Getting Over It (7 page)

Chapter 9

T
HE LAST TIME
I
HAD
a leg wax was after reading a feature in
Vogue
about French women. French women are strangers to the concept of ratty period knickers, have weekly manicures and pedicures, and don’t clear their plates just for the sake of it. I rang Tina in a flap to see what she thought.

“It’s beautifully written,” she said, “and very persuasive, but I think the writer is teasing. It’s funny, and yeah, they are like that, but she is having a laugh.” At that moment it struck me that Tina dresses, acts, and eats like a slightly unhinged French woman even if she is from Tooting, so she would say that. I booked an emergency appointment at the hairdresser, the beauty clinic, ran round the block, then zoomed to Waitrose and bought a lettuce, five carrots, a box of tomatoes, two tubs of cottage cheese, a loaf of wholemeal bread, three tins of tuna in brine, four potatoes, and a box of peppermint tea. All of it rotted away in the fridge, of course, but at least that week, my legs were bald, my bikini line straggle-free, I had no split ends, and my nails were as buff as Brad Pitt in
Thelma and Louise.

Unfortunately, that week was nine months ago, the Parisian peer pressure has since worn off, and I have reverted to my slovenly English, plate-clearing ways. So, as Marcus licks and puffs and murmurs pretty words in my left ear, my overriding emotion is not swoony molten lust, but jumpy, jittery fear. When, for instance, did I last thoroughly clean my ear?

Casually, I twist my head so my ear is out of puffing range and our lips meet in an ungainly clash of teeth. “Oops, sorry!” I giggle. I’m not entirely sure how this happened. One minute I am bawling like a red-faced baby with wind, the next, Marcus has hauled me out of my seat and into his strong (yes!), firm (oh my!), musclebound (bonus point!) arms. I cried and snotted onto his linen shirt, leaving a wet greenish slime mark which, fortunately, escaped his notice. He stroked my hair some more and whispered, “Poor Hellie, poor little chicken, hush now, don’t you cry.” Then he started kissing my head. Marcus J. Bogush! Kissing me. After all these barren years!

Pensioners forgotten, I clamp my mouth to his. He pulls my head back by grabbing my hair, which is painful, but I don’t dare ruin the moment by saying “Ouch.” We kiss long and hard but—horror of horrors—his kissing style isn’t quite as blissful as his reputation with the ladies suggests. To be miserably honest, I’m disappointed. His tongue rolls wetly around my mouth like a large dead salmon in a washing machine. Then he breaks off to say cheekily, “Feeling better now?” and I fall in lust again. He pulls me onto the sofa and, in the heat of passion (except it’s premeditated), I grab at his hair, too. He stops groping me for a second to pull away and say, “Hellie, sweetest, I adore you but you’re pulling my hair.”

“Sorry,” I mumble, and we slobber-kiss again.
This man produces an inordinate amount of saliva,
I’m thinking ungratefully, when the phone rings. It clicks to the answer machine. “Hi, Helen, Tom here! Calling to see if you fancied a tequila sometime… .”

I freeze. Tom’s timing is very bad, indeed. Marcus lets go of me as if I’m radioactive, the lustful bleariness vanishing from his cleancut face as if he’s torn off a mask. “So I’ve got competition,” he remarks airily.

“Not really,” I stammer.

“Yes, really,” says Marcus pleasantly. “Perhaps I should leave you to it.” He jumps up and scratches daintily at a strange greenish mark on his shirt.

I say, “It’s just that he’s been—” I stop as I look at Marcus, who stares back unblinkingly.

“Your choice, Helen,” he says.

I pick up the phone. “Hi, Tom?” I say.

“Oh!” he says. “Screening your calls. And I made it!” This—despite all my recent protestations to Tina—is going to be difficult.

I glance nervously at Marcus, who crosses his arms Gladiator-fashion and yawns. “Tom,” I say sadly, hesitantly.

He interrupts. His voice is somewhat cooler, “This isn’t going to be good, is it?”

I bite my lip. “Tom.” I sigh. “I like you and everything but I’m really busy right now, at work and stuff, but I’ll, why don’t I give you a ring sometime.” I glance again at Marcus. He looks unimpressed. So I add, “But, uh, don’t hold your breath.”

There is a short pause. Then, in a cold contemptuous voice, Tom says, “Message received and understood.” The line goes dead.

“Ker-bam!” says Marcus loudly as he smoothly removes the receiver from my hand and spins me round to face him. “You tell him!” Then he grins and murmurs, “You’re a force, Hellie, you know that, don’t you?” I smile and nod, although I didn’t know it. “So,” he continues—kiss-kiss on my neck—“what”—kiss-kiss on my throat—“shall”—unbutton, nibble—“we”—unbutton, kiss—“do”—unbutton, slurp—“now?”

I cling onto Marcus’s broad shoulders and close my eyes in a parody of desire, but inwardly I feel weak and wicked and about as turned on as a dead bunny rabbit. I have humiliated Tom, but I feel humiliated. Those four words—“Message received and understood”—fill my head and shame me again and again.

I am roused from my non-lecherous thoughts by the unwelcome realization that Marcus is giving me a love bite. He appears to be trying to suck all the blood out of my body through the skin. Pardon me, but I grew out of teenage terratorial marking behavior at least three months ago. My lack of enthusiasm is maybe obvious, because Marcus abruptly ceases his suction pump impression and says in a solemn tone, “Hellie, we can stop right now or we can take this further.”

I snap out of it. This is Marcus, my nine-year lust object, for heaven’s sake! “Let’s rock!” I say in what I hope is a sex kittenish growl.

He smiles a triumphant smile, says, “That’s my girl!” then picks me up, grunting slightly with the effort, and lugs me into his bedroom.

“I’m quite heavy,” I murmur coquettishly, in smug expectation of the obligatory denial. Incredulously, Marcus doesn’t take the bait. Instead, he dumps me plonkily on his bed and mutters, “You said it, darlin’!”

Six-and-a-half unerotic minutes later, Marcus and I are lying side by side under his white duvet and I am trying to think of something to say. “That was nice,” I lie.

Amazingly, considering his cut-rate performance, he believes me. He props himself on one elbow and idly twiddles a finger—I never noticed before how little his hands are—around my right breast. I glance up, and with a shock see he has what can only be described as an amused expression on his face. “What?” I say suspiciously.

Marcus wrinkles his nose. “Nothing.” He grins. “They’re cute.”

The impudence! For the record, my bosoms happen to be size 36A, and for the record again—seeing as we’re being so free and easy and judgmental about other peoples’ body parts—Marcus’s dick happens to be size AA, as in pocket camera battery size. Only it doesn’t last as long. I am bristling with pique when Marcus throws aside the duvet, announces, “I’m going to shower,” and springs out of bed.

“Fine by me,” I murmur, snuggling down and drawing the duvet up to my chin.

“So,” he continues, a little brusquely, “aren’t you going to shower?”

I prop myself on my elbows and purr, “Is that an invitation?”

Marcus looks embarrassed. He scratches the back of his left calf with his right foot and says, “Hellie, I have this thing about showering. It’s kooky, but I like to shower alone. But you can go and use your shower, I don’t mind.”

At first I don’t understand. I blurt, “What and come back here afterward?”

Marcus hesitates and says, “If you like, although it might be awkward if Luke spots you, that’s the only thing.”

I will the hurt not to show on my face. “You’re so right,” I say slowly. “Would you mind passing me my shirt?” He passes me my shirt. I try to look carefree. Marcus twirls my ratty period knickers around his stubby finger and pings them in my direction. They hit me in the face and he bursts out laughing.

“Lighten up, Hellie.” He grins. “The wind’ll change.” He pulls an exaggerated impression of my sullen face. I try to keep it stony, but I can’t. I stick out my tongue.

This is obviously the correct response because Marcus winks and says earnestly, “You know, Hellie, I’d love to spend the night with you. But this way you’ll get your beauty sleep! Another time, eh?” He delivers this cliché like it’s a Perrier Award-winning joke.

“Ha,” I say. He’s all right. He’s Marcus. Marcus is Marcus. With an entire body pointlessly pumped up except for that one crucial part. My resentment dissipates. “Go and have your shower,” I say in a kindly tone, “and I’ll see you tomorrow.” This elicits a showcase beam.

“Night, night,” he says.

He turns away (Phew, he’s hairy!) and walks, starkers, toward his adjoining bathroom and I feel a pang. “Marcus!” I blurt.

“Yes?” he says, only a tad tersely.

As I speak I am wriggling into my worst-ever knickers. “I’ll make you dinner tomorrow night, if you like.” I can’t quite decipher his expression, but he replies cheerily, “Sure, yeah, great, see you then,” disappears into the bathroom, and shuts the door.

I heave myself out of his bed, collect my trousers, socks, and boots, plod to my bedroom, remove my shirt, take a pair of scissors from my drawer, cut up my granny pants from hell, throw the shreds into the bin, and fall into bed. I haven’t removed my makeup, washed my face, cleaned my teeth, or flossed. “Big fat hairy deal,” I say sarcastically to the ceiling. Then I lie stark staring awake till 4
A.M.

I open my eyes at, according to my under-used alarm clock, 2:18
P.M.
and for the second time that week think—without yet knowing why—
Oh, no.
My memory allows me half a second’s grace before it all comes trickling back.
Oh, no.
I churn over last night’s events. The U-Bar. Alan. The pensioners. Marcus. The cocktail sausage. The shower. The dinner offer. The acceptance.

Maybe not so oh-no after all. Then I run through what I can cook and am back to oh-no again. I peek out of my room, but the flat is silent and Marcus’s door is ajar. He must be at the gym. Luke must be at the pub. I ring Tina at home, but there’s no answer so I leave a succinct message: “Oi, slag, where are you. Call me the minute you get this.” Then I march to the untouched clutch of cookery books on Marcus’s highest kitchen shelf and pull down a few.

The Italian one falls at the first chapter because I don’t know what a trevise is. The English one devotes 100 pages to stodgy main meals and 425 pages to full fat desserts. As Marcus would rather boil himself in oil than eat anything cooked in it, I’m left with the American one which lists recipes for mashed potatoes (I can do that!) and chicken pot pie. Easy! Oh, bugger. It expects you to make your own pastry. Get real. I abandon the books and decide to improvise.

I’ll make mashed potatoes and the fish dish. Lizzy told me how to make the fish dish and it’s delicious. And, more important, it requires four ingredients, as opposed to ninety. Tediously, though, I now have to go to the supermarket. I check the fridge first. My section (Marcus has partitioned it to cut down on pilfering) is empty except for a carton of solidified milk, a cracked yellow rock of cheddar, and a crumb-encrusted pat of butter. I could trim the butter but the cheese is on its deathbed.

Which reminds me. I really should call my mother. As of Wednesday she’s stopped phoning, which is brilliant but curious. I’ll ring her tomorrow. I’ll just try Tina again before schlepping to Waitrose.

This time, she answers. “And why haven’t you rung?” I demand.

She ignores the question and simpers, “Oh, Helen! Bloody hell!” Her voice oozes woozy post-orgasmic wonder. I say accusingly, “It’s that blonde bloke!” She sighs blissfully. “Oh, Helen, it certainly is!”

At this point I’ll interrupt to say this is peculiar. Not normal. Usually when Tina meets a man—with, say, the looks of Matt Dillon, the wealth of Bill Gates, and the wit of Jerry Seinfeld—the most you’ll get out of her is a grudging “He’s okay.” I am rapt. “Tell me. Now.”

She sighs down the phone, “
Well,
his name’s Adrian—”

“Adrian!” I squeal.

“Yes, Adrian!” she says sharply. “What’s wrong with Adrian?”

I gulp. “Nothing, nothing, it’s a lovely name. Yes, so carry on.”

Adrian, apparently, is perfect. His perfection kicks all other men on this earth into touch. He is perfect from the tips of his perfect toes to the top of his perfect head and he is particularly perfect around the groin area. He has a perfect husky voice, he tells perfect pithy anecdotes, he has a perfect job as an architect, he owns a perfect bijou flat just outside Maida Vale, and, most perfectly of all, he thinks Tina is perfect.

“What, already?” I say. “But you’ve only known him eight minutes.”

Tina cackles down the phone. “I’m telling you, girl,” she says, “this is the big one. I feel it in my… pants!”

I am not entirely delighted about this. I rely on Tina’s eternal disenchantment with men—despite the fact it’s a sham—as a reassuring romantic barometer. This abrupt disruption of the cynical status quo alarms me. Suddenly we’re playing musical chairs and I’m the odd one out. Her reaction to my news about Marcus doesn’t make me feel any better.

“But he wears thongs!” she shrieks. This stumps me for a second, so all I say is, “How do you know?”

“I can see them through his chinos!” she shouts.

I speedily recover composure. “So what!” I snap. “We can’t all be members of the fashion police!”

Tina chooses to ignore this jibe. “Helen,” she says in a more serious tone, “I don’t want to rain on your parade, I know you’ve fancied him for years, but we’re all agreed, he’s even worse than Jasper. He’s an enormous great plonking plonker.” If only. “I mean,” she continues blithely, “what about the aspirin habit?”

I am afraid she is referring to Marcus’s custom of carrying a soluble aspirin in a silver pill box at all times in case he has a heart attack. “He’s not what you call hip and happening. He doesn’t exactly live on the edge—”

Now, she’s ranting. And even though there is a seed—oh, all right, a Redwood tree—of truth in what she says, her preaching from the sanctimonious altar of newfound love is really pissing me off. “I wouldn’t exactly say living on the edge of Maida Vale is living on the edge, would you?” I snap.