Part Two
Chapter Eleven
Wonderful things with basketweave
I’m woken by the sound of the boiler firing up in the kitchen downstairs, accompanied by a tap-tap-tap as the radiator on my bedroom wall begins to warm. I open my eyes, wondering if the events of yesterday were in fact aDallas-style dream. But as soon as I move my head, I have a sudden, very sharp pain in my nostrils, which tells me it definitely happened. It really, actually happened. Holy crap. I lie there for a few minutes, taking it all in. I feel pretty pleased with myself, actually. I did something. Something different. Exciting. Brave, even. I ‘did the thing that scares me’, as that bloody 60 Days To Confidence app kept telling me. I ‘let go of what no longer serves me’ and, I hasten to add, I didn’t do any of it because of the app. In fact, I stopped doing it after about ten days and made the review up. No, I did this myself. For me. Without anyone’s help. Okay, maybe Merlyn’s. And Yuvana Labs. But mainly by myself.
Another pain, right between my eyes. I hadn’t really expected yesterday’s procedure to be carried out via my nose, but it makes sense, as it’s a ready-made route in, and better, I suppose, than someone drilling a hole in my skull. Apparently ‘the whole process was fully outlined’ in the WULT® paperwork I (or Colin Turd) signed. Maybe I should have read it first, but who even does that? It’s like accepting the terms and conditions of your new version of Microsoft Word. You just scroll and scroll until it says ‘Agree’. Well, I do.
I find a cool spot on my SilkySleep (#gifted) pillowcase, which hasn’t been quite as transformational for my frizzy hair as I hoped. Washing it occasionally would probably help. The pillow,not the hair – okay, both. My bed linen could probably do with a run through on ‘colourfast cottons’ too, or even just a good shake to get the cracker crumbs off, especially if there’s a vague chance Gabe might stay the night here sometime in the future. Maybe I should get some of that vagina cream Nandy was telling me about. Although, here’s a thought – maybe I won’t need it, as WULT® might get my overgrown cellar open to the public again. I hadn’t even considered that, having focused heavily up to this point on the jowls and nematode neck situation. Maybe it will work on all of me, even the inside bits? Does that mean it might help my Frequent Urination, a ‘classic’ perimenopause symptom, according to that article inGlowgetter. Sounds more like a metal band – didn’t Simon see them at Donington back in the day?
I really need some painkillers. Peach Jumpsuit said they were okay to take; I remember because I noticed how she seems to hiss every word that has an ‘s’ at the end, like ‘painkillerssssssss’. Then she asked me what I did over ‘Christmassssssss’. Do you really care, Peach Jumpsuit? I muttered something about ‘eating too much’, partly because this is true, and partly because it avoided any actual insight into the tedium that was my festive season. I was also, at this point, removing my paper pantssssssss and didn’t feel it was the time for sssssmall-talk.
The car that took me back to Wiltshire after the procedure was like one of the ones inSuccession– blacked-out windows, low lighting and a mini fridge. I lay slumped, snoozing for most of the way along the M4, a huge bandage over my nose, which Peach Jumpsuit said would be ‘fine to take off once I got home’. I wonder if she was disappointed that this sentence didn’t include the letter ‘s’. The sedation, which had for the most part worn off, was still enough for me to feel quite spaced out, and strangely fixated on the mini fridge. What was in it? And why? Should I open it? Maybe it would set off some kind of alarm. In a daze,I sat looking at it for about half an hour, picturing it containing those test tubes you get in films with smoke or dry ice or whatever it is coming off the top.
At junction seventeen, the driver turned off the motorway to head south. Feeling the change of pace, I sat up, less drowsy, and less fixated on the fridge. I checked my phone. There was a message from Merlyn, from about two hours before.
Erica my dear – how did it go? Excited to hear. Baci, M
I wasn’t sure what to say, driving through Chippenham in the dark, bandaged up, breathing through my mouth like the person on the tube who always sits right next to me. I was glad the wait was over, a little scared, but most of all, very, very excited. I’m not sure if it was the drugs, but right then I started thinking about how often I cry. Not like big snotty sobs, although sometimes I do that after a few glasses of Gavi, watching anything with Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo in. I just mean a tear here, a tear there, at the sheer disappointment and boredom of it all. The missed chances, the faded glory. Actually, no, there never was any glory. There was a brief spell of above averageness, and then a slide into mediocrity, possibly slightly below. No wonder I’m excited about this. Sometimes I feel like nothing exceptional has ever happened to me. Nothing good, anyway.
Okay so far! Will report back. E
What else could I say? Until it starts working, it’s just a day trip to London and a nose bandage. And yes, I did open the fridge, which contained a Tupperware box with what looked like a tuna sandwich in it. I think it was the driver’s.
And now, the next day, I’m in bed cracking ibuprofen out of the packet, gulping them (and a Settlers chaser) down with the remains of an M&S Berry Smoothie that was sitting on the bedside table. I gag as I realise that it wasn’t from today, or yesterday, or indeed possibly even this week. To express my disgust further, I deliver a fairly ladylike fart – more of a clicking noise than anything raspy. I definitely fart more these days. Probably best that nobody does share a bed with me. I don’t remember ever farting when I was in bed with Kofi, and certainly didn’t with any of the one – occasionally two or three – night stands I had at university and in the early days atTime Out. Being in bed with someone back in those days had mainly focused on trying to position myself in a flattering pose and/or appear to be enjoying it, and not letting go in any shape or form, for fear of making an unsexy noise, or pulling a face that was as close as possible to Minnie Driver, the only celebrity I have ever been likened to.
I haul myself into the bathroom to peer at my reflection, wondering if I can see any change yet. I can’t. There are massive dark circles under my eyes, and my hair has formed a kind of roof shape, making me look like Lord Farquaad fromShrek, which I used to watch with Simon’s boys. My nematode neck appears particularly prominent this morning, and with my face in repose, the ‘marionette’ lines that run from the corner of my mouth to my chin seem worse than ever. Why is it, I wonder, that the older you get, the more experience you have, and the longer you’ve survived, the sadder you end up looking? Growing old should make you look bloody ecstatic. But it doesn’t.
I wonder if this will be the last time I will feel like this. Well, the last time for quite a while – Peach Jumpsuit told me the same as what Merlyn said on WhatsApp (and it was ‘clearly outlined in the paperwork’), that when you’ve had the WULT® treatment, you start ageing again. So, it’s literally areset. I wonder if you can keep getting the reset? But I vaguely remember her also saying you can only have it once. Or did she say, ‘usually only have it once’? I might ask though – maybe she just said that so she could hiss the word ‘once’. Besides, this is all assuming it works. If it doesn’t then I will go and live on a croft in Scotland. I think that would suit me, apart from the physical labour and maybe the lack of local amenities. But I’d be a Highland crone, and nobody would know how old I was, so they’d assume I was about seventy. I’d wear a tartan headscarf and do wonderful things with basketweave and maybe have some sheep. I’d probably sleep better with all that fresh air too.
I touch my nose. With the dressing gone, there is nothing to see. You wouldn’t know anything had happened, apart from the pain in my head like I’ve leant forward on a pencil.
COME ON, hurry up and work, will you, WULT®.
Later, an Amazon delivery man deposits six huge parcels in my hall, sent from Yuvana Labs. Opening them takes ages as I keep running upstairs to look at myself in the mirror to see if anything has happened yet. At about four-thirty p.m., I wonder if a particularly wiry chin hair that I saw earlier looks slightly less like something you might get on pork crackling. But I could be wrong, and I’m not sure that fewer porcine chin hairs will be what I notice first. I wonder what the first sign will be though?
I go back to the parcels, pulling out endless tubes of black plastic, metal screws and packets of wires, with accompanying booklets in multiple languages. One large parcel contains a tripod – I have also unwrapped a microphone, a gigantic light (which reminds me of something you might use to guide a ship back to shore) and various other items, the purpose ofwhich I haven’t discovered yet. So, this is what influencers get up to… Although they don’t call themselves that anymore, do they? It’s all ‘content creator’, ‘brand ambassador’ and ‘digital entrepreneur’ these days.
Merlyn calls the equipment the ‘WULT® Woman Kit’, and she’s already messaged me to see how I’m getting on with it.
Erica – has the kit arrived? The countdown is on! Baci, M
Yes, just trying to work it all out… E
It’s going to take ages to set it all up in the spare room but it’s not like I’ve got anything else to do – apart from wait. The weather has turned really cold, making it even less appealing to leave the house than usual. I look at the parcels, then turn to my phone instead to watch Cassia getting ready in the toilets of Colbert on Sloane Square last night (#daytonight#itsvintagedarling). Am I really going to have to come up with stuff like this? What toilets am I going to use? Not even sure if they have any in FILLINGZ.
Gabe has messaged me suggesting a coffee but I’m going to hold off now until I have the new version of me to show him. Josie has also been in touch to say they’re all back from France but if I can avoid bumping into her in the street, she can wait until ten days is up too. Mother Pells sent me a ‘Happy New Year’ message the other day, which I replied to, and having put in the hours on Christmas Day I don’t need to visit for a while, so all good there. Simon’s completely ignoring me, which is standard, although I can see from his Facebook that he’s tired of being Scandinavian and now appears, as predicted, to be fixated on being ‘net zero’. According to his last update, this involves building a compost toilet in his garden. Alannah mustbe delighted, especially as it now boasts a ‘urine separator’. I make a mental note not to drink or eat for at least twelve hours before my next visit – although who knows when that will be…
