Something Beginning With

I remember reading about a jilted girlfriend once who got her own back on her boyfriend by letting herself into his flat when he was away and planting grass seed all over the carpet. She went in every morning of his holiday and watered it. I would have loved to have seen his face when he opened the door.

I always used to want a dog. I would imagine waking up nearly every morning and hearing one barking for me downstairs. Once I picked a particularly beautiful leaf and kept it in a glass bowl as a pet until I got bored with it. I do realise how pathetic this seems now, but at the time I really loved that leaf.

See Ambition, Revenge, Tornados

Doors

Apparently, it is impossible to have an advertisement in Britain that features a shut door. This is because so many children were locked in their bedrooms as a punishment and now, even as adults, they automatically start to panic when the door isn’t open. Even just an inch makes things better.

There were times when my mother used to tell me to stay in my bedroom. It wasn’t cruel, she just wanted a break from looking after me. I’d have as many books as I wanted, treats to eat. I’d make myself a nest up there.

I’d keep the door shut then. Close out the rest of the world. Keep it all safe.

See Houses, Noddy, Property, Velvet, Yellow

Dreams

Sally once went out with a man who liked to record her dreams in a diary. She had to break off with him because she got too exhausted. She’d be awake all night trying to think of interesting things for him to write about.

See Codes, Mistaken Identity, Utopia

E

Ears

I like to stick cotton-wool buds in my ears and turn them round, pushing harder and harder. I crave the satisfaction it brings. Sometimes even when I have friends round, all I can think of is that round plastic jar of baby buds until I have to go into my bedroom and clean my ears. It’s like an itch. Once I twisted too hard and my head filled with a howling pain. I vowed then never to do it again. Until the next time.

There was a boy at school called Stewart Simmons. One day he was swinging on his chair during Geography when the teacher called him to attention. He was taken by surprise, and as he fell, the compass he was holding pierced right through his eardrum. He screamed.

Three years later, when I joined the class, the other children were still talking about the loudness of that scream. When we were fifteen, I went out with Stewart Simmons and felt the reflected glory from his fame. He would still scream in the playground for money.

The trouble was that Stewart was boring when he wasn’t making a noise. He wanted to be a lorry driver and sometimes when we were lying together on his bed, he’d be able to name the type of lorry that went past the window just from the sound of its tyres. He seemed to feel this was particularly clever as he was still deaf in one ear from the compass incident.

See Captains, The Fens, Sounds

Elephant’s Egg

When we went to London Zoo for my eighth birthday, I fell in love with the elephants. I wanted to move in with them and be the little elephant who never strayed from her mother’s side. I wanted people to say how sweet I was, and take pictures of me, and have my father wrap his trunk around me, swishing the flies off or sprinkling water over me to wash my back.

The following year, the day before my birthday, I asked to go and see the elephants again. My mother got cross and said money didn’t grow on trees, but when I got back from school that afternoon, there was a message from the Zoo. Apparently the elephant at London Zoo had laid an egg especially for me and my family to eat. It was going to come on my birthday.

The only trouble was that the zookeeper left it on our doorstep during the only two minutes in the day that I stopped watching for him. I took it into the kitchen where my mother was waiting to cook it. She was cross with me for not keeping a proper look-out because it meant she couldn’t thank the keeper for bringing it all that way.

This happened every year until I was fifteen. I never managed to catch the zookeeper. My mother never managed to thank him.

An elephant’s egg is not like an ordinary egg. The white tastes like mashed potato, and the yolk is never runny, being a bit like a large round sausage. I’ve had sausage and mashed potatoes many times since, but never anything as good as those elephant’s eggs.

See The Queen, The Queen II

Endings

Ever since the Australian incident, I have been spending more time in my flat. My best treat is to pop into a bookshop and pick up a book to read. Then I curl up on the sofa with a bottle of wine and read myself into a trance.

The sort of books I like best are those in which I can completely lose myself. At first, I sit with the unopened book on my lap waiting to meet the main character with that sense of anticipation I always get on blind dates. Is this person going to be my new best friend? And then there’s a moment – normally just over half-way through – when my heart grows until it’s too big for my body because all these dreadful things are happening in the book and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. I can’t even tell the character they’re making all the wrong decisions. I’ve just got to keep on reading. But then I get to the last words and I can’t believe it, I keep my fingers on the end sentence because it can’t all finish there. It’s as if they’ve shut the door and left me on the other side, unwanted. And I cared so much. And there’s no way to make the characters see how much I cared.

A teacher at school told us that fairy stories always end with the prince and princess living happily ever after because what the writers were really saying, but couldn’t, was that they would die eventually. Apparently it’s a way of helping children to understand life and death. It was raining when he was telling us this.

Anyway, what he told us, very sternly, was that no one could expect to live happily ever after. It just didn’t happen. There are no happy endings, he said. I’ll never forget the sound of the rain falling on the flat roof of the classroom. Somehow it always rained when he read us stories that year.

See Breasts, Stepmothers, True Romance, Yellow, Zzzz

Engagement Ring

Colin has given Sally a ring. It isn’t an engagement ring, but that’s the finger she wears it on even though I tell her it’s bad luck.

She won’t let me try it on or even touch it. She says she remembers me telling her about how I posted my mother’s engagement ring into my piggy bank when I was six.

It’s true my mother cried in secret for days after the ring first went missing. The strange thing was that she didn’t tell anyone. Not even my father. I’m sure about this because I think if she had, he’d have started one of those inquisitions he was so fond of. Instead, she was quieter than normal. I’d come across her in odd rooms, frantically searching through cupboards, drawers, pockets, piles of things. Sometimes her eyes looked white and strained as if she was forcing herself not to weep.

Sally still can’t understand why I never told my mother what I had done, but it was one of those china piggy banks you had to break to open and I loved the spotty smoothness of my pig. And then, of course, I left it too late. I wouldn’t have been able to put the ring back on the dressing table and pretend it hadn’t happened because Mum had moved the table to the other side of the room. I guess now she’d been taking up the carpet to check the ring hadn’t fallen down there.

Dad went mad when he eventually found my mother had lost her ring, but it was such a long time afterwards that I couldn’t feel guilty any more. If my mother had really cared she’d have made a fuss at the time. She was always losing things.

See Daisies, Mistaken Identity, True Romance, Voices

F

Fashion

My favourite book when I was growing up was called The Little White Horse. There were two things about it I remember particularly. One was the sugary biscuits that were left in a silver tin in the heroine’s tower bedroom. Some even had little pastel flowers iced on them. The other was the heroine’s journey to the castle to stay with her unknown uncle. She was nervous, but still able to get pleasure from her beautiful laced-up boots tucked away under her long skirts. Even though no one else could see them, she knew they were there, and that was enough.

It gave me a thrill of recognition. It probably shaped my life. Made me see the strength you could get from having the right kind of secrets.

I spend a lot of time shopping. I search out clothes which have special things about them only I will know. I hug these to me. A certain colour that makes me want to eat it; a lining of soft plum silk; the Liberty print trim to a denim pocket; a perfectly shaped pleat which kicks up the edge of a skirt.

Coco Chanel knew all about this. She used to sew a gold chain invisibly into the hems of her jackets so they would be ideally weighted around the bottom.

I think if I could have a jacket like that I would die happy. I would be buried in it.

See Codes, Underwear, Women’s Laughter

Fat Women

I am the last person to judge anyone else based on appearances alone, but I wonder if anyone else notices how difficult it is to see a fat woman and a small thin man together and not think of them having violent, needy and possibly perverted sex?

See Indecent Exposure, Sex, Toys, Voyeur, Weight, Wrists

The Fens

Every time I tell people I come from the Fens, the only thing they can think of to say is, ‘Well, there’s certainly a lot of sky there.’ But here are three other things to know about the Fens:

1. A lot of the children I went to school with had webbed feet. In the Fens, this is quite usual. They weren’t heavy like duck feet, but just a sliver of thin skin, so transparent as to be like silver, between each toe and the next.When these children flexed their toes, it was the most beautiful sight I could imagine, especially after swimming when the drops of water would glisten and sparkle.

2. The roads in the Fens are long and straight and run alongside treacherous dykes. They look even straighter because the houses on either side are slipping lower and lower back into the soil. If I was quiet, I could almost hear it sucking at me. Anyway, because it gets so dark at night – all that sky – a lot of people have accidents and drive into the ditches and die. Often when we were driving in the Fens during the daylight, we would see bouquets of flowers by the side of the road from the night before.

A doctor and his wife once had a terrible accident in the ditch opposite our house. He managed to get out of the car before it got submerged but she drowned. He was so grief-stricken that he sat on the side until he was sure she had died. It became a craze for many months afterwards, imagining just what it must have felt for the wife with all that water pressing against the car window, and being able to see her husband through the waves, watching her scream.

3. Not many people appreciate that if you lie in a field of broad bean plants in flower, just as the sun is going down, you will find yourself surrounded by the smell of Chanel No 5. It just goes to show that if you know where to look there is beauty in even the most unlikely places.

See Fat Women

Firefighting

Sometimes when I’m busy at work, I think of Sally’s new life as a mistress, and wonder how she is keeping herself occupied. When we left school and started work, we had so many plans. We were going to start a business together and although we could never decide what to do we had lots of ideas. We were going to train in martial arts and hire ourselves out as bodyguards. We’d look like classy dates, but if someone tried to kill our partners, we’d be able to high-kick our way out of trouble. We were going to run a truly caring removal company, make novelty cushions, revamp people’s wardrobes. In the meantime I went to work for a bank and Sally got a job selling advertising space for the local newspaper. That’s when she persuaded me to follow her into the media, although I was worried at first because my personality has never been as bouncy as hers. I could never cold-call like Sally could.

For example, one summer holiday Sally got us both a job selling fire extinguishers. We were supposed to walk into shops and while one of us distracted the shop assistant, the other would start a small fire that we would then put out with the fire extinguisher to show how efficient it was.

My father found out what we had to do on the day we were supposed to start, and banned me from joining Sally on safety grounds. Although she kept telling me how much fun she was having and how much I was missing out, I was secretly relieved. Sometimes the things Sally makes herself do frighten me.

See Attitude, Danger, Impostor Syndrome, Sex

Forehead

Sally asked me what I thought of Colin.

I said he was OK. Nothing special. Nothing worth throwing your life away for. But then Sally said that Colin had told her I was a bit intense. Apparently I keep staring at him.

At first I didn’t know what he was talking about. But then I realised. Colin plays rugby. He’d come to the pub with a group of his friends after they’d been playing in the park. It was true. I couldn’t stop looking at them. They all had the same foreheads. A bulging shelf that hung over their eyes and made them look unfocused and brainless. Other men didn’t have this. The rugby players even shared the same wavy wrinkles across their foreheads. It was as if an empty space had been badly filled with cement and then someone had made patterns on it with a comb when it was still wet.

I wanted to ask why rugby players look and sound permanently concussed, but they were all busy talking to each other and ignoring Sally and me. I didn’t think Colin had seen me looking.

See Nostrils, Vendetta, X-rated, Youth

Friends

Every time I go out now with the girls, we talk about Sally.

I think that nowadays we spend more time thinking about her than we ever did when she was spending time with us. We wonder if she’s really happy, if she thinks Colin is genuine in his desire for her, what it must be like to have such a one-sided relationship. We agree we only have her best interests at heart.

We are supportive even though Sally doesn’t always deserve it. I know that Miranda hasn’t forgotten the time we were talking about making love and she was explaining the importance of truly caring for the other person and how necessary it was to be treated as if you were someone precious.

‘I could never have inappropriate meaningless sex,’ Miranda said finally. She was so earnest that Sally was the only one round the table who didn’t nod.

‘I could,’ Sally said, staring at the businessman on the next table, and ignoring Miranda’s frown. She left the restaurant with the businessman, and afterwards she wouldn’t tell anyone what had happened. Not even when we begged. She said we wouldn’t approve.

It was so typical of her, but even so, the last thing we all want is for Sally’s relationship not to work out.

Whenever I ring Sally to pass on everyone’s best wishes, she laughs.

‘We’re here waiting for you if things don’t work out,’ I tell her but she says that’s just what she’s worried about.

See Outcast, Vendetta

G

Glenda G-Spot

I told Monica at work that I didn’t go out very much in the evening so she invited me around to her house. I thought it was just going to be the two of us, but it was only when I got there that she told me she was having a sex party.

This is like Tupperware for desperate women although we didn’t do ‘it’; in fact not much of the evening was about actually doing ‘it’. There were just lots and lots of gadgets for sale which simulated doing ‘it’. There were about ten women there, all older than me. Monica’s age. We sat in a circle and passed these gadgets round, sometimes without saying a word. Every so often Monica walked round with a tray of little savoury biscuits smeared with hummus and pâté and filled up our glasses with fizzy sweet wine.

The woman who was organising the party was like a perverted Mary Poppins. Just when I thought it was all finished, she put her hand into an enormous canvas bag and pulled out something else. She made us play games and gave us all silly names. I was Glenda G-Spot, Monica was Wendy Wetdream and the girl sitting next to me was Cathy Come. It was hard to know whether to call each other by our real names or the names on the labels the woman stuck on our chests.

Cathy Come and I got into the final of one game where we had to pass an enormous black dildo under our chins between one another without dropping it. Cathy Come cheated because she kept angling it so it was difficult to get hold of. Mind you, I was quite pleased to come second because although Cathy won the dildo, I got a bottle of an apricot-flavoured sauce, which seemed nicer somehow.

I left when the woman drew out a blow-up man from her bag. One of his legs was stapled up from when a dog had got hold of it, she said. The air kept fizzling out of him, and I don’t like to say where the nozzle was to blow him back up.

See Liqueur Chocolates, Names, Toys

Glitter

It worries me that all everyone thinks about these days is sex. I asked Sally about this and she told me a story the other day about a friend of hers who is a nurse. The friend’s elderly mother came to stay the night before she was due to have a gynaecological examination in the hospital Sally’s friend works in. The mother was very nervous so she spent a lot of time preparing in Sally’s friend’s bathroom before her appointment. She wanted to be very clean because no man had looked at her ‘down there’ before, not even her own husband.

The examination went very well, but just as he was finishing the doctor said: ‘I would like to thank you for making such a big effort.’

Sally’s friend and her mother discussed this afterwards. Could it just be because Sally’s friend’s mother was so clean? Eventually, they went through to the bathroom and looked through the cupboard to see the lotions the mother had used.

Imagine Sally’s friend’s horror when she realised her mother had sprayed her pubic hair with green glitter spray for the doctor. When she went into work the next day, everyone was laughing about her mother’s private parts and how when her legs were wide open, they were lit up like a Christmas tree.

Sally and I laughed too, although I stopped after a while.

‘Why did your friend have glitter in her bathroom anyway?’ I asked, but Sally said I was always too literal.

But now I can’t stop wondering if she sprays herself with glitter for Colin.

See Indecent Exposure, Sex

God

I used to spend a long time listening out for messages from God. Despite what the nuns said, I thought I had a vocation and if I didn’t concentrate, I might miss the sign. In the same way, I used to check my hands for stigmata every morning.

I never got a message. I know now this is a blessing. Imagine if I had spotted the Star of Bethlehem one night on my way back from a club. Could I really tell anyone without being locked up? Or what if the sign I did get was so stupid, it made people laugh? Like that Victorian couple who also gave up a lot of their lives to listening out for God. When the message finally came, they were beside themselves with excitement. They probably told all their friends, so imagine their humiliation when they eventually deciphered it.

‘Eat more slowly,’ God told them.

See Ambition, Codes, Phantom E-mails

Gossip

Every time Brian finds me talking to someone at work, he tells me off for being a gossip, but why is it that two men found talking together are thought to be discussing something important but two women are always gossiping?

See Boxing, Glitter, Moustache, Women’s Laughter

Grief

There was a little boy in the park the other day. He was dressed in the full England kit, like a miniature footballer. He even had those long socks on and when he ran, he did that sideways swagger at the hips men do to make it look as if they aren’t properly running. Just getting to somewhere quickly.

But then he fell over and his face went all square. Not just the shape of his face, but every little feature in it went square. His mouth was the most obvious. It turned into a letterbox in the middle of this red block. But even his eyes looked like small angular black stamps. His whole body went rigid too and when his shoulders shook, they turned into straight lines that went up and down, up and down, like a lift. I watched as his mother ran up and tried to grab hold of him. It was difficult for her at first because his edges were too sharp, but then he suddenly deflated into a rag doll and she picked him up and took him over to the bench and made him happy again.

Just like that. I saw how she made him happy. One second he was crying and the next he was pointing at a dog and laughing.

I think the secret is in getting the tears out. Some mornings I wake up, and I know I’ve been crying in my sleep, but I just can’t get the tears out. That’s when you think you’re drowning. You’re not sharp or square. Just an empty outline filled up to the brim with lukewarm water that numbs everything inside you. You’re too full to take anything in, and too blocked to let anything out. That’s grief. Everything else is just sadness, and seeing a funny dog can make you better.

See Happiness, Illness, Why?, You

Gwyneth Paltrow

If I looked like Gwyneth Paltrow, nothing else could possibly go wrong in my life. And that’s all I want to say about her. Basically.

See Breasts, Star Quality

H

Hair

My hair is very long and black. There’s a little nub of black at the end of each strand. Like a small pool of ink. I can squash it between two pieces of paper so it sticks and leaves a dark streak when I press on it. I can even write with it. Sometimes I find marks I have left in books and forgotten about. Once I even did it to a library book. If I am ever captured, I will be able to write a note with my hair. It is possibly the one advantage brunettes have over blondes.

Actually, I have started to pull my hair out. Each time I tug at a strand, there is a second when I don’t think I am going to be able to bear the pain. It’s the only thing I can think about, but it never lasts long enough. When it’s over, I flick the hair to the ground and immediately pull at another.

I was trying on some clothes the other day and I saw what I thought was a bald patch at the back of my head in the mirror. My legs nearly buckled, but when I went closer I saw that it was just the reflection from the light shining on my hair. I told myself that I would stop pulling. Not that day, but one day soon.