What Goes Around...

by Carol Marinelli

  ‘Are you taking care of yourself?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He stands and jiggles his keys for a moment. ‘We’ll get the money sorted.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You can afford to go the hairdresser’s, Lucy,’ he tries to make a joke. ‘You’re not that broke.’

  ‘I know.’

  And then his keys jiggle again.

  I wish he’d just go.

  ‘How’s Charlotte?’

  ‘Okay,’ I say and then I shake my head, because, no, she’s not. ‘I guess it’s early days.’

  ‘Have you thought about seeing your GP?’

  I nod. ‘She’s got an appointment next week.’

  ‘I meant, for you.’

  For me?

  Because my house isn’t immaculate and my roots aren’t done?

  Arrogant prick.

  I don’t say that though, I just say goodnight and give Jess a smile and a wave, but as soon as they drive off, I head back into the house and I start to tidy it.

  Really tidy it.

  I start in the kitchen and when the washing up is done I wipe down the benches and I remember to put out our breakfast things – for all the routines I’ve broken, that one’s remained.

  I go through to the lounge and I polish.

  And then, while the ironing board is still up, I get a whole lot done.

  I start to feel better.

  I head upstairs and Luke’s words still irk.

  As if Doctor Patel can help.

  She didn’t get me even before it all happened, she certainly won’t get me now.

  I take off my boots and I glance at the clock and set my alarm.

  It’s three am and I’m too tired to undress, in fact I’m too tired to even get in the bed, so I lie on top, though, I’m actually not that tired. I just lie there thinking and maybe Luke’s right about one thing.

  Maybe it is time to see Ricky.

  Just not yet.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  Get it together Lucy.

  I drop Charlotte at school and I go to the stables.

  Good news awaits, because the float has sold.

  Nearly four thousand pounds!

  But I don’t want to get rid of her tack.

  ‘Sort it Lucy.’ I can hear his voice.

  I’m trying to sort it – I’m trying to sort out the mess you left, I think, as I pick up shit for the last time and hose down Noodle’s old stable. There are flies everywhere and it’s a filthy job but, now I’m here, now I’ve set my mind to it, I get it done in a few hours.

  I want her to have a pony.

  I want her to be happy again.

  It’s been six weeks and, if anything, she’s worse.

  I’m worse.

  It’s going to get better, I tell myself, as I pick up her tack and load it into the car.

  She will get a pony.

  So, instead of polishing it up to go on eBay, I stack it in the garage and I cover it up, because I don’t want the constant reminders for her.

  It’s already after three, so I head to the school. I almost droop with relief when I pick her up and she tells me she’s been invited to sleep at a friend’s tonight and that they’re all having pizza.

  She packs up a little bag and I drive her to her friends.

  ‘I shan’t come in,’ I smile when invited. ‘I’ve been at the stables.’

  That’s the mad thing about the village - you can look and smell like shit, just as long as you’re wearing boots and have been at the stables.

  I wonder what to do with my night off.

  I’m in a vaguely good mood, maybe because I’ve got some cash – even better, cash that Luke doesn’t know about. I might say we sold it for five hundred pounds.

  I change lanes as I drive past the supermarket and I consider going in.

  I can have what I want for dinner.

  Ice cream if I like but I keep on driving towards home.

  I park in the drive and get into the house. I ignore the cupboards and freezer, instead, I head straight for the laundry and I strip off.

  There and then.

  I throw them all in the washing machine and I watch the black water go around.

  God, Lucy!

  Despite my resistance to what Luke suggested about seeing my GP, I do read some of the pamphlets that Doctor Patel gave me. I sit naked at the table and read and apparently, not washing and poor personal hygiene can be a sign of depression.

  I’m not depressed – I look up and into my tidy kitchen and things are starting to come together I’m sure.

  I don’t have poor personal hygiene; I’m just overloaded at the moment.

  Busy.

  You’d stink too if you’d spent a day cleaning out shit.

  I just need a bit of space.

  And tonight I’ve got it.

  I’m going to have a beauty night, I decide.

  I’m going to exfoliate and shave and rub in moisturiser, I’m going to put on a face mask and cut my nails and then paint them.

  I run upstairs and I run a bath then I look in the mirror and it’s me that wants to run. I see how much I’ve let myself go, how being the perfect yummy mummy was, in fact, a full-time job.

  I’ve put on weight, I don’t want to know how much, but I step on the scales for the first time in six weeks.

  I used to get on them every morning.

  Up, have a wee, jump on scales.

  Now, I step on slowly and I’m scared to look down.

  They’re wrong.

  I step off and let it go back to zero and then I step on again and I’m a pound heavier this time – bloody hell – I’m putting on weight at a rate of one pound a minute.

  Almost.

  I’ve put on a stone and a half in six weeks.

  I’ve always felt like I’m a day away from things falling apart.

  I was right.

  I lift my arms and I’m like a French woman.

  I look at my hairy legs and down to my toenails that need to be cut, then back up to my face.

  I’ve got roots too.

  I usually go to Ricky every three weeks – it’s been six.

  I can’t pretend I’m naturally blonde now.

  I’m a brunette.

  With a smatter of grey.

  I look for a razor but I can’t find one.

  There’s only his and I’m not using that.

  A bath, Lucy.

  Baby steps.

  I get in and I lie there.

  A bath used to relax me.

  It doesn’t tonight.

  I can see my big fat body and when I get out I will cut my toenails I think, while they’re soft. As I wash my hair I decide that I’ll paint my toenails and pluck my eyebrows….

  But I don’t.

  I put on a dressing gown.

  I watch the dirty water go down the plughole and I’m ashamed of myself.

  I didn’t remember to exfoliate but I do rub in moisturiser, that expensive one I bought the Saturday before he died.

  Jess said yesterday that I pong and I did nothing about it but I’m doing something about it now…Jess.

  I should ring her and see how she is.

  I’m a terrible friend.

  My thoughts are all scattered but I’m feeling so much better, all clean and lovely and finally I’ve got some energy. I look in the mirror and I smile at a Lucy that is coming back.

  My mobile is flat so I have to use the landline and I don’t know off hand what her number is but thankfully he programmed the phone and I hit dial when I see Luke and Jess.

  Only when Luke answers, does it compute that I’ve rung the home number.

  ‘Jess isn’t here,’ Luke tells me. ‘She’s on her night out with the girls.’

  ‘Oh!’ I’m surprised; she crashed her car last night.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’s fine. Just a bruise.’

  ‘That’s good.’ God, he’s really crap at conversation and I’m really in the
mood to talk but this is Luke and he doesn’t attempt small talk. Then I remember how much he loathes me. ‘Well, give her my love.’

  ‘Yep. We’re going to drop by over the weekend,’ Luke says.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say but he’s already rung off.

  He’s so brusque.

  I know he’s been good and everything but he’s so bloody rude at times. I know he doesn't want to help - that he was pushed into doing this out of duty but even so…

  I can't settle. Even though I wanted a break from Charlotte it seems so strange to have the house to myself. I don't know what to do any more. I don’t know who I am without him.

  I lie on my bed and I see my journal but I’m sick of writing it all down. It doesn't really help. I read it back and it's all completely mad–I'd die if someone else saw it.

  I go to the back of my wardrobe to the secret I've got hidden there - a box that’s still unopened. It took 3-4 business days to get here and nearly seven weeks to open. I take it out and it is the ugliest thing I have ever seen but everyone swears by them and it has been so long.

  I'm scared it won't work to tell the truth, that the sexy young me has long since died and that that part of me has gone.

  I know what I did with Noel, but I don't think I came. I know I didn't. I wanted him to, if that makes sense. All I wanted was for him to want me.

  I put it back in its box. I'm not using it and it didn’t come with batteries anyway.

  Then I change my mind.

  Like an addict looking for its fix, I go through the drawers and the cupboard and search for batteries but there are none - in the end I take them out the remote control.

  What do you do with it?

  I lie there feeling stupid - I knew it wouldn’t work - maybe if I think of someone it would help. I rummage through my mind and play my usual game of Celebrity Squares. Okay, I’ve got one - I'm a young and good looking Susan Boyle and there's that judge, what's his name? His jaw drops as I walk out to sing.

  Then I stop.

  I don’t like that I’ve entered the competition, that’s lame…

  Why do my fantasies have to be so complicated?

  Right, I try again. I’m a good looking Susan Boyle and I didn’t formally enter the competition, I was just singing as I walked down the street and they begged me to enter. They were short of contestants and the competition couldn’t go ahead if I didn’t come and sing and everyone would be so disappointed. Luckily, yesterday, I’d been waxed and I’ve tried on this amazing body oil, so I smell fantastic, I look amazing.

  Okay!

  I start to relax, to go with the flow, so to speak. I stop trying to figure out the hows and whys. What was it that Jess said? That Luke bought a vibrator for her.

  Does he use it on her?

  I can't imagine Luke like that, he’s so stern and staid. I can't imagine him kneeling over me, smiling down at me, enjoying watching me.

  Except, I am!

  I open my eyes and I can see him over me - my hands are roaming my body, except they’re his. I have to stop because I can't think of him like that, I can't do it to me and I can't do it to Jess… its wrong, wrong, wrong.

  I’m in my kitchen, no, I think it’s his kitchen, because I recognise the fridge. I’m wearing that dress, the red one with the silver flowers. I’m at the sink drinking water and he’s coming up behind me, his mouth is on my neck and he turns me around and his hands slide over my dress. I shiver because, in my fantasy, it wasn’t loathing that walked in the kitchen that night, it wasn’t disgust that crept up behind me, it was lust, it was want. It’s as if I’m feeling it from him now - replaying it through his eyes.

  ‘No!’ I push him off, I get out of the kitchen and back to my bed and I try to get back to the stage and impress the judges, but there he is again. I’m walking past and he grabs me, I can feel the metal of the fridge on my back.

  Then, I’m lying on the bed with Jess.

  Their bed.

  And, we’re going to have to learn to share him.

  ‘Fuck off!’ I tell him.

  ‘It's a fantasy,’ Luke tells me and he’s terribly stern - he’s wearing a business shirt but it’s unbuttoned and open. I don’t know where he is, because he’s not in the bed with Jess and me now and we’re not in his kitchen. Instead, he’s on his sofa at home, the leather one. He’s on the couch, with his red wine and the macadamia nuts that he likes and he’s hanging up the phone on me.

  He’s wearing his suit trousers and I look down and he’s hard through the fabric. He puts down his drink and he’s sliding down his zipper and, there he is - the Luke I’ve never seen, is stroking himself as he thinks of me. ‘Come here,’ his voice is as I’ve never heard it, this low sensual tone that makes me shiver. I stand there in his study and I watch him. I'm not using the vibrator any more, I mean, I can hear it, but it’s Luke that’s filling me. I can hear his breath in my ear and his back beneath my fingers.

  ‘We can’t,’ I tell him, resisting him still, but his mouth is on my breasts, tasting them as if he’s longed for them.

  ‘We’re not,’ he assures me. ‘It's just a fantasy.’

  But whose fantasy am I in though?

  It’s all different again.

  Despite the night, the air is hot and I can hear the lap, lap of the water as Luke moves inside me. My legs are wrapped around him and my back scratches a bit on the wall of the pool but I don’t care, because it’s something to lean on as he takes my sunburnt breast in his mouth. I’m pissed and we don’t have to worry about who’s driving, because soon we’re going back to the hotel room. He lifts his head from my breast and he pushes me down harder onto him. We’re locked in eye contact, I’m about to come and so is he. He’s pushing me down harder and then I hear a moan, a feminine moan, but it’s not from me… I look beyond Luke and I’m watching my husband screwing Jess. Yes, I get that we’re in Portugal; I just don’t want to be here. This, I don’t want to see.

  Is that the price I’d have paid for a pony?

  ‘Fuck off!’ I say and scramble back on stage to belt out Les Miserables but that's not working. I try Robbie. I’m the girl he chose from the audience and he’s taking me behind the curtains but nothing’s working. Where’s David Beckham when you need him?

  ‘It’s okay…’ Luke hauls me back to his kitchen. It’s the words I need to hear. ‘Lucy, it’s okay.’

  I feel my terror leave.

  I’m scared that this is wrong but he kisses me till I know it’s right.

  Till my silver grey knickers are down on the floor and I honestly don’t have the mental capacity to work out who took them off, I just know that finally he’s inside of me.

  Finally.

  But then we’re back to his couch.

  ‘You’re a bitch.’ Luke says, as if to remind himself, his hips lifting from the couch.

  ‘I’m not.’ I plead. ‘We’re not doing anything - it’s just a fantasy. I let myself go with it, I just give in to it - it’s Luke that’s on top of me it’s Luke that inside of me, it's to Luke that I come.

  So does he.

  I hear him groan.

  I feel his relief and then I swear I feel his guilt, his regret, and his disgust in himself and in me as he returns to his sofa.

  Because I feel it too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  ‘We’re not disturbing you?’

  Jess must have seen the startle of panic on my face when they drop around the next morning.

  I’ve been up since five, just mortified by what happened and this is the last thing I need, but I don’t say that of course. ‘Not at all.’ I let them in. ‘I just picked Charlotte up from her sleepover,’ I say as we walk through to the kitchen. ‘I got some nice bread in the village, do you want…’

  ‘No thanks,’ Luke interrupts. ‘We’re not staying long.’

  I flick the button on the coffee machine.

  ‘Can I have a bacon sandwich?’ Charlotte calls.

  ‘In a bit,’ I answer, becaus
e I just want to make a quick coffee to be polite and to get Luke gone. I can hardly stand to be in the same room as him but, of course, Jess hears the word bacon and tells me to put some on for her and then Luke gives a tight shrug, and, oh shit, it looks like they’re staying.

  ‘How was last night?’ I ask Jess.

  ‘Good,’ she says. ‘You know, you really ought to come along, Lucy.’

  ‘It’s too soon,’ I say.

  ‘It’s dinner,’ Jess says but I shake my head. I don’t really like going out. I haven’t got agoraphobia or anything, I just like being in my house, watching movies, reading. I like going out sometimes but as a couple. I don’t want to go to dinner and clubs and pubs with the girls.

  I never have.

  I’ve always been in a couple, ever since I was sixteen but Jess won’t let it go.

  ‘It’s better than sitting in on your own on a Friday night,’ Jess says. ‘So, what did you do?’

  My face is burning.

  ‘Mum!’ Charlotte calls from the living room. ‘The remote’s not working.’ I add bacon to the pan and I can hear it sizzling, much the same as my face. ‘There aren’t any batteries in it.’

  ‘Get some from your DS.’ I shout back.

  I swear to God I am never using a vibrator again. I’m going to wrap it in newspaper and put it at the bottom of the bin.

  I can’t believe the places my mind went to last night.

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ Luke says, glancing around. The house is gleaming and, for once, I’ve got some make up on.

  I really am making an effort.

  We eat our bacon sandwiches and finally we address the real reason that Luke is here.

  ‘You need to get a job.’ He’s as blunt as ever. ‘No bank’s going to approve you without proof of income.

  ‘It’s too soon.’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be a big job,’ Jess says. ‘They just need to see you’ve got some form of income’

  ‘I can’t think of working,’ I shake my head. ‘It’s way too soon.’

  ‘Lucy,’ Luke snaps. ‘Most people get two weeks compassionate leave. You’ve had six, nearly seven.’

  ‘It might be good for you to get out a bit.’ Jess is far gentler than Luke. ‘I can make a couple of calls.’ I feel this sort of lurch of hope as she chats on, because she knows someone and they’re looking for personal shoppers. I could do that, I think. I know all the labels and I love clothes and I could really do that but then I feel my eyelashes fluttering in a rapid blink as I realise Jess is not talking about Debenhams, she’s talking about the supermarket.