The Yummy Mummy (18 page)
“Waaaaaaaaa!”
Evie’s going through a clingy phase. Today, I’m flattered rather than suffocated by it. (Mothers go through phases, too.) “Evie honey. Mama is just next door, back in a sec.”
“Amy! Alice,” roars Joe.
A canter up the wooden stairs. “Hiya! Nice place,” says Alice politely. We kiss. “What’s eating Joe?”
“Male inability to mix sleeplessness with civility.”
“Good-looking, isn’t he?” Arch of eyebrow. Alice assesses me with slanted eyes. Sizing up our relationship.
“Yes, we’re a bit of an odd couple.”
“I wasn’t saying . . .”
I shoo the comment away. Alice sinks down on my huge bed and tugs her olive-green jeweled kaftan over her knees. She is one of those women whose beauty is enhanced every time you see her in a new setting. The leafy green of Queen’s Park brings out the color of her eyes, the sandpit, the gold of her skin, and the plum satin of my quilt makes her look opulent, a model in a velvety baroque fashion story.
“Big bed,” she purrs, lying back until she’s stretched out, head on the pillow. Argh! Flashback of the Rabbit encounter! It happened there, where she is sitting. Rude ghosts, too weird. I blush and turn away, busy myself with opening boxes.
Alice props herself up on an elbow. “Right, let’s get on with the task at hand. First outfit, please . . .”
Out of my under-bed storage box I pull a jersey dress—size 12—Marks & Spencer, strappy and pale blue. Joe’s always loved it. I step into it. My flesh creates no seam strain. I’m delighted.
“Awful,” says Alice, shaking her head.
“Oh really?”
“Really. It makes you look about forty. It’s a mum dress.”
Next. My fat jeans with peach silk camisole, circa 1998.
“Jeans don’t fit. The cut actually
gives
you saddle bags, no mean feat. Have you got a hand mirror?” I grab one off the dresser. “Now examine the top from behind. See? It’s stretching along the back. The bra is redistributing flesh so it’s bulging under the strap. Nasty. You really need some new underwear.”
I nod. Next, crepey khaki dress. Bias cut. Hem below the knee.
“Hmmm.” She twiddles a curl thoughtfully. “Keep. Wear with high heels or flat flats, nothing in between. Definitely change the buttons. That would make a massive difference.”
Cheesecloth pink trousers that I bought in Bombay.
“Cheap backpacker gear. Very, very wrong.”
The door bangs open. Joe’s huge frame shadows us, blocking the light from the hallway, crackling bad humor. “You can’t throw them out,” he growls.
Alice sits up on the bed, arches her waist, and tugs her kaftan. A flash of cleavage. “Joe, hi!” She smiles brightly. “A distinguished male eye could be just what we need.”
“Really?” He gives me a once-over. “Well, I think they look great.”
“Joe!” Alice recoils back in mock shock. “They add inches to Amy’s hips.”
“Alice, if you don’t mind . . .” Joe is bristling. I look down. If I close my eyes maybe what could happen won’t and he’ll go away. “
I’m
Amy’s boyfriend and
I
love her hips. . . .”
“But they’re
not
her hips, it’s fabric. She’s lost loads of weight. Or haven’t you noticed?” Alice says this with the most calorific of smiles and half-shut sleepy eyes. It’s a look that sends men gooey. Joe doesn’t react but I notice that his left hand, buried in his back jeans pocket, is writhing.
“I have noticed, yes.”
“Don’t you think she looks wonderful?”
“Yes, but not because she’s been dieting. . . .”
“It’s probably the Pilates.”
Hello! Over here! I am not a plastic mannequin. Annoyed with them both, I walk over to change and untie the waistband.
“Oh, don’t change. I love those trousers,” says Joe, not smiling and not sounding like he loves them at all.
My hands freeze.
“But Joe, they
have
to go.” Alice rises up from the bed. “C’mon, Amy, whip them off.”
I look from Joe’s imploring eyes to Alice’s half-amused insistence. I pull apart the tie.
“Don’t!” Joe hisses, super-quiet, really angry.
I start. Alice glances at him, eyes wide. I don’t think she’s used to men disagreeing with her. He shoots her a dark look. I feel hugely embarrassed. How dare Joe show me up like this?
“This is getting out of hand,” he says, the vein in his neck throbbing. “What you wear is not up to Alice.”
“And nor is it up to you,” I seethe. “Listen, Joe, we’re playing with clothes here, not our life savings. I want a second opinion. And you know what?”
Joe looks a bit sheepish.
“I agree with Alice. These are horrible.” I let the trousers fall to the ground. “They are a relic.” The swathes of pink cheesecloth puddle around my ankles, leaving me in black M&S minis. “And they are going.” I pick them up and throw them on the “no” pile.
“Fine.” The door slams behind him. The air shivers.
Alice perches on the side of the bed, not so louche now. But not embarrassed either. Her eyes shine. I think she enjoys the drama. “I’m sorry, Amy. I didn’t mean to . . .”
“Don’t be silly. It’s his stupid fault. I’m just so sorry you have to be caught up in this.”
Alice looks at me, eyes pooled with pity. “Is there anything I can do?”
I shake my head.
“Well, another time. Probably best if I go.”
Outrage bucks inside. “You know what, Alice? I’m throwing the whole lot out and we are going shopping.”
“That’s my gal.”
I STAB THE BUTTONS OF MY PHONE. “NIC? IT’S ME, AMY
. What? Yes. Sorry, loud music. In a shop, hang on while I go outside. Better? I was just wondering if you are around? I’m in Westbourne Grove. With Alice. Yes, shopping. We’re meeting Alice’s friends at the Westbourne for a drink, fiveish, and I thought you should come and meet Alice. I know . . . I know, it’s not your kind of thing . . . but. What? I can’t hear you. You will? Excellent, see you at five.”
Alice stands opposite me. She’s on the phone, too. But I can’t hear her conversation. She is giggling and talking breathily. It strikes me she might be having phone sex. Seeing I’ve finished my call, she hangs up sharply. “Follow me,” she says.
The posh boxy bags bang against my knees as I walk. The handle strings cut into my palms. My heel is on fire because my invisible trainer sock has slipped off it. And my eyes are itchy from the dry glare of target shop lighting. But I feel fantastic. “Major. You’ve got to get it” has been the refrain of the last three hours. So I have. A pair of Seven jeans that make my legs look twice the length; a Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress in green and white geometric patterns; three white Gap T-shirts; one black Brora cashmere wrap cardigan; pink Converse trainers; a silk Issa top; Heidi Klein bikini; ugly trainers with four-inch soles, called MBTs (Masai Barefoot Technology), that look like hovercraft but apparently change the way you walk, perfecting posture, and, here’s the best bit, burn up extra calories and cellulite. Yes, Alice can make me buy almost anything. Alice was born to shop. It’s as if a big band plays every time she walks through the shop door. She expects attention and she gets it. Assistants swarm around her. She knows many of their names. They give her discounts. Why? “Because I’m Alice,” she laughs. In her company, I am a little feted too, rather than treated like a potential shoplifter. My bank account is more than a thousand pounds lighter.
“Right, Miss Crane. I’ve just spotted the
shoes de resistance
. Back to Matches!”
“I can’t. I’ve spent too much.” But Alice tugs me back to the shop.
“Oh, what the hell! One extra thing isn’t going to break the bank. . . .”
“Not when it’s already broken.”
“Back so soon,” quips the doorman. I grin.
“Here, try this. They’ll look
amazing
on you, I promise.” Alice hands me a pair of blue satin open-toed heels. They have a diamante butterfly near the toe cleavage. “Marc Jacobs.”
The shoes are laughably not me. Not now. They seem far higher, more delicate, than the knackered old heels that languish unloved in the back of my shoe drawer. And I have nowhere to wear them.
“Perfect for the park, Alice.”
“What about work? You’ll need them for work.”
“But they’re too high, I’d be crippled.”
“Rubbish. You could jog in these. You’ve lost your judgment, Amy. You’ve forgotten the power of a good pair of heels.”
“Hmmm, maybe. But they’re too expensive. I can’t spend this much money on shoes.”
“Well, you could buy four pairs of shitty shoes that will scuff and look terrible. That you’ll never really
love
, only tolerate. I’m telling you, Amy, when it comes to shoes, buy cheap, buy twice.” A hovering shoe assistant nods her glossy black bob vigorously.
I examine the shoes. They are the same blue as my Pilates mat. I peel off my trainer and stinky invisible sock and slide my foot into the soft satin skeleton. Oh! I had forgotten what a good shoe can do. My foot is no longer a carrot-toed object to be masked at all costs. It is an erotic
objet,
balletic and gently arched.
“You need to wear them with something cool. Let’s go and try on some stuff. That okay, Emma?”
The assistant nods and leads us through a swish of curtains to the conjuring-box changing rooms. I climb out of my skirt and vest top and prepare to be transformed by designer denim and a draped jersey top.
“You look incredible.” Alice examines my new outfit approvingly, then pats my bum. “I’d shag yer.”
“Really, Alice, I love, but . . . no . . . can’t justify them.”
“You can. They’re for the new Amy!” says Alice, who despite the great style chasm between us still has an uncanny ability to read me like a price tag. “Not the one who slaps around the park all day in old Nikes feeling miserable.”
“Hmmm.” I feel an unexpected pang for the postpartum Amy. In my head I can see her pelting down the corridors away from me, past gleaming stainless-steel racks of clothes rails, dropping leggings and old trainers and bras that don’t fit as she runs, hair bleaching as she gains on the vanishing point between the racks. What will happen when she gets there? I twist around, cricking my neck to get a look at my bum in the jeans from behind. Wow! It’s the best bum I’ve had in years. Heart shaped and swelling the dark denim pockets in more or less the right places. This, it suddenly dawns, is a bum worthy of Josh.
“Amy?”
“Sorry, miles away.”
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Er, sorry. No. What?”
“I said, sweetheart, I will buy the shoes for you. A present from master to student.”
“You’re joking?”
“It’s no joking matter. I want to treat you.”
“Why?”
“Because someone has to.”
Alice makes me promise to wear them now. So I gratefully totter out of the shop, legs buckling at unexpected rises in the pavement. Without asking, she tosses my old trainers into a Kensington and Chelsea bin, on top of greasy fast food wrappers. Is that really where the old Amy belongs? I resist the urge to squirrel them out, slap them on, and run back home to watch daytime TV, safe and dowdy.
A TAP ON MY BACK. “AMY? IS THAT YOU?
”
I swivel around on the fulcrum of my blue heel.
“No way!” Nicola crushes her hands to her mouth with astonishment.
“Oh God, have I turned into a footballer’s wife?” I should have prepared myself for this reaction.
“Yes, no . . . I think . . . it just gave me a shock, that’s all. You’ve been Aliceified.” She examines me carefully, head to heel. “They look comfortable.”
I look down at my blue shoes. I particularly like the view from this angle, the toe cleavage, the butterflies’ full wing span, the soft oval of framed flesh. “Well, to tell the truth they are beginning to pinch a bit.”
“A bit?” she laughs.
“Okay, they’re agony.”
“But you look fabulous, that’s the main thing,” says Nicola, grinning. “Look at me . . . and remind yourself what you’re missing out on.” Nicola’s wearing a gray linen dress and cheap sparkly flip-flops, surviving sequins entrailing on the pavement. “Thomas was sick on my nice dress. Sorry to let the side down.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m just so pleased you’re here, didn’t think you’d want to come.”
“Well, it was this style safari or daytime talk shows. Where are they, anyhow?”
Nicola scans the forecourt of the Westbourne pub. It is crammed with people who gleam with wealth and good diets since birth. Girls flick back shiny hair and laugh loudly into their huge glasses of wine. Handsome scruffy men smoke lazily, eyes playing between tanned cleavages, licking up legs in heels.
“Here.”
Alice’s glass of wine is shaking as she laughs furiously about something with Jasmine, who’s just turned up wearing a tiny lime-green tennis dress that appears to be covered in dandelion fluff. “No!” Alice is saying, disbelieving, snorting with laughter. “No way!”
I touch her elbow. “Let me introduce you to my friend Nicola.”
Alice carries on laughing. I’ve never had perfect social timing.
“Er, Alice, can I introduce my mate Nicola?”
“What? Oh.” Alice turns round. “Nikki? Sorry, Nicola. Hi. Alice.” She dazzles Nicola with her dentistry and reangles her body back to Jasmine.
“So will you pick up the chiropractor bill?” Nicola asks.
Alice’s hair flicks back round. “I’m sorry?”
“The shoes. The toe crunchers.”
Alice smiles. “Much cheaper than a therapist.”
Nicola laughs, lights a cigarette, and offers one to Alice.
“Thank God I’m not the only smoker around here,” says Alice, plucking a cigarette out of her packet with slender fingers. Alice likes people who answer back. She warms to Nicola instantly and the two fall into playful banter about the merits of smoking.
Jasmine and I stand on the sidelines, surplus to requirements. I expected Nicola to loathe Alice and, in truth, was quite enjoying the prospect of defending Alice while, perhaps, fueling the critique. There’s something nice about having life compartmentalized. My friends in boxes, all friends with different parts of me. Very childish.