Queenie
I’m on my way there! Had to buy an ugly but functional swimsuit from Sports Direct. Wish me luck.
* * *
I stood on the concrete steps up to the Lido café and took some deep breaths. I was wearing my swimsuit under my clothes and I could feel sweat pooling in the space between my boobs and my stomach.
I fanned the neck of my dress and blew down into my cleavage. My eyes were blurring, so I concentrated on the peeling white paint flaking off of the handrails.
“Are you all right?” I followed the high-pitched, scratchy voice and looked up into the face of a waitress with enough thick dark-blond hair piled high on her head to give her neck strain. She pulled a pack of cigarettes from her apron and lit one.
“Yes, sorry, just loitering.” I laughed awkwardly. “Going to swim but putting it off! Feel a bit weird.” Why was I telling her this?
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” the girl said, taking a giant drag. “I’d never get in there, it’s too cold. You must be completely mad.”
“Ah, thanks. Really looking forward to it now!” I said, making my way inside.
I squeezed my way through the changing room, the air thick with the smell of chlorine. It was full of women of varying shapes and sizes, but—as with work, parties, university, anywhere—I saw nobody like me. Nobody black. You wouldn’t know I was round the corner from Brixton.
I breathed slowly through the anxiety and took my dress off. I whipped it over my head quickly and looked around to see who was staring at my big thighs. Nobody seemed to be looking.
Predicting that everyone would turn in horror when I walked out to the pool, I wrapped my towel around my waist and held my arms close to my sides so that I minimized their jiggling.
I navigated my way around dozens of trim sunbathers presenting their flat white bellies to the sun, their bodies void of hair. Should I have had a wax? The quick shave I’d done might not be enough. I looked closely at my legs and saw dark, wiry patches of hair, Guy telling me to shave popping into my head. I very rarely compare myself with other women, but in a situation like this, how could I not?
I wrapped myself in my towel and found a sliver of space next to the pool. I laid my towel on the ground and got down quickly, covering my lap and legs with my bag.
“And do you know what I said to him, Stella? I said, ‘Cosmo, we’re going to have to sell the second flat! The Brixton one! Because we just can’t be dealing with these tenants anymore!’ Honestly, Stella, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.” I looked over at the woman next to me whose sharp, clipped voice was almost physically grating slices from my skin. I could only see the back of her brown bob but could guess what her face was like.
“The ones we have in at the moment sent us an e-mail saying that they had mold, of all things. Is that our problem? Honestly!” she scoffed.
“Well, actually, I think it is, Tanya,” her blond-bobbed companion said.
“Oh. Is it?” Tanya asked, shocked.
“Well, you know the little rental we have in Peckham,” Stella began, “the three-bed that Damon’s father gave us?” I saw the brown-bobbed one nod. “There was such terrible mold in there that the walls were black. The tenants kept threatening us, saying they were going to call Environmental Health or something, so we had to sort it. Honestly, T, it was awful,” she said, and I was pleased that she had some empathy. “We lost so much money.”
I put my headphones in and settled back, putting off my foray into the water by telling myself that I’d listen to The Read before I braved the pool. The second I closed my eyes to settle into it, they shot open when I felt a dripping on my leg.
I sat up and saw a little redhead staring at me, water falling from her long hair straight onto my knees. “Hello?” I said, trying to smile in a nonaggressive way. “Are you lost?” I moved my leg out of the water’s path.
“No! I’m a sea creature!” she shouted, shaking her head so that freezing water flashed across my face.
“Tabitha, come here!” My eyes followed the voice and settled on Tanya, who turned round to look at me. Her face was exactly as I’d predicted: soft, puckered, red from too many glasses of wine when the kids had gone to bed. I looked at her, water dripping from my chin.
“Can she say sorry, please?” I asked the woman.
“Tabitha, darling, can you please come to Mummy, get dry, please.” Tanya ignored me, standing up and wrapping her daughter in a towel.
“Did you hear me?” I asked, looking from her to blond-bobbed Stella, her friend with the same face.
“I’m a sea monster!” Tabitha yelled, reaching over and pulling my hair. “And so are you!”
“Are you just going to let your child behave like this?” I raised my voice to hide its trembling.
“I think we’d better go, Stella, I’m not going to be attacked at my local pool!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll go!” I said, scrambling up. “I don’t fit here anyway.”
As I stood up to go, I locked eyes with another family who were all looking at me. I looked around the pool and into the eyes of strangers who were staring. They all hated me. I could tell. None of them wanted me to be there. I felt dread rise from my feet and into my stomach, where it started to lurch painfully.
“So aggressive!” I heard Tanya whisper as I stumbled out of the turnstiles.
Everyone’s voices grew louder, so loud that I had to cover my ears with my hands. I half-collapsed, half-sat on a patch of grass, intrusive thoughts in my head growing as loud as the sounds around me. I couldn’t bat them away. I put my head between my knees and stayed that way, the sun beating down on my back. I don’t know how long I sat there, but eventually I found my phone and called Janet.
“Hello?” she answered.
“I didn’t fit, I’ll never fit,” I said. “Roy didn’t want me in his house . . . nobody wants me at the fucking Lido . . . Tom didn’t want me, my own mum . . . she didn’t—” The words forced their way out, the sentence broken by my jagged breaths.
“Queenie? Where are you?”
“There’s no place for me, Janet,” I said.
“Queenie, remember your breathing. Can you tell me where you are?” Janet said in her most measured voice.
“I’ve tried swimming, it all went wrong,” I said, trying to calm down.
“Okay. I’m going to stay here on the phone until you can breathe again.”
I kept the phone by my ear as I counted to three, then to eleven repeatedly. After a few seconds, I heard someone walk over to me.
“Are you okay?” Was I now destined to live my life with people asking about my well-being at every juncture?
“Yeah, thanks,” I said, my head still between my knees.
“You’re okay?” Janet asked from the phone.
“Sorry, no, someone is—” I tried to explain.
“Do you want these?” I looked up, and the blond waitress with all of the hair handed me my towel and my dress. “I saw you run out in your swimsuit, thought I should bring your clothes to you. There are children around, so . . .” she said awkwardly.
“Oh God, did I—” I reached out and took the dress. “Sorry. Thanks.”
“Queenie?” Janet’s voice again.
“Sorry, I’m here. I think I’m okay,” I said, my breathing returning to normal. “I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about her.”
“Thinking about your mother?” Janet guessed.
“I’ve been thinking about why this all started. Why it all started to come back and why I stopped caring about my life and started to fuck up.” I took some deep breaths. “Is it because I could have been a mum? Did me being pregnant throw up all of my mum issues?”