• Make a plan for a better life.
The day was my own again. I had reclaimed my space. I started at the end of my list. After fifty sit-ups I lay back on the lounge floor. It didn’t seem enough. I did another fifty.
I went to The bathroom but there were no scales. I went into Dad’s bedroom and opened the cupboard. Suits and shirts, dresses and skirts hung there like a row of headless people waiting in a bus queue. I glanced over at the bed. The bed where Dad and Alice slept. And didn’t sleep. The middle-aged having sex is a thought to be pushed aside. Especially if a parent is involved. I was a sixteen-year-old virgin. I didn’t want to save myself for love, I wanted it over and done with. Like an exam. But I was frightened of failing. I swotted up on it by talking to Scarlet. I studied magazines. I thought I would need to do it before I was eighteen—if I was to keep on schedule. But eighteen would roll around too quickly. The spin of the earth had speeded up, surely it had speeded up.
The scales were lying at the bottom of the cupboard, like a slab of concrete. They looked heavy and cumbersome but they were deceptively light. I weighed myself. I had lost another three pounds. Was it good enough? Was anything ever good enough? Were my results good enough? Probably. Would my next set of results be good enough? Good enough for who? Was I a good enough daughter, a good enough friend, a good enough sister, a good enough citizen? And who decides?
It’s your own thoughts that try you, judge and condemn you. I wanted thoughts out of my head. I wanted to put my hand in and pull out what I didn’t want. Give my mind a wash and a rinse. Being on my own made my thoughts my only company. I phoned Scarlet. No reply. I went to the shop for a magazine. I decided to smile at people on the way. I would pass a comment to the girl in the shop. I would discard the real me and be a friendly shopper. Everybody loves a friendly shopper.
I made the week pass slowly. I was a Time Lord. Or maybe that should be Lady. I worked out that when I got back home, there would be two days before term started. That was fixed. Not even a Time Lord could change it.
Mum looked nervous. I went upstairs and Mum, Dad and Eliza followed me. Like bodyguards. The room was green and everything was back in its place. It was like I’d been burgled or something. Worse than that—molested, violated. The space around me had been raped. It could never be the same. I had to be in that space and it was no longer mine.
‘Do you like it?’
Did I? I didn’t really know. The colour was OK. It didn’t really matter.
‘It’s great. Thanks, Mum.’
I could hear the relief. We all knew it could have gone the other way. We all had a cup of tea. Everyone was happy. I sat in the lounge to read.
I felt sick again that night. Mum said she would phone the doctor. Just to be on the safe side.
The next day I wanted the house to myself, like it was at Dad’s. But it was Sunday and Mum and Eliza were there. They take up a lot of space.
I phoned Scarlet. She was bored.
‘I’ve got no money but we could go and sit in the park.’
So we did. We sat on the grass. The sun shone down on us. We talked. We laughed. We just sat. Doing nothing. Being us.
‘What’s it like, going to your dad’s?’ Scarlet asked again.
‘It’s cool.’
‘I’m going to my dad’s new place next weekend.’
‘It’ll be fine, honestly it’ll be fine.’
‘It’ll seem odd, though, him in a different place. At the moment, it’s just like he’s away on business, but living somewhere else…I can’t imagine it. I don’t think he can even cook. And what will we talk about? We can’t really talk about Mum, but I want to tell him about her, how she’s crying and everything. Do you think he still cares? I don’t want him to be bitchy about Mum. Can men be bitchy? Anyway, it all seems so shitty, you know—awkward.’
‘You get used to it. Don’t worry.’
Scarlet looked into me, pleading with me, wanting more than I could give.
‘Sorry, I’m being a shit friend,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s just I don’t know what to say, everyone’s different.’
‘You’re right, Jo. If you told me about how it is with your dad, I’d expect the same, but it won’t be the same, will it? I think what you’re saying is that I’ve got to work it out for myself. I suppose it just gets easier.’
‘It does.’
‘I just didn’t expect to feel this churned up. Did you feel churned up?’
She asked like it was in the past, like I was over it. At the time, I cried. I think I might have cried a lot. Then I learnt not to.
‘I guess I did. It’s only natural.’
‘Of course it is. Thanks, Jo.’
The park was spotted with small groups of people. Families mostly and some groups of kids and teenagers. Anonymous faces. People I wouldn’t recognise again in a line-up.
Everyone was smiling but they couldn’t all be happy. Statistically impossible. I glanced at Scarlet. Her lips were turned up and her eyes were narrowed as she squinted towards the sun. Sad but smiling, it seemed. I held a mirror to myself. I put my hand towards my face. I was smiling too. In spite of everything. It was the hot August sun. It creased up people’s faces into grimaces with laughter lines. Very deceptive.
‘The bigger the arse, the more likely the chance of them wearing shorts,’ I declared, nodding my head towards an obese woman, ice cream smeared across her chins. It was cruel, but it made Scarlet laugh. That was kind, making her laugh.
‘If I looked like that, I wouldn’t leave the house.’ Scarlet could out-cruel me.
I scanned the horizon for more fat people. There were plenty to choose from. Disgusting white flesh oozing over tight clothes. Like lard in the gravy tray. I pointed to a fat husband and wife.
‘How do they actually do it?’ I asked Scarlet. ‘They couldn’t get near enough to each other.’
Scarlet rolled over with laughter. Her arms and legs splayed out like she was having a fit. Hysterical. Out of control. She really let herself go. I laughed too but swallowed some of it back again.
‘Earthquake alert,’ I whispered as a flabby woman jogged past. Thump, thump, wheeze.
Shared cruelty made us a team. It glued us together.
‘That’s more like it.’ Scarlet sat up and smoothed her clothes down. She was looking at two guys with their tops off, kicking a football about. Showing off. Brown skin sweating in the heat. Aware of Scarlet’s gaze. And mine. I turned away, looking for more people to laugh at. Scarlet nudged me; drew me back again.
‘I’m boiling,’ I moaned. ‘Let’s go and find some shade.’
We bought a couple of Cokes from the van and went and sat under the trees near the bandstand. It was sweltering. I thought about death.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Scarlet lazily.
‘School tomorrow.’
School tomorrow, exams at the end of the year, more exams, a job, house, mortgage, life insurance, marriage maybe, children, middle age, menopause, stair lifts, death. Death is at the end of every list. Whatever route you take, whatever path you choose, they all end in the same place. Nowhere.
I remember when I was four years old. I lay on my bed. I couldn’t sleep. I called for my mother.
‘What if I die in the night?’ I asked.
‘You won’t.’She smiled. ‘You’ll still be here in the morning.’
‘Where