Vickey Weathers the Storm

Chapter 1

His embrace almost pinned her to the wall. After eight months away from London, sent by his firm of investment brokers to their Tokyo office, he was eager to reclaim his girl, his trophy, and resume normal life.

He looked quizzical for a moment. “Your hair is different!”

“No it’s not.”

He scrutinised her face again, her shoulder-length auburn hair slightly curling at the ends as it always did, the brown eyes sparkling, the olive, almost Mediterranean complexion beaming back at him. Something was different. He couldn’t place what.

Vickey grinned. “Don’t say you’ve forgotten what I looked like!”

Bruno’s hands loosened their grip and began roaming over her body – medium build, medium height – renewing contact with her breasts and slipping underneath the bottom of her sweater.

“Course I haven’t. Hey, you’ve got a bit squishy!” He had touched her midriff, tight as a drum when last encountered, but now grown softer, lightly padded with fat.

“I have put on a few pounds.” She sounded only a touch remorseful.

He pulled away a few inches, hardness entering his voice. “Can’t have that, lovebird, can’t have that.” He looked at her slacks, more tightly fitting than he remembered. He returned to her face, and realised what had thrown him: the fuller cheeks, the slightly blurred jawline, the suggestion of a double chin as his hug thrust her backwards towards the wall. “I bought you some chocolates shaped like Santa Claus at the airport, but maybe you shouldn’t have them.”

“You swine!”

He smiled. She laughed herself. But as she watched him unpack his suitcase on the bed, she could feel the temperature in her heart dropping a few degrees. His movements were so precise and orderly, the clothes so neatly folded. Out came the toilet bag – his preening box, she called it. The shaving cream. The deodorant. The after-shave. She looked at his hair, short as bristles, and the eyes – small, pale blue, fierce. Everything about him was kept under such control. She looked round their shared apartment in a converted warehouse bordering the Thames: the bare pine floor, the spartan decoration, the stark lighting. Industrial chic. It was his place originally, not hers, and she never really liked it; with Bruno returned, and the rooms swept clear of her own clutter, she could already feel the walls moving in. Was this a home, or a prison?

Vickey had to admit it: she had enjoyed his absence. Or aspects of it. She had missed him in bed, but not round the dining room table. She had enjoyed going out more with friends, drinking and eating, indulging herself in the odd chocolate cake or other item bouncing with calories, freed from his disapproving eyes. Over six months, through the summer and autumn, more curious than seriously concerned, she had watched this small layer of fat creep on tiptoe onto her tummy, around and below her belly button, gathering into the suggestion of love handles at her side. Her weight had increased by just ten pounds, from 122 to 132: at five foot seven scarcely enough to change her shape, but enough to make her softer to the touch and give her a belly curve that rubbed against some of her tighter clothes.

“You know TV puts pounds on you anyway. You’ve got to be careful.”

Vickey sighed. “Oh come on. I just stand in front of a weather chart and point at things. I don’t appear in a swimsuit.”

Bruno was hanging up his Armani. “You’re in the public eye, and I need you to look good.”

“I’m not your possession. I’m my own person.” She didn’t want to argue just now; he had only just come through the door. But sometimes Bruno was too much, and this was one of them.

“OK, OK.” Bruno didn’t feel like arguing either. The long-haul flight was pulling him down. He was tired. He was hungry. He was thirsty. “Let’s not fight. Can you rustle up something to eat? Something real? Not served on a plastic tray?”

Vickey moved into the kitchen, and poked her head into the fridge. She saw the chocolate chip cookie bag eyeing her. Better not serve those. The salad container? That looked better. Rocket lettuce. Cherry tomatoes. Yellow and red peppers. Organic mushrooms. A salad, perhaps, with a modest bowl of pasta?

As she gathered the ingredients, she heard the sounds of Bruno showering, the water jet washing away the debris of hours in the stale cabin air, the thud of the soap as it slipped from his fingers (“Blast!” he yelled), the toneless, fragmentary humming of a tune that might have been identifiable to him but remained a mystery to the outside world. It felt strange having the apartment filled again with another person’s noise, another life being lived. She thought back to their early days in a basement flat, small and dark, constantly rubbing together as they moved about the kitchen, squeezing into the bathtub, sharing a wardrobe, every inconvenience a source of fun. At the time, for these two, friends from the same health club, there seemed nothing like cramped quarters for getting to love and know each other. Now that she did know him, four years later, she wanted more space. A lot more space.

“Do you want some bread?” she asked. He sat at the dining table, hair still damp, feeling clean and pink.

“Ah-ha,” he muttered, shaking his head. That was a no.

As Vickey cut herself a piece from the granary loaf she imagined his eyes following the knife, clocking the slice size, watching with disapproval as it entered her mouth.

“These are squirty things,” Bruno said, gingerly trying to spear a tomato. He hadn’t been watching at all.

When she cut a second slice a few minutes later, she still expected some reprisal, a barbed comment perhaps, something about food and weight. It didn’t follow.

“I’m bushed,” he said, pushing aside the pasta, half-eaten. “More tired than hungry, I guess.” He let out a great yawn, and rubbed what little stomach he had, polished and toned in gyms worldwide. “Good to be back. Good to have me back?”

“Ah-ha.” That was a yes. She kissed him perfunctorily on the forehead, and began clearing away the plates. Bruno’s uneaten rigatoni was spooned into a plastic container, and parked in the fridge. It might be just the thing, she thought, for a snack when she returned from her night shift at the TV station.

“We’ll have sex tomorrow, right?” Bruno called out as he disappeared into the bathroom. Vickey cringed. Why did he have to be so blunt?

“Do you have to announce it to the neighbours?”

“A-ha-ha.” He was cleaning his teeth.

Sighing, Vickey moved into the bedroom and gathered her things together ready for the night’s work tracking weather systems on the computers, preparing a forecast for the day ahead and presenting it during the TV breakfast shows, bright and bushy-tailed in one of the smart dresses her job demanded. Even without checking the charts she could predict bad weather ahead: storms, possibly violent, and cold, cold winds.

A brief hug, another perfunctory kiss, toothpaste-flavoured, and she was out the door.

*****

When she returned from the night shift at nine the next day, Bruno was still in bed, dead to the world, chest undulating from his slow breaths, mouth formed into what looked like a smirk.

Vickey slipped out of the bedroom, kicked off her shoes, and sank into the living room sofa. It looked so bare without her mess – the magazines, the TV guide, the tissue box, the chocolate cookies. She picked up the phone.

“Hi, it’s me.” She was talking to Alannah, best friend since university. The words tumbled out in a torrent. “He’s back. Just in time for Christmas. I don’t know if I can take it. I mean, he’s so controlling, and even when he isn’t controlling he looks like he is. It’s like I could feel the walls closing towards me ... It’s like living in a box, Alannah, a box. And his eyes, I felt them on me the entire time. Soon as he saw me he noticed I’d gained a few pounds ... Well I have actually – around ten. Can’t have that, he said. Bloody cheek ... I know ... Exactly. Exactly. He thinks I’m some trophy to put on his shelf ... What? I can’t talk too loudly, Alann, he’s in the bedroom getting his beauty sleep ... Getting his ugly sleep, then ... Habit I guess, that’s why I stay, and companionship ... Sweet of you to say I deserve better. True friend, that’s what you are ... Oh God, you’re going to psychoanalyse me. Not before my coffee, please. Shit, is he stirring? Hang on a sec ...”

She peered into the bedroom, heard faint snoring, and tiptoed out.

“False alarm.” Silence as Alannah put her on the couch. “You think better of me than I do myself. I must say, though, if he’s a father figure he’s a pretty funny one. I suppose the bottom line is that you know who you are – I’ve always admired and envied that. I don’t quite yet ...Well I know I’m a weather girl. I stand with a stick and point at low fronts advancing across the Atlantic. But beyond that, Alannah, who I am? You trust yourself, you’re sure of yourself. I don’t know whether I’m coming or going ... I can’t leave him now, Alannah, he’s just come back. And that’s a big step. I’m not sure I’m ready ... We’ve grown apart, that’s for sure. Well I have. Not sure he’s noticed, he’s so self-absorbed ... It’s not just that he’s been away. Even when he’s here, we haven’t been seeing each other that much. He works late at his bloody office. I work the night shift sometimes. Often we just see each other for a hurried meal, or a session at the health club ... No, I haven’t been lately. I need to go ... Well that’s so nice, Alann, but you would say that wouldn’t you ... Beautiful? I don’t think so. You haven’t seen my midriff lately ... Well the fat kind of sits there, winking at me .... What? You want to come over and see it?”

Vickey heard a yawn, and the sounds of the bedside radio. “Look I’ve got to go. Bruno is stirring. Talk to you later? ... You’re a pal. Love you.”

Through the door she heard the voice of a financial analyst droning on about stock market reports, gilts, and futures. She let out a short sigh, put on the morning coffee, filled a cereal bowl with muesli, and dragged out the cookies from the fridge.

“Bugger it,” she said, “I’m hungry.”