If asked, I would say I’d had them tattooed on. What I’d like to do is wear slinky little tops and shorts. Show off all these muscles I’ve been gaining in recent months. I can feel them yearn to expose themselves and have the sun touch them. They also ache with disuse. In the week or so I’ve been in this town, settling in and becoming used to not being in Aycliffe, I haven’t been to a gym. I haven’t found a suitable one yet. Everything’s so expensive. If you live in the city centre you’re expected to be loaded. And I’m having trouble even signing on. What I want is one of those books and invalid benefit. I want to go to the post office every week and get my fifty quid in hand, no bother, no signing. I could say I’ve had a breakdown. Show my spots. Look — psychosomatic! Or I could tell them the truth. That I think I’m going to have a child.
Oh, but they look at me sceptically enough anyway. The morning I went to queue for my forms — in a building across town that was just like my old school inside — I told them I moved away from Aycliffe to look for proper work. The feller looked at me as if he thought I’d come to their city, to live in the middle of it, among all the noise and the tremulous, rainy lights, to waste things. My life, my time, their money.
Yet even without going to the gym I feel great. I thought the moment I stopped lifting weights it would all sag. I’d run to fat. I’d turn to jelly. I thought I’d regret even starting it all in the first place. But here I am, harder than ever. My muscles tense up and bulge without my even trying. Just sitting here. Look at me, someone! Look at this, if this is what you’re wanting.
The teacher type looks over, as if I’ve spoken aloud. I can’t even be sure I haven’t. I spend too much time on my own. He looks about thirty-odd. Thinks he’s cool as fuck. The man from C&A. I bet he’s got a bit put by. He’ll holiday in Italy and fly back with local ceramics. Slides his eyes away when I look back. Cheeky bastard! As if I was looking first. Looking over his glasses. Dressed sharp, a bit prissy. Maybe he’s a university teacher like Vince got himself. He can take me to Paris for New Year. I want someone to look after me. Someone older and more sensible.
He asks me, “Are people here always as chatty as this?”
He sounds shy, almost. I expected him to be cocky. So I’ll talk to him. I say I haven’t been here much, I don’t know how friendly or unfriendly they usually are. But when I came to this town, I expected people to be friendlier. He shoves up along the plush seating. I’m saying, you arrive on this scene, come out every night with all good intentions, all trusting of a good time, and there’s this apprenticeship. They won’t talk. Sitting by yourself with a pint and the papers, like old men in the pub Sunday afternoons. He laughs. When he asks if I want coffee, I ask him if his crockery comes from holidays in Italy, but he reckons Ikea.
When I kiss him in his kitchen, a few streets away, high up over Broughton Place, he tastes of olives. He’s been chewing them thoughtfully as we’ve talked, waiting for the kettle. Everything in his kitchen looks barely used. On the windowsill there is a row of very large oranges. He chews olives quietly as he watches me unbutton my shirt to show off all my spots.
“They’re tattoos,” I tell him.
“They’re wild,” he says, making me cringe for a second. I’ve come out dressed like a schoolboy. Striped tie knotted too tight, white shirt hanging out. When we go to bed he’s put on an Enya CD and I can’t come. He strokes my legs again and again, lying the wrong way up in bed. He says, “How muscly your legs are!” and I’m pleased. He points out that my left calf muscle is more developed, and I tell him how observant he is. He smooths it and says, “This muscle is huge.” It’s very odd. I make him come twice and, on the second strike at four a.m., he’s fallen asleep. Enya’s on replay and I’m stuck with her wittering on till morning.
When I get home it’s almost nine o’clock. I pass the couple from upstairs on their way down the fire escape. Immaculate, off to work. We all say hello and I check the communal post box. Nothing for me.
I watch them leave the alleyway and then I get this pain in my swollen leg. I have to haul myself up the rest of the steps and lie down in the living room. I stare at the stretched muscle, and watch something stirring under the skin.
I’m thinking about things that cheer you up.
Last Christmas Penny bought a two-foot-tall singing Santa from one of the cheap shops downtown. A tenner, in a red felt coat that went down to his skinny ankles. When you lifted the coat up, you saw that his legs were transparent plastic. He hummed four different seasonal tunes at random, waving an electrically lit candle in his tiny hand.
It worked fine at first. Then, the day we decorated number sixteen for Christmas, I was upstairs and Penny was shouting to me. She sounded fed up. He’d broken. I came downstairs to look as she held Santa in her hands and I wanted to say, but didn’t, You know what you get when you buy from
