Running in Heels (25 page)

“Absolutely,” he says curtly, and puts the phone down. I grasp my peppermint tea in unsteady hands and thank God for deliverance. That's that then, and we all live happily ever after. But I thank the Bully in the Sky too soon because a minute later the phone trills again. This time it's Frannie.

“I saw you,” she says, “kissing Simon.”

IT'S LIKE LETTING A CAR OUT IN FRONT OF YOU.
There's no obligation, it's your right of way, but you're feeling holy, you want the world to live in harmony, so you selflessly wave them into the traffic. And what do you get for your trouble? Trouble. Without exception, you have let a lunatic into your path who dawdles along at 15 mph, braking erratically for invisible obstructions, rolling reluctantly toward the green lights as if they're booby-trapped, making a mad break for it just as they turn red, leaving you, the benefactor, stranded and late for your urgent appointment, and possibly incurring a three-pound fine at the video shop.

Except this is a million times worse. I stare wordlessly at the phone and feel frantic. No, Frannie, you don't understand—it was meant to be a
good thing
!

“No, look—” I croak, recognizing my impotence.

“I
saw
you,” repeats Frannie. “And you know what? I thought you were better than that. But I was wrong, Natalie. You're that self-obsessed I wouldn't imagine you even comprehend the depravity of what you've done.”

“But I didn't—” I start.

“Please! don't! make! it! worse! by! defending! yourself!” spits Frannie. “There
is
no excuse!”

I feel a chill flutter of fear at who I'm dealing with. Anything you say will be taken down as evidence and used against you at a later date. I do as I'm told and shut up. She then takes my silence as an admission of guilt.

“You,” she adds, “are the most narcissistic creature I have ever encountered, but not for one minute did I think that even you would—”

“No I'm
not
!” I cry—this is one slur too many—“I hate the way I look!”

“Crap!” shouts Frannie. “Your whole existence is about the
way you look! You take the womanly masquerade to the limit! You define yourself through men! You live only as an object of the male gaze! Your self-esteem is fed solely on the penis! You're so damn ravenous for reassurance you'll even seek it via the phallus of your good friend's husband!”

Frannie, I can't help thinking even at this pivotal moment, is obsessed with penises. I say, “But Simon w—”

“I am beside myself about Simon!” yells Frannie. “I am appalled about Simon!”—at last, something we agree on—“It makes me
sick
, and I wish it didn't, but it goes to show, you could put a goat in a blond wig and men would ask it to dance, how dare he betray Babs like that, how dare he? As for you! You have to prove to yourself that every man fancies you! Robbie and now Simon! My god, I dread to think what you've been up to with him, but I am
so
going to put an end to it, the second my shift is done I'm going straight round to Holland Park, and let me tell you, it will give me great—I mean, no pleasure to impart the vile truth to Barbara, none at all!”

I buckle under this barrage of insults, but manage to salvage a grain of common sense. I blurt six strategic syllables—which I pray reach Frannie's ears before being shot down—“Don't tell her, for
her
sake!”

“Your sake, more like!” Frannie puts the phone down with a click.

I cover my face with both hands.

Horrible. The thought of Babs
thinking
that I would do that to her. I imagine that surreal nightmarish sense of betrayal creeping up on her. I picture her bewildered face, the disbelief and the hurt, and a great lumpen pain swells inside me. I want to rush round to the fire station and gush out the truth. But then the truth is as distasteful as the misconception. And I am to blame. I rushed in, a fool, a silly naive fool. Did I really think I was doing Babs a favor? I wanted to be peacemaker because I needed a role in Babs's marriage. I had to stake my claim on their lives. In some way, Frannie was right.

 

M
y mother rings three times, no doubt to badger me about Eeesy-Kleen. I let the answering machine deal with her. I sit at my desk, which is in fact my mother's old dressing table, in the corner of the kitchen, but I can't do any work. (This is aside from the fact that I have no work.) I lean on my elbows and stare at the wall. I'm a coward. I can't face a fight. I think of Babs and feel a dragging ache. I try to white it out, but it won't go, it clings. At 1
P.M.
, I surrender. I snatch my bag and go to the gym. I need to get on the running machine and run. I change into my kit in a blur, arrive breathless at the row of treadmills, and they're occupied. I glance at my nearest rival. Stringy leg muscles, lean torso, set jaw, long-distance look in his eye. He looks close to death, and I hate him. As Tony says, line a group of marathon runners and a bunch of smack addicts against a wall, and who could tell the difference. This junkie's body language reads Do Not Disturb.

I assess his neighbor. Glutinous legs, a protruding belly, and the tiniest shiniest shorts you ever saw. A houseplant that's outgrown its pot. At every thunderous step, his body shakes and the sweat flies off him. I can smell his breath from here; sweetly rotten, like compost. He keeps eyeing marathon man and increasing his speed, so I deduce that, even if it kills him, he's going nowhere fast. Get
off,
I want to scream, I'm piling on the pounds just standing here!

“Give up,” murmurs a husky voice to my left. “I would.”

“Alex!” The sight of her soothes my irritation like a soft breeze. “How are you?”

Alex grins. “I'm good. It looks like you're free to attend my class, Natalie!”

I laugh. I am suspicious of any form of exertion that threatens to mess with your head, and my brief acquaintance with Pilates has done nothing to disabuse me of my prejudice. Also, it crippled me for three days.

“I'd like to but I…I need to sweat,” I say. “There's this big black scribble in my head, I feel like a Jackson Pollock. I need to run it out.”

Alex presses her lips in disapproval. “Sounds like Pilates is exactly what you need. Go on, it'll be good for you. It's like sex. It's usually a lot better the second time.”

The words “It'll be good for you” imply a deeply unpleasant sensory experience. I envision my mother standing over me wielding broccoli.

“Go on,” purrs Alex. “It is hard work, you won't be slacking. You're working deeper muscles. I know you felt the effects last time.”

I hesitate.

“One class,” she wheedles. “It's like a mental massage. It'll help clear your head. But not in that mindless run, run, whack-it-out-of-you way.”

I sag. I am comfortable with my neuroses and wish to hang on to them. It's why I've never tried yoga. I have no intention of letting my guard down. Pilates, yoga, judo, I don't trust them. I don't want well-honed fanatics poking about my mind, disturbing whatever lurks beneath the murk, changing the way I think. I like my exercise pure, straight up, unemotive, no additives.

Mental massage! It sounds like a cult. But then.

Some of the gunk in my head
needs
clearing. Much as I hate being urged to do things (it's the “It's a lovely day, you should be outside” syndrome), I admit that, mentally, I need tuning. My brain feels like a congested plughole. My whole existence is about the way I look, apparently. Frannie, you were close. But Babs knows me better. She said something a few weeks ago, which loiters, however hard I try to shake it off. It's not so much about how you look, she said, it's the feeling inside. That feeling inside, a bored goblin hunched and malevolent, urging me on to further destruction. And, oh my, have I been destructive.

“Okay,” I say to Alex. “I'll give it another go. But then Pilates and I part ways.”

“How did you find it?” says Alex afterward as I roll up my mat.

I nod dumbly. “Painful,” I manage, “and the breathing is still a problem. But better. Definitely better.”

“How much better?” She laughs.

“I feel like kneaded dough,” I whisper.

“That's what I like to hear,” she says. “Will we be seeing you at the next class?”

“Oh, yes.”

I drive home, wanting to skip. Pilates was as exasperating as before. My transversus abdominis muscles wouldn't behave themselves, I couldn't maintain a “neutral pelvis,” and I kept going into an anterior tilt (i.e., sticking my bum out). But I feel warm in a way I haven't felt. I sit at the wheel and try to connect with the earth's gravitational force. But I'm floating. Back in that studio I felt…capable. Not like in a step class where twenty-nine other women skip through ten thousand knee-twisting moves and I feel like a carthorse. I didn't have to conform to Pilates. Pilates conformed to
me
. It was much the same as last time, all very understated: no sudden lunges, no messing about with huge elastic bands, small focused movements, a lot of torso work, endless punitive stretching. The difference is, this time it felt
right
. It was meditative, without being spooky. And Alex is an excellent teacher. She reminded me of a cat licking kittens into shape. (Only the fish breath was absent.) I feel calm and ruffled at the same time.

This unexpected high grants me ten minutes' grace, then I'm back to agonizing about Babs. I pray that Frannie's sense has overcome her rage and righteousness, but I fear it hasn't. Then again, Babs hasn't rung my mobile screaming, so I can only hope. I try to block the creeping thoughts of betrayal. I
have
betrayed Babs. Not in the way Frannie thinks, but I have. As an
antidote to my soiled conscience, I spool back the Pilates experience and luxuriate in the memory. I'd like to tell Alex that I'm hooked, but I don't want to sound silly.

To be honest, I feel foolish. I've always believed that you need other people to make you feel special. I never considered that you could make yourself feel special. (And I don't mean that in a Babs “I lost my virginity to myself” sort of way.) No matter how conceited you are, unless you're Tony, you can't feel special in a vacuum. You need backup. But then, I suppose you can't feel special if you
are
a vacuum. And often I am. I feel like a fake, staging a sunny show for friends and family. As if no one really knows the dark, empty me. Yet, that class I did today. It made me feel different. Not
special
or anything Hollywood, but solid, as if I could be something. I felt a ripple of calm, inside. That class might have injected warmth into the emptiness. And
I
made it happen.

I park my car, bursting with Disney thoughts. I'll call Dad, and Kimberli Ann, tell them of my progress. I am eating more, even if my main motive is to stave off baldness. I resent every bite, I feel like I've sold my soul for nice hair, but I am eating more. And Mum. I haven't even spoken to her about getting in touch with Tara and Kelly. I should visit Hendon, show off my new portly figure.

Although I don't know if I'm stable enough to stand her offensively obvious glee at my two-pound weight gain. I can't bear how other women are pleased when you gain weight. Even with my mother, it's hard to know what's concern for my health and what's competition. My mother's satisfaction at seeing me eat while she abstains makes me want to slap her. That's
my
trick, making other people eat. Oh, Natalie, stop it. Maybe I'll take up her offer of nepotism and do a few days at Eeesy-Kleen.

I am a step from the front door when I realize that Andy might be home. A dilemma: if I'm trying to feel good about myself in ways that are not to do with lipstick, is it cheating to check my nose for boogers? I decide no. I reason that you could spend
a fantastic evening holding court to a swath of friends, secure in the knowledge that your heart and soul are second to none, then waltz home, glance in the mirror, realize that your nostrils are gummed green, and be forced to reappraise your night. You now realize that as you regaled the crowd with fabulous anecdotes like, “Guys, did you know Isaac Newton invented the cat flap?” your audience was, in fact, preoccupied: “What a loser, she has a snotty nose!”

I whip out my vanity mirror. Perhaps Andy isn't like me, but I bet he is. I look for other people's imperfections. It makes me feel better about myself. It's an instant kick. Yes, I could learn to appreciate their good points, but the truth is, I don't
want
to hang around on the off chance that one day I'll gain the wisdom to see into their hearts. What, and discover they're better than me? I do what everyone else does—give them a quick once-over then judge them on their choice of jumper. That said, I must be softening a little. Robbie, for instance. And Andy. That dressing gown was a sartorial atrocity, and as for the slippers…But none of it made me like him any less. Usually I pounce—any excuse to despise someone before they despise me. But Andy doesn't seem to operate like most people. He's like his sister in that respect. What you see is what you get.

I push open the door, and there he is standing in the hall, with the phone in his hand. Faded jeans, black T-shirt, and the foulest expression I have ever seen. If he was ever chased by a herd of yaks in Tibet, I'll bet that look saw them off. If what I see is what I'm about to get, I'll be needing a mortuary technician with flair. It's all I can do to remember I'm house-trained.

Andy clacks the receiver into its cradle and the rage in his eyes is like a gun aimed at my head. When he speaks I am so frantic to hear, my ears scramble the sound and his voice seems to lag and warp, like a cassette unraveling in the machine. But I understand the words, seconds later:

“That was Frannie.”