Pumping Up Napoleon by Maria Donovan Page A

twice a week if she could. Still, she knows she’s lucky, counts her blessings. Some of her friends can only manage once a fortnight.
    Careful with herself. Lovely soft old-lady skin. Pearl-coloured ear-studs, not too big. A shade of lipstick rosy-pink. Blue eyes, fair eyebrows. Her hair should be white but she has it tinted strawberry-blonde. Pity it looks so stiff. She should wash it herself and forget the setting-lotion.
    â€˜Do you swim?’ I ask her.
    â€˜Oh no, I never learned to swim.’
    â€˜You could still learn now,’ I tell her. ‘My mother learned when she was fifty-seven. It’s never too late. It’d keep you fit.’ It could liberate that hairstyle. At first she’d wear a swimming cap then one day she’d forget and maybe she’d get her hair wet and she’d borrow someone else’s shampoo and start a conversation in the changing-room and maybe make a new…
    â€˜And can you do me half a cucumber?’
    We have a lovely sharp knife for the cucumbers so the least amount of juice is wasted. I smile. ‘Of course.’
    If she knew what went on in my head. A feeling breaks inside me like a wave of cold sewagey seawater. If she knew. She would drop her fruit and run.
    I let it all out in a sigh. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Really, I don’t.
    How did I get to be like this? I’ll try to think.
    I remember being about twelve and at school and doodling on the side of my rough book. Among the spirals and stars and swirls that look like ferns unfolding, the word HELP yells up from the margins, so loud I wonder someone doesn’t hear it and come rushing to my aid. Underneath my long-sleeved blouse my wrists are scratched red-sore.
    The teacher is moving down an aisle on the far side of the class. She walks up and down between the desks for the whole forty minutes, talking and waving the good conduct book, or bringing it down with a smack on someone’s head. We are like white mice glued to our chairs. We quiver, but cannot run.
    My parents are never in when I come home from school. But that’s no reason to want to kill them; in fact I’m glad they aren’t there.
    The carpet in the kitchen is new. In front of the sink and cooker it is covered by a new strip of tough see-through plastic. When will it be time for the plastic to come off? Never.
    I’d get a lot of sympathy (and the house) if my parents die in a hideous car crash. The hill we live on is very steep. But I don’t do anything; I don’t know how to do it without getting caught.
    When I leave school I cheer up a bit, and even more when I leave home. In fact, I become so cheerful, people remark on it. My boss expects me to be more serious.
    â€˜Hang on,’ I say, and go out of his office and come in again, trying to look grave. But it’s no good. The grin on my face is bigger than ever. ‘I can’t help it,’ I say, melting into laughter.
    Everything makes me laugh these days. I’m wildly in love with my boss. It’s a happy love, uncomplicated, my secret. I know I could get someone younger and better-looking but he’s nice and secure and undemanding and the fact that he’s older and uglier than my ‘standard’ makes me feel thin and pretty and magnificently young.
    I loved him then. But one day that love was used up; I longed to shed the useless weight of it, to shake him off. Is this how a murderer feels? One day loving, another day wanting to slice the no-longer-loved one out of your heart? Some people deserve to be eaten by tigers.
    I don’t feel right at all; I’m snarling. Even though I hold on to my outer expression, the face that’s meant to put you at your ease, I’d frighten you if you looked deep into my eyes: I know I would. You want me to help you pretend the world is a nicer place? My little chats will make you think I care; I’ll help you push back the darkness; all those awful things that