The M Word Read online

  I hear the ack ack of shells and see buildings sandbagged against the tide of bombs. I see searchlights reaching with their fingers of light into the sky to pick out those planes. I see Mother and Father with dark circles round their eyes. I see the living dead walking the streets of London.

  You have no sweets, no fruit, no toys, no comics. And still I wish I was there with you, instead of being here. Alone. With Them.

  Yours,

  Alice

  I had to tear myself away from the letters to go to work. I hadn’t realised that Mother had had such a hard time during the war. She never spoke of it. I intend to delve back into the past later tonight, but in the meantime, I have a date.

  5

  I’m sitting in the Italian Farmhouse, drinking gin and bitter lemon and waiting for Niko to arrive. Tammy made me wear a strappy black dress and Karen Millen shoes, which are already cutting my feet in two. She’d decided I should have a safe word, in case he’s a psychopath. My safe word would be any letter. At first, she said Bolognese, but I figured that if I was being murdered, I might not have the ability to type Bolognese, so we should use something simpler. I suggested a shorter word, and she suggested just a single letter and she’d come to the rescue. I sit at the table alone, and my phone beeps. A message from Tammy.

  ‘Everything ok? Xxxxxxxxxx’

  ‘Yes,’ I type and press send. I feel guilty, so I type an X to represent a kiss.

  ‘Is that a single letter because you’re in trouble or a kiss?’ Jesus wept.

  ‘It was a kiss,’ I type.

  ‘Ok.’

  ‘K,’ I type. ‘And that was me just saying ok, ok?’

  ‘Ok.’ I’m losing the will to live.

  Niko arrives, dressed in Versace and smelling of something expensive and exotic. His hair looks wet, but as he kisses me on the cheek and hands me a daffodil, I feel the stickiness of the hair gel I thought had gone out of fashion with pedal pushers and winkle pickers. My cheek clags to his. I wipe mine with the back of my hand.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he says.

  I know you’re thinking that this could be the start of something big. Something wild and romantic. Something that lasts a lifetime. Wrong.

  The very first thing (and the last) Niko says to me is would I give him a rim job because I look like the kind of girl who’d enjoy it.

  Taxi for one, please.

  I get home and charge my phone. As soon as it starts up, my inbox is going crazy. I have three Tinder messages. One from Mark, who wants to know if I do anal. Another from Tim, who calls me my dear and asks if I believe in love at first “site”. I’m not sure which site he means. Caravan site by the look of his string vest and tragic dye job.

  The last is from Nigel who tells me: ‘I CAME ACROSS YOUR PROFILE AND COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES. I HAVE TO TELL YOU HOW ENAMOURED I AM OF YOUR HEAVENLY BEAUTY. YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY INCREDIBLY ARTICULATE, INTELLIGENT, HUMOROUS, DILLIGENT AND PERCEPTIVE. PERHAPS WE TWO OBVIOUSLY WAGGISH INTELLECTUALS COULD WHILE AWAY MANY HOURS IN SCINTILLATING REPARTEE. AND WHEN THE BUDS OF OUR MUTUAL APPRECIATION AND PLATONIC ENGAGEMENT BLOSSOM INTO A CULMINATION OF RAMPANT SEXUAL DESIRES, THE STARS WILL GUIDE OUR LASCIVIOUS, LIBIDINOUS AND LECHEROUS DESIRES INTO AN ACT SO FULL OF LUSTFUL ABANDONMENT THAT WE WILL LOSE OUR LICENTIOUS SOULS FOREVER.’

  I send back ‘WTF?’

  His reply is: ‘DO YOU LIKE IT DOGGY STYLE?’

  When I don’t reply: ‘CAN I AT LEAST DRY HUMP YOU?’

  I finally find the BLOCK button.

  #washout

  I have had no time for bloody selfies today as the day has been a dead duck. The washing machine flooded the kitchen, and I spent all day wading through and mopping up water. I retire to bed exhausted with a Crunchie and a bottle of cabernet sauvignon. I make the mistake of tiptoeing through Tinderland, and I get a message from a guy who wants to take me out. Why not? I think.

  I meet him in a pub in town, thinking I can escape to the toilet and leave out of the back door if he’s a loser. He drinks his body weight in Sambuca, cries about his ex-wife, asks if he can suck my toes, then throws up in my cleavage while I wait with him for his taxi. The title “Loser” was made for this guy.

  ‘You can’t give up yet,’ Tammy says when I call her to tell her I’ve had enough.

  ‘One more,’ I say. ‘And if that’s a disaster, that’s it. The finish. The end. Finito. Nil morem saddo datio.’

  #fiftyshadesofshit

  I take today’s selfie in bed. I’m eating. I have nothing else to do in bed after all.

  I spend the day on hold to the insurance company’s “speedy 24/7 helpline”, only to be cut off when I eventually get through. I get another email from that same “no reply” address with the subject line: “Search and you shall find”. It also won’t let me open the content. It’s probably a virus.

  I retire to bed with Fifty Shades, fajitas, a case of Mojito, and a chocolate orange cream. I hit quite a few of my five a day there.

  My next match on Tinder is none other than my ex-husband. Cheating bastard. ‘Tammy, I can’t do this anymore,’ I say to her on FaceTime. She’s waxing her top lip and has her hair in heated rollers. ‘It’s soul destroying.’

  ‘I’ve had a little bit of success,’ she says.

  ‘When?’ I ask. ‘With who?’

  She tears off the white strip and winces. ‘Kevin was ok,’ she says.

  ‘Kevin,’ I shriek. ‘The one who brought the full-size Miss Piggy in his backpack and sang to her?’

  ‘He was quite a nice kisser,’ she says. ‘And Marlon was ok until the cats.’

  ‘Until the cats?’ I squeal. ‘He was a grade-A psycho. Asking you to make out in front of thirty pussies.’

  ‘Yeah, that was a bit weird.’

  ‘A bit?’

  ‘There was Alan. He wasn’t too bad.’

  ‘He certainly wasn’t husband or father material. I wouldn’t trust him to look after a caterpillar. Didn’t his mam put him on the bus?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ She pats her red lip with a tissue.

  ‘And didn’t he have the money for dinner in a marked envelope?’

  ‘He did.’ She sighs.

  ‘Is that really all that’s out there? It’s enough to turn us gay,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t you get any ideas,’ she says. ‘Just because I’ve got a ’tache doesn’t mean I’m liking the beard.’

  #facetiousfaeces

  I take a selfie on the bus, which is full of plebs.

  When I get to work, I’m called into the boss’s office where I’m bollocked for being late. I try to explain that I’d caught the train instead of the bus, and the kids from the estate had nicked some of the lines to weigh them in at the scrap yard, but he won’t listen. We had to wait an hour for a bus. When it turned up, it was a minibus. We were packed in so tightly, there was no room for a needle to be poked. I was practically on the knee of a fat man with fishy feet and sideburns. He kept thrusting his hips and winking at me. The woman to my right smelled of Brussels sprouts and bleach.

  ‘It’s just not good enough, Gallbreath,’ he says. ‘Punctuality’s important.’

  ‘So are train lines,’ I say.

  ‘Don’t be facetious,’ he says.

  ‘Isn’t that poo?’ I ask.

  ‘What?’ he says, looking at me like I’ve eaten his firstborn. ‘Get out of my office, Gallbreath. Consider this a verbal warning.’

  ‘What if I get the train company to write a letter?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Never mind.’ I’ve written it all down, though, so when I sue for constructive dismissal, I have the evidence.

  That’s another symptom I’ve noticed lately – I’m losing my mind.

  I’ve always been a bit dizzy, in a female Mr Bean kind of way, but now, I’m positively senile. It’s got to the point where I walk into rooms and forget why I’m there. I keep putting my car keys in the fridge and trying to open the Corsa door with a carrot. And when I’ve had alcohol, it’s a
thousand times worse.

  Just the other week, I’d partaken of an alcoholic beverage or two with friends and colleagues (translates as got shit-faced with the girls and a couple of misfits from the office) and in the taxi home had given my address as 24, The Parkway. This is actually my former address, only I haven’t lived there for fifteen years. It wouldn’t be so bad, but my ex-husband still lives there with his partner and child. Imagine his consternation if I’d turned up at three in the morning and puked on his parquet. He was never into foreplay, so I reckon floor play would be out of the question too. I can’t imagine Terri-Ann being impressed. She looks the type who only has alcohol when she visits someone in hospital and washes her hands on the way into the ward. I bet when they shag, she leaves her tights on. Mind you, it’s the only way she’ll get toe-curling sex with him. LMAO.

  ‘I need Friday off, Mr Oldham,’ I say.

  ‘Sorry, no can do,’ he says.

  ‘It’s my mother’s funeral,’ I say.

  He sighs, running his hand through his thinning hair. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, that’s most inconvenient.’

  ‘I did tell her to hang on until the Wardle contract was complete, but she just selfishly closed her eyes and carked it.’

  ‘Well, I trust you’ll be back as soon as it’s over?’

  ‘Oh yeah, before they pick her out of the fire grate, I’ll be tear-arseing it back to the office to make sure the paperclips are tidy.’ He looks at me over his glasses and sighs again. I thought I was impassive, but the man has a swinging brick for a heart.

  #analdiscourse

  Allison is my intern. She’s quite a few columns short of a spreadsheet (bless her). She calls me on the internal phone and says that Oldham wants me to do anal.

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘He just said to remind you you’re doing an anal thing with him later.’

  ‘I’m really not,’ I say. ‘You must’ve misheard.’ Then, it dawns on me what she meant.

  ‘You mean the oral presentation,’ I say.

  ‘Ah, yes, that’s it.’

  I say, ‘If you don’t know your oral from your anal, you’re in trouble.’ No wonder she walks funny.

  I’ve been chatting to Dave for a few nights. He seemed ok, and by ok, I mean nice, intelligent, normal. That just shows how wrong you can be! He suggests we go out for drinks. He lives in Durham, so it seems like a good idea to meet in a pub in the city centre. I’ve just got parked and am headed to the Shakespeare, a small pub in which he’d suggested we meet, when he messages to say, ‘Can we meet at mine, I’m running a little late.’ He includes his address. It’s right in the heart of the city centre, not the remote farmhouse location you might expect from a serial killer, so I figure I’ll be safe.

  I can tell it’s a really small flat, so I’m surprised when he doesn’t answer immediately. I knock for about five minutes. When he eventually comes to the door, I realise what’s been keeping him. He opens the door and stands there, completely naked, with his hands full. Very full. The grunt, when it comes (pardon the pun), could have been heard three streets away.

  ‘ARE YOU KIDDING ME?’ I shout.

  ‘Sorry, I was so excited that I was going to meet you in the flesh, I just couldn’t help myself. I thought you might enjoy it,’ he says to my back as I turn right round and speed off in the opposite direction. I don’t even head for the gin bar. Straight to the car and home to block him and anyone who looks remotely like him.

  6

  #gymnasty

  I took a selfie of me on my bike and uploaded it to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I got no likes. What is wrong with people? Don’t they realise what a problem exercise is when you’re middle-aged and you’ve had a few kids. There are only certain things you can do without bladder leakage. Running’s out, dancing’s out, cycling makes you sore and not in a good way. After eight miles this morning, I felt like I’d had a gang bang with the Chippendales (not the Disney ones – I’m not some kind of pervert). There I was, pedalling down the high street wearing a luminous green, high-visibility jacket and orange helmet, while all the local kids pointed and laughed. Which was better than the return journey when they threw stones and called me Mr Bean and Mary Poppins. I should bloody well sue Victoria Pendleton.

  Swimming’s ok, if you don’t mind being perved over by the wrinkly brigade, but the chlorine turns your hair green, which is not a good look. So, you see, I have a bevy of very good excuses why I can’t shed those extra pounds.

  I joined Lloyds today. It’s full of posey types admiring their sculpted abs and bulging biceps in shiny mirrors. I feel like mashed potato and gravy in my black and tan Tesco ensemble.

  As if I don’t feel inadequate enough, the last thing I need to see is perfect Pamela leaning up against the water machine and fluttering her eyelashes at the attendant. She’s size triple zero. The skin on her face is as tight as a nun’s hymen, and she has bot cheeks like lychees. She must be the only person in the world who can make tangerine spandex look attractive. She’s wearing a silver thong over the orange all-in-one. I can’t help but think of cheese wire. She’s got limbs like cocktail sticks. No saggy boobs from Princess Pamela. She uses her breasts to keep her chin warm. There’s me in my tatty T-shirt with the mushy pea stain on the front and the brown iron mark on the back, the hairs on my legs poking through the Lycra of my leggings.

  She’s on the cross trainer. Only it doesn’t look cross when she’s on it. It looks downright bloody furious when I clamber aboard. I swear I can hear it wheeze when my size sevens start to pound its pelvic floor. It practically screams at me to get off after ten minutes, and a little pool of oil has collected on the ground beneath it.

  I’m trying to keep my back to the wall so that sexy Steve with the pert pecs can’t see my cellulite. I try and stick close to Bertha, who makes me look like Claudia Schiffer’s prettier sister. She’s got a face like a half-eaten trifle and legs like turkey and cranberry sarnies in cling film. Her feet smell of cheese, but she masks the eau de Camembert with lavender and ladybird antiperspirant.

  Her Royal Perfectness has just done 365 chin-ups in forty seconds and is now practising her splits as Steve gives immoral support. I do ten sit-ups then disappear to the toilets, so they can’t hear me wheezing. They’re all taken, except the accessible one and I’m desperate. That’s one of the reasons I hate my kids – that and the stretch marks. I only have to cough, and leakage occurs. If I sneeze, it’s like a scene from The Dambusters.

  I nip into the accessible bog. No one will mind. I didn’t see anyone with a wheelchair in the gym. It’s just political correctness gone mad. I pull down my kecks and sit myself down. Hot waterfall bliss. Only it’s one of those dodgy seats with the big gap between the bit where your bum cheeks sit and the toilet bowl. I know nothing more until a warm stream runs down the back of my leggings and little tinkles of pee splash over my running shoes. You have got to be blooming well kidding me.

  I pull up the soggy bottoms, open the door a slit and peep out. Luckily, Pam’s not there. I creep out, my Hi-Tech trainers squelching and splacking on the tiled floor. A look behind me in the full-length mirror reveals the true horror. I sidle out of the door, wondering how I will get from the corridor to the car. Thank Christ I didn’t come on the bus.

  I pad down the hall and sneak through the outer door, just in time to face sexy Steve coming back the other way, arm in arm with perfect Pamela. His eyes fall to my crotch area and fill with horror. A smile slides across her face.

  ‘Little accident, Roberta?’ I resist the urge to smack her in the mouth, shove my nose in the air and march through the door, tripping over my sodden laces and falling headlong into a wall of clematis.

  #men-o-pause

  I tweet about going to the gym. Obviously leaving out the pee incident. I update my Facebook profile with a Photoshopped picture of me looking athletic. The work it took on screen to tone up those biceps is nobody’s business. I accidentally take a selfie of my bottom when I sit on the phone
in the doc’s. I visit after work to receive medical confirmation that I might indeed be menopausal. The doctor asks me what I weigh.

  ‘Dunno,’ I say.

  ‘Get on the scales,’ he says.

  ‘I really don’t want to.’

  ‘Roberta, get on the scales.’

  I shake my head. He practically pushes me. I should report him to the GMC. He peers at the traitorous red line over the top of his glasses and types, “obese” on his desktop computer.

  ‘Obese?’ I almost scream.

  ‘It’s just according to your BMI,’ he says.

  ‘So, I’m not obese?’

  ‘Well, you could do with losing a couple of pounds.’

  You’re not exactly ano-fucking-rexic yourself, I want to yell.

  ‘So, what other symptoms have you been experiencing as well as the anger and irritability?’

  ‘What anger and irritability?’ I ask.

  ‘You’re obviously a little tense.’

  A little tense? I want to bite off his nose and spit it back at him. And that’s when he says those words. The words that strike fear in the heart of every woman. No, not Rugby World Cup (who wants to watch overweight men in shorts playing with funny-shaped balls?).

  ‘I think perhaps it could be the menopause. Have you experienced hot flushes and night sweats?’

  ‘No,’ I lie. The truth is, at this very moment, I feel like someone has lit a bonfire underneath me. Most nights, I wake soaked in sweat from head to foot. It’s like sleeping with a hot spring.

  My life is over. I’m menopausal, obese and an orphan.

  It’s Mam’s funeral tomorrow, so I’m travelling to Durham on the train. I’m not looking forward to it, but then, I suppose, no one looks forward to funerals. Except taphophiles.