Chasing Charlie

by Linda McLaughlan

  ‘Would you come to Charlie’s birthday party with me next weekend?’

  ‘Charlie’s birthday? Don’t you have a date?’ My heart was thumping again; this was too good to be true.

  Rebecca screwed up her face. ‘No, not really. It’d be fun if you came and Charlie obviously likes you.’

  ‘Well, I’d love to. Which night is it on?’ I asked, knowing perfectly well which night. It was only the most anticipated event this year in my temporary home, casting a shadow over almost every room and inspiring record hours of bathroom use.

  ‘Oh goodie, I’m so pleased!’ she gushed, threatening to topple onto me again. ‘Itssh on Saturday night.’ Rebecca’s face lit up and for a moment I glimpsed the uncomplicated girl beneath the strange, polished face she presented to the world.

  ‘Well, thanks for a good night, I’ve got to go,’ I said, picking Rebecca’s hands off my arm and setting them back beside her body. I took some experimental steps away from her and looked back to check she wasn’t following me, raising my arm in a wave. ‘See you then!’

  ‘If not before!’ Rebecca called after me.

  34

  SAM

  The morning after the afternoon shenanigans with Charlie I woke cursing myself. He made me feel so good, so so so . . . dammit, I hadn’t felt like that for years. Not since him all those years ago! But it wasn’t meant to have happened like that. I wasn’t meant to sleep with him now. I was meant to knock him dead at his party then he’d break up with Lucy, then we’d hook up. That was the order of events. What was I thinking yesterday? Sitting there in his flat saying to myself it was OK to be his bit on the side then fucking him at his house, just before his girlfriend came home? I didn’t want to be the other woman. As much as I disliked Lucy, I didn’t actually want to be sleeping with him while he was still with someone. I shuddered when I recalled Lucy coming in. And that condom. Oh God, that condom.

  I stood in front of the mirror naked. I saw a pale-skinned woman who should have known better. I saw a strong body with faults. I saw thighs that cosied up together; I saw arms that were a little too robust. I looked sad and hard. My hair was oily. I probably stank.

  I was seconds from pulling out of the whole ridiculous quest and then I glanced at the list I’d written in a fit of enthusiasm and stuck to my mirror.

  Exfoliate elephant heels

  Learn to put on make-up

  Hair – WTF?

  Buy dress – Claudia?

  Tone up!

  I pulled it off and considered it. I ticked off dress. I had endured shopping and actually had a dress – one that Claudia would be sad if I didn’t wear. I had spent hours grating my heels. Tick. My hair had almost been tamed. Tick. I could actually put make-up on now without looking like a clown. Double tick for that, as that was a small miracle in itself.

  And then my phone beeped.

  My heart flipped.

  It was him.

  Sorry about yesterday. It was so good to see you – all of you. Cx

  ‘Wasn’t it,’ I said to the sad face in the mirror.

  I took a deep breath. Come on, girl, you can do better than this. This is just a little passion getting in the way of carefully laid plans, that’s all. You’ve got one more thing on your list.

  I swiped my phone. Charlie could wait.

  *

  Later that day in the changing room of her gym, Claudia leant over to tie her trainer, one long leg up on the bench. She wore black leggings with a matching sports top and her hair was held back in a girlish ponytail.

  ‘Are you sure you’re feeling up for this, Claud?’

  Claudia did look a bit on the pale side. She’d been reluctant to meet me here, something about feeling a bit under the weather.

  Claudia addressed her laces. ‘I’ll be fine. It’s good for me to do something other than work and go home anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean? Aren’t you out most nights, Miss Social Butterfly?’

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  Claudia put our bags in a big locker, put in a pound coin and turned the lock. She didn’t explain herself any more. Sometimes she was like that, Claudia. She wasn’t always in the mood for chatting about herself. She straightened up and gave me a small smile. Even though she was pale and wearing sportswear, she still managed to look glamorous. I looked down at my own faded leggings, which were bagging at the knee, and noticed my vest top had a stain near one nipple. Fucking fantastic.

  ‘Chin up, darling, it won’t hurt that much.’

  ‘I’m not worried about the exercise, it’s my outfit.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with it.’

  But Claudia didn’t sound convinced.

  I followed her swinging ponytail reluctantly into the gym.

  ‘Christ, Claud, I never realised that the term smart casual applies to working out.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Claudia looked around her.

  ‘Claud, these gym outfits cost more than the stuff I wear to work!’

  ‘Sam, do you or do you not want to get in better shape before the weekend?’

  ‘Do,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to get over your silly inferiority complex and get on the machine. It’s really easy, you just push your feet down like this – it’s a little like riding a bike.’

  Claudia set off, her body rising up and down as her feet went round and round, her hands clutching two large poles that went rapidly back and forth, her bosom flumph-flumph-flumphing onto her chest. I eyed up the machine with suspicion. It didn’t look like riding a bike. It looked ridiculous. But I sighed and clambered on, acutely aware of how amateur I looked, placing my feet in the oversized foot shapes and hoisting myself up onto the machine. Holding onto the bar in front of me, I gingerly tried moving my feet like I was on a bicycle.

  ‘This feels really weird – my body doesn’t feel straight.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it, now grab hold of the poles,’ Claudia said briskly, not breaking her rhythm.

  I kept my feet moving and looked at the poles going forward and back, forward and back, on their own. I took a deep breath and lunged for the right one as it came close. It hurtled away from me immediately, taking my body roughly to the right. I lunged for the left one and grasped it tightly. I felt like I was being taken for a ride, not the other way around. Claudia snorted with laughter next to me.

  ‘Shut it!’ I hissed.

  ‘You could just stop your feet, darling, and then grab the poles.’

  I sensed Claudia stopping next to me and turned my head just enough to glance at her as she showed me, with exaggerated moves, how easy it was to reach the poles in a stationary position.

  ‘Well, great, that’s really helpful now, Claud.’ I caught the eye of a man, easily ten years my senior and as fit as a fireman, running on a treadmill nearby and obviously tickled watching me. I gritted my teeth and kept moving. This fucking machine would not beat me. I would slim down. Charlie would look at me and swoon. I would create a new me.

  ‘So has he been in touch since?’

  I couldn’t understand how Claudia could chat and work out at the same time. My side of the conversation came out in sad little puffs.

  ‘Oh yes . . . lots of texts . . .’ Gasp. ‘He says . . . he doesn’t think he’s in love with her any more . . . that they’re more like old friends . . .’ Back, forth, back, forth went the poles. Round and round went my feet. Burn burn went my thighs!

  ‘That old chestnut, eh?’ Claudia smiled at me and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I . . . said. He insisted it was . . . true . . . says he wants to see me at his party.’

  Claudia’s eyebrows were still halfway up her forehead.

  ‘I thought you were meant to be playing hard to get a bit, you know, holding out for the big reveal at this party?’

  Round and round, round and round. I hated this machine so much.

  ‘You know . . . what?’ I gasped. ‘Having the third degree while . . . trying t
o make this . . . fucking thing work . . .’

  Claudia glanced at me as I slowed down. Her lovely cheeks had acquired two little circles of pink.

  ‘Giving up already?’ she asked.

  I leant on the bar, my legs shaking.

  ‘What did you say this thing is called again?’

  ‘It’s called a crosstrainer.’

  ‘I’m not sure I need any training in being cross, you know.’

  I stepped down off the foot platforms onto the floor. It appeared to be much harder since I’d last stepped on it.

  ‘Maybe I just need to make the most of my outfit instead, Claud? This body can’t hack the pace.’

  Claudia nimbly stepped down off her machine.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re worrying about your body anyway, Sam. You’ve never worried before – why start now?’

  ‘I know. I didn’t have Charlie in my life again, though, did I?’

  Claudia looked at me for a bit without saying anything. I couldn’t tell if she was looking at me with pity or confusion, or something else completely. Whatever it was, she stopped thinking it, gave herself a little shake and said, ‘Come on, let’s just call it a day and go home. I’m wiped out.’

  ‘What a bloody good idea,’ I agreed.

  *

  The following day I had a couple of meetings in Soho in the afternoon, and was at Kate’s by four o’clock. Why I hadn’t come to see her earlier had stumped me all day. Girl has big date at weekend, girl wants to get thinner, girl asks ex-model friend for advice, right? No, girl flaps around panicking about what to wear first, spends way too much time in the bathroom, girl mortifies herself at a poncy gym. Honestly, I thought, you are a prize idiot sometimes.

  Kate put a cup of peppermint tea in front of me and sort of wafted into the seat opposite me at the kitchen table.

  ‘Sorry, I can’t find the normal tea.’

  I smiled thinly but my stomach turned at the thought of drinking it. Kate was a dear thing but she really was missing out when it came to food and drink. Far too many pulses and herbal teas, and not enough hamburgers and milky cups of builder’s.

  ‘I don’t know how I can help you, Sam. I can’t even find basic food items in my cupboard.’

  ‘You probably didn’t have them there to start with.’

  Kate glanced over to the chaos of her kitchen bench.

  ‘No, you’re probably right.’ Her voice was so soft it was almost ethereal. She turned back to look at me and waited.

  ‘The thing is, Kate, I’ve got Charlie’s birthday party coming up on Saturday night and I want to look my best. I tried the gym with Claudia last night and it was awful, and I’ve met his girlfriend, and she’s gorgeous and skinny—’

  ‘No.’

  I looked at her, bewildered – how did she know what I was going to ask her?

  ‘I’m not going to.’

  ‘Not going to do what?’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you how to lose weight between now and Saturday.’

  ‘How did you know I was going to ask you that?’

  Kate frowned a small frown. ‘Of course you were going to.’

  I sat back in my chair. ‘You’re right,’ I relented. ‘I’m sorry. It’s really pathetic of me. I just feel out of my depth a bit and I really want to make an impression.’ I was aware I was whining.

  ‘You’re gorgeous just the way you are!’

  ‘That’s kind of you to say, Kate, but I don’t feel that way. I feel like a frumpy, clumsy, plain commoner. And I want to look special that night, and feel like I’m worthy of him.’

  Kate looked at me thoughtfully. ‘What’s so special about this guy anyway?’ She pushed a bowl of Bombay mix towards me.

  I took a handful and tipped it into my mouth, looking up at the ceiling at a damp spot where it met the wall, and then down at the table. I pushed a drip of tea along the grain of the wood.

  ‘I don’t know what’s so amazing about him actually. I just know that I feel different when I’m with him. I feel like I’m sharp, amusing, unique—’ I stopped and shook my head. ‘Christ, listen to me drivelling on. You don’t need to hear this. I’m not even making sense.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Kate replied. ‘I’m not sure I’m convinced he deserves the attention but I understand you feeling like that. I used to feel like that around Martin.’

  I couldn’t believe she’d said that – she couldn’t compare Martin to Charlie! Martin was a sleazy, two-timing, shallow, selfish . . . Oh.

  ‘I’m not saying that what happened to me will happen to you,’ Kate said, as if reading my mind. She drew her finger absently across her bottom lip and then laid it on the table. ‘I suppose you’re going to sit there until I give you some of my evil dieting advice, aren’t you.’

  My face lit up. ‘You bet!’

  ‘You’ve never been interested in this kind of thing before. I thought you were more down to earth than this.’

  I squirmed in my seat, aware that embarrassment was twisting my mouth into a funny shape.

  ‘All right,’ Kate said reluctantly, ‘I’ll give you something to do through til Saturday.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  ‘But there is one condition.’ She gave me a severe look, looking less fairy-like and much more like Mara in her scary bossy mode.

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘You don’t do it again after this week. Ever. You don’t need to – you’re in great shape and you’ll have to learn to love yourself the way you are.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ I saluted.

  ‘You won’t need to write anything down,’ Kate said, as she saw me rummaging in my bag for paper and pen. ‘It’s quite simple – all you’re going to eat are grapes.’

  ‘Grapes?’

  ‘That’s it. As few as possible. Some women get by on one a day.’

  My jaw dropped.

  ‘But you’re to eat more than that and drink loads of water. Black tea and coffee, no sugar obviously, no juice and definitely no alcohol.’ Kate stood up and picked up her large Cath Kidston tote, which was slung across the back of a chair. ‘I’ve gotta go get the kids now. Hopefully they’ve given their dad and his tart their bug.’ She walked down the hall with me.

  ‘Bug?’

  ‘Oh yeah, nothing too crazy, just a bit of vomiting.’

  She caught the look on my face at the door and laughed.

  ‘Oh don’t worry! I cleaned the kitchen.’

  Somehow I found that a little difficult to believe. Thank God I hadn’t had any of my tea.

  After kissing Kate goodbye, I wandered down the road in the direction of the fruit shop where Kate was sure you could buy grapes with pips in them (‘None of that genetically modified rubbish!’). It wasn’t until I entered the fruit shop and saw bags of Bombay mix lined up that I recalled both my own and Kate’s hands dipping into the bowl of nibbles.

  35

  CLAUDIA

  All week I immersed myself in work and kept banter with colleagues to a minimum. I avoided eating lunch with Jill. I didn’t go out in the evenings – except for a quick visit to the gym one evening with a very amusing Sam, who proved to be welcome light relief. I had never seen anyone take to a crosstrainer quite as unnaturally as she did.

  But that was only one night. More typically in the evenings I went straight home, took my pills and curled into a ball in front of the TV. It was the slowest week of my life.

  The only thing of note I had achieved was getting in touch with the two men I had slept with before John. Marco was first. He was a buff bouncer from a club I often go to, his olive skin stretched taut over his biceps. I had known him for years and our relationship was a warm friendship based on mutual respect and understanding for each other’s sex appeal. He had been very blasé about it and promised me that he’d get tested as soon as he could.

  ‘Oh, my darlin’, don’t you worry your pretty head any more. Marco will find out the facts and get straight back to you.’ He was obviously well used to the procedur
e and completely unfazed by it all. It was slightly comforting to think I wasn’t the only woman in London going through the torment of contacting lovers. Marco wouldn’t be the only lover in London getting tested. In fact, he was probably a regular at his local clinic. I could just imagine Marco happily calling into a clinic on the way to work in the early evening and flirting with the receptionist. Then I swung back to feeling cheap. The voices in my head, in their roles of ‘Daddy’s little girl’ and ‘woman of the world’, were conducting an epic conversation in my head.

  I’m sharing this experience with sleazy bouncers – that’s crazy!

  Stop being such a snob.

  But I come from a good family. It’s not meant to be like this.

  You come from a sperm and an egg, get real.

  Papa would hate this if he knew.

  Your daddy tried keeping you in a box away from other people.

  He didn’t mean any harm!

  No, but he’s a snob and wanted you to be better than everyone else.

  He was just doing what he knew was best.

  But you love knowing all sorts of people.

  But I don’t have to sleep with them all!

  Life’s for living, stop giving yourself such a hard time.

  But I caught a bug!

  On and on it went boiling away quietly in the background as I wrote emails, took meetings, went to the toilet and collected documents from the printer, keeping my head down and my hands busy. The busier I was, the quieter the argument in my head, but when I left the office it ramped up into a full-blown barney. Claudia has chlamydia. Claudia has chlamydia. Only whisky would dampen the noise. Shots, two minimum, downed as quickly as possible. The orders from Doc not to drink on top of the medication were too hard to stick to. It was only a couple of drinks, I reasoned, and it lowered the volume of the voices in my head enough for me to fall asleep.

  It was at the end of one of these short evenings that instead of passing out directly, I picked up my phone to call David, the second man before John. David was in insurance, a brisk, extremely clean man who I’d met one night at a party.

  ‘Yes?’ he answered his mobile, obviously frightfully busy at nine thirty on a Tuesday evening.