Nip 'N' Tuck (27 page)

I glance over at the maximum-security ex-con who is nonchalantly picking his teeth with a switchblade. ‘Really? I fully intend having my revenge and sleeping with
your
man one day, Vick,’ I whisper, ‘but I doubt it’s going to be
him
.’

‘Darling, he studied hair-dressing in prison. I get a blow-job first thing every morning.’ She leans towards my ear. ‘I’m even tempted to grow out my hair dye, just to see what colour my roots are.’

‘Mum, you can’t even remember your natural colour, can you?’ Marrakech teases, snuggling up to her mother. It’s the first time I have ever seen them so affectionate. Victoria’s eyes have glazed over in motherly rapture.

‘Marrakech! Are you all right?’ I rasp, suddenly remembering her surgical trauma.

‘Apart from these giNORmous boobs.’ She laughs.

‘That’s not a chest,’ I tell her, ‘that’s an inflated life-raft. Why didn’t you have the implants taken out?’

‘The clinic’s closed. Remember Sven’s brainwave to invest in cryogenics?’

‘Oh, yeah, fifty thousand for neuro-suspension. And a hundred and twenty for the whole body!’

‘Well, the company went into liquidation.
Literally
. The electricity bill didn’t get paid and all the heads defrosted. That’s why he’s gone to ground – to dodge all his creditors. Anyway, now I’ve got the tits,’ she gazes down at her thrusting mammaries as though regarding a pair of rather exotic pets, ‘I think I might just go into modelling for a while. To make loads of cash. You know. For my Causes.’

‘Over my dead body …’ my sister warns darkly.

‘Isn’t this
great
?’ Marrakech thrills. ‘Now we even have normal mother-and-daughter fights!’

‘How long have I been out cold?’ I ask the Irish nurse who’s come to sedate me.

‘Five days, now, you’ve been lyin’ here, my dear. Watched over by your guardian angel.’

‘Hugo?’ My hope level rises meteorically. Maybe he’s repented. Maybe he’s stopped taking those Bastard Pills.

‘Your man from Belfast. And what a lovely fella he is.’

I look to my sister to explain.

‘Cal’s been by your side constantly. We insisted on relieving him this morning. Why he’s so obsessed with your return to life, we don’t know.’

‘But it does seem more than good-neighbourliness.’ Marrakech giggles. ‘Uncle Hugo visited you once too.’

‘He did?’ I ask eagerly, taking heart once more. Has the leopard changed his stripes?

‘Yes. He extracted the keys for the sports car from your hospital property. The Merc is in his name, he said, and he’s going to sell it.’

‘Oh.’ I sink down into the pillows. It’s Calim who’s been watching over me. My lovely Cal. All laugh lines and loud jokes and languid legs …

The nurse boils around my bed removing dressings. I see the lightning’s point of entry on my chest and touch the point of exit near my right shoulder blade.

‘The jogger who found you, now
she
was wearin’ a proper sports bra,’ the nurse gently reprimands. ‘For the love of Jaysus, if only that American friend of yours, that TV star – what a waste! If only
she
’d been in a proper sports bra she wouldn’t have got fried. You can never have enough support in my view.’

Wasn’t that the truth? A Best Friend’s job is to act as a human Wonder-bra: - to be always uplifting and supportive. I realize, as the drugs kick in, that I’ve been about as supportive to Calim as a trainer bra on Dolly Parton.

31

Ugliness Is In The Eye of the Beholder: Get It Out With Optrex

WHEN I WAKE
again, I’m lying on the narrow bed, as pale and flat as paper. My wrists are manacled in nametags and clear plastic tubes and my hands are being held. Cal is perched beside me. In his baggy Levi’s and tattered T-shirt, he looks like a scarecrow – coat-hanger shoulders, his arms set at wiry angles. I am shocked to see how much weight he’s lost in the last few months.

‘You need to get out more – preferably to a
restaurant
,’ I say with jokey affection, wriggling to a sitting position. My hospital lunch is sitting untouched on a plastic tray.

‘Yeah. I know. Homeless people could move in under me clothes. Whole housin’ estates.’

I bayonet a piece of chicken on a fork prong and thrust it towards his mouth but he pushes my hand away. ‘Wouldja look at the state of the two of us?’ he says. ‘Can you imagine our wedding vows? “In sickness and in sickness, I now pronounce you …” ’

I drop his hands. ‘Our
what
?’ I become engrossed with the swirly pattern on the thin bedspread, tracing the faded embroidery with a finger. The lemony light of a summer sunset filters through the smeary windows. We sit in an uncomfortable silence for a moment. I feel like a parachutist about to take my first jump. I hover at the conversational hatch, take a deep breath and leap into the unknown. ‘Cal, I’m so sorry. I’ve been dreadful to you lately. I guess I’ve just been freaked out about turning forty.’

‘That’s okay.’ His mouth quirks upwards with amusement. ‘Old people are like that … Happy birthday.’

‘Oh, God. What’s the date?’ I flop back against the pillows. ‘Is it my birthday?’ I switch on the bedside light to read the date on my watch.

‘June the sixteenth.’ He toasts me with lukewarm Lucozade. ‘Happy fortieth,’ he says, with a weary, wistful smile. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up the first time. You’ve been a bit under the weather lately, what with all that defyin’ death and everythin’.’

I watch his smiling lips curl around his glass. I suddenly imagine that if I kissed him the taste would be warm and tangy in his mouth. The though shocks me and I look away. I feel unexpectedly dislocated. We sit for a moment in awkward, squirmy silence with nothing but the softly piped Muzak to distract us.

‘“Born to Be Wild” was definitely
not
written for the xylophone,’ I say finally. I feel like a teenager all of a sudden,
not
a good look on a woman who is contemplating her first incontinence pad.

‘So, you were freaked out about turnin’ the big four-oh?’ he interrogates, watching me closely.

‘Not any more. Nothing like a near-death experience to recalibrate your feelings about the passing of time and put a fear of wrinkles into perspective.’

‘I know. Growin’ older isn’t so scary when you think about the alternative, eh? It doesn’t matter how your body looks – as long as it’s healthy. Hey, we can share baseball caps, now,’ he says, plonking his cap on my singed cranium. ‘It’s so dumb that it takes a brush with mortality to teach us that life is made precious by the tiny daily miracles – a poem, a piece of music, a cold pint, that certain smile from a woman you love …’ He looks at me intently.

‘Actually, smiling and laughing are the best ways to get healthy again,’ I prattle, flustered by how nervous I feel. ‘Laughter brings about a drop in the levels of the stress hormone adrenaline. It boosts the immune system too,’ I jabber on, animatedly. ‘Hugo told me that once. And, believe me, in that baseball cap you’ve got a
lot
to laugh about buddy, I’m telling you.’ I toss the cap back at him. It lands in his lap. It’s a Disney freebie, emblazoned with ‘It’s A Small World After All’ – totally at odds with what I accidentally glimpse packaged in his fly-button Levi’s beneath.

‘I’m facin’ me fears, okay? When you get out of hospital I’m goin’ to wear that purple tie you gave me last Christmas.’

I hit him, playfully.

‘I’ve been plannin’ a new novel. With a little trainin’ and a lot of heart, I just might be able to turn myself into a mediocre writer.’ He gives a cheeky grin. ‘If only I had your wit, Liz. Beauty is a diminishin’ asset, whereas wit can only get better.’

‘I read an article in
Ugly
– the magazine for people who don’t deep cleanse their pores – that women in their middle years feel younger than their actual age. Besides, I’ve worked out how to stay young.’

‘How’s that, then?’

‘Well. First off, if you’ve got a crêpy neck,
wear a polo
. Number two, if you’ve got cellulite,
wear trousers
.’

Cal smiles, joining in. ‘Number three, only hang out with friends at least twenty years older.’

‘Number four, get a wider mirror.’

‘Five, only be seen out with much, much uglier women.’

‘Oh! And get a dimmer switch, greatest sex aid known to womankind.’

‘Civilization’s crownin’ achievement! You should also fix your bathroom scales so that they can never go past eight stone.’

‘Yes!’ Our words trip over each other in the effort to get everything said. ‘Because as old as we look now,’ I offer, ‘well, this is the youngest we will ever look again, right?’

‘Hey, some day we’ll wish we looked
this
young.’ He smirks mischievously. ‘It’s great to be forty ’cause, well, you’re not fifty yet!’

‘That’s right,’ I agree stanchly. ‘Serenity and courage – these are my new catchphrases … Oh, and control-top tights.’

‘I’ve been thinking that the only logical solution to this age crap is to shoot all models.’

‘Yes!’ It strikes me that Cal and I have been singing a duet for years, but I’ve never heard the harmony before. ‘Personally I favour the death penalty for all directors of cosmetic companies. I mean, face creams promise that you, too, can look like Isabella Rossellini at fifty – but only if you looked like her at fifteen.’

‘Anyway, a good fuck is better than a face cream any day.’

I gulp, my nerves are thrumming like a twanged string. ‘Really?’

‘Once a woman’s over forty, she develops a languorous sexuality. With so much more experience under her suspender belt, she can enjoy it all so much more, yer know?’

There’s a strange springy feeling in the pit of my belly.

‘It’s only when you stop worryin’ about your body that you can concentrate on your pleasure. At forty if you ain’t doin’ what gives you pleasure then you’d bloody well better start.’

I’m smiling so widely I think my face might rip. ‘And anyway, we plain people have a role to play. Without
us
the Beautiful People wouldn’t look quite so beautiful.’

When Calim looks at me there’s a light in his eyes, like sunshine filtered through a blue pool. ‘But you are beautiful, Lizzie.’ Then he glances away, embarrassed by this mawkish display. ‘Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you look vomitin’ up your dinner after you’ve been hit by lightnin’?’ he adds, hurriedly.

‘And
you
’re handsome, too, Cal.’ Startled, I half turn to see who has made this banal declaration – unable to believe it escaped from my own caustic lips.

Cal smiles at me radiantly. And, by God, he
is
handsome. Why had I never noticed this before? Embarrassed, I, too, retreat into glibness. ‘One of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen – besides k.d. Lang, that is.’

He mock-punches me, but doesn’t withdraw his fingers. They’re wrapped around my forearm. This turns into a gentle stroking up and down my needle-pricked arm. ‘Good drugs?’ he asks.

‘Great. They say that morphine leads on to harder drugs. But, hey! There
is
no harder drug! Right?’

He smiled. ‘Only love.’

‘Well, that’s
definitely
some kind of drug talking now.’

‘I love everythin’ about you, Lizzie. I love what you wear. I love what you don’t wear. I even love your
toes
.’ He takes my foot out of its scuzzy slipper and kisses my toes, one by one.

‘God, you’ve got so pathetically mushy lately. Stop, Cal. Right now. Before you ovulate!’ But I’m over-awed, hugging his words close to my injured chest. ‘You – you honestly think you love me?’

‘Enough to make you forget that you were ever married to a cheatin’, lyin’ bastard.’

‘Really? Without a prescription?’

He leans forward, and kisses me with his slow, soft mouth.

‘So you do like me a little bit, shug,’ he says gently, when we finally break, breathless, blurry with longing.

‘Definitely not,’ I reply.

‘Lizzie, a woman can fake an orgasm, but not a heartfelt kiss like that.’

‘It must be the after-effects of the strike. The doctor said that lightning survivors often experience residual effects, neuropsychiatrically. Obviously I’m off my head.’

His fingers softly trace the pinpricks on my arm. And if I joined the dots, what would they say? ‘Ha bloody ha, love from the Fate Fairy. The love of your life was right under your nose the whole bloody time, you idiot.’

I grip his arms now with an urgency that seems at odds with my frail state. ‘I’m feeling loads better, Cal, you know.’

‘Oh, that’s grand!’ But, with no excuse for soothing me now, he stops caressing my arms. He folds his hands back into his lap and sits there, self-consciously, on the edge of my bed.

‘But, hey, I think I’ve got a patch of dry skin around the place,’ I say zealously, lifting up my PJ top. ‘And there’s a raised mole somewhere too …’ I place his hand on my warm belly.

‘Well, then, I think you’d better get naked immediately while I look for it.’

And then our mouths touch, our heads graze. His skin smells of nutmeg. Outside the University College Hospital, Bloomsbury creaks as it cools after the heat of the day, expanding, slumping, sighing – much as
we
are. And then I’m lost in the slippery softness of our lips as we melt into each other.

When we pull away I can see my nipples pouting through the soft cotton of my pyjama top. And it’s the opposite of cold in here. Cal slowly lifts my shirt and looks at my breasts. My first instinct is to shield myself. But then I realize that there’s no need to cover up – Calim Keane went deep below my surface, long ago. And so I sit there, exposed to him, my plain, true, post-breast-feeding, reverse-surgeried, unadorned, naked self.

‘Oh. You have the loveliest breasts, Liz. Pinky and Perky,’ he christens them.

I feel sore, brave and weak, but a great surge of emotion buoys me up. I hug myself for joy. Only I don’t need to as he’s enfolded me in his arms already. He cups my breasts in both hands and rolls my nipples between his firm fingers.

‘The Perkins,’ he formally addresses my boobs, grinning coyly, as the seismographic needles all over the world’s oceans scribble and twitch.