Painting Naked (Macmillan New Writing)

London

September 2010

There’s a party going on downstairs, and it’s for me. A lunch party shrieking with voices of people I haven’t seen in thirty-five years. I’m the guest of honor but I’m still in Sophie’s spare bedroom stuffing myself into pantyhose and trying on shoes that hurt.

Someone raps on the door.

“Just a minute,” I yell.

My thumbs drill twin holes through a pair of tights.

“Damn!” I toss them in the waste basket and rummage in my case for replacements. Can’t remember the last time I wore tights. Or real shoes, for that matter.

Sophie rattles the handle. “Jill! What’s keeping you?”

“Fashion adjustment,” I call out. “Be with you in a sec.”

“Good,” Sophie says. “But bloody hurry up. The natives are getting restless.”

She pads down the stairs, footsteps muffled by myriad layers of carpet, and I hear the doorbell ring, followed by Sophie exclaiming over the latest arrival.

“Hi, it’s marvellous to see you again … How long has it been? … Yes, Jill’s here, just tarting herself up a bit …”

Her voice is lost in the babble of others.

I finish tucking myself into tummy-control pantyhose, lurch off the bed, and jump up and down to make sure I’m properly squashed in. A final check in the mirror. Buttercream knit dress, a silk scarf of burnt umber and cobalt that matches my hair and eyes respectively, and brown leather pumps that want to rearrange my toes.

I look at my sneakers, longingly. Sophie will slay me if I wear them.

The stairs are narrow and steep and the handrail has gone missing. The treads are too shallow, even for my tiny feet, and with all that damn carpet it’s like stepping in marshmallows.

He’s standing at the bottom looking up. Tall and brown-haired, with a crooked smile and kind green eyes behind a pair of rimless glasses.

My foot slips. I miss two steps and tumble down the rest.

“Hello, Jilly,” he says, then chuckles as he bends to help me up.

His voice, his once oh-so-familiar voice, is the last thing I hear before passing out.

Wickham Forge, England

July 1973

Sophie Neville and I are painting her bedroom. We’re naked, or close to it, because Sophie insists it’s easier to wash paint off skin than off clothes. Her bikini is two scraps of silk held together by lace. The back’s no bigger than a child’s hanky and the front barely covers all the rude bits. I try not to look.

She takes off her bra. “I’m hot.”

“Sophie! What if someone comes in?” I’m wearing far more than her, but still feel exposed despite navy gym knickers and a size 34-B Cross-Your-Heart bra that I’m already spilling out of. Nobody runs around half dressed in my house. Certainly not my parents. I doubt Mum’s ever seen my dad without clothes and I’m sure
she’s
never bared herself to him.

“Don’t worry, no one’s home,” Sophie says, sloshing blue paint on the wall. “Besides, we used to swim in the buff with Hugh and Keith. Remember?”

“We were five and the boys were six,” I remind her. “It’s a bit different now.”

“I’ll say.” She grins. “They’re camping out this weekend.”

“In the fort?”

“Where else?”

I shrug because I don’t want to seem interested, but I am. Desperately. Colin Carpenter hangs out with Hugh, Sophie’s brother, and I lust for information about him. He’s sixteen and they’ve built a tree fort in the woods behind Keith Lombard’s house. Keith lives next door. He and Hugh have been best friends forever.

Hugh, Keith, and Colin.

They fancy themselves as the Three Musketeers. Sophie calls them the Three Stooges. I call them two twits and a miracle.

“Shall we go spy on them?” Sophie climbs down the ladder and strikes a pose. Hips thrust forward, head tilted. Her breasts don’t droop like mine.

“Now?”

“No, this weekend, stupid.”

“What if they catch us?”

“They’ll probably torture us.” Sophie pulls a tank top from her dresser and drags it over her head. “But if you don’t want to come, I’ll ask Heather instead.”

That’s all I need. The sexiest girl in school hiding behind a bush and making eyes at Colin.
My
Colin. I grit my teeth and scowl.

Sophie steps into her shorts. “Only teasing.”

The floorboards outside Sophie’s room are an early warning system. Step on the wrong one and it creaks. Me and Sophie know how to avoid it. So do Keith and Hugh. But Colin doesn’t. He hasn’t hung around here long enough to learn the ins and outs of the Neville family’s house.

So, of course, it creaks.

I turn toward the noise and see the tail end of someone’s shirt fly by Sophie’s open bedroom door.

“The boys are back,” she says.

I glare at her. It’s me that’s half naked. I yank my shirt off the bed, thrust my arms through its sleeves, and do the buttons up all wrong. I’m redoing them when Sophie says, “So, are you coming or not?”

I nod. Rabid cows wouldn’t keep me away.

Snorts and muffled laughter drift across the hall from Hugh’s bedroom and I wonder how long the boys have been spying on us.

Friday morning, I get my period. Bad cramps. Mum says it’ll be less painful once I have a baby. I don’t want one. I don’t want to be like Mum, pinched face, always cross, always complaining. It’s my fault. She was happier before I came along. I can see it in the photos of her and Dad on holiday. She was pretty then, with dark brown curls and a generous smile. Not like she is now, hair scragged back in a bun so tight it stretches her eyebrows.

I look at her hunched over the sewing machine, hemming another set of curtains for the living room. She never stops doing things over. Once, my dad came home late and didn’t want to turn on the lights in case he woke us up. But he did because Mum had rearranged furniture in the living room, yet again, and Dad crashed into the gateleg table and broke his toe. I’d never heard him swear till that night.

Sophie rings up. Our phone’s in the front hall. There’s no chair so I have to stand and lean against Mum’s antique bombé chest. I’ve begged for a phone in my room, but no luck. My tummy is killing me. Something in there is dragging a rake through my gut.

“Don’t spend all day on the phone,” Mum yells above the whirr of her Singer.

“Is she in one of her moods?” Sophie asks.

“When is she
not
?” I wince as a wave of pain hammers me to the wall. I gasp. If this is what having a baby’s like, I definitely don’t want one.

“You still coming over?” Sophie says.

She knows I’ve got my period. “I’m not sure.”

“Come on, Jill. It’s only cramps. You’ll forget all about them when you see Colin.” She blows a raspberry. “You should see the junk Hugh’s packing right now. You’d think he was going to China instead of next door.”

Shit, shit, shit. I don’t want to miss out. “I’ll ring you tomorrow. Okay? Maybe I’ll feel better in the morning.”

“Go to bed with a hot-water bottle,” Sophie says. “And take an Aspro. Take two.”

How would she know? She’s never had a cramp in her life.

Then she plays her trump card. “If you don’t show up, I’ll tell Colin Heather fancies him.”