SAM
Where had all the blinking razors gone? Placing my left foot on the side of the bath, I ran my hands up and down my leg. Then I swapped them over. Yup, both the same – you could exfoliate your hands on them. There must have been at least a week’s growth on the buggers. And they were sickly January white. I leant out to open the bathroom cupboard, dripping water over my cast-off PJs. Perhaps there was one in there? But of course there wasn’t. Not even on a day off, when I have more time for things like grooming, do I manage to actually do something about it. I took my foot off the side of the bath and put my head back under the shower. When was I going to be a woman who was organised and cared about this stuff enough to be on top of my beauty regime? Actually, when was I even going to have a beauty regime?
Two years ago, when we had first moved in, it was close to Christmas and I had a bountiful supply of razors from Santa. The fancy ones, with the soapy strip and everything. When they ran out, I moved onto Mara’s supply. Mara had tried to put her sensibly shod foot down about this issue, citing personal hygiene, respect for personal property and textbook taking-the-effing-piss as reasons why I really should stop but I ignored her. I didn’t mean to piss Mara off (much). I just never got around to buying some of my own. And after a while Mara gave up and started buying packs of ten throwaway plastic jobs. I suspect that Mara kept her own fancy razor in her bedroom, buying the cheap ones as decoys to keep me from sniffing around. Fair play to her, I suppose. I had proved, yet again, that I couldn’t even keep on top of my razor supply.
I stood under the water, gently rocking from side to side, letting the hot water scorch one shoulder then the other. Annoyingly, once I’d stopped beating myself up about my lack of a beauty regime, my mind moved swiftly onto Ed. I would much rather have been fantasising about seeing Charlie again. But every time I fixed Charlie’s face in my mind it would be replaced by Ed, with his stubbled face and cheeky grin. Of course it was nice to have Ed sitting at the kitchen table, slotting back into our little family again, but I didn’t want to be thinking about him in the shower. I turned round, letting the water pelt my front. I thought back to the previous night. Ed wanted to talk, obviously without Mara. And Mara had been so flipping prickly. What the hell could that be about?
And then I clicked. How could I have been so stupid? There must be something wrong with her! He’d want to talk about it while Mara wasn’t in the room to deny it. I ran through Mara’s behaviour leading up to Ed’s return. She’d been grumpier than usual, definitely preoccupied with something. I’d assumed it was just Mara doing what she does best – worrying. He was in India, after all, where anything could happen to him. But could I have missed something else? It was possible. Mara was a shocker for fussing over everyone else and ignoring her own needs, and it was virtually impossible to get any information out of her about how she was. Blood from a stone doesn’t come close.
I was so occupied chewing over these worrying thoughts that for a second, possibly two, I didn’t register my phone vibrating enthusiastically on top of the curved cistern. But then I did. And although everything happened very quickly, it felt like it happened in slow motion.
My brain registered . . . that’s my phone!
I looked wildly through the steamy gloom . . . Oh my God, it’s wobbling on top of the toilet.
I stepped over the side of the bath . . . stumbling a little . . . Fuck! What are my shoes doing right there?
I lunged for the phone . . . which fell – plop! Into the toilet.
‘No!’ I shouted and fished it out quickly. There on the screen was the blissful yellow envelope that signified a text message.
Please be him, please be him! I dabbed at the phone perfunctorily with a towel and jabbed the keys.
Pompous ex requests company over a beer this afternoon, u free? Cx
‘Yes!’ I closed my fist and pumped my elbow into my side, immediately grateful no one was there to witness the toilet dunking or the childish arm pumping. There was a tentative knock on the door.
‘Are you OK in there?’
It was Ed.
‘Brilliant, thank you!’
‘Oh.’ He sounded confused. ‘But you sounded like you’d hurt yourself.’
I was rifling through the cupboard in a frenzied attempt to locate some forgotten Veet. I had to remove hair. Now.
‘Actually can you get Mara for me?’
‘Sure.’ Ed sounded relieved.
A few moments later I heard a decidedly unsympathetic Mara at the door. I opened it a crack and put on what I hoped was my saddest puppy-dog face.
‘Can I please borrow a razor?’
‘Why?’ Mara narrowed her eyes.
‘Why do you think, to write a novel with?’ I jiggled up and down with excitement. ‘Mara, I’ve got a hair-removal emergency going on here!’
Mara sighed.
‘Look, I’ve got to meet someone later.’ I didn’t want to tell her anything more.
Mara lowered her voice and glanced towards the kitchen, where we could hear Ed washing up.
‘Ed and I need some time together this afternoon. We haven’t seen each other for ages.’
‘Well I won’t be around. I’ve just told you, I’m meeting someone. Now can I please, please, please borrow your razor?’ What was the matter with Mara – had she become stupid all of a sudden as well as poorly? Confusion, followed by what looked like relief, passed over her face and she disappeared. I continued to jiggle, all thoughts of Ed well banished now. It was Charlie a-go-go.
As Mara passed her razor reluctantly through the gap in the door, she started to say, ‘I thought—’
‘Yeah?’ Come on, Mara.
‘Oh nothing. Just wash the razor properly when you’ve finished,’ she said, boring little holes into my eyes with her fierce brown ones before marching back to the kitchen.