An Unremarkable Body

by Elisa Lodato

  ‘Laura? Let me in.’

  Andrea and I were very different: she was happy to be a personal assistant – and, when she wanted to be, she was a very good one – but I had hated it. After graduating from Cambridge, I spent six months looking for a job that would allow me to rent a room in London, work during the day and write in the evenings. I temped for various companies, earning just enough to maintain my independence, but when I was offered a permanent salary working in Clerkenwell for a company just down the road from where I was lodging in Angel, I accepted with enthusiasm. I would have been far less enthusiastic had I met the woman I was hired to assist. Politeness she reserved only for those who could help her ascend the career ladder. She was rude to me from the beginning, persistently calling me Lauren despite repeated attempts to correct her. When I arranged meetings, she quibbled over the choice of room, rolled her eyes to clients in exasperation at me and ordered cups of coffee as if that were a suitable punishment for existing. I hated her. And in my expectation that I’d do something wrong, I began to make mistakes. I sent her daughter’s X-rays off to the wrong hospital, arranged meetings in the office when she was working from home and once booked a taxi to take her to Heathrow instead of City Airport. By the time she looked up and realised she was heading west, it was too late to catch her flight. She phoned me at my desk in a rage that was murderous, spitting her threat to report me to HR. Had she been in the office, I don’t doubt she’d have thrown a punch.

  I accept that I wasn’t a good assistant and should have resigned, but the room I’d rented in Angel was expensive and I just couldn’t return to Surbiton. Working for a hateful Head of Marketing was better than returning home a failure. So I stayed. And on the afternoon of the airport debacle I put my head down on the desk and cried. Not at my mistake, but at the trap I found myself in. Andrea took her headset off and looked over. I could feel the stares of my colleagues, unnerved by the show of emotion in an atmosphere punctuated only by the sound of keyboards and laser printing. She put her arm across my shoulders and whispered to come outside with her. I slid from my chair and kept my eyes down, conspicuous with running mascara. When we got downstairs she offered me a cigarette and, though I hadn’t smoked since Cambridge, I accepted it with reckless gratitude: I’d fucked up properly and there wasn’t much more that could go wrong. I was shivering in the January afternoon, my tears cold on my face. The price of the cigarette was an explanation: Andrea nodded at my account and raised an eyebrow sceptically when I mentioned the HR threat.

  ‘We all make mistakes,’ she pointed out defiantly.

  ‘Not as big as this one. I’m going to have to find a new job.’

  ‘Listen. Find a new job if that’s what you want, but not because of this. You won’t get the sack. Just say you made a mistake, or, you know, someone’s just died or something.’

  The suggestion shocked me. ‘What if I forget, or then someone does actually …?’ I looked around for some wood to touch, frightened by the thought. Andrea grabbed my hand and put it to her own head.

  ‘I do it all the time. I once told my boss I was pregnant when I messed up on some purchase orders. It’s fine.’

  ‘Didn’t he have anything to say when you didn’t have a baby?’

  ‘Oh God, he didn’t even notice. Couldn’t give a shit. What I’m saying is, just don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Right. Thanks.’ We were coming to the end of the cigarette, and my recklessness had given way to gloom. My mouth was full of nicotine tang, my boss was motoring back to Clerkenwell full of righteous anger and my new friend was advising appalling deceit.

  She was right, of course. I didn’t get fired that afternoon, and managed to stick it out for another two years. The woman I worked for moved to the Paris office in 2004 and her replacement, a middle-aged man called Patrick, was far more pleasant. I became comfortable and Andrea and I grew close. She was always willing to go for a glass of wine in Hatton Garden after work (‘we might meet a rich diamond merchant’) or to The Betsey for lunch.

  One summer lunchtime in 2005, as we walked arm in arm away from the office, I explained that Betsey Trotwood was a character from David Copperfield. She held her cigarette away from her and stared at me. ‘How do you even know that?’

  ‘Because there she is, chasing the donkeys away,’ I said, pointing to the sign hanging from the side of the building. ‘She’s David’s great-aunt, and one of the few strong female characters in the novel. Dickens describes her as inflexible. As though bending is bad. I’ve always remembered that, for some reason.’

  Andrea had been smoking as we walked. She looked at me steadily as she exhaled. ‘You’re wasted here, Laura.’

  I laughed at her sudden earnest tone. ‘I did an English degree. You have to know a bit of Dickens. I’m no F. R. Leavis.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Never mind.’

  ‘Why don’t you teach?’

  I thought of my mother’s friend Helen, teaching history to the unwilling of Hounslow, and demurred, saying I didn’t have the conviction to teach.

  ‘But you don’t have the conviction to be someone’s PA, either. Maybe you should be a bit more, you know, inflexible.’

  I resigned from my job in Clerkenwell at the end of 2006 to write full-time. The small company I had joined almost three years before had been bought by a large corporate telecommunications firm and had begun to change considerably. It was the right time to move on. I handed all responsibility for my leave-taking to Andrea, who wrote ‘Laura Leaving’ on her list of things to do. She was swift and efficient at all things – including my leaving do. She reserved an area in a bar on Clerkenwell Road and presented me with the fruits of an office whip-round: a Montblanc pen and Moleskine notebook.

  I got horribly drunk at my leaving do, encouraged towards potent cocktails by colleagues who volunteered their own frustrations, almost all of them about someone in the office. They wished me well and told me not to forget them. I promised enduring friendship, became emotional when it was time to say goodbye and swallowed vomit in the taxi home. Andrea helped me up the stairs to my bedroom, took my shoes and jacket off and positioned me on my side with the wastepaper basket under my open mouth. She got into bed beside me and stayed there all night, explaining in the morning as she got ready for work, ‘I didn’t want you to choke in your sleep and die on the first day of your new life.’ Her friendship was always no-nonsense and steadfast. The same impulse that motivated her to look after me on the night of my leaving do had brought her to my front door, that Friday evening in April, unwilling to leave me alone on my birthday.

  She came upstairs and walked straight into my small kitchen. The work surface was busy with plates, cutlery and last night’s wine glass. She put her bags down on the floor near my overflowing bin and took her coat off.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘Cleaning up in here.’ She picked up my nearly empty glass and rinsed it under the tap with her fingers. Then she extracted a bottle of cold white wine from her shopping bag, opened it and poured me a large serving. ‘Go and sit down. I’ll get things going in here and then we can talk.’

  I did as I was told. I checked my emails to see if Andy had replied, closed the lid when I saw he hadn’t and walked over to the bay window of my living room. As I looked down at the road below, at the unkempt hedges and uneven paving, I felt unblocked. It might have been the wine or the sound of Andrea banging around in the kitchen, but I felt pleased with myself; writing the articles, meeting a deadline, even having Andrea over made me feel as though normal was still a possibility for me.

  I returned to the kitchen, drawn by the smell of chicken fajitas and the sound of order restored. Andrea had found an apron to cover her dress from the splashes and had poured herself a glass of wine. She looked up and lifted it to me. I moved over to her, full of sheepish love, clinked my glass to hers and pulled her in for a hug. I was so grateful, I couldn’t speak.

  ‘I’m here now,’ she said. And then
she turned back to the pan, wiping her own tears away. I laughed and backed away to lean against the fridge. ‘I know how hard it must have been.’

  ‘But you don’t, Andrea. Your mum isn’t dead.’

  ‘OK, but—’

  ‘No, listen. I’m not trying to get at you, but this is exactly what people say. And Christ, I’ve probably even said it myself before. But the truth is that the loss of … of her. It’s just the most painful thing. I’m not the same person I was before I found her like that. On her own.’ I fought the tears, not because I was afraid to cry in front of Andrea but because I wanted to explain. And the tears always shifted and transmuted the explanation – they made my voice croak and the listener tut in sympathy. I didn’t want an arm around my shoulder. I simply wanted her to understand. It was the same instinct that made me bash at the keyboard through the blur.

  She nodded to me but continued looking down at the strips of chicken breast cooking in the seasoning she’d just tipped from a packet.

  ‘OK. But listen, you still need to eat a proper meal.’

  I picked up the fajita kit box, torn open on the recently wiped surface, and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I’m a working woman, Laura. What do you expect? Fucking lasagne?’

  But fingering the box reminded me of a task I had yet to complete. ‘I still have to empty my mother’s kitchen.’

  Andrea looked up quizzically. ‘Haven’t you done that yet? The food will have gone off by now.’

  ‘There wasn’t much in the way of perishable stuff anyway. It was mostly packets, tins, that sort of thing. But I need to have a good sort-out anyway, and the kitchen’s as good a place as any to start. What do you think?’

  ‘I think you need to get your own kitchen in order first. The milk in your fridge scares me.’

  ‘OK, but what room first? That’s what I’m asking you.’

  ‘Yes, Laura.’

  ‘Yes what?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll come with you,’ she looked around for a clean tea towel and decided to wipe her hands on the front of my apron instead. ‘You’ve done enough on your own. And look at this place. It’s obvious you need a bit of help. Now stop standing around and grate some cheese, please.’

  Andrea emerged from Surbiton station exultant. She’d had the presence of mind to buy a roll of bin bags, marigolds and detergent, foreseeing ‘we’ll need to wipe down the cupboard shelves after we empty them’. I hugged her for too long, so much so she became efficient in her sympathy. ‘Come on. Let’s get this over with.’

  It was a thankfully short journey up the hill to the house. I drove heavy with memory, slow to respond to Andrea’s platitudes as I thought of that morning in February when I’d parked on the driveway, just a front door away from an event that altered everything.

  I pulled up the handbrake and hung my head. Suddenly overwhelmed by the arrangements I’d made, the things I’d done to get us there. Andrea turned to face me in her seat, releasing her seat belt to get closer. ‘Do you want me to go in first?’ I nodded my head and began searching for the keys in my bag, but then I remembered the alarm.

  ‘No, I’d better come with you.’ The act of finding the right key, releasing the deadlock and deactivating the alarm – these were all physical requirements that kept my mind calm and pragmatic. I kicked at the heaped mail, takeaway menus and charity collection bags that pushed against our entry and stared down at the spot where she’d fallen.

  I thought of all the times I’d stood at the bottom of the stairs, including that night in my pyjamas, looking for my mother in the wake of that terrible assault, and I felt suddenly territorial and possessive. I walked quickly into the kitchen and stared down at the work surface. It was the very spot she’d lifted me onto as she cried tears of frustration at her own mother. That brief expression of deep love for me, for what was hers – holding my small body to her own – took place beneath my adult fingers, splayed open in an attempt to retrieve and repossess. My pain felt almost physical; I wanted to pull at the past and make sense of it. I looked up to see Andrea watching me from the kitchen doorway.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Let’s get to work,’ I said, and began opening the cupboards.

  We cleaned for several hours; I emptied and Andrea wiped. Our determined labour was interrupted, sporadically, by the kettle boiling for tea. At midday Andrea suggested ordering a pizza for lunch and, much like the cigarette she’d offered me that first afternoon we got to know each other, I deferred to her uncanny ability to propose something dirty at just the right time. She took her marigolds off and went to inspect the pile of menus I had kicked aside earlier. And returned holding a letter. It had been delivered by hand and was addressed to the son or daughter of Katharine Lambton. I stared for a long time at my mother’s maiden name, long-neglected and joined to me by the cursive confidence of unfamiliar handwriting. I opened the envelope and read.

  I hope you’ll forgive the unsolicited nature of this letter. I have no address other than this one, but wanted to send you my deepest sympathies on the loss of your mother. We worked together before she was married but sadly lost touch in the intervening years. I’d be more than happy to meet, should you find that agreeable. I still live in Surbiton.

  Yours,

  Nicola

  On a separate piece of paper she’d included her address and telephone number.

  Part Two

  Internal Examination

  The stomach contained porridge-like material. There was a scar to the lower abdomen consistent with caesarean section. The lower urinary tract and genital organs were otherwise unremarkable.

  One Monday morning, at the beginning of June, I phoned Helen at home. It had been several months since we’d spoken. When I discovered my mother’s body, Helen was the first person I called. Tragedy bound us together – close and complicit – as we concurred on the choice of coffin and what she should wear within it. That her body was still present and dependent on our decisions drew us together, but deep and colourless grief awaited us both, like a long-overdue task, and so we withdrew from one another.

  After a few rings she picked up. In the background was the sound of frantic barking.

  ‘Laura. Hello. How are you? Sandy – get down!’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks. How are you?’

  ‘I’m sick to the back teeth of this yappy little shit.’

  ‘You’ve got a dog?’

  ‘Yes. I ought to be bloody sectioned. She’ll be good company, people said. Well, I need good company now because nobody’ll come near me. Laura, she does not stop shitting.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. Would you like me to come and see you?’

  ‘I would. Except it’s probably easier if we meet in an open space, somewhere I can take her for a walk.’

  ‘OK. How about this afternoon?’

  She had not expected me to be so spontaneous. ‘This afternoon? I can’t see why not. We could do that. Can you get to Richmond Park?’

  ‘Yes, definitely. 2 p.m.?’

  I drove in through the Richmond gate of the park just before two. It is quite something to be met with such wide and expansive green after the narrow urban streets of Richmond’s one-way system. But I couldn’t indulge myself with a long drive through it; I turned right at the first roundabout and parked outside Pembroke Lodge, where we’d agreed to meet.

  I saw Helen waiting by the toilets, bending down to admonish a small and unrepentant dog. She saw my boots before she saw me and straightened up at my sudden proximity. She looked smaller and older.

  ‘Laura,’ she said, pulling me to her with one arm. The other maintained a firm hold on Sandy’s lead. I went to straighten up after a few seconds, but she wouldn’t let go and held me harder. As though I were her other errant dog. And as our embrace continued, I allowed myself to slump into her. I felt her chest heave with her own sorrow and I joined her, crying suddenly and copiously into her scarf.

  I pulled back to wipe my eyes and right myself. ‘I’m sor
ry. It just hit me then. Seeing you.’

  ‘Don’t say sorry, Laura. You cry as much as you like. I’ve cried many tears.’ She looked up and into my face with genuine sympathy. The kind of sympathy that’s prepared to wait. ‘Come on – let’s get this one a walk and then we can talk.’

  We crossed the road, pausing in our conversation to hold hands gingerly as the cars slowed to let us pass.

  ‘I cry every day,’ she said. ‘I still haven’t come to terms with it. Don’t know that I ever will.’

  ‘Is that why you got Sandy? To keep you busy?’

  ‘In a way, yes. I can’t be bothered with other people at the moment. She makes more sense to me,’ she said as she bent down to let her off the lead, ‘and all she does is shit and sniff. There’s a simplicity about that that appeals to me. When I’m not pulling my hair out. Does that make any sense?’ As she spoke, she unclipped Sandy’s collar.

  ‘It does. Distraction is important—’ I began to say, but Sandy had spotted a couple of ducks sitting on the grass near a pond and began tearing off after them.

  ‘Oh, fuck. Hang on, Laura,’ and with that, she began running, ineffectually, in Sandy’s general direction. I broke into a run myself, seeing Helen had no chance of catching up with her. We spent ten minutes chasing Sandy in wide and concentric circles until another dog owner grabbed her by the collar and waited, with a sympathetic smile, for us to claim her. We were both breathless and grateful.

  Helen put Sandy back on the lead. ‘What the hell have I done? I’ve tethered myself to a furry devil. You naughty girl!’ she shouted at Sandy, who accepted the compliment with great equanimity. ‘Sorry, Laura, what were you saying? Something about distraction … it’s good to be distracted?’