So Lucky

‘You have a podcast?’ I ask her. This is news to me. If I’m honest, I’m not even really sure what a podcast is, or why everyone suddenly has one. I don’t have high hopes for Risky’s. She is very sweet, and I know her heart is in the right place. But she generally has a lot to say about nothing. Her version of feminism is well-meaning, but quite innocent and inexperienced. She has absolute faith in all women.

‘Yup. I’ve done three episodes. My last one has had nearly eighty listeners.’

‘Wow, that’s huge,’ I say, offering nothing but encouragement.

‘Yup, I’m really brave with my subject matter. I say it like it is and I’m all about female empowerment and women supporting women, and all that stuff. And you’re such a big part of why I feel like one day I could have it all. A career, and baby, a marriage in which I am respected. You’re so lucky.’

To the sound of the low hum of my breast pump, I let those words linger in the air for a moment or two. She looks at me, love hearts and protest posters flashing in her eyes. A sparkling twenty-six-year-old whose dream it was to work for a wedding planning company, who thinks that one day her own marriage will be everything she ever dreamed of. Equal. I’m not going to be the one who tells her otherwise.

‘I sure am,’ I say. ‘Lucky, lucky me!’

Ruby

‘I have an eleven a.m. with Vera,’ I say to the receptionist, out of breath. I feel like I’ve climbed a mountain to get here this morning. I just need to get this done, and then I can calm down. I let Bonnie out of her buggy and tell her to sit on the sofa. I give her a bag of gummy bears to keep her busy. I ducked into a shop on the way here and bought nearly all of their confectionary to bribe her with for the next few hours. I need her to sit still.

‘Your name?’ the receptionist asks, even though I am here every five weeks and she damn well should know it. I put my Balmain handbag onto the desk. I find expensive handbags are a great distraction and a good way to gain status. I often present them to people when I don’t want the focus to be on me. She barely even looks at it, demonstrating a distinct lack of taste.

‘Ruby,’ I tell her, tapping my fingers on the counter. She’s wearing a very tight top and looks ridiculous. Her cleavage is staring me in the face. What is the point in dressing like that when you’re coming to work in a space where you’ll essentially only encounter women? Is it just so, on the off chance a man walks in, she is sex ready? I have half a mind to tell her she’s overexposing herself.

‘And your surname?’

‘For God’s sake, Blake,’ I say, with agitation. ‘Ruby Blake. Eleven a.m. with Vera.’

‘Oh yeah, there you are,’ she says, raising her eyebrows at my stress levels. ‘Vera left, I’m afraid. So you’ll be with Maron today.’

She has no idea of the impact of what she’s just said.

‘What do you mean, Vera left?’ Vera has been my technician for eight years. Only the second in my life. I trust Vera. Vera is the only thing that makes this process bearable. She is Russian and commutes from Wapping, there is no chance of me bumping into her outside of our sessions. That is very important to me.

‘Yup, our boss offered her a job in our Birmingham salon and she took it. Good for her. I’d have turned it down. I don’t know why anyone would choose Birmingham over London. All those motorways …’

‘Who is the Moron person?’ I ask, cutting her off. I couldn’t give a flying wax strip about how she feels about the traffic system in the West Midlands.

‘It’s Maron,’ she says, correcting me. I hadn’t actually meant to say Moron. I realise she thinks I’m horrible. I soften a little, trying to explain myself a bit better.

‘I would have appreciated being told about this before I arrived. I’ve been seeing Vera for years.’

‘Er, well, she only left a couple of days ago and we have a new technician who can do it for you.’

‘I had hoped that my loyalty would be treated in kind, do you understand that?’

‘Yeah, sorry,’ she says, absolutely not sorry but wanting me to shut up. ‘Take a seat please. Maron will be with you in a minute.’

She is petulant. It annoys me. I revert back to my angry mode as I think this situation deserves it.

‘Do you understand why I’m annoyed?’ I ask.

‘No, we have someone who can do the procedure for you.’

‘It’s not about some random person, it’s about years of building a relationship with someone and not wanting to have to start all over again.’

I feel like a man who fell in love with his prostitute and asked her to go steady. Of course Vera didn’t care about me. She was just working.

‘I don’t know what to say, look into trains to Birmingham?’ the receptionist says, as if that is a reasonable suggestion. I need to get this done today. I will meet Maron, and try to cope. I look over to Bonnie. She is quietly eating her sweets. Sticking her finger into the bag, fishing one out, rolling it around her mouth then swallowing it, savouring every single one like it’s a bag of white truffles.

I sit next to her, take four Nurofen Plus, and wait. My heart is racing. Part rage, part fear. But I have no choice. Vera moved to Birmingham. I need to get this done.

‘Ruby?’ calls a tall blonde woman, who meets all the clichés of what a person who works in a beauty salon should look like.

‘Yes,’ I snarl, wishing I wasn’t so desperate. But knowing if I wake up like this again tomorrow I’ll smash my house to pieces.

‘Hi, I’m Maron. I’ll be taking care of you today.’ She holds out a hand for me to shake. It is soft and well-manicured. My hard, bony fingers rattle in her palm. ‘Want to follow me?’

I hate her instantly. I liked Vera. She was fat. When you live with a condition like mine, there is a lot of comfort to be had in spending time with other people who push the boundaries of what is considered attractive.

‘OK,’ I say, standing up, being brave. ‘Right, Bonnie. You wait here.’ I find an episode of Peppa Pig that I’ve downloaded onto my phone and give it to her. I leave the bag of snacks next to her, telling her she can have whatever she wants. ‘I might be a while, but I’m just in there and I’ll be right back. If the video stops, you press the triangle, OK?’

Bonnie isn’t listening to me, she is too engrossed. This feels stupid and weird and wrong. But I have to get this done today. I need it done. I follow Maron.

‘Um, excuse me,’ the receptionist calls after me. ‘You can’t leave her there.’

‘Why not? She’s fine,’ I say, knowing it’s not fine. Of course it’s not fine, I could be a couple of hours. I’m so stupid.

‘If we don’t accept responsibility for lost property, we surely don’t take responsibility for children. She’ll have to go in with you.’

That can’t happen.

‘Oh come on,’ I say, softly, knowing that she already hates me and no amount of sweet talk will help.

‘I can rearrange your appointment?’

I really need to get this done now. I can’t cope with it. I hate it. It’s making so feel horrible. I don’t want to feel this ugly. I don’t want to be this angry. But Bonnie is with me. This isn’t OK.

‘Can you get me in tomorrow?’ I ask, thinking that gives me twenty-four hours to find some childcare.

‘Sorry, the earliest I have is next Thursday.’

‘FUCK,’ I yell. Maron and the one with the chest look immediately over to Bonnie to see how much damage I did to her by swearing.

‘OK, OK, Bonnie, come with me please.’

She doesn’t move.

‘Bonnie, here, NOW.’

She still doesn’t move. So, muttering more swear words under my breath, I pick up all of the treats and my phone and drag her kicking and screaming into the treatment room. Maron points to a chair she can sit on. I face it towards the wall, sit her in it, load her up with snacks, give her back the phone, and ask Maron to leave so I can get undressed.

She does.

This is all wrong.

I take off all of my clothes except my underwear and lie on the bed, placing the pointless and tiny towel over my crotch. Vera always knew to give me a bigger one. I look at the back of my daughter’s head, begging her not to turn around. She can’t see this. She can’t know. A bad smell fills the room.

‘Ready?’ asks Maron, tapping on the door and opening it a crack before coming in. I brace myself for the inevitable reaction to the sight she’s greeted with, but she doesn’t even flinch when she looks at me. I don’t know what to do with that. There is no point in being in attack mode if no one is trying to attack you.

‘Oh dear, it smells like someone has had a little accident,’ Maron says, acknowledging the smell radiating from Bonnie. I realise I have no nappies; in a rush this morning, I’ve left the nappy bag at home.

‘She’ll have to wait now,’ I say, lying back, submissively giving my body to Maron. She’s seen it now, there is no point in me resisting her.

‘Oh it’s OK, you don’t need to leave her with a poo in her nappy. I can wait,’ she says, making me feel like the cruellest mother imaginable for making my child sit in a dirty nappy while I get what is, essentially, a beauty treatment. But I insist she must just get on with it.

‘OK, let’s get going, shall we, so you can freshen her up.’ Maron lights a candle, which helps with the smell. My torture is about to begin.

‘Please go as quickly as you can,’ I ask her.

I lay my head to the side, away from Maron. She gets the things she needs to start the procedure.

‘So is she your only one?’ Maron asks, nodding in Bonnie’s direction.

‘Yes,’ I reply in my blandest voice. I don’t want to talk. Vera understood that.

‘How old is she?’

‘Three and a half.’ Is she serious, she thinks I am here to make friends?

‘Do you think you’ll have another one?’

‘No,’ I say, sharply. Why do women always presume that other women want to talk? And why, when you only have one kid, do people always ask if you want more? As if having one isn’t enough, that having siblings would be better for them. As an only child, I resent this question, as the subtext is that I myself missed out on something and that I am damaged as a consequence.

‘She’s such a good girl, what’s her name?’

‘Bonnie,’ I reply, as monotone as I can. Not wanting to invite more chat. Maron stirs the wax, and loads it onto a wooden spatula. ‘It’s a little hot, give me just a second.’ She says, dragging out my misery. ‘That’s such a pretty name.’

I regret it more and more every time someone says that.

‘You’re lucky,’ she says. Which makes me want to stick a wax strip on her face, yank it off, and see how lucky she feels.

‘Lucky?’ I ask. Fascinated by whatever stupid logic she has for such a statement.

‘Yes. You’re lucky. My cousin has this condition too. She’s how I got into waxing. I used to get rid of her hair for her in school. I got pretty good at it quite quickly. She’s married now and can’t get pregnant. And look at you with your beautiful daughter. You’re lucky.’

‘Sounds like she dodged a bullet,’ I say, turning away.

Maron doesn’t have a comeback for that. She takes a few moments to think of another deeply personal question. I don’t know why beauty therapists, hairdressers, dentists or anyone at all who is being paid to do a service think that women come to these appointments to have their lives interrogated. It drives me mad.

‘So how was the birth? I looove talking about birth,’ she says excitedly.

‘Why, have you done it?’

‘No, but I can’t wait to.’

I sometimes find the best way to end a conversation is to say something unpleasant.

‘Birth was awful. The worst experience of my life, and that’s saying something.’ I hope that will shut her up, but if there is one thing I have learned about Maron in the few moments I have known her, she doesn’t shut up.

‘Oh no, why?’

‘Really? You want to know?’

‘Yes, I think it’s important to hear all birth stories, it’s research. If I know all eventualities then I won’t be scared if they happen, right?’

‘OK, well I’d been hoping to have her naturally.’

‘Wow, good for you.’

‘Yeah, well I’m terrified of medical intervention, so I didn’t think I had much choice.’

‘OK, and did you do it?’ she asks, stirring the wax and testing it on her hand. She seems more satisfied with the temperature now.

‘No, I had to have a C-section in the end,’ I say, flashing back to the trauma. Seeing myself, naked, surrounded by strangers. Humiliation crippling me.

I’d booked a full body wax for two weeks and one day before my due date. After a treatment I have around two and a half weeks of being hair-free before it starts to grow back. So if Bonnie was on time, I’d be good. If she was late, even by two weeks, I would be hairy, but it wouldn’t be its maximum thickness. It was the best I could do.

Bonnie came two weeks and two days early. I was fully hirsute. Thick, black, bear-like hair all over my body. Between my breasts, around my nipples, all over my abdomen, my back. My pubic hair thick down to my knees, heavy fur toward my ankles. When I went into labour I cried. I knew countless people were about to see my body and I panicked. My cervix did too, clamming up so tight Bonnie had no chance of getting out. I tried for hours, but she wouldn’t come. The hospital lights were bright, I begged for them to go down. They insisted they needed to see. Liam did his best to comfort me, but I screamed at him and made him feel as redundant as I did ugly. I heard a nurse say, ‘This is the most primal birth I have ever seen.’ Meaning it was like watching an actual ape give birth. I felt repulsive. So self-aware. Everything you shouldn’t have to feel in that moment. I wanted to be alone. To disappear into a dark corner and get my baby out by myself. I swear if I had been in the wild, it would have been OK. But there were people everywhere and no matter how much I screamed at them to leave me they wouldn’t. After fifteen hours of active labour, the doctor insisted I had a C-section. I was wheeled down the corridor. More bright lights. They had to shave my belly to get her out.

‘Well, at least you got her out safe,’ Maron says, snapping me out of my memory. ‘Well done you, birth is beautiful no matter how it happens,’ she continues, her young, ignorant mind speaking on her behalf.

Beautiful is not a word I would use to describe any aspect of my birth experience. I have never felt so ugly as I did in the hours that followed, either. My stomach was covered in stubble. I couldn’t breast feed Bonnie because I worried it would scratch her on the back of the head. They wanted to shave my nipples so she could latch on. I couldn’t cope with getting my boobs out in front of people anymore. The hair between them thick, the hair on them thicker. So I stopped, and asked for a bottle. Liam gave her the first feed. I just stared and watched, feeling like my entire world had been shattered. All that, just to hand her to someone else. I had already failed her in the first few hours of her life. It would only be downhill from there. My mother always liked to tell me I destroyed her body during childbirth. I don’t plan to ever inform Bonnie of the destruction she caused. There is no need to lay that guilt on an innocent child who didn’t ask to be born.

Maron lays the warm wax on my lower calf, presses the fabric down onto it, then rips the hair out of me. It’s not too bad. I know that the further up my leg she gets, the worse it will be.

She clearly cannot work in silence.

‘You OK there, Bonnie, can I get you anything?’

‘Don’t talk to her,’ I snap. ‘I don’t want her to—’

Bonnie turns around.

‘NO,’ I shout, leaping off the bed and trying to hide behind it. ‘NO, stay where you are.’

Bonnie drops my phone and when she picks it up Peppa Pig has disappeared. She screams and demands it is put back on. I can’t reach the phone. The smell is worse now she is moving around. I don’t want to come out from the other end of the bed. I can’t let Bonnie see my body. She ramps the tantrum right up, chucking my phone at the wall. It lands on the floor and I see that it is cracked. Bonnie falls to the floor and starts hammering her fists. It’s a tiny room, there are three of us in it, it’s so hot.

‘Give me a robe,’ I scream at Maron, who pulls one off from behind the door and throws it at me. I put it on, come out from behind the bed and get Peppa Pig back on my phone. Bonnie goes back into her trance. I feel ugly and ridiculous.

‘Shall we carry on?’ Maron asks softly, her awkwardness hanging in the air. But the reality hits me. I could be here for hours. Bonnie will never sit here for that long. Not with a dirty nappy. She should be potty trained, it’s my fault she isn’t. I tried a few months ago but it was awful. I don’t know when I’ll be able to face it again. I’m sure Maron is judging me for that.

‘Please get out,’ I say to her. ‘I need to get dressed.’ She does as I ask. I turn Bonnie back to face the wall and put my torn dress and thick black tights back on. One stupid wax strip’s worth of hair missing.

‘You ruined that for me,’ I snap at my child. My poor child, who didn’t ask to be here. Who is off her head on sugar, her bottom probably starting to sting. ‘Come on.’

Bonnie and I go back to reception. I strap her into her buggy, and with as much attitude as I can muster, I ask the receptionist how much I owe, accepting that I took up a reasonable amount of their time.

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ says Maron, with a look of sympathy on her face. Sympathy that I do not want.

‘Do you want me to reschedule your appointment?’ the receptionist asks.

‘Is Vera coming back?’ I snap, making a point of being dissatisfied with the service.

‘No,’ she tells me.

‘Then no, absolutely not. I will take my loyalty elsewhere.’

I turn and push Bonnie out onto the street. I am still hairy and I have no childcare. This is so unbearably awful.

As I get down the street I wonder, how must that have looked? To be so afraid of my daughter seeing me without my clothes on that I tried to hide behind a bed?

Maron must think I am a lunatic.

Yet it isn’t her opinion that matters. Bonnie thinks I am cruel. I shout at her. I tell her not to look at me. I push her away emotionally, sometimes even physically, and all so I can hide inside the prison of my own body.

How is that any different to what my own mother did to me?

I’m not sure it is.

Beth

I read on the Cosmo website that love and desire are two separate things in a marriage. That love is the easy bit, but desire is the challenge when you spend a lot of time with someone. The trick is to keep desire going, and to do that you have to reinstate some mystery. A distraction from the thing they have become accustomed to. Something new that makes them see your body in a new and exciting way.

Right now, all my body is to Michael is a car crash after childbirth and a milk machine keeping our baby alive. I am functional, not sexual. Maybe all I have to do is make him look twice?

While Risky is in the toilet, I use my arms to push my boobs together and create a cleavage. I take a selfie with a seductive pout. It does not turn out how I expect it would. My boobs look lop-sided and my eyes deranged. Risky takes selfies at her desk all the time, she makes it look so easy. I try again. Even worse. My lips don’t look sexy. I look like I’m trying to scratch my nose with my mouth. I go for more of a smile, but that’s just weird. How do people make this look so natural?

‘Boss, what are you doing?’ Risky asks, coming out of the toilet. I hadn’t heard her flush. Did I miss it? Weird. Anyway, I put my phone down and give up.

‘Were you taking a selfie?’ Risky almost whispers it, like she’s discovered my dark secret.

‘I may have been.’

‘Wow, I’ve never seen you take a selfie, ever. Were you going to post it?’

‘No, I was going to send it to Michael,’ I say, sounding ridiculous. ‘But I look like a deformed butternut squash in them so let’s just move on.’

‘No way. I am the selfie queen. I’m going to teach you.’

This is ridiculous.

‘Risky, we have a high profile wedding in under three weeks. We do not have the time for a selfie masterclass,’ I say, actually really wanting to know how to make myself look sexy in a photo.

‘Tough. It’s happening.’ Risky sits at her desk and holds her phone in her hands. ‘OK, copy everything I do. Hold your phone up a bit, you’ll look thinner.’

I do as she says, and hold the camera around twelve inches higher than my face.

‘OK, now look at it like it’s just caught you masturbating but you don’t mind because you kind of want it to join in.’

‘What? Risky, come on!’

‘What? There is nothing wrong with masturbating. I just masturbated in the bathroom. So don’t be ashamed of pretending to masturbate, that’s just crazy.’

I put my phone down.

‘I’m sorry, you just what?’

‘I just masturbated in the bathroom. I do it loads at work. It gives me a burst of energy in the afternoon. It’s better than a Mars Bar, isn’t it?’

‘Better than a Mars Bar?’ Sometimes I think Risky is another species.

‘I guess so,’ I say, and I must look a little disgusted because she somehow feels the need to continue talking about masturbation.

‘Seriously, boss, we’re two women who share an office. If we can’t be open about self-pleasure here, where can we be? We need to abolish the stigma surrounding female masturbation. The silence around it has gone on long enough. I take my vibrator everywhere with me, just in case.’

‘Just in case of what?’

‘Just in case I need it. You know when you become so consumed with the need to come that you have to duck into the nearest room and bring yourself off just to get through the rest of your day?’

I do know that feeling. I feel it almost every day. The difference between me and Risky is that I have attached so much of my sexuality to my husband that I forget I have the power to satisfy myself sometimes. Rather than tell my assistant that, though, I try to bring the focus back to our job.

‘OK, anyway, we should do some work.’

‘Not before we nail this photo. Phone up, channel your inner Princess Diana – is that a better reference for you, she was big in the Eighties, right?’ I nod and do as she says. It might make me feel old, but I know exactly what she means in terms of the bashful but slightly suggestive look Diana would probably have given her phone, should they have existed when she was alive. ‘Now drop your head more to the left. Give a little smile, like you’re thinking naughty thoughts, and take the photo.’

I do it. And have to admit, the photo is really nice.

‘Wow, I look hot,’ I say. Risky rushes over to look. When she sees it she makes all sorts of ‘Look at you, you saucy minx’ type comments, before snatching the phone from me.

‘OK, we need a filter. And a slight tone change. Let me just … and … yup … that’s it … Oh my God, look at it in black and white.’ She hands it back to me. I really do look amazing in black and white.

‘Cor, thanks, Risky. I look so hot even I’d masturbate to that pic.’

‘Yes boss!!!’

I send it immediately to Michael. After a minute or so, a speech bubble pops up and I am excited to read his response.

Nice. Hey, can you grab some milk on the way home? We are out.

3