Mutton, page 12
Isn’t that right? I’m fully aware of the alternative. I admire it. You stick to your guns and crack on. You lie in the bed you’ve made, because you’re no spring chicken and better the devil you know. You push aside ridiculous notions about not being dead yet and seizing the day, even as the day dims. You are a good person, a decent person, and you get on with it, because wanting all laughs all the time is selfish and self-indulgent, and here you are, and everything’s fine, and you watch like a hawk for signs of perimenopause (‘Is this department store insanely overheated, or is it my woolly coat, or is it – daaa daaa daaah – the withering of my womanhood?’). You sigh lovingly at your husband, fondly exasperated, as though he were a comically wind-troubled Labrador; you go to parties and tell funny stories about his ineptitudes as he stands right there next to you. You flirt with your boss, and with anyone flirtable with, safe in the knowledge that Nothing Would Ever Happen, even though you sometimes imagine it’s not your husband lying next to you. You’re probably very content: I’m not knocking it. But I’ve never been good at any of that stuff. I’m selfish and I get bored. I get claustrophobic. It sounds melodramatic, but once or twice – in serious relationships, in the past – I sometimes felt like I was suffocating and like there wasn’t a paper bag big enough to help me regulate my breathing. And I never want to talk about my partner as though he’s a farty Labrador. I can’t think of anything I’d want less.
I want to stumble down the street, holding hands and laughing – and then come home and make a pie: I’m not wishing myself into some rock ’n’ roll scenario where I have panda eyes and the children go hungry and the house is dirty. I’m neither an aristocrat nor grimly poor – and therefore otherwise preoccupied: I am bourgeois, which means that I like making supper and that dirty houses disgust me.
And at forty-six, I don’t see why I shouldn’t have both: the stumbling and the chicken and mushroom, the cosy sofa and the non-pretendy shagging. I want the real thing. The Man From The Connaught sent me a text, after he’d left for Australia and we’d not been in touch for months. It was two a.m. his time, and maybe he was drunk, but it said, ‘It’s you I wank to, Clara.’ I quite see that some people wouldn’t find this romantic, but I did. It was so dirty and so desolate, and so out of the blue. I was also intrigued by his use of ‘to’: I’d have said ‘about’ or ‘over’. It took a superhuman effort not to reply, obviously.
I must not think about the Man From The. I’d like the second teenagehood without the moping. Where was I? Ah yes. There comes a point where time starts feeling like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, and suddenly things that seemed far away are dramatically closer, and really – if I’m not going to be blissfully happy romantically speaking, I’d rather be happy domestically and pootle on, hope springing eternal. Basically I just want the lolz, even if wanting the lolz is a form of midlife crisis in itself, which I suspect it might be.
I let myself in. There’s a note from Gaby on the kitchen table – ‘Gone to Ben’s, there’s a party, come any time, text me. Or back tomorrow.’ I smile and push it aside and make myself a cup of tea to take to my bath, and when I get into the bath I actually groan with pleasure, like a nan. I want everything, is my problem.
12
‘What are you doing about your teeth?’ Gaby asks a few days later. I am transcribing an interview at the kitchen table.
‘Nothing,’ I say, turning off the tape recorder. ‘Why? My teeth are perfectly OK.’
‘Weren’t you going to go and see about veneers?’
‘I did, yes. Mr Kimball. I think he thought he was being persuasive. He explained that they’d have to rough up my teeth so the veneers could stick to them. Also file them down into little stubby vampire teeth. He added that veneers do fall off, but not to worry because he was always on call. So, er, no. On balance.’
‘Hm,’ says Gaby. ‘You don’t see that bit. You only see these.’ She smiles widely.
‘I can’t hack it,’ I say. ‘Aside from the fact I’d have to take out a bank loan, and that the mere idea of it makes me want to cross my legs, it just seems like a really mental thing to do. Given that there’s nothing wrong with my teeth in the first place.’
‘A bit of crookedness,’ says Gaby pleasantly.
‘Normal crookedness,’ I reply. ‘Which I gather is fashionable. But I did get bleaching trays made, to avoid red-wine teeth.’
‘That’s something, I guess,’ says Gaby.
‘And anyway – do the Men of Rocks have immaculate teeth?’
‘Men of Granite,’ says Gaby. ‘Their teeth aren’t really discussed in the Chronicles.’
‘Another thing to put in your letter to Bernard,’ I say. ‘Have you written it yet?’
‘I’m halfway through,’ Gaby says, and actually blushes.
‘Well, there you go. Make the case for twenty-first-century dentistry while you’re at it.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ snaps Gaby with an irritated tut. ‘It’s set in Lapidosa. It’s a daily struggle to stay alive. People have other things to think about than teeth.’
‘I don’t think people care that much about teeth in real life either,’ I say. ‘I mean, provided they’re clean and flossed and not crazily crooked. And not, like, walrus tusks, or just empty bare gums.’
‘Stay with the project!’ Gaby says. ‘I can feel you drifting. Concentrate, Clara. You’re looking great, but there’s so much further to go. Nobody said it was easy.’
‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I can’t do it. I’m OK with how I look, broadly speaking. And I’m happy – delighted – with the, er, improvements, eyebrows aside, and that’s that.’
‘But you could look so much better,’ says Gaby, who really doesn’t know when to stop talking.
‘Yes. But I look fine. I’m grateful for all your advice and input and everything, but enough. And anyway – no offence or anything, Gaby, but it’s not so much the stuff itself but the secondary stuff. The stuff that comes with it. The upkeep. The maintenance.’
‘Well, yeah.’ Gaby shrugs. ‘You’re making a thirty-, forty-year commitment. Who did you interview?’ she asks, pointing at my tape recorder and notes.
‘Emerald Cunningham,’ I say. ‘You know, the model.’
‘Emerald Cunningham!’ Gaby cries. ‘I used to have pictures of her plastered all over my walls. Wow. How old is she now?’
‘Late sixties,’ I say. ‘As in her heyday.’
‘Oh wow,’ Gaby repeats. ‘What does she, you know, what does she look like?’
‘She looks great,’ I say. ‘She runs a bed and breakfast in Wales, with her husband, on an organic farm. She’s got all these rescued battery hens and some quite manky-looking sheep. She’s terrific. Made a cake.’
‘I saw some pictures a few years ago,’ says Gaby. ‘Paparazzi shots. She didn’t look that great.’
‘She’s got good bones and that long, lanky body, and she’s nearly seventy,’ I say. ‘She doesn’t wear make-up and she was in jeans and a jumper. I thought she looked lovely.’
‘Completely grey, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’ I say, sighing.
‘What?’ says Gaby. ‘You dye your hair. Everybody dyes their hair.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’m kind of hoping that I might be allowed – allow myself – to stop at some point. Or not. Whatever. It’s not a competition. Are you planning on keeping your extensions well into your dotage?’
‘As long as I can,’ says Gaby, who is being good-humoured despite my souring tone. ‘Shorter ones, obviously.’
I picture Gaby with thinning old-lady hair, the extensions bonded stubbornly to the wispy roots.
‘Hm,’ I say. ‘That’s kind of what I mean, about maintenance. It makes me exhausted just to think of it.’
I am becoming irritated because Gaby is actually half right. Emerald Cunningham did look lovely, in her rural idyll with her animals and her pat-stained wellies. But she is very much a recluse, and I can’t help thinking – well, assuming: I tried to discuss it with her but she shied away from answering properly – that this is partly to do with the effect that time has had on her once-legendary looks. We think it’s hard for us, all of this stuff, but it’s harder still for the great beauties, the once-in-a-generation drop-dead stunners. Are there only the two options available? Do an Emerald, let your hair go grey and turn into straw, avoid mirrors and proclaim yourself delighted with your new, beauty-tyranny-free existence. Or go Gaby-max: have everything done, all the time. Have a Caesarean of the face, and full-body surgery. Wear film-star make-up at all times; own wigs. Be the seventy-year-old hottie who men sort of want to jump until they realize she’s older than their mums. (Obviously, there are exceptions. But not many. For lots of people, being, as Kate calls it, ‘genetically blessed’ comes with a use-by date. Not many cheekbones can hold up a face forever.)
The terrible thing is that, while I was interviewing Emerald, I thought – and I wouldn’t have thought this a year ago, when I still believed that ‘ageing with dignity’ was the answer to your face collapsing – I thought: ‘If she’d had stuff done really well twenty years ago, she would still be drop-dead gorgeous.’ She had really deep marionette lines that looked like fissures, like the wood carvings on a totem pole, and I almost said something, more than once. I almost gave her Dr Halliday’s number. Surely there’s a path that’s somewhere between lunatic levels of intervention and just giving up? She didn’t look like she used moisturizer, or conditioner, or any of the things that clutter up most women’s bathrooms. Her skin was wind-lashed, her lips chapped.
I’m annoyed with myself for thinking this was a shame.
Poor Gaby is knocking back the white wine tonight, because Ben’s come round and bonded with Charlie, who’s on holiday from university and with whom he apparently shares musical tastes. I literally understand maybe one word in five of what they’re saying; Gaby even less so, judging by the fully perplexed expression on her face.
‘I need some sort of primer,’ she says. ‘A little vocab list, to keep in my pocket and consult as needed.’ She is looking especially spectacular tonight, in a short sequined shift and a teeny leather jacket, bare-legged despite the fact that it’s freezing outside.
‘Talk to me instead,’ I say. ‘For all I know they could be speaking Aramaic.’
‘I should participate, though,’ says Gaby anxiously. ‘They keep saying “boom” ’.
‘Boom’s easy,’ I say. ‘Boom is like, wham, done. Boom’s old. Trusay, cuz.’
‘I know sick,’ says Gaby. ‘I know loads of words, but none of these.’
‘Nobody says sick any more,’ I say unhelpfully. ‘But I don’t know what they say instead. Well, I know nang and peng and cat,’ I add helpfully. ‘But I don’t really know what they mean either.’
‘God, it’s baffling,’ says Gaby. ‘Just baffling. Like the dancing. I think I’ve got a handle on the dancing, but still. It’s not doing the YMCA, put it that way. And I do occasionally wonder about putting my back out, you know?’ She sighs. ‘Not that I think that would happen. Thank God for yoga.’
We sit and chat and drink our wine. Eventually Charlie peels himself away – he’s going to a gig, appropriately enough, and asks Ben and Gaby if they’d like to come along. Ben looks desperate to go, but ‘We have dinner plans,’ says Gaby firmly, and so Ben waves Charlie off dolefully and has a glass of wine with us instead. I wonder how aware Ben is that we’re old enough to be his mother and auntie. Is there a little voice in his head saying, ‘Hm, for some reason this feels slightly weird’?
‘Nice kid, Charlie,’ says Ben. ‘Well, they’re all nice. They’re great. I like hanging out with them. And with Sky. Who’s gorgeous,’ he adds with a carefree laugh.
‘Isn’t she?’ says Gaby tightly. ‘Lovely young woman.’
‘Poor Sky, she’s in bed with food poisoning,’ I say. ‘Otherwise I could ask her down so you could feast your eyes.’ I don’t know why I say this: it isn’t helpful.
‘Hahaha. That won’t be necessary,’ Ben says. ‘And she’s nowhere as lovely as you, babe,’ squeezing Gaby’s waist. There is a perfect beat, like in a sitcom, and then he says, ‘Ever thought about kids?’
Pin-drop doesn’t even begin to cover it, but Gaby’s powers are infinite. After only a tinily too-long pause, she says, ‘I can’t. I’m … you know, women problems.’
‘What, never?’ says Ben, which seems ungallant.
‘Ah … Um … Not necessarily never,’ Gaby says. ‘But it’s not looking, er, enormously likely.’
‘Ah well,’ says Ben. ‘It’s not like I’m desperate to breed or anything,’ he laughs. ‘But at some point … Still, early days, eh? I don’t know why I’m even bringing it up.’
‘Me neither,’ Gaby laughs, incredibly convincingly, as if this were the funniest conversation in the world. ‘Moving on: shall we go? Our table’s going to be ready in ten minutes.’
‘I asked the guys if they wanted to join us,’ Ben says. ‘So they might turn up.’
‘Ah. Right,’ says Gaby. ‘Sure. The guys. Well, that’d be fun. But I’ve only booked for two, so I should probably let the restaurant know. It gets quite busy …’
‘Nah, it’ll be fine,’ Ben says airily. ‘They might not turn up. They might get a better offer, haha.’
‘Right,’ says Gaby again. ‘Haha.’ I can tell she is broiling with rage about her romantic dinner à deux in the fashionable restaurant that she had to book a fortnight ago because it gets so rammed, but only because I’ve known her for so long. Honestly, this is world-class acting. She could win Oscars. Something about Los Angeles must have rubbed off on her. The fleeting thought occurs to me that Gaby is very rarely herself in company.
‘Are you coming, Clara?’ says Ben.
‘No,’ says Gaby, shooting me a ferocious look, ‘she is not.’
‘Thanks, Ben, but I’ve got plans, actually,’ I say. ‘I’ve got an old friend coming round for a drink. Her daughter was at primary school with Jack.’
The doorbell goes just as I finish my sentence. I haven’t seen Annie for years. She’s come round for a drink because she wants to ask me about something she’s written, with a view to getting it published. Now, Annie: you know where you stand with Annie. Annie is mutton, pure and simple. Tonight she’s wearing a glittery sausage dress with a deep V-neck, all the better to show off the sun damage on her chest (leathery); pointy stilettos of the kind Gaby and I used to buy from Kensington Market in 1980 (scuffed); mucho cleavage (squishy); wild hair, half grey, and the contents of a medium-sized make-up stall, including too-dark lipliner and three shades of eyeshadow, worn in stripes. Annie is not wraith-like; she has one of those bodies that never quite stopped looking pregnant. Funny thing is, she kind of looks great. Like a working girl that’s knocking on a bit, obviously, but still great. And sexy. Oddly sexy. I make a mental note: if you really, really embrace the mutton, if you grab its woolly little back and hug it tight, as Annie so wholeheartedly has, it can be a look of sorts. Not for everyone, granted. But a look.
‘Sorry about my get-up,’ Annie laughs, pointing at herself, ‘but I’m meeting Tilly later. It’s Friday. Girls’ night out.’ Tilly is her daughter, who was in Jack’s class and is therefore seventeen. Annie is older than me and, from memory, must be somewhere in her early to mid-fifties. Also, Annie’s always looked like this, night out or school run, egg race or pub quiz, so I don’t know what she’s apologizing for. ‘Am I bright red?’ she asks. ‘Bloody hot flushes. Never-ending. And night sweats. D’you get night sweats, Clara?’
Gaby looks aghast at this last remark, and turns to get her scarf, which is silver and adorned with tiny pink owls.
‘Not yet, thank God. You look great,’ I say, kissing her hello. ‘Annie, this is my friend Gaby, and this is Ben. They are just going out to dinner.’
‘Hello,’ says Gaby frostily.
‘Hi,’ says Ben, holding out his hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’ He seems mesmerized by Annie and is grinning at her encouragingly.
‘Ooh, hello, young man,’ says Annie with a giggle. Mr Annie, I dimly remember, is a not massively jolly-seeming Something In The City. ‘And … young lady. Off anywhere nice?’
‘Just round the corner,’ says Gaby. ‘We should go, Ben.’
‘Youth, eh?’ Annie says cheerfully. ‘Well, have a good time. Have one for me! Have two!’
‘That would be a pleasure,’ says Ben. ‘Maybe you and Clara would like …’
‘They wouldn’t,’ says Gaby. ‘Come on, Ben. We really have to go.’
‘How’s Tilly?’ I ask once Ben and Gaby have finally left. ‘Haven’t seen her for years.’
‘First year of A-levels,’ says Annie proudly. ‘Legs up to here. You should see her. Gorgeous. We’re best friends.’
‘Are you going out to eat?’ I ask politely.
‘No. I thought I might have a bite with you,’ Annie says. ‘If that’s OK. Just a bit of cheese or something. Line my stomach. We’re going to a bar we like with some of her mates. I’m meeting them all at half nine.’
‘Ah, right,’ I say.
‘You had a little girl, didn’t you? After St Michael’s?’ Annie asks, already rootling round the fridge. ‘She’ll become your best friend too,’ she says. ‘Keep you young. Just you wait.’ She emerges from the fridge with a block of Cheddar and a bowl of olives. ‘These’ll do. Do you mind? I’m starving.’
