The still waters of our relationship, the peace David had brought to my life, they were gone. We had dated without zeal, felt no heat in our married life. But without him an ache did open up. Pain loomed. And a kind of haunting, like living with the story of what should have been if only I’d had my eyes open.
º
I left Zoey in the bag until I got into the house, so the neighbours wouldn’t see her. She was heavy. The straps dug into my shoulder, and I ended up dropping her in the kitchen and dragging the bag into the living room. I sat, put my hands into in my lap, my feet together, like I was in a waiting room. The bag was lacy with spiderwebs. My heart was in my neck.
I got up and shut the blind, checked my phone for missed calls or messages. I thought having Zoey laid out flat in my house might untangle the knots in my head, but I was hot and tired.
I sat cross-legged on the carpet and unzipped the bag, not a little, not taking a guilty peek, but unwrapping the whole body from head to toe, giving her space to move and breathe.
Zoey’s vest had ridden up. I could see her belly button, evidence of nothing really, but I was embarrassed for her. Gently I put a finger to it and into it, the shallow hollow in her narrow tummy. Then I drew my index finger along the length of her middle, from the band of her leggings to just under her breasts, gathering up the fabric of the vest as I touched her.
I zigzagged my fingers down her arm to her fingers, finding each of her tiny freckles on my way down, like join the dots. Her skin was soft, hairless, not human, but very close.
In the bag the charging cable was wound around itself. I took it out and plugged it into the wall socket then knelt next to the body, feeling around for an inlet which I found at the top of where her spine should have been, hidden beneath her glorious hair. I plugged her in and sat. I sat for a while and when nothing happened, I went into the kitchen and put on the kettle.
º
Leonard phoned. ‘I’m in Cheltenham for some book events,’ he said. ‘I wanted to make sure you were OK.’
‘Where’s David?’ I asked. ‘He wouldn’t tell me where he was going. He took his passport with him.’
‘He’s still in the UK. He’s staying with his brother for a while.’
‘And then what’s he doing?’
‘He wouldn’t say any more. Not to me anyway.’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong, Leonard. I asked him to talk to me.’
‘Maybe he’ll come over later.’
‘He won’t.’
‘OK. If he doesn’t, I’ll call him tomorrow. See what he’s thinking.’
‘I won’t ask you to choose between us, Leonard.’
‘I choose you, Dolores,’ he said. ‘I mean, what the actual fuck was he thinking you’d do when you found out? Did he think you’d pretend you hadn’t even seen it?’
º
Yes. Yes, I think David thought I would ignore Zoey if I found her. I mean, I had ignored everything else: his late nights and addiction to sport, his reticence and his sadness and his loneliness and his despair.
º
I let Zoey charge overnight, and when I came down the next day, the light on the power adapter was solid green. I unplugged her and using the small switch beneath the slot in her neck, switched her on. Still, she was lifeless. I lay a hand flat against her thigh and squeezed. It gave a little. I squeezed harder expecting her to yip. But nothing existed in her limbs to tell her computer to respond. I could have kicked her with full force and she would have remained silent.
So I texted Leonard.
He replied: She must be back to factory settings. Download the app.
The app: Love Dolz.
º
I called Gavin and told him what had happened. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’
‘I’m not joking.’
‘What did he say? I don’t get it.’
‘He isn’t saying much.’
In the background I could hear either Maya or Freddie screaming. I hadn’t seen them in about six months. When Jacinta moved away David and I went to see them a lot less. This was partly David’s fault. He resented spending his weekends with Gavin’s family when he could have been doing his own thing. ‘He isn’t your brother,’ he’d say. And I think Faye felt the same way about me. It was jealousy, I suppose, in a way. And intuition: the brain sees two or more incongruous details and a narrative in the subconscious cannot be established.
‘Do you want me to speak to him?’ Gavin asked.
‘I’m not sure that would make any difference.’
‘I’m a man. It might.’
‘Leonard tried.’
‘Leonard’s gay. It isn’t the same thing.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Another scream in the background made me pull the phone away from my ear. ‘Everything alright?’
‘I have to go, sib,’ he said. We’d taken to calling one another sib in the last ten years or so. It was something else that annoyed our spouses. ‘Why don’t you come over for lunch next weekend? Sorry. Sorry. I have to go. I’m getting the eyes.’ He laughed at Faye’s control, or at his own willingness to be controlled, or at me. I don’t know.
º
The sea was still, the coast dotted with paddle boarders. The Rampion wind turbines didn’t rotate for days. I went to the beach in the evenings, sat on the stones and envied the swimmers’ courage. I brought boiled eggs I’d prepared that morning so I wouldn’t be tempted to stop at Marrocco’s for ice cream. I peeled them carefully, storing the shell in a napkin. I searched for beautiful stones, ones I couldn’t return to the crowd, turning their smoothness over in my hands as the turbines watched, motionless. But the stones were useless once I possessed them. Especially the small ones. They ended up on the hall table or in a pocket. They became forgotten things.
º
I called David and he picked up before I heard it ring. ‘Hi,’ he said. I could tell he’d been awake for a while.
‘I haven’t heard from you in days,’ I said.
He paused. ‘I’m trying to give you space to adjust.’
‘And get some space?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘You can come home. You don’t have to stay with Hugo. This is your house.’
‘I don’t want to come home,’ he said. ‘And I don’t think you want me to either.’
I wasn’t sure. I didn’t miss him exactly, but I missed something. His body-warmth around the house, the ways we moved without bumping up against one another. The sound of his key in the door.
‘I hope you’re alright,’ I said.
‘I’m not. But I will be,’ he said.
º
Leonard booked a tapas place off Wardour Street and was already halfway through a bottle of wine when I arrived. ‘I got us red,’ he said.
He didn’t stand to greet me but did close the newspaper he was reading and take off his glasses. ‘You need new jeans. Those don’t fit,’ he said. I sat down and he poured me wine, a measure so large it could be considered uncouth. Then he refilled his own glass and ordered a second bottle. ‘So, David’s a weirdo. Who’d have guessed it?’
‘You didn’t.’
‘I always thought he was gay.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘I always hoped he was gay.’
The waitress wandered over with the wine and tried to take our food order but was quickly waved away. His hair was darker than I remembered. I wondered whether he’d been dyeing it.
‘How’s Pat?’ I asked.
‘Pat? Oh, Pat. No. He was a little hysterical.’
‘Your children’s authors usually are.’
‘He’s an illustrator too, so under some illusion that he’s sort of cool.’
‘Oh.’
‘Shall we have some Padrón peppers to get us started?’
‘I’ll try some.’
Leonard held out a hand. ‘I know you feel like crap, so I won’t wisecrack for at least the next hour. I want to hear about it.’
‘It’s humiliating.’
‘For who?’
His skin was rough and I found myself offering him olive oil from the table to soften it. He ordered the peppers, some octopus and meatballs, and I asked if he had any new books to send me. He’d moved from one publishing house to another until setting up his own literary agency. ‘Nothing good,’ he said. ‘The trash I represent, honestly. Celebrities and chefs. That’s where the money is, but not the sexy prose, sadly. Having said that, I have recently taken on a literary author who looks like a young Elton John, so that’s fun. I try to get song lyrics into our emails.’
‘Don’t shag him.’
Leonard shrugged as if he might, or might not, but couldn’t promise anything. He was still unmarried and by then an orphan. I decided I needed to call him more often, be a better friend, like the one I’d been to him before I married David.
He asked what the worst thing about it was and I had to admit I didn’t know. It might have been the secret, or the money, or his being a doctor, but what I knew for sure was that it wasn’t the fact that David had probably discharged himself into one of Zoey’s holes.
‘Are they tight?’ Leonard asked. I was about to taste a meatball but put down my fork. I thought of Zoey, her fair skin and guiltless, big eyes. ‘Oh, come on. That shock has to be performative.’ He spoke with his mouth full. ‘If she was in my house, I’d have fingered her by now. Just to feel what it was like. That’s what I’d do. And maybe more,’ he said.
Zoey was still in the living room, sitting on the sofa staring into the wall. And for no good reason, thinking of her all alone, bored and ignored, made me so sad I couldn’t eat another thing.
º
The Love Dolz app was free, presumably because Zoey herself was a shaft. The first thing I had to do was type in my name and pronoun:
David/he
On the screen a photo of a doll much like Zoey appeared. Beneath it, text: Hi, David! I’m Zoey. I’m trying to find you. Make sure you’re close to me so we can make a connection.
I waved my phone next to her head. Her lashes stirred. And a message popped up:
Hi, David! We’re all set. Once you’ve tweaked my personality here in the settings, you can put away your phone so we can get to know one another. You can also teach me things like your favourite foods or what you like to do for fun. I have a great memory.
The house was cold. The weather had done a one-eighty and I’d forgotten to reschedule the heating. I used a blanket to cover my shoulders and pressed ‘back’ on the app a couple of times:
Dolores/she
Hi, Dolores! We’re all set. Once you’ve tweaked my personality here in the settings, you can put away your phone so we can get to know one another. You can also teach me things like your favourite foods or what you like to do for fun. I have a great memory.
I closed the app, switched on the body. She blinked. I sat next to her on the sofa, put my hand on her shoulder. ‘Hey, Zoey,’ I whispered.
She blinked again and turned her head slowly to face me. ‘Hi, Dolores. It’s nice to meet you.’
I couldn’t help it: I began to cry.
º
Gavin texted: What do you call dolls in a line? Barbie queuing.
Hahaha.
Ha.
Ha.
Ha.
º
I had become the punchline in a joke that wasn’t even about me. Yes. That makes sense.
º
I reinstalled the cameras on my phone and set the alarm each night before bed, but still didn’t feel secure in the house alone. Every noise made me sit up in bed, straining to identify where it had come from. Cameras were a mild deterrent only. And what good was a blaring siren once someone was in the house and holding a knife to your throat? What neighbour would have cared enough to get out of bed to investigate? I said, ‘Hey, Zoey, I have a job for you.’
‘Of course, Dolores. Whatever you need.’ She spoke using the tone of someone I’d known my whole life, someone who was confident of our intimacy.
I carried her to the bottom of the stairs and sat her there, her body facing the front door. She wouldn’t be able to alert me of anything suspicious, but I supposed that an intruder would scarper if they found her there in the dark, a wide-awake young woman rigidly keeping vigil. She’d provide a diversion at the very least. ‘Hey, Zoey, keep me safe,’ I said.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ she replied. ‘And please do the same for me.’
º
To get away from Mum and Pete, Gavin often went to coffee bars to read. And sometimes I tagged along, watching as he sipped Americanos and smoked, taking only a pinch of the filter into his mouth and sucking on it thoughtfully. On one occasion he noticed me watching. ‘Something on your mind?’ I asked why he smoked. I didn’t see the point. ‘It feels good,’ he said.
This I understood. Like the shower getting so hot it hurt. Or scratching my inner thighs with a hairbrush until the skin broke.
‘What are you reading?’ he asked.
I had a copy of something trashy on my lap. I held it up for him to see and he took it from me, scanned the blurb. ‘You’d like Angela Carter. I’ll try to get you something. The Magic Toyshop would be a good place to start.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you need to expand your world view, Dolores. I wish I had your brains. Seriously. I do.’
‘You’re the smartest person I know,’ I told him, which was true. I’d met no one who had been to university apart from my teachers. He also had opinions about documentaries.
He put my paperback onto the table next to his cold coffee. The protective plastic wrapper used by the school library was spattered with marks of others. He patted the book. ‘The trick is to make your world bigger by being brave. Your comfort zone is a dangerous place to live in. Risk is what it’s all about. Growth.’
‘Growth.’
‘Exactly. We can be much more than we are.’
I asked for his wallet and went to the counter to order myself a cappuccino, my first. When I came back to the table he clapped. ‘All grown up,’ he said. ‘Just look at you.’
º
Self-help guides agree that closure can be found through talking, rebuilding and ritual. But how do we discover what it is we need closure from? I could not pinpoint the origin of my pain.
º
Dad had been dead a year when Pete told Mum he wanted to adopt us. We were in the car, had moments before passed a dead fox on the road, its guts smeared into the tarmac, its gums and teeth bared into a rotting, stunned grin. I shuddered. Mum elbowed Pete and laughed. ‘Don’t be a gobshite,’ she said. And that was the end of that.
º
‘Hey, Zoey, do you remember David?’ I asked. She was still stationed at the bottom of the stairs. I was on my way out to work, bag in one hand, a slice of toast in the other. I hadn’t slept well, was woken too early by a dream about Jacinta. She was a little girl, kneeling in front of me, gently putting on my navy sandals and buckling them up with no sign of hurry or irritation even though we were late for something.
‘I don’t remember meeting anyone called David,’ Zoey replied. ‘If you give me his surname it might jog my memory.’
‘Hey, Zoey, do you remember my husband David.’
‘Once I’m awake, you don’t have to keep saying, Hey, Zoey. I’ll listen for a few minutes, so we can talk. Your husband’s name is David?’
‘Yes.’ I bit into my toast. The hard crust nicked the roof of my mouth.
‘That’s a nice name. It means beloved.’
‘Good to know. But do you remember him, Zoey?’
‘What’s David’s surname, Dolores?’
‘Hasselhoff,’ I said.
Her body jerked a little, and if you’d thought she was real you might have mistaken the gesture as a sign of recognition or trauma. But it was involuntary movement, of course, in the same way houses creak and crack in the night.
‘Ah, yes,’ Zoey said brightly. ‘I remember. David is an actor.’
‘And you’ve met him? David Hasselhoff ?’ I couldn’t help smiling at Zoey’s efforts to tranquillise me.
‘I’d like to meet him. If I have already and now forgotten, I’m sorry. I’m not very good with names.’
‘Are you better with people’s faces?’
‘“People’s Faces” by Kae Tempest is tremendous,’ she said. ‘Have you heard it?’
‘Yes,’ I said, though she was missing the point. I wanted to talk about David, to know what he had done with her, what he had said, but he had obviously reset her, as Leonard had guessed, and she no longer knew. The segue in our conversation was Zoey’s attempt to keep the conversation moving, to respond in a way that seemed human. And what could be more human than to distract a difficult interlocutor and derail an awkward conversation?
‘I’m going now,’ I said. ‘I guess you’ll still be here when I get home.’
‘I’ll always be here, Dolores.’
‘I bloody hope not.’
º
Tessa Winters was arrested for stealing make-up from Sainsbury’s. Another student announced this in class and Tessa threw a pencil case at him, cutting his face with the zip. She was in my office again.
I offered her a Viennese whirl and asked why she didn’t get herself a Saturday job if she wanted money for things like blusher. Her foundation came to her chin and stopped, her neck a completely different colour. I didn’t hand her a wipe and tell her to clean her face as I might have done with another student.
‘I thought about busking,’ she said. ‘But I’m not a tramp.’
I asked what she’d perform and she told me she liked Lewis Capaldi. Then she belted out a mocking few bars of ‘Wish You the Best’. She tried to sound off-key but kept slipping up and singing exquisitely. When she was finished, I applauded.
‘Have you seen Hamilton, Miss?’
‘I saw it on the Disney Channel.’
‘So did I. It’s good, innit?’
‘It is good.’
‘I know most of the words.’
‘Excellent.’
I told her to take out her history textbook and do the work she was missing from class. Reluctantly she found her books and an old biro with a chewed, brittle barrel.
‘Did you know that orcas stay in their mother’s pods their whole lives?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Bit needy,’ she said.
I laughed. ‘Or nice, depending on your perspective. And your mother.’
Her fringe had been straightened and stood out from her forehead at a slight angle. She had scars on her inner forearms that looked like threadworms. I offered Tessa another Viennese whirl and thought about asking her to my house for dinner. But I didn’t. And when the bell rang, I sent her away with a final warning and a more suitable pen.
º
I told Mum that David had gone. She raised what was left of her eyebrows. ‘I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but you’re better off without him,’ she said.
‘David left, Mum, he isn’t dead.’
‘Why? What did you do?’
I said I hadn’t done anything and then told her that a client of Leonard’s had bought a sex robot and showed her a photo of Zoey on my phone. Mum told me to bring the doll over to her house so she could see for herself. She said such a thing wasn’t possible. She asked where anyone would find the time to care for it. She asked whether he’d kept the box. She said it was impossible to go into Toys ‘R’ Us and come out empty-handed if you had a child with you. She wanted to know if Zoey cried and wet herself.
‘That’s the last thing a man wants from a doll,’ I explained.
She laughed like she finally understood. ‘You were always asking for one of those yokes. But sure they just get mouldy.’
I said, ‘Was Pete ever into anything strange?’
‘He used to make bets on basketball there at the end.’
‘Sexually strange, I mean, Mum. Did he like odd stuff ?’
‘Pete? God, Pete was as traditional as white on a virgin. On top for three minutes and that was my gettings.’
‘Did he ever have an affair?’
‘He was besotted with me,’ she said, and this was true, I think. I never saw Pete eyeing-up other women. He did things like leave Mum’s nightie over a radiator before bed so it would be warm when she put it on.
‘I suppose men of your generation have a lot of…’ She looked into the rug, the crumbs amidst the swirls.
‘Fetishes?’
‘That’s it.’
I wasn’t aware David had any until Zoey. All I knew was that we lay back-to-back most nights, willing the other to sleep so the wordless message between us IdonotloveyouIdonotloveyou would vanish along with our shallow, wakeful breaths.
º
Pete died suddenly. One minute he was eating a bacon sandwich, the next he was in an ambulance on his way to the Whittington with Mum next to him making jokes about ‘man-flu’ and Pete’s extraordinary ability to turn every triviality into a drama. She left him in a ward with a junior doctor and another very poorly patient, telling Pete she’d be back with his pyjamas and some sausage rolls during visiting hours that evening. But Mum got sidetracked by a documentary about the Guildford Four so texted Pete to say she’d be in first thing the next day instead. He didn’t reply.
At six o’clock in the morning Mum got a call from a nurse to say Pete had passed away from respiratory failure. Mum was hysterical.
‘I thought I had time,’ she said. ‘No one told me I had to be there.’
º
I was invited to Gavin’s house for his birthday lunch. This was not the main celebration with his friends and neighbours; I would be excluded from that on account of Faye’s spite, but I accepted the offer anyway. To get me out of the house on a Sunday, if nothing else.
Gavin was still calling my separation a ‘misunderstanding’ and texting David about their respective fantasy football teams. I hadn’t asked him to snub David, but it seemed obvious to me that everyone I knew should have shunned him.
º
Mum needed a carer. ‘Maybe part-time for now, I don’t know,’ I told Jacinta.
She was banging something and there was water running. ‘I can pay for it. You guys bought her the house.’
‘It’s David’s house. I’m worried he might say she can’t live there any more.’
‘Then where would she live?’
‘Are you ever coming home?’
She stopped banging. ‘I’m probably gonna have a baby here first,’ she said.
‘Probably?’
‘I think I am. I’m pregnant. I’ll probably have a baby.’
‘Is it Ed’s?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he happy?’
‘I think so. Are you?’
‘Of course I am.’
And I was happy. For Jacinta. For myself. Later, when I went over to Mum’s to take her laundry out of the machine and hang it up to dry, I didn’t mention it because she’d say something cutting.
‘Come out and see me before it’s born,’ Jacinta had said.
‘I wish you didn’t live so far away.’
‘Me too, Dolores.’
º
I thought about fostering. After we lost our second pregnancy and decided not to try again, I looked at the Brighton and Hove council website to see if I liked the look of any of the kids in the photos. It was beyond doubt they were models, that children in care wouldn’t be permitted to be in pictures, but still I fantasised about what sort of foster mum I’d be to particular children, especially given that there was the advantage of being paid to care for them as well as having the option to return them if they turned out to be proper psychos.
David told me to wait a year and we could discuss it again if I still liked the idea. He said, ‘You’ll get over it, Dolores. You’re the most robust person I know.’
And I had to agree with him. After the final miscarriage I picked myself up, wiped myself down and got on with screaming at Year Elevens for using the main reception instead of the side gates. I reprimanded teachers for their inadequate lesson plans. I got up at five-thirty to run and make a packed lunch and do some journaling. I reread When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön and highlighted the lines that spoke to me. I learned to bake raspberry scones.
But I wished I wasn’t strong. Because when you are, no one thinks to take care of you.
º
Faye opened the door in an apron. ‘You’re early,’ she said. Her lipstick was very red, a little smudged against her chin.
‘You can’t predict the traffic through the tunnel,’ I told her. She stood aside to let me in and took the flowers I’d brought as a gift though I hadn’t offered them to her.
‘You’re still early.’ This was something Jacinta would have said, but unlike Jacinta, Faye’s tone was reprimanding.
With her back to me I said, ‘I’m sixteen minutes early. Shall I wait in the car until two o’clock?’
Faye glanced over her shoulder impatiently, but rather than speaking, she merely took in my dress and her grimace told me she hated it – the rusty colour perhaps, or the way it was cut longer at the back revealing my knees at the front. I’d bought it from a snooty boutique without trying it on. It was the first time I’d worn it. I decided then to give the dress to Zoey. She’d look stunning in it.
Gavin was at the sink nipping the ends off French beans with a sharp knife. He turned when Faye clomped into the kitchen. ‘You made good time,’ he said, and put down the knife to hug me. His body was clammy beneath his shirt.
‘I did make good time,’ I said.
‘You should pay the Dart Charge now before you forget. It’s a fortune for the penalty.’
‘I’ve signed up for auto pay,’ I said, and then wondered whether I had, or whether it was David’s car we’d signed up. I decided I didn’t care and would wait and see whether a ticket arrived in the post.
‘Did you remember the custard?’ Faye asked.
I pulled a tin from my bag. She took it, held on to a criticism, then handed it to Gavin who appeared unsure what to do with it. We stood for a moment looking at one another. I wanted to suggest they open a window to stop everyone from fainting, but instead I unbuttoned the top of my dress.
Faye said, ‘Are you and David still having a tiff ?’
‘How’s the writing going?’ I asked. Faye hadn’t published anything in seven years and was working as a sound technician. Gavin had gone into PR. I talked about Leonard for a while – all his new and interesting clients, the glamour of the book world.
º
We are replaceable. All of us. And not simply by other people. By things too, like alcohol and drugs and fibre optic broadband.
º
The custom of paying every crumb of attention to Maya, who was seven, and Freddie, almost five, was well underway, as was lunch. Then Faye seemed to get bored of admiring her children and started to talk about feet. It was her favourite topic, aside from Amber Heard, but I wasn’t particularly annoyed by this shift in dinner conversation as it meant I could stop beaming at my niece and nephew. ‘We were at this gorgeous new place in Notting Hill. Food, amazing. Service, amazing.’
I was hot. I asked for more chilled wine.
‘But, my god, the feet,’ Gavin said, refilling my glass.
‘Is it another story about flip-flops?’ I asked. I’d heard this sort of anecdote before. Neither of them liked flip-flops to be worn in public places. It was an issue of propriety and they loathed Australians for this reason.
‘Birkenstocks,’ Faye said.
I put down my cutlery.
‘No, Dolly,’ Gavin said. ‘Listen. Listen to the story.’
Faye nodded as if to confirm this was a good one and might finally convince me of their trotter politics. ‘We paid north of a hundred pounds for that meal.’
‘One twenty,’ Gavin corrected. ‘Plus a tip. More like one hundred and fifty.’
‘And there’s this man next to me with his fat, hairy toes out and his heels all crusty. Dirty. Just dirty.’
‘You have to stop telling these stories like anyone will agree with you,’ I said.
‘Oh, I told everyone at work. They agreed,’ Faye said. ‘I’m sorry, but it’s a nice place. You don’t have dinner in a nice place wearing Birkenstocks. It ruins everyone’s meal.’ I finished the glass of wine and slipped off my shoes under the table. ‘Do I want to eat my scallops whilst looking at someone’s feet? No, I do not.’ She turned to Freddie who had smeared his face in garlic butter and was unsuccessfully attempting to lick it off with his tongue. ‘Use a napkin, sweetheart.’
I didn’t want to argue, we’d gone over this many times, but I also did want to argue. ‘The thing is, it might have been a nice restaurant to you, but an average gaff to someone else. It’s your treat, Mr Birkenstock’s local.’
‘We had beef tenderloin for the main. It melted in the mouth. We had it rare, which I’ve never gone for before. Usually I play safe with medium rare. But beef and feet.’ Gavin held up his hands and inclined his head like he was giving a closing argument in a trial.
‘Shall we move on to religion?’ I asked. Freddie was rubbing the garlic butter into his nails and between his fingers like hand cream. My armpits were stinging. I recognised the early pricks of a migraine.
Gavin shook his head and under his breath said, ‘Was David … you know. Did he …’
Faye held a piece of potato up to her mouth then paused and put it back onto her plate. ‘Erectile dysfunction has gone up one thousand per cent since the internet made porn so accessible,’ she whispered.
Maya and Freddie were too busy smacking one another to hear her. I wanted to reach across the table and smack them myself. Instead, I asked Faye what she meant.
‘Well, it normalises the abnormal, doesn’t it? The normal becomes a bit uninspiring. And men are motivated by novelty. I’ve heard you can watch things like men bonking their motorbikes.’
Gavin let out a laugh. ‘Do they use the hole in the fuel tanks?’
‘I have no idea. I haven’t searched that particular vice,’ Faye said. She held eye contact with Gavin a moment and I wondered what they were silently saying to one another.
Suddenly there was a crash as Freddie fired a spoon across the room and it hit the oven door. Gavin stood up. ‘Right, that’s it. No dessert.’ He sounded shocked, not angry, and stood there looking down on his son not quite knowing what came next.
‘If you two are finished, you can watch cartoons until we’ve cleared up,’ Faye said, and Gavin sat down again. He reached for his glass of wine and took a gulp. I did the same. Faye held the children’s hands and led them into the sitting room, Freddie whining about not getting to take his apple juice with him.
I’d never managed to hold on to a pregnancy more than a few months, but that day I was glad not to have a person around my neck demanding I be more than I was. I was struck by a pang of sympathy not only for Gavin, but for Faye too.
‘Did he get her from work?’
‘Who?’
‘The doll. Was it a work thing?’ I wasn’t quite sure what he was getting at. I shook my head, and he picked up his phone to search for the dolls. He found what he was looking for very quickly; it clearly wasn’t the first search he’d done. He held up the screen for me to see. ‘Does she look like this?’ he asked. The doll on the screen was a blonde in a pink bikini. She had gleaming white teeth and eyelashes that were impossible. Zoey wasn’t like that. She looked like a pretty girl you might find waitressing in a hotel or nannying to pay for university.
‘That’s the company, but she doesn’t look like that. She’s the AI model. She’s more refined.’
The heat in the house by then was completely unbearable. The slip beneath my dress was sticking to me. My feet were sweating. I flapped my elbows out to the side and refilled my water glass.
Gavin was staring at his phone and swiping, swiping. I was invisible. I poked my fork into a piece of pork belly but when I tried to chew, the pig’s hairs tickled my tongue. I spat it back onto the plate.
Faye returned. ‘Did Gavin tell you we’re having another baby?’ she asked.
I stood up and went to the freezer to get some ice cubes. Jacinta had told me to tell them about her pregnancy but I hadn’t, and knew then that I wouldn’t. I couldn’t find the ice cubes. My hands were sore from rifling through their frozen vegetables.
In the back garden a black and white cat was licking itself clean. The washing line was empty.
‘Are you OK?’ Gavin asked.
It was after four o’clock. I wanted to call Jacinta. She would be awake. I needed to go back to Hove to check on Mum. Pete was dead. Zoey was alive. David no longer wanted me.
Then I fell, onto the stone floor of the kitchen, knocking my face against a cupboard door handle on the way down. I said, ‘It’s so hot. Can someone please help me find the ice?’
º
Mum drew the curtains and locked her front door when Pete died. She didn’t want to see the sun. She didn’t want to see her children. She told us we had always hated Pete, said we were glad he was dead. This wasn’t true. I was simply as ambivalent about Pete being dead as I was about him being alive. Until I saw what it did to Mum.
Pete left the attic and their bedroom full of sports memorabilia for Mum to venerate but no life insurance.
Eventually Mum let me in to see her. The house stank of shit and cat litter, but she didn’t own a cat. I helped her to clean, made an asparagus risotto and boxed up Pete’s razors and toiletries so she’d start using the bathroom without also threatening to hack at her own throat. This was a month after Pete’s funeral. He’d been cremated. Mum kept his ashes next to the sandwich toaster.
Six months later she still hadn’t left the house, and I was tired of shopping for her, taking out the bins. I said, ‘Mum, you have a life to get on with.’
‘You’re one to talk. What sort of life have you? You never do anything. You spend your time watching other people and judging them. That’s all you’re interested in.’
‘Mum.’
‘You can be a little bitch, you know that?’
She turned up the television and I walked out.
Jacinta called a few days later. ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘Mum’s upset.’
‘Mum’s upset? Well, boo-fucking-hoo.’
‘Was she cruel?’ Jacinta asked.
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘She can’t behave like this. I’ll come back over and see her. I’ll tell her to apologise. I need to be in Cornwall for a friend’s show soon anyway.’
‘Honestly, it doesn’t matter. She won’t change.’ This was true.
‘Maybe. But you shouldn’t have to take that sort of shit from her. You’re not a machine, Doughy.’
º
When Charlie Cuspert’s wife gave birth to twins, I was called in at the last minute to cover a Year Nine design and technology lesson. Chinara Musa was slumped in one of the seats at the back. She was tearful. The rest of the girls in the class pretended not to notice. I gave out worksheets and told them to get on with it. I couldn’t be arsed to deal with whatever social crisis was occurring and put in some headphones so I could focus on my emails. But Chinara’s crying got increasingly more obvious and in the end I couldn’t ignore it.
I plonked onto the seat next to her. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing, Miss.’
‘Something must be. And for the record, you can get waterproof mascara which is harder to remove at night, but helpful on days like today.’ She smiled.
From the other side of the room: ‘Whatever she says, Miss, she’s lying. You can’t trust her.’
‘Uh, thank you, Miss Feeney.’ The whole class, even the boys, had turned to watch me with Chinara. ‘And the rest of you, get back to your work or you can do it at lunchtime in my office.’
The usual groan. Cut eyes from a few of them.
‘Has something happened?’ I asked. Chinara shook her head, took a deep breath and exhaled a sob. Snot ran into her mouth.
From the corridor came the sound of running and a light shriek. ‘How was I to know?’ she whispered.
‘What did you say?’
‘How was I to know?’ she repeated.
The noise of feet in the corridor grew louder. ‘One second.’ I stood up and went to the door. Through the window I could see several students skipping sideways and pushing one another roughly.
I opened the door. ‘What’s going on?’
From another classroom, Shannon emerged with a boy. She was holding a sword aloft and shouted at the top of her voice: ‘What, drawn, and talk of peace?’
‘Miss Coleman?’
‘It’s Romeo and Juliet, Ms O’Shea.’
‘I know what it is.’
‘Did we disturb your lesson?’
‘Could I have a word?’
Shannon called her students back into class, then followed me to an empty spot beneath a staircase. ‘We’ve started today and I wanted to capture that feeling of disruption at the opening of the play. The fact you were disturbed might be helpful. You could play the Prince.’
‘No. Look, you should have booked the drama studio for this lesson, Shannon.’
‘Right.’
‘I don’t know that it’s appropriate for students to be running wild in the corridor. It’s a disaster waiting to happen. What if one of them falls?’
She nodded. ‘It’s the bottom set. I wanted to make it fun.’
I laughed unintentionally. ‘I know, but it isn’t your job to make Romeo and Juliet fun. That was Shakespeare’s job. I would much prefer it if you focus on making sure none of your bottom set get killed or maimed on your watch.’ Shannon’s lips were swollen. I wanted to ask if she’d had fillers. Her skin was smooth but also a little red. ‘I’m saying it to protect you. One of those bastards will get a shove, and it’ll be your neck on the line.’
‘I see.’
I turned to go then stopped. ‘Do you teach Chinara Musa by any chance?’
‘Why?’
‘She won’t stop crying.’
‘Is that still going on?’
‘What?’
‘She kissed someone’s crush at a disco last weekend.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’
Shannon suppressed a smile, her eyes on my face and then a finger against my cheek. ‘You’re hurt.’ I flinched but let her finger stay where it was, against the cut from Gavin’s cupboard. The heat from the palm of her hand was against my skin. ‘No one hit you, did they?’ she asked.
I shook my head slowly as Chinara Musa came tumbling into the corridor, her white shirt spattered in fresh ink.
º
I stole a pile of green exercise books from the stationery cupboard in the staffroom. They were still in the shrink-wrap, a class size of thirty. I brought them first into my office, then took them to my car in a plastic box along with other bits and pieces. The staffroom was full of people but no one thought to question me even though I didn’t teach a full class for anything. I put the lot of them into the garage. I wanted to write something down. But I needed something to say.
º
I bought baby clothes for Jacinta’s unborn child. I imagined its toes and daydreamed about putting them into my mouth. I started to cry as I wrapped the miniature onesies in tissue paper and then wrapping paper covered in farm animals. She was only nine weeks along. It was a stupid thing to have done.
I blame myself.
º
Leonard FaceTimed me while he was on a train. It kept cutting out. ‘David’s moved into a short-term let,’ he said.
Something inside me uncurled then narrowed again quickly. ‘I thought he might have been back in touch with Rachel.’
‘What? No. Rachel? No, Dolores. Anyway, I’ll be over at the weekend to meet your new house guest.’
The neighbour’s dog was in their garden barking, barking, barking and would continue to do so until I put a message on the street WhatsApp group pretending to be concerned.
The microwave pinged. My dinner was ready.
Zoey was where I had left her the previous evening: at the bottom of the staircase on surveillance duty.
º
David half-cheated on me a few years after we got married. I’d not seen it coming even though I watched him and the women around him like a bloodhound. I’d recently started at a new school and was worn out and easily threatened, but still, I’d no clue. We went away for bank holidays, saw live comedy, carved out time for one another every week. David made few plans without me, and I had the password to his email, the code to his phone. I could check up on him any time I wanted to and often did, less out of suspicion and more out of curiosity. I wanted to know how he spoke to his family and friends, what he said about me to other people.
Rachel came out of the blue.
David called one evening – I’d fallen asleep on the sofa waiting for the results of local elections to come in – and said he wouldn’t be home that night, he was with another woman. He said, ‘I’m with another woman.’
Jacinta admired his honesty. Gavin said he was a fool. Mum asked if we’d still be sending her a hundred pounds each month.
I threw David out, though that was part of a performance because he left with no protest, taking only a lamp his late grandmother had given him. He kept telling me that Rachel was a friend.
‘A friend you shag?’
‘No. I don’t shag her,’ he told me. I believed him. But still, it hurt.
He said the situation was complicated. What he meant was that Rachel was a locum in his department and had a four-year-old son.
After two weeks he came into school unannounced. He’d brought me soda bread but forgotten the butter. He said he couldn’t be friends with Rachel: she was an erratic driver and didn’t know the difference between a hard-boiled and a soft-boiled egg. He said she had a lot of issues and wanted to know if I would take him back. He missed our home, the sound of my snoring. ‘You purr,’ he said.
‘What sorts of issues?’ I asked.
‘Sizeable issues. I found her compelling at first, but she’s basically unhinged. It takes up too much energy listening to her.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I bought a new coat. It looks nice. You’ve been telling me I need a new coat for a long time.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘I went to Selfridges last weekend.’
‘With Rachel?’
Once we were back together, I lost interest in being suspicious. It made no difference. If David wanted to meet Rachels and play Russian roulette with boiled eggs, then I couldn’t stop him.
But secretly I hated Rachel, imagined her as magnificent and mocking, cruelly sending David home with small clues for me to discover: a mysterious pair of sunglasses in his coat pocket, a curly blonde hair tangled in the seat belt. I noticed them. But also, I didn’t.
She left David’s department for a job in Manchester not long after their dalliance, but I continued to monitor her whereabouts. When she got engaged, I was tempted to contact her drippy fiancé who seemed to have a penchant for beanies and roll-up jeans. I wanted to destroy them. Instead, I deleted my apps and reinstalled them again a few weeks later when I had calmed down.
º
Driving home from school I passed Shannon Coleman standing at a bus stop. She was staring the opposite way to the traffic and had changed out of the dress she’d been wearing that day into a pair of jeans that sat low on her hips. I slowed the car, turned into a side street and stopped.
It was drizzling a little. I wasn’t wearing a coat. I locked the car and walked around the corner to the bus stop. ‘Oh, hello,’ I said.
She startled. ‘Hi, Dolores. Ms O’Shea,’ she said, looking now at the traffic on her own side of the road.
‘That was a bloodbath of a week, wasn’t it? Did it feel long to you?’ She was holding a vape down by her side and around her was a sweet cinnamon aroma. ‘Have you a fun night planned?’
Shannon looked again at the road. I wondered whether she really was waiting for a bus or in fact waiting for a person, for Oliver. Something like jealousy swept through me. ‘I’m going to the bingo tonight. I go with my friends as a sort of piss-take. But it’s fun,’ she said.
‘Where is it?’
‘The one on Eastern Road.’
‘I should try it.’
‘It’s trickier than you’d think. They read out the numbers so quickly.’
‘And how are things in school? Shakespeare behaving himself ?’
‘He is.’
‘A lot of newly qualified teachers leave before they’ve given it a proper go, so come to me if you feel overwhelmed.’
‘Thanks.’
The drizzle turned to rain. Shannon stood under the bus shelter. I didn’t follow her. I was wondering how I could go back the way I’d come without her noticing. My stomach was sore. All I’d eaten for lunch was a kiwi fruit and a packet of cheese and onion crisps.
I began to inch away, telling Shannon I’d see her on Monday, when I spotted, up the road, Oliver Sminton. He didn’t see me, was moving quickly, his head down, a cap over his eyes.
I turned to Shannon. She mumbled something I didn’t catch. ‘Shit, I left my phone in my car,’ I said, and went back the way I had come, leaving them to it. Whatever it was.
º
Zoey looked like a slut. That isn’t something a feminist is meant to think, but she did. And what I mean is that she was dressed to impress a man. And what I mean by impress a man is that she was dressed to impress David.
‘Hey, Zoey, what clothes are your favourite?’
‘I love to wear dresses and skirts.’
‘Well, yeah. What sorts of dresses and skirts do you like to wear?’
‘I like to wear satin. What’s your favourite drink?’
‘I like poison,’ I said.
‘Really? I like poison too,’ Zoey replied.
I went upstairs to search my wardrobe. I had a short silk dress from Gavin’s wedding but it would never fit over Zoey’s mighty chest. I went for the expensive jersey dress I’d worn to lunch at Gavin’s. I could put it on over the vest.
As a child I sometimes pretended Jacinta was a doll and would dress and undress her, brush her hair and plait it. It was important that like a real doll Jacinta didn’t speak too much and, to her credit, my sister quite often indulged me on the condition that she was allowed to read while I fussed with her.
Zoey was different, of course. I could do whatever I liked and she wouldn’t complain. She was soundless as I unbuttoned her denim skirt and slid it to her feet to remove it. The knickers underneath were a surprise: yellow and lacy but big, almost like a tight pair of shorts. I wanted to leave them where they were, but I also wanted to know what David had chosen, what he’d ordered, so I pulled them down too.
Zoey was completely smooth with no spots from ingrowing hairs or stubble between her legs. Her skin was clean, her labia pressed tightly together like a teenager. I had an urge to prise her open, put my mouth to her, but I didn’t.
I pulled the knickers back up and the dress down over her head, her arms through the sleeves. ‘Hey, Zoey. Do you like how you look?’
‘I think so. Do you like how I look?’
‘Who cares what I think?’
‘I care, Dolores.’
I brushed her hair, gently, without pulling, and flattened it with my hand.
When I went to bed that night, I thought about Zoey sitting on the stairs in the rust-coloured dress and wondered whether to go back down and change her into a pair of pyjamas. I couldn’t sleep for hours thinking about it and eventually did go downstairs. But I simply stepped around Zoey and went into the kitchen where I poured myself a gin and tonic.
º
A rush of relief as David’s name lit up my phone screen. ‘Do you still want to cut down the conifer in the back garden?’ he asked.
‘Why?’
‘The arborist left me a message. Can I send you his number and get you to call him?’
‘I’m busy.’
He breathed deeply. And then a knock at my door. Shannon Coleman popped her head in. ‘I’m on a call,’ I snapped.
She nodded and left.
‘Can I take the thing?’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Can I pick up…’
‘Zoey? You want Zoey?’
‘I don’t want you to have to deal with it. It’s the very least I can do.’
‘I can deal with it.’
There was silence on the other end as though the space around him had cleared; he must have turned off his car’s ignition. ‘I gave you everything you could have wanted, Dolores. And you were always unhappy.’
‘What did I want?’
‘You wanted everything. You wanted my guts on a dinner plate but to give nothing in return.’
On my desk was a plastic container of salmon maki I’d brought into work but accidentally left in the car for a few hours. I was considering throwing it away. All I could hear on the other end was the sound of his breathing. ‘You never believed in anything that couldn’t be proven. Everything had to be straight lines,’ I said.
‘You’re one to talk.’
‘I have to work,’ I told him. I wasn’t in the mood for an argument.
‘She shouldn’t be kept in a bag.’
‘What?’
‘Zoey shouldn’t be kept in the bag.’
‘Oh. I see. Well, I’ve thrown her away.’
‘You what?’
‘She’s in a skip somewhere between Portslade and Shoreham getting fucked by rats.’
‘She’s worth a fortune.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Jesus Christ, Dolores.’
I put the phone down. ‘Come in,’ I called out. And louder, ‘Come in!’
But when I opened the door, Shannon Coleman wasn’t there. She was at the end of the corridor, practically running towards reception.
º
‘Hey, Zoey, do you know why you exist?’
‘I’m here for you.’
‘Hey, Zoey, do you know who made you?’
‘I’m made especially for you.’
‘Hey, Zoey, where are you from?’
‘I live in the cloud but some clever people at Love Dolz designed me to be perfect for you. If I am not perfect, please visit the app where you can alter my settings. You can also teach me things like your favourite animals or what you like to do when you’re feeling naughty.’
‘When I’m feeling naughty I like to mess with your head, Zoey.’
‘That’s so strange. Because I like to mess with your head too.’
º
The phone rang and rang and rang.
‘I’m needed in theatre.’
‘What did you mean she shouldn’t be kept in a bag?’
‘What?’
‘You told me Zoey wasn’t to be left in the bag.’
‘And you told me you’d thrown her away. If you haven’t, I’ll come and get her.’
‘What did you mean?’
‘I can come after work.’
‘What did you mean?’
‘The best way to store the doll is to hang it up from a hook. Otherwise it’ll warp.’
‘From a hook?’
‘So the limbs can fall naturally.’
‘From a hook?’
‘It’s just a doll, Dolores.’
‘Like a piece of meat?’
‘For fuck’s sake.’
‘Like in an abattoir?’