Running in Heels (24 page)

“Simon,” I say.

“Whassat?” says Simon.

“Don't you think you should get home to Babs?”

“No!” he blurts, and staggers backward, giggling.

“Careful!” I gasp as he slips and treads heavily on the heel of a man with shoulders and neck like a bull. “Sorry,” I cry.

“Please, Simon,” I shout over the hubbub. “What about Babs, it's so unfair, you don't want to make her unhappy, she adores you and I know you're mad about her, I know—”

Simon slaps his hand on my shoulder and leans on it—it takes all my strength not to buckle—and bends until his lips tickle my ear. I assume he wants to confess his regret but instead he murmurs, “Nadalie, you don't mind if I call you Nadalie, Nadalie, did anyone ever tell you you've got sush a pretty mouth only you don't use it mush I could tell you what to do with a
mouth like that you're very quiet but I like that, you know what they say about the quiet ones, don't you?”

I lurch away with such force I head-butt his nose.

“Shit,” he splutters, cupping his hand over his face as the red dribbles through his fingers, “shit.”

I stare at him, the ugliness inside spits and boils, and I babble, “You…you, I'm
not
sorry, Simon, you're disgusting, I'm not sorry, you don't say things like that, you're drunk, you're drunk, okay, but—”

Simon drops his empty pint glass on the floor and everyone turns as it smashes, and he uncups his hand and violently yanks my head toward him and presses his mouth to mine, hard, crushing, mashing my lips and clinking my teeth and I flail and push and struggle and snort blood and grip his arm to try to get him off me but it's only when I lift my boot and scrape it hard down his shin and stab it into his foot that he lets go and stares at me in bleary shock and pain and I want to fling my pink drink in his stupid face and over his sunshine yellow silk tie and pale blue shirt and dark blue suit but what would that say to Babs, so I place the sticky half-spilled kir royale on the bar with trembling fingers, wipe the blood and spit off my mouth with the back of my hand, and say, “Be a man, Simon, and get home to your wife.” I walk calmly out of the Pitcher & Piano into the dark night and then I start running, shuddering and retching, like a trainee vampire after its first bite.

ACCORDING TO THE CHINESE CALENDAR, I WAS
born in the year of the Rooster. I suppose I got off lightly (Belinda was born in the year of the Dog and I think Tony is a Rat,) but I've never
liked
being a Rooster. I wanted to be a
Tiger of course. (I think the only other options are a Goat, Monkey, Horse, or Snake—apparently the Chinese aren't bothered about giving their children complexes.) But having resented the Chinese calendar all these years for labeling me, I'm now forced to accept that it was close to spot on. I was born in the Year of the Headless Chicken.

“You all right there, love?” says the taxi driver, glancing in his mirror. “Boyfriend trouble, is it?”

I rub my mouth and croak, “No, yes, I'm fine, thank you,” but when I pay the fare he watches my hands shake.

“You wanna watch yourself, love,” he rasps, leaning an elbow out of his window as I hurry up the path. “Can't be too careful.”

Tell me about it. I jam the key in the lock, fall inside, and stagger to the bathroom. I see myself and shudder. Dried blood round my mouth, I look like a bad-mannered cannibal, and my hair is wild and my eyes, bright in a mad frazzled way, and my face is long and gaunt, is this what I want, ugh, I want to strip off my clothes and scour my skin raw but I can't bear to see myself, this hollow self, because Babs is right, I'm not fat, I am
not
fat, I can see it now, but I feel it, what I am is not good, oh god, what have I done, I wash the dirt off my face and clean my teeth and spit spit spit into the sink and I'm trembling so hard I can't get a grip on anything.

I place the towel back on the rail and it slithers to the floor. I snatch it up and fling it at the rail, whipping it, you bastard towel! whap whap! then hold my breath in case I've woken Andy.
What
would I say if he saw me like this? I had steak for dinner and got carried away?

I smooth my hair, straighten my shirt, glide to the kitchen, and softly lock the door. I want to sleep for a thousand years but I don't think I could ever sleep again. I know what I'm about to do, and the thrill shivers through me like an ill wind. I open the larder door, step on a chair, and lift down a large tin box from the top shelf. I place it silently on the table.

Open sesame.

The contents of the box shine like paste jewels under the bright ceiling lights.

“You'd feel a lot better if you ate something,” I drone, imitating my mother. (“You'd feel a lot better if you ate something,” is what she'd say if I'd been slashed in the stomach with a carving knife: it's her answer to everything. She once watched a recording of Johnny Rotten singing “Anarchy in the UK” and remarked to Tony, “He'd feel a lot better if he ate something.”)

I stare into the box and and my insides writhe. I reach out, my pulse is speeding, the urge overtakes me, I'm possessed, I can't stop myself, I'm suffocating in lust.

And then I'm snatching, tearing, a wild animal, ripping at the wrappers with my teeth, the purple, gold, red, silver, bronze, all and everything, the loud wanton colors of desire, cramming, stuffing, jamming, oh it's all gone wrong, this thick gluey lush glut of sweetness it's molten heaven it tastes like a dream more more I'm hungry hungry I'm so fucking hungry rapacious I can't stop it any longer, that emptiness inside like a yawning monster, grumbling, loud and absolute, I'm feeding, filling the badness, soothing it, pressing it back down, making it go away and oh oh yes it feels so good like ice on a wound, until the noise inside is silenced and I am sated.

For about one piddling minute. And then it hammers at my chest again. I stare at the obscene wreckage of sweet wrappers littering my pristine white table and all I can think is, what have I done? I've had a fit. I've had a Roseanne Barr episode in my sleep. More pressingly, my stomach is swollen to the size and weight of a ripe watermelon and there's a good chance I'll split. I glance at my lap and it's sprinkled in brown and white—chocolate and coconut crumbs. When I brush them away they smear, disgusting brown smears like shit on my trousers. They never show that on the Bounty ads—flabby arms and the brown trouser effect. I feel a great welling force, the urge to scratch the
skin off my bones. Oh god. The tears ooze and I scrunch up the evidence and bury it in the bin, all the while wailing inside, this isn't paradise, it's hell, and could it be any worse?

I sit at the kitchen table buzzing. I feel the whole of me buzzing with self-revulsion—although sharing the blame is the accumulated caffeine from a Mars Bar, a milk chocolate Bounty bar, a Milky Way, a Snickers, a mint Aero, a Fruit & Nut Dairy Milk, a box of malted milk balls, a packet of Minstrels, and a tube of Smarties. Not that smart at all. I sit and stare at the wall, the words “oh god oh god” run through my head over and again like an endless daisy chain and when I look up at the clock it's 2:17
A.M.
I want to go for a run, run it all off, I don't want to go to bed, but considering I don't want to exist either, going to bed is a small surrender. I unlock the door, tiptoe to the bathroom, clean my teeth until my spit isn't brown, and pad into my bedroom. Then I scream.

Andy
is in my bed!

The unutterable pervert!

I stare disbelieving at the hump in the duvet and—when it doesn't leap up in horror and shame—scream again. (As you might have observed, I'm good at screaming. It comes from having a nervous disposition.)

“Natalie?” calls a bleary voice from down the hall. “That you? You okay?” Then who the—? I pick up a candlestick in one hand, then yank back the duvet with the other.

Chris
is in my bed!

I rush to the door. “Fine, thanks,” I bleat into the dark.

I gape at Chris. What the hell is he doing here? I was rude to him earlier. I'm sweet as custard and he's grumpy for weeks and the minute I'm rude, he can't get enough of me. Or can't get enough
out
of me. Well, not only has the worm turned, it's done a triple back flip. One word from him about Tony and he is history. I mean it. I'm whacked up on sugar and not to be messed with. I poke him in the side with the candlestick. He doesn't wake up. Drunk. I place the candlestick back on the bedside
cabinet and marvel. Once I would have been flattered that some loser of a man had chosen to slink home to my bed after overdoing it on the Jack 'n' Cokes. (Aw! He's all helpless and he's come to
me
! Aaar! He's been sick all over my bedclothes! Cute!) Now I just don't have the patience.

I paddle through my bottom drawer, dig out the biggest plainest scariest Victorian schoolmarm of a nightie I can find—high neck, ruffles, bows, beige, the lot—and put it on. Then I lie there feeling like a sea lion in drag until I fall asleep. I wake up queasy. After a few squeaks and grinds, my brain crunches into gear and I remember why. And I'm horrified and repulsed all over again. I blame the Edwards family. Babs and Andy pressing me to eat, eat, eat, and so I eat a little more, but it's all or nothing with me, a little will never be enough, and so the pressure builds like steam inside a pan of boiling water with the lid jammed shut. And then, whoooooff! How could I? I controlled it for so long, I had it all under control, until she and her brother interfered. Christ, I feel sick. I blink at my alarm clock and flinch. Arrgh! A box of chocolates! Sitting there!
Roses
. For a second I think it's god playing a joke. Then I realize. Chris. He might as well have bought me a pig costume and an apple to stuff in my mouth.

“Bloody nora! What the fuck's that you're wearing?”

I close my eyes, then open them. Chris is giving me the sort of look that
Daily Mail
readers reserve for beggars on trains.

“You look like Norman's mother out of
Psycho
,” he splutters.

“It's Donna Karan,” I lie.

“Oh, right, cool,” he says, reassessing. “Nice one.”

I scowl. “How did you happen to be in my bed?”

Chris seems startled. “I, er, I…I've no idea. Oh, yeah, I do. I was up Camden way, trying to sort out a…and, uh, it got late, and well, you're just up the road. That prick let me in. I don't like him, princess, I don't like him being here.”

My mouth clanks open. “Chris,” I shrill, “he's here because I need the cash—I lost my job, remember?”

Chris shrugs. “I don't like him being here,” he repeats sulkily. He swivels out of bed and rubs his eyes. “And yesterday, you were well out of line. I hope you're cool today though because we gotta talk. Here, look, happy late Valentine's Day”—he waves to the old-lady chocolates—“Right, I'm going to shower, then we'll talk. You'll talk Tony round, princess, you're good like that. Look, man”—pause—“you're
my
woman, yeah. You and me, babe. I don't want Andy around. He gets in the way.”

Having delivered this imperious address (although I was half expecting him to add, “We got plans to make, we got things to buy, we don't waste our time on some creepy guy”) he plods off to my bathroom. I stare after him and the queasiness shifts to my throat. I yank off the fright-nightdress and pull on my baggy comfort clothes. All my life I have been dictated to. Told who I am, what to be. And I'm fed up. I am not taking orders from some nit who, as we speak, is dolloping great squirrely worms of my priceless Aveda creme conditioner onto his ungrateful free-loading head. I make my bed, lie on it, and await his return.

Fifteen leisurely minutes later Chris pads in, drilling a corner of my fluffy white towel into his earhole.

“That new conditioner you've got stinks!” is his greeting.

“What new conditioner?” I say, sitting up.

“That white stuff, in the shower. I had it on my hair for ages and it stank.”

“
White
stu—?” I start, then stop. “Chris,” I say boldly, “I've had a think, as you said—”

“Good girl.”

“Well.” I smile. “That's the problem. I'm
not
a good girl.”

“What are you talking about?” says Chris in the voice of a persecuted saint.

I clear my throat. “Well,” I declare, “I like Andy being here. And I'm not your woman. So.”

Chris, who is toweling his hair dry, stops mid-rub. “What?” he snaps. “What are you going on about?”

“I am saying,” I trill, “that the Big Use is over. Finished. We
are done. Yesterday's fish and chip paper. I am not your PA and I will not be speaking to my brother to sort out your business problems, not now, not ever. So you can get out of my flat now, and I don't ever want to see you again.” A “please” nearly pops out but as it lingers on the tip of my tongue I replace it with—“
Capisci?
” (because, unlike Chris, I didn't learn my Italian from
Goodfellas
).

After much spluttering and “But what about the band?” and “You evil little cow” and “Can't I just use the hair dryer?” Chris leaves the building.

I wave him off forever, whimpering with relief. Sayonara, baby! The power of speech! While these may well be the biggest bravest words I've ever spoken, I am well aware that bravery and stupidity are very closely linked. In this instance, my bravery was fueled by fear, by the fervent desire for Chris to be far away from me and any candlesticks when he rakes his hand through his dark shiny locks and discovers that the tube of “white stuff” in my shower was not a new stinky hair conditioner but the finest and most effective hair removal cream that £5.99 can buy. That's the trouble with men. Too damn cocky to read the label.

I lean against the door and breathe in the silence. He's gone, and I ditched him.

“Mornin',” says Andy, bouncing out of his room in a horrible tartan dressing gown and old man's slippers and spoiling the moment.

“Did I hear”—he draws a baroque squiggle in the air—“
drama
?”

“I've just dumped Chris.”

“Good move,” drawls Andy, clapping his hands. “What a loser,” and then, “Hope you don't mind that I let him in last night. He said you'd arranged it and I was too knackered to defend the castle.”

“Oh, that doesn't matter,” I say. “Um, but I think he's going to be very upset.”

“Too right he will be,” exclaims Andy, rubbing at his stubble.
“You were too good for him. You were the, the Breitling Emergency to his fake Rolex.”

Assuming this is a compliment—although I'm not so sure I like to be referred to as an emergency—I grimace.

“Thank you,” I say, “but actually I didn't mean that.”

I explain about the hair removal cream. We laugh so hard and honkingly that I forget it's supposed to be awkward between us. Andy disappears into the shower, and I decide to write off yesterday's chaos and start again. The wisdom of this resolution is proven when my phone shrills at 9:31
A.M.

“Hello?”

“Simon.”

“No, this is Natalie,” I say, thinking, do I really sound like a man?

“No,
this
is Simon.”

“Oh!” I cry.

“Natalie, I wanted to apologize for last night. I'm dreadfully sorry. I was out of order. This whole marriage malarkey has been, ah, what you might call a shock to the system, and I've not dealt with it as well as I might, but I…I'm not really an AP”—I search my file labeled “poshspeak” and it presents me with “AP=awful person”—“I'm getting it together, no more outrageous scenes like last night, I assure you. Babs is a top girl, I behaved like a prat. So, so this is strictly
entre nous
? I can trust you not to say anything?”

What is he, mad?

“Simon,” I croak, “cross my heart hope to die, there's no way I'm going to tell Babs”—
what a pillock she married
, I add in my head. “You, you do mean what you say, though, don't you?”