading a pile of post which she has just been out to collect from the mailbox at the top of the drive.
‘I don’t know. Do you think perhaps it’s an engagement ring?’
The thought has crossed my mind, actually. I try to imagine the scenario: beautiful, penitent Mark, turning up here with hair cut short especially for the occasion; the way I like it, when he gets it shaved up the back like a squaddie and I can rub my hand up the back of his head and feel the soft hairs tickle my palm. He might even put on some proper trousers instead of tracky bottoms; perhaps the sexy combats I bought for him. He’d look at me with those huge, delicious eyes before dropping to one knee and handing me that tiny black box with a popper on the front, the sort of box which only ever contains one thing. What sort of ring would he buy me? A gorgeous antique emerald; a big fat diamond (unlikely – he couldn’t afford it); or a jewellery chain store special, something unassuming and boring that I’ll have to wear for the rest of my life even though I don’t particularly like it?
Wait. Am I thinking that, in the unlikely event it is an engagement ring, I will automatically burst into tears, hug him, and scream: Yes, yes, yes?
Yes. In fact, I almost certainly would.
‘Ahhh. That is sweet,’ says Gordana, opening a get-well-soon card from her friends in the Midweek section of the tennis club. ‘They say they will miss me, look, and I must be better in time for the championship tournament in summer.’
I look at their neat, repressed signatures and bland exhortations: Keep your chin up, Gordana! Thinking of you!! Take care now! All with exclamation marks covering up their embarrassment.
‘I’m sure it won’t be an engagement ring,’ I say dolefully, watching her prop up the card on the identical nest of tables on the opposite side of the sofa. ‘If he couldn’t live without me, I’m sure he’d have realized it sooner.’
Gordana nudges me with affection. ‘Well, you never know,’ she says. ‘Just don’t give him too much of an easy ride, will you? I know you can’t resist him, but he has not treated our little Rachel the way he should have done, has he?’
‘I can resist him,’ I reply haughtily. ‘I’ve managed perfectly well without him for a month.’
Gordana harrumphs, and hauls herself off the sofa. ‘“Perfectly well?” That is questionable,’ she says. ‘Anyway, I will make myself scarce when he comes, and Ted will be out till later. You have the place to yourselves.’
Good, I think, in case the ‘carrying upstairs to bed’ scenario becomes a reality. I have a sudden, unwelcome vision of him accidentally dragging my broken leg along the banisters on the way up the stairs, bang, bang, bang, in his enthusiasm to get me into a bedroom before I change my mind again, and it makes me wince.
‘Please, don’t tell him about my little op on Monday, will you? The girls at the club know, but I have told them to keep it a secret. Not that I believe that is possible for one minute, but …at least this secret isn’t in the national newspapers.’ She kisses the top of my head. ‘And remember: your heart has been as broken as your knee, so be careful, won’t you? You are just on the mend, in all ways.. Now I must go and start to think about packing. How many nightdresses do you think I will need?’
She sounds as if she’s off for a fortnight aboard a luxury cruise liner, not a small room in a big hospital to recover from having a breast removed, or, as she calls it, her ‘little op’. I love her so much.
Mark duly arrives, right on time. As I heave myself on my crutches along the black and white parquet hall floor to open the door, I feel so nervous that my tongue is making dry little sucky sounds when I try to unstick it from the roof of my mouth.
Suddenly I can’t even picture his face, let alone remember how close we’d been. It feels as if our intimacy has passed its expiry date. When I open the door I have a sudden urge to shake his hand and say, ‘You must be Mark. Pleased to meet you, I’m Rachel.’
Instead we gaze at each other, me shyly, him in a kind of appraising way. It all comes back to me in that one look. He hasn’t had a special haircut, though, and is wearing his usual baggy black sweatpants and a beige hooded sweatshirt with a tea stain down the front. He always has been what Pops calls a ‘mucky pup’.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘Hi. You all right? You look …Well, you look fine, apart from the …’ He gestures to the large and obtrusive brace on my leg, under the frayed shorts I decided to keep on. It’s so hot in this house, but I’m not going to dress up for Mark. He probably wouldn’t notice if I did, anyway.
‘I’m fine. At least I will be, soon.’
‘Great. That’s great. So – can I come in?’
I stand aside to let him in. He doesn’t appear to be carrying any presents with him, nor is there a ring-box-sized bulge in his sweatpants pocket.
‘Did you find it OK?’ I enquire politely.
‘Oh. Yeah. I printed directions off the Internet. Way too many windy country lanes round here, though. Thought I was gonna get lost anyway.’
I am impressed at his hitherto well-disguised resourcefulness. Mark has always been hopeless at getting himself to the right place at the right time without the incentive of prize money or beer.
I show him into the kitchen (I have decided against the stuffy dead atmosphere of the living room) and study him. Now that he’s in the same room as me, I remember his scent and the feel of his arms clasped around me, holding my shoulders in a tight grip with those big biceps of his …He seems a little edgy himself, shifting from foot to foot, looking repeatedly out of the kitchen window at his car.
‘It’s still there. Nobody’s nicked it,’ I say sardonically. ‘Cup of tea?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Tea would be great, thanks.’
He finished with you, I remind myself. ‘So. To what do I owe the pleasure?’ I enquire coolly after I’ve filled the kettle and started making the tea.
‘Rach,’ he begins, a little break in his voice which makes me think: Crikey, he is going to propose. ‘I just wanted to come and see you to say, you know, sorry. I ought to have got back to you straight away. I’m sorry I didn’t return your calls and all that. I feel like a shit, actually. But …well, I’m not sure how to say this …but…’
‘What?’ Oh no, I thought, please God not more bad news. I can’t handle it. I’m almost expecting him to tell me that he, too, has contracted some sort of life-threatening disease, or been exposed as a notorious diamond thief, or something as implausible as my dad being arrested for possessing kiddie porn.
‘I met someone else,’ he says, looking out of the window at his car again.
I swivel round as fast as I can on one leg, but the car appears to be empty except a large box on the front passenger seat.
