The Name I Call Myself (12 page)

“Remove your make-up please, then pass the cleanser and cotton wool along.”

“What?” There were a few gasps and grumbles. Kim stood up. “Are you telling us we have to take our make-up off?”

“Yes.”

“Why?” Kim asked, hands on her hips.

“Because it's part of this evening's exercise.”

“I don't want to.”

“Why?” Hester shot back.

“Because it took me ages, and I like it.”

Hester stared impassively. “I remember clearly stating that participation in this evening is not optional, Kim.”

Kim went so red it showed through her many layers of primer, concealer, foundation, powder, bronzer, and blusher. “You can't make me do it. It's not fair. I always wear make-up. I feel wrong without make-up on.”

“Why are you getting angry, Kim?”

“Because I don't like people seeing me without make-up on! You know why. You heard me on the cliff. I
am
ugly. That's why. I don't want people to see that! I don't want them laughing at me.”

“You think we'd laugh at you, Kim?” Melody asked, who having arrived with no make-up on had quickly passed the bottle along.

“No. Not out loud. But inside you would. You might. That's what they all used to do.” Kim plonked back down into her armchair.

Melody shuffled her beanbag up to where Kim sat and took hold of her hand. When Millie had finished wiping her face, Melody took hold of the bottle and the cotton wool and handed it to Kim. “Come on, child. You are with friends. You have nothing to fear.”

“Will you do it for me?”

Melody shook her head. “I will not.”

Slowly, Kim poured out a drop of cleanser and began removing her armour, wiping away tears along with the cosmetics. “Great. Now I'm going to look all blotchy and red-eyed, too.”

When we had nearly all finished, Hester opened the second
suitcase. She took out a pile of white T-shirts and began handing these round, too. “Please change into the T-shirts.”

What?

Some of the women were happy to fling off their jumpers and blouses, swapping into the T-shirts without thinking. Millie and Janice gave us all a little striptease as they shimmied out of their Marks and Spencer twinsets. Uzma and her cousin Yasmin asked if they could wear them over their shirts, as they preferred to keep their arms covered. Hester dug through the pile and found two long-sleeved T-shirts for them instead. They ducked behind the sofa to change, giggling. I was disappointed by this. I wanted to sneak a peek at Uzma's fancy red lace, purple silk, or leopard print bra.

Mags, one of the larger ladies in the room, who happened to be sitting next to Marilyn, made a gesture of removing her jumper, making jokes about her sagging breasts and flabby stomach. It didn't stop Marilyn from looking as though she wanted to die as she scrambled out of her own top. In her haste, a button snagged in her hair, leaving her sitting with her top up over her head, one arm flailing, the other desperately trying to cover up her post-pregnancy body before Mags hurriedly set her free, making a kind joke as she did so.

Gradually, the other self-conscious women gave in, until me and Polly, baby bump gently bulging under her maternity clothes, were the only ones left.

“Polly?” Hester asked. “Didn't you find the maternity top in the pile?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “But could I have a long-sleeved top, please?”

Rowan, whose baggy T-shirt covered more of her thighs than her dress had, boggled her eyes. “You've got a belly like a beach ball and you're worried about your arms?”

I sat and watched, adrenaline sprinting through my veins. I should have changed when the rest were doing it. Nobody would have noticed. I should do it now, while they looked at Polly.

Get changed, Faith! Whip your sweater off and throw the T-shirt on before you cause a scene. You can do it!

I couldn't. My limbs were lead.

Polly looked around at us all, stricken. “I… it was… I don't want… You don't understand.”

“Nobody's looking, Polly. Look.” Millie began pointedly staring at the ceiling. Someone else rummaged in their bag for nothing in particular. Animated conversations requiring full-on eye contact broke out across the room as the others caught on. Kim, though, was having none of it.

“Come on, Polly. Nobody's judging you here. Apparently.”

Lowering her head, shoulders slumped, positively cowering in her chair, Polly began slowly undoing the buttons on her pretty maternity blouse. Unable to bear her mortification, I sucked in a fortifying breath, stood up, and stripped off my top.

Everybody froze. A couple of people gasped. Janice said, “Wowzers, Faith! Did you get those wrestling a crocodile?”

No, not a crocodile, Janice. The four-inch slice beneath my collarbone and the eight-inch jagged red rip across my stomach were obtained while fighting off a Snake. I put on the T-shirt and took my seat, trying to keep my chin up and hands still. I was not ashamed of having scars. I didn't care that they were ugly. I was very, very ashamed of how I got those scars, and the ugliness that accompanied them.

Polly, meanwhile, had changed too, and now sat huddled in her chair, hands quietly folded in her lap.

Oh my.

Her arms were covered, from the edge of the T-shirt to just above her wrists, with a hideous palette of blue and black, yellow, green, and violet, like monstrous tattoo sleeves. Fingerprints from an evil hand. Polly glanced up at us, her eyes wide with fear. “I fall a lot. Low blood pressure,” she muttered.

She knew that we knew.

Hester, who probably knew all this already, using her X-ray
vision, and seemed as unsurprised by my scars as she was by Polly's bruises, clapped her hands together once to call the meeting to order.

Oh yes – we'd forgotten there was supposed to be a point to all this stripping.

“Leona, you're first. Please stand in front of the mirror,” Hester said.

Leona, rolling her shoulders awkwardly, twisted until she faced the mirror.

“Now. Rowan, please tell Leona what you see.”

Leona stiffened; I think only Hester's grasp of her shoulder prevented her from bolting out of the room. Leona didn't usually wear much make-up, or dress in especially flattering clothes, but white was not a good colour on her.

Rowan pursed her lips in thought. “I see your eyes. They're like, nice. And kind. You don't look at me like you think I'm worse than you 'cos I'm young and I've got a kid and I never passed any exams.” She paused before continuing, “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if you'd been my mum.”

Leona jerked in astonishment.

Rosa was next. “I see a woman who always put everybody first. It your fault your children are fine woman and man because you gave all your love to them. Did great job.”

Uzma said, “Rowan's right. You look at people as though you really care about how they are. If I had a problem, I'd be glad to have you around.”

And so we carried on, right around the circle. By the end, Leona seemed somewhat shell-shocked. In a good way.

Melody went next. And one by one, fourteen women stood in front of that mirror, some of whom barely knew each other, others who had walked shoulder to shoulder through dozens of the challenges women face. There were many smiles, many hugs, many tissues spilling over the edge of the bin by the end of it. To say I felt terrified when I took my place in front of Marilyn's oak-framed
mirror didn't begin to cover it. What did these women see when they looked at me? Did I want it to be the truth, or the mask I wore, the pretend Faith? Was she almost the same thing these days?

“I see a woman who is strong as well as tough,” Melody told me.

“I see a woman beginning to find out who she really is, and there is nothing more lovely than that,” said Mags.

“Faith, I see in your eyes and your crocodile scars a woman who has suffered, but hasn't let it make her bitter,” Millie declared.

“Faith, I love your hair. Millions of women would kill for hair that colour and that thick. You must be doing something right to have hair that thick.”

“Thanks, Rowan.”

“I love that you have no idea how beautiful you are,” Kim said. “You catch the eye of most men you walk past, and don't even realize. I even caught Dylan staring at you.”

Excuse me? Can we please erase that comment? Not helpful to my embarrassing childish crush.

“You were a survivor,” Marilyn said. “But now you're well on your way to being a conqueror. I look at you and I see a kick-butt queen like Boadicea lurking just beneath the surface.”

“It's the hair!” Janice said.

“It's not the hair. Well, maybe a bit her hair. But it's more than that. There's something about you that inspires me to fight for what matters. You get what's important. Not many people manage that.”

“Thanks, Marilyn.”

“You're welcome, buddy.”

Polly was last, having been the last to get ready. We all told her pretty much the same thing.

“I see a woman who is beautiful, and kind, and precious, and deserves to be cherished, and treated with love and care and respect
at all times
.”

“I see a woman with many friends who love her, who will do whatever it takes to protect her and make sure she is safe and can live somewhere safe. Like my house. I have a spare room with a soft
bed and cushions and a cream dressing table. You won't fall and hurt yourself at my house, Polly.”

Polly hated every second of it.

She tried to cover up those bruises with her hands, stared at the floor, and looked as though she was trying to shrivel into her shame. I wondered how many times she had stood like that in front of the monster who decorated her arms.

It would be a long road, no doubt, but we were only getting started with Polly.

Hester then tried to move on to phase two of the evening, but we weren't ready. We jostled her into the special place before the mirror and forced her to look at herself.

“Hester, underneath that chain mail you have the biggest heart of anyone I know,” said Ebony, a quiet soprano who spent most of the time caring for her elderly parents.

Hester snorted.

“Don't you dare snort. It's our turn now,” Janice barked. “I see the woman who brought me dinner and sat and ate it with me every night for two weeks after my no-good, cheating, brain in his pants husband ran off with the tart-with-no-heart. That's above and beyond the call of duty. You go above and beyond.”

We carried on around the circle.

I said, “I see a woman who cares more about us than about what we think of her. Who is prepared to be disliked and moaned about if it means we can be better women. That's a rare and courageous thing. You are selfless, Hester.”

“Got something in your eye, Hester?” Millie asked.

Hester span around like a soldier on parade. “Enough! We are now twelve minutes behind schedule, thanks to your long-windedness and sentimentality. Please assemble before the mantelpiece in concert formation. Quickly now!”

Our brief mutiny over, we all formed a huddle in front of the hearth. Before we had a chance to wonder why, Hester ordered us to “remind yourself of the most pleasing thing someone said to you in
front of the mirror.” We did. There was a flash, and Hester took our picture. She handed it to Yasmin, an IT whizz, who took a couple of minutes setting it up on Marilyn's enormous television.

First, she showed a still of the choir practice when we had been recorded. Then she flicked to today's photograph.

Were they the same women? We looked taller, stronger, surer, freer. Beautiful. All of us except for Polly, who looked miserable and terrified. We looked raw, and we looked real.

“Choir. Do you need make-up and flattering colours and fancy fashion to be beautiful?”

No, Ma'am, we did not.

“What do you need?”

We called out the answers: confidence, to feel good about ourselves, to relax, great friends, honesty, to feel proud, to know we're loved, to know we are accepted. We needed each other.

Are all choirs like this?

Or only the great ones?

“Now. This is what makes me mad!” Hester smacked her hands together. Uh oh. “Why did you need a special meeting, bullying, make-up remover, a pile of white T-shirts, and a mirror to discover this? Why are you not telling each other this stuff every week? Every night? Once a year? Why does it take a crisis, or a tragedy, or a birthday – or someone to
die
– before we can spell out what it is that makes them unique, and marvellous? What are you so afraid of?”

She glowered at us all.

“I tell you this. And it is not a threat, it is a
vow.
If we resort back to
them
” – she flapped one hand distastefully at the rehearsal recording – “we will do this again. And full nudity will be required. Rowan.”

Rowan reopened her suitcase and took out a bag of hairbrushes, like those you would get in a salon. She then took out straighteners, curlers, rollers, and a load of clips, grips, and other hairdressing equipment.

“Right. Hester said if we did okay I could do your hair. If you
want. But I have to get my bus in an hour so it can't be everyone.”

“Rowan, if you can sort this squirrel's nest I'll give you a lift home,” Leona said.

Kim put up her hand. “I can help, Rowan. I did a bit of styling on my beauty course.”

So, the weird evening morphed into a pyjama party, only with white T-shirts instead of pyjamas. Marilyn and I fetched more drinks and cakes while the choir were primped and styled in Rowan and Kim's capable hands. And they did seem more than capable. Rowan instinctively knew what would suit each of us.

“Can you cut hair, Rowan?” Mags asked, while Rowan began a complicated type of chignon.

“A bit. I'm not trained or anything. I just like it. I did all my sisters when they had their prom. Mum said it was only fair 'cos I wasn't allowed to go to mine,” she replied through the grips in her mouth.