I lie back on the bed. I feel like I’m a teenager again, or I guess what I would have felt like if any boys had called me.
‘I guess I just don’t want to feel like I’m overburdening you.’
‘But isn’t that what I’m for?’ An interesting concept. I spent a lot of time with Alexander trying to make sure that I didn’t burden him in any way. I kind of thought that was my job; I never considered another option might be to share the burdens.
‘OK. Actually, that sounds really good.’
‘So hit me …’
‘What do you mean?’
‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Burden me.’
‘Ha ha!’ This seems so wrong; this goes against everything I know about being a woman trying to attract a man, but I guess this is the ultimate test. If I give him my worst and he can take it, then maybe he deserves my best.
‘I went through a period when I was in my teens of stealing stuff from shops. Nothing big, stationery mainly, but then I felt too guilty to use it and stashed it all under my bed.’
‘Ha ha! So you didn’t commit to a life of crime?’
‘Also, I once told a bride she looked fat on her wedding day.’
George laughs again. His laugh is so deep and even. ‘Who?’
‘My cousin.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Six.’
‘I think we’ll let that one slide.’
‘OK, also’ – I’m sort of warming up now; I think I’m kinda getting the whole Catholic confession thing – ‘I let someone take the blame for setting the chemistry lab on fire at school.’
‘And arson. Nice little catalogue of evil there. I’m going to have to take all this under advisement.’
‘OK, fine,’ I say. I feel a bit foolish for starting it all but I also feel wonderful that I did. ‘What’s the worst thing you’ve done?’
‘I killed a man once.’ For a second, time stops, until I hear him chuckle down the line. ‘No, the worst thing I’ve done is let too many opportunities pass me by.’ We both pause to let his words sink in. ‘Don’t worry about not being whole; it’s a journey. And go get your cat. I’d never let someone keep Marley from me.’
‘Who’s Marley?’ I ask.
‘My cat – she’s with my mum at the moment.’
9) Has to like animals and will have a cat called Hendrix.
Marley. Close enough.
25
DETAILS MATTER. THE fact that George has a cat might seem trite, a bit silly, but it says so much. It says that he’s kind and nurturing and that he can commit to something. I see now that I’ve been approaching the task of changing my life in a big-picture way, when I need to be working on making each day different, working on the individual minutes. I find a running schedule online, one that outlines a weekly target of circuits. The first session is walking for twenty minutes at a steady pace. I know I can walk; I do it every day. I just need to walk with intention.
When I go out for the first time, the park is almost empty. A woman with an overexcited terrier says hello as we pass and I love the interaction – two independent women, doing something productive with their evening. As I walk away I imagine she is saying to herself she might do a bit more tomorrow – put on her trainers, take Fido for an extra-long run. I see her reasserting her promise to herself that she will finally get started, because she has seen me and I already have.
I sit down with Mum and work out a proper routine for our new living situation. I let her know I’ll be getting up with her and Moses in the morning and will give her and Dad some money for keeping us. To my surprise she’s accepting of this and when we’ve finished our chat she leaves the room and returns with a large cardboard box.
‘I’ve saved some of your books,’ she says. I wonder why she has waited until now to bestow them upon me, but as I pull out the yellowing hardbacks, I am taken back to long afternoons curled up on the sofa with my dad and I push aside any analysis of my mother’s motivations.
‘You loved that one,’ she says, as I flick through Fanny and May. It’s the story of two elephants who build a house out of cake and then one of them eats it and they are left homeless. I recall the fear I felt as the young elephant couldn’t stop herself from eating the roof and the walls, a helpless victim of her own gluttony.
Moses is playing with some bricks on the kitchen floor and I take him and the book into the living room. We settle together into the armchair and I tell him a story I know by heart and my heart knows. He’s so still as I read, and even though I’m not sure if he understands what’s going on, he’s with me every step of the journey. When I finish he shouts, ‘Again!’ and it’s music to my ears.
I decide to spend half an hour reading with my boy every day. Together we rediscover my old friends. He loves the playfulness of Dr Seuss and the naughtiness of Peter Rabbit. Often, he comes home from nursery and calls out, ‘Book! Book!’ as if he is summoning a pet. If I am not too tired after I have put him to bed, I go for a walk around the park. I can feel it getting easier, feeling less like something other people do.
‘I’m doing really well,’ I tell Leanne over coffees and babycinos with the boys one Friday. ‘I’m moving past stuff. I’m just … moving.’
‘I’m really pleased for you,’ she says. ‘I want nothing but the best for you.’
‘You sound like a greeting card,’ I say.
‘I don’t mean to,’ she says, and then takes a sip of her coffee. ‘I’m just wondering what’s got you so fired up?’
‘If I’m honest, I think it’s George,’ I say. ‘You were so right about the list thing. If you ask the universe, it will give you what you need.’ I pick up a biscuit that Moses has abandoned and then change my mind and place it back down.
‘I was sort of worried you would say that,’ says Leanne.
‘Expand,’ I say, maintaining my smile in an effort to hold on to my positive outlook.
Leanne licks her lips and says, ‘You invested so much of your happiness in Alexander. I don’t want you to be let down by another man.’
‘I’m not going to be let down. That’s the point. He’s not the sort of guy who would do that. The list was your idea, Lee. Why would you build me up just to shit on my disco?’
Leanne gently places her cup on its saucer. ‘I’m not’ – she clears her throat and glances at Lucas – ‘pooping on anything. We were drunk; coming up with that list was a laugh. I don’t want you to think it means anything.’
‘Everything has meaning,’ I say, and I realize I sound like Tashi.
I don’t try to convince Leanne but I don’t let her doubt derail me either. If I have found a fire within me, what does it matter who created the spark? I still check in with George most mornings. He continues to be the first thing I think about but now I have something to share, little titbits from the previous day – things that have lifted me up. I start to feel closer to being a whole person and not a fragile Kinder Egg, with a missing toy. Having George to share my day with helps me to think about my actions. I don’t want to tell him that I stayed in bed all day, that I ate a ready meal and cried myself to sleep, so I don’t. I keep my head down at work, I read to Moses, I call Marc and confirm my gig. I work on the minutes and change my days.
26
THE DAY OF Tom’s engagement party I go to a boutique just off the high street. I need to find a dress, specifically the most fabulous dress I have ever worn in my life. My dream is that Tom will see me and wonder why he ever let me go. Failing that, I want him at least to wish he’d had the chance to spend the night with me before he did so. I’m greeted enthusiastically by the saleswoman, who asks me if she can help. ‘I need something that’s going to make me feel amazing,’ I say.
‘Amazing I can do,’ she says. ‘What size are you?’
‘A fourteen,’ I say. She pauses – not for long but long enough that I know she is reconsidering whether making me look amazing is something she can achieve.
‘I have the
perfect thing,’ she says. She goes out back and returns holding an emerald green dress in front of her. I take it into the fitting room. It’s a great choice – knee length and close fitting with a large bow at the neck. I take off my clothes and wiggle into it. It takes some effort. Standing in it I still think it’s a great choice but perhaps for someone else’s body. There is some ruching around the stomach that is definitely not part of the design and I don’t usually go for sleeveless because I’ve always thought my arms are a little sausagey. I stand on my toes to try and simulate heels and turn slowly from left to right. When I inhale the dress looks better; can I hold my stomach in for two hours?
‘How are you getting on?’ asks the saleswoman. I open the curtain and look at her questioningly. ‘Oh,’ says the woman, and then claps her hand over her mouth. She adjusts the bow a little and steps back to review me again. ‘It looks perfect,’ she says. I like how the dress looks through her eyes, so I go back into the changing room, put my clothes back on and take it to the till.
‘It doesn’t have a price on it,’ I say.
‘Yes, it’s just come in, literally this morning. It’s a hundred and eighty-nine pounds.’
I don’t speak. I have to pay Patricia. I have to think about finding somewhere to live; I can’t spend that much money on a dress. I also can’t say no now; I can’t have this woman look at me and see me for the failure that I am. I get out my debit card and force a smile on my face as I place it in the machine. As I head home, I console myself that a woman in a dress like this couldn’t possibly have a bad night – and also that, as it has no price tag on it, I can wear it and return it.
Mum has taken Moses to a miniature railway, so I sleep for an hour before throwing back a fortifying vodka and forcing two pairs of Spanx over my thighs. On the way to the party I stop by Cara’s flat. I had tried to persuade her to come with me – crashing the engagement party of the guy who rejected your mate seemed like the kind of subversive act she would enjoy, but she refused. I hope that I can convince her – Cara would make it fun; she’d help me to find the punchline to this joke – but as she leads me to her living room, she repeats what she told me on the phone: ‘I won’t be part of this sadness.’
‘Not everything has to be achingly cool, Cara.’ She pours us both a glass of rum from her drinks trolley and tops each of them with a splash of ginger ale.
‘Not that kind of sad,’ Cara says as she hands me my drink, ‘although I do find the concept of an engagement, let alone a party for it, pathetic. The literal sadness. Whatever sadness is in your soul that makes you think this is a good idea.’ I take a sip of my drink and Cara’s generous measures make me cough a little. Cara drinks half of her own glass and waits for my response.
‘It’s not that I think it’s a good idea,’ I say. ‘It’s just something I have to do.’ Cara dismisses this idea with a shake of her head.
‘That’s the thing. You don’t have to do anything. I guess besides raise your kid, but that’s your fuck-up.’
‘I suppose I want to feel empowered. I want to show him that he doesn’t affect me.’
Cara looks thoughtful. ‘He doesn’t affect you but you’re going to celebrate him shackling himself to some other human?’
‘OK, that he doesn’t affect me, like, negatively.’
Cara finishes her drink and says, ‘Why don’t you show that by coming with me to a house party at Julie’s? I won’t try and force you to play naked Twister this time.’ She nods towards my glass. ‘Top up?’
‘No, Cara, I’m going. I bought a dress.’ Cara takes in my outfit without comment and shrugs. ‘It’s going to be good. I’m going to show him what he missed out on.’ I hand Cara my glass and prepare to leave. She shakes her head.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ she says as I gather my things.
‘I appreciate it,’ I say, ‘but I know what I’m doing.’
Cara lifts my half-full glass in a toast. ‘I’m glad someone does, babe.’
On the walk, I repeat uplifting mantras to myself – I am beautiful, I am confident, I am free. It sort of works and then I arrive at OhSo. Fairy lights are strung up and jazz music is playing and it is exactly as I would have had it. A woman ushers me in.
‘Hello, my darling,’ she says. ‘Green is obviously in fashion.’ I look at her lime green skirt suit and nod wordlessly. ‘Are you a friend of the bride or groom?’ she asks. I can tell that saying this tickles her.
‘The groom, I guess,’ I say.
‘I didn’t think I recognized you,’ she says. ‘I’m Rhiannon’s mother.’
I need another drink. We stand in silence and the awkwardness starts to set in. When another woman approaches us, I am relieved at first but then I see the joy on the face of my companion, and I want to cease existing.
‘Rhi, Rhi!’ My new friend squeezes her daughter around the waist. ‘I’m going to go and powder my nose. This is one of Tom’s people.’ As her mother leaves, Rhiannon gives me a hug and flashes me a model-perfect smile. She is wearing a dress of ivory lace that embraces every inch of her body and I can’t take my eyes away from her perfect stomach, a stomach that looks like it has never held more than a salad, let alone a baby.
‘Thanks for coming. Do you work with Tom?’
I am too wounded to lie. I say no. ‘I’m Martha,’ I tell her. I think she will look angry but her smile becomes even more pronounced.
‘Thank you for coming and thank you,’ she says again. She gives me a wink, as if we are co-conspirators.
‘Well, I never turn down a drink,’ I say. Rhiannon throws back her head and laughs wildly. As she does so her waist-length auburn curls bounce around her face. I have a vision of cutting the lot off in her sleep.
‘There’s plenty of that,’ says Rhiannon, ‘and if you don’t mind me saying, lots of lovely single guys.’ I search her face for evidence that she is aware of the cruelty of her comment. I find none and decide that she is simply an imbecile.
‘That’s fine,’ I say. ‘I’m seeing someone.’
‘Oh, great!’ she says. ‘Where is he?’ She looks behind me as if my boyfriend could have been hiding behind me all this time.
‘He’s not here,’ I say. ‘He’s in Africa.’
‘Cool,’ says Rhiannon. ‘Where’s he from?’
‘Uhm, Brighton,’ I say.
‘Oh right, why is he in Africa?’ Her brow furrows and I realize that because I am black and my boyfriend is in Africa, she has completed a mental equation that results in him coming from the motherland.
‘He’s not African,’ I say. As I say this I hope she will look a little embarrassed. She doesn’t, though; she’s either too confident or too happy for such a negative emotion to touch her. More people arrive and she looks distracted.
‘The bar is over there,’ she says, indicating behind her. She doesn’t have to tell me twice. The bar is staffed by two young guys wearing bow ties. They’re probably students; they look like they’re in fancy dress in their starched, white shirts. One asks me if I want a cocktail or some prosecco.
‘What’s in the cocktail?’ I ask.
‘Pretty much vodka and pomegranate juice,’ he says.
‘Yeah, but how much alcohol?’ The bartender shrugs.
‘Maybe one shot.’
‘OK, give me prosecco,’ I say. ‘Two glasses.’ The barman dutifully does so and I down the first glass. I’m about to start on the second when I feel a tap on my shoulder. When I turn Tom is standing there. He’s red-faced and breathing audibly; he looks like he’s been running.
‘Hiiiiii!’ he says. He tries to draw me into a hug but I’m still holding my drink and he ends up just crashing into me. ‘Thanks so much for coming,’ he says. He’s actually smiling at me, smiling as if we’re friends.
‘No problem,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t doing anything anyway.’
‘Good, good,’ he says. ‘You look … great.’ I can feel my dress bunching around my waist and I’m not sure I believe him.
&nb
sp; ‘Whatever,’ I say, and finish my drink.
‘Two more,’ says Tom to the barman. ‘It’s a free bar,’ he says to me. The barman places them in front of us. Tom holds up his glass; I assume he wants me to toast.
‘What am I doing here?’ I ask.
‘You were the one who made me realize what I had lost,’ says Tom, still smiling like a loon.
‘Well, that’s great. That’s dandy. Good for you.’
‘I just wanted to make things right between us,’ he says.
I laugh and then Tom laughs and I say, ‘You’re a psychopath.’
Tom stops. ‘I think you need to relax,’ he says. He puts a hand on my shoulder. It feels like a lead weight resting there. I down my drink and reach for another glass, shrugging my shoulder as I do so, so that his hand slips off. ‘I’m not that great a catch,’ says Tom. He smiles again; I guess that’s his way of apologizing.
‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘I’m relaxed. Thanks for this.’ I tip my glass at him and walk away. I try to move in a way that looks purposeful, although I have no idea where I am going. I walk towards the toilet but before I get there I spot Leanne arriving. She looks amazing; her blonde hair is in a neat bun and she’s wearing a yellow shift dress and nude heels, the quintessential colleague’s wife.
‘You were supposed to be here before me,’ I hiss at her.
‘Lucas wouldn’t settle,’ she says. ‘You OK?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I say, but I feel really light-headed. In part because of the booze and the lack of food and the underwear cutting off my circulation, but also because of the injustice of it all. ‘How does it work?’ I ask Leanne. ‘How do some people get this?’ Leanne looks confused but before she can speak James pulls me in for a hug.
As we part he looks at my face and says, ‘Let’s get pissed, eh?’
James gets us all fresh drinks and we sit together as he tells us stories about his colleagues. Apparently Tom doesn’t have any friends outside work, so almost the entire office is there. ‘That’s Mike,’ says James, pointing to a tall, thin guy with acne scars and a scowl. ‘We call him Crazy Mike because he eats the same lunch every day – one egg sandwich and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. Never plain, God forbid smoky bacon.’ Although there is no way Mike can hear us he looks over and we all giggle. James tells us off. ‘You two are gonna get me in trouble,’ he says. It occurs to me that I’m starting to have fun. I probably shouldn’t have waited this long to go out with Leanne and James. I hope that George and James get on and we can go on double dates and then on holiday together.
The Reinvention of Martha Ross Page 17
