An Unremarkable Body

by Elisa Lodato

  ‘I’m sorry, Laura. I don’t know what to say. It just felt right – being together again. And we … I want to make a go of it this time.’

  ‘What a joke.’ I sniffed at the snot that threatened to meet my tears.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. You’re a coward. I knew it all along – I just didn’t expect you to run back to her so quickly.’ And then, as my fury gained momentum, I turned to him in mock sympathy and said, ‘Was she very understanding of your need to fuck other women?’ I reached out to stroke his arm, but the feel of his hair, standing on end, reminded me his arm was not mine to touch. I pulled back and stood up.

  ‘I know this is shitty. I feel very shitty.’

  ‘Now it’s my turn to say sorry, is it? I wish you weren’t feeling so down about this? What can I do to make this easier?’

  ‘Stop it, Laura. I feel bad enough.’

  ‘Do you? Oh God, I’m sorry. Have you just been told by the person you love,’ my voice trembled on the ruined hopes of that word, ‘that they’d rather be with a deaf fucking dodo?’ He stood up now, too, confused by the words I’d used.

  ‘Deaf? What does that mean?’

  ‘Dead, Dave!’ We were shouting at each other now. ‘I mean dead! Because she’s got the charisma of a corpse. Oh, fuck this. Be with her. Enjoy your life together. I hope you’ll be very happy. But don’t ever speak to me again.’

  I walked away and back into the tube station I’d only just emerged from. I looked behind me as I descended on the escalator, keeping right in the hope that David would follow me, urgent and certain. I was waiting for the implausibility of romantic comedy to blanket my anguish. For him to catch up with me just as the tube door was closing and mouth the words I love you before I was pulled, inexorably, down the tunnel and away to Waterloo. He didn’t, of course. I travelled home to Surbiton, alone and utterly rejected.

  We ignored each other for the entire duration of my third year. He and Sarah moved out of college and rented privately, so, in fact, he was absent most of the time. At dinners, balls and supervisions we maintained a working distance and, in this bitter and painful silence, our university experience concluded. My parents and Christopher came to attend my graduation in 2002 and help me pack my things. As we stood uncomfortably together on the college lawn, I looked over at David, standing with Sarah and her large extended family. They were posing for photographs. I stared hard at his happiness until he felt the dark shadow of my glare and noticed me. He stopped smiling then and held my gaze. It was intense and meaningful – the same look he’d given me as we fucked against his door. Sarah saw me and nudged him hard in the side, forcing him to click back into photo-mode.

  Two years later I saw a note in the college newsletter that David and Sarah had married in a stately home in Northamptonshire, near her parents’ house. Twelve months on, another update appeared announcing the birth of their daughter, Beatrice Rose. I had no doubt these notices were intended for me. Sarah had got what she wanted, papering over the cracks of a flimsy commitment with marriage and birth certificates.

  Her eyes were pale in colour. The pupils were equal. The face was pale, as were the conjunctivae.

  The only evidence of my parents’ physical affection for one another was me and Christopher. An examination of how their marriage failed always gave way to a more lurid narrative – an older, married man having sex with a seventeen-year-old girl – but I was more interested in why he took that first step away from my mother. Because I know he loved her, and not just enough to marry her and father two children: he loved her enough to smile as he watched her move around the kitchen, to laugh at her little impressions of me. He loved her enough to hire Jenny when she was finding it difficult to cope at home. He was responsive and considerate in the most obvious way.

  It was around the time of my fifth birthday that I began to understand my mother was pregnant. She didn’t tell me and neither did my father, but I sensed the change in her body: her breath became sour, her armpits more sweaty and her breasts were full and loose in a way that I knew was significant. And my grandmother began to visit more frequently.

  Jean Lambton, my maternal grandmother, lived with my grandfather, Paul, a few roads away from us. They got married in 1957, when my grandmother was thirty-two. I remember my mother relaying this detail to me when I was about sixteen or seventeen, that ‘Granny was quite old by the time she got married’, raising her eyebrow as though I should understand the meaning of this. When I didn’t, she elaborated.

  ‘Not by today’s standards, but back then thirty-two was quite late to get married and have children.’ I agreed. At the time, I thought anyone over thirty was old.

  My mother was their only child. They had wanted more, but by the time she was born, in 1961, my grandmother was already thirty-six and her (as it turned out) patchy fertility was fading fast. In many ways, my grandmother was quite a modern woman – her career as an English teacher was well established by the time she finally got pregnant, and she returned to teaching when my mother went to school in 1965. But she was also painfully old-fashioned in her approach to marriage, and viewed the disorder in our house as a failing on my mother’s part.

  In May 1986, as my mother’s abdomen began to round into unmistakable pregnancy, my grandmother started dropping in on us mid-morning. Usually just as my mother was on her knees, dressing me or brushing my hair for the day. She had her own key and simply let herself in, closing the front door behind her and making her way quickly into the kitchen. Within minutes of her arrival, the sound of water sloshing over our breakfast dishes would drift up the stairs and my mother would brush at my hair faster. And harder.

  My grandmother was a tall woman, like my mother, but of much slimmer build. Her shins were thin and straight, held in place by ankles that were always anticipating a sudden jump. She was the kind of woman who would, without warning, leap up from her seat to grab a more suitable dish, or turn the oven off. She was exhausting to be around.

  My mother and I resented my grandmother’s presence. We wanted only to be left alone. We never talked about the pregnancy; I’m sure that most mothers today prepare for the birth of a sibling with picture books and patient explanations, but my mother never felt the need to do any of that. It simply became a more glaring part of our lives. Of her body. But the sudden and indomitable company of my grandmother interrupted the silent understanding between us.

  It was early summer, the mornings bright and warm. I wasn’t at school, so it must have been during the May half-term. My grandmother let herself in every day and made us feel as though we should be busier; asking my mother what she planned to do with me that day, when the truth was our plan was always the same. In the morning my mother would open the French doors so I could play in the garden while she put some washing out. I used to water the plants or pick the prettiest camellias to make a bunch of flowers that always surprised and delighted her. As she bent down to pick another item of clothing from the basket, I watched her torso press the steadfast mound that would become my brother onto her thighs and then back upright again. I wondered what the baby made of all the movement.

  We ate lunch early and the afternoons were spent lying supine on the sofa – she would fall asleep with her arms around me as I watched cartoons, her unstoppable stomach beginning to push me further from her body.

  But my grandmother had none of my mother’s gentle energy. She fussed around us, tidying and cooking unnecessarily. She suggested trips to the library, shopping in Kingston, anything to get us off the sofa and out of the house. Our happy indolence frustrated her. And when I returned to school for the summer term, she suggested my mother get rid of Jenny.

  ‘I’ll pick Laura up.’

  ‘Jenny doesn’t pick her up. I do that.’

  ‘So what does she do? What are you paying her for?’

  ‘Just to be here. To help out.’

  ‘I’ll help out. I can come over in the afternoons, if that’s what you want.�
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  ‘No. Thanks, Mum. But no.’

  ‘Kathy, I’m your mother. I want to help.’

  ‘We’re fine. Laura and I are fine.’

  So my grandmother took no for an answer, but continued trying to push Jenny out. She began to appear – always on a Tuesday or Thursday – with an elaborate savoury meal covered in pastry and topped with kitchen foil, just ready for the oven.

  One afternoon in particular, still in my school uniform, I walked into the kitchen to find my grandmother’s bottom elevated and swaying as she poked around in a cupboard trying to find a suitable saucepan. My mother was standing over by the sink watching her, sullen.

  ‘Potatoes. That’s what we need,’ she said happily to herself as she put a saucepan down on the stove. Jenny, who arrived at around two-thirty in the afternoon, awaited my mother’s instruction; she was perplexed by how busy my grandmother was. She didn’t understand that my grandmother was trying to make her redundant. But my mother did. So she tried again.

  ‘Mum, I told you. Jenny’s doing dinner tonight.’ Jenny was holding my hand – we were standing together in the kitchen, watching this domestic drama play out. My grandmother had a meat pie balanced deftly on her left hand, her ankles exerting themselves under the strain of her bent knees as she opened the oven door and peered inside.

  ‘Kathy, I’m here to help you. That’s all. This is just a spare,’ she said, indicating the pie still hovering before the flames. ‘I made it with the leftovers from last night’s dinner. Richard will enjoy it. All men love a meat pie.’ She nodded to herself, confirming her own incontrovertible truth.

  ‘Jenny, could you take Laura into the living room and read with her, please?’ I didn’t see Jenny nod, but I felt her hand pull me away. As we walked into the hallway, I told her I wanted to go upstairs and change out of my uniform first. Jenny went into the living room while I went and sat on the stairs and heard my mother’s tone change: ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘A wife is supposed to cook for her husband. Not hire a young girl to come into the house and … flirt around the kitchen.’

  ‘The only person flirting around this kitchen is you!’

  ‘Kathy, a man’s head can be easily turned.’

  ‘But if I cook him a meat pie that won’t happen?’

  ‘You’re pregnant, you have Laura, the house is a mess. I understand why you’ve asked her to help, but I don’t think it’s a good idea.’

  ‘This is none of your business! I know you’re trying to help, but I don’t need it.’

  My grandmother must have put the pie in the oven because, though quieter, her voice was nearer my mother and more audible to me on the stairs. I moved my face close to the banister and saw my grandmother put her hands on my mother’s arms, as though to hold her in place. Her nose was just a few inches from my mother’s. ‘It’s not a good idea to let another woman fulfil your duties at home. But if that’s what you need to do, at least let that woman be your mother.’

  ‘What do you call this?’ she said, tearfully indicating her small bump. ‘Isn’t this fulfilling my duties?’

  ‘Don’t get upset. I’m only trying to help. I’ll call in tomorrow and see how you are.’ And with that, she walked into the hallway, poked her head round the living room door and said – with implausible brightness – ‘Bye, Jenny!’ and let herself out. She hadn’t seen me sitting on the stairs.

  My mother didn’t move. She just stood where my grandmother had positioned her, her head bowed and her hands by her side. I pulled myself up from where I’d been sitting and stepped, with deliberate care, down to the hallway. Jenny was sitting on the sofa, waiting for me, but I walked past the living room and back into the kitchen. As I rounded my mother’s statue, I put my hand in the crook of her slackened fingers. It returned her to life immediately: she gripped my small hand and, bending down, she lifted me up and against her. I wrapped my arms and legs around her body, in the manner of a small chimp. She carried the burden of my five-year-old body over to the work surface where she could sit me down and hold me comfortably. It was only as she pulled her face away and smoothed my hair down over my ears that I saw the standing water in her pale eyes. Her corneas were buried beneath a sudden and unexpected deluge. I watched as the salty fluid overflowed her lids and dropped down onto her cheeks, and for that brief moment, I was completely absorbed by the intricate mechanism – how her body sought to service emotion with water. She saw my eyes follow a tear down to the outer reaches of her mouth. She smiled it away and leant in to kiss me gently on my cheek. I felt the water break between us.

  One warm evening in the middle of July, my mother and grandmother had a huge falling-out. Over me.

  It was the beginning of the summer holidays, I’d broken up from school and my mother’s pregnancy was well advanced. She was hot, uncomfortable and almost always tired. Her ankles were thick and swollen. Jenny had come over with her younger brother Sam, who was ten, and the three of us spent the afternoon playing in the garden, splashing water at each other. My mother sat on a lounger, her feet elevated, watching us and laughing. Jenny occasionally declared herself out so she could go and check on dinner.

  And then, like a dark cloud smiling, came my grandmother. She had let herself in and walked through to the back of the house, full of false cheer. My mother, whose lounger was facing away from the French doors, had no need to turn round. She merely hung her head and looked down at the cup of tea Jenny had just placed in her hands.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ my grandmother said to me, and held out her arms. I put the measuring jug that I’d been using to launch water at Sam down on the grass and walked over to her, reluctantly. ‘What’s all this?’ she said, giving my back a light tap. ‘You’re wetter than an otter’s pocket!’ I didn’t know what an otter was. But I knew something happy had been totally eclipsed by her arrival. And that we couldn’t get it back as long as she was there.

  Perhaps my grandmother knew she wasn’t wanted, because she bustled her way back into the kitchen and began interfering with dinner. At around 5 p.m., she came back into the garden with a towel for me. ‘Laura! Come and get dry. Let’s have a quick bath before dinner.’

  My mother turned round. ‘Mum, she doesn’t need a bath. She can just dry off and get into her pyjamas.’

  ‘It’s no trouble. I’ve already run her a small one. Come on, Laura.’ I looked at my mother for the next move. Holding her hand up to the sun so she could better see them, my mother said to Jenny and Sam, ‘You two had better get home. Your mum will be wondering where you are.’

  Despite the warm water, my grandmother’s hands were cold and efficient. As my mother said goodbye to Jenny and Sam and tidied up the kitchen, my grandmother sloshed water up my back and used her fingernails to dig around in my ears and between my toes.

  ‘Doesn’t your mother clean you?’ she mumbled to herself, as she extracted another particle of grey grime from a remote part of my body. I felt affronted by my grandmother’s exacting approach to what was mine, and decided to pre-empt any attempt she might make to clean my private parts by doing them myself. I put my hand down between my legs and, using my fingers, began rubbing myself. Perhaps it went on for too long; perhaps I looked as though I was enjoying it, I don’t know. But when she saw what I was doing she stood up and stared at me.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘I’m cleaning myself. The way Mummy taught me.’

  ‘Get your hand away right now! That’s dirty. And not how you clean yourself.’

  I lifted my hand up out of the water and then, in sudden surprise at being told off, began to cry. My mother, drawn by my cries, came up the stairs and walked into the bathroom.

  ‘What’s going on here? Laura, why are you crying?’

  ‘Granny told me off,’ I spluttered between sobs.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Kathy, she was touching herself. Down there.’

  ‘I was cleaning myself. Cleaning my moo-moo. Like you told me.
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  ‘Laura, you clean yourself with a flannel or a sponge. Not your fingers,’ my grandmother admonished before my mother could say anything.

  My mother turned to my grandmother and, straining to keep her voice under control, said, ‘I want to talk to you outside.’ They walked away from the bathroom onto the landing and tried to keep their conversation confined to the hallway, but it quickly ballooned up and away from them.

  ‘Kathy, it’s not a good idea to encourage that sort of thing.’

  ‘Laura is free to clean herself, touch herself, however she likes.’

  ‘I’m trying to help you understand—’

  ‘Oh, I understand.’ My mother’s whisper was long gone. ‘I understand that you’re trying to make her feel ashamed of her own body.’

  ‘Kathy!’

  ‘Don’t “Kathy” me. I won’t let you do it. I won’t let you come in here and tell us what to do, how to live and how to be thoroughly miserable!’

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘You. Making my daughter feel dirty and wrong. Assigning shame to things.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’m just trying to show—’

  ‘I’ll finish Laura’s bath. I think you should leave.’

  ‘You’re tired.’

  ‘Yes, I’m tired. Tired of being told what to do. Please go.’

  I heard the sound of footsteps going down the stairs. My mother came back into the bathroom. She was swaying on her feet in exhaustion. I looked at the grey deposits under my fingernails where I’d scraped at my skin. When I pressed my finger pad up against the nail, the dirt popped out. I put my hands back under the water and sat on them.

  I agreed to write the articles on the Olympics for Andy, and on 21 April, my thirty-first birthday, I sent him the second in a series of five. Entitled East of Eden: In the Shadows of the Olympics, I’d written about how great swathes of east London were still decrepit and largely ignored. I felt pleased with it: precise, evocative and honest, it was all the things that had made my blog a success. I emailed the copy to Andy and walked into the kitchen, where I pulled a half-empty bottle of wine from the fridge. I poured myself a large glass and resisted the urge to light a cigarette as well. The first sips of wine quickly translated my elation into settled conceit. I heard the intercom buzz, and pressing the button in the hallway, admitted Andrea’s crackly voice.