The Body Read online

  "No-one's been here for years," said Anna, rocking gently. "It's not fair you going around trying to change everything."

  "Not fair?" Lara said. "What about you changing things?"

  "That's different," Anna said, in a dismissive voice that Lara thought was unlike her. She knew "We decided." She knew this was wrong.

  Lara turned to her reflection in Imelda again. Now she looked like a scared little mouse with messy hair and smudged lipstick that might have been applied by a child pretending to be an adult.

  She was up to her old tricks again.

  Wasn't she?

  "There are going to be more changes," Lara said, pretending to be undaunted. "We've decided."

  "Who's we?" Sylvia asked.

  "Roger and I."

  Katja laughed.

  "And what have you decided?" Imelda asked.

  "Roger's moving in," Lara said.

  "No!"

  "You can't."

  "He's bringing the bags up."

  "Not in here?"

  "I wouldn't stay in here if you paid me," Lara said. "We'll be down the hall."

  Imelda laughed while the others railed.

  "You can't."

  "It's already happening," Lara said. "It's done. We decided."

  "Yes, yes, I get it," said Katja. "You're angry because we decided something without you, but you weren't here and there are ten of us. We voted. It didn't matter that you weren't here."

  "You didn't vote," Lara said. "Imelda made it feel like you had a choice, but you didn't. She got what she wanted. And it does matter that I wasn't here. We were meant to be sisters."

  "Were?"

  "You're being emotional," Imelda said. And then to the others: "The body's flooded with hormones."

  "Lara thinks she's in love."

  "We're talking about practicalities, Lara. What's best for all of us."

  "And what's best for me?" Lara asked.

  "Just listen to that tone!" someone hissed.

  "We're best for you," said Imelda.

  "And you think Roger has to go," Lara intoned.

  "Yes."

  "Of course!"

  "Yes."

  "He has to go."

  "He can't stay, Lara."

  "You keep telling me what I can and can't do," Lara said to the room, "but you don't seem to realise that's all over now. He is staying. And I'm staying. We're going to start a family. A real family. Not like us."

  There was laughter. Petra. Mostly due to nerves from the sound of it.

  "We're not raising a child," Olga informed Lara.

  "No, you're not," Lara agreed, "because I'm keeping the body."

  Olga's doors flew open and Lara jumped back, but Olga was empty within and nothing else moved. The air was coiled.

  In the distance, so far away, she heard Roger struggling up the stairs with the bags.

  "He can't save me," she thought.

  "That's right," Imelda glistened. "You're all alone in here."

  "And you'd be all alone out there too," Katja added.

  "Come back to us," Imelda said softly. "You still have time."

  "Does she?" asked Katja.

  "I'm not sure I want her back," Hilda said from the foot of the bed.

  "It's not too late," Imelda said crossly, snapping the others back into line.

  "This isn't what I want," Lara said. "My future's out there."

  "You'll die out there," Olga hissed.

  "And you'll die in here," Lara said. "So be it."

  "Take the body, Imelda."

  "Take the body back."

  "You can do it Imelda."

  There were consequences when taking a body by force. It was unpredictable. You were just as likely to end up lost as the person you were trying to displace. Imelda was reluctant to try, especially from a distance of several feet.

  "Maybe you're right," Imelda said. "We should have spoken to you before making changes that would affect you. What hasn't changed, however, is that we're family and we always will be. As a gesture of good will, why don't you take the body for another week?"

  There were gasps.

  "It's my turn," Imelda snapped at the others. "I can do what I like with it. She can have my week if that gives her time to think."

  "To come to her senses," someone sneered.

  "To think."

  "Do you accept my offer?" Imelda asked.

  "I'll think about it," Lara said. "Roger's coming back now and I must go."

  "Let's talk tomorrow," Imelda said.

  The others were almost silent as they watched Lara take the body back out of the room.

  She let the door click shut behind her, certain that they were now in furious discussion behind her back. She could sense them inside her head, like mice darting along the skirting boards and disappearing into holes, knocking cereal boxes off the shelves. Every now and then the urgency of their voices pressed against her, sending chills through her body, but with no words to latch onto she felt only fear and a sense of impending doom.

  "Hey sweetheart," Roger said. "That's all the bags. Is there anything to eat in that enormous fridge downstairs or should we hit the shop?"

  She felt the need to get out of the house, but she was also afraid to leave the others to their plans, as though that would cause her to lose ground with them and they'd somehow get the upper hand again. She was suffering a very vague feeling of dread, but it was as real as any physical part of the body. They were planning something. If Imelda was offering her the body for a week, it was because she wanted a week to plan what to do with her.

  "We'll find something to eat downstairs," Lara told Roger. "Could you lay the table and I'll prepare food?"

  In the kitchen, she eyed up the onions and garlic and set about sharpening a large knife while he admired the plates. Each plate had a different scene on it, countryside landscapes and sea views, all in blue and white. She liked it that he paid attention to details, but that was why she had to keep him out of the master bedroom upstairs.

  He set the plates on the table side by side, the correct way up, as if he were hanging paintings.

  "I want to remind you," Lara said, thinking of Isla's warning by the stairs, "that I'd prefer it if you didn't go exploring the house by yourself. Not only do I want to spend all my time with you, but it's not fair on mother if you go into her private spaces. She'll know and then that will be another thing she has against you."

  "What does she already have against me?" Roger asked. "I've not even met the woman."

  "You must stay away from her room," Lara insisted. "Don't even go near the door."

  "Oka-ay." He gave the word a quizzical tone, as if he didn't know why she was asking nor why he was agreeing, but he'd do it to keep the peace.

  "And you should probably stay off the stairs too," she added, chopping quickly but carefully now.

  "Yes, mummy," he said, pulling out his box of cigarettes in a well-practiced maneuver. "Anywhere else I can't go?"

  "No," she said. "But please don't smoke in here."

  "... What?"

  "It's the kitchen," Lara said, stopping. "I'm preparing food. Please don't smoke."

  He shoved his cigarettes back into his pocket.

  "You could smoke outside," she suggested.

  "I'm not smoking outside," he laughed bitterly.

  "I could open a window," she conceded.

  He looked at her as if she were a pathetic creature who couldn't possibly understand what was going through his mind.

  He seemed irritated by her return to chopping.

  "What does your mother have against me anyway?" he said. "I mean, really. I'm a great guy. Didn't you tell her that?"

  "Your misdemeanour was that you married me," she said, digging deep into the resource of her invented mother. "She thinks you're taking away her little girl. In her ideal world, you would have asked her for permission to marry me. She would have wanted you to sell yourself."

  "Sounds like she wants to turn us both into prosti
tutes," he spat.

  "No. She wants you to conduct yourself like a gentleman."

  "Ha!"

  "Don't worry, she would have approved of you had the timing been different. I'm sure of it. She just needs time to get to know you, on her terms. She's set in her ways."

  Roger was shaking his head.

  "What?"

  "Nothing you don't already know," he said, straightening the knives and forks.

  "Tell me. Speak your mind."

  "Okay," he said promptly, as if that was all the encouragement he'd needed. "I think that your mother is very much like this house. Stuck in the past."

  An unknown manner of silence rolled out between them. She cut it up into bearable chunks with the chop chop chop of her knife against the board, but it was still there, growing, between them.

  "You don't like the house?" Lara asked.

  "I love it," he said. "I wish I could buy a pass to stay all weekend and exchange my coat for a ticket at the cloakroom."

  "Do you like it or not?"

  "It's your house. It means a lot to you, I suppose. Of course I like it."

  "But if it wasn't mine? If I weren't connected to it, then what?"

  "Well, then I would have to make some necessary changes to make it a liveable space."

  Chop chop chop chop chop chop ...

  "What's not liveable about it?"

  He smiled.

  "We don't have to go into this."

  "I'm interested. Tell me."

  "It's as cold as an old man's testicles," he said. "I suggested going out earlier so we could get some autumn air and maybe get my circulation back. I've been standing here for ten minutes hoping that you'd light the oven. Haven't you noticed how cold it is in here?"

  "I did turn the heating on. Perhaps the radiators needing bleeding."

  "The smell," Roger announced.

  She didn't respond at first, but ultimately she caved.

  "What smell?" she said.

  "Mothballs. Nail polish remover."

  "Varnish."

  "Varnish! I'm choking on it. How is it not stinging your eyes? Your mother should try opening a window once in a while."

  "I normally air the place everyday. I've been away. You might remember, I was with you."

  "Your mother wasn't with us. She could have done it. Unless she's an invalid."

  "No, she's not an invalid. I'll suggest that she opens the windows. How's that?"

  "And there's something else."

  This time she didn't rise to the bait.

  "Do you want to hear it?" he asked eventually.

  "No, but if you must."

  "It's the 20th Century, not the 18th. Why have a house full of objects nobody's allowed to touch, including you judging from your behaviour in that room."

  "What behaviour?"

  "Like you were scared. Like your mother's presence was right there, in the walls, watching over you, and not in a good way."

  "It's not my mother," she wanted to say, "it's not my mother, my mother died and left me all alone until I met Imelda and they took me in and I forgot a lot of things because time does that to you and the past seems like another life ago and in the meantime they became my family, almost like a real family, until now, and yes, they were watching us, they really were, and it's worse than you think, because they hate us, especially me."

  "It's only ever like that in my mother's room," Lara said.

  "It's impossible to relax here. No wonder you're so uptight."

  She almost sliced through her finger.

  "I don't mean to offend you, but some yellow curtains and a comfortable chair or two - the kind of things you don't have to worry about breaking every time you sit down - wouldn't go amiss."

  "You've been in here less than an hour and you're already trying to redecorate. How about some gratitude?"

  "Gratitude for what?"

  "For letting you stay here, despite how awkward and cantankerous you're being about it."

  "I'm just making suggestions," he said. "Isn't that why you love me? For my bright ideas?"

  "No," she said.

  "Okay," he said, throwing his hands up. "It was just my opinion, but I'll stop. Speaking of which, how much garlic are you planning to put in this? I detest garlic."

  "Why didn't you say? You just stood there and watched me do it."

  "I thought you were stockpiling for the winter. Nobody can eat that much garlic, least of all me."

  She scraped the chopped garlic into the swing top bin.

  "You didn't have to go and do that."

  "If you don't like them," she said, "we won't eat them. And if you don't like the chairs, you can sit on the floor. The house stays as it is. And so do I. I'm the woman you married."

  "It's not about you," Roger said. "I'm a real estate guy and I can't help seeing opportunities, that's all. If this were my place, I'd rent out those two spare rooms. Maybe do something similar with the drawing room - let's face it, you can draw anywhere - and any other rooms that are not being used for anything could be turned around to provide a sizeable, steady income. An empty house is a sin and all that."

  "It's not empty," Lara said. "Far from it."

  Roger looked at the walls to contradict her.

  "Some of it's quite pretty, but it's also stifling. Where do you normally sleep when you're here. In a cupboard under the stairs?"

  "In the same room we'll be sleeping in tonight."

  "It's not what I expected of you."

  "What did you expect?"

  "You're so alive," he said. "Impulsive. Fun. And vulnerable. This place is none of those things. Your room neither. It just seems odd."

  "My mother's old-fashioned," Lara said. "So am I."

  "No, you're not," Roger said.

  "Don't tell me what I am and what I'm not. If I say I'm old-fashioned, I'm old-fashioned."

  "Why would you want to be old-fashioned?"

  "I don't."

  "So why are we arguing about it?"

  "Because you're talking in riddles and making my head spin."

  "I'm not talking in riddles. I'm telling it how it is. This is a dead house for dead people. I think you ought to chuck the lot of it onto a bonfire and start all over again."

  He didn't seem to notice her crossing the room towards him. Before he'd registered what was going to happen, she slapped him hard across the face.

  He put his hand to his cheek, soothing the sting, staring at some quality in her green-blue eyes that he'd never seen before. It was as if he'd opened a familiar box and found a rattlesnake coiled amongst his jewels.

  Eventually, he stroked his face and said:

  "That’s why I love you. So full of surprises, my little music box."

  She jutted her chin out at him.

  "I’m sorry,” he said simply.

  She realised that she was breathing hard. She realised too that she was gripping the kitchen knife, with the glinting tip pointing towards Roger's gut. She returned to her chopping board and chopped a carrot into coins.

  "Why don't I make dinner?" Roger suggested.

  Lara didn't look up from her task.

  There was a moment of hesitation before Roger placed his hand on her busy, cutting arm. "I'll do this," he said. "Why don't you go and have a shower or take a bath or something? I want to look after you."

  "Thank you," she said and took a step back.

  "Was this our first argument? Quite a doozy, wasn't it? I was out of line."

  "Me too," Lara said.

  "I've never really had anywhere I'd call home. On the one hand, I'm jealous. Sad, I know, but it's true. On the other hand, I was imagining myself winning over your mother and I was disappointed that I seem to have already blown it wih her."

  "We couldn't stay here in any case," Lara assured him. "Not long term. Not even medium term. You do appreciate that, don't you?"

  "Well, long term, we can't stay at mine either," Roger said. "Aside from the fact that it's no longer safe, it's too small for two."


  "You were planning to stay here, weren't you?" Lara realised. "We were going to get our own place. That was the plan. That's what you said."

  "Yes, eventually; it might be complicated, that's all," Roger admitted.

  "Why?"

  "'Disposable income'," Roger said, rolling it out like a road block. "Let's not talk about that right now. Go on up and have your bath. There's plenty of time to talk money and property and better ways of discussing it than over dinner prep."

  He had the knife now and was slicing the carrots like the whole operation was a trap for his fingers, but he was doing it.

  The knife had been warm in her hand and she wondered if he felt that warmth now. Was the handle slightly sweaty? She'd had to let it go, but she wanted to take it back, to take it upstairs with her, even in the bath, in case anything unexpected happened.

  *

  Before taking the stairs, Lara ensured that Roger was busy in the kitchen - she heard him opening cupboards and searching through cookware - then confronted Isla on the wall.

  "What do you think?" Lara whispered.

  "I think you've lost your mind," said Isla.

  "It's not my mind I'm worried about."

  "I never thought you'd be like this. Anna maybe. Imelda."

  "Like what?"

  "Selfish."

  "They tried to cut my turn short. Who knows what they'd do once I was back in the stool. This way I have control. Someone sane needs to."

  "You're starting to sound like someone else. And you remember what happened to her, don't you?"

  "Of course, I remember. I'm nothing like her. And you know that. Don't you?"

  "You sound like her."

  "We're nothing alike," Lara assured her friend. She glanced over her shoulder and satisfied herself that the kitchen door was still shut. "And I'm not being selfish. I don't need the body all for myself. I thought that you might like to share with me. Just you and me. The others have always looked down on me, but not you. And look at what they did to you when you stuck up for ... look at what they did to you. They hung you down here and won't let you back in the room."

  "I'm happier here."

  "Think about how happy you'd be if it were just you and me. Fifty-fifty. A month a piece, or a week on week and a week off, or alternate days, or as we wish. Whatever you want. Whenever we want. We can work it out ourselves."

  She was speaking so close to the mirror that her breath fogged the glass.