What became of us

cheating.
    The effect of their afternoon’s work, she couldn’t help thinking, was rather stunning, but you could never be sure. Some years before there had been a series of adverts in women’s magazines trying to get girls to train as mental health nurses which had shown a picture of a painfully thin woman looking in a mirror and seeing herself reflected back fat. The shout-line was something like ‘She thinks she’s fat’ and the idea was that as a mental health nurse you would be able to help the patient to see herself as she really was. Annie’s own particular neurosis was the other way around. She could get all dressed up, look in the mirror and think she looked not bad at all, really rather slim, thin even, only to walk past a reflecting shop window moments later and see the milky reflection of a whale on legs.
    Even that, you could put down to angles. Worse was when some prat at a party snapped you with a Polaroid camera and the rest of the guests gathered round before you’d had a chance to destroy the evidence, chorusing: ‘Oh, Annie, that’s so good of you!’
    And the very worst thing was when a similar picture appeared in OK! magazine.
    ‘Annie McClintock enjoying herself at a party to celebrate...’ the caption would read.
    They always said enjoying when the camera caught you without a chin.

    ‘Not fat at all,’ Maurice assured her.
    He had a big soft powder brush in his hand. He had put a lot of white powder in the elaborate hairstyle he had created, and now he wanted to powder the exposed part of her bosom.
    ‘But why?’ Annie asked him. ‘Is my skin blotchy?’
    ‘Not at all.’
    ‘Uneven skin tone?’
    ‘No, no. It’s just part of the styling...’
    Not for the first time that afternoon, she wondered whether it had been such a good idea to ask Maurice, the make-up artist on her show, if he would do her the great favour of helping with her look for the producer’s fortieth birthday party. Maurice had arrived with a friend of his called Denny to do the styling.
    ‘It’s about the total look,’ he had replied, when Annie asked him what that actually meant.
    ‘But I’ve picked out the dress already,’ she protested, wondering whether she was taking the whole business of fancy dress too seriously.
    Sometimes, when she was up early enough, she caught a programme on television after the breakfast news called Style Challenge. Willing victims found themselves in a BBC studio being made over. The stylist’s role was to pick out cheap chainstore imitations of couture for them, but oddly the contestants very rarely ended up wearing the garments that had been chosen for them.
    What happened to the cigarette-leg pants from Principles? Ann ie would call out, as the contestant paraded about in a long skirt from C&A, almost invariably looking far older and fatter at the end of the programme than she had on arrival.
    ‘How do you feel?’ the host would ask.
    ‘Great, really fantastic, I can’t believe it!’ the famous-for-fifteen-minutes would respond breathlessly.
    ‘You look like shit!’ Annie would shout.
    It was one of the benefits of living on your own, being able to converse with the television, although slightly worrying, in other respects.

    ‘Are you sure that this colour isn’t too bridal?’ Annie said, giving herself another long hard look.
    She had set her heart on wearing a dress with a hooped petticoat, and the ivory silk had been the only one left in her size. Usually there was a choice of dark green satin or red and black tartan taffeta too, the costumier had explained, but there was a run on them that weekend because of a ball to launch a new range of cosmetics called Scarlett.
    ‘Not with the beauty spot and the lipstick,’ Denny chimed in.
    He said it just a little bit too quickly. What he meant was that it did look a bit bridal but not exactly demure. A tarty bride. Oh, to hell with it. Annie looked at her big plastic watch: the minicab had already been waiting downstairs for ten minutes.
    ‘You’re not going to wear that?’ Maurice asked, aghast.
    ‘Can’t go anywhere without a watch,’ Annie told him, following his line of vision to her left wrist.
    ‘But the look...’
    ‘Maurice, I’m not appearing in a costume drama, I’m going to a party. The watch adds a certain ironic touch, don’t you think?’
    ‘If you say so.’
    ‘You’ve both been darlings,’ Annie said, kissing each man on the cheek. ‘Make sure you finish the