Brothers & Sisters - Charlotte Wood [50]
‘You know those fifties movies? You never see a fat girl, do you?’
We watched as she swung her boots to the floor and stood up. She began to twist on the white pile of the carpet, her dyed hair flopping into her face. It was like the traffic that you could see through the window—odd, jerky, no soundtrack, except the hushing of her boots on the carpet.
Karen laughed scornfully, and began to tear open the plastic wrapping of the cheese. ‘It wasn’t the twist. It was the Ford pills. They were all taking laxatives.’
‘I wonder if that works,’ I said. Ruth kept twisting. Karen and I met each other’s eyes.
Oh, Jerome. I heard Emma say this one night. I had been asleep but woke at the sound of the key in the lock. I was suddenly rigid in my bed. The bedroom door was open. What should I do?
But they were only saying goodnight. I turned quickly on my side before Emma came in, and didn’t answer when she said softly, ‘You awake?’
The next day was Saturday. Emma made me come with her to the National Portrait Gallery. We were early, and sat on the steps in the pale sunlight, watching the pigeons milling and crashing in the square.
‘You should stay at Jerome’s house if you want to,’ I said. I was clacking the toes of my doc martens together. I had recently noticed that I could not sit without some part of my body moving.
There was a pause. People were beginning to line up around us; we kept having to lean sideways to let them pass.
‘I wouldn’t want to leave you alone,’ said Emma.
‘I’ll be alright,’ I said. Then added, ‘You’re not my mother, you know.’
‘What if someone broke in?’
I looked straight at her now, as witheringly as I could. I kept my feet still. There were three separate security doors between us and London, and anyone who did manage to breach them would not bother coming down the lengths of carpeted corridor, turning the corners, passing the stairwells, all the way to our flat. I couldn’t imagine commanding that much attention from anyone, not even a murderer.
Jerome had a friend who managed a chain of bookshops. There was a job available in their smallest branch, which was on the fifth floor of a department store in Knightsbridge. In my letter of application I invented a bookshop back in Sydney, and named it after one of my university friends. I rang her up—long distance, still an event in those days—and asked her to make up some letterhead and write me a reference.
At the interview, the manager of the tiny book section said, ‘You seem very nervous. Why are you so nervous?’
I was nervous because I had written the letter too quickly, I didn’t have a copy, and I couldn’t remember what I’d said about my time working at Woods Books in Enmore. He was holding my friend’s letter and I kept trying to peer at it. I could see that she must have used one of the computers at university to type it up. I could see that she had changed her signature to make her seem more like the proprietor of Woods Books. I couldn’t tell if it was obvious that she, like me, was only eighteen.
I think I was probably clacking the toes of my boots together again, too. I said, ‘I just really want the job.’
‘Well,’ said the manager, looking down at the letter, ‘I suppose I’ll have to give it to you then.’
I watched him as he sorted through his desk drawers for the right forms. His name was Rory. He had white skin that looked as though it would be cold to the touch, a tightly knotted woollen tie and a patterned waistcoat. He would have been only three or four years older than I was but his I suppose I’ll have to give it to you then was elaborately patronising. I tried to imagine being friends with him—perhaps eating lunch with him—and felt my mouth make an involuntary grimace.
But I was glad of the job. I was grateful to be on the move again. I loved catching the tube in the mornings. I loved feeling as though I was the same as everyone around me. I enjoyed feeling exasperated with the tourists who stood in front of the turnstiles, holding their tickets, trying to work out how to get through. I wore headphones and listened