Honeybee, page 9
I should probably just go home. I like my relationship with people at work. I don’t want to dance or kiss or do anything with Phil, as Matt and Renée are implying. Damn my anxiety around men. The rat inside me wriggles and squirms around. When it wakes up it feels like it’s nibbling and scratching at my insides, making me uncomfortable, reminding me I’m not good enough. I can kill it though, by drowning it. I visualise each drink increasing the fluid level around its head. Each one filling me up more and more until its ugly little nose is poking out of the top. I drink until I’m sure it’s fully submerged. And only then can I forget that it’s there.
‘I should get home, really,’ I say, feeling there is still time to get out of this and resume normal office life on Monday without too much damage.
‘What?’ asks Renée, obviously not feeling the same way. ‘Flo, I need a wee, come with me,’ she says, dragging me up from the booth. In the toilets, she pretty much pushes me against the sink.
‘Flo, stop being weird. We are going dancing,’ she says, firmly.
‘I don’t want to go dancing with people from work. Matt obviously really fancies you. It’s going to go one of two ways. You’ll dance and get off with him, or ditch him at the end of the night. Either way, Monday will be awful.’
‘You need to get laid, Flo,’ she says, putting her hands on my shoulders and talking to me like a dad encouraging a son to go onto a football pitch and play the best game of his life.
‘I do not,’ I reply. The drunk half of my brain not disagreeing with her. The sober half still thinking sensibly.
‘We are going. What do you need to make this happen?’ she asks me.
‘Two shots of tequila?’ I say, seeing as she asked. So we go to the bar, she orders me two shots, I drink them, and the four of us head off to Follies.
Back in the day, Renée and I always went to the Monkey. It was messy and cheap with a young crowd. They played the same music every night, and if you wanted a snog, it was pretty much guaranteed. Follies was the more grown-up nightclub on the island. Other than Saturday nights, people queued up in their work clothes. The men were in suits, the women in office clothes. It felt so sophisticated to us, like a place we would never go. But now here we are, in our work clothes, with our colleagues, joining a few hundred other drunk office workers who may or may not be able to look each other in the eye on Monday morning.
The club is split into two levels: on the top mezzanine there are three bars, down below is the dance floor with a stripper’s pole in the middle of it. I look down from the balcony, Renée is already spinning around the pole driving all the men wild. ‘Show Me Love’ is playing, proving Guernsey is a cultural time warp that doesn’t fix anything that ain’t broke – we used to dance to this in the Monkey. Why play new music when people respond so well to the old? A swarm of people head to the dance floor, all with their arms in the air, all hammered, knowing every word. Matt joins Renée at the pole and they do some weird, sexy version of pole dancing together that will surely end in a broken bone. Phil goes to the bar, I follow him.
‘What do you want?’ he asks me.
‘What are you having?’ I shout back, annoyed at myself for not being assertive. Renée used to get so cross with me for following all the time and never leading; she’d say it isn’t sexy to guys and irritating for other girls. Phil says he’s having a beer. I don’t want a beer. ‘A double gin and tonic,’ I tell him. ‘And a shot of tequila.’ He smiles, I think he liked that. He orders our drinks. I drink them quickly. Finally, the rat is drowned. Here comes Flo.
You’re different out of work,’ Phil yells in my ear.
‘You haven’t seen anything yet,’ I reply. I drag him to the stripper’s pole.
I wake up on my bedroom floor wearing just my knickers and bra. My duvet is on top of me, and my pillow is under my head. Why did I make a bed on the floor? As I lift my head, I realise that it is throbbing. I need water. I settle on all fours for a minute while I allow my body to calibrate to a new position. I put my hands on the bed and pull myself up. I see a huge purple stain across my mattress, and an empty wine glass where my pillow should be. Gross.
My alarm clock says its 6.07 a.m. I can’t remember getting home, it can’t have been long ago. I feel like I’m sucking sandpaper.
As I reach the bottom of the stairs, the smell of stale booze and cigarettes hits me. The living room door is slightly open, the air is cold. Is a window open? I push the door open and see Matt passed out on the armchair. He is naked, other than his underpants. He is snoring, his mouth wide open, around four rolls under his chin. He is a big guy, his chest is moderately hairy, his thighs are thick. I can see the outline of his penis through his red underpants. It looks big. He looks like a disgusting oaf. There are empty alcohol bottles all over the floor and a number of overflowing ashtrays. How many of us were here last night? Where is Renée? Did they have sex? Why else would he have no clothes on?
Too many questions for my head to handle. I stumble into the kitchen and pour water into a pint glass. I down it. Then another. I stand for a minute, both hands on the sink. What happened? How long was I asleep on my bedroom floor? I realise I’m still in my underwear and would die if Matt woke up and saw me. I notice a half-empty glass on the kitchen table. I pick it up and smell it. Whisky and Coke. I finish it and creep back up to my room to fall asleep on the floor.
Renée
There is not enough Berocca in the world to take today’s pain away. I stand next to the kitchen sink and drop two tablets into a pint glass full of water. I have three tablets of ibuprofen in my hand; I get everything inside me as quickly as I can, holding my breath to stop me puking it all back up. Hurry pills, please hurry.
‘Did you have sex with Matt?’ Flo appears at the door, making me jump. The orange liquid slops in my belly. I need to eat so badly.
‘Urgh. Morning. No. I let him go down on me for a bit, I think I sucked him off, but I fell asleep. When I woke up, he was passed out in his pants, so I went to bed. He wasn’t here when I got up.’ I burp and expel a thick and poisonous breath into the air. ‘How you feeling?’
‘I’m all right. I woke up at six a.m. and drank loads of water.’ She is holding her sheets and kneels down to put them in the washing machine.
‘What happened?’ I ask her.
‘Red wine. I must have spilled it when I went to bed. Not sure why I was taking red wine to bed, but hey ho.’ She laughs.
‘Yup, you insisted Phil took a glass too. So funny.’
‘What?’ she says, standing up.
‘What, what?
‘What do you mean I insisted Phil took one? Was he here?’ she says, looking worried.
‘Yeah, Phil and Matt both came back. You were quite insistent that they didn’t go home after the club. Don’t you remember?’
‘No.’
‘OK, well we all came back here and drank almost everything we had in the cupboards. You passed out on the sofa and Phil said he’d carry you up to bed. As he was lifting you—’
‘As he was lifting me?’
‘Yeah, you woke up and poured yourself another glass of wine. I’m surprised it made it as far as your bed.’
She looks horrified and sits at the kitchen table with a slump. ‘Wait, if I had passed out why didn’t you take me to bed? Why did you let Phil do it? Oh God, he tried to lift me? That is horrible. Renée, I woke up in my underwear on my floor.’
I sit down on the other chair. ‘Don’t worry, Flo, we were all really drunk.’
‘You should have told them to leave. Not watched as one of my colleagues tried to pick me up and take me to bed. Jesus, Renée, that is so embarrassing. I can’t remember anything. Did he take my clothes off?’
‘Flo, I don’t know, I wasn’t there.’
‘Why weren’t you there? Why was I alone in my bedroom with a guy from work? You should have taken care of me.’
‘Why would I have gone with you? We’re not twelve, Flo. You’d pulled. You seemed pretty sure of what you wanted, don’t blame me.’
Christ, she’s the one who’s always saying we’re adults now.
‘Flo, I’m sorry. I was drunk too and …’
‘And thinking about yourself?’
I don’t say anything. She’s right, I was. But I really thought she was doing what she wanted to do.
‘Renée, I have to go to work on Monday with no idea if I had sex with a colleague or not. That is horrible.’
‘Well, what I do know is that he wasn’t up there with you for more than five minutes. OK? I can’t imagine much happened in that time. I’m sure he just got you into bed, OK?’
‘On the floor. FUCK. Did he take my clothes off? Did I? What did he see?’
‘Flo, calm down. Phil is a really nice guy. He likes you, it’s obvious. I’m almost certain he took you upstairs, made sure you were OK and then went home.’
She looks genuinely devastated. I go over and put my hand on her shoulder. ‘Flo, really, don’t worry. We were all drunk. People get up to things, work will be fine, you weren’t that bad.’
I am lying. She was pretty full on. She was never a good drunk, always a real lightweight. If she got drunk when we were at school, it was always by accident. Most of the time she was so self-controlled it never happened anyway. Like she always knew booze made her crazy, so she’d drink with caution. But that caution has gone, she’s the one who orders the shots now, who downs her drinks and wants to play drinking games. It’s fun, I think. But it’s a lot. And it’s very different. I just thought she’d gained confidence during her time at uni, but what if I’m wrong?
‘Who knows what he will say about me to people,’ Flo says, pathetically.
‘Oh Flo, who cares? If he says anything, which he won’t, we’ll spread even worse rumours about him.’ I can tell something else is really bothering her. ‘Flo, what is it?’
She puts her face into both of her hands and sighs. ‘I had this really horrible experience at uni. Not long after you came to stay. I was still a virgin, and I just wanted to get it over and done with. So, I went out with this guy from my course. I thought maybe he’d teach me a few things, so I’d be better the next time I had sex. I really didn’t expect much from the first time.’
I’m nervous. I’m worried she’s going to tell me he hurt her. ‘OK, and what happened?’
‘Well, it was fine. We got really drunk but I think I was OK. We were in my room, kissing, it was nice. But when he put his hand into my pants, he pulled it out again. I asked him what was wrong, but he didn’t say anything at first. We carried on, then he went down on me, we had sex, and then when we were finished he said, ‘Your vag is so flappy.’
I splutter. ‘He said WHAT?’
I roar with laughter. I can’t stop.
‘Renée, please. It was awful.’ I hold it in when I see the look on her face. She does not think this is funny, of course she doesn’t. ‘I’ve been too embarrassed to do anything with anyone since, unless I’ve been really drunk. And even then, I don’t really go through with it. I’m good at blow jobs though, and just pretend that I love them and don’t need anything else.’
‘How many blow jobs have you given?’
‘I honestly don’t know. A lot. Oh God, what if Phil saw my vagina and tells everyone at work it hangs down too far?’
‘OK, firstly that guy sounds like a dick. No guy who has a vagina in front of him says that unless they are evil or gay. So, get him out of your head. As for Phil, he isn’t like that. He just isn’t. And who would he tell, Chloe? Georgina? No. And finally Flo, it’s normal for vaginas to hang down a bit. They all do.’
‘Not all. Not the ones I’ve seen.’
‘Which ones have you seen?’
‘The ones in porn?’
‘YOU watch PORN?’ This morning has been so revealing, I’ve totally forgotten about my hangover.
‘Yes, sometimes. It’s not like I get sex anywhere else, is it?’
‘OK, Flo. Porn stars are paid to look like teenage girls, they are not a true representation of what women really look like. Have you ever seen a real vagina?’
She thinks for a minute, then shakes her head.
‘OK,’ I say, standing up and taking off my pyjama bottoms.
‘Renée, what are you doing?’
‘I’m going to show you mine.’
‘Renée, no, please, you don’t have to do that.’
But she’s too late. I put one foot up on the chair, and with two fingers I uncurl my labia so they hang down in their natural position.
‘See?’ I say. ‘Mine hang down too. And according to quite a lot of men, I have a gorgeous pussy. OK?’
She stares at it, long enough that I start feeling uncomfortable. ‘Flo, OK?’
‘Yes, I see,’ she says, softly. ‘Please put it away now.’
I put my foot back on the floor and pull my pyjamas back up.
‘Flo, you’re normal. He was likely a homosexual who was terrified of vaginas. I’m sorry he was your first, but he cannot be your last. Now, if seeing my vagina hasn’t put you off bacon for life, can we go and spend way too much money on a fancy fry-up from Dix Neuf, I’m starving.’
‘I can’t believe you just showed me your flaps,’ she says, possibly a little stunned.
‘It was an act of sistership, Florence. You’re very welcome!’
7
Renée
Later that day, I decide to walk to Aunty Jo’s instead of getting the bus. It’s quite hard to get a moment to myself now I’m living and working with Flo, and it’s especially claustrophobic when she’s got the fear about her drunken antics. I’m starting to really appreciate the medicinal qualities of island life. When it all gets too much, I can walk to see my aunty with the sea next to me almost the entire way.
I roll with the ups and downs of the cliff path, the other Channel Islands hovering in my periphery. Jersey sits confidently to the right, with Herm and Sark hogging the foreground with all their tiny might. Alderney sits quietly in the distance, and on a clear day like today, the outlines of French shores wink cheekily back at me, reminding me that my little island is a mere blob in the grander scheme of the planet. I wonder if anywhere else could offer me the moments of reprieve that Guernsey does. I never thought I’d admit this to myself, but I love the moments of calm I can find here. They are restorative. I feel a bit sorry for people who can’t come here and take deep breaths of island air.
Aunty Jo flops down into a kitchen chair. ‘Oh God, it’s just relentless, Renée.’ She’s just been outside tending to her menagerie of animals.
‘What is, shovelling poo?’ I ask her.
‘No Renée, being a woman. Never-ending.’ She pulls off her muddy wellies and unbuttons the denim shirt she’s wearing over a pair of corduroy dungarees. She takes the shirt off and exhales, as if she’s just hiked up Kilimanjaro in a ski suit and finally got to take it off. ‘Oh, for the love of bees, that’s better.’
‘Are you OK, Aunty Jo?’ I ask gently.
‘Am I OK? Good question. Let me think about that. You know, I suffered from terrible period cramps in my teens and all through my twenties. Deep, painful throbs tried their darndest to stop me living my life, but I did. I powered on. In that way women do. We crack on in pain and pretend to be fine. Then I spent ten years trying to have a baby, realising that every second of that pain was pointless. A reproductive system that caused me nothing but agony only to be defective when it really counted. Years of torture for nothing. And now, after three harrowing decades, the periods come like rivers of red blood pouring from me when I least expect it. It’s like being a teenager again. My body is changing, and I have no idea what it’s going to do next.’
She closes her eyes and inhales deeply, then breathes out to the count of ten. ‘I’m sorry, love. I don’t mean to rant.’
‘Well, what is it?’ I ask, my heart rate rising. ‘Are you ill?’
‘No, Renée. I’m not ill, I’m just a woman. It’s the menopause, darling. The Change. Or “perimenopause”, as my doctor called it. I’m one of the lucky ones who got it really early. I could be stuck in this purgatory for ten years. I thought the hardest bit was done. And if I’m anything like my mother, I’ll get through this then lose my fucking mind. Will it ever end!’
The front door slams. Aunty Jo jumps up and brushes herself off both literally and mentally. ‘James love, you’re home.’ She kisses him. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘No, I’d better shower. Just did a ten-k run, beautiful day on the island.’
‘Beautiful day!’ Aunty Jo says in a very high-pitched voice.
‘How are you, Renée? Taking the island by storm?’ James asks me, sweat running down his thin face and bursting through sections of his Lycra outfit. He hasn’t aged at all in the past few years, unlike Aunty Jo, who has quite a lot of grey hair now and the definite onset of middle-age spread. I say that lovingly; she’s always gorgeous to me. But I can’t deny the changes.
‘I’m doing my best,’ I tell him as he pours himself a glass of water and heads upstairs.
‘I’ll bring up the tea,’ Aunty Jo calls after him as he heads upstairs to the bathroom. When he is out of earshot, the real her pipes up. ‘Fucking men have no idea what we go through.’
‘Do you talk to him about it, about the premi, primit … what was it again?’
‘The perimenopause? No, I don’t. It’s bad enough that sex feels I’m being rogered with a toilet brush, without him needing to hear about how my engine is drying up. I’m trying to stay just a little bit sexy for the guy.’
‘Oh come on, Aunty Jo, that’s not you. You’re always so open. James is cool, he’d understand.’
‘Honestly Renée, I feel like my body is being taken over by an alien lifeforce and I just need to get my head around it first. It kicks you sideways, it really does. Thank God for the animals, the perfect distraction. Speaking of which, the hives are bursting and I need to extract the honey. James and I are planning to do it this afternoon, you can help us if you like?’
