Stolen Beginnings

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Nag, nag, nag.’ Madeleine tripped lightly past her and disappeared into the bedroom. Marian followed.

  ‘You won’t mind sleeping on the sofa, will you, if I manage to get off with Paul O’Connell?’ Madeleine said, flopping down on her bed.

  ‘What, or who, are you going as tonight?’ Marian demanded.

  ‘You’ll have to wait and see. No, it’s not Eve,’ she said, as Marian began to protest. ‘And what about you, where’s your costume?’

  ‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ Marian said, and went to pour some wine.

  ‘I got you a wig in Dingles,’ Madeleine told her when she came back with two glasses. ‘Cover up that horrible old hair of yours.’

  ‘You’re so charming,’ Marian answered. ‘I won’t ask how you paid for it, but you know where you can stick your wig. Now, who’s first in the bath?’

  ‘You were yesterday, so it’s my turn today.’

  ‘Well, don’t let the water go cold like you usually do,’ Marian called after her.

  Two hours later the flat was jammed with oddly-attired people. Music shook the walls, and dancing feet scuffled over the dull brown carpet. A fog of smoke was beginning to gather around the dimmed lights, and red and white wine flowed into glasses, over fingers and down the furniture. Marian stood in a corner beside the meagre buffet, watching the heaving mass, her eyes darting from one squealing, grotesquely laughing face to another. Tinsel was dragged from the walls and draped round necks, champagne corks popped and glasses smashed. Marian bit her lips and wondered how they were going to pay the off-licence for the damages.

  Most of their guests were Madeleine’s friends, girls from the strip-o-gram agency, old and current boyfriends, and the regulars from the Chateau Wine Bar. Marian had kept in touch with a few of her university chums, like Rob and Mary, the bookworm and the bluestocking, and they had deigned to attend this decadent party before flying off to some obscure part of the world the following week. They had brought along a couple of friends from, America who were staying over the Christmas period, and the discussion in the kitchen, on the merits of Buddhism, couldn’t have been more at odds with the writhings and shenanigans in the sitting-room.

  ‘Where’s that Madeleine?’ someone yelled to no one in particular. ‘Get her in here, shaking that body about!’

  ‘What’s the matter, mine not good enough for you?’ a brassy-looking blonde answered, pressing herself against the man who was done up as Madonna.

  There were whoops and cheers as the girl fondled his false breasts, and picking up a bottle of wine, Marian wandered through the crowd, smiling shyly and offering refills. She could have been invisible for all the attention she was receiving, but she didn’t mind, she was used to it. The music changed, and Whitney Houston’s ‘I Want to Dance With Somebody’ rocked the room. ‘Excuse me,’ Marian said to Anthony and Cleopatra, squeezing past them and slipping out into the hall. As she started to open the bedroom door it was slammed back in her face. ‘Madeleine!’ she shouted. ‘Let me in!’

  The door opened a fraction and Madeleine popped her head round. ‘Is he here yet?’ Then her expression changed as she saw Marian’s costume. ‘Who the bloody hell are you supposed to be? What’s that on your head?’

  ‘I’m the cook,’ Marian answered, adjusting the chef’s hat she had bought in a secondhand shop.

  ‘Jesus! And you’re supposed to be the one with all the imagination. Anyway, is he here yet?’

  Marian rolled her eyes. ‘Not yet. Look, what if he doesn’t come? You can’t stay in there all night. Everyone’s asking where you are.’

  ‘I’ll give it another ten minutes,’ Madeleine said, ‘then I’ll make my entrance whether he’s here or not.’

  ‘You’d better have some clothes on,’ Marian said meaningfully.

  ‘Oh, go and get drunk,’ Madeleine snapped, and snatching the bottle of wine, she closed the door before Marian could say any more. Marian pressed a path down the hall, grabbed another bottle of wine and took it into the kitchen.

  ‘The Labour party’s nothing more than a turd that the Thatcherites can’t quite flush away,’ Rob was saying. ‘There’s no hope for us here, man. The great canker capitalism is raping this land of conscience and morality. I doubt if Mary and I will ever come back from Tibet. Ah, Marian, any more of that revolting Leibfraumilch going?’

  He held his thin, serious face on one side as Marian poured. ‘Why don’t you come to Tibet with us?’ he said. ‘You’re not cut out for the superficialities of life. You should write, I’ve told you that a hundred times. In the mountains of Tibet you could do some serious thinking, make a serious analysis of the soul, an exploration of Why?’

  ‘I could also seriously vegetate,’ Marian said, and winked at one of the Americans. When his face remained impassive she blushed. ‘Sorry,’ she said, smiling at Rob. ‘An exploration of why what?’

  He gave her one of his pained looks. ‘Why anything, Marian? Why the sun, why the moon, why the stars, why life?’

  ‘For fun?’ she suggested.

  The mute Americans shuffled their Roman-sandal-clad feet and glanced sympathetically at Rob.

  ‘But what is fun?’ Mary interjected. ‘You could write a whole tome on what really makes fun. I mean, to begin with, what’s fun for one man could be gross tedium for another . . .’

  ‘I’d go along with that,’ Marian said, not without irony.

  ‘Exactly!’ Rob proclaimed. ‘Just take the people here tonight, Marian. They could be the very subject of your study. Push it to its limits, find out why the empty-headed pursuit of cheap wine, easy sex and new clothes fulfils them. Dig right to the root, Marian, find out what has lured them into the Penelope’s web of our time. Put the rot of their lives under a microscope . . .’

  ‘Ah, poppycock!’

  The voice simmered with delight, and in one movement the five of them turned to the door. A strange sensation coasted across Marian’s heart, and the corners of her mouth twitched with laughter. Paul O’Connell’s frame filled the doorway. His thick blond hair, falling windswept and damp across his forehead, contrasted strikingly with his black eyebrows; his eyes were alive with humour.

  ‘If you look round a party long enough,’ he said, ‘you’ll always find it.’ He held his hand out towards Marian. ‘Paul O’Connell,’ he said.

  She mumbled, ‘Yes, I recognise you. I’m glad you could make it. Shall I take your coat?’

  He took it off, but just as he was about to hand it to her, he jerked it away again, saying, ‘No, don’t go. I’ll hang it here on the back of the door. Now, what was all this about the rot of life being put under a microscope?’

  Mary answered. ‘Rob was trying to persuade Marian to get to the bottom of society’s deterioration. The time-wasting, the irrelevance of the fun those people out there would claim to be having.’ It was evident, from the slight catch in her voice, that Paul O’Connell’s presence was affecting her every bit as much as Marian.

  Paul nodded. ‘Undergraduate rhetoric.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Rob rebutted, looking and feeling absurd in his Spiderman costume. ‘A philosophical debate among graduates.’

  ‘Bristol?’ Paul enquired. ‘I’m a Cambridge man myself. Several years ago now, though.’

  ‘What do you do now?’ Rob asked.

  ‘I write. You?’

  ‘He’s conducting an exploration of motive,’ Mary chirped, then almost giggled at the look that came over Paul’s face.

  ‘What do you write?’ one of the Americans asked, startling Marian who was beginning to wonder if they’d taken a vow of silence.

  ‘Literature,’ Paul answered. Then, as a sudden whoop of hysteria sounded from the next room, he treated them to a sardonic look and left.

  Marian glanced over Rob’s reedy frame in its Spiderman suit and couldn’t stop the grin as she said, ‘Why don’t you try walking up the walls?’ and then she followed Paul into the sitting-room.

  In the centre of the room Madel
eine was lapping up the attention her costume had provoked. Marian stopped in the doorway, shaking her head and smiling; at least she had something on!

  ‘I am Marlene Deitrich,’ Madeleine purred in what she hoped was a German accent. In her black high-heels she towered above most of the people in the room. Running her hands slinkily over her corseted hips, she threw back her head and lifted a long, slender leg onto the arm of the sofa. ‘Who will light my cigarette?’ she said, placing a tapering black holder between her lips and scanning those closest to her with dreamy, close-lidded eyes. There was a rush of lighters, but ‘Dame Edna’ got there first, and slipped his hand under a black suspender as Madeleine blew a cloud of smoke into his face.

  ‘Quite a performance.’

  Marian looked up at Paul, but his eyes, like everyone else’s, were riveted on Madeleine. Even Madeleine was watching herself as she sauntered slowly towards the mirror. Her body had only one flaw in its otherwise classical perfection, but it was a flaw that Madeleine felt to be her greatest asset. Her breasts spilled over the 38D cup, the soft flesh rippling gently as she moved. With no resentment, Marian felt herself blending into the wallpaper. With her long mouse hair, small eyes and narrow lips, she was as plain as Madeleine was beautiful. And – except with people she knew well – she was as shy as Madeleine was confident. But it didn’t matter to her that she was never noticed when Maddy was around; in fact, to be centre-stage herself would make her extremely uncomfortable. Thank God for Madeleine, she thought to herself now, because without her, her life would be as empty as the proverbial sack. She chuckled quietly as she considered what Rob would have to say to that, and as the music started up again she went back to the kitchen.

  Madeleine was dancing with one of her bosses from the gramming agency, throwing back her head, flinging out her arms and wiggling her hips in the sensational routine she practised most evenings. It was only when her boss offered her a rise in salary for a night between the sheets, and in answer she looked at him to give him what she called her Marilyn Monroe lick of the lips, that she noticed Paul O’Connell standing by the Christmas tree, talking to her colleague and arch-rival, Felicity. Her heart gave a giant leap and her boss was abandoned on the instant. Just looking at Paul O’Connell did things to her no man had ever done before, and as she cut a path through the clustered, jiving bodies she could feel her senses starting to tingle with anticipation. Bluntly she informed Felicity that she really ought to check out the red stain on the back of her Miss Piggy costume, then grinned as Felicity hissed that it was ‘the Pink Panther, actually’, and swept off to the bathroom.

  Madeleine watched her go, then turned her sultry eyes to Paul. ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,’ she said, looking him over hungrily. ‘You know you have to pay a forfeit for not wearing fancy dress?’

  His eyebrows rose and his smile was lazy and knowing. Then he caught her as a cavorting couple jolted into them, and his smile widened as she made no move to break away. ‘Tell me what it is,’ he said, ‘and I’ll tell you if I can pay.’

  Her eyes roamed his face before answering. ‘I’m sure I’ll think of something to take off you before the night’s out,’ she purred.

  ‘I’m sure you will,’ he said. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s someone over there I’d like to say hello to.’

  He didn’t miss her sour look as he gently pushed her back on her feet, but he was bored by women who threw themselves at him.

  She didn’t see him again until the countdown to midnight, when she found him in the kitchen with Marian and the eggheads. ‘God, you could get high on the air in here,’ she remarked, scowling at Rob, who was sucking at a joint. ‘Come on,’ she said to Marian, ‘it’s almost midnight.’ Her voice was high, trying to inject some excitement into the soporific atmosphere, and grabbing both Paul and Marian by the hand, she dragged them into the sitting-room as the countdown finished and the New Year was given a roar of welcome. Immediately she threw her arms around Paul and pushed her tongue into his mouth. He did nothing to resist, but neither did he respond. When she’d finished, she let him go and kissed Marian. Then everyone joined hands and josded and cheered through a chorus of ‘Auld Lang Syne’.

  ‘OK, Gerry!’ Madeleine called as the circle broke up. Gerry pushed a button on the cassette player and Marian buried her face in her hands as the music started. It was ‘The Stripper’.

  A space was quickly cleared for Madeleine and everyone clapped their hands in time to the music as she peeled off the few items of clothing she wore. For a fleeting moment Marian thought she was going to stop at the microscopic scrap of lace she wore round her hips, but with the final beats of the music that too was removed, and stepping back into her high-heels, Madeleine threw out her arms and let the applause wash over her naked body.

  The music changed to a soft Christmas-time melody and she turned to find Paul, her face flushed with excitement. But only Marian stood behind her, and as her eyes darted about, searching, Marian shook her head.

  ‘He’s gone,’ she whispered.

  ‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?’

  Marian shrugged. ‘He just said he was leaving, and went.’

  ‘Didn’t you try and stop him?’

  ‘How could I? What was I supposed to say?’ She sensed a tantrum coming on, and for once watched in relief as two large hands reached around Madeleine and squeezed her breasts. It was her boss.

  ‘My dance, I think,’ he said, and pulled Madeleine into the middle of the room . . .

  The party broke up around two, by which time the atmosphere had been soured by Madeleine’s disappointment, and by Marian’s marked disapproval of her nudity. In fact Madeleine would have got dressed again if it hadn’t been for Marian; irrational though it was, she blamed her cousin for Paul’s early departure and wanted to make her suffer.

  It was past midday when Madeleine finally dragged herself out of bed. She found Marian in the sitting-room, trying to sponge red wine stains out of the sofa. ‘You’re wasting your time,’ she said, flopping into the chair. ‘It won’t come out, red wine never does. And what are you bothered for anyway, it doesn’t belong to us.’

  Marian stood up and planted a hand on either side of her ample hips. ‘Did you have to go to bed with that horrible man?’ she asked.

  Madeleine tutted and sighed. ‘Here we go.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘No! I didn’t have to, but it was a good thing I did. You’re the one who’s worried about how we’re going to pay for everything – well, I’ve just flicked my way to a pay increase. Satisfied?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Of course I’m not satisfied.’

  ‘No, neither was I as it happens, but then that wasn’t the point, was it?’

  ‘God, I hate it when you’re crude. Do you know what I heard someone say about you last night? “Just tell her you know a photographer and the legs open like the door to Ali Baba’s cave.” Everyone’s laughing at you, you know.’

  ‘So what? You don’t really expect me to care about a town full of turnip-heads, do you? And as for me being a laughing stock, what about you? You should be in a bloody side-show. Twenty-two and still a virgin. So cut the preaching and remember that I’m not the only one who’s been out spending on those credit cards. And they’re in your name, so think yourself lucky I’m doing something about it. What have you done? Bought another raffle ticket, I suppose. Or have you filled in the football pools this time?’

  ‘You can mock, but at least I’m not going around behaving like a slut.’

  ‘No, you’re just running around getting deeper and deeper into debt, and expecting me to bail you out. Well, I’m telling you one of these days I’m going to walk out of here, and then we’ll see how far you get without the slut!’ She jerked herself to her feet and stormed off to the bedroom.

  Marian went after her. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have called you that. But . . .’

  ‘There are no buts about it! Get away from me! I
loathe your bloody self-rightness.’

  Marian didn’t correct the malapropism, the way she normally did. She just looked on helplessly as Madeleine worked herself into a lather.

  ‘You’re supposed to be the one with all the education,’ she said, snapping out the words nastily. ‘So what the hell are you doing with it? Not a lot as far as I can see. Just as well you learned to type, otherwise you’d have nothing. And without me you’d be nothing. Stuck with those boring prats you call friends.’

  ‘Rob’s offered me a ticket to Tibet,’ Marian told her.

  ‘Then go! Go on, fuck off with them, see if I care. I don’t need you.’ She snatched up a brush and started dragging it violently through her hair.

  Marian watched her, her heart turning over at her cousin’s confusion. ‘No, I know you don’t,’ she said, quietly. ‘But I need you.’

  At that Madeleine dropped onto the stool behind her and burst into tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m such a cow, and it’s not your fault he didn’t stay. Why didn’t he, Marian? Why didn’t he fancy me? Why doesn’t anyone want me?’

  Marian walked over to her and put her arms around her. ‘I want you, Maddy. I know it’s not the same, but you mustn’t think no one cares about you because it’s not true. You’re the most popular person in your crowd.’ She smiled. ‘If anyone, it’s me that no one wants, and I’m not crying, am I? As long as I’ve got you then I’m happy.’

  ‘Oh, Marian, I love you more than anyone in the world. It’s just that I want a boyfriend. A real one, not all those idiots who just use me. If I had someone as clever and good looking as Paul O’Connell, I know I’d make it.’

  ‘You’ll make it anyway,’ Marian assured her. ‘You wait and see. You’ll be more famous than you’ve even dreamed about.’

  Madeleine smiled through her tears. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘I know so.’

  ‘You’re not going to go to Tibet, are you?’