The Making of Us Read Free Page B

nice to her now, nice now that she was all he had.
    Lydia stared around her room, at the grubby magnolia walls with the hint of cyclamen pink skulking beneath. Her father had painted Lydia’s room only a few days after her mother died. She’d watched in despair as the dun-coloured paint had been slopped over the bright pink. It was as if he was painting away her happiness. Nowadays the magnolia suited her. She found it hard to imagine she’d ever been the kind of little girl who would have wanted her bedroom to be pink.
    Lydia was almost four when her mother died. She could remember very little about her. Dark hair. The little silver swans she would make for her daughter out of the lining of her cigarette packets. A skirt with blue roses on it. Long fingernails up the back of Lydia’s top, scratch-scratch-scratching away an itch for her: ‘Harder? Softer? There? There? Ooh, let me scratch that away for you.’ Her name was Glenys. Lydia remembered music, Terry Wogan on the radio, a sink full of washing up, a cigarette left burning in an ashtray, the smell of chips in a fryer, the bars of a playpen, a cardboard box big enough to hide in, the TV Times on the coffee table, shows circled in blue biro, and a little yellow bird in a cage that pirouetted with joy every time Lydia’s mother looked at it. After her mother died these things disappeared, one by one, like stars going out in the night sky. The yellow bird, the TV Times , Terry Wogan, the chips, the back scratches, the delicate silver swans, the pink paint in the bedroom. All that remained was the ashtray.
    Lydia heard her father coughing next door. She tensed. Every cough sounded like it could be his last. The thought left her feeling torn between joy and panic. If he died she’d be all on her own. All on her own . She wanted to be alone. But she didn’t want to be all on her own. She glanced at her dog, at his big strong skull, his soft ears. She wasn’t all on her own. She had her dog. She closed her eyes against the sound of her father’s rasping, the thoughts of her future, and let herself fall into a deep, vodka-induced slumber.

2009
LYDIA
    Bendiks hoisted Lydia’s leg over her shoulder and ran his hands up and down her calf muscles, squeezing as he went. A fine thread of sweat trickled from Lydia’s hairline, down her temple and into her ear. She stuck a fingertip into her ear and rubbed away the itch.
    ‘How does that feel?’ said Bendiks.
    Lydia clenched her teeth together and smiled. ‘That feels great,’ she said, ‘absolutely great.’
    ‘Not too much?’ asked Bendiks, his oddly beautiful face softening with concern.
    ‘No,’ she said, ‘just right.’
    He smiled and lifted her leg a little higher. Lydia felt the latticework of muscles behind her knee pulling against the movement and winced slightly. Bendiks had one knee at her crotch and his thick black hair was almost brushing her lips. Gently he lowered Lydia’s leg and rested it on the floor.
    ‘There,’ he said, ‘finished.’
    Lydia smiled and sighed. Bendiks stood above her, his hands on his hips, smiling down fondly. ‘You did good today,’ he said, helping her to her feet. ‘Really good. You want we do it in the park on Thursday. Yes?’
    ‘The park?’ said Lydia. ‘Yes, why not?’
    ‘Great.’ He smiled at her again. Lydia smiled back. She tried to think of something witty or conversational to say but, finding nothing inside the cavernous cathedral of her head that seemed to fit the job, just said, ‘See you on Thursday,’ then turned and walked away.
    She saw Bendiks’ next client, loitering in her field of vision. It was the Jewish woman, the one with the overstretched Juicy Couture trousers and the fake tan. Lydia knew she was Jewish because her name was Debbie Levy. From behind she looked like a cheap sofa and Lydia despised her, not for her resemblance to a cheap sofa but because of her slinky way with Bendiks.
    ‘Morning, gorgeous,’ she heard the woman