The ABCs of Love (16 page)

voyeur

Sally and I spent last Saturday shopping, for old times’ sake. However, she didn’t have any money and I could think of nothing I wanted to buy, so we just walked round in silence. Eventually, she had the idea that we should each buy the other a tattoo.

“What would you have?” I asked, and she said that she would have SALLY tattooed on her arm in beautiful rainbow colors, in case she forgot who she was.

“And me?” I asked.

“You’d have SALLY too, of course,” she said. But then, because I looked so worried, she bought me a pair of novelty rainbow earrings made out of telephone wire instead.

I went to the loo to try them on when we went for coffee. I was in such a rush that I must have forgotten to shut the door, and just as I was putting the second one in, I looked up and saw a man standing in the doorway watching me through the mirror. He wasn’t attractive—just an ordinary, middle-aged, tired-looking businessman—but he was watching me with such intensity that I felt we’d both been caught doing something far too intimate. He was just staring at me, running his fingers round his shirt collar, when our eyes locked, and my whole body turned to liquid. I don’t know how long we stood there; we couldn’t seem to look away. But suddenly, I froze, shut my eyes, and when I looked up, he’d gone. He’d even shut the door.

By the time I rejoined Sally, I was ready to shop. Only buying enough solid things would fill the gap that man had left in me. I didn’t tell Sally. She thought I was relaxing at last and took advantage by picking out clothes that she knew I would never normally wear but that went with my new hairstyle. A fresh start, she kept saying. I even dragged her into the changing rooms with me. It wasn’t just because we were having so much fun. I didn’t want to be left alone with the mirror again.

See also Breasts; Indecent Exposure; Railway Stations; Wrists

W

washing powder

John hasn’t been free to see me on the weekends for a long time now. There are times when I don’t speak to anyone from the time I leave work on Friday to when I get back to the office on Monday morning. I have got so lonely, I have been known to ring the speaking clock just to hear the sound of someone else’s voice.

But last week I had a bit too much to drink. On an impulse, I phoned the help line advertised on the side of the washing-powder box. The lady who answered was really friendly. And Scottish. I told her how I’d read somewhere that her company employed Scottish people because they sounded more like human beings, but she said it was because they were cheaper, and we laughed. We really did laugh together. Like friends do.

She asked me what machine I was using, and I said it was me that needed help. I told her how what I wanted most in the world was to be held. No one had held me for such a long time. I wanted to be hugged and washed and cleansed until I was white all over. That’s when she told me I should call the Samaritans. I laughed and said they were just for unhappy people. Didn’t she realize she was talking to someone who was so evolved, she’d once spent a week writing her obituary in order to guarantee happiness?

It was then that she said she was going to have to call her supervisor. There was no need for her to do that.

See also Friends; Happiness; Phantom E-mails; Wobbling; Yard

weight

Sometimes I don’t think my body can bear the weight of the pain that is being inflicted on it.

I’ve started to go to the gym just to build myself up. I want to be strong so that no one can push me around ever again. I want to weigh myself down so my feet stay on the ground. I want to become such a presence that everyone can see me. I don’t ever want to become invisible.

Most of all, I want to matter.

See also Boxing; Codes; Gwyneth Paltrow; Kindness;
Stepmothers; Youth

what if . . .

You could win a competition to be Queen for a year?

It was a crime to have money?

You woke up one morning and everyone was speaking a different language?

There really were tiny little people living and working inside those machines, printing your passport photo, counting out your cash, and making your coffee?

Children never grew up?

You lived your life backward?

You could make time stand still?

Rich women went on a shopping strike?

People stopped dying?

John really had left Kate and married me?

See also Endings; Friends; True Romance; Utopia; Zest

why?

Sally has agreed to listen to me talk about John on Friday evenings and Sunday lunchtimes, but only if I will cook for her. She says it’s too much to cope with on an empty stomach.

I stand at the stove, stirring, while the tears run down my cheeks, and I press the bruise again and again. I go over every detail of our relationship—how we met, how John looked when he first kissed me, how I knew we were meant for each other, the connection we felt between us, and how I can’t bear for it to be broken. Sometimes Sally will lean across and taste what I’m cooking, but mostly she’ll just nod along. The funny thing is that she really does listen.

The other day I turned to her, and I could think of only one word to say. “Why?” I shouted it out.

She looked a bit frightened, which, despite my pain, made me want to laugh. “Why what?” she asked.

“Why wasn’t I good enough for him?” I said. “Why didn’t he want me?”

She shook her head. “You gave him up, Verity,” she said. “It was you who finished it.”

I sat down. I couldn’t finish cooking the meal. I know I told John to go, but I didn’t mean it. Surely Sally of all people could understand that. I suddenly saw that what had happened to me was exactly the same as with Colin and her. And all I’d wanted to do was to prove how different we were.

It was then that I decided to stop talking about John. He is now a closed book.

See also Endings; The Queen II; Sex; Ultimatum; Zeitgeist

withdrawal

Tread somewhere that in some parts of Japan, mothers breast-feed their babies for longer than we do in this country because they want to give their children the best possible start.

But when they decide enough is enough, they don’t wean them off gently. One morning they paint their breasts with terrifying and horrific pictures and then wake the children up softly to take the breast just as before. The children are so filled with fright, they never want to feed from their mothers again.

This way, it is the child who has given up the breast and honor is satisfied on both sides.

See also Horror Movies; Ultimatum; Voices

wobbling

The chairman has been on lots of courses aimed at positivity. If you ask him how he is these days, he no longer tells you he is surviving and starts patting his dog. Instead, he looks you in the eye and says he’s fan-tas-tic or that everything is simply wonderful.

He has even taken to putting little quotes up in the reception area to buoy us up each day. Most people scoff at these, but Brian and I have become secretly addicted. We have taken to getting to work earlier and earlier just to see what today’s quote will be. I think we’re both looking for a message that will give us the clues we need to join the rest of the human race. We want to be winners too.

The other day I came in to find Brian had taped something to my computer.
Even if you are falling flat on your
face, you are still moving forward,
I read.

Brian has been surprisingly kind to me. It is funny how it takes something dreadful happening to you to find out who your real friends are.

See also Codes; Dogs; God; Positive Thinking; Voices; Weight

women’s laughter

The only time I ever saw my father get angry with my mother was when she was helpless with laughter on the telephone once. He practically ran across the room, pulled the receiver from her hand, and slammed it down.

She just looked at him and laughed even louder, until he slapped her. He told me afterward that he didn’t do it to hurt Mummy, but to stop her from getting hysterical.

I understood what he was saying at the time but probably even better now. Women’s laughter is different from any other kind of laughter. It is louder, more generous, more absorbing and all-encompassing. It is as if they have forgotten other people exist. While women are laughing, they don’t care about anybody else but one another. If some man tries to join in, the laughter dries up immediately, and the women bustle round getting busy with one of the hundreds of jobs they always seem to have to do.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if women laughed less, men might be happier.

See also Danger; Friends; Happiness; Imposter Syndrome;
Lesbians; Victim

woolworths

After the success of our last shopping expedition, Sally and I decided to spend Saturdays shopping in town. Last weekend she said she wanted to take me out for a special treat, and then she took me to Woolworths. I was surprised. When we were kids, during the summer holidays, we would tell our mothers that we were just going to the park near our estate, but then we’d jump on a bus and have baked beans on toast at the Woolworths in the center of town.