A Friend of the Family

by Lisa Jewell

  And then he woke up. Just as he was about to come. Every night. Every fucking night. He wasn’t sure whether it was frustrating or pleasurable, hell or bliss, but at least he didn’t make a mess on his sheets.

  He pulled himself heavily from his bed and gave his body the customary mirror appraisal. A couple of years ago he’d look in the mirror and see a slightly stocky man with a burgeoning belly and ever so slightly budding breasts, a thirtysomething man who looked like he’d had a few curries in his time, the odd pint of lager, balanced out by sessions at the gym and the occasional game of football. What looked back at him now was a spherical, snowy-white blob with a belly large enough to house a five-year-old child and sad, slightly pendulous breasts that were bigger than Ness’s (yes – she’d measured them).

  He’d given up smoking a year ago and all he’d done since was eat. Going out with Ness didn’t help. Ness was a bon viveur, a gourmand, a complete fucking pig. He’d never met a woman who ate as much as she managed to pack away. The bugger of it was that she had a fast metabolism and managed to stay rake thin, while Tony had the metabolism of a chronically depressed slug and now he was fat. Tony sighed, turned his back on the awful truth that was his thirty-four-year-old body and started getting ready for work.

  He thought of Millie again as he showered. He thought of Millie pretty much all the time at the moment. But stranger than just thinking about her was that he imagined her watching him. Everything he did, everything he said, he envisaged Millie floating in a corner of the room, judging him, evaluating him, rating him. At home, in the office, in the car, she was there. If he did something clumsy, he’d blush. If he did something cool, he would puff up with pride. He held his stomach in when he was naked, he only sang songs he knew the words to in the shower, he didn’t pick his nose, he didn’t even fart when he was on his own these days. Well, certainly not loudly, anyway.

  He’d only met her once, a week ago, in a bar on Charlotte Street. She’d arrived just as he and Ness were leaving. They’d met for less than five minutes. She was with her boyfriend. A nice bloke, but not good enough for her – she was way out of his league. He was a boy. She was a woman.

  Tony had never really been a detail person when it came to women. He could never remember things like eye colour (Millie’s were olive green, with gold bits in), or noticed wedding rings (Millie wore silver rings on three fingers of her right hand, none on her left). And he could never find words to describe things like hair (Millie had brown hair that was made up of about a hundred different shades of honey, mahogany, chestnut and red. It was thick and blunt and she grabbed it in her fist while she talked, as if she was showing it who was boss), or clothing (Millie wore a tight red sleeveless vest with low-slung jeans, half a centimetre of tanned belly showing). Her voice was throaty and coarse, she had laughter lines, her fingernails were cut short and square. Her skin was the sort of colour that suggested some kind of watered-down exotic ancestry; Latin American, perhaps, or Middle Eastern. She held a Marlboro Light in the same hand as a bottle of Stella and she laughed like he’d never seen a woman laugh before. Big white teeth, three fillings, the back of her throat visible, pink and glossy in the overhead light.

  Camilla, that was her actual name. ‘Nobody calls me Camilla,’ she’d said when her boyfriend introduced her. ‘Makes me sound like I own a poncey handbag shop in Chelsea, or something. Call me Millie.’

  Millie. Millie Millie Millie. Millie.

  Tony’s hand had subconsciously found its way to his crotch. He snatched it away impatiently. He didn’t have time for a wank. He was going to be late. He got out of the shower, dried off and headed for his wardrobe, leafing sadly through all the clothes he was now unable to wear. Shirts that Tony had bought for their capaciousness years earlier, shirts he used to wear untucked and casual, now strained across his belly. And as his expanding girth forced his clothes to expand horizontally, so they diminished vertically so now all his trousers exposed at least a centimetre of sock.

  Call me Millie. Millie Millie Millie.

  She’d smiled at him as they left. It wasn’t like a ‘Thank God they’re leaving now we can get back to our cosy evening’ smile. It was a ‘See you again soon, I hope’ smile. It was a ‘You interest me’ smile. It was a smile that promised something, something substantial.

  He’d had the foresight to make a plan. At the last minute, just as they were backing out of the door, he invited Millie and her boyfriend to his birthday dinner the following weekend. They said yes. It wasn’t ideal. The boyfriend was a problem. So was that fact that Tony was fat and past his prime. But both these things were surmountable. The boyfriend could be dumped. Tony could lose weight. This was a long-term thing. As long as he had an opportunity to see her again, everything else would fall into place eventually. He knew it.

  Tony hadn’t really given much thought to where Ness fitted into his ‘Millie’ plans. In the short term it was probably quite good to have a girlfriend; it gave him the Women’s Secret Seal of Approval. Having a girlfriend, especially a fairly cool one like Ness, said: ‘I am not a sad, fat divorcee on my way to TV-dinner hell and an early heart attack. I am a guy who can function in a normal healthy relationship, who has regular sex and who women like to be with. I am Anthony London, successful businessman with healthy erectile function and fantastic interpersonal skills. I am good husband material on a stick.’

  He dressed, breakfasted and did something to his hair with something called ‘thickening serum’, which appeared to do nothing of the sort, and then grabbed his briefcase and his laptop and left the flat. What a miserable day – so damp and overcast it felt like someone had thrown a tarpaulin over the world while he was asleep. He crossed the road towards his car, a bright-red MX5. A girl’s car. He’d wanted an old Mercedes or Porsche – you could get something quite sexy with the six grand he’d had to spend – but for some reason he’d let Ness talk him into buying this thing. Power steering, she’d said. Good heating. Easy to convert. Reliable. And she was right. There was nothing wrong with it as such; it just wasn’t very him. And to be quite honest, it was a bit of a squeeze – it was a Japanese car, designed for small Japanese people who ate seaweed, not hefty great English blokes who drank Guinness.

  He stopped to pick something off his windscreen – a small green card.

  Lose Weight Now! We’re looking for 100

  overweight people in this area.

  Please call Wendy on 07978 245542.

  He sighed, tossed it into the gutter and lowered himself into his tiny car, trying to ignore the likeness of the sensation to that of stuffing a duvet into a drawer, and headed for the office.

  Fifteen minutes later he was on Clapham Pavement. Sidestepping a gaggle of scary schoolgirls in blue uniforms as he got out of his car, he nearly collided with a laminated board hinged on to a metal stand, which most certainly had not been there yesterday.

  For Millie’s benefit, he turned to glare icily at the errant piece of street furniture and was confronted by a photograph of a very fat man in a voluminous T-shirt with at least twelve chins:

  Overweight? Like to lose lbs? Lose weight fast the natural way. First lesson free.

  What? thought Tony. What is going on? Is there some kind of conspiracy at work here?

  Bryan lost 31 lbs in just eight weeks.

  Tony followed the wording to another photo of ‘Bryan’, this time wearing lurid floral surf-shorts, wading through the sea and proudly flexing his quads. No way, thought Tony, looking from one picture to the other. There is no way that that is the same bloke. He looked about ten years younger, for a start. But it was Bryan, he thought, looking closer, it really was. Bloody hell, he looked good. Tony passed his hand absent-mindedly across his belly and tried to visualize the taut muscles buried somewhere underneath the wobbly stuff.

  Please take a leaflet.

  Tony glanced around briefly to make sure no one was looking, grabbed a leaflet and jammed it into his coat pocket. Then he started walking, extra fast, for
some reason, towards his office.

  Sean’s Older Woman

  Sean was woken up at ten-thirty by the fat cat suddenly landing on the bed in the midst of some kind of mad-bastard attack, rolling around on his back and kicking himself in the chin with his back paws.

  ‘Buffoon,’ said Sean, rubbing his face into his hands. ‘You’re a buffoon of a cat.’Not his cat, though. Her cat. His Older Woman. Her flat, too.

  He’d met her two months ago in a restaurant in Covent Garden, his older woman. He’d been having lunch with his agent and she’d been having lunch on her own. She was eating a big bowlful of rocket, which she’d forced haphazardly into her mouth with a fork while holding a newspaper in the other hand – the first time he set eyes on her she had rocket hanging from her lip and a splash of vinegar on her chin and was trying to shovel the stray fronds of greenery into her perfect mouth with a finger. He liked the fact that she shovelled. He liked the fact that she ate lunch on her own. And he liked the fact that every time he looked at her he felt like he was staring straight in the eye of his future.

  She was older than his usual type. He’d imagined her to be his age, maybe a bit older. He’d been surprised when he found out that she was six years older than him. His last girlfriend had been twenty-two. The one before that, twenty. The oldest woman he’d ever been out with before her had been twenty-eight. He usually went for blondes. This woman was brunette. He usually went for conventional dressers. She was slightly bohemian in a vintage blouse and hoop earrings.

  His agent had noticed that his mind wasn’t on their conversation. ‘What’s up?’ he’d said, looking beyond Sean to whatever it was that had been distracting him. And then he’d seen her and looked knowingly at Sean. ‘Aha,’ he’d said, ‘I see. Why don’t you send her over a glass of champagne?’

  Sean had been appalled by the idea at first. It was corny and smooth. It was something that other men did. It wasn’t his style. But then, he’d thought, neither was she. Sean’s agent’s advice had been perfectly judged, however, because she turned out to be exactly the sort of woman to appreciate being sent glasses of champagne by strange men – it appealed to her sense of adventure. His agent made a discreet exit and she came and joined him at his table. Up close she was better-looking than she was from a distance. She had an intelligent beauty, smooth olive skin, a natural perfume, an infectious laugh. He persuaded her to take the rest of the day off and they drank champagne together until the first evening diners arrived. Then they’d gone back to hers and he’d barely left her flat since. And who could blame him? Her place was stunning, a monster one-bedroom flat carved out of one of those huge stucco-fronted places in Paddington. Twelve-foot ceilings, wooden floorboards, shutters and big windows. And with a stylish interior that reflected her job as a lecturer in interior design at the London College of Art and Design. He glanced around her bedroom now, at the faded antique satin throws, the distressed velvet cushions, gilt-framed junk-shop paintings and ornate engraved mirrors. It was stylish but unpretentious, sumptuous but understated, simple but ornate. Sean wasn’t generally one for interiors, for thinking about how things went together. He was more of a furniture person. Some furniture, that was all you needed, and maybe a lamp or two. But he loved this flat. It entertained him and enveloped him, made him feel like he was part of some magic enchanted world – just like her.

  She’d set him up a little work area in her bedroom, by the window, found him a leather-topped desk and an old leather swivel chair. It pleased her greatly to think of him writing there, in her flat, looking through the window at her street while he searched for inspiration. Not in an ‘Ooh, I’ve got a famous writer creating a masterpiece in my bedroom’ kind of a way, but in a pleased-to-be-of-use way. She loved to feel useful. Nothing made her happier.

  So how could he tell her that he hadn’t written a word since the first day he set eyes on her? How could he tell her that her blotter and her lamp and her view of Sussex Gardens were doing nothing to inspire him, that when she left for work every morning he went back to sleep, or watched daytime TV?

  His eye fell upon his sleeping laptop, the £1,200 laptop he’d bought for himself just seven months ago with some of the £50,000 his publishers had paid him sixteen months ago for his second novel, which was to be delivered in two months and which, according to his word-counter, currently consisted of a whopping 12,345 words.

  Jesus, he thought, turning on to his other side, it was like a stalker, that bloody book. Every time he felt happy, every time he thought that his life was perfect, he’d remember ‘the book’– this gargantuan task he had to complete, this impossible mountain he had to climb, and suddenly he’d remember how precarious this ‘happiness’ he’d achieved actually was. It all hinged on being ‘successful’– and being successful wasn’t like being a man, or being tall. It wasn’t guaranteed for ever. Success could be taken away from you, just like that – or rather it could slip away. And where would Sean be without this ‘success’, without the aura that being ‘successful’ conferred upon him? He’d just be scruffy, irresponsible Sean again. And what would he have to offer his older woman, for God’s sake? This amazing creature who he’d only just met, who’d never known him as Sean London, Office-Supplies Delivery Driver, who knew him only as Sean London, Guardian First Novel Award-Winning Author.

  He dragged himself out of bed and decided that he wouldn’t even try today. He decided that trying today would just make things worse. Besides, it was their two-month anniversary tomorrow night and Sean needed to go shopping, buy her something really special. Sean didn’t usually hold with two-month-anniversary type stuff, but then Sean had never felt this way about anyone before. He wanted to celebrate every moment he was with her, buy her gifts just for opening her eyes in the morning, for fiddling with an earring, for sneezing, for breathing, for existing. And surely, he reasoned, being a writer meant that affairs of the heart were paramount. How could he be expected to write about life if he didn’t experience every aspect of it, daily, deeply, accurately, with every fibre of his being?

  He got dressed, left the flat and walked down Bays-water Road towards Marble Arch. He then took the back roads towards Bond Street, walking through the redbrick streets of Mayfair.

  How rich, he wondered as he walked, how rich would you actually need to be to afford to live here? In Catford, where he lived, in among the sprawling estates and tiny terraces, Sean felt proportionately loaded. The large five-figure sum sitting in his bank account, the cheques that arrived every few weeks from his agent – a thousand here, a thousand there, Polish rights, Catalan rights, Brazilian rights – the gadgets he’d bought, the new bed, the new bicycle, the big Smeg fridge in the kitchen, all paid for in cash, these things made him feel rich, unthinkably rich. In the context of where he lived, who he knew and where he came from, Sean was richer than he’d ever imagined he could possibly be. But here, in Mayfair, in among the gentlemen’s clubs, foreign embassies and million-pound pieds-à-terre of anonymous international businessmen, he was a complete pauper. How, Sean wondered, was it possible for one person to accumulate so much wealth? Ironically, it was harder to contemplate the concept from his position of relative affluence than it had been when he’d had no money at all.

  He zig-zagged through these elite streets, strolling past antique shops and gun shops and art galleries full of bland landscapes until he found himself where he wanted to be – on New Bond Street. Outside Tiffany’s.

  Sean had never been to Tiffany’s before but decided the moment he walked through the door that he liked it, very much. He liked the way the doorman smiled at him as if he were a proper grown-up man, even though he still felt like a teenager. He liked the sleek, uncluttered layout, the symmetrical lines of the cabinets, the way the overhead lights caught every nuance of the metals and gems underneath.

  He even liked the smell of it.

  Once up close to the sparkling merchandise, he decided that he especially liked baguette-cut diamonds and platinum. Together. He al
so found, much to his surprise, that he really quite liked the accompanying price-tags, which were reassuringly expensive as opposed to complete rip-off. He liked the girl who served him, too. He liked the way her little hands darted in and out of the cabinets, hovering over rings while she watched his face to check she was in the right vicinity, plucking them out and handing them to him with a small smile that said that she was enjoying selling every bit as much as he was enjoying buying.

  He liked the way they didn’t call them rings, they called them ‘diamonds’, and he liked the way the ‘diamond’ he chose was whisked away from him, like a newborn baby, and returned moments later snugly coddled in a shiny duck-egg carrier and presented to him like a prize.

  He liked the way the doorman said ‘Goodbye, sir’, as if the duck-egg bag had conferred upon him membership of some exclusive club, and, more than anything, he liked the sensation of striding down Bond Street on a sunny April afternoon with Millie’s engagement ring swinging back and forth in its carrier bag as he walked.

  Sean was aware that he was rushing things. He’d known Millie for only two months, but getting engaged didn’t mean that they’d have to get married or anything, not straight away at least. They could have a long engagement, get a place together, take their time, see how it went. Maybe in a year they could start talking weddings… or two. But in the meantime Sean wanted to feel like he’d made a commitment to Millie beyond just the next phone call or the next date. He wanted to make his feelings absolutely plain, so there could be no misunderstandings.

  It was a horribly unromantic analogy to draw, but in Sean’s mind buying an engagement ring for Millie was like putting down a deposit on an expensive and long-anticipated holiday or a brand-new and much-desired car. Like putting down a deposit on the house of your dreams. Or, in this particular case, like putting down a deposit on the sexiest, funniest, coolest and most beautiful woman in the world.