Losing It

by Jane Asher

  As for Mum and Dad – it’s getting quite heavy the way they constantly needle each other. They’ve never been the sort to have arguments, and they still don’t, but Mum’s sarcasm and Dad’s annoying way of talking as if he’s in court all the time are getting on my nerves, and I can just see how they irritate each other. I used to envy my friends at school when they told me how their parents yelled and shouted and even threw things – it sounded so dramatic and kind of Italian, when my home was so quiet and boring. Sometimes I’d make things up about Mum and Dad fighting just to make them sound more interesting – I really wanted them to be divorced so’s I could be sent from one to another like Annabel. She used to get amazing presents from her father.

  But now that it’s not quite so sunny at home I feel differently. I wish it could be just the way it used to be.

  Charlie

  It was to be another couple of weeks before it happened – before it all changed, I mean.

  I was in court – a long and rather dull case that had been dragging on for days. I was examining my own client: a woman who, if I am honest with myself, I knew quite clearly deserved never to see her children again. I was attempting to secure her some sort of limited access.

  I was trying to convince the judge that the woman’s prolonged absences abroad away from her children had been justified by the demands of her work or some such, and, as I questioned her, I had been watching her elegant, manicured hand playing with her expensively streaked hair, forcing her to tilt her head as she peered at me resignedly from behind the shining blonde curtain.

  I was far from confident that my client, vague and uninterested as she had appeared to be in our briefings, would remember our policy of explaining by her work schedule the weeks and months at a time that she had spent away from her family over the course of the previous years, and I had been irritated by her lack of cooperation in a process that I myself was not at all sure was valid. As I waited for her to answer, her head still now, her hand fiddling with a string of pearls round her neck, I found myself watching the way the ring she was wearing glittered as it caught the light. It reminded me of something, and gave me an uneasy feeling I couldn’t fathom. As she began to speak – detailing some justification that we had conjured up between us for her extensive holidays – she thrust her hand back into the blonde tresses, arranging and rearranging the fall of hair, clearly a nervous habit that was helping her to cope with the stress of her court appearance. The ring moved in and out, twinkling sporadically and mesmerically. What memory, lurking at the back of my mind, was being triggered by the sight of this gold and sapphire piece of jewellery?

  It was, of course, Stacey’s ring. Remarkable how the mind can make connections without letting you know, how it can carry on a private conversation between memory and the subconscious until the nagging irritation of the discussion can no longer be ignored. That I should be surreptitiously reminded of a shop girl’s cheap bit of vulgar jewellery by the obviously expensive sapphire ring of the woman I was examining in court was strange enough; what was inexplicable was that the connection should be so disturbing. What should have merely caused me to smile in recognition made me frown in dread.

  I pictured Stacey’s hand, and the ring half buried in the flesh. And it was then – I’m sure of it – exactly then, as I recalled the soft, white skin and the twinkling of those cheap little blue stones against the ludicrous rococo swirls of gold, that I knew everything had changed. Gone in one microsecond of terrible knowledge was all vestige of the so-called fatherly feelings that I’d professed for the girl. Gone, to be replaced in the same instant by a searing stab of desire so intense that I had to dip my head in sudden dizziness for fear of fainting. The shock was total. How could I possibly trust the bizarre message that every nerve in my brain and body was screaming at me: that a girl whom I had met – no, not even met, encountered at most – a mere dozen or so times, and with whom I had had the briefest of conversations, was affecting my emotions so suddenly and drastically? It was a moment that needs poetry or music to attempt a description – no mere words can convey that kind of emotional attack. Not because of its beauty – far from it: the realisation was closer to horror than to delight – but because the force of such a moment, that takes one’s heart in its grip and squeezes it until life itself is threatened, is beyond account.

  Stacey

  ‘What are you doing later, then?’ I asked Sheila.

  Sheila’s always doing something, and sometimes she’ll let me go too. Denisha says it’s to make her feel smug, ’cos she knows I never go nowhere otherwise, and it makes her feel like she’s doing something good, like for charity, you know. But it ain’t that – I know that. She likes me going with her sometimes ’cos it makes her look better than she really is next to me. She dresses like she’s really something, does Sheila, but I know she knows she ain’t really. If she goes out with Janet you can see the difference. It’s all make-up and tarty clothes with Sheila – if you see her without all that you can see how horrible she is. No wonder she never keeps none of the boys more than once or twice of going out. Once she sleeps with them that’s it. I know she tries to keep her make-up on ’cos I’ve seen her in the morning when she’s come back from a night with one of her fellas and her eye make-up’s all smudgy. You can tell she’s tried to wipe it off from under her eyes when she’s woken up. But it don’t fool them none – they know what she really looks like. If you ask me they know that anyway, but they think she’s worth a quick fuck or two. But they ain’t never gonna give her their babies, I can tell you that.

  So, anyway, I fancied a drink or two so I asked her what she was doing. I’m always hoping a bleeding miracle’ll happen and I’ll get myself laid, too, if I’m honest. I’ve had guys come on to me, mind, but it’s always in a freaky kind of way – they’re turned on ’cos I’m fat. I can always tell, even when that guy at the club that night I went with Sheila come out with all that about me being pretty.

  Denisha always says they don’t mean nothing of what they say when their cocks are stiff and they’ll do anything just to get you to let them do it, or to get you to suck them off and that, and I knew what she meant when that little runt was telling me all that shit about being gorgeous or whatever he said. I could see he was just dying for it and he was all sweaty and disgusting and I knew he wanted to rub himself. I nearly let him do it to me, too, just ’cos it was so good to hear him say all that shit about my eyes being so pretty and that. And I wanted to do it once, in fact, ’cos I ain’t never done it proper. Not really proper fucking like in the films – there’s been a couple of times when I was smaller in the old days that boys got their thing half in but each time they both came so quick I never felt much. Anyway, what with this creep telling me my eyes was pretty I nearly let him just so’s I could say I done it but then he said about my mouth being – what was it? – not lovely – luscious! That’s it – luscious! That put me right off ’cos it was so stupid.

  I told Denisha that one after and she laughed like anything. She’s right, of course: my lips ain’t nothing like luscious. You’d think with all that fat all over me and under my chin and hanging on the sides of my cheeks that at least I’d have good, fat lips and big boobs. But I don’t – I’ve got this little tiny mouth that’s half buried in blubbery stuff and my boobs ain’t really big neither. It’s just all that fat hanging about all over my chest that makes them look as if they must be from the outside. I’d like to have some of that stuff injected into my lips – what d’ya call it? – collagen or something, but Sheila says she read in Heat magazine that the woman off EastEnders had it done and her face all swelled up and went purple and now she can’t eat nothing except soup. Mind you, if that’s true then that might be a good thing in my case. Big lips and only soup and I’d be looking good in no time.

  I’d got right depressed after that letter from Crystal. I love Crystal and I want her to be happy; I really do. It’s just that it makes me feel more alone when one of them over there gets on the
other side. It ain’t never going to happen to me, that’s for sure.

  ‘Might go up the high street later. Wanna come?’ Sheila said.

  ‘Yeah, OK. Are you with anyone?’

  ‘Nah. Might meet Vinny later, but nothing’s fixed.’

  ‘Oh, shit, not Vinny, Sheila. He’s a right drag – you know that.’

  ‘No, he ain’t. He’s a good laugh. It ain’t that though anyway, is it, Stacey?’

  ‘How d’ya mean?’

  We was sitting at one of the tables in the staff canteen. It’s not bad there, as it happens. Quite bright and cheerful, as my mum would say. They done it all out fresh the other day, and the walls are a sort of bright yellowy orange. Dead cheerful. And we get to buy all kinds of packets of stuff real cheap that get damaged in the store, so there’s always a bargain or two. Don’t help my diet none, of course, but it don’t come down to little things like that, you see. It’s the metabolism that’s to blame.

  ‘How d’ya mean?’ I said again. She can be right irritating, can Sheila, when she tries. She was just sitting there, giving me one of her clever looks. ‘Come on, Sheil,’ I said, ‘don’t fuck about – it’s not what about Vinny?’

  ‘It’s not ’cos you think he’s a drag that you don’t like it when he comes out with us.’

  ‘Well, why then?’

  ‘It’s ’cos he’s dead funny about you, innit? It’s ’cos he makes us laugh. You gotta have a sense of humour, Stace. That’s your trouble – I know you don’t like us sending you up but Vinny’s right funny about everyone, you know that.’

  ‘It’s all right for you, Sheil. You don’t know what it’s like.’

  ‘Oh, come on, he’s the same about all of us, is Vinny. He should be on telly, my mum says. He’s got a right sharp tongue on him.’

  I was eating a fish supper. I’d finished at six o’clock and I always have my dinner about six thirty in the canteen when I’m on this shift to save my mum having to cook. She ain’t a born cook, my ma, so it ain’t like I’m missing much when I eat at work. Fish is good for you and not so many calories as some of the pies they do in the canteen, so I have the fish when it’s on. With chips and salad. Salad’s good for you too.

  ‘Your boyfriend been in?’ Sheila had a mouthful of coleslaw, and there was bits hanging out of her mouth but I could still hear what she said. She likes asking me about the old guy. I know she gets a thrill from talking to me about most anything really: it makes her feel so much cleverer and better when she talks to me. It’s funny really – I know her brain’s not a patch on mine but she thinks she’s the clever one. I can see through all that stuff though, but all she understands is just the outside of everything. She don’t see the inner life, that’s her problem. Not that my inner life is much cop, but it would be if I didn’t have such a fucking nothing outer life – I’ve got the wherewithal for it, I’ve got the equipment. Sheila don’t have none of that at all: her inner life’s a bleeding airy desert. Tumbleweed time, if you ask me. But as far as she’s concerned it’s what you see on the outside that matters. My life is just the shop and my mum, apart from her, and she loves to be reminded of it. Makes her feel brilliant it does: a right social whirl, her life is, compared to mine.

  I squeezed a bit more ketchup onto the fish. Ketchup’s good for you too. It’s made of lycene ’cos of the tomatoes, you see. Crystal told me that in one of her letters. Or is it lycepone? Something like that, anyway.

  ‘Course he has.’ I smiled back at Sheila. I wasn’t gonna give her the satisfaction of looking upset about it. ‘He’s been in three times this week.’

  ‘Truly weird, that’s all I can say. I wouldn’t want some old guy getting off on me, I can tell you.’

  ‘No, you just want young ones getting off on you, Sheil.’

  She looked right pissed off at that, and I felt quite pleased with myself. Who’s she kidding? Her and her tight, low tops. ‘Do up your overall please, Sheila,’ Warren’s always telling her. ‘Oh dear, Mr Chipstead – however can that have happened?’ she says. ‘Must be too tight for me across the top.’ Silly tart.

  I looked out of the window. I hate December. The nearer it gets to Christmas the more I hate it. They’ll be putting up the tree in the shop soon, and all the customers will start buying Christmas cakes and packets of mince pies and stuff. I hate to see the checkout loaded with all that, it makes me feel right depressed, I dunno why.

  ‘No, he’s all right, that old bloke. Fuck knows why he comes to my till all the time – he must know I’m twice as slow as you or Janet. I’m slower than any of you. But he don’t seem like one of those who has a thing about – you know.’

  ‘What d’you say, Stacey?’

  I looked back at her and I could see she wasn’t really interested anyway. She was looking at something over my shoulder and I turned round to see what it was. It was hard to turn ’cos the seats in the canteen are fixed to the floor and I can only get on one by sitting sideways on the edge and not getting my legs under the table at all. And I was sitting the wrong way to look round, so I had to try to twist myself about a bit to give my neck room to turn. And twisting’s not really my thing, you see. Well, anyway, I managed to see what she was looking at. Mrs Peters was having a coffee with Denisha, and they was chatting to each other like real friends.

  ‘Ooooooh!’ I said. ‘Now what’s all that about?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Sheila, ‘but I don’t like it. If she’s gonna give her my overtime I’ll kill the cow. Anyway, what was you saying about your posh old friend, Stacey?’

  ‘He doesn’t seem like one of those who’s funny about – you know.’

  ‘What?’

  I sometimes think I like to make things more difficult for me than what they are already. I mean, I know Sheila likes to get me to talk about my problem – I know that by now. So why do I sit with her? And why do I bring up stuff when I know what she’s gonna do? Make me say things. It give her a kick to make me say them. So maybe all along I want to say them. That’s Crystal’s theory anyway. She says she heard that on the telly or somewhere, that you make yourself talk about the things you don’t like or something. Well, if that’s right I should be talking about my weight problem all day and all night, that’s what I wrote her back. Well, maybe you do, she wrote me then. Maybe if you shut up about it and didn’t think about it you wouldn’t feel so bad and you’d stop minding. Well, I wrote back, you try not thinking about it when your skin’s rubbed raw and your knees ache so much you wanna cry and you can’t buy no clothes except them that’s like tents and you can’t get on a bus so you stand on the step part and everyone has to push past you and you can’t fit in a seat at the cinema and nobody wants to go out with you except to have a laugh. That shut her up for a bit.

  ‘You know what I’m saying.’

  ‘No, I don’t. What?’

  See what I mean? Just had to make me say it, didn’t she?

  ‘He don’t seem like one of those what likes big women. That’s what I meant, and you know it.’

  ‘Oh, right. Well, I don’t know about that. He looks like he has a right old wank when he gets home thinking about you, if you ask me.’

  ‘Don’t be disgusting, Sheil.’

  Old sharp-ears Peters was just passing the table with Denisha and must have heard the ‘w’ word, ’cos she stopped and looked at us with that daft expression on her face that she thinks makes her look as if she’s in charge and knows what she’s doing. As if. I could see her thinking about whether to say anything or not, but then she got distracted by my plate. Always a good one for a comment or two from Mrs Peters, is my plate.

  ‘Do you really think you need that, Stacey dear? All that batter is full of fat, you know. Why don’t you just have a nice yoghurt and an apple?’

  Fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, you interfering cow. ‘No, I’m off dairy produce, Mrs Peters. My doctor said I wasn’t to eat no dairy produce, you see. But I’m to have plenty of lycene.’

  Ha! That got her. I could see she
hadn’t a flying fuck of a clue what lycene was, but being the stuck-up cow she is she wasn’t gonna let on. So she daren’t say much else in case she give herself away, you see.

  ‘Oh, well, I’m sure he knows best, dear.’

  I didn’t say nothing more ’cos I just wanted her to go away really, and I wanted to see if Denisha was going to walk out with her, but she never. Mrs P kind of nodded at us and turned away – I could see she was scared I’d say something more about lycene and she’d have to come clean about not understanding what I was on about – and Denisha sat down next to Sheila.

  ‘What was you sitting with Mrs P for, Denish?’ I asked once old nosy was too far away to hear us.

  ‘Oh, never mind, Stacey, nothing for you to worry about. Nothing important,’ she said, and then she turned and whispered something in Sheila’s ear and Sheila laughed. It’s not like I think it was about me or nothing – I know it wasn’t ’cos Denish ain’t like that – but they never include me in their jokes and stuff unless they want something from me, and it makes me feel ever so lonely sometimes.

  ‘So are we going up the high street, then, Sheila?’

  ‘Yeah, OK, Stacey. But piss off when I give ya the word, will ya? If Vin gets in the mood I don’t want you getting in the way, OK?’

  ‘OK,’ I said. But you wait, I thought, it’ll be me telling you to piss off one day, Sheila. And even you, Denisha. There’ll be no more whispering and keeping me out of your jokes then, will there? Once I’m sorted I’ll be telling you all to piss off.