The Venus Trap (12 page)

I just about managed to remember what the original sum was. ‘No, sweetie, that’s not right.’

‘It is!’

‘No—it was one pound take away 79p.’

‘Yes—31p!’

‘No—because 31 and 79 equals 110. One pound ten pence. The right answer is 21 pence.’

‘That’s what I said.’ Megan’s voice was crackly with outrage. I realised I’d better try to head off this new tantrum at the pass.

‘Hey, Beans, guess who’s coming over tonight?’

‘Father Christmas and Taylor Swift?’

‘Um . . . no. Guess again.’

‘Sharon Osborne and Professor Dumbledore!’

‘No. A real person, not from books or on TV. Someone you already know.’

‘Sharon Osborne and Taylor Swift are real people.’

‘Yes I know, but—oh, never mind: Zuzana!’

There was a pause. ‘To babysit? You’re going out?’

‘Yes. I’m going for a drink with a friend.’

Megan’s voice raised into a wail. ‘Why can’t I come?’

‘It’s a grown-up evening and you don’t know my friend.’
Nor do I
, I thought,
not very well
. ‘You’d be bored out of your brain.
Anyway
, you have lots of treats coming up.’

‘Yes.’ Megan sniffed. ‘So does that mean it’s my birthday next month, because you said me and Daddy were going to Disneyland for my birthday?’

‘Nearly. It’s July now, and then you’re going at the end of August, in time for the first of September.’

‘So, my birthday is on September first which means that from September to December I am seven and a quarter, then from December to April I’m seven and a half, then until June I am still seven and a half, and then from June until September I’m seven and three quarters! Which means that I’m seven and three quarters now because it’s July so it’s my birthday soon and can I have another make-over party but this time with the cinema too and maybe some pony riding? Daddy said I can.’

‘But I thought we agreed he was taking you to Disneyland for your present?’

‘Yes. But I need to do something with my friends too.’

‘Well, yes, I expect so. So—what do you think?’ I gave her
a twirl.

‘Ye-es,’ said Megan, head on one side, scrutinising me. ‘You look quite nice, Mummy, but . . .’

‘What, sweetie?’ I allowed myself a small daydream about me and Claudio really hitting it off, and going for weekends away to Paris on Eurostar. Oh, the irony.

‘I think you need another colour. Red on its own is a bit boring. Can’t you wear your pink scarf as well?’

‘I don’t think that would really go, angel.’

‘Can I wear it, then?’

‘OK, but only until Zuzana comes. Then you take it off and go to bed when she tells you. Yes?’

‘Yes, Mummy.’ She skipped off triumphantly, Lester trying to pounce on the tassels of my lovely pink scarf, which was trailing down behind her back. She was too quick for him, though, so he gave up and settled down on the bed, hoiked up his back leg, and proceeded to lick his own penis instead. All right for some.

I look at the clock—6.00 a.m. There’s no way I’m going to get back to sleep now, so I obediently open the diary again and find the entry where I talk about the swimming club. I’m already dreading having to talk to Claudio about it later.

Chapter Eighteen
Day 3

29th December 1986

T
hings I can do when I’ve got smaller boobs
:

– Wear a bikini

– Wear a vest top

– Wear wide belts (although would they make my bottom look huge?)

– Little lacy bras!!!!

– Wear strappy dresses

– Go jogging

– Stand on the poolside at training without my arms crossed

I’ve been thinking about this one thing for months, long before the attack, but it’s the memory of those cold, grabbing hands on my chest that has made me decide that I’m really, definitely, going to do it: I’m going to get a breast reduction.

They still don’t seem to have stopped growing, even though I’m sixteen. They just get bigger and bigger. It’s like living with a pair of starving hungry twins. I’m a 34H! I’m not sure bras come any bigger than that. I remember the first time I ever noticed them, in a photograph when I was eleven, at the last sports day of junior school, triumphantly winning the three-legged race with Hannah. Hannah was tiny and neat, and her shins so twig-like, it looked as though she would have just floated away if she hadn’t been tethered to me. In the photograph, I am a huge galumphing elephant, dragging Hannah along to victory in my wake. But the worst thing about the shot was my terrible prepubescent breasts. They were small then, but still flapping about in opposite directions on my chest as I ran. Mum confirmed my fears by marching me down to Just Jane to get my first bra fitted the day after we’d got the photos developed.

From then on my boobs just grew and grew. It’s like they too are taking part in some kind of race, straining towards an invisible finish line. It doesn’t matter how I try to contain or hide them, there’s no disguising their disproportionate size.

They are truly terrible. And since two weeks ago when I walked through that alley, it’s even worse. They’re like an obsession. I can’t bear to look at them in the mirror, clothed or unclothed, and I definitely couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else looking at them, either.

It’ll be so great. Imagine not having to squash these things into my tight Speedo any more, or having to walk out of the changing rooms with my arms crossed. I might even shower naked after training like the other girls do, and not in my swimming costume! As long as the scars aren’t too bad, of course . . .

Doug (aka Slug,or Sluggage) won’t be able to talk straight at them any more. Ugh. Doug and his nylon navy tracksuit, spittly whistle around neck, chlorine-saturated bald spot on head. I won’t have to worry that as soon as I get out of the pool, they’ll all stare at my boobs. All those horrible boys, letching after me. Claudio Cavelli and Nigel Weston and Peter Henrich, all thinking it’s fine to stare at me, because Doug does it.

That stranger touched them, squeezed them, and manhandled them, in the alley. Perhaps that was why he chose me to attack? He’d noticed them, sticking out in two big fat lumps even through my duffel coat. If I’d had neat little unobtrusive ones like Donna’s, he’d have left me alone.

They have to go, these ungainly mounds of flesh. I feel like taking a carving knife and cutting them off myself. I was afraid before; afraid of the surgeon and the anaesthetic and the embarrassment of having doctors and nurses see my naked breasts in all their mammoth non-splendour—but now, none of that matters. Not after what that man did to me. I just want rid of them.

Plus, dare I say it, John might fancy me once I have the
operation
—another good reason to have it done, and soon.

I went to see Dr Hamber this morning, pretending to the receptionist that it was about that wart on my finger. I asked him how much it would cost, and if you have to be eighteen. When I got into his consulting room he made me lift up my shirt while he inspected my boobs, in their ugly grey bra, and my cheeks burned when I held the shirt in front of my face. I was so glad of its cover so that I didn’t have to look at him. He’s known me since I was a baby. It’s weird.

‘Yes, well, they’re certainly large enough for you to have the operation on the National Health,’ he said cheerfully, and I wanted to cry. My boobs are so big that it wouldn’t even be considered vanity to have them reduced!!! He said I didn’t have to be eighteen as long as I had my mum’s permission, but that there was a waiting list of a couple of years so if I wanted it done sooner, I’d have to go privately and it would cost about two and a half thousand pounds.

Two and a half grand! I asked him to put me on the NHS waiting list and came home in tears, but when I told Mum why I was crying, she said something incredible: Daddy left me some money in his will! She hadn’t planned to tell me about it until I was eighteen, but she thought I could use it for the op!! I hugged her so hard she squeaked. Then I rang Donna to tell her, and this was her response:

‘You’re off your head! Why? All that pain, and being in hospital, and having scars—are you sure?’

Then I didn’t want to discuss it any more, not if she was going to be so negative. So we got onto the topic of how many verrucas Nigel Weston’s got. You can see them when he tumble-turns next to us. His spotty back, bum, and legs rise up into the air and sink down again out of sight, like a whale blowing. Then when he swims off you catch a glimpse of a foot, the sole all peppered with black verrucas.

‘Why are all the boys in this club so disgusting? Nigel Weston—acne and verrucas, mmm, attractive. And don’t you think he looks like he’s got a chipolata in his Speedos?’

‘He fancies you,’ I said, grateful that Donna could make me feel even halfway normal again. Although I’m a bit annoyed that she hasn’t taken the news of my operation seriously. Bet she thinks I won’t go through with it.

‘Yeah. And Claudio fancies you. Aren’t we just the lucky pair?’

We chatted for a bit longer but I wasn’t concentrating. I just kept imagining myself with small, pert bosoms, and smiled down the phone to Donna without her knowing. At least something can make me smile.

Chapter Nineteen
Day 3

I
thought he wanted to talk about the swimming club, but when Claudio storms into my room later that morning, slamming the door behind him and dangling the key menacingly, tantalisingly, in front of me in between his thumb and forefinger, I can see that reminiscing is the last thing on his mind. I’ve been sitting on the bed reading my diary, and I drop it to the floor with shock.

‘You’ve been
lying
to me, Jo.’ He looks furious.

I’m too frightened of him to refuse to reply. I draw my knees protectively up to my body and hug them tight. ‘What? No I haven’t! Why do you say that?’

He continues as though I haven’t spoken. ‘I won’t have it, Jo, I just won’t have it. We have to have absolute trust!’

Trust? Yeah, right.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He sits down next to me on the bed, not touching me, but putting his face so close to mine that even in the dim light I can see all the open pores around his nose and the stray hairs in his eyebrows.

‘You told me you and Sean had finished . . .’ he hisses.

‘We have!’ My voice is a squeak short of panic.

Frigging Sean, still causing trouble for me.

‘That’s not what it sounds like.’

‘Claudio, you have to explain. Sean and I split up
six months ago.’

He takes an exaggeratedly deep breath, as though I am a particularly stupid pupil and he is a long-suffering head teacher.

‘Then why would he send you a text saying “Good to see you last week, kiss kiss kiss”? Last week
we
went out. Last week
we
almost kissed! How could you, Jo? How
could
you? I didn’t have you down as a cheat, I really didn’t.’

I sigh too. ‘Claudio, I did see him last week, but it was for about five minutes. All that happened was that he told me he’s got another girlfriend now. We just . . . bumped into one another when I was going into my office. He was coming out of the gym.’

This isn’t entirely true, although it sort of is. I did see Sean last week, but not outside the gym—that was the time before. I’m not going to tell Claudio about it. It’s too humiliating.

Instead I give Claudio an edited version of an encounter I had with Sean about a month ago.

‘We bumped into each other. I asked him if he was seeing anyone else. He said “Sort of,” and then changed it to yes, he was. That was it. I spoke to him for about two minutes. I don’t know why he’d have texted me afterwards, but he always was a bit contrary. It was probably only because he feels guilty.’

I was an idiot to ask him. It would have been better not to know for sure. I mean, of
course
Sean would have got himself another girlfriend, almost six months after we broke up. He probably got together with someone within six days. He’s the type who can’t survive without adoration on tap.

I just hadn’t been able to help myself.

He was running down the steps of the gym cramming a whole chocolate biscuit into his mouth when I saw him, which was good—he was embarrassed. Sean was a dreadful stuffer of food, a fister of cutlery. He would focus on a huge slice of pizza with the intensity of a cat about to pounce on a blackbird and then, instead of merely biting into it or—heaven forbid—cutting it with a knife and fork, he’d semi-fold it and slot it into his mouth sideways, actually turning his shoulders as if that would help to accommodate it. Then he’d have to sit, cheeks bulging, speechlessly trying to masticate, until it was reduced to a more manageable size.

‘Uh-oh ’o,’ he mumbled, not looking me in the eye, and covering his mouth with his hand as he tried to get the biscuit under control enough to articulate actual words.

‘Hello, Sean.’

‘You all right?’ he managed eventually, poised with what was probably dread to see whether I was planning to walk straight on or stop to chat.

I braced myself for the wash of irritation I always used to feel when he stated those words, because it wasn’t a genuine enquiry as to my state of mind but a token pleasantry, and it was as if he didn’t want to hear the answer, unless it was in the affirmative.

Annoyingly, the irritation didn’t come. I found that I was so overwhelmingly relieved to be in such close proximity to him that he could have come out with all the little Seanisms that used to bug me so much—‘You all right?’ ‘up London’, ‘innit’, ‘eh?’ . . . and so on and so forth—and I would still have wanted to grab him and wrap my arms and legs around him like a monkey clinging to
a pole.

‘I’m OK. How are you?’

‘Yeah. All right.’

Then I asked, just blurted it out. ‘So. Are you seeing
anybody else?’

There was a long, long pause and then Sean said, to a nearby lamp post, ‘Not exactly.’

Everything in my body seemed to stop—blood stopped
flowing
, heart stopped pumping, pupils didn’t dilate, muscles didn’t
contract
. I felt as if I’d turned to stone.

‘That means yes, then,’ I eventually said, knowing full well that it did. All ‘Not exactly’ meant was ‘Yes, but I don’t want to tell you.’

‘Well. Sort of. But we haven’t done anything,’ he said in a hurry, in an almost plaintive voice, as if he was a teenager and I was his mother, catching him and the mystery girl rolling around semi-clad in his bedroom. ‘I can’t,’ he added, sheepishly.

Can’t?
I thought. What does that mean? Can’t physically get it up? Doesn’t want to? (Unlikely.) Is still so much in love with me that he can’t give himself to anybody else? In which case, why the hell did he dump me?

‘Oh. I see,’ I said, wondering if I was actually going to throw up then and there. I was shaking so much that I had to grip the strap of my handbag till my knuckles turned white. ‘Gotta go. Bye.’

I shot away, almost running into the office and slamming the door behind me. Thankfully, Stephanie wasn’t in, and the room was silent and empty.

It’s so weird that I can miss Richard so much and yet not be upset that he’s got a new girlfriend—Wendy, who,
according
to Megan, stays for ‘sleepovers in Daddy’s bed’. But the mere thought of Sean with another woman still makes me want to just die with pain.

I remember the list I wrote after that little exchange. I sat in my office for a long time, until cramp prickled at my toes and my head throbbed with the effort of not crying. I hadn’t even bothered to unzip my laptop or get out my notebook—there was no chance of getting any work done that day. Eventually I took a sheet of paper off the printer and slowly wrote another list, in my neatest handwriting:

– Is she older/younger/prettier/sexier/better than me?

– Was he lying when he said he wasn’t sleeping with her?

– Does she know that he hates his skinny calves?

– Does he bring her Tea in Pants?

– Does she know how much he loved my bottom?

– Does she know that only six months ago he sent me a text saying ‘I really love you’ and then finished with me, a week later?

Then I’d trudged home, locked the doors, run a bath, and lay in it for two hours crying like a teenager who’d just been chucked. Then I got dressed and went to collect Megan from school.

‘So, honestly, Claudio, there’s nothing going on between me and him any more.’
He just wrecked my marriage then fucked off,
I refrain from adding.

‘I’m not sure I believe you,’ he says, standing up and fitting the key back in the lock. Then he comes back and leans even closer. ‘But if you ever lie to me again, Jo, you will be very, very sorry.’

Then he hits me really hard around the side of my head. Boxes my ear, I suppose. Hard enough that I keel sideways and see stars, tiny white dots like fireflies. I’m too shocked to speak.

He stands up. ‘Like I said, Jo. You’ll be very sorry.’

I don’t even hear the door being locked and bolted again, over the ringing in my ear.