Heavenly Bodies | By Fiona Murphy-McCormack

Words by Fiona Murphy-McCormack | Art by Ida Henrich

It was around midnight in the ladies’ bathrooms at Echo. The walls were dark, and the stalls seemed empty. Aluma stood illuminated, gazing at her own reflection. Her body vibrating from the music blaring. She’d been surrounded in sound and sweat and pounding bodies of flesh and thrumming tunes. Her heart fluttered palpitations against her chest and would not rest. She left to the cold and quiet, dingy but mercifully abandoned toilets for breath. An unholy combination of tequila and prosecco churning inside her, what would her mother say if she found her now?

What am I doing here? Aluma wondered. She squinted, staring in the mirror. Out to criticise every inch of herself.  The cheap yellow dress she’d worn seemed immature, dirty from spilling and the back was slightly torn. Its fabric didn’t cover her shoulders so now she grabbed at the flab, clung to her arms. Why did I think this was okay? I am a whale. Her haze of heavy hair had become frizzier than she was going for. She could just imagine her straight-haired sister rolling her eyes and sighing. She tried a smile but couldn’t help noticing the gap between her teeth. There was a conflicting argument ongoing within Aluma’s mind. That looks did not matter, and yet she could not be kind to the cracks in her complexion she wanted kept hidden.

At this moment, Caoimhe stumbled in. Despite her inebriated gait, she was somewhat graceful nonetheless. She glanced in the mirror, fingers fiddling with her pixie cut pink hair which framed her face like a naiad. The red dress she wore was velveteen and held against her willowy frame elegantly and matched by her elevating high heels. Several inky black tattoos illustrated her arms. Aluma could not help but stare at the drawings and wonder their meanings. Caoimhe took out a makeup bag and began to brush some loose powder, painting herself with artful dexterity. Creating chiselled cheeks with contouring, eyebrows darkened and realising until you looked closely. A smattering of stardust glitter shadowing above the brightness of her own eyes.

‘Hi.’

‘Hiya,’ Aluma mumbled back. She felt her voice husky from having to scream to get drinks.

‘I know it’s a bit dark, but do you think my lipstick looks alright?’ Caoimhe asked. She pouted her lips and puckered, into a crimson grin. Set against her porcelain skin, she made Aluma think of old-fashioned Hollywood films. She nodded.

‘Are you sure?’ she said, frowning. ‘It doesn’t clash with my dress does it? Or do you think it’s too dark for anyone to notice? I just feel like a bit of a clown if I’m honest.’

‘You’ve got nothing to worry about, you look great.’

‘Oh, you have to be joking me,’ she said. ‘I hope it doesn’t seem like I’m begging you for compliments.’

‘No, it doesn’t, I promise.’

‘But really though, just look. Aren’t I hideous?’

Aluma wondered what her reaction would be if the answer was yes. ‘Of course not.’

‘You’re just saying that.’

‘I don’t know you, why would I be?’ she asked. ‘No, trust me. You are stunning. I just think what little difference your lipstick makes. You were a beautiful girl now you’re a beautiful girl with red lips.’

At that, Aluma’s own lips quivered a little. She tried to slow her breathing as she rolled a thin piece of loo roll to pat her tears away. It was as if the tears she had been bottling were popped like an uncorked champagne now bubbled to the surface. Caoimhe turned away from the mirror to look at this sobbing stranger. Clutching her arms around Aluma, she held her.

‘Oh, oh, oh. What’s wrong love? Bad date night or something?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t really do this. Going out, I mean. And now I’ve done it. I’m here. And I hate it. I’m trying to drag myself home. All I want to do is binge watch shows and sleep every Saturday night. I don’t belong here. And everything about me is disgusting and ugly and I just want to look good.  God, this is pathetic, isn’t it?’

‘No, no, it isn’t.’

‘I don’t even know why I’m telling you this,’ Aluma said, she began to break away from this stranger’s embrace.

‘Well probably because you’re drunk,’ Caoimhe said, with a small laugh.

‘Yes. It’s like a truth elixir.’

‘But you’re not ugly.’

Aluma disregarded this and shook her head. ‘I know. Rationally, I know. It’s a first world problem. At least I have a relatively healthy body, if not mind. And I can come and go and leave here if I chose. But still I’m finding things to bitch about.’

‘No,’ Caoimhe stopped her. ‘Hey, it’s your life. And you’re having a crap night out. You’ve got a right to hate it. Is that why you’re hiding out in here?’

‘It’s just too much,’ Aluma said, though she couldn’t describe it. ‘And then I came in here and there’s mirrors which make me want to die.’

‘That’s just how I feel. Like, right now I’m on a date. We met on some dating app. And she’s stunning and goals and a real makeup artist. And I just used good lighting and too many filters. Because when I met her I realised she is a supermodel and I’m just another troll. And she’s so out of my league I’m drinking just to make myself at ease with it. So, we started over at Venus, you know?’

Aluma nodded although she did not know.

‘And everyone was flirting with her, meanwhile I’m just sitting there twiddling my thumbs and nobody comes. She’s still out there but I’m worried what she’ll think. Trust me, even if your straight, you’ll see what I mean. You’re sure this lipstick isn’t too much though, really?’

‘No, I mean it. When you came in here I thought oh no, another gorgeous girl to compare myself to. Just look at you.’

At that moment they turned to their reflections. If they looked long enough, they could pretend to be the other, looking back.

‘You look so cool with your pink hair,’ Aluma said, ‘I wish mine could do that.’

‘Are you kidding, it’s so try hard. I cut it after my last breakup and then immediately regretted it so I dyed it Appalling Pink. That’s literally what it said on the box. It’s not wrong,’ Caoimhe fired back. ‘Look at yours. It’s so badass and authentic. And it sort of sits up high and regal like that, like a halo.’

‘Shut up, no it’s not. It’s a thicket,’ Aluma said. ‘I love how you dress and your little artsy tattoos.’

‘They are all wonky and uneven and done with a stick and poke. Hurt so much. Plus, if you feel them, there’s all this scarring beneath. It’s just trashy. My Ma can’t even look at me without saying what are you going to do on your wedding day? Like I don’t know Ma I guess if I get married that won’t be my ultimate concern. You suit that dress by the way.’

‘Are you kidding?’ Aluma asked, scrunching up her nose. ‘It’s yucky yellow. I look like an off banana. Plus, I’d kill to be as small as you.

‘I hate it.’ Caoimhe dismissed. ‘You’re curvy and leggy.’

‘Big and fat you mean,’ Aluma fought back.

‘No!’ she fought, ‘you just look beautiful. Like you don’t even need to wear makeup and you still look good.’

‘I wish I could do makeup like you do though,’ Aluma said.

‘But you don’t need to.’

There was a pause as they inspected themselves again as if looking for more flaws to find.

 ‘I’m Caoimhe by the way,’ she said, extending a hand. ‘Don’t think I said that to you before.’

‘I’m Aluma.’

‘You know what’s really messed up?’ Caoimhe asked.

‘What?’

‘When I saw you, I wanted to hate you.’

Aluma shifted uncomfortably in her strappy sandals. ‘Why?’

‘Because you’re stunning,’ Caoimhe said.

‘Oh, okay.’

‘But how messed up is that?’ Caoimhe asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘A lot. That makes me think of how my mother if I was being bullied she’d always say they were jealous. And I’d just think, what on earth do they have to be jealous about? But maybe she was right.’

‘She was right, you’re fabulous and you embrace it,’ Caoimhe said. ‘That’s enviable. But we should like, build women up not tear each other down, you know?’

Aluma shrugged and nodded, smiling to herself that Caoimhe’s drunken mind considered this a profound thought.

‘Yeah.’

‘Do you believe in a God?’

‘I’m not sure. I guess if my mother was here I’d say I was Christian.’

‘Right, like I don’t know either, like what I believe in. But I think something created me. And whether that was God or a Goddess or evolution or whatever, who am I to tell anyone that this vessel that I happen to reside in which was architectured in someone’s image, is flawed?’

‘At the end of the day, we are all just meat sacks walking around,’ Aluma added. ‘But that makes me think of something my mother says which is basically along the lines of how we all have our feet rooted to the ground, but we grow with the crowns of our heads facing the heavens. Like flowers.’

Caoimhe touched the top of her head and looked above her as thought it had sprouted a connection with some far-off constellations. Then to her phone. ‘I should go, I’ve been sitting in here talking away and meanwhile my date probably thinks there is something deeply wrong with my digestion. Would you want to come with me?’

‘Yeah,’ Aluma said slowly. ‘The bathrooms stink and I could really use another drink.’

‘It’s on me.’

‘No.’

‘No, really, you helped me,’ Caoimhe insisted. ‘Let’s go out there and prove to the world, look, here are two gorgeous goddesses who know how to have a good time and what they want and that they are worth it, and they don’t care what you think.’

Aluma raised her eyebrows quizzically at Caoimhe and smiled. ‘Do I have a spot right here on my nose?’

Caoimhe swatted her fingers from her face. ‘Who cares about those!’

Like old friends who had met as children, the girls giggled as they left the bathroom. Lucy unhinged the lock on the stall door she had been sitting in since they began. She had hidden in here channelling down a quiet anxiety attack. Looking at the mirror she saw her face raw with tears and panic. She had listened to their woes and wanted to join in.  But her agony was in each inflection of her voice. She could not speak. She did not know what these girls looked like, so it was not as if she could enter the bar room and begin chatting to them about such a thing as the body. So, she did not return to the club.

Instead she stood outside and as she waited in the slow taxi line, she wondered about what she was inside and who she could become. There was still time yet. She was still young. Perhaps one day, she wanted to believe, she would begin to feel okay at living in her skin.