Very Nearly Normal Read online

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ I said, my voice coming out all croaky. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’

  Elliot looked at me with unblinking yellow eyes and he seemed to say, ‘It was a car crash, my dear. The boy will never come back.’

  ‘He will be back,’ I said unsurely.

  I rolled out of bed, flinging Elliot to the floor as I threw back the duvet; he landed gracefully on all fours and sauntered off onto the landing. I groaned and walked over to the mirror where I proceeded to wipe last night’s smudged eyeliner from my ashen cheeks using only saliva and the ends of my fingers.

  I stopped and looked hard at my reflection, hating everything I saw with unbridled passion.

  ‘Why didn’t you just let him kiss you?’ I asked my reflection, my infuriating face just staring back at me. I looked down at my phone, which was charging on the floor, and pressed the home button with my toe.

  No messages.

  I’d blown it.

  My thumb hovered over the ‘new message’ icon and paused as it waited for confirmation from my brain. I opened the new message and went to type, but what the hell would I say? ‘Sorry I’m such a train wreck. Come back, I’m begging you!’ I made a deep guttural sound in my throat and locked my phone.

  I looked around the room and saw last night’s clothes strewn across the pile of clothes from the day before that. I’d never been an organised person, but in the last few years all concept of tidiness had seemed to erase from my brain.

  The small amount of space that I had was mostly taken up by one large wardrobe, the doors of which hung open constantly, the clothes spilling from it like wardrobe vomit and cascading down onto the floor. There lay a path that weaved its way through the landscape of hills and valleys of detritus, which led safely to the door, but that was about all that could be seen of the pine-effect laminate beneath.

  I checked my phone again, making sure that it wasn’t on silent, and wondered if I should text him.

  The sound of knuckles rapping on wood came and a moment later the door, already ajar, swung open to reveal my mother’s beaming face.

  ‘Good morning!’ she trilled, instantly picking up a shirt from the floor and folding it. She looked around for somewhere to place the neatly folded square of fabric then, when none could be found, placed it on top of a pile.

  ‘Your father and I are very impressed with that Theo.’

  ‘Dad didn’t even meet him,’ I said as I peeled off my PJs and stood there casually in a sports bra and a pair of knickers with sagging elastic.

  ‘He saw him on the security camera,’ she said, continuing in vain to tidy.

  ‘That’s not creepy at all,’ I replied. My dad had had a camera fitted in the back garden a few months ago. He told people that it was because his storage shed got burglarised, but what he didn’t tell them was that the two culprits were a pair of footloose squirrels. I don’t know why he thought a security camera would deter the squirrels, but then, many of the things he did confused me, so I didn’t ask. ‘Well, don’t get too excited because he probably won’t be back.’

  ‘Why? What did you do?’ Joy ceased her tidying and turned to me, her eyes wide.

  ‘Mother, the sooner you learn that I am unlovable, the easier it will be for you to come to terms with the fact that I will die a spinster.’ I looked back at myself in the mirror and scowled at myself.

  Joy tutted and turned back to her tidying. ‘Well, that’s a damn shame. He was a very lovely boy and he’s doing well for himself by the looks of that bottle of wine he brought here last night.’

  ‘Yes, Mother. I know! But I made a fool of myself and then he ran off, so that’s the end of that.’ I felt a pressure build behind my eyes and knew that a headache would soon follow.

  I know I’d never been pleasant, but was I really so unbearable that they all had to run away in the end? I mean, I couldn’t be that bad. Even Hitler had a girlfriend.

  I picked a pair of jeans up off the floor and attempted to put them on, I managed to get them just above my knees before I accepted defeat and threw the too-small trousers back onto the pile.

  ‘Do I have a big bum?’ I asked, cupping my cheeks in front of the full-length mirror and frowning at them over my shoulder.

  ‘No,’ Joy said after a long pause. ‘Your bottom is normally sized. Your thighs, on the other hand, are larger than average.’

  ‘Oh gee, thanks.’ I quickly picked up a pair of baggy patchwork trousers – from my lingering hippy phase – and hid my newly embarrassing legs.

  ‘What did I say now?’ Joy flung her arms out into the air at either side.

  ‘Well, it’s fine to have a big ass. Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, they all have big butts and they’re all fucking gorgeous.’

  ‘Language!’ Joy said, although I knew that she was now cottoning on to the fact that the swearing was here to stay. ‘What’s wrong with sturdy thighs?’

  ‘Sturdy?!’ I gasped as if sturdy was a dirty word. ‘Sir Mix-a-Lot’s song didn’t go “I like sturdy thighs and I cannot lie”!’

  ‘You’re being ridiculous.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘Effie, your thighs are big and your hips are wide, but that doesn’t mean you’re not beautiful.’

  I didn’t answer and instead pulled on a long baggy jumper that covered most of my body down to the knees, before storming past my mother and causing one of the piles of folded clothes to fall back into the gap she had just made; trying to restore order to the chaotic room.

  I clunked down the stairs loudly, my frustration echoing through the hall for all to hear, when the doorbell rang. I rolled my eyes and walked to the door, letting it swing open to reveal the ‘piss off’ face that I was wearing. But as soon as my eyes adjusted to the glare of sun behind the visitor, my heart leapt and I suddenly felt sick.

  ‘Hey, I brought bagels.’ Theo stepped inside and thrust a paper bag into my face.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I told you. I brought bagels.’ He wandered into the kitchen as I closed the door and jogged after him. He pulled one from the bag as he walked to the counter and took a bite.

  ‘Do you think you could give me a little warning next time? I don’t have any make-up on.’

  ‘You look great, love the trousers,’ he said around a mouthful of cold untoasted onion bagel.

  ‘Shut up,’ I replied, tearing the bagel from his teeth, slicing it in half and jamming it into the toaster. ‘I could have had one of my many, many lovers over or I could have been meeting with my coven.’

  ‘I would have been happy to join in with both of those things.’ He smiled with bread-spackled teeth and some of my frustration disappeared. ‘Anyway, now that you’re finished moaning, I have big plans for us today.’

  ‘What plans?’ I asked as Joy trotted into the kitchen with a beaming smile on her face.

  ‘Is that Theo I hear?’ She threw her arms around him like an old friend. ‘Effie said that you were gone for good, but it would seem she hasn’t scared you away just yet.’ She winked at me over Theo’s shoulder and took a deep inhalation of his shirt. I shuddered and turned back to the toaster.

  ‘Try as she might, I’m difficult to scare,’ he said, letting go of Joy and taking a seat at the table as if he’d been visiting for years.

  ‘What do you have planned for today then?’ Joy asked, sitting opposite and pouring him some coffee.

  I had planned on spending the day sitting in various places around the house, waiting for an appropriate time to open the wine, but Theo had put rather a dent in those plans.

  ‘Effie and I have an appointment,’ he said with a smile. The toaster popped and I grabbed the slices, burning my fingers in the process, before tossing them onto a plate.

  ‘We do?’ I asked, grabbing the butter from the fridge and handing it to him. ‘What appointment is this?’

  ‘It’s a surprise.’ He winked and smeared an inordinate amount of butter onto his breakfast before crunching t
hrough his bagel with ravenous teeth.

  I dressed quickly into tight jeans that made my thighs look proportionate to the rest of my body and a hoodie, before pulling my knotted hair up into a ponytail and sliding my feet into a pair of pumps.

  I leaned into the mirror and looked my reflection in the eye.

  ‘You will not be a dickhead today, Effie. You will be nice to him and if he tries to kiss you, you will let him. Understand?’ I nodded at myself and took a breath. ‘You’re lucky he even came back at all.’

  When I resurfaced downstairs, I found Joy leaning across the table, her chin resting in her palm and her eyes smiling softly at Theo as he told her about his job.

  ‘It sounds fascinating.’ She sighed dreamily.

  Theo turned and smiled when he saw me standing in the doorway. It felt strange to have someone smile when they saw me; they usually just grimaced or simply left the room. He swiped the crumbs from his chest and stood, much to the disappointment of my mother.

  ‘You ready?’ he asked.

  I nodded and before Joy could invite herself along, we were out of the house and into Theo’s car. It was one of those fancy red Nissans that isn’t quite a 4x4; I tried to pull a Shania Twain and act unimpressed.

  The seats were comfy and it smelled like coffee and new plastic.

  He turned his key in the ignition and sent me a smile.

  ‘So, where are we going?’ I asked.

  ‘I told you, it’s a surprise.’

  Theo plugged his phone into the tatty AUX cable dangling by the gearstick and a few seconds later I heard The Rosehipsters trilling from the speakers.

  I looked over at him and smiled. There was no sense of awkwardness in him today, as if our almost kiss had never happened.

  ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ I said quietly. ‘I drank a bit too much.’

  ‘I think we both did,’ he said, with a dismissive swipe of his hand. ‘Ready for an adventure?’

  When Theo had said the word adventure I’d pictured skydiving and assault courses. I thought maybe we’d be trekking through a forest or exploring some caves. But when the ugly grey building came into view and he parked by the doors, I felt my sense of adventure evaporate.

  ‘The gym?’ I asked with curled lips.

  ‘Not just a normal gym, a boxing gym,’ Theo said smugly.

  ‘Boxing?’ My mouth hung open with dismay. ‘What part of you was under the impression that I did any kind of physical exercise, let alone exercise that could result in me losing a tooth?’

  ‘Have you ever even been to a gym before?’ he asked as he pulled two bags from the boot of his car and slammed the lid shut.

  ‘Of course not! The mere suggestion is an insult.’ I exhaled with angst, crossed my arms and pushed out my hip.

  ‘Maybe you’ll enjoy it and become a gym buff. Weren’t you just complaining on the way here about your mum saying you had … what did you call them … robust thighs?’

  ‘Sturdy!’ I corrected him, my face turning beetroot red. Theo walked towards the entrance and tapped the electronic key over his shoulder. The car doors clicked shut.

  ‘Well, I’m going in and I have the keys, so you can wait out here in the cold or you can come inside,’ he called as he walked through the sliding doors.

  The inside of the gym was everything I had feared and more. The walls were painted with varying shades of grey and blue and the air was thick with the scent of sweat and aggression.

  I walked embarrassingly close to him through the fluorescently lit hall, using him as a shield against the sweat-soaked men beating the crap out of each other in the ring. A skinny man, with a sagging purple bruise around his left eye and with his lips pulled tight over a black gum shield, ducked the punch of a guy who was built like Michelangelo’s David and who moved with such speed and grace that it looked like he’d choreographed the whole thing in advance.

  ‘What were you saying last night?’ Theo asked, his stride confident; he’d been here before.

  When I didn’t reply he answered for me. ‘You said that you hadn’t done anything new in years. Well, here’s something new.’

  ‘When I said that, I meant things like tobogganing or strawberry daiquiris, not … this.’

  We walked further to where several punching bags hung from the ceiling. The sounds of grunting and impact as many fists thwacked against them echoed through the hall. Every person here seemed to have an injury of some kind, a bruise or a cut or, in one man’s case, a bright stream of blood that trickled down from his cheek and pooled in his collarbone.

  ‘I’m not dressed for this and I’d rather my blood stays inside my body.’

  ‘I have some things you can wear,’ he said as he came to a stop outside the changing rooms.

  ‘You have spare women’s gym clothes hanging around your house?’

  ‘Yeah, well the women’s ones just make my arse look better.’

  ‘Ha!’ I said, straight-faced and without an ounce of humour. ‘But really, whose are they?’

  ‘Oh my God, Effie,’ he said with rolling eyes. ‘Just go and put them on and meet me back here.’ He thrust the bag into my hands and went through the door to the men’s changing room.

  A brightly lit vending machine hummed menacingly beside me as the bag of a stranger’s clothing lay heavily in my clammy hands.

  I sucked in a mouthful of sweat-sodden air and forced myself forward.

  The changing room was my nightmare made true: a large room with no corners to hide in, with a series of benches running down the centre and no cubicles. From the moment I’d stepped inside I was greeted by several naked women, all of whom seemed to have no reservations about stripping completely nude in public. There were no rippling thighs, no flailing bingo wings or jiggling stomachs. I did not fit in here. I quickly averted my eyes and scurried to a bench where I dropped the bag and sat down on the sticky wooden slats. Then I remembered the naked, sweaty women and quickly leapt up, trying to ignore the way my jeans peeled away from the bench as I stood.

  The room smelled of self-confidence and cotton-fresh deodorant spray. It clung to the inside of my throat like a mouthful of chalk dust and made me want to dry-heave.

  I steadied my breaths and unzipped the bag, finding inside a freshly laundered bundle of clothing. I pulled them out, causing something to clatter to the ground as I looked through them. My hands were shaking. I needed to calm down.

  I turned to pick up whatever had fallen, but one of the naked women had already done it and now stood beside me, boobs exposed and arm outstretched, holding a purple water bottle.

  ‘You dropped this, Jenny,’ the naked woman said with a smile. Her lip was split and it glistened with whatever clear substance it was oozing. I couldn’t help myself from looking down at her breasts while I spoke, staring into her rose petal nipples like they were eyes.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, taking the bottle and wondering why the woman had called me Jenny. I turned the water bottle over in my hand and saw the name scrawled in eroded Sharpie on the side.

  Who was Jenny and why would Theo have her clothes at his house?

  I pushed the bottle back into the bag and picked up the clothing before going into the toilets and changing in there. I pulled on a pair of purple spandex trousers, which groaned as they stretched over my ‘sturdy’ thighs, a racerback vest and a zip-up hoodie that smelled of expensive perfume and femininity.

  Maybe Jenny had been a roommate or maybe she was his ex and he was dressing me up in her clothes like some sort of reverse Norman Bates.

  I went back out into the changing room and stuffed my clothes into the bag before pushing it into a locker and walking back out into the gym with the confidence of a newborn lamb.

  ‘I thought you might have decided to walk home.’ Theo’s voice came from where he leaned against the vending machine. He wandered over to me and flashed that smile. It was still hard to believe that anyone could be continuously happy to see me. He must have very low standards.


  He wore a baggy vest and shorts that stopped just above his toned calves. He looked like he fitted in here, like he’d fit in anywhere.

  I looked down at myself. The clothing was figure-hugging, leaving little to the imagination. I folded my arms over my stomach and bounced fretfully on the balls of my feet. He placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. ‘Come on, Balboa, I’ve got us a corner over here.’

  I shuffled along after him, looking more out of place than a goth at a fairy princess party, as he led me to the mats. He threw over a pair of gloves and began strapping pads to his hands.

  ‘You want me to hit you?’ I asked with fear in my voice. ‘I struggle getting through a single day without injuring myself in some way. Yesterday, I got nail varnish remover in my eye. God knows what will happen if I actually try to hurt you.’

  ‘I’ve only known you for four days and, in that time, I’ve seen that you are pretty much the angriest person I’ve ever met,’ he said.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but realised he was completely right and so I just shut up instead. ‘You’re angry about your date with Daz. You’re angry with Kate and your parents and your lack of money.’ He reeled them off like a shopping list. ‘You’re angry about me bringing you here and you’re angry that I’ve pointed out that you’re angry. So, you’re going to hit me as hard as you can, and as many times as you can, and we’ll see what we can do about that anger.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do,’ I said meekly.

  He showed me how to stand, left foot forward, fists raised in front of my face, and then he braced himself for impact.

  ‘This is so stupid, Theo,’ I moaned, looking over my shoulder at the other people in the room.

  ‘Why? Are you a pacifist now?’

  ‘I just think this is stupid and I don’t want to do it.’ I flung my hands to my sides like a petulant child.

  ‘Why not? Because someone might see you?’ He looked behind me at the others I’d been glancing at. ‘Those two in the ring aren’t looking at you. That woman isn’t looking at you.’ He looked back at me and raised his pads. ‘No one is looking at you.’ It wasn’t meant as an insult, but it felt like one. ‘But I am. I’m looking at you, Matilda.’