On Christmas Eve we went to midnight Mass in the unprepossessing red-brick church down by the marketplace. Susan Millington was there, wearing a tapestry maxi-coat. Her father the dentist showed his teeth at me, and said, ‘Hello, Carmel, how’s the wide world treating you?’
As a substitute for a smile, Susan lifted a corner of her mouth. ‘Whatever have you done to your hair?’
‘It’s for when the red revolution comes,’ I said politely.
‘How’s Julianne?’
‘She’s flourishing. Thriving. She’s been awarded a medal.’
‘A medal? How odd.’
‘It’s for A Promising Start in Anatomy.’
It was true; some old dead doctor had endowed it. For the last two weeks of term it had dangled on our shelf beside Mrs Webster. Julianne’s parents, when they heard the good news, sent her a cheque, and a letter that said she should buy herself something nice.
‘I’ve arranged my pupillage,’ Susan said. ‘A set in Lincoln’s Inn. Did you hear?’
‘No, I don’t think it was noised abroad.’
Mr Millington patted his breast pocket, where his wallet snuggled. ‘It’ll cost me a pretty penny too, while she’s learning the ropes. Your parents have all that to come, young lady. Yes, the cost of living in the metropolis . . . and she’ll have to have her wig and gown.’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘Still, I have every confidence in our Susan. Our Susan will make a woman High Court judge.’
‘You’re intending to be a solicitor, are you?’ Susan said.
‘No, I’m intending . . .’ My voice died in my throat. There was really no limit to my intentions. I turned away, feeling a faint nausea at the thought of the blue-white turkey on the larder shelf, ready for tomorrow’s banquet of flesh. ‘I think I may become a vegetarian,’ I said.
In the New Year Julianne brought a toaster back in her luggage. ‘Why didn’t I think of it!’ Lynette exclaimed. We plugged it in by Julianne’s bedside light.
We were popular now, more popular than ever; Claire and Sue called on a nightly basis, round about ten o’clock, to fill themselves up with white slices tanned a light gold then flipped into the air by this god-like machine; we used to sit watching it, intent, ready to spring forward and catch the hot bread. ‘I hope it doesn’t encourage Karina,’ Julianne growled.
But Karina never came. ‘Do you know,’ Lynette said, ‘she’s put on a terrific amount of weight over Christmas. I do feel sorry for her.’
‘Yes, I’ve noticed.’ In the holidays I had not visited Curzon Street. I had not seen Karina until she returned to Tonbridge Hall, so I did not know what she had been doing to expand herself so. ‘I wish I had a photo of her,’ I said. ‘When she was little. You’d not believe . . .’ And it was true; there was no trace of the silvery fairness she’d possessed in the days when she was an Easter chick. When she rolled down the corridors, her calves seemed to expand before my eyes, ballooning out above her shoes; there was a swag of new flesh under her chin, and her small eyes were sunken into a full-moon face. ‘I expect she’s been cooking for herself,’ I said. ‘She always did like cooking.’
‘Dumplings,’ Julianne suggested. ‘Big filthy nasty suet dumplings.’
Lynette sighed. ‘More and more of Karina. Less and less of Carmel. How odd it is, I’m sure.’
I had decided that I would have to restrict my food intake severely in the new term, because it was almost the only head of expenditure I could control. I did not intend to be caught out again without the carrier’s fee, and have to borrow; I must re-jig my budget. I will have one luxury, I thought, just one, I will buy myself a garment; as for my diet, the toast will help, toast in the morning and toast at night. I can still go to my Labour Club meetings if I can come home and have toast.
It was the butter that had always been problematical. Our rooms at Tonbridge Hall were maintained at such a ferocious temperature that it dissolved into fatty yellow streams. We had to keep it out on the windowsill, high above the street. I was putting out the butter one night when I realized that, when I was outside Tonbridge Hall, I was usually cold. I will knit myself a jumper, I thought.
At first I thought in terms of some serviceable object in dark green, plain as possible, knit one purl one, easy for me. But then I thought: no, why? Why should I be bored? I’ll knit a jumper that my mother would have been proud of, if she’d done it herself: one that would have made her gasp. Since the days of kettle-holders, I’m sure my fingers are nimbler. After all, I now have the expectation of success.
In the new term – as in the old – my essays came back from my tutors scrawled with approbation. If there had been a medal for, let us say, A Flying Start in Tort, I’m sure I would have carried it off. My triumphs should have warmed me; but I could not escape the feeling that my application to texts was a despicable zealotry, and that others – like Julianne – achieved the same results with more grace; 1 was afraid that my elbows were out, that my hunger showed on my face. Besides, I missed Niall very much, and while ambition gnawed like a pain behind my ribs I felt another gnawing too, of loneliness; I felt I was being eaten away from the inside out. Six weeks, we’d said, six weeks to endure and then he’d visit me; six weeks, then we’d know it was only four to go until Easter.
Midnight again: I came back from the kitchen at the end of the corridor with our clean plates stacked in my hands and our butter knife balanced on top. Julianne was standing at our wash-basin, legs apart, enthusiastically soaping her genitals. I put the plates into her bedside cupboard; she towelled herself, floated damply into her nightdress, and ran a hand through her curls. ‘Carmel, about you and Niall. Shouldn’t you ever branch out? Explore the options? Is there only one cock in the world?’
‘I love Niall,’ I said.
‘Of course you do. Hardly a reason not to sleep with anyone else, is it?’
‘I couldn’t do that. Why would I want to?’ My flesh would revolt, I thought.
‘Experience.’ She plumped down on the end of her bed, her large breasts jumping once. Her tongue crept out, its tip cherry red, and smoothed a flake of rough skin on her upper lip; January was proving cold. ‘I don’t think I knew you, Carmel, when we were at the Holy Redeemer. All this . . . intensity.’
Intensity: it is a word of abuse flung at thin women, at thin women who have any pretence at an inner life. It is a label, less costly than the kind I had put on my suitcase.
