The New Woman (30 page)

I was shocked into silence. Simon’s words sounded too final. Mercifully, Rosa was woken by the crashing plates and began to wail, providing a distraction. I slipped away to the bathroom and stood with my hands on the basin, facing my imperfections in the mirror. My eyes weren’t as clear as they used to be, and when did those bitter-old-bag lines appear beside my mouth? I wasn’t young anymore, but Luke didn’t mind. I’d always relied on that. He and I were supposed to grow old together.

Come home, Luke
, I whispered.
Just come home.

My handbag was on the chest in the hall. I took out my phone as I passed, and saw that I’d missed two calls. One was from Luke. The other was from Jim. I didn’t call either of them back.

Thirty-one

Luke

London is at its glittering, magical best in the run-up to Christmas, with late-night shopping under cascades of lights, and trees glimpsed through open curtains.

But, by golly, it can be lonely. The only events on my social calendar were Wednesday afternoons with the Jenny Marsden group—and I rarely had time to get to that—and the entertaining of Bannermans clients. Eilish and I had plenty of friends in London but I wasn’t ready to face their questions, so I avoided them all. Sometimes as I set off for work in the freezing pre-dawn, I fantasised about taking a train home and walking into the house as though nothing had happened. I imagined the pond lying very still under a mist. I imagined Eilish alone in our bedroom, waking up and beginning a new day. Perhaps she wouldn’t be happy to see me.

There were other moments, though, times when I felt a tremendous sense of hope. Week by week, shyly, Lucia was taking over and becoming me—or perhaps I was becoming her. I’d begun seeing a speech therapist, who thought we could do a lot towards feminising my voice. He gave me exercises to practise, using a dictaphone so that I could hear myself.

‘Listen carefully when you’re out and about,’ he said. ‘There’s a pitch overlap between the sexes. Find that, and you’ve
found the key.’ We had a long discussion about the melody of different voices. I found it truly fascinating, but I smiled to myself as I imagined what Kate’s reaction would be (
Men and women use different language? Women’s voices are more singsong? Oh, for frig’s sake! What utter patriarchal patronising bollocks
).

Far more frightening was the issue of my beard. I don’t enjoy pain; who does? But I took my courage into my hands and booked myself into a clinic for laser treatment. The grim-faced woman who wielded the laser said it would take about a year to get rid of my facial hair: at least eight sessions, six or more weeks apart, and maybe electrolysis after that, and she couldn’t guarantee that that would be the end of it. Laser treatment is meant to be quicker and less painful than electrolysis, but—believe me—it’s screaming torture. The first session had me gritting my teeth and breathing through the pain. I had to go home and have a stiff drink afterwards, and I felt pretty traumatised. Had I really lifted my chin and let that psychopath of a woman inflict this upon me? I was halfway through a glass of whisky before I felt steady enough to phone Chloe. She’d understand what I’d just gone through.

‘Hi there, Lucia!’ she cried when she heard my voice. ‘What’s happening?’

I told her about the torture, and she laughed merrily. ‘It’s okay, it gets better. Third or fourth time you’ll have less to take off, and then you’ll look in the mirror, and
then
you’ll feel good.’

‘Third or fourth? I don’t know if I can go back and do it again, even once.’

‘Oh yes, you can! No pain, no gain. Take a couple of ibuprofen half an hour before, and a good old swallow of Jim Beam.’

She told me she’d had a phone call from her mother—a short one, just to ask for a cousin’s address—but still, a call. She seemed very buoyed by this.

‘Hey,’ she added, ‘you’re doing well with the voice.’

I knew she couldn’t possibly afford a speech therapist—she
sometimes struggled even to pay her rent—so I passed on everything I’d learned. She wanted to know if I’d come out at work yet, and thought it hilarious when I groaned and said I certainly had not and that I thought I’d rather retire.

‘All those posh lawyers,’ she said. ‘You’ll make their day!’

‘Five hundred people work in our firm. How can I face five hundred people?’

She was chuckling away. ‘And every one of them wondering if you’re going to have your nuts cut off! Oh my Lord, Lucia, they’ll cross their legs when you walk by.’

By the time the call ended, I was smiling.

Eilish

I was crammed into my room in the prefabricated block with two malodorous year tens. They were clearly counting down the seconds until the final bell of the week. So was I.

One of them was texting under the table while I turned a blind eye. The Christmas term was coming to an end, after all, and concentration levels were dropping all round. The other was choosing, from the box I’d given him, a book to take home. I noticed a face at the window, and waved. Jim Chadwick. He saw I was busy and moved away, but I was pretty sure he’d wait until the end of the lesson.

‘Got one, miss,’ said the boy with the books. He was holding out a paperback with a picture of a soldier on the front, bristling with bandoliers and murderous weapons. He often picked that one. He loved a bit of gore.

‘You’ve read that already, Zane. About five times. But that’s okay, you can borrow it again. You’ve done really good work today. Jamie, who are you texting?’

‘Santa,’ Jamie replied promptly. ‘He says he’s got his sleigh parked outside.’

The bell rang while I was deciding whether to laugh or hand out a detention.

‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Have a good weekend. Say hi to Santa from me.’

As they opened the door they almost ran into Jim.

‘What’re you reading, Zane?’ he asked, holding out his hand for the book. ‘Ah.
Crack Shot.
Nice one.’

The two boys set off for freedom, joining a great throng that milled across the quad. Jim stepped into my room and closed the door behind him.

‘It’s Friday,’ he said, folding his arms.

‘Yes. I know that, Jim.’

‘Dinner at The Lock, tonight?’

‘Tonight? Um . . .’

He sat down in the chair Zane had just vacated. ‘Yes, you can. I know for a fact that you were meant to be helping with a rehearsal for the school play this evening. I know for a fact that the rehearsal has just been cancelled. So, unless you’ve got yourself another date in the past hour, you’re unexpectedly free.’

I could get all dressed up, and go to a gorgeous restaurant by the river. I could spend the evening laughing with Jim, sharing a bottle of wine, enjoying adult conversation of a kind I craved, especially since Kate had left.
And let’s face it
, said the wicked floozy inside me,
he’s easy on the eye.

But Luke.

He walked away. You owe him nothing.

That’s true.

Don’t risk it
, counselled the prude in me.
Dinner doesn’t come for free. You go to The Lock, the next minute he’s pouncing on you in some taxi, and then you’re back at his place, taking off your clothes. Nobody but Luke’s seen you naked in thirty years! Do you really want to show those stretch marks?

‘I promise you,’ said Jim, who seemed to be a mind-reader. ‘Not a single string. I’ll behave impeccably. Unless you don’t.’

I was teetering at the top of a fairground ride, fearing to launch myself onto the crazy loops and whoops of the roller-coaster.
I was being asked on a date. An actual date, with a man I liked very much.

Luke’s gone. He didn’t love you enough.

‘All right,’ I said.

Was the blue and white top a mistake?
Avoid horizontal stripes at all costs
, my mother used to say.
They’ll make you look big, Eilish; and when I say big, I mean fat
. On this occasion she was wrong, because I seemed to have the opposite problem. I’d lost weight since Luke left. The figure in the mirror looked like a bustless bag lady in those unforgiving stripes.

I hadn’t got dolled up in months; I was out of practice, couldn’t even find a pair of tights without a hole in them. It was daunting but—I had to admit—fun.

Discarding the stripes, I tried on my little black dress.
You can’t go wrong with a little black dress
; that’s my mother’s wisdom again. It looked good, but . . . no. Luke loved that dress. He helped me choose it. I couldn’t date another man in a dress Luke chose. I took it off.

Trousers? No, too dowdy. This little skirt? No! Much too short.

What does a fifty-something almost-divorcee wear on a date?

‘This is ridiculous,’ I said out loud. ‘Stop pratting about, Eilish Livingstone! It’s just Jim. It’s not a visit to Buckingham Palace.’

In the end, I plumped for the black dress because nothing else worked so well. Then I caught myself searching through my drawers for a matching lace bra and knickers. The prude in my head was scandalised.
What d’you think you’re up to? Who’s going to see them?
Nobody was going to see them. All the same, best to be colour-coordinated. Ah, here they were. They still fitted perfectly.

Kate phoned as I was blow-drying my hair. She wondered if she’d left a particular book in her room; her tutor wanted it back. I looked and found it, and promised to post it.

‘Owen asked to come round,’ she said gloomily. ‘Says he wants to talk.’

I was pleased she was confiding in me. Kate and I had broken through some barriers in those weeks when she lived back at home, just after our world had imploded. There was more honesty between us now than I could ever remember. Perhaps she saw me as more human and fallible; for my part, I’d learned that she was an adult.

‘Did you say yes?’ I asked now.

‘Mm. I’m meeting him at eight, in the local. Can’t bring him back here—Mathis and John would have a fit. The thing is, Mum . . . I’ve still got a soft spot for the guy. But if we get back together, I know where we’ll end up.’

‘Do you want my advice? Feel free to ignore it.’

‘All advice gratefully received.’

‘Okay.’ I was struggling to put in earrings with one hand, but gave up and sat down on the bed. ‘I don’t think Owen’s the man for you.’

‘Really? I thought you approved of him.’

‘I was being polite. Let’s face it, Kate: he’s a wimp and you’re not. If I’ve learned one thing from this disaster with Dad, it’s that it’s best to be honest right from the start. Otherwise there’s just a whole lot of misery in store.’

There was a brief silence. I was afraid I’d annoyed her.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You’re bang on. There’s no future in it, and I’ll have to tell him so. He can be very persuasive, though. If he turns on his lost-boy routine . . .’

‘I think you’d better stay sober, and in a public place. And if I were you, I wouldn’t invite him in for coffee—especially if Mathis and John aren’t in. No coffee, no matter what.’

‘Good plan.’

I asked about an essay she was writing—it sounded fascinating, actually, made me wish I’d been an archaeologist—and we talked for a time, but I had one eye on the clock. At seven-thirty I said I had to go. She was instantly curious.

‘Go?’ she echoed. ‘Go where?’

I had no choice. I had to tell her. As I’d expected, the news had quite an effect. I could almost hear her falling off her chair.

‘
Mr Chadders
?’ She gasped, caught somewhere between hysterical mirth and revulsion. ‘Sorry . . . sorry . . . let’s just get this straight. My old science teacher and my mother are going out on a . . . on a . . . Oh, Lordy Lordy!’

‘It’s not a date,’ I declared tartly. ‘It’s just two colleagues meeting up out of the work environment. We’ll probably talk about education all evening.’

‘Yeah, and work colleagues never hook up. What are you wearing?’

‘Just a, um, a dress.’

‘You’re wearing that black lacy thing, aren’t you, Mum?’

How the hell does she know that?

‘The Lock is only a tarted-up pub,’ I said. ‘I’m meeting an old friend in a pub. Just as you are, in fact. That’s all. I’ve insisted on driving myself, so I won’t be drinking.’

‘It’s a date, Mum. Face facts. The Lock’s a very romantic spot, especially at night.’

I felt anxious. Perhaps I was making a mistake. ‘Do you think I shouldn’t go?’

She’d stopped laughing. ‘No, no. I’m sorry. Of course you should go. I’ve got a lot of time for old Chadders, one of the best teachers I ever had. Quite hot too, in a lab coat and Bunsen burner sort of way. And now it’s my turn to hand out advice. Feel free to ignore it.’

‘Let’s hear it.’ I was looking under the dressing table for my handbag. I’d be late if I didn’t get a move on.

‘Stay sober,’ she said. ‘And in a public place. And don’t invite him in for coffee—’

We finished the sentence in chorus.

‘No matter what.’

Luke

I locked the front door of the flat with the Yale, and then with the deadlock, and then I bolted it. Simon’s visit had made me wary.