The Body Read online

  “Get back here,” Sylvia wailed. "You started this."

  “Back in your stool,” Olga growled.

  "Get back in."

  "Get back."

  "Get back in."

  Katja, broken, was screaming hysterically.

  Lara yanked open the door, threw herself through it and slammed it behind her in time for another rock-like fragrance bottle to strike it like a fist.

  Hand to her burning face, Lara stumbled immediately down the stairs, skipping one or two at a time and twisting her ankle in the process, so now she had a sore ankle and a sore knee.

  As she limped through the hall, she caught a glimpse of herself in Isla. She couldn't resist a look at her friend and thus at herself. She appeared harried and as dishevelled as if she had been swept up by a giant wave and deposited at the bottom of the stairs among dead fish and seaweed. Her eyes were not those of the confident, young woman that had entered, but those of an animal, still cornered even now. The mouth of this face was twisted from a shapeless blob into a rictus. It was the face someone might pull as they toppled from the top rung of a ladder.

  "Why are you being like that?" Lara said. "Why are you being mean? We're friends. You know I wouldn't do anything to hurt you."

  "I didn't do anything," Isla said.

  "You're distorting the reflection!"

  "No, I'm not," Isla told her, "but maybe I should, if that would bring you to your senses. You should have got into your stool."

  "You agree with them?" Lara said.

  "No," Isla said, "but you're not strong enough to survive out there. You should go back to your stool while you still can. If you go out that door, you'll find things very different when you come back. They'll never trust you. They'll be afraid of you. And what they fear, they'll hate."

  "Let them hate me," Lara said. Now it was her turn to feel indignant. The pulsing of her swelling cheek was a sour reminder of how her so-called family had treated her. "Maybe I'll never come back."

  "Don't say that," Isla said. "Don't even joke about it."

  "I've got the body!" Lara reminded her, as if it weren't the only thing on everyone's mind.

  "You have it for now," Isla said.

  The furniture stomped and scratched the floor above in a terrible cacophony. As she fumbled with the latch, Lara thought the floor would give way and that every item would tumble down on top of her. Another bottle exploded against a wall.

  When the latch gave, she hauled the door open and outside came rushing in.She felt the air blowing into the house, as if she had broken the seal of a vacuum and then she was tumbling out onto the step, falling and scraping her knees, the good and the bad, on the cracked concrete path. From her position on the floor, she looked back through the yawning doorway. It may as well have been another world inside. She could no longer hear Matilda's fury, winding the others into a frenzy. Instead, she heard the familiar rumble of cars navigating among parked vehicles along the narrow street. Her darling Roger would be here waiting in his car. She hoped that he hadn't seen her fly from the house.

  With the last of her courage, she crawled back into the mouth of the house, grabbed the jamb with her fingers and pulled it shut. It slammed reassuringly and the knocker clacked on impact.

  She sat with her head against the cool, red wood and squeezed her eyes shut, heaving, frail now that she no longer needed to appear strong.

  On hearing footsteps rushing up the path, she opened her eyes to Roger rushing towards her, arms outstretched. Tears finally fell from her eyes as he knelt on the ground before her, dirtying his smart wedding trousers for her, and they embraced.

  “What happened?” he asked and took her firmly but gently by the shoulders, staring into her eyes. He touched her cheek, and she flinched with pain from where the bottle had hit her. “What happened in there?” he said.

  “Mother said 'no,'” Lara told him flatly and laughed, relieved to be back in his company. They'd only been apart a few minutes, but it felt like half a day had passed since she'd seen him last.

  “She hit you?” Roger observed. “She can't treat you like this!”

  “Forget it,” Lara said.

  "You told her that we got married this morning?"

  "Yes."

  "And she was upset?"

  "She was more upset about the passport," Lara said.

  “You're a grown woman. Legally, she has to give you your passport, Sarah. It's yours.”

  “I know,” said Lara, "but when she sets her mind to something it's very difficult to change it."

  "Nonsense!"

  Roger stood. A moment later, he'd taken the door knocker in his hand.

  "No!"

  He looked down at her and helped her climb from her knees.

  “I can be quite persuasive," he assured her. "I promise I'll be charming and I won't tell her what I think of her.”

  “Of course you'd be charming,” she said. "You're wonderful and kind, but no." She laid both hands on his chest. She could feel his muscles beneath his cotton shirt. Oh Lord, he was real. This was really happening. She was really married and this was her husband and they were going to make a life together. They were going to be a family of sorts. A very, very strange family, admittedly: she'd only see him once every three months and that would be tricky, but he wouldn't know that. All that mattered for now was that they were married and he was hers.

  Not for the first time, she fantasised about buying a little dog. Or better still, they'd rescue one and give it a good home. She'd always wanted a dog, but pets had been against the rules, but then so had husbands, and she'd done it anyway. Anything was possible now. Anything but going back into the house today. “Mummy's in a rage,” she said. "She won't receive visitors."

  “She's a monster,” Roger said, glaring at the closed door and pressing his lips tightly together, almost biting, to prevent himself saying more.

  “She needs a few days to calm down,” she said. “Me too. We could go away somewhere inland. We don't have to go abroad. It'll be cheaper."

  "Money's not an issue," Roger said off-handedly.

  She started to lead him away from the door, away from the house and her family within it.

  "I hear the south coast is just as beautiful as Spain or Portugal or France," she said. "It'll be fine.”

  "Somebody's been talking nonsense," he said. He'd heard the disappointment in her voice. "The south coast of England does not compare well and it doesn't seem fitting that we should be landlocked at the start of our marriage because of your mother. This doesn't bode well. We should say to hell with her and go and get you a new passport from the passport office. We should have done that in the first instance."

  "Darling, I don't want to spend our honeymoon queuing and filling out papers." She pressed her head against his arm. They only had a week, but that was really all she needed. She didn't really need a husband, only to be married and to go on honeymoon and to do any other impulsive thing that came into her head. She wasn't so much building a life as collecting experiences.

  She didn't know what Roger was going to do when she handed the body over to Imelda, that old battleaxe. To him, she'd look like the same Sarah that he'd married, but he'd find her quite a different woman. Then he'd have to endure Katja and Olga and Hilda. It would be a wonder if they were still married by the time she got the body back.

  She thought that their meeting today might have cleared up some confusions or set some ground rules, but now she was more confused than ever. Living for the moment was great fun until the moment ended.

  For this point, however, thanks to not backing down in the face of Imelda's belligerence, she still had a week to figure things out.

  “I know how much you wanted to travel," said Roger. "But I'm not really upset about the honeymoon. Look at your face. I'm worried about you.”

  "I'll be okay."

  As they reached his sports car, Roger looked back at the upstairs windows. He saw nothing, of course, because no body walked in the house a
nd the master bedroom was at the back.

  "Awful woman," he muttered to himself and they got in.

  "I might be able to patch things up with her," Lara said, making herself comfortable in the leather interior, "but if not, it's okay. You're my family now."

  He brushed her hair away from her face, eyes going to the swelling again. She dreaded to see it. She removed his hand from her cheek, kissed his fingers and then pressed his hand to her chest.

  “I love you,” Roger said.

  She closed her eyes, both to savour the moment and to avoid his gaze.

  “More than anything in the world,” he added.

  Lara took a breath to return his words, but, in the end, she only managed a smile.

  *

  The hotel was so near the sea that Lara could imagine she and her husband were not only honeymooners but stewards of a lighthouse, keeping them safe as it was assailed by waves that originated further away than she could see and from deeper than she could fathom. One day, she might cross this water with Roger and turn her imaginings into experiences, filling them out with textures and colours, sounds and smells, and then she'd have more memories to hold during the quiet months. For now, she watched the water, though it seemed to watch her back, beckoning her, daring her to enter a world that was far from the balcony on which she stood, another level of freedom entirely. Freedom from doing the right thing. The next evolution of freedom would be freedom from herself.

  There'd be obstacles to navigate. Rocks protruded from the water like the backs of monsters, washed by silvery, sparkling foam, continuously hidden and revealed, like truths that were too terrifying to face all in one go. Like the water, they glistened.

  Her breathing mimicked the waves until she saw that the tide was coming in, at which point she held her breath. All that separated their building from the sea was the narrow road beneath their window, already soaked by spray, and a weathered, stone wall.

  If the sea kept this up, and of course it would, the wall would fall. Perhaps not today, but perhaps tomorrow or next week, next month or next year. Eventually, the wall would crumble, and the sea would engulf first the lane and then the hotel. She imagined the water dragging the building out and smashing it against the rocks, shaking her out of her room like a grain of salt from a cellar.

  Then she would have no choice but to drown or to swim. Everyone thought they knew what to do in a life and death situation, but it's only when you're in the water that you learn the secrets you've been keeping from yourself.

  The water was black and so cold. When every wave is against you, even the idea of swimming can be exhausting.

  When she finally released her breath, she dared the waves to do their worst, the submarine monsters too, because she'd had enough of being afraid and there was no need to be afraid anymore. If she held on to Roger, she might never need be alone again. Nothing was so frightening as being alone in a room full of people.

  Isla was right: she wasn't ready to face the world, let alone a world on the other side of that water, but she started to think that she'd never be ready if she returned to the house and Imelda and Katja and Olga and, God forbid, her stool.

  Maybe she wouldn't go back. Maybe the honeymoon didn't have to end.

  She jumped when Roger wrapped a bathrobe around her shoulders. Heart still racing, she sank into him and shivered.

  "Fancy a swim?" he joked, looking out at the raging waves.

  "How did you feel about what I said earlier?" she asked him suddenly. "About you being my family now."

  "That was my intention. I married you, remember?"

  "If I go against my mother and give myself to you, you won't disappoint me, will you?" She stared at the furious water frothing beneath them. "You won't leave me out there?"

  "I've just got you," he said. "I'm not throwing you back just yet."

  He kissed the top of her head, the way one might kiss a child. She didn't want to be girlish anymore, least of all with him. He must have sensed her unease, because he said:

  "What happened to you in there?"

  He was talking about their aborted love-making attempt. She'd been on the balcony for thirty minutes, working up the courage to go back in and scaring herself silly in the process.

  "I don't know," she said, burrowing between in his warm arms so she wouldn't have to look him in the eye. "I froze up."

  "It's okay," he said. "We have time. We have all the time in the world."

  "Yes," she said, reluctantly, because she hadn't decided if that were true or not yet. "But it's our wedding night. And we've been waiting."

  "Three weeks isn't so long to wait," Roger said. "I'd wait until the end of the world for you. And a day after."

  "I don't want you to wait," she said, putting a finger to his lips. "And I don't want to either."

  Even as she said it, she realised that she was talking herself into a situation for which she was not prepared, but when you only had the body for four weeks out of the year, you learnt to make tough decisions quickly and to perform pleasures slowly.

  She'd never made love before.

  "Let's go to bed," she said.

  She led him back inside, and he started to close the balcony door.

  "No, leave it open," she said. "I want us to hear the waves."

  He looked impressed by this, which pleased her.

  The unspoken truth was that she wanted the waves to witness their love-making, but she didn't think Roger would appreciate hearing her talk like that. He lived in a very solid world of facts and figures, of actions and of consequences. He'd only tease her if she made him listen to her fantasies about waves, which she'd invented with her tireless, overactive imagination, or truths, such as the truth about her home and the people that resided within its walls, within its furnishings.

  He smiled at her and brushed her soft hair back from her face. He seemed to love her hair more than she did. Then he was looking at the blue of her bruise again, from where the bottle hit her.

  "Forget it!" she snapped.

  "I'm sorry."

  "I just don't want that to ruin our evening."

  "It won't," Roger said. "She won't. She can't."

  He gazed into her eyes as if she were the most precious thing in the world. If their chance meeting had occurred a few years ago, he might not even have noticed her. She would have had her head in a book, taking a respite from the world, which normally became too much for her after a couple of days.

  She was the only one of her sisters who liked to remain in the house during her occupation of the body. The others returned from time to time as a duty, but she had enjoyed tending to her sisters; cleaning, polishing, varnishing and performing minor repairs where necessary. Her self-imposed duties kept her rooted. Those years, when she did finally leave the house, she felt connected to her sisters as if by invisible strings. She considered her personal pleasure as nothing compared to her duty to care for them and to be wise and careful during her stewardship of the body.

  This time it had been different. She'd seen Roger and even though she hadn't been immediately attracted to him, he'd gone out of his way to talk to her, to woo her, and she'd wondered what might happen if she started saying 'yes.'

  This was the furthest she had been from home in years. Lying on the bed, her long, blonde hair splayed on the pillow, it occurred to her that even if she wanted to see the others tonight it would not have been possible. Roger would have had to drive through the night and they would not get home ... they would not get to the house until morning.

  Roger disrobed and climbed onto the bed. He had a slight pot belly divided by a line of fine dark hair that rose up and flourished on his solid chest. He looked very serious suddenly, his thick eyebrows knitting together as he studied her. She hoped that he would not notice that she was trembling again, despite the warmth of their room and then the warmth of his body. He drew open her robe and lowered his lips to her breast.

  The feel of his warm lips against her cool skin was beautiful
. It was not the way she had imagined it would be, because, in reality, the sensations were not specific to one location. Rather the pleasure spread throughout her and at the same time something unknown rose up to meet it. She thought that she was enjoying it, but it was almost too beautiful, too intense. The result was that she felt paralysed, which confused and frustrated and angered her all at once. She couldn't help feeling as though this might be good if she could just relax and that it would be over before she knew what to do.

  So this was how Anna felt each time it was her turn to journey into the world. She never talked about her exploits, but they all knew. There were messages and letters and flowers and dates to be kept that were missed. And those were only the ones that came out of hiding, because they'd fallen for her and couldn't let go. Each time, Anna would start fresh with a new man, or maybe men. She wondered if Imelda would dump Roger before Anna even had anything to do with it.

  Although the others were many miles away and could not communicate with her outside the house, she knew them so intimately that she they may as well have been on the other side of the door, listening, tutting, calling her a prude and a slut.

  "Don't do it like that."

  "Look at her."

  Laughter.

  "See how she just lies there. I told you."

  "Let me have a go. I'll show you how it's done."

  Roars of laughter.

  "You're whoring us all out to him. At least Anna has the decency to keep them stored away."

  She shook her head to dispel the voices.

  "Are you okay?" Roger asked and she nodded.

  He kissed her neck and she could smell his cigarette breath and cologne. Not only could she not move, but she found that she could hardly breathe. As his tongue touched her clavicle, she was surprised to feel tingling run the length of her body until she felt pleasure in her toes. She almost laughed, but she didn't want him to think that she was laughing at him and so she lay silently, not so much enjoying the experience as bearing the awkward, overpowering pleasure of it, thinking that something in her might break, though they'd only just begun.

  She tried to imagine what Anna would do and she opened her mouth. She sought his mouth, and he pressed his tongue against hers, engulfing her and again she wanted to laugh, wondering if she was as he expected.