Nine Perfect Strangers

Masha sighed, as if Carmel were not behaving.

‘I know I need to work more exercise into my schedule?’ offered Carmel. Was that what she wanted to hear?

‘Yes,’ said Masha. ‘Yes, you do. But I find this also not so interesting.’

‘When the kids are older I’ll have more time to –’

‘Tell me about when you were schoolgirl,’ interrupted Masha. ‘What were you like? Smart? Top of class? Bottom of class? Naughty? Loud? Shy?’

‘I was mostly near the top of the class,’ said Carmel. Always. ‘Not naughty. Not shy. Not loud.’ She thought about it. ‘Although, I could be very loud. If I felt strongly about something.’

She remembered a heated argument with a teacher who wrote ‘the thunder boomed, the lightening flashed’ on the blackboard. Carmel stood up to correct the teacher’s spelling of ‘lightning’. The teacher didn’t believe her. Carmel wouldn’t back down, even when the teacher yelled at her. She was all-powerful when she knew without doubt that she was in the right. But how often did you know for sure that you were right? Hardly ever.

‘Interesting,’ said Masha. ‘Because right now you do not seem like a very loud person.’

‘You should see me in the morning when I yell at my kids,’ said Carmel.

‘Why have I not seen this “loud” Carmel? Where is she?’

‘Um – we’re not allowed to speak?’

‘That is a good point. But see – even then, when you made a very valid point, you said it like a question. You put this questioning sound at the end of your sentences. Like this? Your voice goes up? Like you are not really sure? Of everything you say?’

Carmel squirmed at Masha’s imitation of her speech patterns. Was that really how she sounded?

‘And your walk,’ said Masha. ‘That is the other thing: I don’t like the way you walk.’

‘You don’t like the way I walk?’ spluttered Carmel. Wasn’t that kind of rude?

Masha stood and came out from behind her desk. ‘This is how you walk right now.’ She rounded her shoulders, dropped her chin and did a scurrying kind of sidestep across the room. ‘Like you are hoping no-one sees you. Why do you do that?’

‘I don’t think I exactly –’

‘Yes, you do.’ Masha sat back down. ‘I don’t think you always walked like this. I think once you walked properly. Do you want your daughters to walk like you walk?’ It was obviously a rhetorical question. ‘You are a woman in the prime of your life! You should march into a room with your head held high! Like you are walking onto a stage, a battlefield!’

Carmel stared. ‘I’ll try?’ she said. She coughed, and remembered to turn it into a statement. ‘I will try. I will try to do that.’

Masha smiled. ‘Good. At first it will feel strange. You will have to fake it. But then you will remember. You will think, Oh, that’s right, this is how I talk, this is how I walk. This is me, Carmel.’ She knocked her closed fist against her heart. ‘This is who I am.’

She leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘I will tell you a secret.’ Her eyes danced. ‘You will look thinner if you walk like that!’

Carmel smiled back. Was she joking?

‘Everything will become clearer over the next few days,’ said Masha, with a gesture that made Carmel stand up quickly, as if she’d outstayed her welcome.

Masha pulled a notepad towards her and began to write something down.

Carmel hovered. She tried to put her shoulders back. ‘Could you just tell me how much weight I’ve lost so far?’

Masha didn’t look up. ‘Close the door behind you.’

chapter twenty-five

Masha

Masha studied the large man who sat on the other side of her desk, his feet planted solidly on the floor, his hands curled in meaty fists on his thighs, as if he were a prisoner hoping for parole.

Masha remembered how Delilah had implied there was something unusual or secretive about Tony Hogburn. Masha did not agree. The man was not especially complex. He seemed to her to be a simple, grumpy fellow. He had lost weight already. Men who drank a lot of beer always did lose weight when they stopped, whereas women like Carmel, who had much less weight to lose, took much longer. In truth, Carmel hadn’t lost any weight at all, but there was no benefit in Carmel hearing that.