Are You My Mother?

by Louise Voss

  I wondered if I should give him a call after all, just to say hi, see how he was. Surely, after a six year relationship, he wouldn’t think this was out of order? There was no rule saying we couldn’t be friends…. But then the thought of Gavin with another woman, as was probably the case by now, made me realise that I didn’t want to be friends with Gavin. I wanted to be Gavin’s lover, or nothing at all. Sex was the glue which had sealed our relationship, like a broken handle stuck on a teapot; and if it had dried up and peeled off, there was no hope of the teapot functioning without it.

  ‘Hello. I’m Hugo.’ I nearly jumped out of my skin. A man had materialised next to me, and was sticking his hand out for me to shake. His wrists poked endlessly out of an unravelling bottle green jumper, and I just knew his handshake would be limp.

  ‘Oh, hi. I’m Emma. Sorry, I was miles away.’

  ‘Have you had any food yet? I know Yehudi’s laid on some burgers and things. I brought a nice bean dish, too, for all the veggies amongst us. What about yourself? Do you partake of the flesh?’

  I thought about Gavin, lying naked on a bed with a big smile and an even bigger erection. ‘Oh, most definitely,’ I replied, although I hardly ever ate meat. ‘The rarer the better. In fact, I just like the cow to walk over to my plate and lie down.’ God, I wished I could be that confident with good-looking men instead of with middle-aged untrendy no-hopers like Hugo.

  Hugo laughed uneasily, and I felt sorry for him. In the firelight I noticed his bristly red hair and scaly skin. I could see him wondering if I was serious about the beef remarks. ‘Are you, um, here with anyone, Emma?’

  ‘Just my little sister and her friend. Yehudi teaches them life drawing at Ealing – they’re in the kitchen with their mates.’

  He brightened. ‘And what do you do?’

  ‘I’m an aromatherapist.’

  ‘Really?’ Now he looked positively gleeful. ‘Do you know, I’ve been looking for a good aromatherapist for ages. I suffer from psoriasis, and I was wondering if a good massage might help.’

  I smiled sympathetically at him. ‘Probably. Although you might be better off with reflexology – sometimes the aromatherapy oils can exacerbate the condition. It varies from person to person.’

  ‘I think I’d like to give it a try, though,’ he said with barely disguised lust. I had to blink away a mental image of Hugo lying on my massage table, his white flesh spread out before me. I bet he had tufts of red hair on his buttocks.

  I never used to think like that. A client was a client, and I didn’t give a second thought to what their bodies were like – in fact, I didn’t think I’d noticed anyone’s body since Nigel and his mole, spread out before me at my very first massage class. Old, young, pock-marked, smooth, scaly, cellulitey – it didn’t register, other than with a detached professional awareness of the sort of pressure I should exert on them, or the blends of oils I should use. Half the time I wouldn’t even have noticed if they’d had seven toes or perhaps were missing an ear. It was ironic, considering how utterly self-conscious I’d been when it had been my turn to strip off for a massage in class.

  Massage was the only thing in my life that I’d ever truly excelled at. I did OK at school, but I never got a ‘A’ for anything until I did my aromatherapy diploma. Then I wiped the floor with the lot of them. It wasn’t done, to be openly competitive, but everyone commented on how I sailed through the course. I couldn’t have anticipated that I would be so good at the actual massage – although I still suspected that Betsey’s influence was, somehow, something to do with it – and I was so determined to pass the other, more technical parts of the course that I just swotted like I’d never swotted before. I even got top marks in the horrendous tests on the properties of all forty-nine of the essential oils.

  It was an unexpected gift, really, the one positive thing which had emerged out of the chaos of Mum and Dad’s death; considering that my original plan had been to study teacher training at Exeter University. I’d have made a lousy teacher. I only chose massage because it was a local, and short, course, qualifying me for a job which I could do from home, enabling me to be available to Stella after school. Those endless, endless, school afternoons; Stella dishevelled and obnoxious in her school uniform, over-tired and crotchety, ketchup on her tie, and sometimes the smell of cigarette smoke in her hair; resenting me making her do her homework….

  Hugo was still rambling on about something – what? Oh, rambling. He was rambling about rambling; so I tuned out again and tried to see if I could remember the physiological properties of lavendula angustifolia: Anticonvulsive. Cicatrisant. Immune stimulant; cytophylactic; anti-venomous. Ugh, that exam had been horrific. And to this day, in seven years of practicing, not one client had ever insisted that I reel off the physiological indications of any essential oil. Lavender might be good for Hugo’s psoriasis, though.

  ‘Hi, Em, are you having fun? Just thought I’d come out and say hellooooo. Charlie’s getting the drinks in.’

  Stella came up behind me and put her arms around my waist, fitting her sharp little chin into the groove of my shoulder blade. She was stoned, giggling. Her pupils were huge and she had an undefined look about her, like a cartoon ghost with black holes for eyes. The flickering bonfire light made her seem even more ethereal.

  ‘I’m in love,’ she said dreamily, ignoring Hugo, who was still standing awkwardly next to us. ‘Isn’t it funny, when you’ve known someone so long and you suddenly start to fancy them?’ She laughed again. ‘Y’know, if I keep laughing, it feels like I might just float away.’

  I gripped her arm, understanding perfectly how she felt, wanting to secure her ghostly weightlessness. Charlie loomed next to us, carrying two plastic cups full of wine. He gave one to Stella and kept the other, not even including me in his gaze, let alone his drinks round.

  Stella turned away from me and nuzzled up to Charlie instead. ‘Why are you so big?’ she asked him, touching his rugby-toned bull neck with two fingers as though taking his pulse.

  ‘Why are your fingers so cold?’ he replied, grabbing her hand and squeezing it.

  ‘’Cos I’m a ghost, left over from Halloween’. It made me half proud, half sad, somehow, that we’d shared the same thought. Stella giggled, and Charlie pulled her to him, one arm loosely draped in front of her chest and up the side of her neck, in what was obviously meant to be an affectionate manner, but which looked as if he was trying to strangle her.

  ‘It’s OK, Em, I needed an anchor,’ Stella called across in my direction.

  ‘Anchor’ was not quite the word I’d use for that man, I thought. I felt faintly nauseous.

  ‘I’m going back inside,’ I said abruptly. ‘I’m cold. Nice to meet you, Hugo,’ and I strode back into the cold blue-black chill of the air away from the bonfire, trying to take my mind of the uneasiness caused by Charlie’s presence by thinking of the first time I’d ever massaged another person.

  On the third day of my aromatherapy course, the tutor had showed twenty of us into a large room containing a line of massage couches down each side, like a makeshift hospital ward in a village hall, except for the one additional couch standing alone in the middle of the room, forming a large letter H. The tutor was called Shelley, and she was extremely softly-spoken, with lots of fluffy blonde hair, big Deirdre Barlow glasses, and a large crystal pendant around her neck. She stationed herself next to the lone couch.

  ‘Right, everybody,’ she whispered in a drizzled-lavender oil voice, as we all strained to hear. ‘Today I’m going to teach you some essential towel techniques, and we’ll start learning the basic massage strokes for the back and shoulders. Please choose a partner, go and stand beside a bed, and decide amongst yourself who’s going to massage first. I’ll need a volunteer for me to work on here, too.’

  I nearly began to hyperventilate on the spot. I’m expected to strip off in front of all these people? You must be joking, I thought. There weren’t even any curtains or anything around the beds! Why, oh why, hadn�
��t I gone into some sensible profession, like hairdressing or journalism, where you didn’t have to take your clothes off in front of strangers? It wasn’t that I was ashamed of my body, particularly - although it has to be said that I didn’t exactly love it. If I’d only been six inches taller, I’d be fine, because everything would stretch to fit; my thighs and calves and hips would all look much more in proportion. Stella was the same height as me, and at the time she was only twelve….

  As I fretted and gazed frantically around the group, wondering why I hadn’t thought of earmarking any possible partners sooner, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Horror of horrors – it was the token male in the group, Nigel.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Want to be my partner?’ It was the first time I’d seen him close up, and I noticed how his plump, dry lower lip stuck out in a permanent chapped pout. For some reason I thought of kissing it, of how its dry rasp would feel against my own lips. Oh no. Please no. Why did I have to get the man? I closed my eyes.

  ‘I – um – didn’t realise we’d have to practice on each other. I thought there’d be, you know, members of the public, like when you can get your hair cut free by students.’ I had no idea why I said that. Of course I’d known we’d be working on each other – Shelley had said so from the beginning. I’d even gone to Marks & Spencer and purchased an entire new selection of chaste white underwear, to replace the greying shreds which had previously lay limply in my knicker drawer. But now the dreaded moment had come, I was panicking.

  Nigel smiled again, which made his lip stick out even further. He was very tall, with long, tanned bony shanks in cotton football shorts. Far too old and hippy-looking for my taste, and unmistakably male. For some reason I’d never even thought about massaging men. What if he, you know, got a bit excited? Men couldn’t help that kind of thing, could they? Apart from Dad, getting out of the bath or getting dressed in the mornings, I’d never seen a naked man before. I hadn’t even managed to lose my virginity yet, at the shamefully late age of twenty-one.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Nigel. ‘I promise you, you’ll get used to it really soon. My wife’s an aromatherapist too, and I remember when she first trained, she found it a bit weird to begin with. Tell you what, why don’t you do me first?’

  He was already sliding his feet out of his sandals and pulling off his t-shirt to reveal a chest populated with scrubby pale hairs. I shuddered, although the mention of his wife had put me slightly more at ease. All around me, the massagees were tentatively sliding out of their clothes, backs to the wall, casting shifty glances from side to side to check that nobody else was peeking. There was a considerable amount of very unprofessional self-conscious tittering going on, which also put me at ease, as did the fact that everybody, with the exception of Nigel, was wearing pristine new underwear like my own. The place briefly sparkled with dazzling white pants, before ten self-conscious women and one utterly blithe man wriggled onto the massage couches and lay face down. I felt much better; although I still wished I didn’t have Nigel as a partner.

  After Shelley had taught us how to tuck the towels in firmly, and how to only uncover the pertinent part of the anatomy at any one time, we were ready to proceed with the massage. I uncovered Nigel’s stringy back, staring at the huge ragged mole which was leeching on to the skin just below his right shoulder blade. I felt sick. In a few minutes that would be me, lying there, and him staring at my wobbly tummy and cellulite. Actually, I wasn’t sure I had any cellulite, but the mere thought of such close scrutiny made me feel as if it was blossoming on my legs just standing there, busting out all over like a speeded-up film of mould growing in a petri dish.

  ‘We’re not going to talk about the different oils today,’ said Shelley. ‘I’m just going to show you the basic massage strokes. You’ll find under your tables a small bowl containing the base oil, a sweet almond oil. Pour a small amount into the palm of your hand, rub your hands together, and we’ll start with effleurage….’

  A strange thing happened as soon as I touched Nigel’s flesh. I stopped worrying about getting undressed, or my own body, or even snagging my fingers on Nigel’s fierce mole – my hands just seemed to take over. Shelley’s whispered instructions flowed into my ears, apparently bypassing my brain and coming straight out again through my hands. It was wonderful, although my hands were really aching when I’d finished.

  ‘Wow,’ said Nigel when he sat up. ‘That’s not the first time you’ve done that, is it? My wife’s been giving me massages for five years, and you seemed as confident as she is.’

  I glowed with delight, a feeling that helped me through the awkwardness of having to climb onto a massage bed, naked except for a pair of pants and a towel, in a room full of strangers. When my turn came, I managed to manoeuvre myself onto my stomach by shutting my eyes and pretending there was nobody else in the room.

  Unfortunately, when I opened them again, I noticed two men in boiler suits jostling with each other to peer through the glass of the classroom door, their eyes on stalks, fingertips clutching the bottom of the little window. They reminded me of the cartoon we used to draw all over our schoolbooks: ‘Kilroy Woz ‘Ere’, a wall with a huge nose, eyes and fingers sticking over the top of it. I never did know who Kilroy was.

  I yelped, and pointed at them, whereupon they immediately sank out of sight, leaving only a guilty square of empty air.

  ‘Is everything OK, Emma?’ whispered Shelley, coming over to see what the matter was.

  ‘Um – sorry – there were two men looking in just now,’ I muttered, my cheeks flaming. I could feel my rash spreading across my chest and neck, and when I closed my eyes again it was there behind my eyelids.

  Shelley tsked, a small tender sound. ‘There are some workmen here sorting out the plumbing in the downstairs cloakroom,’ she said. ‘They were under strict instructions not to come near this room.’

  Yeah, right, I thought. How stupid was that; telling workmen to keep away from a roomful of naked women? By now my heart was pounding, and I remained rigid with tension throughout Nigel’s massage, feeling as if a million ball bearings were rolling around underneath my skin, wondering if Nigel, or worse, the workmen, could see my breasts sticking out on either side of my body. It was unlikely, given their resemblance to two fried eggs, but nonetheless I worried about it. Nigel’s hands were cold, and I could smell last night’s garlic on his breath, even though I was lying face down.

  ‘Relax,’ said Nigel, leaning his face down close to mine, bathing me in a hot garlic wind.

  I closed my eyes and pretended that Nigel’s long fingers belonged to Betsey instead, and that helped a little; but I couldn’t fully relax until it was my turn to do the massage again. Only then did I feel as if the ball bearings had dissolved, taking my bones with them. My body ceased to be flesh and blood and became pure distilled movement, a spiritual connection. It was the first time I’d felt anything spiritual for a long time; certainly the first time since Mum and Dad were killed. I breathed a sigh of relief - I had finally found something I was good at.

  Back in the kitchen at the party I saw, through a very unfashionable hatch in the wall, that Suzanne and her two gay friends had adjourned to the dining room. Trails of watery-nosed, wrapped-up people kept coming in and out of the house, ignoring the tangerine soda and the toilet paper, but calling out things like, ‘Nippy out there now,’ or ‘Where’s the bathroom?’ or ‘Any more beer in that fridge?’ so I supposed that the students had eventually got tired of the interruptions and moved en masse next door in search of some uninterrupted smoking time. As if I was watching her on television, Suzanne waved at me through the hatch, beckoning me in. ‘In a minute’, I mouthed, as I stood at the kitchen sink, running my cold purple hands under the hot tap until they began to thaw out and redden even more. They reminded me of Nigel’s hands, on that first massage day.

  Just as I was drying them on a damp tea-towel, Stella and Charlie came bumping back into the house, still giggling, and headed straight for the dining room, so
I changed my mind and went back outside again. I’d rather take my chances with Hugo and Yehudi than sit and watch those two pawing all over one another, I thought crossly. It was only eleven o’clock, too early to insist on going home.

  In the garden, Yehudi had worked up to his grand finale: the fireworks display. He tried to set them off, but only a couple exploded; the rest writhing weakly on the grass out of boredom before fizzling out in disgust. The party outside talked loudly to cover Yehudi’s embarrassment, and someone turned the music up. The blue-haired hippy chivvied everyone into dancing around the bonfire, and I lurked out of sight in case Hugo tried to chat me up again.

  I noticed that Charlie’s sister had found a hippy she seemed to really like, and was admiring her alpaca poncho. Everyone except the little boys had got bored of the liquor luge by now, which was indeed beginning to melt from the heat of the bonfire. The children were whizzing all kinds of objects down the chute: matchbox cars, sticks, bonfire-baked potatoes. It was dripping so much that it was more like white-water rafting than a bob-sleigh course.

  I found the food, and ate as much of a baked potato as I could manage before its tough hide defeated the flimsy plastic fork with which I was attempting to tackle it. I threw the skin underneath a handy hydrangea bush, and entered into a bit of desultory chit-chat about holistic practices with a couple of the hippies, which ended up being pretty interesting. It passed another hour, anyway, and I managed to avoid Hugo’s lovestruck glances from across the bonfire.

  When I next went in to see what Stella was doing, she and the others were still sitting solemnly around the huge polished mahogany dining table, as if they were at a funeral and not a party. Charlie had brought in a guitar, which he had apparently found in Yehudi’s bedroom on his way back from the toilet, and which he was playing exquisitely, further enthralling Stella. His big sausagey fingers formed complicated bar chords, sending them skittering so effortlessly up and down the frets that the strings squeaked like a kitten with each change of key. The untrimmed ends of the strings waved around the guitar’s neck like whiskers.