Running in Heels (21 page)

“I jest can't help being a pillock?” suggests Robbie.

“At least you can admit it,” replies Andy smoothly. “Isn't that the first step?”

I want to laugh, but am speechless at this
spell
of a recipe. My taste buds are dancing the tango on my tongue. No. My brain clogs with the terrible implications. What am I doing? This isn't what I trained for! I have a talent for deprivation, that's what I'm good at. And here I am, lured into a greed trap. My stomach stops rumbling and boils with resentment. How dare he? Barge into my home and force himself and his pan upon me.

“Leave me alone!” splutters Robbie.

“What?” I say, keeping the edge out of my voice with effort.

“I
did
wash my hands,” cries Robbie. “Natalie! Tell him to leave off!”

“What?” I ask Andy.

“Well, Robbie's a good lad,” says Andy, leaning on both elbows like a small boy, “but he's forever—”

“And! Do me a favor!” squeals Robbie.

“No, carry on, I want to hear, what?” I exclaim.

“He's forever fiddling with himself, to make sure it's still there!” Andy grins and stuffs a glob of tomato bread soup in his mouth.

“I'm only doing what the doctors advise!” shouts Robbie. “Anyway, you're no great model of hygiene. What about you at
college? Your room! Did you tell Natalie about the pint glasses of—”

“Robbie!” bawls Andy, “that was twelve years ago, I was sodding eighteen, the toilet was down the hall!”

“Mm-mm,” I say, fighting a swell of laughter, “I'm so enjoying this meal.”

“Yeah, pack it in, Rob,” growls Andy. “You're putting Natalie off her food. Let's be
ad
-ult. It was a lie,” he whispers to me. “Anyway
he
used to pee in the sink. Middle-class pretensions.” And in a louder voice, “I see the Dow Jones is up sixteen points…”

Happily, the Dow Jones is accorded short shrift and we move swiftly on to juicier topics. Such as, Andy's glittering new career. (He has managed to wangle himself a weekly financial column on an Internet magazine site—“I think they need someone to predict when they'll go bust”—and he's doing freelance work for the City desk—“and it is
one
desk”—of a London free sheet. And he's earning a thirtieth of what he earned on the stock market. But he doesn't care—as a broker it was “work work work with no life at the end of the tunnel.”)

He also wants to know if Robbie and I saw the picture in today's paper of the richest person in the world. (A software businessman worth $50 billion. Apart from a fancy beard and good teeth, you'd never tell just by looking at him. You'd think he'd be wearing a tiara.) And Natalie, what about the way Chris smiles? Yesterday! He kept doing a funny thing with his lip. I say I think it's meant to be a rueful smile. Like Billy Baldwin. Andy's sorry but it really wound him up.

I confess that I've been reading the
Daily Express
sports pages to impress Chris with my fake expertise on football. Andy and Robbie are appalled. Stop immediately! Does he read the
Daily Express
beauty pages to impress you with his fake expertise on lipstick? You sexist baboon, Rob, Natalie might be a rugby nut for all you know. Um, it's okay, I'm not.

Talking of unreasonable behavior, what about the time Rob
dated a woman who forbade him to drink water after 9
P.M.
because she hated being woken in the night by his trips to the toilet. Hang on a sec, Andrew, didn't Sasha used to make you walk her Chihauhua? It was a Yorkshire terrier, I'll have you know. Had a terrible habit of eating other dogs' pooh. Name of Miffy. Miffy, I love that name! And when Rob bought his Vespa and Andy dared him to ask the big hairy bloke in the bike shop if he had “an extra-large purple helmet”? And what are you up to now you've left the ballet company? (Freelance dance publicity, although the work doesn't exactly thrill me. What would you like to do?
Like
to do? I never thought. I, I should think, shouldn't I?) And then, finally, casually, so it comes across as a great big joke, does Andy remember his sister's fifteenth birthday and kissing me in the linen cupboard a dozen years ago?

The momentum falters slightly, and Andy looks horrified. “Christ, we did, didn't we?” he blurts. “You were this adorable fifteen-year-old and I was a big greasy lout slobbering all over you! I made the mistake of telling Tony that I thought you were a babe. He beat me to a pulp.”

“No!” I gasp.

Andy grins ruefully. “I was a wimp, I admit it. I spent far too much time listening to Morrissey. I didn't dare go near you after that. I snuck off to college, tail between my legs, if you know what I mean. Not that you weren't better off without me. Bloody hell, I'd totally forgotten. You've got a good memory.”

There is a brief uncomfortable silence. Then:

“Ur, you filthy perv, preying on innocent fifteen-year-olds!” cries Robbie, monobrow stern. “Natalie, what a creep, he's disgusting!”

I stare at Andy, struggle to keep a straight face, and the remainder of that cherished venom dissolves. We talk and talk, laugh and laugh and my shoulders lose their stiffness and I glance down at my plate and it's empty.

I honestly think for a second that I'm seeing things. But no, there it is, scraped clean. An alien heaviness in my stomach confirms
the truth. I was aware of eating. I allowed myself. I made myself. For Babs. It reminded me of being spoon-fed when I was little. “And a spoon for Mummy.
Good
girl! And a spoon for Daddy.
Well
done! And a spoon for Tony.
Goo
—Tony, don't be silly, of course your sister can have a spoon for you. What? It's your spoon? Okayokayokay! No tantrums! All right, all right. Please darling, get up off the floor now, there's a good boy. [
sigh
] And a spoon for Teddy…”

What's the big deal? After all, I skipped lunch. I went for a run. I watched my dinner diminish, I measured the remaining quantity with every scoop. But to actually
finish
. Clear my plate like a pleb. What next—
snacks
? Natalie, did Andy tell you about the time he went about saying “Get the photo?” because he'd read it in
The Man with the Golden Gun
and fancied himself as Scaramanga? (Christ, Rob, you're allowed to be a dickhead when you're nineteen years old. I'm talking about last week, pal…) I cover my mouth to stifle a giggle fit and try to forget my immaculate plate.

When I answer the phone I'm still laughing.

“What's so funny?” says Babs.

“Oh
hi
!” I squeal. “Your brother! Your brother's funny. Him and Robbie. They're like a pair of bickering old women! I…I think it's going to be nice, him living here.”

I expect Babs to be pleased. Particularly as I am tactful enough to blur the subtext: I thought Andy was a grumpy New Age twit, smug on pop philosophy filched from other backpackers and
Wisdom of the Dalai Lama, Abridged
, but after an evening in his company I've almost revised my opinion.

But all she says is, “Yeah, well. I thought you'd get on. What with your matching mood swings.”

“Oh,” I say. What I ought to say, what I should say, what an assertive woman would say to such a snide little dig is “And what do you mean by that?” But all I say is “Oh.”

I think Babs realizes she's out of line because she adds hastily, “Ah, don't mind me, Nat. I don't know what's wrong with me
today. No, it's great, Andy living with you. I think it will be nice, you'll get on great. The only thing is, he's still pining for Sasha, so all I'm saying is, watch out.”

WATCH OUT. I DON'T SAY IT OUT LOUD, BUT I SAY
it at least twenty times in my head that night and the following day. What do you mean by that? I excuse myself and go to the bathroom and brush my teeth and floss and gargle until all taste and trace of tomato bread soup is eliminated. What do you mean by that? I tear off my orange jumper and black trousers, dirty with the scent of greed, and scrub until my skin tingles. I bow to the modern equivalent of a Roman emperor and step on the scales. (The same. I live!) I huddle in bed and try to sleep. What do you mean by that?

I know precisely what she means by that. Don't go getting any funny ideas about my brother. The cheek of her. Demoted, but still reckons she's the general. Sorry, Babs, you're a foot soldier now. When you stopped phoning five times daily, you lost your right to give orders. I wouldn't mind but you've already broken rank once. Get this: you're my ex. When people are intimate, they can say exactly what they think of each other, no matter how sadistic. It's one of the perks of a close relationship. But when they split, it's back to being civil. So. I can do whatever, whenever, and my mistakes are none of her business. Well, some of them, anyway. I wonder what it
would
be like to kiss Andy.

 

M
el has suggested I meet her in the GL Ballet reception at 6
P.M.
, which isn't ideal, although it does mean I can hand-deliver Matt's press releases.

“Going-home time!” she tinkles. “How are you coping? You
don't look too downbeat! How was your Valentine's Day? Mine was such fun! I got heaps of flowers from fans, but look what Tony gave me—I am so so lucky!” Mel digs in her purse, flaps a first-class Eurostar ticket at me, and does a perfect pirouette of joy. Her blue eyes shine bright in her pale face. “We're going to stay in an amazing hotel—it's called Hotel Costes—it's on the rue St.-Honoré, and loads of celebrities go there! And his PA checked with the ballet schedule so I don't miss a single show, isn't he sweet? Oh, Natalie, your brother is so clever, shall we go for a coffee and talk about Paris? I said to Tony we'll meet at his place at seven, it's too dark to go to the park. Oh please say yes!”

Two excitable minutes later, Mel and I are sitting in the shabby corner café on poky metal chairs. Mel asks if I've ordered carrot cake with my peppermint tea.

“No,” I say, still raw from the gluttony of last night. I glance at Mel's hopeful face, and a twist of spite escapes me. “Are
you
having carrot cake?”

“No,” says Mel quickly, her entire body a spasm of panic. “I've had lunch. I'm stuffed.”

This goads me. Why should
I
be forced to eat because my stupid hair starts shedding?

“Are you sure, Mel? You should eat. I don't mean to be rude, but you're…you're looking a bit…a bit”—I search for a non-derisive term—“scraggy.”

A frightening expression settles on her face. Nervously, I wait for her to speak. When her rosebud lips part I flinch.

“I love boys who make romantic gestures!” she cries, as if I'd said nothing at all. I sag with relief as she rattles on about Tony and Paris.

That's one mistake I won't make again. I light a cigarette with shaking hands. What a fool! Mel doesn't want to be rescued. She yatters on and I watch but don't hear a word. No, I will
not
be having carrot cake with my tea. I sit there stiff and sour, warming my ever-frozen hands on the teacup, until Mel says, “Natalie, are you okay? You look all funny.”

I say brightly, “No, yes, I'm fine.”

“You can tell me, I won't tell anyone!”

While not convinced, I am beyond caring. Anyhow, my fast fading friendship with Babs has no bearing on Mel. She probably
won't
tell anyone. I regurgitate the tale, with express reference to the various dinner party affronts. I avoid referring to my, hmm, issue. It's like trying to dodge raindrops.

“I don't get it!” squeaks Mel. “Why is she being so mean?”

I sigh. What is the point unless I relate the whole story, fresh, plump, and unfilleted? And if so, how do I broach the taboo? I am not a taboo broacher. I pride myself on my ability to tiptoe around the elephant in the living room, the hippo in the living room, and the anorexic in the coffee shop. It's safer that way. Wild animals and obsessional women are unpredictable and—as I know after a single prod—best not tackled by amateurs.

“Well,” I begin, focusing on a chocolate-brown crumb on the table. “We had a row. Babs sort of accused me of, of, er, not eating.”

I fully flesh the story, without looking Mel in the eye once. I've taken a paintbrush to the elephant, and daubed him red from trunk to tail.

I stutter to a halt. Mel hisses, “Tony says that your friend Babs is a big beefy girl, so it's obvious she's jealous of you! You're naturally thin, Natalie, you're very feminine—Babs must be as jealous as hell!”

I nod vigorously, yes, yes, this is what I want to hear, sod eating more, I am
right
. If a little grossed out at the word
feminine.
But. I don't feel right. As Mel rants on, I notice the gray tinge to her teeth, and the dreadful pink rawness of her knobbly knuckles, which, though tiny, seem giant and bulbous compared to her twiggy fingers. Her hair is dry and lusterless. And I realize that no one in their right mind would be jealous of either of us.

I'm relieved when it's time to go to Tony's.

The cab draws up in front of my brother's crumbly white stucco-fronted penthouse (or, for laypersons, “top flat”) in Lad-broke
Grove. Mel rings the buzzer, and we plod up the Prussian blue carpeted stairs, she tracing a finger along the dark red flock wallpaper. Faded grandeur is the charitable way to describe the hallway. Grubby and threadbare would be meaner, but more accurate. Today, its fustiness is overpowered by the smell of fried meat. “Poo-ee!” cries Mel, waving a porcelain hand in front of her button nose. She raps hard on the white door and, after a fashionable sixty-second delay, Tony yanks it open.

“Hey, sugar pop,” he murmurs to Mel, who tilts her cheek to receive a kiss. I stand patiently behind her in the cold dim hall—my best smile primed to burst into bloom—until my brother deigns to greet me.

“Hi, Tony,” I say hopefully, as our eyes meet.

“Hi.” The word drops from his lips stillborn. He turns back to Mel and I follow him inside, my heart a pebble of impending doom.

Mel settles in Tony's white leather sofa between two blue Elvis-print cushions. She lies on her back, her head hanging off the seat, her legs gracefully propped against the back of the sofa and up the blood red wall. As Tony doesn't question this batlike arrangement, I assume he knows she's “draining”—the revolting ballet term for getting rid of the lactic acid that stiffens your muscles after exercise.

“My back hurts,” she says suddenly.

“Poor Ikkle Lambkin,” cries Tony. “Does Ikkle Lambkin want a rub?”

Mel smiles from her upside-down position. “No fank yoo, Big Daddy Bear! Iss too sore. It feel wery hot.”

“Does Ikkle Lambkin want Big Daddy Bear to get her some ice?”

At this point, I would dash from the room to vomit, but aural trauma pins me to the spot.

“Oh
no
!” cries Mel, in her normal voice. “I'd better drain, otherwise I'll get all puffy and stiff and probably injured. And then they won't let me dance, and I'll feel like an elephant and
I'll miss loads of performances and then when I start dancing again I'll feel all fat and tired and it'll be like I'm moving in slow motion.”

“Christ,” says Tony.

“But will you light the candles?” lisps Mel. “It's so pretty when you do that!” My brother crosses his ebony-wood-stained floor in three strides, and skims his lighter across the row of black candles that line the mantelpiece. I sigh, and plop into a black furry beanbag (pardon me, a 1,500-pound Black Mongolian sheepskin beanbag). A short-lived squeeze once told Tony his flat was a cross between “a tart's boudoir and a Gothic dungeon.” He was thrilled. I think it bought her an extra day.

“Can we have a joint?” asks Mel, lighting a Camel.

I quake at her audacity but Tony purrs, “Coming right up.”

He gets to work with a rolling paper, smiling at her and scowling at me in one look. I sit stiff and miserable and bum level with the floor, spinning my fag packet over and over between two fingers, like a rectangular wheel, flick, flick, flick.

“Will you stop messing with that friggin' fag packet,” growls Tony.

“Sorry,” I mutter, dropping it.

“Is there champagne?” squeaks Mel, who appears to have acclimatized to Tony's bacchanalian lifestyle in record time.

“Sure, sweetheart.” Tony smiles—back to Dr. Jekyll. “There's a bottle in the fridge. Want me to get it for you?”

“Oh no, it's okay,” says Mel, on her gnarled feet in one fluid move. “I'll get it.” I feel a lurch of terror as Mel exits the room, as silently as a cat. Alone with the killer who knows I suspect him!

“Did I tell you, Piers Allen is interested in Blue Fiend?” I gabble, to save myself.

Tony smirks.

“Have you…have you talked to Piers?” I ask, confused.

“Mm,” says Tony, “I have. And you're right. Piers is very interested in Blue Fiend.” He cackles, a short venomous burst. Very Captain Hook.

“W-what?” I stammer. “What's the joke?”

“You'll have to wait for the punch line,” says Tony sharply, pinching a great tampon of a spliff into shape.

Mel pads back into the room, holding a bottle and three old-fashioned champagne bowls. “I'm back!” she cries. “I hope you talked about me!”

Tony takes the champagne bottle, prizes it open with a loud pop (Mel acts the part and squeals) and pours the frothing liquid into the bowls. “Sweetheart,” he murmurs to Mel, “why don't you go into the bedroom. I went shopping today. There's a little surprise for you on the bed.”

Mel gasps, “Is it a present? For me!”

“Might be,” says Tony gruffly. “Neglected childhood,” he tuts as she speeds out of the lounge. “Criminal. Needs lots of attention to make up for it.”

He brushes a hand across his eyes. I nod slowly, wondering at this spectacular display of fluffiness from the man who, by reputation, makes Clint Eastwood look like a big girl's blouse. And that obscene baby talk. In front of me! If I didn't know better, why, I'd think he was in
love
! Mel as a sister-in-law. I take a medicinal gulp of champagne and choke.

“I'm not happy with you,” says Tony, watching me clutch my throat, turn purple, and wheeze for air. He inhales deeply on the spliff, and doesn't pass it to me.

“What have I done now?”

“Did you think it would just go away?” he says, his blue eyes as cold and dark as the North Sea.

“What go away?”

“When did you last speak to Mum?” he asks.

“I…I…I speak to her every day, uh, this morning, she phoned to see how Andy was settling in.”

“She wants to write to Tara.”

Of course she does.

“She wants to fucking go and visit them.”

She wants to turn
The Simpsons
into
The Brady Bunch
.

“You are in serious shit with me, Natalie, I do not need this hassle. I like my life and I do not want it complicated.
You
have complicated it. Do you get what I'm saying?”

My brother is hunched and breathing smoke through his nostrils and looks poised to spring at me like a gargoyle come to life. I am praying that the spliff will reach his brain in the next millisecond and paint the situation Disney when he suddenly roars, “SAY SOMETHING!” and I jump clean off the Mongolian beanbag. What
can
I say, Tony? Your drugs are inferior. I did a bad thing. On my list of regrets it's right up there with:

• → confidently introducing a friend of Saul's to Babs by the wrong name
  
• → resisting for a year then submitting to the stifling hype and wasting 150 quid on a big hairy pashmina,
  just
  as they were outed as scarves and kicked out of fashion
  
• → greeting Kimberli Ann and my dad and his bright black hair at Los Angeles airport with the words, “Dad! What have you done to your hair?” and—when he croaked, “Ah! I accidentally spilled something on it”—whimpering the feeble addition, “Because it looks terrific!”
  

But as my life's errors churn around my head, I realize that if I had the chance to yell “Surprise! Secret grandchild!” at my mother again, I would. I am not sorry. I regret annoying Tony. Rather, I regret making Tony annoyed with me. And I feel guilty for hurting my mother. But she deserved to know. It was short-term pain for long-term gain. And she
will
gain. I'll bet that large pointless pink scarf at the back of my cupboard that Kelly and Tara will welcome her to the underground branch of the family without so much as a “where were you?”

I know, though, that I didn't do it for my mother. I blabbed for
me
reasons. And how can I say that to my brother? Tony, who
has always come first. Tony, who never struggled to be golden because he just
was
. Whereas me, I'm silver girl. I was born second and that's where I've stayed. Mediocre, nothing special, average, ah, well, you did your best. I couldn't even come last and fail in style. That fleeting mash-and-liver madness wasn't madness at all. I wanted to knock the king off his throne and scramble up there myself.

But how can I say that? I look at my furious brother and all I can think is, when I was eleven I made scones with lard in home economics and brought them home for tea. Mum took one bite, made a face, and spat my love into the sink. But doubtless if they were your scones, Tony, she'd have eaten the lot.