Oligarchy, page 13
‘You have it,’ he breathes. ‘Thank God.’
‘Er …’
‘I never even took a picture,’ he says.
‘A picture of what?’ says Tash, but he’s already flicking to the early section of the book that the girls filled in. And there is the whole page created by Bianca. Beyond noticing the photo Bianca was putting in, Tash hasn’t ever looked at this page. Why would she? It was the boys’ pages that everyone wanted to see. Everyone wanted to know which girl each boy had picked as his ‘fantasy date’ (Zoe, Tash and Tiffanie came out well in this, and not one single boy chose Becky with the bad hair), and how the boys had ranked the girls in order (again, Tiffanie, Tash, Zoe as 1, 2 and 3). It didn’t occur to anyone to read each other’s pages, which actually seems absurd now, because they have certainly missed at least one more chance to laugh at Becky with the bad hair, and find new ways to copy Tiffanie. But then Mr Hendrix was in quite a hurry to take the book and send it off and—
Tash leans over Caleb and regards Bianca’s page for the first time. As she does, her bare arm touches his, and he shrinks away. There’s a strange watercolour of the lake – like, when exactly did she have a chance to do that? – and on the surface of the lake is a floating corpse with pale physalis hair – obviously Princess Augusta – and in her hands is not the dead flower that she holds in the painting that Bianca has copied, but instead a black, shiny jewel.
‘She talked about this in family therapy,’ said Caleb.
‘About what?’
‘About a dead princess floating in a lake. And a black diamond. She made up all this stuff, like—’
‘You know that some of it’s true, though?’ says Tash. She points at the picture. ‘I mean, this is Princess Augusta, the founder of our school. And this jewel was apparently given to her by some sultan who—’
‘Who raped her and—’
‘Ravaged. We prefer ravaged to be honest, it’s kind of sexier?’
Caleb shoots Tash a dark, perplexed look as if she herself is part of Bianca’s demented watercolour of a reality that does not exist, and never did. His blond hair flops into his face and he flicks it away with his hand. He has the cheekbones of the rich, but the eyes of the poor.
‘And more amusing,’ adds Tash. She pours more tea.
‘Oh, God,’ says Caleb. He goes pale, stands up. ‘Look, I just need to …’
He leaves his jacket behind. He’s gone in the direction of the loos. But how long does it take for a teenage boy to wee? He’s gone one minute, then two, then five. Tash thinks again about ordering Cointreau. She frowns, then smiles, then frowns. There’s a big mirror here which might be good for a selfie but maybe this is not the time. Is he doing a big poo? Is he crying? Then he’s back, with redder eyes and, Tash realises for the first time, crimson, raw hands. The hands are still damp. They flake with bits of bloodied skin. He sits down.
‘Are you …?’ Begins Natasha. She wants to ask if he’s OK, but suddenly the word seems too small and her voice sounds ohso loud and …
A clock ticks on the wall. Is he going to leave? Perhaps. He picks up his jacket and unfolds it. But no. In fact he’s looking for something in the pockets. An inhaler. He puffs on it, puts it back. Puts his jacket back. Folded.
‘Do you know where the diamond came from?’ asks Caleb. He asks the way a bored teacher might. A bored teacher in a hot room when everyone is almost asleep. A bored teacher who knows that they will always know more than you, but that this knowledge will always be boring. Although in this case, of course, it’s not.
Tash frowns. ‘Is it real?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘It came from India, apparently. Stolen from a temple by some soldier who sold it to some early oligarch who—’
‘Oligarch? But—’
‘There were oligarchs in the past.’
‘Right.’
‘The sultan – who was probably not a sultan at all, according to Google – apparently gave Princess Augusta the diamond in return for her purity. And then, according to Bianca, she cast it off in despair, and that’s how it ended up at the bottom of a lake in a minor girls’ independent school in Hertfordshire.’
‘Wait. You’re saying the diamond is in the lake?’
‘I’m saying none of it is true.’
‘But it’s what Bianca thought?’
‘I don’t know. You go to that dreadful school. What do you think?’ Caleb doesn’t wait for an answer. ‘Anyway, she said that if she could touch the black diamond she’d get better. She even asked our father for money to dredge the lake, like he was ever going to spend money on something like that.’
‘OK, so the black diamond is supposedly at the bottom of our lake. Then … Wait, are you saying she went in to get it? That’s how she drowned?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s what it says on her death certificate. Misadventure. Better than anorexia, don’t you think?’
‘Um … OK, so you originally said that Bianca made all this up, but then you just said you googled it. So is it true or not? Like, does the black diamond actually exist?’
‘Oh, the black diamond exists all right,’ says Caleb. ‘Or at least a black diamond from India with a curse. It’s just not at the bottom of your school lake.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because it’s in the Smithsonian.’
*
‘Can I get a lift with you to the gym?’ Rachel asks her brother.
‘Are you sure you want to go?’ says their mother. ‘I’m not sure you’ll be able to do anything with that arm.’
‘Well,’ says Elliot. ‘I’m leaving now this second, so.’
‘OK, I’m coming,’ says Rachel. It’s taken her hours this morning to get ready. Dressing with one arm is no fun. But she’s going to see Jordon for the first time since the last Exeat, when he actually asked her if she’d go out with him sometime. She gave him her number then but he hasn’t messaged her yet. Of course, he did say he’s not good with words, so maybe she shouldn’t have expected anything. And no one from his world really understands about boarding school. Anyway, she’s here now. And there are weeks ahead when she can … What? What exercise can she actually do with a broken arm? This is what she’s hoping someone at the gym will tell her, because she has no clue. She can’t run: she’s already tried that. She’s still doing a hundred sit-ups a day, but …
Something’s going wrong.
Rachel blames Matron, she really does, because ever since she had that conversation with her, all she’s done is put on weight. The first four pounds arrived literally overnight. Yes, on the Monday when she got home Rachel went to bed weighing one thing and then when she got up she was four fucking pounds heavier. So, OK, fluctuations, and water retention and all that blahblah. Fine. But it’s now a week later and all that’s happened is she has put on another two pounds. But how? Why? It’s actually showing too, in a little roll of fat around her middle. So she’s wearing an old baggy vest of her mother’s rather than the crop top she’d planned for this encounter. She still hasn’t had her navel pierced. Something odd has happened to her hair too. She looks fucking terrible.
‘Come on, if you’re coming,’ says Elliot.
He’s lost interest in her. He’s changed recently in other ways too: for example, he’s given up veganism and now only eats meat. He even, the previous night, ate a meat sandwich, where the ‘bread’ was just more meat. Chicken in beef. Rachel had one too, because it wasn’t that many calories, and she needs her protein, because protein builds muscle and muscle burns fat. Elliot and Jordon now spend much of their free time in the CrossFit gym, which is more real and serious and authentic than the lame-ass municipal place where Jordon still works. In fact, Elliot is only going there now to drop off a mysterious package that he makes Rachel hold in her lap while he drives there.
‘What even is this?’ she asks.
‘Protein powder,’ he says. ‘Juice. Nothing you need to worry about.’
Rachel’s missed the smell of the gym, the sweet herbal aroma of boy hormones mixed with the heady perfume of sweaty, hard-worn plastic. Jordon looks way more muscular than she remembers. And indeed, his name tops the ‘bicep circumference’ leader-board on the wall by the Smith machine. Elliot’s name isn’t there, but then Elliot probably doesn’t care any more, now that he does CrossFit.
Jordon is busy, and so doesn’t notice Rachel at first. He’s got a clipboard, and he’s encouraging an attractive young woman on the rowing machine. Obviously one of his clients, or someone being given a gym induction. The twins, Millie and Izzy, wave to her from the office, but then one says something to the other and they giggle silently behind the glass. Was that in fact a sarcastic wave? But why? Elliot has disappeared into the back of the office, where he’s talking to the boxing instructor, Hard Mike. Hard Mike is at least fifty, but only has 5 per cent body fat. He wears khaki all the time, runs bootcamps on a Sunday in the park and lives entirely on pork and frozen peas.
The woman gets off the rowing machine. She has the exact body Rachel wants. She’s tall, but not too tall, and lean. Her booty is plump, but not too plump. She has breasts rather like Tiffanie’s. She’s wearing black shorts – shorts! – and a sheer Nike vest top. Now Jordon gets on the rowing machine and she’s shouting instructions at him, and he’s doing what she tells him, and then at one point she’s shouting out his current time and he’s sweating and looking in her eyes and grinning, but the way a wolf would grin, and the twins come out and one of them says to Rachel, ‘That’s Heidi. She’s the new PT.’
‘Oh,’ is all Rachel can say. Jordon still does not notice her. Now he and Heidi move on to the mats, and it’s like they’re having some sort of competition – perhaps that’s what the clipboard is for – and now they’re doing that thing where you take one of those big Swiss balls and lie down with it behind your head and then sit up and put it between your feet and then lie flat again and then pass the ball back to your hands and so on. Jordon makes a joke and Heidi throws the Swiss ball at him and now it’s his turn. They look happy, so happy. Rachel wants to be sick. Heidi is a vision of what she wanted to be, but now someone else has got there first, and in an instant Rachel doesn’t want it any more.
‘She can actually beat him on the rowing challenge,’ says Millie admiringly.
‘Have you done the rowing challenge yet?’ Izzy asks Rachel.
Rachel points to her broken arm. ‘Can’t really row,’ she says.
‘Oh yeah. Meant to say, sorry about that,’ says Izzy. She makes a sympathetic face that seems a bit sarcastic, like the wave.
Elliot comes out of the office. Hard Mike is now stuffing the package Elliot gave him into the bottom of his sports bag.
‘Right,’ Elliot says. ‘How much longer are you going to be?’
Rachel shrugs. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I’m not sure what I can do with my arm like this.’
‘Maybe Jordon will have some ideas,’ says Elliot. ‘Hey, man.’
Jordon has come over. ‘Hey, bro,’ he says to Elliot, slapping his back.
‘It’s all in there with Hard Mike,’ says Elliot.
‘Thanks, man.’
‘Hi, Jordon,’ says Rachel.
‘Oh, hi,’ he says. He shakes his head as if he’s got water in his ears; in fact, as if the water in his ears has made him temporarily forget who Rachel is, but now, after a few more shakes, he remembers. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Good, thanks. You?’
Heidi walks past and makes her fingers into the shape of a T and raises her dark arched eyebrows. Jordon grins at her and nods.
‘Nice to see you,’ says Jordon, to Rachel. He turns towards the office, then stops, then turns back. ‘Actually,’ he says, ‘I wanted to ask you something.’
Rachel’s legs. Her heart. The world tilts. ‘Yes?’
He moves a few feet away to stand nearer to the wall, and she follows. He stands close to her now, as if what he’s asking is a secret. Not secret enough to go into the office, but still something special just between them. She can smell his deodorant, which thankfully doesn’t completely cover that deep sweet testosterone smell she would do anything for. She’d bathe in it, if she could. Drown in it. He grins, although it’s a kind of fake grin. It’s a fake grin that says Don’t hate me for what I’m about to say.
‘So I’m doing case studies for my PT training and I’m looking for volunteers who won’t mind spending a bit of time with me, you know, being my guinea pig?’ He grins again. ‘So I need someone really athletic, and someone who’s like a fitness beginner, who’s maybe like a bit fat and just starting to get into shape?’ He looks Rachel up and down. ‘So Heidi’s going to be my athletic case study. Will you be my beginner?’
There is a moment for this to travel through Rachel’s ears and into her brain, where it is briefly processed and—
‘Are you fucking serious?’ says Rachel, backing away.
‘Rachel!’ says Elliot. ‘Settle down. Sorry,’ he adds, to Jordon.
‘Don’t be offended,’ says Jordon to Rachel. ‘I mean, you’ve been training for less than a year. And I mean, compared with Heidi …’
‘Fuck this,’ says Rachel to Elliot. ‘Let’s go. Let’s get out of this pathetic, windowless, dirty, small-town excuse for a gym, full of people who are extremely up themselves given that they are basically just cleaners with clipboards and absolutely no future.’ She has the lungs for this kind of sentence now, because she is not a fucking beginner. She looks at Jordon. ‘You think you’re so fucking important, because your arms are bigger than some other guy’s? But you don’t actually have a brain, so why would you matter to anybody? Have you ever read a book? No. All you are is flesh and muscle, like a farm animal. You’re basically livestock. You’ve devoted your life to being artificially bulked up, like a fucking cow, like a sodding battery hen. And you know what’s really sad? You could have chosen anything, and you chose that, to be like all the rest of the pathetic cattle.’ She leaves without saying goodbye to the twins, or Hard Mike, all of whom watch her go but don’t say anything. She stands sobbing by the car until Elliot gets there. What’s he been doing all his time? Probably apologising for her, his stuck-up fat sister.
‘Why were you such a bitch to Jordon?’ he says, once they are in the car. He seems genuinely surprised by Rachel, who never usually surprises anyone.
‘Because he’s a fucking cunt,’ says Rachel, through her tears.
‘And I mean, the gym? You can’t go back there now.’
‘I don’t fucking want to.’
After that, the weight keeps on coming. A pound a day for seven days. Rachel’s been eating 1500 calories a day, but now takes this down to 1000. The weight gain stops for a few days, and then resumes, with a cosmic flourish and a big Haha! and a bout of embarrassing flatulence. Rachel sobs as she stands on the scales in her en-suite bathroom, the week before school starts again. Do tears weigh something? Maybe she can cry it all out. She howls at the sky, at God, at Heidi and every other woman like her.
‘What the fuck do you want from me?’ she screams at the universe.
‘I want your blood,’ the universe says back. ‘All of it. I’m going to punish you for being such a stuck-up snob, and for what you said to Jordon.’
Or is that just her imagination? Is that something the universe would actually say? Maybe. Wasn’t the universe a bit mean and shouty in that Keats poem the headmaster read to them that time?
On the kitchen table there’s a book called The Fast Diet. It’s got a bookshop sticker on it that makes it look as though its actual title is The Fast Die. Rachel’s mother must have bought it. Rachel gets a glass of water and takes the book up to her bedroom. Fasting. Right. Blahblahblahblah. It’s spiritual. Blahblahblahblah. It helps you lose weight.
So what actually is fasting in this book? OK. It’s 500 calories a day.
Rachel googles this, because it’s quicker than reading any more of the book.
500 calories a day. Wasn’t that what Anastasia said actually worked? Rachel is clearly one of those people who is so sensitive to food that she needs to go that low. Well, she can. She can do it. And she does. And then, only then, does the weight start to shift again, to declare itself beaten and slink off back to wherever it came from, or at least to wait in a dark, cobwebby corner for Rachel to fail again, when it will return to punish her, worse each time, just like Matron said.
*
The dining table in the flat is beautifully laid for two, with silver cutlery and white linen napkins. On the kitchen counter is a large white iced cake, a fresh rye loaf, a half-bottle of dark dessert wine and a receipt for some black truffles. The truffles are sitting like shrivelled little kings in the fridge. Keeping them company is a bottle of Bollinger and a complex cheese-board.
‘I have changed my views on food,’ says Aunt Sonja, when Natasha comes out of the shower and visibly starts when she sees the cake. The last time sugar was in this flat may have even been before Aunt Sonja moved in. Wait – didn’t she have some pink-champagne chocolates once? Maybe. Had someone sent them to her? Tash vaguely remembers finding one spat out and leaking through a crumpled tissue in the kitchen bin and then Aunt Sonja saying something about having given them to a homeless man on the Embankment.
‘Tonight, we eat,’ she says. ‘We eat whatever we want. And you tell me about your investigation. And then tomorrow I’m going to take you to my office and show you what I do.’
‘OK.’
‘What do you want? I was craving truffles, champagne and cake, but there’s also celeriac remoulade and pâté in the fridge. I also managed to get hold of a black watermelon. If you want anything else we can send out for it.’
