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232. Phillip
233. Faye
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1 (#u6f0e52ae-8d78-55d7-b689-71508db37948)
Erica (#u6f0e52ae-8d78-55d7-b689-71508db37948)
I watch you every day, walking past my flat on the way to the school drop-off, holding your older daughter’s hand, pushing the younger one along in the buggy. Sometimes strolling and chatting. Sometimes rushing. Usually wearing your gym kit. Judging by your body shape, your commitment to exercise is worth it. I wish I had a figure like yours.
Your older daughter has gappy teeth and straggly hair. Nowhere near as pretty as you. Your husband must have diluted the gene pool. The younger one, the toddler, is always asleep in the buggy. She looks to have stronger hair, and a chubbier face. I would have loved to have children, but I’ve never been in the right relationship.
I envy you, and have from the first moment I saw you scurry past. A moment I recall so well. I was bored. I had nothing to do but look out of my front window, and watch the world go by. Three p.m. Parents rushing to the primary school at pickup time. Parents, nannies, and then you. The woman I would look like if I could, moving past me. The image of my mother from my only remaining photograph. So similar you made me hold my breath.
A few days ago, when you dropped your gym card, I finally found out that your name is Faye Baker. You didn’t notice it fall from the back pocket of your jeans as you tightened your laces, did you? As you turned in to the school gates I left my flat, and crossed the road to pick it up. Later that day I handed it in to the school reception. Were you grateful, Faye?
2 (#u6f0e52ae-8d78-55d7-b689-71508db37948)
Faye (#u6f0e52ae-8d78-55d7-b689-71508db37948)
We move towards the school gates through air intertwined with drizzle. The drizzle tightens and turns to icy drops of rain, which spit into my face and make me wince a little. I squeeze my elder daughter Tamsin’s hand more tightly.
‘Let’s hurry up, otherwise we’ll be drenched,’ I tell her.
Together, we push the buggy and run laughing into the school playground. Breathless now, Tamsin and I hug and part. My five-year-old disappears into the classroom. Into its light and warmth. Its quirky smell of woodchip and Play-Doh.
Free for a while from the responsibility of looking after her, my body lightens. But the rain is thickening. I fasten the rain hood more tightly across the buggy and navigate our way back across the playground, sighing inside, dodging puddles. Later on I’ll have to do my hair again. I always have to do my hair again when it rains.
As I walk along the side of Twickenham Green, past the bistro restaurant that used to be the public toilets, towards the gym – trainers squelching across dark grey paving stones, the rain begins to fall in sheets. Through the town centre, rain intensifying. I arrive at the Anytime Leisure Club looking as if I’ve been for a swim, and use my card to check through reception. Some kind soul handed it in to the school office when I dropped it last week. Georgia is still fast asleep in her buggy as I deposit her in the crèche.
At last, still rather damp, I make it into class. Legs, bums and tums today. Anastasia, our instructor, stands beaming at the front. She is about ten years older than me. Her healthy glow contains a whiff of Botox and facial fillers. An attractive hint of plasticity that so many people have these days. I’ll have to start before too long, when my husband Phillip gets his next major pay rise. The sooner you start the greater the effects. I’ve read about it on the internet.
Anastasia begins. We copy. Stretching out on our floor mats, progressing through our usual early positions. Back stretch first, then gentle stomach crunches. My body is my asset. I was academic at school. I have good GCSEs. Good A levels. But lots of people have good A levels, and not many people have a body like mine. My face and body are what differentiate me. I need to work hard to maintain them. My exercise class is my everyday routine; essential for my career.
‘Lift your right elbow to your left knee,’ Anastasia instructs in her bell-like voice.
My mind starts to drift back to the evening I became Miss Surrey. Eighteen years old, standing on stage decked in a ribbon and a crown, listening to the clapping of the audience. So beautiful. So special. Nothing else mattered but the moment. My stomach tightens in pain. That moment didn’t last. I never became Miss England. The higher echelons of beauty pageants were denied to me.
‘Lie back and stretch. Arms above your head,’ Anastasia bellows from the front.
But age has brought a maturity to my beauty that has improved my looks. And several modelling jobs: M&S Foods, Accessorize, and the Littlewoods magazine. Not much to shout about, but give me time.
‘Lower the right arm. Keep the left arm raised. Back flat against the floor. Flat as you can. Don’t forget to breathe.’
I’ll get my break, one day. Slowly, slowly, I breathe in. Slowly, slowly, I exhale. Until that day I must look after my body, and never give up.
3 (#u6f0e52ae-8d78-55d7-b689-71508db37948)
Erica (#u6f0e52ae-8d78-55d7-b689-71508db37948)
I watch you walk past, faster than usual because of the sudden heavy rain, which has really caught you out. You are not even wearing a raincoat. Your normally bouffant hair is wet and flat. Why don’t you wear a hat, just in case? Are you too cool for that, Faye?
After you have gone, the cold of my flat begins to sink into my bones and I find myself shivering. I have been living here for two years, surrounded by fingers of mould, which creep up the tile grouting and form a black mist on the walls. The central heating doesn’t work. I have tried contacting the landlord, but he never replies. Sometimes I use a fan heater, but it doesn’t really help. It just circulates overheated air making me feel so claustrophobic that after about twenty minutes I turn it off. So most of the time in winter I walk around my flat wrapped in a scratchy old blanket. Mouse says I look like a tramp in it, so I try not to wear it when he is around. Not that he comes here very often. His flat is so much more comfortable than mine; I usually visit him there.
I sit, feeling empty inside. Coping with each day has, for many years, been a struggle. A plethora of temporary jobs. No focus. But it’s become easier in the last six months. Since I started to follow you. Since I started spending time with Mouse. It’s raining today, so I cannot follow you. When it rains I need to check on Mouse.
Mouse lives in the flat directly above mine. I pad up the communal staircase.
‘It’s Erica,’ I shout through his letter box.
Slowly, slowly, the door opens. I step straight into his living room. He stands in front of me, agitated.
‘Wotcha.’
‘Wotcha, Erica,’ he replies.
I high-five him. He high-fives me back. A ritual between us, the result of watching too many American films together. I cast my eye around his flat and feel a tremor of envy. His father bought it for him, and helped him decorate it. It has central heating that works, and is beautifully appointed. IKEA furniture. Copious kitchen equipment. But then Mouse is vulnerable and he really needs his father’s help. I must not resent the good fortune of a friend.
He walks into the sitting area of his living room. I follow him. He stalks up and down in front of the window, wringing his hands and glowering at the rain. I walk over to him and put my hand on his arm.
‘The rain isn’t going to hurt you.’ I pause and look into his anxious face.
Grey-brown eyes stiffen. ‘It wants to.’
‘It can’t, remember? As long as you stay inside.’
His eyes soften. He frowns. He sighs and flops down into the middle of the sofa. I sink into the easy chair opposite him.
Mouse. Thirty years old. Nicknamed Mouse because of his timid personality and grey-brown hair.
‘What’s up?’ he asks.
‘Been busy.’
‘Because of Faye?’
‘Yep.’
He leans across and takes my hands in his, face pressed towards mine. ‘But you’re here today.’
I squeeze his hands. Mouse has difficulty reading emotions and suffers from phobias. I have confidence issues because of my upbringing. Perhaps one day I will be able to overcome them. But Mouse won’t recover from his issues. He just has to learn to live in this world despite them. That’s why Mouse’s father has done so much to support him. Mouse’s father is my hero. I wish I had a father like that. But I do not have a father. My mother never knew who my father was.
We sit in silence for a while.
‘I’ve bought something at the charity shop,’ Mouse eventually announces as he pads across the room. ‘I’ll show you.’
Rain forgotten now that I’m here, he opens his living room cupboard and pulls out a large cardboard box. He places it in the middle of the sitting area, lifts out a silver and bronze chess set, the pieces finely etched, and puts it on the floor. He stands up, shoulders back in pride.
‘That looks fantastic,’ I tell him.
He smiles at me. A broad, effervescent smile. When he smiles, despite his rough-hewn features, Mouse is good-looking.
‘Do you want to play chess with me?’
‘You’ll have to teach me.’
‘That’s fine. I bought it for both of us so that we could play together.’
My heart lurches. What would I do if I didn’t have Mouse?
I close my eyes and feel again my mother’s heat as I lay clamped against her, waiting for her to wake up. I feel her breath steady and even, not the agonising rasping I heard when I first called the ambulance. Eleven years old. A man stepping towards me, to prise me away. A man who smells of nicotine and mint. The social worker in charge of my case. I shudder inside and push the memory away. My mind is back. Back in Mouse’s comfortable flat.
‘Come on, Erica, I’ll teach you how to play chess,’ he says, flicking his grey-brown locks.
4 (#u6f0e52ae-8d78-55d7-b689-71508db37948)
Faye (#u6f0e52ae-8d78-55d7-b689-71508db37948)
Home from the gym. In my bedroom, trying to rescue my hair. I have managed to wash it. But Georgia has woken from her morning nap, so drying it will be a problem.
‘I’m not Georgia any more,’ she tells me. ‘I’m a kangaroo.’
She bends down, face plastered in a mischievous grin. ‘I need to do my hopping practice.’ She begins to hop around our bedroom. Even though she is only three years old, she is heavy enough to make the floorboards vibrate. I shouldn’t have let her sleep for so long. Now she is full of energy. She picks up my Chanel perfume.
‘Kangaroos like perfume,’ she announces, spraying it into the air around her.
I snatch it away and put it in a drawer. ‘They don’t like perfume. They like grass.’
‘Come on then, Mummy, let’s go outside and get some.’
‘I can’t go outside, I need to dry my hair.’
‘Well I’ll go then,’ she says, jumping towards the door.
I lean across and lock it. ‘No. No. You can’t go alone. I’ll come outside with you later.’
‘OK, Mummy, I’ll wait.’
She jumps up and down on the spot. She bounces towards the dressing table, and picks up my new eyeshadow.
‘Kangaroos like wearing make-up too.’
‘No they don’t. Kangaroos like sitting on their mummy’s bed watching films.’
I sweep her into my arms and lift her onto the bed. I snap the TV on and find The Jungle Book, her favourite film, on Amazon Prime. I sit at my dressing table, brush my hair and switch the hairdryer on. She slips off the bed and moves towards me. She shakes my leg to get my attention.
‘Where do shadows come from?’ she asks.
I snap the hairdryer off. ‘Go back and watch the video. Ask Daddy tonight,’ I suggest. ‘He knows that sort of thing.’
Phillip knows so many weird random facts. As soon as I met him I admired his intelligence.
She tosses her head disapprovingly. ‘You just want to dry your hair, not talk to me, Mummy.’
‘I need to dry my hair, Georgia – it’s wet.’
She stoops into her kangaroo position again, hands like paws, bent in front of her chest. I scoop her in my arms and place her on the bed again in front of The Jungle Book. I sit next to her with my arms around her, to try and calm her. Then when she is engrossed in the movie, I creep away and continue to blow-dry my hair. When I have finally finished smoothing my hair, I turn the TV off.
‘Come on, we’re off to the shops,’ I announce.
She wriggles off the sofa and slips her hand in mine.
‘Can I walk, Mummy? Leave the buggy here?’
Her walking is more of a totter than a walk. But she smiles at me, and as soon as I see her smile, I melt. So after wrapping up against the rain, brandishing a brolly this time, we leave our modern town house, holding hands. Georgia is now tired of being a kangaroo. Just when I would like to go quickly, we move like snails. Turning the corner past the line of fine Victorian houses, towards the high street. Right onto the main road. Past the green, beneath the bridge. Dust from passing traffic spitting into our faces as we slowly progress towards the centre of town. At last we arrive at a narrow doorway between the bank and the chip shop. The entrance for Serendipity Model Agency. The scent of the chip shop assaults my nostrils as I press the buzzer. The speaker attached to the buzzer vibrates. I lean my weight on the door and we tumble inside.
Slowly, slowly, still holding hands, we pad upstairs to Serendipity Model Agency, run solely by my agent, Mimi Featherington. She has ten clients, and a room above the chip shop that always smells of burnt fat.
I knock on the glass door at the top of the stairs.
‘Come in,’ Mimi invites, opening the door to welcome us. ‘How lovely to see you.’
Georgia stares at Mimi’s purple Mohican hair. Mimi, a forty-year-old punk rocker, with a neat face spoilt by a plethora of pins sticking into it. We follow Mimi into her office.
‘So good to see you,’ she simpers.
My heart sinks. Mimi always simpers when she hasn’t any news. And I so wanted her to be telling me I had a new modelling contract.
‘I just thought I’d pop in and see how things were going,’ I say with a shrug of my shoulders.
‘Do sit down,’ she says gesticulating to the chair in front of her desk. I do as she requests and Georgia scrambles onto my lap.
‘What did you want to know?’ Mimi asks.
My insides tighten. It’s obvious, isn’t it? When will she send me some decent work? I’ve done reasonable work before, haven’t I? I need the Serendipity Model Agency to really, really pull their finger out. To get me the work I deserve.
‘Just wondered whether you’d heard from the estate agent yet?’ I ask, putting my head on one side in an attempt to look as nonchalant as possible.
Mimi’s eyes flicker. ‘I’m afraid it’s a no. They liked you a lot but …’ She crosses her legs and folds her arms.
