The ABCs of Love (15 page)

V

vacuuming

John is much tidier than me. Sometimes he will come back to my flat after work, and before he even takes off his jacket, he starts cleaning up. I try not to say anything, but it drives me mad. He says it relaxes him, but I can’t help thinking it’s an insult. And boring.

The other day he took out the vacuum cleaner and started doing the sitting-room floor. He kept having to bend down to pick things up, and after a while, I noticed that he was still crouched on the floor even though the machine was still on.

I asked if he was all right. He lifted his head then, and his face looked as if he were bruised under the eyes.

He told me that at home when he did this, his dog would always attack the Hoover. That he and it had fights that they both looked forward to. He said it seemed soulless, Hoovering just backward and forward on his own.

I didn’t know what to say. I had expected John to be upset about the children. But animals? John knows I am allergic to them. At his family home, he has a dog, two guinea pigs, a rabbit, a three-legged cat, and two goldfish. I’ve noticed he has this maternal streak. He even pats our tornado in passing. I wonder how Kate puts up with it. It must be like living in a zoo.

See also Dogs; Kitchen Equipment; Sex; Stationery; Tornadoes;
Utopia

velvet

In my pocket, I keep a corner cut out from the velvet curtains that hang in the spare room of Sally’s parents’ house. Because I took it from the hem so no one would notice, it’s a rich red and not the faded, tea-stain color of the rest of the curtains.

I run my thumbnail along the fabric when I get upset. It can go surprisingly deep, and when I rub against the grain, I get a feeling not unlike when you put your tongue on the metal bit of a pencil sharpener. It’s almost an electric shock but softer. I like it because it reminds me that there are other worlds out there. It’s a world Sally must have running through her veins.

See also Fashion; Houses; Magazines; Money; Utopia; Zzzz

vendetta

It is strange to think that someone could actually hate me as much as Kate would do if she found out who I was. Hate is such an active emotion. I talked to Sally about it, and she said, rather too casually, that people hated me at school. I was shocked. I knew they’d rather not play with me, but to hate me? That was something different. I couldn’t think what I’d done to deserve that.

“It was your big eyes,” she said, “and your hair. You were always staring at people as if you wanted to get inside them somehow. We used to think you were a witch.”

I remembered the time Sally had caught me making up that rain dance. It was just something I’d seen on television, but now I was surprised at how much I liked this image of myself.

“My mother was a witch,” I lied, thinking Sally would laugh at me.

“They say it’s inherited. Your mother was magic,” she said, and carried on reading the television guide. Sally is always round my house these days. While we were watching a film later on, I willed and willed her to go. As soon as the film finished, she picked up her bag and left.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m going.” Although I hadn’t said anything.

Now that he’s back at work, I couldn’t wait to try something similar out on Brian, but he kept catching my eye when I was staring at him and winking back at me.

See also Bosses; Mistaken Identity; Names; Voices; X-ray
Vision

vexed

John’s nickname for me is “Squiggle.” When I write to him now, I sign it Sxxx. He says it makes him think of sex.

Recently, there have been times when I wonder if this is all he thinks about. I can’t help being shocked by how much it is starting to bore me. I asked him the other day, for instance, if he missed me.

“Yes,” he said. “I was feeling really randy this morning. I could have done with you then.”

I wrote a note to Brian and signed it
Vxxx
by mistake. He looked up immediately, of course, and smiled. I had to smile back, and although I wanted to tell him he was wrong—that I wasn’t really sending him kisses—he looked so happy, I couldn’t.

See also Breasts; Ice Cream; Memory; Outcast; Phone Calls;
Rude; Teaching

victim

I’m very busy now, particularly as Brian has been giving me work as a thank-you for helping him out. I’ve been working on a new customer magazine for a company that makes industrial-sized pipes for construction companies. I came up with the title
In the Pipeline,
which Brian likes a lot. He says if the project goes well, he is going to recommend I get promoted officially to be his assistant editor on this publication, with more to come.

John wasn’t as pleased as I would have liked. He thinks that Brian probably has hidden motives, but I don’t think this is a very supportive attitude. John did apologize. He said that he is so frantic at work too, it just seems a shame that I can’t be free in the little time he has to see me.

I tried to see his point. He has had to put up with being second best with Kate and the children for such a long time now. He can’t bear for it to happen all over again.

See also Ambition; The Queen; Stationery; Utopia

visible

The hairdresser kept asking if I was sure. Eventually, I just shut my eyes so we couldn’t keep looking at each other in the mirror. I could hear how people kept coming over to watch her, picking up curls from the floor and telling me how different I would feel when it was done.

“A new person,” they said.

Hair as thick as mine makes a remarkable noise when it’s being cut, like a knife sawing through bones. It got louder and louder the more she cut, until I thought I was going to have to tell her to stop. I suppose it was because I had no protection over my ears now.

At the end, I told her it looked lovely, that I was delighted, but she wouldn’t stop showing me the back of my neck in the mirror. She obviously didn’t believe me, but she was wrong. I do love it.

I dreaded going into work the next day, though. I knew people wouldn’t know what to say. It was the same when my parents died. Reactions were divided into two camps. Some people ignored that anything had happened, while others wanted to know every last detail. I started to feel as if my loss was filling a hunger in them and that they would eat me up if they could. As if all these bad things happening to me spared them.

I could see that my haircut worried everyone. Even as they were telling me how nice I looked, most were putting their hands up to their necks, checking that their hair was still there, that they were all right, that my misery hadn’t leaped over to them. Like fleas.

See also Codes; Hair; Objects; Weight

voices

Now that mine and John’s telephone box has finally been pulled down, I am on a mission to keep others going for lovers everywhere. Every time I see one, I go in and ring someone up, although it can sometimes surprise them.

Recently, I’ve been ringing the number of my mother and father’s house. It’s been disconnected, and of course I know she won’t, but I can’t get rid of this hope that my mother will answer. I’m scared I’ll forget what her voice sounded like. If I shut my eyes, I hear it very loud and screechy, saying things like,
No one’s impressed by your
misery, you know
. But then I try to listen with Sally’s ears and it’s different. It’s not my father talking anymore, interpreting my mother for me.

I know there’s a saying that you turn into your mother as you get older. Maybe everyone’s the same. We’re all trying to listen harder and harder to not just the words, but what our mothers were really saying to us all those years ago.

See also Codes; Daisies; Doors; Elephant’s Egg; Telephone
Boxes; Underwear; Vendetta; Washing Powder