Envy

25

Erica

‘What’s the matter?’ Mouse asks, as I sit at his breakfast bar sipping a cappuccino. ‘Your lips are curling downwards. Are you in a mood again?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise, just tell me what’s wrong. That’s what’s supposed to happen, isn’t it? You worry. Then you tell me about it because I am your friend.’

‘It’s just that life’s so unfair,’ I say with a shrug of my shoulders.

He laughs, his strange laugh, like a braying donkey. ‘There’s nothing new about that.’

‘Is that supposed to make it any easier?’ I ask.

He puts his arm cautiously around my shoulders, as if he wants to be friendly but is not quite sure how to be.

‘Please try and explain.’

‘It’s the children. Faye’s children. How come she’s been able to have them when she can’t even look after them properly?’

He looks at me intently and his eyes widen. ‘Is that what’s happening?’ he asks.

Yes, I think, but don’t reply. It is too painful to speak about. A tear begins to trickle down my face. Yes. These children, who’ve had such a good start in life, will not get the backing they need because Faye has become distracted.

Look at what happened to me. Did my life start to go wrong, the minute I was born to a mother who couldn’t look after me? Or was it always a disaster from the start?

No. My mother loved me. She looked after me as well as she could, for as long as she could. As a young child I remember her sweet scent as she held me. Sitting, snuggled up on the sofa together, watching Disney films.

‘Erica,’ she would say, ‘always remember, there is nothing as strong as a mother’s love.’ Then she would pause, and hold me against her more tightly. ‘I want to wrap you in cotton wool and protect you for ever.’

If only she had.

Once upon a time, my mother cooked a mean spaghetti bolognaise and knew how to dip strawberries in melted chocolate. I never had a dad. Mum just had lots of boyfriends who came and went. Mike, Steve, Francis, Robert, Sam, Jake and Rod. Rod was my favourite – funnier and kinder than the rest. He built a Morgan car with a kit, and sometimes took me for a ‘spin’ around the block in it.

I was happy back then. But happiness is a funny word. What does it mean? Is it an idea? A feeling? Is it real? Was it the warm contentment that began in my stomach and radiated through my body, because I had my mother and I knew she loved me? She was the pivot of my life. Maybe she still is, even though she is only a memory now.

The first day my life began to fragment I was walking home from school with my friend Geoffrey. He lived near me and every afternoon when school had finished we ambled along the road together on our way home until we parted at the third corner. Memory plays tricks. I remember sunny afternoons; frost, wind, and rain, all dissolve into oblivion.

On one such sun-dappled afternoon, we heard shouting behind us and turned around to see two boys from the year above marching quickly towards us, shouting, ‘Slag. Slag. Slag.’

Tommy Hall and John Allan. Tommy was large for his age with a broad slack face, always redder than it should have been. Always looking as if he had been running and was out of breath. John was wiry. Petite and mean. Boys to keep away from if you could.

‘Slag. Slag. Slag.’

Getting nearer. Grinning and pointing. Pointing at me. We turned away from them and continued to walk. But they stepped in front of us and blocked our path. Eyeball to eyeball. Eyes scalding ours.

‘Erica Sullivan, your mother’s a slag,’ Tommy said.

‘Like mother, like daughter – slag, slag, slag,’ John continued.

Geoffrey puffed out his pigeon chest and stepped towards them, chin up defiantly. ‘Shut up, you two. I hear you’re not the sharpest knives in the drawer. Leave Erica alone. She’s worth ten of you.’

Tommy clenched his fist, pulled his arm back and rammed his hand, like a hammer, into Geoffrey’s stomach. Geoffrey bent double. They ran away laughing, and shouting, ‘Slag, slag, pussy, pussy.’

I put my arm around Geoffrey’s bent shoulders. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked.

‘Just about, I think.’ There was a pause. ‘What a pair of knobs.’

‘Thank you so much for defending me.’

We began to walk slowly along the road, but Geoffrey was struggling, holding on to my arm. ‘Why do you think they said that?’ I asked.

He turned his head and pressed his eyes into mine.

‘Don’t take any notice of them – there’s always a few knobs about in life.’

We staggered to our parting corner.

‘Thank you again,’ I said. ‘I hope you feel better by tomorrow.’

He laughed. ‘I hope I feel better long before that.’

I watched him walk away, still holding his stomach. Then I turned and ran home to my mother.

My mother and I lived in a block of flats on the council estate, on the edge of the leafy part of town where Geoffrey lived. The same estate as Tommy Hall and John Allan. I ran through the under passage that crossed the A road, trying to ignore the rancid smell of stale human urine. Into our homeland of 1960s concrete. Solid and grey and ugly. Up the concrete staircase (the lift never worked), along the balcony to number 64, Bluebell Rise, our small, square, characterless flat. At least we had a bedroom each. Mum said we were very lucky to have been allocated that.

She was in the kitchen in her fishnet nightie dancing with Rod, the radio on full blast – a half-empty bottle of gin on the kitchen table.

So you see, Faye, life isn’t always easy when your mum is a slag.

26

Jonah

Sitting in my office, tapping my carefully manicured fingernails together, thinking about you, Faye. On Saturday night you seemed so interested, so attainable. I think back to the moment we stepped out of Sophia and Ron’s house, anticipation crackling in the air between us.

I have been infatuated with you since we first met. During that time you have always been with Phillip, but I know deep down you are in denial and would rather be with me. Your eyes bubble when you look at me. A surreptitious smile plays across your lips when your head turns towards me.

Do you remember when Phillip went away on a business trip, before you were married? I took you out on a boat ride one hot summer evening, along the river from Twickenham, and we ate at a gastro-pub next to the Skiff Club, opposite Hampton Court. Watching the river meander past; ducks and swans ambling, and bobbing their heads into the water for food. An eight gliding proudly along, coach instructing the rowers with a megaphone from the safety boat. We were so relaxed and comfortable together. Time seemed to stop.

I ordered a full-bodied white burgundy. We downed one bottle and then another. As the sun began to set across the water, a million shades of ochre and orange melting into the horizon, you said, ‘Thanks for a wonderful evening, Jonah.’

‘How’s it going with Phillip?’ I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

‘I think it’s fine, but he has been rather distracted with his work recently.’

I leant across the table and took your hand in mine. You didn’t pull away.

‘You’d be better off with me,’ I said.

You frowned a little and smiled a slow smile. ‘I’m not after money. I’m after Phillip.’

But now, so many years on, you are tired of Phillip; otherwise you wouldn’t have betrayed him with me. It is my turn now. To date I haven’t had a meaningful long-term relationship, only short-term ones that have lasted a bit too long. I have only tolerated most of the women I have been with because I enjoy sex.

But, Faye, you are different. I love everything about you. The way you speak. The way you think. The way you move. And the sex I had with you was the best sex I’ve ever had. You wanted me so much. You made me feel I mattered when we were making love. Our destiny is sealed. From what you said to me in the car I know you are still in denial. But I know you have always wanted me, and at last this weekend you succumbed to your desires. Now you have tasted me, soon there will be no holding back.

I type your address into my computer. Drawings of your house begin to spread across my screen. Your bedroom. The place you lie with Phillip. Can he make you climax like I can? Has he ever heard you really, really gasp? Any man can impregnate you, give you children, like Phillip has, but it takes a man like me to make your mind and clitoris pulsate. Come to me. Get real, Faye.

27

Phillip

I watch you as you unload the dishwasher. Your news today, the modelling job, has made you look different. It affects every muscle in your body; you even stand differently. You turn towards me, back arched, hand on hip.

‘And another thing that’s good is that Jamie Westcote’s model didn’t get the job.’

You step forward and cling on to me. I hold you; your lithe body hard against mine. I think back to all the male attention that has been lavished upon you during the time I have known you. I was hardly the only man after you. I know I am punching above my weight. Eyeballs slide as you walk across a room. Whether you are a successful model or not, you are beautiful in the eyes of the opposite sex. You don’t need to do this any more. We are older. You need to look after our children now.

‘Faye, you’re beautiful,’ I whisper in your ear. ‘You’re beautiful to me whatever happens. Try not to care so much.’

28

Faye

‘Try not to care so much.’

What are you talking about? Modelling is my life. My vocation. Of course I care so much. You are looking at me with condescension. As if my job is not real to you. What is the matter, Phillip? You never used to be like this.

29

Faye

I am on the way to the photoshoot; butterflies in my stomach. It is over a year since I’ve had an opportunity like this. At least, Phillip, despite beginning to bristle with disapproval these days when I talk about my job, you are being as helpful as usual; I suspect out of a sense of duty. You have taken Tamsin to school today and organised a place for Georgia in your workplace crèche. A new crèche experience for her. You have always been helpful but I used to think it was because you were as passionate about my work as I am. That is not true now. What will happen if you find out about Jonah? But you will never find out about Jonah. I will never admit the truth.

I push my worry about both you and Jonah away as I park my car. The trick is to develop a male brain, compartmentalise, I tell myself as I step outside to admire the vista of Bushy Park. Such a cold October day, almost no one else here. Grey sky, and grass so damp it looks as if it’s decomposing. I gaze across the park towards the make-up tent, by the woods, where we will do the filming, and see mist floating through the bare trees. The conditions will have an eerie effect on the photoshoot.

I walk along a muddy path towards the tent, wrapping my faux-fur jacket around my shoulders, and balancing on the tips of my new designer boots in an attempt not to damage them. Two men are standing outside it, drinking takeaway coffee, pointing at the trees beyond, nodding. They turn around as I approach.

‘Natasha?’ the one without a camera around his neck asks.

‘Faye.’

He consults the piece of paper he is holding.

‘Sorry,’ he says as he stretches his hand towards me. We shake. ‘Tim Turnbull, at your service.’

‘And I’m Pop – the man with the camera,’ his colleague says as he touches me lightly on the shoulder and pecks me on both cheeks.

‘Pop?’ I ask.

‘Yes, my friends call me that sarcastically because I look so young.’

I laugh, but my laughter sounds frail. I flash him my best smile. The one I practise a lot.

‘Well,’ says Tim-the-Director, gesticulating towards the tent, ‘do step inside to start make-up.’

I follow his instructions to find a young girl sitting at a plastic table sorting through a bag of lipsticks. She stands up as soon as I enter.

‘I’m Daisy. Super excited to meet you.’

Super excited. Dressed in black. Not wearing any make-up herself.

‘Do sit down and we’ll get cracking. I’ll need to remove all your own make-up first. I like to start with a blank canvas.’ There is a pause. ‘Try to relax.’

She wraps me in a black plastic gown and stretches a hairband across my forehead to pull all the hair from my face. I try to relax. But I cannot. Thinking about my body positions. My pout. Daisy rubs cream all over my face, with rough fingers. Then she rummages through a large leather holdall and pulls out a pot of foundation.

‘Bamboo beige,’ she announces, slapping her hands on her apron. ‘Perfect.’

Slapping on layer after layer of bamboo beige. This seems to be taking for ever, but my head has been pushed so far back I can’t reach to look at my watch.

‘Where did you train?’ I ask to pass the time.

‘The London School of Make-Up.’

‘Was it fun?’

‘Yes but please don’t talk – you need to relax your muscles so that I can deal with the crevices in your face.’

Crevices? My insides tighten. I didn’t know I had any. Age again. She doesn’t need to be smug about it. It will happen to her one day. She continues to massage and pummel. Foundation applied, now she attacks my face with brushes. A peculiar sensation runs across my eyebrows. My eyelids are being scraped by a knife. ‘Eyeshadow,’ she informs me. Just as I am not sure how much longer I can cope with this, she chirrups, ‘Nearly finished!’

Finally, finally after administering eyeliner and mascara, she brandishes a mirror in front of me.

‘There,’ she announces. ‘What do you think?’

‘Good,’ I reply. ‘But a bit heavy.’

My words hang in the air between us.

‘At your age it needs to be thick.’

Age. Age. Age.

‘I’m thirty-four years old,’ I snap.

Ignoring this information, she hands me a bag containing my outfit for the day.

‘I’ll step outside, give you space to get changed. Wait till we get to the woods to put the shoes on.’

She leaves. I unzip the bag and pull out a dress like gossamer. Soft grey silk, almost see-through, with matching underwear, and shoes with razor-blade heels that look as if they are made of candyfloss. I brace myself. Now I know why the make-up is so heavy. It’s necessary to disguise hypothermia.

I put on the underwear, pull the dress over my head, and fuss over its arrangement in front of the full-length mirror in the corner of the tent. At least I’ll be able to keep my jacket and boots on until we reach the woods. I fling my jacket across my shoulders, stuffing my candyfloss shoes deep into its pockets. Time for my grand exit from the tent. I step outside and shout across to Daisy, Pop and Mike, who are huddled together sharing a roll-up with the heady scent of cannabis. They do not hear me.

‘Ready when you are,’ I announce more loudly this time.

Pop turns around. He sees me and waves. He throws the joint to the ground and stamps on it to stub it out.

‘Let’s go,’ he instructs. ‘Daisy, get the ice cream.’

Ice cream. I shiver inside. I’d forgotten about that. She disappears back into the tent and steps out with an icebox I hadn’t noticed earlier. We walk along the path to the woods. I have to tread carefully along the muddy path because of my boots and the length of my dress, so I am soon trailing behind the other three, who are striding out in their sensible clothes, well ahead of me.

Eventually, I catch up with them. They are smoking again. Cigarettes this time. I hold on to Daisy for balance whilst I pull off my boots, and slip the ridiculous candyfloss shoes onto my feet. They are not really shoes, just decoration. I pull off my jacket and hand it to Daisy. The cold air slices into me like a knife. The photoshoot starts. The wind picks up.

‘That’s nice,’ Pop says. ‘It makes your hair look fantastic.’

I try to smile as he instructs, through chattering teeth. I run through the trees – as much as you can wearing candyfloss. Slowly, slowly I walk, licking ice cream. Sitting on a tree stump. Climbing a tree. Leaning forward. Leaning back. Perky. Pretty. Pouting. Devilish. Body and mind numb with the cold, eating vanilla ice cream.

30

Erica

When my run is over, even though I actually enjoyed it for the first time, I feel light-headed, as if I am about to faint. I hobble back to my flat and collapse on my bed. I fall into a deep sleep and dream.

My dream is so sharp. So clear. I’m in my muddy blue tracksuit, my pain has disappeared and I am running effortlessly, wearing gold Lycra and shiny purple trainers, which cushion my feet. People turn their heads as I pass, wanting to admire my fitness. My surreal body is perfect for a sportswear advert. I dream that Nike have asked me to model for them next week. I am running to pick Tamsin up from school. She steps from the classroom door and her face lights up as soon as she sees me; blue eyes with a sapphire shine. She runs into my arms. I hold her against me, wanting to protect her for ever. Tamsin, my heart sings, Tamsin my love.

Then I wake up in my cold damp flat. I look down at my body, my heavy arms and thighs, my baggy clothing that needs washing. Tamsin is not my girl. The dream was so beautiful that when I realise it was only a dream I almost cry.

My iPhone beeps. Twelve o’clock. Mouse has invited me for lunch. Time to go for beans on toast. Am I allowed beans on toast? I suppose so. Just one slice. I drag my exhausted body out of bed, swallow to push back my tears, and pull my hoodie on to go upstairs.

As I climb the stairs feeling as if I am walking through mercury, I know I am going to crack this. I am going to get fit and look like you, Faye. Then I am going to take both of your children away, one at a time, and be a surrogate mum. A far better mother than you.

31

Jonah

I am going to watch you from a distance whilst I finalise my plan to tempt you away from Phillip. You didn’t see me this morning, did you? I didn’t park outside the school. I hovered outside the Anytime Leisure Club. I know you go there every day. There are so many cars stuck in traffic along the road by the station, you didn’t notice mine. But I saw you, your creamy body striding along the pavement, pushing Georgia along in her buggy. Lycra clothing tracing the cleft between your buttocks.

32

Erica

I arrive at the small side room to the church hall where the slimming group hold their meetings and step inside. It feels as if the temperature barely changes, and like my flat, this room is musty and damp. A small three-barred electric heater is plugged in and burning brightly, but I take one look at it and sigh. It will be completely inadequate in this challenging environment. The room smells of stale air and wet sawdust.

An elfin woman steps forward to greet me. Bony. Pointy. Smiley.

‘Welcome,’ she says with a broad-stretched smile. ‘I’m Julia, the group leader.’

‘Erica Sullivan,’ I reply.

She ticks my name off a list she is holding.

‘Do sit down,’ she invites. ‘The others will be here soon.’

I sit on one of the small wooden chairs pushed close to the electric fire. The chairs look as if they have been removed from a 1950s primary school. While Julia hovers at the back of the room flicking through a thick red manual, I sit looking at the electric fire waiting for the others to arrive. They arrive one at a time and every time someone comes Julia abandons her manual and ticks the person’s name off the list.

They smile at me. Friendly smiles irradiate from pretty faces, figures distorted by body fat. Their eyes do not follow their smiles. I see in their eyes that, like me, they are desperate about their size.

‘Is this your first session?’ a short blonde woman asks.

‘Yes,’ I reply.

Julia’s footsteps echo across the parquet flooring, as she walks towards us carrying a set of digital scales.

‘This is a new class. It’s everyone’s first time.’ She puts the scales on the floor in front of us. ‘Who wants to be weighed first?’ she asks.

I put my hand up.

‘Come on then, Erica, step forwards.’

I stand up and feel eyes watching me. It makes me squirm with embarrassment. But I know I must improve the way I look. I know I must do this. I step towards the elfin woman. I hold my head high and stand on the scales. I know I cannot win a battle if I can’t even face it.

Julia announces my weight, eyes holding mine.

My insides feel as if they are collapsing, I am so embarrassed. I am far heavier than I thought. Three stone to lose. A long way to go. Julia’s eyes are shining into mine. Telling me that I can do it. Telling me to believe in myself. She smiles, a slow hesitant smile, and nods. I turn around and face the class. A woman at the front who looks to be a similar size to me begins to clap. Everyone joins in. I walk back to my chair surrounded by applause.

You can do this, Erica, I tell myself. You really can do this.

33

Jonah

Lunchtime. I walk out of my office past the bank, turn right past the doctor’s surgery, then right again. The road curves into a cul-de-sac of 1930s semis. I slip down a cut-through passageway full of tree roots and cigarette butts, along a wider street lined with red brick Victoriana; to number 133 – the house at the end of the road. Beautifully kept. Garden manicured. I walk, the soles of my shoes resonating on slate, up the tiled pathway and ring the doorbell.

Anna must have been waiting for me because the door opens immediately. As I step into the red-carpeted hallway, she gives me a tired smile.

‘Sally is ready. You can go straight upstairs.’

Sally invites me into her bedroom with an artificial smile, and a thick Brummie drawl. She is wearing a silk dressing gown that is too busy; duck egg blue with birds flying across it. Too many beaks and feathers.

‘Welcome,’ she says taking my coat and hanging it up behind the door.

‘Did Anna tell you I want you to wear a wig?’ I ask, looking into her pale green eyes.

‘Yes.’

I rummage in my briefcase and pull it out, black tresses freshly washed and styled.

‘If you sit at the dressing table I’ll help you put it on.’

She walks towards the dressing table, continuing to smile. I step behind her. She sits down and shakes her shoulders a little to relax them. I lift the wig carefully in my fingers, holding its crown wide open and gently, gently, starting at her forehead, coax it onto her head.

‘What do you think?’ she asks, standing up and shaking her head so that the bottom of the wig vibrates lifelessly against her shoulders.

‘Not bad. But your eyes are the wrong colour. They need to be violet.’

‘Next time I’ll wear coloured contacts,’ she says as she walks towards me, and starts to undress me. When I am naked she pushes me onto her bed, onto her floral counterpane that has seen better days, and removes her dressing gown, revealing sagging white breasts. So unlike your perfect curves that I have to turn her around and enter her from behind, burying my face in the wig. My crescendo takes a while as the girl is so unresponsive. In the end I manage, by playing with the curls of the wig and imagining I am rubbing up against your sweetness, Faye.