12-02-2014, 06:34 PM
1
Jude
This is a story I began some time ago but couldn't finish - so it's just a taster really. If anyone wants to provide their own ending feel free....Don’t you just hate those celebrities whose skin and faces belie their age? You know the ones – middle aged, slender as willows, unlined glowing complexions? I know they spend obscene amounts of money on cosmetic surgery, I’m not naïve enough to imagine it’s their genes, but when you’re still relatively young and you stagger out of bed and startle yourself every time you meet your reflection, it hurts. It really does.
God knows, I’m trying to slow the march of time. I buy skin tightening cream, neck firming lotion, eye spritzers, you name it. My bathroom cabinet looks like a laboratory and still the wrinkles are digging themselves in along my mouth, my eyes; still my jaw line is disappearing under layers of loose skin. It’s so bloody unfair, and being friends with Jude doesn’t help.
This is her story really. Believe it or don’t, as you please.
Jude and I had known each other since school. She was older than me, taller than me, slimmer, all-round prettier. You get the picture – they do say with female friends there’s always a gorgeous one and “the other one” who knocks around in the hope of catching some cast off. I’ll leave you to guess which of us is the other one. Where my life had taken a decidedly humdrum direction, office job, occasional singles holiday minus the holiday romance, three boyfriends so far, none of whom stuck around long, Jude had led a charmed life. People are attracted to beauty aren’t they? They also tend to endow the object of their attention with all sorts of attributes like sensitivity, sensuality, kindness and loyalty, based purely on the random alignment of eyes, nose and mouth and so on. Ridiculous really, when you think of it, because Jude was the biggest bitch ever, and I don’t just say that out of jealousy. Take all the broken hearted men she’d destroyed, all the crushed women she’d derided and humiliated and, well, you’d have a pretty enormous roomful of psychiatric patients.
You’re probably wondering why the hell I’d want to still meet up with Jude after all these years. We’d hardly been bosom pals since leaving school, and apart from the effusive Tweets gushing about “fab holidays!” and “Just met the most fit guy, hope he’s fit everywhere LOL!!!!” which gave me some idea of her hedonistic and sickeningly popular lifestyle, we had only actually met twice. Once was by accident as I was hurrying to catch a train on the way to yet another unhopeful office interview. Jude emerged from the station café, looking like she’d stepped out of a Vogue photo shoot; slinky red two piece that clung to her like a sheet of crimson water, dangerously vertiginous heels that probably cost more than a month’s salary for me and a ludicrously enormous studded leather bag which, judging by the casual way it swung from her arm, contained nothing more than a hanky.
“Babs!” she shrieked (my name is actually Barbara and only Jude called me by this diminutive). “You look totally – like, totally…”
“Crap?” I offered, shoving stray hairs out of my eyes and sucking in my stomach.
“No, lovey. Great. Lovely, in fact. You’ve hardly changed!”
“Bloody hell, have I always looked middle aged and knackered?” I sighed. It was no good attempting witty riposte or sarcasm with Jude. Beauty she had in spades; brains, not so much.
We paused, swapped that awkward chit-chat that people who don’t see each other much indulge in, me keeping an eye on the train times. It turned out Jude was in between husbands, had her sights set on someone called Chad or Brad or something. The fact that he was also married to some woman we also went to school with she saw as a challenge no doubt.
I have to say she looked absolutely stunning, and not just her glamorous outfit. She was as I mentioned almost the same age as me, which is to say that anxious and obsessive period somewhere between 30 and 45. Not quite “madam” but definitely no longer “Miss.” Her face though – her face was glowing, completely line free and porcelain smooth. It was fascinating; close up it reminded me of a Victorian doll that my mother had from a child. Kind of dead looking, with cold glassy eyes. The doll’s eyes that is. Jude’s were outlined and painted to within an inch of their life and sparkled with malice. She assessed me from head to toe with the appraising look a butcher might give a slightly out of date side of beef.
“I can’t stop Babs, but wonderful to bump into you. You look so – natural.”
Natural? What the hell did she think I was made of, polystyrene? “Er, cheers” I managed. “You look so – so -.”
“I know!” she trilled. “Look, I can’t stop. Here, do yourself a favour. Try this, it’s incredible stuff. Costs a fortune, bought it abroad, not entirely legal or tested yet but believe me, you won’t regret it. You wouldn’t catch me having bloody surgeons cutting me around and stitching my face back together. No, take it” as I pushed the plastic pot back at her, “I’ve got loads more. Can’t let old Father Time get the last laugh you know.”
And with that Jude was gone, sweeping through the rush hour crowds like a scarlet apparition, leaving behind just a hint of some heady scent that mingled with the stench of grease from the café. I looked down at the small pot in my hand. It had a gold coloured lid, and no label whatsoever on the side, which didn’t inspire confidence. As I passed an overflowing litter bin I raised my hand, about to throw it away; after all, Jude wasn’t the type to give anyone anything except heartache and a sense of inferiority. On the other hand, it might be a laugh to try it out tonight, before I went to bed, I thought. If I woke up looking like Jude’s mother I’d be well satisfied.
It was some weeks before I plucked up courage to actually unscrew the pot and smear some of its contents on my face and neck however. The first morning after I’d used it I hurried to the mirror and couldn’t believe my blurry eyes. My skin was already improving, and I swear the deeper wrinkles were less noticeable. After showering I slathered on a generous gloop, and that evening repeated the treatment. It was working! It actually was smoothing my skin and, yes, I could see a subtle youthful glow. My neck too seemed firmer and more springy. I kept peering at the pot and turning it upside down to try to decipher some tiny lettering, some clue as to the ingredients at least. Even cosmetics made abroad, I reasoned, must list the contents surely?
In the meantime, I met Jude again, this time by arrangement. We agreed to meet in one of the pubs on the High Street, a mock-Tudor monstrosity with black not-wood beams and pretend medieval tapestries. She was already sitting at a table when I turned up, immaculately overdressed in exquisitely tailored trousers, a lime green silk blouse undone to reveal a tantalising glimpse of golden cleavage and expensive looking loafers. I must say she was attracting some dazed looks from a few of the local men; the women of course were sending her death ray glares. She loved all that.
She seemed rather subdued, mournful even, and sipped half heartedly at a glass of wine.
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