Lifesaver (36 page)

Marie-Rose walked over to a bucket in which several rolls of bandages floating in a brown scummy liquid.

‘Right, now I’m going to bandage you with these, which have been soaked in a special Dead Sea mud. It’s full of minerals and vitamins, which draw out the toxins and any excess fluid, although I’m afraid it doesn’t smell particularly nice, does it? We leave it on for an hour. It’ll make your skin lovely and soft, and when we measure you up again at the end, you’ll find that you have lost quite a few inches, once we add them all up.’

She hadn’t looked old enough to be
able
to add up. However, she managed to mummify me in the warm brown malodorous bandages, wrapping me up like a booby prize, tongue in corner of mouth, frowning, like a preschooler putting
papier-mache
on a balloon.

‘There!’ she said eventually, standing back to admire her efforts. She handed me some flimsy nylon garments and a pair of plastic sandals. ‘Pop these on for me, and go and relax. I’ll let you know when it’s time to get it all rinsed off.’

The nylon garments turned out to be some kind of gross approximation of a shell suit, which I pulled on over the rapidly-cooling bandages. I looked utterly disgusting.

‘What, you mean I’ve got to go out like this?’

She nodded, a hint of a smirk at the corners of her taut young mouth. ‘I’ll come and find you in an hour or so.’

I had an urge to ask her if she knew that she had the same name as prawn cocktail sauce, that cheap mixture of ketchup and mayonnaise; but I said nothing, and waddled back out to the main chilling-out area. Mud from the bandages was running down my legs and into the plastic sandals, making me squelch as I walked. Beautiful women in pristine bathrobes sniggered at me and wrinkled their noses as I passed them. I felt like some hideous creature fresh out of the swamp; and I smelt like one, too.

I found Vicky reclining glamourously on a lounger, reading the newspaper and sipping camomile tea, her fingers splayed outwards to protect her still-drying vermilion nails, and foam separators wedged between her toes. She roared with laughter when she saw me, muddy and glum, resembling Waynetta Slob’s less attractive sister.

‘Nice shell-suit,’ she commented.

‘Piss off,’ I said grumpily.

‘Beautifully accessorised by matching jelly sandals.’

‘Not funny.’

‘Oh it is, Anna, it really is. Specially since you only had that treatment in the first place to annoy me, didn’t you?’

I sat wetly down on the lounger next to her, a small brown puddle spreading at my feet. ‘Yes, well, that’s karma for you, isn’t it? I’m certainly regretting it now. I look like nothing on earth, and this mud is absolutely freezing. It had better be worth it. Not to mention the humiliation—I mean, I have one thing to say to you:
paper knickers
.’

‘Oh dear,’ Vicky said, her shoulders heaving. ‘I’m sorry, Anna.’ Her expression sobered, and she put down her newspaper. ‘And going back to what we were talking about before - I’m sorry you’re feeling so bad about Ken, too.’

Part of me had hoped we’d finished that conversation. But another part of me wanted it, too. Wanted to confide in someone, even if I couldn’t tell the whole truth.

‘I don’t know what to do about it, Vicky.’

‘You have to talk to him!’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Why?’

‘Because…because…there’s no point.’

‘Of course there’s a point. If you aren’t happy, you have to let him know.’

‘He’d only get defensive and clam up.’

‘But surely it’s better to get it out in the open.’

I sighed. ‘Thing is, Vicky, I don’t even know what I’d tell him, if I did talk to him.’ I shivered involuntarily. ‘This is torture. I’m freezing here!’

Vicky passed me over her cup of tea. ‘Hold this, it’ll warm you up. Mind me nails, though.’

I cradled the delicate china between my palms, allowing its heat to penetrate my cold skin. It reminded me of Adam’s warm hands on my chilled body. I wanted to tell Vicky about Adam and Max, but I couldn’t.

‘When things aren’t going well between you and Peter,’ I said cautiously, ‘do you ever, you know, think about other men?’

Vicky looked as guarded as I did. ‘What do you mean? Old boyfriends?’

‘Well, whoever. I mean, do you think about fancying other men? About the fact that you can never kiss anybody else as long as you live?’

‘Yes. Doesn’t everybody? But then you just think about what you do have in a marriage: the security, the kids…um, I mean, sorry …’

‘That’s OK.’

‘…Not having to take your clothes off in front of a stranger.’

‘I just did that ten minutes ago.’ I’d been trying to make a joke, but it didn’t sound very funny.

‘Yes, but that was different, unless you’re planning to turn lesbian and have sex with your beauty therapist.’

I shuddered. ‘No thanks.’

‘So, have you met someone you fancy or something?’

‘No. No, of course not. It was just a general observation. I’m just feeling depressed that I don’t fancy Ken anymore, but he’s all I have in the way of options.’

‘I’m sure it’ll pass. Sometimes I can’t stand Peter touching me. Other times I can’t get enough of him.’

I persevered with my so-called hypothetical line of questioning. ‘But what if you did meet someone you were really attracted to? Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to sleep with someone else?’

‘Of course. But I wouldn’t.’

‘Not even if some gorgeous young stud declared his undying love for you?’

‘No way. I’d politely remind him that I’m married.’

‘After you’d had six cocktails, and Peter was away on a stag weekend, and your mother was looking after the kids?’

‘No! Why, would you?’

I looked at her sheepishly. ‘I’m worried that I might, yes.’

‘Oh, Anna, you wouldn’t. I know you too well. You’d be tempted, but at the end of the day you’d never betray Ken…’ I winced at her use of my least-favourite cliché, ‘… mean, he’s incredibly handsome, rich, successful, and he worships you—why would you want anybody else?’

I was both impressed and depressed with her misguided confidence in me.

‘People fall in love with people other than their partners. It happens all the time.’

‘Are you trying to tell me you’ve met someone else?’

‘No. Of course not. I’m just worried that I might.’ How
lame
did that sound? I braced myself for her disbelief, but none came. I had obviously become a very good liar.

‘You’re mad. That’s like worrying about the end of the world, or death, or some future event you can’t foresee. There’s no point.’

‘I suppose not.’

We lapsed into silence, lulled into a heavy soporific state by the trickle of water from various chi-chi little fountains and waterfalls, and the murmured voices around us, the chat of ladies of a certain age out for a day’s relaxation; conservatories, feckless husbands, Botox. Vicky fell asleep shortly afterwards, mouth open, head lolling against the lounger, fingers still splayed. I felt too cold and uncomfortable to drop off—I was just counting the minutes before Marie-Rose Ratched came back to hose me off so I could get warm again.

She eventually rescued me, and led me, still squelching, back to her torture chamber. I was shivering uncontrollably by the time she’d unwrapped the last bandage, and past caring that, in order to reach the ones down around my ankles, she practically had her face in my crotch. It was only after the last trace of mud had been showered off that I finally began to warm up again, although I was still required to stand, naked, while Marie-Rose had conducted the final measure, declaring with triumph that I’d lost four inches.

‘That’s better,’ I said to Vicky, back in the comfort of my fluffy bathrobe. ‘I can feel my extremities again. Can I just tell you - that was really, really unpleasant.’

‘Don’t you feel great now, though?’

‘My skin does feel nice and soft, I suppose. And apparently I lost four inches; although that’s much less impressive than it sounds, since it was half an inch off my waist, a quarter of an inch off each arm, and so on. Bit of a con, if you ask me.’

‘You’ll sleep well tonight, I bet.’

‘Did you have a nice snooze while I was gone?’

Vicky stretched, like a cat. ‘Mmm, it was divine. Just to be able to drop off without Crystal or Pat jumping on my head after five minutes. That alone was worth the cost of this place.’

‘We should do it more often.’

‘Couldn’t afford to do it that often, Anna. It’s not cheap, is it?’

I felt guilty, and thought about how we each had topics of conversation that we instantly regretted bringing up in front of the other: for her, it was anything to do with babies; for me, it was mentioning money, even indirectly. I was about to change the subject when she did it for me.

‘So, I’m dying to hear all about the job. You haven’t even mentioned it! Honestly, don’t worry about upsetting me. I’m really happy for you that you’re in work again, and I want to know every detail.’

‘Oh Vicky, it’s no biggie. Just a crappy cable soap. I couldn’t even find it in the regional listings when I looked.’

‘Don’t put yourself down! A job’s a job, and even those cable things pay quite well, don’t they?’

I nodded, wincing. Back to money again.

‘So what’s it called?’

There was nothing for it but to look her in the eye and brazen it out. Any sign of weakness and she’d have me pinned down like a terrier with a rat, worrying the truth out of me with her razor sharp teeth.

‘Merryvale. It’s called Merryvale, which is the name of the village. I play the wife of a new family who’ve moved into the village to run the post office.’

Once I’d started, it got easier. I seemed to have spent much of my adult life relaying the plots of various episodes of soap operas to Vicky—we’d always filled one another in, when one of us had missed
Eastenders
or
Corrie.
I’d just pretended that I was doing the same thing then. Vicky listened avidly, only pausing to say, ‘Babies?’ in exactly the same hesitant tone that Ken had used when I’d mentioned the twins to him.

‘Oh, you’re so lucky,’ she sighed, when I’d given her a précis of what I remembered from the real
Merryvale
story-lines, with a few made-up anecdotes about my imaginary colleagues thrown in for good measure.

‘I don’t think I’ll do it for long,’ I said. ‘My contract’s only for six months, and if the viewers—neither of them—like the family, we’ll get the axe. Can’t say it’ll bother me all that much. It’s such a hassle being away for half the week…When do you think you’ll try and get back to work?’ I asked, desperate to distract her from
Merryvale
before the truth tripped me up.

‘God knows. I suppose not until the kids are all at school. Including this one,’ she said, patting her stomach disconsolately. ‘So, at least five and a half years. Deep joy.’

‘You could go back sooner. If you had an au-pair.’

‘Anna, we’ve had this conversation before, and there’s no point in having it again,’ she snapped.

I supposed it was my own fault, for bringing it up. ‘Sorry,’ I said humbly. ‘Shall we go and have a swim?’

The rest of the afternoon had passed in an uneventful haze of pampering and general lying around. We ate bean sprout salad for lunch, and I spilled carrot juice down the front of my robe, which had left a lurid orange stain. One of the Ratcheds brought me a clean one, lest I sullied the pristine appearance of the clientele (although I feared I’d already done that, by leaking liquid mud out of the legs of my shell suit). Vicky had three more snoozes, and I went swimming twice, and by five o’clock we were both exhausted and feeling very clean.

It had been a good day. I hadn’t breathed a word about Adam and Max, but despite all the lies about the job I’d just spewed out to her, I felt that Vicky and I were closer again.

Lying, I’d discovered, was a scarily easy thing to do, once you put your mind to it.

Cheating. It was just a verb, after all, a subjective semantic interpretation of a word which could equally mean taking a peek at an opponent’s hand at poker, or copying the answers of ‘O’ level questions from an illegally-procured paper prior to the exam. And every time I woke up in Adam’s bed to find his warm, solid body wrapped around mine, it somehow became easier to disassociate the word ‘cheating’ with what I was actually doing. It felt that what I was doing, for the first time in years, was living. Perhaps the sensation was heightened by the necessity for constant vigilance, ensuring that nothing slipped out, that I left no clues. It sharpened my senses and, I thought, gave Adam’s and my lovemaking another dimension. But the longer it went on the more I enjoyed it, in a perverse kind of a way. I got a kick out of the secret itself, out of the small rituals I’d developed to cover my tracks; like never carrying any identification when I was in Gillingsbury, only using cash for purchases when I was out with Adam so he couldn’t see my real name on any credit card. I worried about what this said about me and my scruples, but not enough that I’d have changed anything. I decided I must have been far less moral than I’d always given myself credit for—but if no-one was getting hurt, it was my own funeral.

Unbelievably, five whole months had passed like that, but Ken still seemed to suspect nothing. (I’d even managed to spend Christmas Day with Max and Adam, by ringing Ken to say that I’d contracted a virulent stomach bug on Christmas Eve, the last day of shooting before the break. He and I were both meant to be having Christmas dinner with Ken’s mum, and I knew he wouldn’t let her down, once he’d promised to go. So I told him I was hanging over the toilet bowl in my flat in ‘Bristol’; he went to his mum’s on his own; and then I told Adam I had to be at Auntie Lil’s for lunch on Boxing Day (true), and no-one was any the wiser.)

Ken’s very lack of interest in my ‘other’ life acted as a validation to me that I could continue with it. Plus, I thought it quite likely that he had secrets of his own, that it behooved him not to enquire too closely about mine, in case I started pumping him for reciprocal information. I’d had a nasty moment on Valentine’s Day, though, when he had asked his secretary to send roses to my digs, and she rang my mobile for my address. I’d had to give her the imaginary one I’d taken the precaution of making up some months previously, with a Bristol postcode, and then called Ken the next day to thank him profusely for the gorgeous flowers. As I’d feared, he sounded puzzled.