The Stepmother (6 page)

“Your mother's right,” said Sally. “I like the red best, too. Brings out the flames in your hair.”

“Come on, Belinda, let me buy you something too. It'll be my treat.”

“It's okay, Mother, you're doing more than enough.”

“Don't be ridiculous. Sally, see what you can find for my daughter.”

“Yes, madam.” Sally retreated through the thick beige curtain that separated the large changing area from the fitting-room lobby.

“Honestly, it's far too late for this. It's way past their suppertime already.”

“Darling, you can't always hide behind your children. You need something to wear, we're at a dress shop, Sally is the best, and if she can't find something for you no one can. End of discussion.”

I bit my lip and savored the taste of blood.

“Come on, Mummy. We had a picnic in the car. It'll be fun,” said Lulu. “She'll make you look like a princess too.”

I smiled at my middle daughter and was thankful that my children, at least, did not see what I could no longer deny. Their mother had let herself go. Sally might be the best but even the best wasn't going to be good enough.

“Have you all chosen?” I said to the girls. Maddy and Lulu held on to their dresses like life rafts. Amber was wearing the red dress, but kept looking longingly at the blue. Not the blue, please, not the blue. Suddenly, Sally appeared through the curtain carrying four dresses of different lengths, color, and fabric. My chest constricted. “Why don't we take yours to the counter to wrap them up and give your mama a little space?” she said to the girls.

“Will you do a parade, Mummy?” asked Maddy. “We'll sit on the sofa outside and give you marks out of ten.”

My heart thudded. I knew she meant the dresses, but it didn't feel that way. I could see three solemn faces holding up placards. Fat. Fatter. Fattest.

“When we've packed everything up,” said Sally.

“Which one are you taking, Amber?” asked my mother, as if she were talking to an equal, not an impressionable, malleable, easily wounded fourteen-year-old.

Amber looked at Sally. “Well, you look wonderful in the blue, there's no doubt of that.” My heart sank as Amber beamed. “But,” Sally continued, “I think you should choose the red and I shall tell you why. You cannot wear underwear with the blue. That's fine in here. It's warm and you're standing still. But what about dancing, jumping up and down?” Amber didn't understand what Sally was implying. So Sally glanced down at her chest.

Amber reddened. The thought of unwanted attention to her not-yet-womanly womanly bits made her feel self-conscious. Not a bad thing right now. Vanity lost. For today. Amber chose the red.

As they filed out, I almost went with them, but Sally turned, stopped me, and drew the curtain in my face. I was left to face my demons alone. I had been avoiding my own reflection in the mirrors. Hard, since they were on three walls and angled at the corner to give you a perfect surround-sound view—but I had been good for five days, I was feeling a million times better, maybe I would be pleasantly surprised.

Feeling brave, I peeled off my awful stretchy black trousers and polo-neck. I threw my Gap T-shirt onto the pile and stared at the beige carpet. I took a deep breath and raised my head to see the new me. Immediately, I knew it was a mistake. I grabbed a dress from the rack and held it in front of me, but it was too late. I had seen myself, a mass army of myselves, waiting for battle. I was outnumbered by infinity to one. I was surrounded.

I held up the dress in surrender and let it fall to the floor. What beast is this? What sad, fat, ugly cow stared back at me? Five days hadn't made a dent. Nor would fifty. I didn't think five hundred could…I rapidly fell from whatever false peak I had been standing on as the first tremor of panic hit me like a breaker, winding me. I let out short, staccato breaths. I had no idea what invisible force had hit me so hard, and I looked around, frightened, searching the cubicle for my assailant. Turned out the assailant was me. Daring to look back at myself from the angle-poised mirror, I saw with every rutted pocket of fat how my bottom had bled into the back of my thighs.
Who are you? What are you doing here?
Boom. The air left me again. Scared, I pinched my sagging flesh hard until the pain made me inhale again. I held on to the wall. Something strange was erupting inside me, but I could not look away. A mottled sack of skin hung over my knickers and pulled a grotesque smile from above each buried hip. I flicked it. Then I blew out my stomach even more, hunched over, and flicked it again. “Blubber” was the word that came to mind. How could I have lived with myself, yet avoided myself for so long?

I faced myself again and saw the panic of a drowning person staring wide-eyed back at me. My heart was pounding. I couldn't breathe. The
air had left me. Oxygen had deserted me. All I needed to do was inhale. I stared at myself. Inhale, you stupid fat cow! But I could no more fly. My heart screamed. My chest knotted like a gnarled tree, solid. Breathe! I yelled at myself. Please!
No.
I was going to die.
Good.
I was dying. My reflection shook its head at me, mouthing, “I can't breathe.”
BREATHE
!
Pathetic.
I yelled at myself from deep inside.
BREATHE
!
Why?
“I can't.” My face crumbled, my grotesque body folded, I stretched my jaw wider than it wanted to go and felt the skin tear at the side of my mouth. I screamed, as tears poured down my cheeks, I screamed and screamed and screamed. But not a sound came out.

“Mummy!” It was Maddy.

I straightened up. I could hear soft footsteps on the carpet and the rustle of her uniform. No, no, no, no, no…

“Which one are you in? Are you ready?”

As if someone had punctured a hole through my solar plexus, air refilled me. I held on to it. Terrified it might leave me again.

“Mummy?”

“Coming,” I croaked, furiously rubbing away the tears, the fear. “In a minute,” I said.

“Okay.”

I staggered back and, in my graying bra, pants, and socks, slid down the mirrored wall and wrapped a bit of curtain around me. I put my head on my knees. I couldn't stop the tears. They kept slipping out of me. What was happening? The panic had only lessened its grip on me. Sporadically, it would give me a squeeze, just to let me know I wasn't alone. I couldn't get up. I gathered up the clothes and held on to them, as if they were one of Maddy's blankets. Soothed by the feel of satin lining on my cheek.

“Let's see you, then.”

It was Mother. As soon as I heard her voice, I slammed my leg across the entrance to the changing room and clasped the curtain to the wall. I wasn't ready to let anyone in and I wasn't ready to leave. My mother must have sensed something, because she stopped just outside the curtain.

“Found anything you like?” she asked tentatively.

“Mother, could you do me a favor…”

“Are you all right, darling?”

Just keep breathing, I told myself, feeling my chin wobble. Just keep breathing. “I…need a few minutes.”

“Well, okay, we'll be outside.”

“No,” I said, more emphatically than I meant to. “Could you take them to get something to eat? I think there's, um, a diner, isn't there? A café?”

“I'll take them to the restaurant upstairs next to where I get my hair done.”

I closed my eyes. “Thank you.”

“How long will you be?”

I don't know. I could feel my breath shortening again.

“Belinda?”

I felt my face scrunch up as I fought tears.

“Please let me buy you something nice.”

From some deep memory of childbirth, I found a spot on the curtain rail to focus on and blew out long exhalations of air. I watched the curtain move. “God, Mum, just give me a moment.”

“Honestly, Belinda, that's no way to speak to me. I've just spent a fortune on your children. And don't call me Mum!”

I curled up into a tighter ball and let the tears fall. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Who the fuck was the fat woman huddled on the floor, unable to stop crying? How had this happened? Where had I gone? Who had I become? Once upon a time, a long time ago in a land far, far away, I had been a catch…

I was bright, small,
slim,
and fit. I had black hair and weird pale-blue eyes. I was striking. Not a pinup in my teens—only eclectic boys like small, shapeless girls with dark hair—but by the end of university I had grown into myself. I possessed a certain force, an energy that attracted others, and I learned how to change other people's perception of me from weird to unusual to unique to special. I was so determined not to be the incapable woman my mother was that I threw myself at everything. Languages, cooking, sport, partying—I could stay out all night and still get up for lectures in the morning. I was the indefatigable Bea Frazier. When I graduated, people told me I could do anything and I believed them. I had blind faith that I would make it as a journal
ist, then an editor, and perhaps one day run a newspaper. The printed word, one subjective view versus another, life processed on the page…These were the things that consumed me.

I got a job working in the business sector of publishing. It might sound dull, but during the heady eighties it was far from it. I know Thatcher's Britain was reviled by many, but when tattooed market-traders with more street smarts than any public-school boy (and I met a lot in the City) were hitting the big time, I reveled in seeing the grout crumble on these thick class barriers I had always believed kept me locked in. Not protected, as my mother thought. While I wasn't doing it for the money, I soon realized it helped. Jimmy's projects were always in “development” and someone needed to pay the rent. Then the mortgage. Then the child care.

I heard movement outside my safety curtain. And tensed.

“Mum?” It was Amber.

I let out a silent sob. “Just coming, honey.”

“You okay? Granny said you were having a fit.”

I clenched my jaw and balled my fists, willing myself to pull it together. I stood up. “I just got a bit hot, that's all. I'm going to get dressed and I'll come and find you.”

“Did you faint?”

“No, honey.”

“Camilla didn't eat for five days and she fainted. Xanthe had called her fat, which she isn't. It was just stupid of her.”

I should have reached out, grabbed my daughter, and hugged her to me, but I didn't. I was too busy concentrating on breathing.

“I told Granny you hated shopping. That's why you never go with the other mothers. But she said I was being silly.”

The other mothers went shopping at Prada, but that wasn't the reason I didn't go. I didn't go because I wasn't asked.

“I'm sorry, Amber, I'll be out in a minute.”

“You sure you don't want my help?”

I tried to sound light. “I'd prefer it if you protected your sisters from Granny.”

“Okay.” Amber didn't sound convinced.

I gathered every ounce of strength to leave the changing room. I got
my T-shirt over my head, but while I was bending down to put on my trousers, the blood rushed to my feet. I held on to the wall, staring at my reflection, unsure who stared back. I couldn't go out there. I couldn't. Seconds later I was crouched on the floor again, hugging the curtain. That's the problem with indefatigable. There's no such thing. Somewhere, somehow, you pay.

I'd sworn I would never accept handouts from my mother, since I knew the interest repayments would be crippling. But things change when you have children. I put their needs ahead of my pride. When my mother offered to pay for Amber's education, which we could not afford, I accepted. I couldn't, however hard I ruminated, dissected, and kneaded my desire to decline, turn her down. It would not have been fair. Isn't that what being a parent is all about? Doing the best for your children? Even if it isn't the best for you?

I'd thought I'd always work. I'd thought Jimmy would earn a bit more eventually. I'd thought the couple of thousand pounds a term weren't unreachable, the debt didn't seem too deep. But what you do for one, you have to do for the others. I guess my mother won in the end. I am totally and utterly beholden to her now. What kind of job would I have to get to clear the thirty-three thousand pounds a year required for school fees and still find enough to feed, clothe, and house my children? Not one I'm qualified for, that's for certain.

“Bea?”

I lifted my head off my knees.

“Bea?”

You've got to be kidding. How long had I been sitting there? “Jimmy?”

“Can I come in? I don't think loitering outside women's changing rooms is a good idea.”

I was so shocked to hear his voice that I forgot I couldn't move and scrambled around on all fours, gathering up my clothes.

“Bea?”

“No, you can't come in.”

“Please. I'm worried about you.”

“I'm not dressed,” I said, clutching my clothes to me for protection.

“Nothing I haven't seen before.”

“Not this much,” I replied.

“That's enough of this nonsense. I'm coming in.”

I couldn't have stopped him. It would have meant dropping my clothes. All I could do was look up at him from the floor. He drew the curtain behind him, crouched in front of me, and brushed aside a strand of my hair.

“Hello,” he said.

I smiled weakly and let a tear plop over my eyelid. Jimmy removed his coat and placed it over me, like a blanket.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“It's not that chivalrous. I only work around the corner.”

“I mean why.”

“Amber called me. She said you wouldn't come out.”

I frowned.

“Your mother was being a little less cautious with her words than she should have been. Amber was upset.”