The Body Read online

  He caressed her breast as he kissed her and she made herself dispel thoughts of Anna then, because this was her moment and she ought to enjoy it as herself. This could have be the first and last time she made love to Roger.

  The moment she pushed thoughts of Anna to one side, others flooded into the empty space.

  "Spread your legs, girl! He's not going to get it in if you tighten up like that."

  "Relax, for Christ's sake. You'll have a heart attack."

  She kissed him on the mouth, focussing entirely on the increasingly familiar and welcome feel of his lips against hers. He tasted of toothpaste as well as cigarettes. She liked the taste of him. This was her husband, and she would be learning all sorts of things about him over the next few days, while she decided what the future would be for them.

  His right hand was on the move again and, naively, she wondered where it was going until it was there.

  She jumped and half-sat up with such speed that her forehead banged against his teeth.

  "Ow!"

  "Shit," she said, "I'm sorry."

  He rolled off her then, like a mortally injured soldier, holding his face the way she'd held hers while running through the house and nearly falling down the stairs.

  "Ow," he said and checked for wobbly teeth with a finger. She didn't know if he were joking.

  "I'm sorry," she repeated, sitting up fully.

  "It's okay," he said and stared at her as if he were trying to work her out too, like maybe she'd done that on purpose. "Tell you what, we can just go to sleep. We can cuddle."

  "I don't want to cuddle," she said. "I mean, I do. But we can do more. You just took me by surprise."

  "There's no rush," he said. "I told you. The end of the world and a day after."

  "I wanted tonight to be special," she said, playing with the hairs of his chest, but her heart wasn't in it.

  "It is special," he reassured her. "You're so beautiful. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life with you. And that starts now. It couldn't be any more special than that."

  She sighed with disappointment tinged with relief.

  "Lie down," he said. "Go to sleep. I'll hold you."

  Outside, the waves were hissing and sniggering.

  "Could you shut the door?" she asked.

  Despite everything, she enjoyed the view of him crossing to the door completely naked. He was unremarkable physically, but he was fit and relatively young and she'd made this happen. He was hers. He'd said so this morning as she had given herself to him also.

  Reciting her marriage vows had caused her to come out in a sweat, but she'd thought then that there were two likely outcomes. Either she'd keep her vows and one of the others would break them for her, or she'd not go back to the stool. She'd thought it unlikely that she'd not return to her resting place as planned, but every hour brought that likelihood nearer.

  As Roger returned to bed, having slid shut the glass door, she averted her eyes, as if such modesty were still necessary after she'd had his penis nudging her thigh and inching towards her private parts for a quarter of an hour.

  "I'll sleep nearest the door," he said. "I'll protect you."

  She moved up and turned her back to him so that he could wrap his arm around her. She could feel his hardness against her and wondered if he might try again to arouse her. He was true to his word, however. He seemed to satisfy himself for now with the smell of her hair and before long his breathing became deep and regular.

  She gave it ten more minutes to make sure he was fully asleep before extricating herself from his arm, crossing to the balcony and shutting the curtain too, but not before looking out one last time at the perpetual motion of the churning water. It was a threat and a dare all at once and she resigned herself to the knowledge that even after she had drawn the curtain, the dark water would still be there.

  *

  Half-asleep, Lara squeezed her eyes shut against the sound of hissing that she presumed had woken her. She was drifting back into a dream, when she realised that the sound was getting louder and louder, and the more she tried to ignore it, the more it seemed to grow, until she was curious, but mostly afraid. It continued without interruption, becoming louder, or getting closer, accompanied later by a roiling grumble and a growl, conveying to her the certainty that it meant her harm, and terrified of losing everything and not knowing why, she had to open her eyes at last.

  Gradually, she came to her senses. She was in the body. And she was in a hotel room. There was too much room in the bed.

  She opened her eyes at the same time as she heard a sharp snap from across the room. Roger was standing there in his robe, lifting the kettle and pouring boiling water into two cups.

  "Good morning, wife," he said and grinned.

  Certainly, he was not the first man to wake a woman with those words the morning after their wedding night. Imaginative or not, it was not something that she had imagined she would hear in her lifetime. She expected she'd be hearing a lot of 'wife' and that was for the better, because she wanted a chance to get used to it before it ended.

  "Shall we go down for breakfast?" he asked.

  The way he looked at her, she knew what he was really hungry for. His physical desire for her was both frightening and glorious. There was nothing to be done about it this morning, though. She hadn't even had a chance to look at herself in the mirror. She always liked to look at her face before starting the day. That's what came of spending most of the year in an abyss. Every morning, she liked to double check that she was really solid and really in the world.

  "I'd like to get to the restaurant before it closes," she said, careful to avoid any innuendo. From the look on his face, he got the message. He brought her coffee with a small bow and then sat out of reach on the other side of the bed.

  She wanted to touch him to reassure him, but she didn't dare start something she had no intention of finishing. Which reminded her of decision for them to get married. That was never going to have a happy ending for everyone. She had chosen to do something stupid, and now she had to choose who got hurt.

  Having just woken up, she was already feeling exhausted.

  She took baby sips of coffee, glancing at his broad back over the rim.

  "What shall we do today?" he asked, turning at last, perhaps having composed himself. "Shall we begin with a walk on the beach after breakfast?"

  "No," she said, almost able to feel wet tendrils reaching for her.

  "I thought you liked being beside the sea. It was your idea."

  "I like having a sea view," she said, "but I don't feel the need to get any closer than this."

  He frowned at her, which made her flush, and he smiled a smile that looked like it was half an inch from laughing. She knew that she wouldn't be able to bear being laughed at. If he was the kind of man who would laugh at her every morning, she might as well return to her stool now. That would make the decision easy.

  "You funny thing," he said, evidently sensing her discomfort, but even so he stroked her chin. "We'll do whatever you want," he said. "You just say the word. Your husband will provide."

  "First I'd like to take a shower," she said. "That I can do by myself."

  "Shall I run the water for you?"

  "No," she said. "No, I can manage."

  "I know you can manage," he said, "but I want to serve you. That's what husbands and wives do. They love and serve each other."

  Things were strained this morning. He looked like he was just going through the motions of what it meant to be a husband. Last night had been better. They needed to make love and that would straighten out all the wrinkles, but not yet. After breakfast at least.

  When she smiled at him, she wondered how he saw her, because her face felt plastic and fake. She crossed to the ensuite bathroom with relief and shut the door behind her, grateful for a moment's respite in which to gather her thoughts.

  In the mirror, she saw a beautiful young woman with a large blue and red mark on her cheek where she'd been hit by a
perfume bottle the afternoon before. It was still sore to the touch, but even this didn't detract from the essential beauty of this face. Her blue eyes were clearly green-ish too this morning and they sparkled at her. Her nose was straight and perfect, not over-long, turned up but not stubby or piggy. Hardly noticeable really, because its dimensions were not extraordinary in any way. Her lips were pink and perfectly average. Not so plump that she looked like she was pouting, nor so thin as to be pinched or school-mamish. She liked this face. Its mouth. Its eyes. Its ears. She was glad it was hers. As a canvas it was perfect. While there were plenty of things she might have changed about herself, there was nothing she didn't like about her face. Every morning of her month she stared at it in the mirror like this and marvelled that it was hers.

  Her hair was messy from sleep, but not unmanageable. She took her brush from her holdall and began to enjoy the hiss-snap of the teeth through the strands. The spotlights in the ceiling made it shine, so that it was like a waterfall of sand laced with diamonds. No wonder she'd wanted to be near the sea. She had the face and hair of a mermaid.

  This wasn't how she'd looked in the house, of course, where the mirrors were all skewed. She'd expected it of Imelda, who revelled in projecting her thoughts, not true reflections, but she couldn't forget the frightened, desperate look in her eyes as she'd tripped down the stairs and passed Isla. Isla had always been the most honest of them and so that image had shaken her most of all, more than having glass hurled at her across the bedroom.

  Isla had said that she hadn't done anything, but Lara didn't want to believe that. She didn't want to beleive that she could make this face ugly by wearing it over time, wearing it away until her soul, imperfect, showed through.

  In the shower, she enjoyed scalding hot water on her skin. Down the plughole went dirt, the odour of Roger's cigarettes, actual sand, a day of sweat from the car drive here and any bugs that may have climbed onto her from the bed before they got into it. Down the hole went her self-doubt and fear and anxiety. Down the hole went thoughts that she didn't deserve this body and that the others might take from her the choice of whether or not to keep it. Down it all went, scraped off and spiralling towards the plughole and then down until it gurgled like someone drowning on their own blood.

  While she towelled her raw body dry, the drain belched and the bad thoughts seemed to have succumbed.

  *

  Almost Without exception, each couple in the breakfast room acknowledged Lara with nods or smiles of sweet approval, before returning to gazing at each other in quiet, accepting way. As Roger led the way to an empty table near the window, Lara saw that the couples around her were no longer lost to love, perhaps, but she could tell that they did everything together. She watched the way that they quietly discussed what they were going to do that day, offered to pour each other more hot beverages, chewing thoughtfully, savouring every moment.

  "We could go somewhere a bit more happening," Roger suggested out of the corner of his mouth, smiling politely at the folk he kept describing as elderly sitting two a piece at the other breakfast tables, eating toast and cereal, dropping crumbs, sipping teas and coffees as if they were medicine.

  "No," Lara said, beaming. "This is fine."

  She felt comfortable amid the octogenarians.

  "Would you like me to serve you?" Roger said, pulling out her chair.

  She sat down, a tumult of appreciation tumbling inside her, obliterating any cobwebs of doubt. She acquiesced to his offer by sitting down and allowing him to push her in and then off he went to the food counter where he grabbed a tray and gave their room number to the woman on the other side.

  A bright-eyed old woman at the next table looked her up and down and she felt a moment of panic until the woman smiled at her, although it was a sad smile. It seemed to say:

  "Enjoy it, sweetheart. Enjoy it while you're young and while it's all fresh and new."

  Her husband was staring down at a newspaper, gurning.

  They may or may not have been as in love as they had been when they met, but she sensed that, like the other couples in this room, their love had become something else, something solid and sure on which everything else about them could be hung.

  The woman went back to gazing at her coffee cup and Lara went back to her tablecloth. She thought that she could get used to living in hotels. Everything was so neat and orderly. The tablecloths were clean with bright patterns around the edges: canaries and floral scenes, embroidered flowers, lace. She imagined that they had been collected and cherished, and yet liberated so that they weren't locked away in a cupboard for nobody to see. They were pushed out into the world, to be enjoyed. She ran her fingers along the edge of the table, feeling a thrill of pleasure that she was in the world and able to touch it, smell it, taste it.

  A hotel was inherently a place for people to pass through, but she felt like she could stay here forever. She didn't so much wish to put down roots as throw out her arms, making connections in all directions. It was a fantastic feeling and entirely unknown to her and though she was afraid of it she couldn't stop smiling.

  She glanced at the woman beside her and considered how it might feel to have her body grow old gradually, with a lifetime of accumulated experiences rather than the stuttering development she'd experienced so far, the sudden appearances of scars, weight loss and weight gain, dramatic haircuts, back pain and sore teeth.

  When Roger returned from the counter, she realised that she hadn't minded waiting, but she minded that he had returned with toast and butter, but no jam or marmalade, which she had been keen to try. She wanted to try everything in the hotel. She wanted to enter every room and jump on every bed and throw open every window before leaving.

  "I thought you'd like another coffee," he said. "Get you ready for the day."

  Wrong, she thought. I don't drink coffee. In fact, I never have. I've just been doing it for you. I can't stand the smell, let alone the taste.

  "Thank you," she said. "That's very thoughtful of you."

  "Would you like milk?"

  Lara hovered her hand over her cup.

  "... Sugar?"

  Perhaps it was dawning on him too that he really didn't know her very well at all and yet here they were, married, they'd agreed, until one of them died.

  "Yes," she said to allay him the anxiety of getting two things wrong in a row and partly because a few heaps of sugar might make that black, oily mess in her cup half-palatable. "Three," she saidbusinessesand he expressed shock and amusement as he heaped in the brown granules and stirred the drink into something shining and syrupy.

  "Would you like me to butter your toast?" he asked.

  It felt strange to be looked after and she had to literally sit on her hands so as not to help him do it. He was so awkward. The way he held the knife made him look like a child who had never learned, had never been rapped over the knuckles with a serving spoon. That he hadn't been shaped and ruined by other people was one of the things she liked about him. He was self-taught and self-made in many respects. His education was minimal, but hard won, and despite the hardships of his past he had become kind and generous and loving, whereas others in the same situation would have turned on the world or on themselves.

  It seemed vulgar to consider how much money he was worth, but it had impressed her. He had come from nothing and now he had several business through which he was able to support himself and her in any lifestyle she chose and he was glad to do so. She imagined that it would be nice to be looked after for the rest of her days, but she would have to learn.

  She had money too, a modest income released monthly and also yearly from a sizable fortune, though she only ever had access to a small part of it at any one time, enough for food, minor travel and a few luxuries. It would be doled out like that, straight into the bank account, for the rest of her life, but it was not possible to make any major purchases unless she found work herself, as Anna, Tanya and Imelda sometimes did.

  She'd told Roger about the money
and he'd an expressed interest, but had scoffed at the idea of her paying for anything. He produced his card for everything. The meals, the wedding, the honeymoon. He never thought twice about paying her way.

  That was nice, although she thought that perhaps he had spent money too freely, and that didn't seem right. Wealthy people knew exactly how much they had spent, when and on what. She did. He seemed to have no such connection to his wallet. Perhaps she'd need to give him a little coaching, but from the looks of things, should she decide to remain in the body, she wouldn't have to worry about money. She had a personal fortune and a man who wanted none of it.

  He subtly gestured to the bright-eyed old woman at the next table and then made a gesture with his knife that took in the rest of the room.

  "It's like a morgue in here," he whispered.

  "I like it quiet," she said.

  "Yes, so do I, but why don't they speak?"

  She sat back and looked at the couples surrounding them.

  "They don't need to," she said. "There's no need for words when you're in love."

  "But words are nice," he said. "The exchange of thoughts and ideas. Opinions. Words are what make the world go round. I should know, they're my trade."

  He was a salesman, so yes, of course words meant a lot to him. She had no profession and had no sure intention of ever being anything, although perhaps one day he would buy her a shop and she would pay him back gradually and she might sell something that she cared about. Tablecloths perhaps or artisanal tea or pottery bought from local artists and resold to collectors and families, small businesses and the like.

  "They're silent, because they have nothing to say," Roger said. "God forbid we ever get like that."

  She smiled peaceably and sipped her sugary coffee, even though it was awful.

  She was in the world and that was wonderful and the more she thought about it the less reason she saw to go back to the way things were. She was happy and she had a future now, not just snapshots from someone else's movie.