by Anna Maxted
There is a long doom-filled silence.
“Who,” replies my mother, her voice tight as an overstretched elastic band, “said anything about being worried?”
I am so gratified by her restraint—proof that she actually heard what I yelled at her the other night and modified her hysteria gauge accordingly—it’s not until I’m sitting in a small dingy reception room in Crouch End at 3:45, waiting for Alex, that I realize I didn’t ask my mother what she wanted my advice on. I’ll ring her the minute I get home. I write down this intention in my business diary, which looks pleasingly full as a result.
At 4:06 the prehistoric lift opposite my threadbare sofa clunks open and Alex appears. A tall shaven-headed hunk of a man with dark blue eyes and black eyelashes stands beside her. He’s dressed in sweatpants, trainers, and a blotchy purple T-shirt. With no apparent effort, he has the grace and bearing of a god.
“Natalie, what a surprise,” says Alex with a grin. “You’re on time!” Robin takes us to the coffee shop next door. From a purely anthropological viewpoint I can’t take my eyes off him. After we’ve ordered a decaffeinated latte, a chamomile tea, and a still mineral water (just call us the Crazy Gang) he says, “So, Natalie. Why Pilates?”
I blush.
“Well I”—I think, hang on, I’m paying, aren’t I? “Until recently I was in PR, and it wasn’t very, er, karmic.”
As I’m unsure if karmic is even a word, I add quickly, “So now I’m freelance, but I’ve decided I want to do work I actually enjoy. I used to run a lot but my knees are starting to creak. Then I tried Pilates, Alex suggested it, and it was wonderful. It makes me feel calm and I never feel that. It’s a total change from what I’m used to, but I’m addicted. I’d love to make a living from it. I hope,” I add hurriedly, “that doesn’t sound bad.”
“Not at all.” Robin’s hands are gently expressive, rising and falling in emphasis as he talks. “When someone tells me they want to train in Pilates, I need to know why. And yours are very good reasons.”
I feel inordinately pleased, as if the teacher has cried, “Apples are my favorite!”
Robin smiles. “Someone who wants to train with me,” he says, “must come to the studio and work on their own body first. For a minimum of six months, twice a week. I don’t like to compress that. The length of time is important. People should be allowed time to change.”
As someone who has always fought change with the determination of an ill-trained dog hanging on to a slipper, I nod and cry, “Oh, absolutely!”
“The training itself is a year long. For the practical part, you spend twelve hours a week in the studio with me. Each teacher has to develop his or her own way of thinking.”
Robin talks and, despite a low-boil sense of panic, I nod until my head feels loose. Five thousand pounds for the bogus privilege of my own way of thinking! I’ll be learning about my own body, core stabilization (whatever that may be), postural analysis, and movement in relation to other people (other people? Yawn!), basics and remedial exercises, then traditional Pilates work in the studio, Pilates matwork and its benefits, then an apprenticeship and practical exams. We can start tomorrow.
Tomorrow?
“Don’t I have to, er, audition to prove that I’m dedicated?”
“You’ve got six months of studio work before we decide whether to continue with the year of training,” replies Robin. “That’s enough of an audition, don’t you think?”
“I don’t mind exams,” I tell Alex after Robin exits the coffee shop with every eye—female and male—upon him. “I can learn stuff by heart. It’s the thinking for myself that scares me. I was taught to listen.”
Alex shakes her head.
“Natalie,” she says, “you’re not happy unless you’ve got something to worry about. One thing Pilates’ll teach you is to let it ride. It gives you control but it’s also about letting go. All Robin means is, eventually, you won’t use the language he’s used with clients, you’ll use your own because it suits you better. You’ll adapt the exercises to your way. And if you’re nervous now, that’s good, because it means you won’t be arrogant, you’ll be careful. That’s important when you’re dealing with people’s fragilities. But,” she grins, “steady on, girl, you’ve got a while yet.” I nod gratefully, pop a few more headache pills, and set to work on changing the subject.
“You’re right. It’s just that I can’t quite believe I’m about to do this. I never take risks, never! I’m not an impulsive person. But this feels right. It feels…this is a weird word to use, healthy. I’m excited but it’s terrifying. So that’s my excuse for being a wimp, how are things with you?”
Alex traces a finger round the rim of her cup. “Not great.”
“Not great?” I gasp—I thought her life was wrapped in pink ribbons—“why not?”
She shrugs. “Little things, Natalie.”
I can’t restrain myself. “Like what?”
Alex sighs. “Last week,” she says, “my car got broken into—window smashed, stereo nicked—the day after my insurance ran out. The hassle, Natalie, you wouldn’t believe. And then, this weekend, I visited a friend in Aldershot with my little sister. We were in this pub, and there were these guys, I think they were army recruits. That type of rough white guy. Like, they fancy you but they don’t want to because of your skin color. There was this one good-looking guy, and he was looking at me, and I saw the girl he was with say one word: ‘black.’ I said to my sister, ‘Come on, we’re going.’ I’m telling you, Natalie, it’s always a shock. I’m a middle-class girl, I grew up in Islington, for god’s sake! And then I get home, and my other sister, Louise, tells me my dog ate something in the park, vomited sixteen times during the night, she rushed her to the vet, they did an op, and poor Miffy’s stomach was full of bones, twigs, and bits of crab. She didn’t tell me because ‘I know how you get about that creature.’ She’s okay now, poor thing, but I warned Louise that Miffy heads for bins at the first opportunity! It’s her trademark! Andy, my ex—my ex-boyfriend—Andy called it Miffy’s bin habit. Anyway, Natalie, I can’t be dealing with it!”
Alex looks at me. “You asked. I told you.”
I nod. I feel ashamed about the racism, almost as if I am responsible, but I can’t think of anything to say that isn’t inadequate or patronizing or both. I feel a twist of anger in my gut toward the ignorant woman in the pub, I want to smack her in the mouth but—to my shame—it’s not the racism tale that’s rendered me speechless. Eventually, I find my tongue.
“What a vile week you’ve had,” I croak. “I’m so sorry.”
We stretch our lips over our teeth in mutual empathy. But my mind tumbles over itself and all the while I sit there stretchy-lipped I’m screaming mutely, What? What? Miffy, I know about Miffy, and oh god, it can’t be. Andy. There are a billion Andys. Am I going mad? How did this happen?
If Babs were here—well, if Babs were here this fiasco wouldn’t have occurred in the first place but—if Babs were here she’d say I had a frog on my tongue. And I can’t hold it in any longer. “Alex,” I blurt, “this may sound like a stupid question but, is Alex your real name?”
She narrows her eyes. “Not entirely stupid,” she replies teasingly. “Obviously, Alex is short for Alexandra, but I only started calling myself Alex after the divorce. Fresh start and all that. I reverted to my maiden name too. My husband’s surname was”—she giggles—“Clench.”
I wait. It would be polite to giggle back but my giggle stock has been abruptly depleted.
“I guess,” she adds, “I could have called myself ‘Sandy’ or ‘Sandra’ but they’re too Olivia Newton-John.” She stops to take a sip of cold chamomile tea.
“So, Alex,” I husk, knowing the answer but needing to hear it, “what did you call yourself before the divorce?”
“Sasha,” she says. “It’s my favorite abbreviation of Alexandra!”
“Sasha,” I echo.
42
WHILE MY GENERAL KNOWLEDGE LEVEL HAS always
been appallingly low (which I attribute to not being allowed to have a television in my bedroom), I’ve never thought of myself as stupid. I might have said I was stupid—as in, “I left the lights on in my car, I’m so stupid”—but all women say they’re stupid without meaning it. But now, I mean it. What an idiot, what a bloody twit. I’ve got the cognitive abilities of a roast pigeon. I’m Ricki Lake–guest-level stupid. I’m Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? out on one-hundred-pounds stupid.
I feel depressed with how stupid I am—which disproves another long-held belief of mine—that only intelligent people get depressed because the stupid ones are too stupid to realize how stupid they are and get depressed about it.
Do I have any excuse? In my favor, I never met Alex when she was seeing Andy—a combination of having as little to do with him as possible, especially after the kiss, and Andy working in sunny Aldershot for the first year of his relationship with Alex, and then in the City. Not in my favor is that Helen Keller in a thick blindfold would have seen this coming.
I manage to thank Alex for introducing me to Robin and say that I’ll be in touch. Then I drive home, muttering aloud. “Now what? I don’t bloody know! You stupid idiot! Hell-oo! McFly!” (This last is an old favorite of mine and Babs, gleaned from Back to the Future, when the class bully raps the hero’s dad on the forehead to see if anyone’s home. We call upon it in times of great stupidity.) By some miracle, having paid no attention to road signs or other drivers, I reach Primrose Hill alive. I loiter shiftily outside my own home until a woman leans her torso out of next door’s bay window and inquires, “Can I help you?”
“No,” I reply, outstaring her until she retreats.
I return to my car in case she emerges to attack me with a Le Creuset. I’m getting to be as rude as Tony. What the hell am I going to say to Andy? Should I say anything at all? He doesn’t have to know I know her. But he’ll find out. Alex rang the flat before, what if he’d answered? I could tell her the phone’s been cut off and to ring me on my mobile. I just…don’t want them to meet. I’m scared. Although Alex, Sasha, whatever she calls herself, has never mentioned him. If she still loved him, surely she’d have said. If a woman fancies a man she’ll crowbar his name into every conversation. But she never has.
But he’s still mad about her, it’s obvious. I don’t want them to meet. Then, maybe the iconic memory of her will fade. But how can it when—bugger bugger bugger—the Evil Ex has become my friend? Oh god, Andy thinks she’s still married! When—in a hideous quirk of fate—the Evil Ex turns out to be a fairy godmother. A kind, generous woman who has repented of her ways (of her last-minute ditch and switch of husband at least). It’s so unfair. Evil Exes are meant to be full-fat evil. That way you know how to deal with them. You can hate with a clear conscience, you can wish them ill and hope the milk of life turns sour on them, safe in the knowledge they’re evil and that’s what they deserve.
I know she’ll fall for him again. The follow-your-heart thing led her to a dead end. Seeing Andy will be like slipping into her favorite scuffed trainers after a brief and painful fling with a flashy high-heeled pair of red patent shoes—the soothing comfort of familiarity will be irresistible! I have the feeling I get watching Jaws, when the men are in the little boat in the middle of the dark sea, drunk and singing, and it’s cozy and fun, and the fantasist in me hopes that in this version of the film the shark will decide he’s not evolutionarily advanced enough to hold a grudge against a bunch of humans and he’ll swim away and no one will get eaten. I watch, knowing the worst is a certainty, but still faintly believing I might have the one dud tape for those sensitive souls who can’t face reality.
It’s not going to happen. Alex will get Andy as surely as Jaws gets his man-sized dinner. Only stubbornness has kept them apart. But I want Andy. I want him, because he wants Alex. I want him, because I know Alex will want him. I want him because Babs doesn’t want me to have him. I want him because I triple can’t have him. But most of all I want him because I’m in love with him. Not because he’s reserved for another woman, but because I love him. Out of all the men I could have and out of all those men I couldn’t, I love him. I’d love him on a desert island, I’d love him under clinical conditions, I’d love him if no one in the world wanted him but me. I’d love him—and this is the real test—if my mother approved. And she would. I really love him.
I imagine a neat future, where Andy and I wake up together and live together and love together and cook together—I’ll be healthy by then—and have sex twice a day (the national average is twice a week but we’re better than that) and I own a Pilates studio because I’m good at what I do and I feel good, the ugly tug of badness has gone and…the dream scrapes grayly to a halt because reality is tapping on the window: Excuse me, but what happened to Alex? She’s your friend. Her pal Robin taught you Pilates, your lives must have crossed at some point. Alex and Andy must have met, and what happened then?
They’ve got to meet. I decide it’s better to know the worst now, than to waste months in a fog of uncertain hope.
I sit in the car for ten more minutes trying to determine whether Andy is in before it occurs to me to look for his blue Vauxhall Astra. I scan the road and, oh yes, there it is, dissolving in its own rust, lowering the tone of the neighborhood. I could, if I were brazen, march in—it is my own home, after all—and declare that I do want to “have something” with him, sorry, Babs, sorry, Alex, and could we sign a contract (a billion-pound penalty for transgression) to confirm that our exclusive relationship is, as from this moment, everlasting? I bite my lip, hard. After a good while spent biting, inspiration strikes. I’ll call Robbie first.
I ruffle through my tatty old diary for his number—and it’s a measure of how slack I’ve become that I haven’t yet transferred all the details of friends and associates to my new business diary.
“Chérie!” exclaims Robbie, pronouncing it “cherry.” “What fun we had! You’re still speaking to me. You must have liked my pants. Does this mean there’s still hope?”
“It depends what you mean by hope, Robbie,” I say glumly. “If you mean hope for the polar cap and me personally—no.”
“You know why I’m in love with you, Nat?” replies Robbie. “You’re weird. And I’ve got a baseball cap you can borrow. What’s got you?”
I am about to blather out the pig’s ear of a situation when something stops me. “Nothing,” I bleat. “Look, I”—eek, what to say?—“Last night was fun but it was a bit of a mess, so I was thinking about having a dinner party. Well, more of a supper party, very informal, fewer people, that’s why it’s short notice, uh, tonight, depending on whether my guests can make it. You’re one of them.”
What? Why did I say that? Supper party!? I hate eating under supervision. I will Robbie to have an unmissable appointment with his wide-screen television.
“I won’t ask why the urgency. I’ll just say yes and set the video.”
“Great, great,” I say, wilting. “Well, look, it’s…six now, so let me invite the other guests and if you don’t hear from me in the next twenty minutes I’ll, ah, see you at eight.”
“Fine by me.”
I bleep off, sense a shadow, and look up to see a huge face pressed against the car window. I’m about to scream, then realize it’s Andy. With as much dignity as I can manage (having just opened my mouth in a large red and white screaming shape), I whir down the window.
“You’ve been sat in that car looking furtive for the last half hour,” he says. “Either I’m interfering with police surveillance or you’re avoiding me.”
“You’re interfering.”
Andy gives me a look. “So you’ve thought about my question and the answer is no.”
“Andy,” I blurt, “are you free tonight?”
“Depends. If it involves Sang Thip or your brother, probably not. Why?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I whisper. “Look. Go inside, I’ll be in in a moment, I just have to make a call.”
&n
bsp; His green eyes narrow, and my heart cracks right down the middle. “Wait,” I stammer. “I have thought about it. And,” I squeeze my hands into fists, “the answer isn’t no. But”—I add hastily as his face widens in a smile—“I need a bit more time. I’m not playing games, but I’ll know by the end of tonight. You’ll understand.”
“I hope so,” says Andy, and stamps inside. I watch the door shut, sigh deeply, and call my final guest. I feel like Hercule Poirot assembling suspects.
“Alex!” I shrill, when she picks up. “Thank goodness! Where are you?”
“Natalie? Is that you? I’m on the bus—my car’s in the garage. I’m on my way to teach a class. Do you want to come? I can squeeze you in if you want.”
“Oh no, no, I’d love to but I can’t”—why does this never happen to Hercule?—“but Alex, tell me, what time do you finish teaching?”
“Eight. Why?”
“Alex,” I say, forcing myself not to sound frantic. “Please please would you come for dinner tonight? I know it’s late notice, and it’s a Tuesday night, and you’ll be tired from teaching, and you’ll have to get a cab, but I’ve got a surprise for you, sort of to say thank you for everything you’ve done, and—”
“Yes, all right.”
“I know it’s a detour for you but you’ll see why when you come and—”
“Natalie, relax. Be calm! It’s cool, I said yes!”
Another dilemma. Do I warn my love rival of the presence of the man we’re fighting over? I manage to croak, “Great. Just so you know, I’m inviting a few people.”
