The Name I Call Myself (14 page)

“Actually, I don't mind if their dresses don't match mine.”

“What? That make no sense. I'm top-class seamstress. I make match and still look good on these skinny women.”

“I know, but I don't think it's fair to make my dress look better than theirs.”

“Of course fair! You the bride! Stop being so nice. Go and put dress on.”

“Okay, but the other dresses will have to be quite ugly if mine's going to look nicer.”

“Fine. Whatever. I don't understand you now. We want see dress please.”

I trudged up the stairs and took the Ghost Web out of the wardrobe in my tiny spare room. Yanking it on, I didn't bother looking in the mirror before returning to the living room.

Marilyn shook her head. “It gets worse every time I see it. I always think it won't be as bad as I remember, but my mind can't actually retain how awful it is.”

She, on the other hand, looked incredible, having borrowed my bedroom to change into the tight-waisted, three-quarter-length-sleeved sample dress. It had a huge, floor-length skirt of floaty material that would have made me appear like a child drowning in her mother's party frock.

“You look incredible, Marilyn.”

“Wish I could say the same to you.”

The others stared at me, mouths open.

“I'm trying really hard to think of something positive to say, like, ‘It's not that bad; with a couple of alterations we can make it
fabulous.'” Catherine screwed up her face. “I'm sorry, Faith. I know we just met, and Larissa is your mother-in-law. But, honestly? That is the worst dress I have ever seen. It doesn't fit you, or suit you. Your shape, style, or your complexion. You cannot wear that dress on your
wedding day
. You can't wear that dress to empty the bin. I think it might be too scary for Hallowe'en.”

I was starting to quite like Catherine.

Rosa had turned the colour of pickled cabbage. One of her country's national dishes.

“That is not a dress!” she choked. “It is a… a… I cannot even find the words!”

“It's a Ghost Web,” Marilyn said.

“I don't give a
rakia
what it is! Take it off!”

The doorbell rang.

We froze, caught like nuns in their underwear.

“I'll get it.” Natasha stood up. “I'll think of an excuse to get rid of them.”

Too late. The front door opened and somebody stepped in.

“Hello?”

Oh dear. My nearly mother-in-law.

“Faith?”

And Perry.

“We heard you were having a bridesmaid fitting. Mother thought she'd join you. Hope that's –”

I didn't wait to hear any more. As Larissa's pointy heels tapped down my tiled hallway, no doubt preceded by Perry's Italian leather brogues, I frantically searched for a hiding place. There was only one way into my tiny sitting room, I wasn't going to squeeze into the television cabinet, and if I hid behind the sofa it would end up pushed into the middle of the room. In a moment of crazed panic at the thought of Perry seeing me in my wedding dress – not for superstitious reasons but for hideous ones – I dove under the only available cover: Marilyn's enormous poofy sample skirt. She rapidly shimmied back into the space between the armchair and
the window, to provide maximum concealment. I curled into a ball, and waited for the most embarrassing moment of my life to be over.

There was a tap on the door. It squeaked open.

“Oh. Hi, ladies. Is Faith not around?”

“Perry!” Natasha said, judging by the squeal-like tone. “This is a dress fitting, you cheeky man. Get out!”

“Yes!” probably Catherine added (the voices were quite muffled underneath the net petticoat and I was trying not to breathe too deeply due to hiding between a person's legs. Thank goodness it was November and Marilyn had kept her chunky tights on). “What would Faith say if she heard you came bursting in here, knowing full well there were likely to be young women in a state of undress?”

“My apologies.” I could hear the smile in Perry's voice. “I didn't think. As you know I only have eyes for one woman.”

Somebody snorted. Somebody else said, “Ooh. That's soooo sweet!”

“Is she here?”

“She's upstairs getting on her wedding dress, so you'd better scram.” Catherine. I could tell by the way she rolled the r.

“Ah! Best had. As tempting as it might be. Don't want to ruin the big surprise.”

Larissa sniffed. “It's hardly a surprise, Perry. A photograph of me in the dress has been hanging on the wall at home for forty-eight years.”

“That may well be the case, Mother, but I don't look at you and Faith in quite the same way. I'll be off then. When will you ladies be done here?”

“Ten minutes at most,” Rosa said. “No point you staying now. We chose colour and everything, did measurements. Tried sample. Just looking at Faith's dress to make sure it match. Then done.”

“Well,” Larissa said, “I hardly think you should have made those decisions without me. What if the colour clashes with my outfit? I insist on being filled in on everything. Perry, you can pick me up in an hour.”

Sweat pooled in the back of my knees as I tried to remain balanced in a squatting position. The air hung thick and humid like a hothouse, only without any plants to replenish the oxygen. As Perry said goodbye and left, leaving an awkward silence, cramp began burning up my calves.

“She's taking her time,” Larissa barked. “One of you go and help her.”

“Would you like a cup of tea, Aunt Larissa?” Natasha asked. “Why don't you come into the kitchen while I make one?”

“Why indeed?”

Marilyn, who must have been struggling as much as me from having to balance in one position with a person crouching almost between her legs, began to wiggle her hips, bending her knees as her muscles twitched.

“I'll go and get Faith,” she said. “Perhaps she's got stuck in her zip or something.”

“Please do!”

No, Marilyn. Please don't.

She took a tiny, exploratory step away from the wall. I jiggled two inches after her, biting my knuckles to stop me groaning as the cramp shot up my legs.

“I'll come with you.” Catherine came and stood behind us. “Help you not to trip in this beautiful dress.”

“Not beautiful – it is a sample!” Rosa said.

“Well, we don't want her falling down the stairs in it, do we?” Catherine bent down and pretended to hold the skirt up out of the way, in actual fact trying to hide the woman-like shape underneath while not lifting it so high that you could see the woman was me. This obviously failed, as Natasha came to join her as we shuffled forwards, both of them surrounding the dress like geese following a farmer with a bucket of corn.

What Catherine failed to notice, as we bizarrely waddled out of the room, was the bottom of the Ghost Web trailing out from under the thick folds of Marilyn's dress. Marilyn began to speed
up as she reached the exit. As I hurried with her as best I could in my squatting position, the hem of the Ghost Web snagged on the bottom of the living room door. I pulled against the resistance, without realizing what it was, and a distinct ripping sound erupted from the bottom of Marilyn's skirts.

“Sorry,” she said, nearly falling through the doorway in her haste. “I had cauliflower cheese for lunch.”

We all tumbled after her, barely making it to the bottom of the stairs before collapsing in a pile of giggles. Scrambling up and into my bedroom, the laughter died in our throats as we saw the state of my wedding dress. A three-inch-wide section had torn away from the bottom, and now dangled by a thread. The pressure had caused the skirt seam to detach from the low waistband (hip-band, in my short-legged case), leaving a gaping, jagged hole. Never mind the sweat patches on the overly tight underarm sections, or the stretched seams where my hunched-over back had pushed the fabric further than it was ever designed to go.

“Hooray!” Marilyn whispered. “The Ghost Web is destroyed!”

“Not hooray,” I hissed back. “Larissa is downstairs waiting for me to come down in it.”

“Just tell her it doesn't fit,” Catherine said.

“She's already seen me in it. She knows I can get it on.”

“Well, you have to do something.”

“I thought you were putting on the dress? Don't tell me. You've changed your mind and decided to wear jeans!” Larissa glowered at me as if to say
I wouldn't put it past you, given the rest of your decisions regarding this wedding.

“Yes. Well. There is a slight problem there.”

She raised her Botoxed brow as far as it would go.

“I seem to have put on some weight since I last tried it on, so, um, it doesn't actually fit me at the moment.”

She scrutinized me for a moment, scanning me up and down as if I were a horse at the county show.

“Are you with child?”

“No! No. Definitely not. I'm not walking as much since I stopped working at HCC. It must be that.”

“Hmmm. Well. I'll give Anton a call. Set something up. We can't have this continuing for much longer or we'll have to cancel
Nottinghamshire Life.
It's bad enough that…” She glanced at Marilyn and pursed her lips.

“Excuse me!” Marilyn stood grandly in her sample dress. “I am in the room, and I do have two perfectly functioning ears.”

“I'm sorry. Did I say something to offend you? I don't recall mentioning your name.”

I said nothing. Be “set up” with Anton, Larissa's brutal personal trainer to lose pretend weight I hadn't even put on, so I could squeeze into the ruined Ghost Web and feature in
Nottinghamshire Life
? Or alternatively I could conjure up some personal power and tell Larissa where to stick it.

I swallowed, hard. “Thank you, Larissa. I'll think about it.”

“There's nothing to think about. Nobody wants a fat bride. Especially Perry. Now, could you please call him to come and pick me up? It's going to be a nightmare trying to find something blue that doesn't make me look like I'm old enough to be a grandmother. But what do I matter? I am just the mother of the groom!”

As soon as she left I ran upstairs and brought the Ghost Web to show Rosa.

“Can you mend it?”

“No!”

“Oh. Maybe if I took it to an alterations place, they could do something?”

“No, no, no! Of course I have the skills to mend it. I could make this dress look as if it never happened.” She started packing her sewing equipment away.

“But you said you can't mend it.”

“That's right.”

“But you can mend it?” I squinted at her, confused.

“Yes.”

“I don't understand. Are you going to mend it or not?”

“Wait for one moment.” Rosa took out her Bulgarian/English dictionary and did some flicking about. “Here we are.
Technicality
I can mend it. No problem, easy peasy lemon is squeezing.” She flicked some more. “Morally I cannot.”

“Pardon?”

“I am an artist! A professional! The best Bulgarian seamstress in UK! I will not repair that terrible, ugly, horrible dress. It does not fit you, Faith. It is made for woman of no boobs and no behind and no tasteful. How can you think of wearing” – she picked up a fold of the dress between one forefinger and thumb as if it was covered in slime – “
this
?
On your wedding day
?”

“It's only a dress. Please, Rosa. Even if I don't wear it, I can't give it back to Larissa like this. Can't you do something?”

Rosa thought for a few minutes, pacing up and down my tiny living room, tapping a pencil against her forehead. Eventually, she stopped.

“Okay. You doing me big, big favour, buy me machine and all these other things. Trust me to make dresses for your wedding. It breaks my heart, but I will do this: mend horrible dress, alter to fit. Also make you dress I design, free of charge. Then you can choose what dress you want.”

“Yessss!” Marilyn fist-pumped the air.

“Okay.” I am not usually a hopeful woman. I think that's understandable, all things considered. Yet the glimpse of optimism scampering across my peripheral vision wore ivory antique lace and a flower in her hair. There were nine months until my wedding. Larissa could change her mind, or get run over by an HCC golf cart. I could keep on singing, breathing out my fear and sucking in personal power until I told Larissa what she could do with her Ghost Web. Maybe, just maybe, I would find a way to be an Upperton wife and still be me. Once I figured out who that was, of course.

Gwynne took a week or so to call me, but she did with a reassurance that Kane was living in a house for ex-prisoners in Merseyside, working part time, and keeping his head down. He would be under probation for the rest of his life, and if he broke that – including missing any meetings or doing something that would land him back in prison – his offender manager would keep her informed.

I was not reassured. In my memory, Kane remained a monster, fuelled by hate, anger, envy, and the need to dominate. How could eighteen years locked up in a high-security prison have lessened that? But living looking over my shoulder, jumping at shadows, and wasting away with the “what ifs” proved too exhausting to sustain. We knew he would come. Now, at least we should have some warning.

November meandered along frosty footpaths into the twinkly lights of December. Choir rehearsals intensified, if that were possible, as Hester attempted to ready us for the debut performance at the Grace Chapel Christmas carol service. April, still hunting for work, allowed me to bring her along.

Hester expressed her irritation at a newcomer showing up so close to the big night.

“You can stay, but if you aren't ready you won't sing at the carol service.”

April shrugged. “Okay.”

“Now, repeat after me…”

A clear soprano, I introduced her to some of the others at coffee time. She struck up a conversation with Rowan.

“Enjoy it?” Rowan asked.

“I wasn't expecting to, but it was all right, yeah. It sounded good when you sang it that last time. Dead Christmassy.”

“Will you come back then?”

April nodded. “I think so. I might even see if my boyfriend'll come to the service. He doesn't really like Christmas.”

“What? Why would anyone not like Christmas?”

I stood, hovering, willing April to say something stupid so I could justify my annoyance at her intrusion into my family. Instead, she shrugged. “It's complicated. Some bad memories. But this year's a chance to make some better ones, I reckon.”

Bad memories. You have no idea, I thought. Or did she? Did she know about the Christmases Sam spent in hospital? The squat? Perhaps even more miserable than those he wouldn't remember at all. I usually worked Christmas Day, unable to turn away triple pay, and generally Sam spent most of it in bed with a bottle, or out seeking the hollow comfort of a stranger as lonely and depressed as himself.

It looked as though this year I would be choosing between an Upperton Christmas, or cosying up with Sam and April. I couldn't have imagined anything worse, until Perry suggested we combine the two.

Maybe Marilyn had a spare place at her Christmas dinner table?

My first scar, the four-inch slash beneath my collarbone, was a Christmas present from Snake. I don't know the official name for what I had become – his girlfriend or lover? His victim? Whatever name I called myself, it didn't disguise that I was sleeping with a drug
dealer. A man who controlled me with his mood swings, his money, his raw power, and absolute supremacy. Occasionally his fists.

Christmas Eve, he objected to me working so many hours over the holiday period. I objected to him having sex with all the skanky women who came round begging for handouts. He said he wouldn't need to if I was around more, and ordered me to get undressed even though I had a shift in the pub.

In my head, I knew this was wrong. I knew he treated me like a slave. He was a merciless man who had no more capacity to love me than a cockroach did. But he wanted me, for something, and in my twisted heart that felt better than nothing.

However, some kind of survival instinct kicked in when he told me to skip work. It remained my one tenuous thread to a different reality, to a world where people sat down to eat Christmas dinner with their family, swapped presents, played board games, and talked about where they were going on holiday. He didn't know that half my tips were stashed in a metal box the pub manager let me keep in her office.

“No. I have to go to work.”

He sneered at me. “What, because they couldn't possibly cope without you to wash the pots? A monkey could do your job. And probably better.”

“I need the money.”

“I've got money. Look.” He pulled a wodge of notes out of his jacket pocket and thrust them in my face. “Oh no – you won't touch my money, will you? Might taint that perfect white skin of yours. Too good for my money. Except when it pays your rent. Or the electricity. Or the food in your sexy belly.”

I tried to push past him, to get my bag and go. He grabbed my hair, yanking me back into the bedroom.

“I said, get undressed.”

“I said, I'm going to work.” I could hear the fear in my voice, the hint of panic. Snake could hear it too. He laughed, grabbing my shoulders and slamming me against the wall.

“No, darling. You're going to do what I tell you.”

I screamed, making him laugh even harder. The couple of people passed out downstairs wouldn't dare intervene, even if they could hear me.

“You're not going anywhere.”

The phrase triggered something deep in my memories.

You're not going anywhere.

I had heard those words before, many times, spoken by a snake in a different skin.

I remembered what she said – that night – the night we packed our bags and so very nearly made it.
We're going, Rachel. Starting a whole new life. With a new name. Faith means strong. It's being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we don't see. We can't see it yet, but there's a new life waiting for us.

I didn't understand my mother's words. Not then, not now as Snake bored his crusted eyes into mine, daring me to resist him. But I knew, standing here with my back against the wall, what she would say. She died trying to free me from a life like this. She had
died.
Beaten and bloodied on the floor while her baby hid in the wardrobe under an old coat and her son begged the police to hurry.

I thought about all the times Grandma found me hiding in my new wardrobe, my hands pressed against my ears in a vain attempt to shut out the memories. How she held me, rocking me through the night and telling me over and over again that I was safe now. This was a safe place.

I glanced past Snake`s head at the wardrobe, old and battered now, and slowly brought a hand up to release one of the grips pinning my hair back. Then as Snake visibly relaxed, easing back a fraction, I raked the grip across his face as hard as I could, and ran.

He caught up with me in the kitchen.

I did not make it to work that day. I stayed a full week in hospital, sleeping in clean sheets and eating three square meals a day while I tried to piece myself back together. It felt like a holiday, despite having to repeat so many times the story Snake concocted
to explain my injury. By the time I came home, Sam was back. One look at me and all his new resolve disintegrated. Life carried on as before, me taking care of my brother while we both tried to keep Snake happy. But I kept on working as much as I could. I smiled and filled up customers' water glasses and remembered which one had ordered the medium steak and who wanted the gluten-free bread. The metal tin of tips grew fuller.

Dylan came and said hello before I left rehearsal. We chatted about Christmas – his plans to visit family the week after Boxing Day, how I would be working as much as possible to pay for bridesmaid dress material.

He asked if any of my family or friends would be coming to hear me sing. I mentioned April and Sam. He asked me where Sam lived, and what he did, and before I knew it I had told Dylan about my brother's illness, stuck in a swamp of depression and going nowhere fast.

I blame it on natural politeness (it would have been rude not to answer all those questions) or the post-rehearsal high. Maybe it was because he was a minister of the non-creepy variety and too easy to talk to. I hoped it wasn't down to those gentle eyes; but for one, or all, of those reasons – or maybe simply because I felt so desperate to tell somebody, and he asked – I spilled more to Dylan about my situation than I had to Perry in the year we'd been together.

Afterwards, feeling a flush of embarrassment at my outpouring, I said, “You won't tell anyone, will you? For Sam's sake. Are you bound by priest-type confidentiality?”

Dylan pulled up his mouth on one side. “No, I'm not really.”

“Oh.”

“But, Faith – I'd like to think you know I wouldn't speak about this because I'm your friend.”

“Thank you. I didn't mean to imply you would. I'm not used to having friends. Still learning the rules.” There I went again, spilling
my secrets. I grinned, trying to lighten the comment but probably appearing like the kind of person that probably, no, doesn't – and shouldn't – have many friends.

Whoops – try to look normal, Faith.

“Well, I'm honoured you trusted me with this. And, actually, I was wondering if…”

I never found out what Dylan wondered, as at that point my phone rang. Sam.

“I can't remember if I've taken my meds.” I could rate how Sam felt by whether he said hello to me or not. Half a second and I knew every time.

My stomach clenched up in the conditioned response to his call.

“It's okay, don't panic. We'll figure this out. Have a look and see if you can find the glass of water you'll have taken them with.”

“I can't! She's cleaned everything away.”

“Try to remember what you did this afternoon. What you had to eat, if you had a hot drink. Work backwards.”

“I can't remember!” His voice rose, hoarse with anxiety. “I had some with orange juice but that could have been yesterday.”

“It's all right, Sam. Try to calm down. I'll be there in twenty minutes. Just sit tight until then. Okay?”

The phone hung up. I hurriedly apologized to Dylan and said goodbye before interrupting April's conversation. “We need to go.”

“Is everything okay?”

I pulled her to one side, away from the group she'd been standing with. “Sam called. He can't remember if he's taken his meds today. Last time he did this we could count forward from the date he started taking the latest pack. If we can't figure it out I'm not sure what we'll do.”

“He took them just before I left. I made sure 'cos he looked tired and I thought he might fall asleep. Anyway, I got him a thing where you put the pills in little compartments to mark off the time and the day. He should be able to check that and see, if he can't remember. I'll give him a ring.”

“That's great.” I slapped away at the jealousy poking its head out from behind my hurting heart like an ugly goblin. “You can phone him in the car.”

“But we don't need to leave if I call him, do we? I haven't finished my coffee and Marilyn won't want to go yet.”

I gritted my teeth, stress levels surging.
With all due respect, April, after a couple of months of playing nursemaid, do you really have a clue?

“The problem isn't the pills, April. Sometimes Sam panics when he's on his own. He's worked himself into a state, and if I don't go, he's going to find another way to calm himself down.”