Becoming Lisa Pt. 01

BECOMING LISA - PART ONE: THE WOMAN THREE DOORS DOWN

The first thing Ben noticed about Vanessa wasn't that she was blonde, or even that she was tall enough to stand out amongst the removal men unloading furniture onto the gravel drive. It was the trousers: black leather, clearly the real thing, fitted beautifully from waist to ankle. Ben knew that straight away.

He was eighteen, six-foot-one and slender, with enough definition through his shoulders and arms to have stopped looking boyish without yet looking fully grown. His A-levels were finished, university was still a couple of months away, and he was spending the summer working shifts at the village pub, saving money and trying not to think too hard about what September might bring. He had grown up in the sort of semi-rural English village where very little happened and almost nothing remained private: a pub, a cricket club, a church, a short parade of shops and open fields beginning five minutes beyond the houses.

So when somebody new moved into the large detached house three doors down, everybody noticed. Ben happened to be outside cleaning his car when the removal van arrived, a sponge in one hand and a bucket beside his feet, and he had a perfect view as Vanessa appeared to direct proceedings.

She had heavy blonde hair, large sunglasses and a white blouse worn with those black leather trousers and elegant ankle boots. Then Ben noticed the cigarette between two black leather-gloved fingers. The gloves fitted perfectly, moving with every gesture as she pointed one removal man towards the garage, took a drag and turned her head to exhale into the afternoon air.

Ben stopped cleaning. There was something about the complete picture -- the confidence, the glamour, the blonde hair, the cigarette -- that caught him completely, although the leather was still what held his attention longest. Especially the gloves.

His father appeared behind him.

"New neighbour."

"Yeah."

"Looks like London."

Ben wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but somehow it seemed accurate. Vanessa certainly didn't look like anyone else in the village.

His father nodded towards the car.

"You planning on washing that bit twice?"

Ben realised he had been rubbing the same patch of bonnet for perhaps thirty seconds.

"Right."

He moved around the car, but a minute later he looked back. Vanessa was stubbing out her cigarette in a small silver ashtray she had apparently brought outside with her, then pulling off one glove slowly by the fingers. Ben watched the soft black leather slide from her hand and wondered, not for the first time in his life, why women's leather clothing had such a peculiar hold over his attention.

He had no useful answer.

---

Her name was Vanessa. Ben learned that two days later when he came home from an afternoon shift at the pub and found his mother making dinner.

"You know the woman who moved into the Hargreaves' old place?"

"Vanessa?"

His mother looked at him.

"You know her name?"

"People were talking at work."

That was true. The pub had already established that Vanessa was divorced, had moved from London and had apparently paid far too much for the house, although nobody seemed particularly sure where any of the information had originated.

"Anyway, she needs somebody to help around the place."

Ben opened the fridge.

"What sort of help?"

"Garden. Moving things. Decorating. General jobs."

"Why me?"

"Because you keep saying you want more money before university."

"I've got the pub."

"You also spend half the week sitting around here."

"I work shifts."

"Exactly."

Ben closed the fridge.

"How often does she need someone?"

"Quite often, apparently. The house needs more doing than she realised. I told her you'd pop over tomorrow morning."

"You what?"

"You're working tomorrow evening, aren't you?"

"Six till close."

"Perfect."

Ben opened his mouth to object, then remembered the black leather trousers and the gloves.

"Fine."

His mother smiled without looking up.

"That was easier than expected."

---

At ten the following morning Ben walked three houses down. He had decided firmly that he wasn't going to make any effort over what he wore, then changed his T-shirt twice before settling on jeans and a fitted grey one. He rang the bell, heard footsteps approaching, and when the door opened discovered that Vanessa was wearing leather again.

This pair was deep chocolate brown, softer and more matte than the black trousers he had seen on moving day. She wore them with a cream cashmere jumper and tan ankle boots, her blonde hair loosely tied behind her head. There were no gloves this time, and Ben experienced a ridiculous flicker of disappointment.

"You must be Ben."

"Yeah."

"Your mother has volunteered you for manual labour."

"Apparently."

Vanessa smiled and stepped aside.

"Come in."

The house was beautiful but chaotic. Pictures leaned against walls, half-built furniture occupied several rooms, books were stacked on the floor and a roll of wallpaper sat inexplicably in the hallway.

"Coffee?"

Ben brightened.

"Definitely."

"Strong?"

"Very."

"Excellent."

Vanessa had a proper coffee machine, which immediately elevated her further in Ben's estimation. She made two coffees and leaned against the kitchen island opposite him while he took in the house and, despite himself, her.

Without the sunglasses she looked about forty, perhaps a little older; he would later discover she was forty-one. Her blonde hair was thick and expensive-looking, her skin polished, and there was enough smoky makeup around her eyes to make ten in the morning look more glamorous than Ben had previously thought possible.

She noticed him looking.

"Nervous?"

"No."

"Good, because I've got approximately six months' worth of jobs."

Ben laughed.

"That bad?"

"You haven't seen the garage."

She listed them for him: the garden, garage, shelves, pictures, moving furniture, painting the spare bedroom, repairing the shed and doing something about a hedge the previous owners appeared to have surrendered to completely.

"When are you at the pub?" she asked.

Ben explained his shifts.

"So Monday mornings?"

"Usually."

"Wednesday afternoons?"

"Before I start at six."

"And Saturdays?"

"If I'm not on lunch shift."

Vanessa smiled.

"Three times a week, potentially."

"If you've got enough work."

She glanced around at the boxes.

"Oh, Ben. I've got enough work."

Just like that, Vanessa's house became part of his week.

---

Monday mornings, Wednesday afternoons and Saturdays became the rough pattern. His pub rota occasionally changed and Vanessa sometimes had plans, but before long he was seeing her two or three times most weeks. The money was useful and, surprisingly, he quite enjoyed the work, but there was another reason he never seemed reluctant when Vanessa asked whether he was free.

He wanted to see what she would be wearing.

Vanessa appeared to own an extraordinary amount of leather, yet none of it looked like fetish clothing or fancy dress. She simply treated leather as an ordinary part of a fashionable wardrobe: black trousers with a crisp white shirt, tan leather with cashmere, a burgundy jacket over jeans, a fitted pencil skirt when she was heading somewhere smarter, along with suede coats, knee-high boots and several pairs of gloves.

Ben began recognising individual pieces. He knew which black trousers were particularly soft, which jacket made the faintest creak when Vanessa reached above her head, and which pair of boots brought them close to eye level. More than anything, though, he noticed the gloves.

Vanessa smoked, although never constantly and almost always outside. She kept an ashtray on the patio and would occasionally interrupt a job to make coffee, sit outside and light a cigarette. When she happened to be wearing leather gloves, Ben found concentration markedly more difficult.

He liked the whole ritual: the cigarette held between black leather fingers, the small movement as she lifted it towards her lips, the faint lipstick sometimes left on the filter and the smoke drifting away as she turned her head. Ben knew perfectly well that smoking was not supposed to be attractive, but Vanessa somehow made it look sophisticated and faintly illicit.

What confused him was that he couldn't quite separate the components. He was certainly attracted to Vanessa, but he was increasingly fascinated by the clothes themselves too. Sometimes he wondered whether he wanted the woman, the leather, or some combination of the two that he didn't yet have the vocabulary to understand.

---

One Wednesday they had been carrying boxes out of the garage for the best part of an hour when Vanessa stopped halfway across the drive.

"Break."

Ben put his box down.

"Thank God."

"You're eighteen."

"I work closing shifts in a pub. I'm approximately forty-six."

Vanessa smiled.

"Coffee?"

"Obviously."

"And cigarette?"

Ben hesitated for perhaps half a second.

"Definitely."

He smoked occasionally anyway, usually after work or with friends after a few drinks, but smoking with Vanessa felt different. She disappeared inside and returned a few minutes later carrying his coffee and the ashtray, with a cigarette already between the black leather fingers of her free hand.

Ben watched her light it. He always watched.

Vanessa drew in the smoke, turned her head and exhaled towards the garden, then caught him staring again.

"You going to have one or just watch me?"

"Have you got one?"

She handed him the packet. Ben took a cigarette, realised he had forgotten his lighter, and Vanessa immediately held hers out. He leaned towards the flame, briefly conscious of her gloved hand only inches from his face and the odd combination of perfume, tobacco and leather.

When he straightened, Vanessa glanced at his hands.

"Cold?"

"What?"

"Your hands."

Ben looked down. The afternoon had turned cooler and, annoyingly, she was right.

"A bit."

Vanessa compared his bare hands with her own gloves.

"Hang on."

She disappeared inside again and returned carrying another pair.

Ben stared.

They were more elaborate than the gloves Vanessa usually wore for gardening: soft black leather with three elegant lines of stitching along the back of each hand, subtle contrast detailing at the edges and slightly extended cuffs. When Vanessa turned one over, Ben caught a glimpse of warm cappuccino-coloured fur inside.

She held them out.

"Here."

"What?"

"Put them on."

He laughed nervously.

"Why?"

"Because your hands are freezing."

"They're not freezing."

"Ben."

He looked at the gloves again.

"They're yours."

"That tends to be how lending works."

"They'll never fit."

"We're nearly the same size."

"Our hands aren't."

"Try."

Ben took the first glove and pushed his hand inside. The sensation surprised him immediately; instead of ordinary lining, his fingers disappeared into dense, unbelievably soft fur. As he worked his hand fully into place, the black leather drew snugly across the back of his hand.

Vanessa smiled at his expression.

"Rabbit fur."

Ben flexed his fingers.

"Wow."

"Told you."

He put on the second glove and inspected both hands. The three-point stitching seemed to lengthen his fingers, while a narrow edge of pale brown fur showed at each cuff. The effect was surprisingly elegant, and he found himself turning his hands over, rubbing one leather-covered thumb against the opposite palm simply to feel the material move.

"Comfortable?" Vanessa asked.

"Very."

"They're Italian."

"Of course they are."

She laughed.

Ben smiled too, but underneath the humour was the same strange internal jolt he always felt when looking at Vanessa in leather. The difference was that this time the leather was on him.

Vanessa picked up her cigarette.

"Now you can stop looking tragic."

---

They sat together on the low garden wall with their coffees and cigarettes, both of them wearing black leather gloves. Ben tried to treat the situation as entirely ordinary, but it wasn't ordinary to him at all.

Vanessa held her cigarette elegantly between two gloved fingers and, without consciously deciding to, Ben found himself copying the way she held it. She noticed almost immediately.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"You're smiling."

"So?"

"You're laughing at me."

"I'm not."

Vanessa took another drag and glanced down at his hands.

"You look good in them."

Ben went unexpectedly quiet. It was an inconsequential remark in one sense, but it didn't feel inconsequential to him.

"Do I?"

"Yes. You've got long fingers. Gloves suit you."

Ben flexed them again, watching the leather crease softly over his knuckles while the rabbit fur pressed around his fingers.

"You really like them, don't you?" Vanessa asked.

There seemed little point pretending otherwise.

"Yeah."

She nodded.

"I thought you might."

That phrase stayed with him -- I thought you might -- but before he could decide whether to ask what she meant, Vanessa stood and announced that their break was over.

Ben began pulling off one glove.

"Keep them on," she said.

"What?"

"They're warmer."

"But we're moving boxes."

"They'll survive."

"You sure?"

"Ben, they're gloves. And apparently you're very attached to them."

He laughed and left them on. For the next hour he worked in Vanessa's leather gloves, the rabbit fur warming his hands while the soft black leather moved around his fingers. Every so often he caught himself looking down at them.

---

After that, their cigarette break became part of the routine: coffee, the patio, two cigarettes, Vanessa in whichever outfit she had chosen that day and, increasingly often, Ben wearing the fur-lined gloves.

The second time she handed them to him without comment. The third time he arrived to find them already lying beside his coffee cup.

Ben looked at the gloves, then at Vanessa.

"What?"

She lit her cigarette.

"You always complain your hands are cold."

"I complained once."

Vanessa smiled.

"Fine. I like you wearing them."

Ben looked at her.

She took a drag and added, almost casually:

"They suit you."

Then she changed the subject.

---

The stranger thing was how quickly Vanessa herself became normal in his life. Not ordinary -- Ben doubted Vanessa could ever be ordinary -- but familiar. Mondays meant wandering three houses down after breakfast; Wednesdays often meant leaving Vanessa's and going directly to his evening shift; Saturdays could stretch from late morning until four or five.

Vanessa always made coffee and sometimes lunch. Quite often they would finish whatever job they were doing and spend another half-hour sitting outside talking about university, music, London, his parents, the pub and, occasionally, her divorce.

Ben discovered that she was funny, dry and occasionally filthy in the way she swore when something went wrong. More importantly, she didn't treat him like a child. Most adults he knew still spoke to him as though eighteen were simply seventeen with legal access to a bar, whereas Vanessa asked what he thought, listened to the answer, teased him, argued with him and sometimes seemed to forget about the age difference entirely.

Ben liked that almost as much as he liked the leather. Almost.

---

One Saturday they spent most of the afternoon upstairs assembling shelves. Vanessa was wearing fitted black leather trousers and a pale blue silk shirt, and Ben had become familiar enough with her wardrobe to recognise the trousers as his favourites. He would never have admitted that.

Vanessa climbed onto a small stepladder.

"Hand me the drill."

Ben passed it up. She stretched towards the wall, the leather tightening along her legs, and Ben looked for just long enough to lose track of what he was doing.

"Ben."

"What?"

"You're holding the shelf upside down."

He looked. He was.

"Right."

Vanessa laughed.

"You feeling all right?"

"Fine."

"Coffee?"

"Yes."

"Definitely coffee."

As she climbed down and passed him, the leather of her trousers brushed briefly against his jeans. Ben froze for an instant. Vanessa either didn't notice or chose not to, and he was increasingly unsure which possibility unsettled him more.

---

Later they sat outside smoking. Vanessa wore her own gloves, while Ben had automatically pulled on the rabbit-lined pair she had begun casually referring to as "yours". That word unsettled him in a way he rather liked.

He wrapped both gloved hands around his coffee mug and watched Vanessa smoke.

"You're getting very comfortable with those," she said.

"You keep giving them to me."

"True."

"They're warm."

"Of course."

Her tone made it obvious she didn't believe warmth was the entire explanation.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You do that a lot."

"Do what?"

"Say nothing when you obviously mean something."

Vanessa smiled.

"Maybe I'm mysterious."

"You're not."

"Rude."

Ben laughed. Vanessa smoked for a few seconds before glancing again at his hands.

"I told you they suited you."

"I didn't say you were wrong."

"Progress."

"What does that mean?"

Vanessa stood.

"Absolutely nothing."

Ben watched her walk back towards the house with the distinct sense that she understood a joke he had not yet been told.

---

Vanessa occasionally came into the pub while Ben was working, which introduced an entirely new problem. The first time it happened, he nearly walked into a table. She arrived with two women from London wearing black leather trousers, knee-high boots and a fitted burgundy leather jacket, her blonde hair loose around her shoulders. She was wearing gloves too, of course.

Ben was collecting glasses when Vanessa saw him and gave the smallest wave. His colleague followed his gaze.

"Who's that?"

"My neighbour."

"Your neighbour?"

"Yeah."

The other boy looked at Vanessa and then back at Ben.

"Mate."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Ben carried on working, but for the next hour he remained acutely conscious of Vanessa somewhere behind him. When he eventually served their table, she looked up with an amused smile.

"Evening, Benjamin."

She had never called him Benjamin before.

"Vanessa."

"A bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, please."

Ben wrote it down while Vanessa tapped one black leather finger lightly against the menu. His gaze dropped for only a second, but she caught him. Her smile changed, barely, and Ben escaped towards the bar.

Later, when Vanessa went outside for a cigarette, Ben checked the clock and discovered that it was, entirely coincidentally, time for his break. Probably.

Vanessa was leaning against the wall when he came outside, cigarette in hand and blonde hair resting over the collar of her leather jacket.

"Coincidence?" she asked.

"Break."

"Of course."

Ben lit a cigarette. Without the gloves he had become accustomed to borrowing at Vanessa's house, he felt oddly underdressed. Apparently she noticed too.

"Where are your gloves?"

"At your house."

"Poor planning."

"I didn't realise they were part of my uniform."

Vanessa took a drag.

"Maybe they should be."

Ben looked at her, but she merely smiled and changed the subject again.

---

By the end of the first month Ben had worked for Vanessa eleven times. He had cut hedges, assembled furniture, moved dozens of boxes, painted half a bedroom, repaired a gate, cleared most of the garage, hung pictures and begun restoring an old garden table. He had probably drunk thirty cups of coffee in the process.

More significantly, he had developed an unreasonable awareness of Vanessa's wardrobe and a peculiar attachment to a pair of black Italian leather gloves lined with rabbit fur that did not technically belong to him.

One Monday Vanessa opened the door wearing faded jeans and Ben felt instantly, ridiculously disappointed. An hour later she came back outside wearing a fitted black leather jacket over her T-shirt, and his mood improved so quickly that he caught himself doing it.

Oh, for God's sake.

Vanessa had put her own gloves on too. Without saying anything, she handed Ben the fur-lined pair. By now there was no hesitation; he pushed his fingers into the soft lining, pulled the leather snugly into place and smoothed the stitched backs of the gloves almost automatically.

Vanessa watched him.

"See?"

"What?"

"You're learning."

"I'm learning to do what?"

"Not complain."

"That's impossible."

She laughed.

They took their coffee outside and smoked together, and Ben realised that wearing the gloves had begun to feel almost natural. That was perhaps the strangest part. A month earlier, wearing a pair of women's leather gloves would have seemed secretive, loaded and somehow dangerous. Now Vanessa simply put them beside his coffee and Ben pulled them on.

Nothing terrible happened. The world continued exactly as before. He liked wearing them, and for the moment that explanation was enough.

---

That afternoon Vanessa pointed towards the far end of the garden.

"The shed."

Ben followed her gaze.

"What about it?"

"Wednesday."

"You want me to demolish it?"

"Repair it."

"That might be harder."

"I have faith in you."

"That seems unwise."

Vanessa explained that the roof needed attention and there was a pile of rubbish behind it that needed clearing. Ben looked towards the sky, where clouds were already beginning to gather.

"Forecast's awful Wednesday."

"We're English."

"Fair."

"Wear something you don't mind ruining."

"I've got the pub at six."

"We'll finish before then."

"Famous last words."

Vanessa shrugged.

"If it rains, it rains."

"And if we get soaked?"

"Then we get soaked."

She stood with her blonde hair moving in the breeze, fitted leather jacket around her body and a cigarette held between gloved fingers. Ben's eyes followed her until Vanessa turned and caught him looking.

"Wednesday. Two o'clock."

"I'll be here."

---

Wednesday arrived beneath a sky the colour of slate. Ben reached Vanessa's just before two and found two coffees already waiting on the patio table, with the black leather gloves lying beside his cup.

The sight of them made him smile. He no longer needed to ask.

Ben picked up one glove and turned back the little cuff, exposing the soft cappuccino-coloured rabbit fur before pushing his hand into its warmth. He pulled the black leather snugly into place, smoothed the elegant stitched lines along the back of his hand and repeated the process with the other glove while Vanessa stood nearby smoking and watching him.

"See?"

Ben flexed his fingers.

"What?"

"You're learning."

"I thought we established I wasn't."

Vanessa took another drag.

"Maybe."

Ben picked up his coffee, assuming she meant the jobs. Much later, he would wonder whether she had meant something else entirely.

For now there was only the shed, the approaching rain, the glamorous blonde woman three houses down, and a pair of soft black leather gloves lined with rabbit fur that had somehow begun to feel almost like his.