The Yummy Mummy (12 page)
“Too pink. Too red. Here, this could be the one!” Suddenly Alice is upon me, wielding makeup brushes and powders and lipsticks. She daubs my lips and eyes. Tells me when to look up, when to look down. Gets me to look to the left, to the right. She talks to me only through the reflection in the mirror, like a hairdresser. I find this rather unnerving. I also find it hard to look at my reflection. When I pull my silly mirror face, all scrunched eyes and jaw tilting, Alice tells me off. Anyone else and I’d tell them to piss off, but I let Alice get away with it. She’s one of those people. And it’s such an odd situation that the only way to deal with it is to go with it.
“Oh dear, when did you last go to the hairdresser?” She’s not interested in an answer, which is just as well. Instead, she pulls and tugs and moans about the condition, the bad highlights, the roots. It’s as if she’s stopped seeing me as entirely human, more a kind of broken doll. She asks questions, answers them herself. Blasts me with hair spray like a crop duster. Blowtorches me with a hair dryer. By the time she has finished, I feel drained, like I’ve been sucked into a peculiar girlie vortex, pummeled by blusher brushes, and spat out the other side.
“Now, Amy! Look! Look at what you can be, honey!”
Oh! “I don’t look like me.”
“You look like a better, more polished Amy.”
Once I get over the shock of seeing someone else’s face staring back at me, I have to concede she’s right. There’s a brightness to my eyes that I haven’t seen since first dating Joe. (I used to love the way I looked then, enormous light-absorbent druggy pupils.) My skin glows like I’ve been digitally enhanced, the sleepless nights wiped from my complexion. And my hairstyle is softer, kinder to my round cheeks.
“Funnily enough, I do. Thanks, Alice.” I am impressed. “It’s a bit odd, though. I do look like someone else. Me younger, perhaps. Or me with a different life.”
“Well, go get one, girl.” She hands me a tube of Chanel cleanser. “But then again, if you want to cleanse it off . . .”
“Are you mad? No way. I’ll never be able to replicate this myself.” I spring up and get dressed in my clothes: jeans, a scraggy T-shirt. They feel old suddenly. Like Oxfam clothes that smell of someone else. Alice shoves a bundle of makeup—“everything that’s on your face”—into a large envelope and insists I have it. I slide the envelope into my handbag and laughingly point out that I already have a lipstick, an exploded one in the purse pocket. Alice tells me that must go and that I must invest in a proper makeup bag and when are we going shopping? Soon, I say. Call me. I push Evie back home for a late bedtime.
“Where have you been? Euh! What
have
you done to your face?” Joe says crossly when I come in. “Your mouth looks all . . . all dribbly.” I lift my hand to wipe the lip gloss off. But something stops me. Instead, I root around the envelope Alice gave me, find the lip gloss tube, and slick another layer on.
IT’S 3:45 A.M. AND BEDTIME BREATH WHISTLES OUT OF
Joe’s slack mouth. We’d argued before we went to bed. He said that Alice made me look ludicrous. I said, did he want me to look like a drudge? He said he liked me as I was, not pretending to be someone else. I said that is rich, and stormed upstairs to bed. I pretended I was asleep when he came to bed. Four hours later I’m still here, fiercely awake, thoughts rattling my head: Mum, haven’t phoned; Grandma, haven’t written; Evie needs a teether. Why is it that I have a brain like a cocaine-fueled city boy yet I supposedly don’t even “work”?
I slide out from the duvet and plant my feet on the warm floorboards.
Pad, pad, pad
over to the window. I pull up the blinds some, as quietly as I can, so that the room is half lit by the dirty London moon. I check Joe again. No signs of waking. Then I pick up a stool, put it by the wardrobe, and clamber up. On top of the wardrobe sit three boxes stuffed full of clothes I haven’t worn for a year and a half, maybe two. They are the other Amy’s clothes. They are too small. Pretty little slips of things. My sexy jeans. That long silk dress that I got at the Selfridges sale for a song. These are the clothes that Alice and I are going to edit. But I can’t wait until morning. Restless, awake, I want them now.
“Eeee orrrrrrrr.”
Christ, that’s loud! Joe gulps down a parcel of air and rolls onto his left side. I freeze and watch him. He pushes the rest of the duvet off. It twists around his calves. Half lit by the filtered night fuzz, he is sculptural, a sleeping Pan. His willy, wide and symmetrical, sleeps on his thigh. Do I desire him? I like the aesthetics. But I don’t want to jump him. There was a time when I’d wake in the middle of the night and slip my palm around him and massage him into hard consciousness. Then we’d have sleepy sex. Often neither of us came. Instead, we’d fall back into a contented sleep, bodies still locked together. Then he’d soften and slip out.
That was before Evie. Now my most passionate physical relationship is with her. I spend my days lost in her flesh, cuddling, kissing, inhaling her. And by the end of the day I’m spent. I don’t crave skin on skin. I put her to bed and my body is once again mine. And I withdraw back within my boundaries, not wanting another human being pawing at me, wanting something. There’s nothing left to give.
I reach back up for the boxes.
“Eeeee arrrrrrrrrrr . . .”
Joe rolls over and faces me, his eyes half open but dead as a fish on ice. Nope, I definitely don’t want to jump him. We’ve been there. And there’s nothing more depressing than bad sex. It creates this awful emptiness deep in the solar plexus. And you have to pretend that it’s not bad, depressing sex. If you don’t, it’s worse and creates issues. And sex with issues is the worst of the lot. Joe grunts and turns over, his back facing me. I’m sure it was this box to the left. I lift the box over my head. It’s heavy. My left foot slips. Shit. I clatter to the floor.
“Amy? Are you awake?” he mumbles sleepily.
“No.”
Then silence. I wait for a few long moments until I’m sure he’s asleep again. Then I break into the old crunchy cardboard and delve in. My old life! Wispy chiffon tops that clung prettily to my pert 34Bs. A miniskirt! God how things have changed. Jeans. My old jeans. I slide my leg into them. It’s difficult as I’m sitting on the floor and I don’t want to make too much noise and wake Joe up. I tug and tug and then I get to the point of no return, the zip. I breathe in like Alice says and tug again. No joy. Pubic hair gets caught in the zipper because I’m not wearing knickers and I can only unzip it with a sharp, painful depilatory action. I try not to cry out. Despairing, I toss the jeans aside and forage for the dress. And here it is! Blue and green silk, full skirted and halter necked. This is the dress I fell in love with Joe in. I pull it on over my head, carefully threading my arms through so as not to rip the seams. Old seams. Sixties seams. This was my mother’s dress once. She dated my dad in it. But it hasn’t dated.
Still, the dress is much tighter than it was two summers ago. I wore it in Oxford, punting on the river Cherwell, our third “date.” There is something rather lovely about going on a date with someone you already know. Suddenly there’s more mystery, not less: You can’t believe that what you are feeling you didn’t feel before. Perhaps it’s all just about timing, then. In fact, I pondered this as we tugged along the river, the weeping willow caterpillars catching in my hair, my hand trailing in the ice-bucket-cold water. Joe laughed and joked and the sunlight caught in his eyelashes like flecks of gold leaf. He steered the punt so well and refilled my wineglass with champagne and fed me honey-roasted cashews and tried to make sure I didn’t get splashed. Despite his gentlemanly intentions, I did get drenched by a splash from the pole. Then the silk of the dress clung to me, tracing the shape of my bust, hardening my nipples. I remember being secretly pleased that it had happened. I kept catching Joe staring at me when he thought I wasn’t looking.
I bury my nose into the dress’s folds of fabric and sniff deeply in the darkness. It doesn’t smell like it’s been washed, which it probably hasn’t, being a hand wash. I’m lazy like that. For a moment I can smell the green river. I can smell that wonderful day, the sandwiches we couldn’t eat because we were full with erotic anticipation, the way Joe picked bits of tree out of my hair, our first proper tongue kiss, the way I loved the smell of his armpits when he pulled me close and wanted to curl up in them like an animal. I’m pushing my face deeper and deeper into the fabric, inhaling the past. Then I become aware that it is wet. The silk is sodden with a flash flood of tears. Suddenly they’re pouring out in gulps and sobs, big monsoon tears, delicious and deliriously sad.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Joe’s voice slurs with sleep. A big bulge slowly travels from one side of the duvet to the other. Joe tumbles out of bed, stubbing his toe. I hear him curse. Then he’s behind me, enveloping me in his arms, half asleep.
“There, there. It’s all going to be fine. I promise it’s all going to be fine. Shushhhh . . .”
I gulp and swallow and try to stem the flow of tears. I can’t speak.
“Hey, hey, hey. Sweetheart, it’s okay. It’s just a dream. Just a bad dream. Let’s go back to bed. Here . . .”
Joe lifts me up. I’m still wearing my dress. I put my arms around his neck like a newlywed. We drop onto the bed together and he is asleep within seconds. I know this because I’m still awake.
“OFF YOU GO TO YOUR PAL WARTEZ THEN,” SAYS MUM
, standing in the doorway, Evie gurgling happily on her hip and pulling at her neat beige skirt. Mum confronts the sartorial obstacles of summer head on with swathes of linen or “easy separates” from Country Casuals that reveal as little of her swinging underarms and creased neckline as possible. She always looks immaculate.
“Pi-lat-es,” I say, pointlessly.
“Pill-whatever-it-is. I’m so pleased you’re taking my advice, although I’d have thought a run round the block would do just as much good and it’s free. Don’t worry about Evie. We’ll have a knees up, won’t we?” Mum bends down and deadheads a flower from a neglected potted plant. On her crown, concrete-gray roots are just visible, pushing up into the dyed silvery blonde. “These plants! What would you do without me? I may have a bit of a tidy up if that’s okay.”
This is not a question but a statement of intent. I don’t want Mum poking around. But I can’t argue because I’m late and I’m nervous.
“Now you go and get in shape. Byeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Mum slams the door. I can hear her talking to Evie as she walks down the corridor. “Now blossom, let’s get you some proper food, none of this organic silliness. . . .”
I’m outside The Studio on Chamberlayne Road. A note, flapping in the wind, says the bell is broken. Knock. So I knock. No one comes. I knock again. I peer through the letter box, straining to see through the wire letter holder. Stripped pine floors. Converse trainers lined up along the hallway. Steep wooden stairs. Footsteps. A man! I start away from the letter box, hoping he hasn’t seen me.
“How’s the peep show?” The voice is smiling. I’m mortified. The door opens.
“Oh sorry . . . er . . . I was knocking and no one came.”
“No worries. I’m Josh.” A handsome blond man, late twenties, extends a hard-grip hand. His eyes, an intense cloudless blue, are almost on my eye level, making it hard to look away. His arms are tense with muscle that sinews up to the armholes of his cutoff T-shirt. He is wearing old tracksuit bottoms. Tanned bare feet. He smiles and wipes a tangle of soft blond curls off his forehead, beaded with sweat. He looks vaguely familiar.
“You are Amy? My new recruit,” he says.
“Er, yeah. Is Alice here?”
“Yep, upstairs. Hey, don’t look so freaked. It’s really not hard, we’ll take it one step at a time. I’m very gentle with beginners.”
I blush, too aware of Josh’s physicality in this narrow hallway. I can almost taste his perspiration. He puts a hand on the small of my back and gently pushes me down the corridor.
“Loo in there,” he says, pointing to a corridor off to the left. And that’s when I see it. A bike leaning against the wall. A bike painted in rainbow stripes. In a flash I know why Josh is familiar. I blush again.
Please
don’t remember me as the girl with loo paper on her shoe.
“Up here,” he says.
We walk upstairs to the studio. It’s a big room in the attic of the building, lit by skylights, rectangular cutouts of sky. The walls are painted white. The floors are stripped. Strange bits of equipment—benches dangling with leather straps and springs—hang from walls and make it look like the set of a porn movie.
“Amy! You made it!” Alice lies flat on her back on a rubbery blue mat. Her legs are splayed apart in a V shape. Lying next to her, looking equally pornographic, are Jasmine and Blythe. Propped up by lots of pillows, Annabel relaxes on her side. An incense stick dangles precariously from a beam above her head.
“You can change in there,” says Josh, pointing to a cozy side room filled with Moroccan cushions.
“Er . . . I’m actually wearing my gear.” Baggy old pink tracksuit bottoms, a long T-shirt that covers my bottom. I thought I looked okay when I put them on, should have known that Alice and friends would have upped the stakes. Alice is wearing white Thai fishing trousers tied around her waist and a tiny terrycloth tank. Ditto Jasmine. Blythe is wearing a low-slung chocolate-brown velour tracksuit. Annabel looks huge and celestial in a billowing white muslin kaftan.
“Great.” Josh doesn’t seem to mind. “Just pop your shoes and socks off, then.” I notice Josh has two pointy canines like David Bowie’s (before they were done).
I lie on my blue mat, next to Alice and the comfort of a wall. Our feet say everything: Alice’s darling perfectly pedicured toes—glossy oyster and pink—and then my neglected yellowing hobbits. Blythe stares at them, horribly fascinated.
“Right. I’m not going to give you a long and boring explanation about what we do here,” says Josh, singling me out, making me blush. “It’s Pilates customized with a bit of yoga. My own special recipe. As the class has heard it all before, far too many times I suspect, I won’t bore them. Don’t want to send you all into sleep nirvana before we start.” Everyone laughs. “Amy, you’d be better off staying behind one evening and having a one on one. I’ll take you through it then. Right now I’m going to throw you in bare feet first and see how you get on. How does that sound?”
