Read Weekend for Free Online

she had looked better than this for years and nothing had happened. Could it happen now? It had to. Alan’s remarriage had been one sign. It had been like the final switching-off of what she had come to realise belatedly was a baleful influence on her life, always had been.
    She looked across at the dress lying on the bed, its grey cloth so familiar. She put down her glass of wine. She stood up and took off her jeans, laid them lengthwise on the bed, wriggled out of the Lycra top, straightened it out and put it beside the jeans. She turned and looked at herself in the mirror.
    The Janet Reger underwear had been her one serious indulgence for this weekend, a bigger one than she could afford. She was glad she had overcome her misgivings about the price. The silk bra and pants made her feel sensuous. Perhaps they would make somebody else feel the same.Sensing tears almost come to her eyes as she contemplated her still attractive breasts so long starved of touch, she fortified herself with wine.
    She picked up the grey dress from the bed and slid it over her head, smoothing it down past her hips. She took the broad black belt from the bed and buckled it round her waist. The alterations to the dress had taken the waist in, made it sleeveless and brought the hemline up. With the roll-neck, she thought it made her look like a nun who had broken out of the convent and made a few adjustments to her habit. She smiled to herself. That seemed appropriate. It was the last thing that Alan had bought for her and, in its original box-like style, sleeved and coming below her knees, it had made her look like a nun. ‘Where’s the wimple?’ she had asked him. She ran her hands down the contours that the dress emphasised. The libido strikes back.
    She took off the dress and laid it carefully on the bed. She brought the phone across and put it on the dressing-table. She topped up her wine-glass and dialled Marion’s number. Marion answered after a long time, as usual. Vikki sometimes wondered if she was waiting to find out if the caller would give up.
    ‘Marion. It’s Vikki. You all set?’
    ‘For what?’
    ‘The trip. Tomorrow.’
    ‘Oh, yes. That.’
    Even when you were sitting beside her, Marion often gave the impression of not quite being in the same room with you. But tonight she sounded as if she was in another country.
    ‘You did remember?’ Vikki said.
    ‘Of course. I’m packed. I wasn’t absolutely sure about going at first.’
    ‘Marion!’
    Vikki immediately set about persuading her. She had phoned to give her own stalled sense of purpose a psychological tow from Marion’s imagined enthusiasm. Now she was dreading catching her inertia. By the time they had finished talking, Marion was saying she would definitely go. But when Vikki put the phone down, the conviction she had managed to impart to Marion seemed to have cost her her own. Aware of how much she might shock Marion, she stared at herself in the mirror, thinking she saw there a belated reveller who was turning up when the party was over. That was when she really cried. Turning the wine into water, she told herself. She let the tears work themselves out. When she looked back into the mirror, the mascara she had applied to have the full effect of her new appearance had spiked itself round her eyes.
    Maybe she should be a Goth for the weekend, she thought. That would really shock Marion …
     
     
     
     
    … who was sitting very still, as if imitating the nickname she knew some of the other students had for her: the Mouse. Why had she agreed to go on this trip? It intimidated her. Nearly everything did.
    She sat with her cup of coffee going cold in front of her, resting on a copy of
Hello!
so that it wouldn’t leave a ring on the glass of the table. She wasn’t enjoying the coffee. She had never been sure if she went on buying this brand for the taste or because it had been advertised a while ago on television as part of a romantic serial. Did she imagine it