Running in Heels (7 page)

“Drink, anyone?” I ask, relieved.

“I'll have a pint of bitter, please,” says Frannie.

“White wine and lemonade for me.” Robbie grins. I leave them to it and head for the bar.

“Natalie,” says Andy, blocking my path.

“Andy,” I reply, as politely as I can.

He takes my hand and leads me into the corridor.

“Now,” he murmurs, “you're not going anywhere until you've told me what's wrong. I haven't seen you for, what, years, and you seem to have developed a grudge against me. What have I done? Is it what I said in the car? Is it to do with Big Tone?”

He treats me to a smile that I'm sure works wonders on his mother and secretary but makes me want to smack him.

“No,” I say stiffly. “Nothing to do with Tony. No.”

“Natalie,” he says in a cooler voice, “whatever it is, I can take it.”

I'm not sparing
your
feelings, I shout in my head, I'm sparing my own. My insides churn and I blurt, “It's nothing, okay? Happy birthday. I mean, welcome back. It's nice to see you again.”

“But no welcome-back kiss?” he says cheekily.

“I'd love to only I have a large festering scab on my chin,” I retort. “I wouldn't want to transfer it.”

“Shame.” Andy sighs. I step daintily over his foot and scurry to the bar.

When I return to my original party position, the first words I hear are “The pointe shoe is merely a phallus.” I tense. Ballet is another crime Frannie holds against me.

“I didn't realize,” says Robbie. “Is that why me mum's so keen?”

I hold my breath. Frannie peals with laughter.

“You're the expert, I'm told, what do you reckon?” says Robbie to me.

I say carefully, “I see Frannie's point—classical ballet
is
sensuous, but it's sexless too. Upright and prim. The center of gravity is in the upper chest. Modern dance is more focused on the, er, pelvis.”

“Upright!” Frannie nods. “
Exactement!
The female ballet dancer is merely an erect phallus being manipulated by the male for his own pleasure!”

I look about for deliverance and to my relief see that Babs and Simon have arrived. Babs looks luminous, as if she is lit up from the inside. Her curls gleam in the green and blue disco lights. As I wave at her, a waitress digs me in the ribs with a tray of pizza.

I shake my head. Frannie takes a slice and says, “What is it, Nat—scared your belly button might detach itself from your spine for five minutes?”

I squirm. “I don't like garlic.”

Nor do I wish to greet Chris with breath so potent it could power a jet plane.

“So you're a midwife?” says Robbie politely to Frannie. “I admire people what do that job.”

Her face softens. “
Do
you?” she says. “Well, I appreciate that. It can be so thankless. People scream at you when you're only doing your best—I'm always relieved when the husband faints because then he's out of the way and you can step over him—the trouble is we're constantly short staffed and what with the heat and the mess and the smell, it's all too easy to lose your sense of amazement but, oh hello!” Andy looks through me, and drags Frannie off to join him and Babs in a rendition of “Wives and Lovers.” As this is a song warning women not to let themselves go after marriage, I can only conclude that Frannie has a sense of humor, even if she doesn't waste it on me. To me Frannie is like a thistle, prickly and dour, and has been ever since we vied for Babs's friendship at school. (When I was twelve, classrooms were full of double desks. Those double desks caused a lot of grief.) To Babs, Frannie is gruff but loyal. A serious person who you
do
things with, visit exhibitions, attend talks, a friend who is low on frills but stands by you.

Frannie admires Babs for her strength and courage. But Frannie and I are like two magnets repelling each other. We try to get on but I find her brash and intimidating. I am the kind of woman she disapproves of. The day I got my degree results I donned black stilettos and a short tight skirt, drank most of a bottle of Warnink's Advocaat, and reeled round the college bars with Kathy, a companion pisshead (she was swigging Lambrusco), snogging whichever men fell into my path. I've since modified my drinking and dress sense but, like most people who know you from your teens, Frannie judges me on my past. Occasionally she'll attempt to educate me—recommending books by Susie Orbach, Erica Jong, and “your kind of
feminist, Natalie,” Naomi Wolf—and I'll glimpse a flash of her kindness. But generally she regards me as beyond help.

“So how do you know Andy?” I ask Robbie.

“We met at college,” he says, grinning. “I suppose you know him through Babs?”

“Not really,” I say. “He was a friend of my brother's, but they didn't really associate with their sisters. They'd rather have played with nuclear waste. And then, when we were older, he went to university, then he worked in the City, and didn't he work in Aldershot for a bit? Anyway, I haven't really seen him for years. I know he lived with his girlfriend, and then he went traveling, after Sasha, er…”

“Left him,” says Robbie. “Yeah, Sasha, mixed-up kid.”

“Really? I never met her. I know Babs was fond of her. It's funny, isn't it? A person can be part of a family, and then a couple split, and the family never sees that person again.”

Robbie nods. “I think I saw her the other day,” he says.

“Sasha?”

“I was on me moped,” he replies. “She was crossing the road. Kensington way.”

“That's near where I work,” I cry. (This is a bad habit of mine—grabbing at things that are blatantly
not
coincidence. It's a sad reflection of my desperate need to bond with the whole world. I'll see a guy on the tube with a regulation black umbrella and want to tap him on the arm and exclaim, “Incredible!—
I've
got that umbrella!”)

“Oh, right,” says Robbie. “So would you've liked to be a ballerina yourself?”

I giggle. “Do I look like I could be? It was a fantasy, when I was four. They wear such pretty dresses.”

We are laughing about this when I'm tapped on the shoulder by Babs. So, she came over.

“Hello, Nat,” she says. “Hi, Robbie.” Then, to me, “I take it all back. Your prince has come. Or should I say, Charlie's turned up.”

I twist round fast enough to crick my neck. Charlie? Chris! A vision in a sheepskin jacket, raggy jeans, and Van trainers. He is talking to Simon. I beam at Babs, and speed over.

“Princess!” says Chris, nuzzling his face into my neck. He pulls back. “What did you do to your chin? You look like you had a fight with a lawnmower.”

“What did
you
do to my chin,” I reply.

Light dawns.

“But it was worth it, eh, gorgeous girl?” He grins. “At least
you
don't have to look at it.”

I sag. His honesty is commendable, but I work with women and I'm not used to it.

“You need a livener,” says Chris, peering at me. He looks aghast at Andy belting out a falsetto version of “Anyone Who Had a Heart,” and adds, “Let's go. You all right with that? These people haven't got a bone of funk in their bodies.” He steers me out of the door. “We're going to see a man about a dog.” My heart jigs in triumph. He's going to introduce me to his friends. I translate this to middle class and decide it is on a par with being introduced to his parents. He must like me.

“What's his name?” I say happily.

Chris shoots me a mischievous look. He says, “Well, his mates call him Chaz.”

SOME PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE COOL, AND PUFF DADDY
and myself are two of them. He overdoes it on the jewelry (bracelets
or
rings, is my mother's rule, and nothing too heavy round the neck) and I have too much respect for authority. I'm the only person Tony knows who calls the police “the police.” I am the kind of girl who succeeds by sticking to the rules, not
breaking them. Others live on the edge, but if I tried I'd fall off it. That's why I've never taken drugs. I've always felt that while everyone else got high, I'd get a blood clot. That's why the last twelve hours have been surprising. I've actually done cocaine.

Chris scraped the powder into a neat white line with his Visa card and my mouth went numb and it tasted like earwax and I gagged and gagged and gagged and then I felt a great whoosh of blood and I was clutching the sink and my whole being was a massive boom boom, warm pulsating power and I looked in the bathroom mirror and I was deathly white but strong, and I laughed at the black shadows under my eyes because I was bright, bold, beautiful—a girl in a stained-glass window—I was scared of nothing and second to no one and for the first time in my life it was a thrill to be me.

The other surprise is that “Never speak to strange men” is a good rule, even for twenty-six-year-olds. Not because my father told me, but because this morning at 8:25 as I slumped on the side of my bed wondering if I could possibly have been run over in the night without noticing, the telephone rang, its peal slicing through my head like cheesewire through Brie.

“Natalie?” said a crisp voice.

“Matt!” I whispered, “what's wrong?”

He took a breath. “Get your ass into work,” he said. “
Yesterday
.”

A cold drool of fear slithered down my spine and I croaked, “Why?”

Silence.

“I've got to go into work early,” I told Chris, who'd just stepped from the shower, his hair as slick and shiny as a seal. I tried not to mind that a great gloop of my pink hair putty had been scooped from its tub. You're only meant to use a blob, I thought. Men have no idea about denying themselves, they see what they want and take it.

“All right, princess, I'll give you a shout,” replied Chris.

“Oh. Okay,” I said, surveying my untidy flat in quiet horror (it
is
always
pristine, but Chris is a magnet for mess). “W-when you go will you double-lock the door with the spare key—it's on the top hook in the kitchen—then post it through the letterbox? I don't feel well,” I added. “I think my body's gone on strike.” The guilt was engulfing me in sickly green waves, but I didn't want to sound weak.

Chris grinned. “A night on the charles is gonna do that to you, princess,” he said.

Never again, I'm not cut out for it, I thought as I crawled into the office. I need water. I'm close to collaspe. I mean, collapse. All the moisture has been sucked out of my head. Then I saw Matt's rabid face—and Paws cowering red-eyed under the desk—and terror whitewashed pain.

“Read it,” demanded Matt, shoving the day's
Record
at me. I looked at the print and for one wild second prayed he was playing a trick on me. Heading the diary page was a piece about GL Ballet's dancing star Julietta, and how she was—“said a spokes-woman”—“piling on the pounds.” The phrase I'd parroted to a stranger the night before, “There's nothing wrong with your dancing, have you tried not eating?” leapt out at me. Next to the byline Jonti Hoffman was a photo of a thinner, younger, better-looking man than the one I'd met at Andy's party.

“You're not exactly a sylph yourself,” I muttered.

“I took four calls at home this morning, before eight, shall I list them?” says Matt. I nod. “The AD, the director of public affairs, Julietta, and a
Guardian
reporter. We are
s-o-o-o
in the doodoo! What were you thinking of? This is so unlike you!” Matt rubs his eyes, and Paws and I stare at the floor. My brain feels so parched and swollen it might burst from my head. I chew my hair. What is wrong with me? I don't make mistakes. Not at work. Never. Matt's always praised me as “the acceptable face of nit-picking professionalism.” Not recently, though.

“How did you know it was me?” I whisper.

“The source is described as ‘chewing her hair in agitation.' Who else could it be?”

I sink into my chair. The thoughts scramble—Andy is a moron, how dare he invite a tabloid hack to his cheesy bash and not warn me, and Mel, why did I believe her, and why didn't I keep quiet, why do I always take on the social grunt work, am I—shudder—a publicist to the bone?

“Do the ballet police know it's me?” I ask.

Matt glowers. “I convinced them it was fabrication. Luckily for you, our president was at Oxford with the paper's chief exec.”

This is code for “groveling puff piece ahoy.” I smile at the thought of Jonti having to eat his press hat.

“Thanks, Matt,” I say. “I'll start back-pedaling anyway, if you like.”

“I like,” he replies.

I spend the rest of the morning working like a dog—although the one occupant of the office truly entitled to that name (or maybe I flatter myself) spends a solid four hours sprawled and snoring on the floor. I don't come off the phone until the Sunday
Times
has agreed to a “Life in the Day of Julietta Petit,” and the
Telegraph
Italy trip—booked for Thursday week—is 95 percent in the bag.

“I'm going for lunch,” Matt declares at ten past one. Paws gives me a cold glance that says, Look who's in the doghouse.

I purse my lips and nod sadly. My brain is no longer swollen—in fact it's shrunk to a walnut and is rattling tinnily around my skull and giving me a headache. I feel listless but I can't keep still. I'll go to the gym. I stand up and trip over my sports bag. Usually I run, but today I need a distraction. I'll do a class. I run out of the building and across the road to my gym (small, functional, full of gay men, and though Matt “wouldn't be seen dead in there” I love it because I'm as invisible as a child's wish floating up to heaven).

Fifty minutes of jumping about later I'm hunched on the changing room bench, slick with sweat, rasping for breath, my
face mottled white and scarlet. Well, now I know I'd never make it in ballet.

“Do you want some water?” says a voice. It's the kind of dipped-in-cigarettes husky voice that makes me long for laryngitis. I look up to see a curvy woman gazing down at me, frowning and smiling at the same time.

“Please. My legs have stopped working,” I wheeze. She hands me her water bottle and I drain it in two gulps. “How come you're not sweating?” I whimper, nodding at her midriff (I don't have the strength to lift my head any higher).

“I wasn't working as hard as you,” she replies. This is an endearing lie. Why is it that women love to evoke envy but would rather die than admit it? I smile. I've noticed her around the gym. Sure, the men watch her, but she gets lots of attention from other women. When
that
happens, you know you've arrived.

“I think you're just fitter,” I croak.

She replies, “If I am I should be. I teach Pilates mat work here. You might know it. It's nonaerobic but tough.”

“Oh,” I gasp. “I know what Pilates is—I work at GL Ballet, a lot of the dancers do it. Julietta Petit—you've probably heard of her—she's always going on about it. I've, I've not tried it myself, although I'm sure it's, er, great. I'm Natalie, by the way.”

“Hi,” she replies. “Alex. I see you here pretty often.”

I feel grateful for her attention and I want to hang on to her kindness. I say, “Do you want a coffee? I mean, I owe you a drink.”

She glances at her watch. “Yeah, ten minutes, why not?” We shower and change—I into a cable-knit navy top and long skirt, she into fresh gym gear—and march next door to the juice bar. I learn that Alex used to be a solicitor, lives in Shepherd's Bush, and is recently divorced.

“But you're only twelve!” I exclaim, before realizing this could be construed as impertinent. She booms with laughter at my worried face. She has a rich, hearty laugh, like being given a present.

“I'd better go,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I have a meeting at two-thirty.” I shuffle to my feet. “Well, thanks for the water,” I say shyly. “Maybe see you at next week's class—if I live that long.”

Alex beams and, as she walks away, calls, “You'll be back before then!”

I smile after her, confused but warmed by the fading sunshine of her presence. There's a glow about her that reminds me of Babs. I'm so childishly pleased to have made a new pal, I forget I'm in disgrace and tell Matt.

“And did you,” he says, “tell this new best friend that Paws has gained four pounds through his addiction to peanut butter basset biscuits?”

I redden but decide that if he's cracking jokes about my blunder, I'm half forgiven. This, plus the insufferable smugness of having exercised, puts me in such an excellent mood I call Babs.

“Sorry to bother you at the station, only we didn't get a chance to speak last night,” I gabble. “And I've got so much to tell you. And, of course,” I add quickly in deference to her recent mood swings, “I want to hear your news. Have you got your wedding video back yet?”

“As it happens, it's at my parents',” she says. “I'm going to get it tonight. Si's working late, poor love—shall I bring it round?”

“Oh!” I say—I want to be on standby in case Chris calls, but Babs won't stay long, not these two-by-two days—“Definitely. You get off at six, don't you? Why don't you come straight over?”

“Well I'll be at Mumandad's till about half-seven, I reckon, so I could be at yours fifteen after that. The video's an hour and a half but we don't have to watch all of it.”

“Fine, brilliant, can't wait,” I crow. I put down the phone and make a face. An hour and a half! It's Babs's wedding, but in my experience, all wedding videos are alike: endless footage of people milling about or dancing badly and a series of middle-aged
men telling plotless tales and bad jokes. Still, the Italians might compensate. And Chris, of course.

I take a taxi home from work—I feel as fragile as scorched paper, like I might crack and crumble at the slightest touch. So I'm not about to trust myself to public transport. I'm pleased, if surprised, to find that Chris has double-locked the door as I asked him to. I look for the key but it isn't on the mat. Then I squint at the Afghan rug and breathe deep. He—he—he has
vacuumed
! I sweep into the lounge and run an incredulous finger along the mantelpiece. Not a speck! “Unbelievable,” I murmur to myself. “
Un
believable.”

I run into the bedroom. Spotless. I shake my head in awe when I see that even the used condom he dropped on the bedroom floor last night has vanished. In my experience, the most devoted men have trouble with the concept of “tidying,” and even when they
do
clear up after themselves, it's with an absentminded sloppiness that makes you feel that if only you were Robert De Niro or Muhammad Ali, they'd have put some elbow into it. So if this isn't proof of Chris's infatuation, I don't know what is. I skip into the (gleaming) kitchen and see he has left a little note on the table. Funny, his handwriting is exactly the same as that of my…

Mother.

 

“
W
hy does she
do
it?” I moan into my hands, as Babs shakes with silent laughter at the condom tale—she can barely hold her coffee mug she's sniggering so violently.

“Does she know about Saul yet?” she chokes.

I wince. “No, but that's no consolation. I swear, half the reason she likes Saul is that she can't imagine him doing anything
vulgar
to her little girl.”

Babs bites her lip. “You shouldn't have given her a key. Then again, your mum is a hard woman to refuse.”

“Tell me about it. I can hardly confiscate it now, can I?”

“Well, it's a scary idea but you could
try
. You could suggest a key amnesty. It's your home.”

“Yes,” I say. “Bought with money given to me by her and Dad.”

“Na-at! Whose side are you on?! Si says a gift is unconditional. You're a grown-up. Tell her you'd prefer her not to barge into your flat, even if it is to slave after you. That said, rather you than me.”

“Can you imagine? I couldn't! Anyway, it makes her happy. She means well.”

“Aw, I know that,” replies Babs. “Your mum has a heart of gold. But what she does isn't what you want. Or is it? And can I have milk and sugar?”

“Gosh, yes, sorry.” I open the fridge and squeak. “Alien fridge alert!” Babs jumps up and we stare into the (ex) abyss: apples, pears, mangoes, pineapples, avocados, a mushroom risotto (labeled “homemade button mushroom risotto”) a vat of soup (marked “homemade carrot and coriander soup”), an enormous chicken (covered in foil but labeled “roasted chicken”), a great bowl of mash (labeled “homemade butter mash”), three packs of fresh sugar snap peas from Marks & Spencer, and a cheesecake the size of a football field (no label—because, as my mother is fond of saying, her cheesecake “speaks for itself”).

“It's hard for me to say anything,” I tell Babs after we've established that, right now, my brother will be staring into an identical bulging fridge. “Would you like some cheesecake?” I add.

“Nah. Tell you what I do fancy,” says Babs. “Roast chicken. If you're having.”

I make a face.

“What?”

“I've gone off chicken,” I say. “I don't like the cut of a chicken's jib.”

Babs pouts in mock alarm. “Nat. If you don't say something, how's she to know what she's doing is wrong? By the way, you've been stirring your coffee for four minutes and you have it neat!”