Drop Dead Gorgeous

by Anna Cheska

  Jude towelled and tutted. ‘Do you fancy an hour with the sun-bed then? On the house?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’ But as usual Jude’s ministrations were a tonic and Imogen was already feeling more cheerful as the door that led through to the back opened and Jude’s mother drifted into the salon in a haze of old-fashioned cologne. She was the closest Jude had ever got to a receptionist. When Hazel wasn’t around, Jude took the calls herself or switched on her answerphone. She was – as she liked to say – a one-woman operation, besides which Imo knew she couldn’t afford any more overheads.

  ‘Imogen, dear…’

  ‘Hazel.’ She took the proffered hand and allowed hers to be patted. To look at, her mother was about as unlike Jude as she could possibly be: petite where Jude was tall and well-rounded, fine-featured and small-bosomed where her daughter was all curves and dimples. She had grey hair coiled today into a neat chignon, pale blue eyes and an air of vulnerability that she never hesitated to use to her advantage.

  ‘I’m so sorry, my dear girl. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Not so bad, Hazel, really.’ It was the constant sympathy, Imogen thought, that was the most wearing thing about becoming a widow. She flinched as Jude tweaked the damp towel from her shoulders and chucked it into a black tub by the back door. It was so hard being talked to when no one knew what to say. Even indomitable teenage Tiffany had been silent and wary at Say It With Flowers this morning.

  Imogen longed for the briskness of her own mother who always seemed to be far away, globe-trotting for her Intrepid Travel for the Over-60s articles. She was always, thank God, honest. And had never even pretended to approve of Imogen’s choice of husband.

  ‘Darling, surely not?’ her mother had replied after Imo had placed an international call to Venezuela to tell her she was engaged to Edward West. Vanessa Vaughan’s voice was as clear as if she were in the same room. ‘He’s sweet, of course, but…’

  ‘I’m going to marry him.’ Sweet? Her mother might as well have said he was boring as hamster food.

  A long, breathy pause before, ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘Oh, honestly, Mother.’ What did wise have to do with anything? Edward was hardly a vagrant she’d picked up outside the Odeon. He wore suits. He was respectable, reliable. He was sophisticated and knew his way around the world. And he had great timing – he had found her at a low ebb after a doomed relationship with the original Mr Anti-commitment. By contrast, Edward had swept her off her feet, showered her with gifts and compliments, made her feel desired and treasured and special and, ‘I love him,’ she’d said.

  ‘Really?’ Vanessa had managed to convey a wealth of incredulity. It was, Imogen concluded, all a matter of tone.

  She heard herself growing hot and defensive. ‘You hardly know him.’ OK, she’d often heard her mother assert that it took just four minutes to tell if a man would become friend, acquaintance or lover. How long did it take her to assess sons-in-law?

  ‘He’s wonderful. He makes me feel safe.’ Was she an invalid? Was she in-valid? Was she protesting too much? And what was ten years’ age difference? A lot at eighteen, next to nothing at twenty-five. Age was a great leveller. ‘He makes me feel…’

  ‘Quite.’

  Vanessa was not a woman given to listening to the virtues of men. Neither was she swayed by love. She had loved Imogen’s father in what she called her own way – selfishly, in Imo’s book. She’d also admitted – since their divorce – that she’d made a lousy farmer’s wife. Now she seemed to Imogen to have grown more cynical than ever.

  ‘Edward is exactly what I need,’ Imogen said. And if her mother laughed she would hang up and never speak to her again.

  ‘Take what you need by all means, darling. But marriage?’

  Hazel was still patting Imogen’s hand. ‘I remember when I lost my Byron…’ she began.

  Oh, dear. Mentally, Imogen prepared herself for the death scenario of Jude’s father, a man she’d never known.

  Jude squirted mousse and began slapping it on. ‘Not now, Ma,’ she warned.

  Hazel contented herself with a sigh. ‘Edward was such a kind man.’

  Kind, yes. But something wasn’t right. Imogen couldn’t shake off the feeling that there may have been more to him than that. There might have been an Edward she never knew. There might be a whole lot of secrets locked up in a desk drawer. And if so … She wrinkled her nose and frowned. Wasn’t it about time she found out exactly what they were?

  Chapter 2

  Alex Armstrong spent the first five minutes of the session rolling charcoal between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and marvelling at the perfection of Marisa’s body, as white and smoothly curved as an unused bar of soap. Now there was a clean and innocent image. He narrowed his eyes to examine every physical detail from an artistic point of view. Innocent? Hardly. But however many sexual partners this girl had enjoyed – and from his own experience with her he guessed it to be quite a few – he’d bet she hadn’t been used by any of them. No way. Marisa Gibb was temptation personified. You couldn’t resist touching … but you wondered how the hell you were meant to recreate any of it on paper.

  Hence the delay and the black fingers. Alex smiled to himself. But black fingers were better for blending anyway, and it was good to have some thinking time. He had told his students that very thing as they sat goggle-eyed and useless in the Art Room, gazing at the spectacle of the naked Marisa for the first time. And they were paying for the artistic experience. Needless to say, Alex was not.

  ‘You do realise it’s bloody freezing in here, Alex?’ Being a professional, Marisa didn’t alter the tilt of her head as she spoke. Even the muscles of her bare, white throat hardly moved.

  Almost reluctantly – once he’d started he’d be closer to finishing – Alex made the first strokes of charcoal on sugar paper. The sound was soft and grating, the result blurred. ‘It’s always freezing in artists’ studios,’ he said. ‘It’s the garret effect.’ Though garage might be nearer the mark in this case. Alex’s studio was a workshop on the end of a line of garages backed by a row of allotments. In its previous life – and he’d twigged this the second he first opened the door – it had belonged to a car mechanic whose idea of a paint job was rather different from Alex’s. But a couple of rugs, chairs and a put-me-up had made it comfortable enough. ‘The cold comes with the territory,’ he murmured.

  ‘Not in the college, it doesn’t, and that’s what I’m used to.’ Marisa sounded very regal considering she had no clothes on. ‘You might at least put the bloody fire on.’

  ‘Maybe I want the goose-bumps.’ He didn’t comply. He wasn’t teasing her; he simply wasn’t interested in the perfect nineteen-year-old body all warm, pampered and cosy. Anyone could have that – the students at St Mary’s Art College for a start. No, he wanted her bumpy and brittle because that was what Marisa was. What she had been since their first meeting at St Mary’s, where Alex was artist in residence (though he wasn’t in residence at all; he had a comfortable room and landlady, and to date two other jobs apart from his more bohemian – if artistically satisfying – one).

  He too had been amazed when he first saw the college’s life model. How the hell could the principal expect his male students (and perhaps some of the women too) to concentrate on the finer techniques of life drawing with that sort of nudity placed in front of them? But she was good. In life drawing what you needed in a model was a well-maintained position and rare lack of self-consciousness. And Marisa had both in abundance.

  After the first class she had faced him, fully dressed now and even more beautiful, her clear green eyes unblinking. Instead of asking how she’d done and when she would be required again, she’d said, ‘Do you like my body?’

  Alex had laughed. Was this girl for real? ‘Who wouldn’t?’ he told her. His background was rural Nottinghamshire – he wasn’t one for compliments, only the truth.

  She accepted this with a brisk inclination of the head. Her hair was strawberry
blonde – the hint of red complemented her pale skin, and Alex realised he’d have to paint her in watercolours. With that colouring it was almost compulsory.

  ‘So would you like to go to bed with me?’ she asked him.

  Thinking of this now almost made Alex lose his flow. It was the unexpectedness of it, he supposed, as much as the choice of words. A bloke expected a twenty-first-century woman to be capable of making the first move. But this wasn’t so much a first movement as an entire sonata in a nutshell. And the total arrogance of it was staggering.

  ‘To make love?’ he replied, teasing her. They had barely spoken, after all.

  She shrugged. ‘Whatever you want to call it.’

  The charcoal flew over the paper now as Alex captured the curve of Marisa’s left breast. Goose-bumps apart, the nipple was standing proud as a flagship. Better … And she’d been right, of course. It wasn’t love. Since that afternoon (here in his studio with the electric fire on that time, on the put-me-up with the scent of turps, oils and drying paint hanging thickly potent in the air) there had been four more occasions. None of them love, differentiated only by the period of time they lasted. Alex shaded the thigh with the knuckle of his thumb and scraped the knee joint into place with the nail of his forefinger.

  More time, each time. In direct correlation with the excitement he’d felt – man’s awful irony that the more he fancied a woman, the quicker it was over, the less good it was for her. How was it for you?

  He pushed the floppy brown hair off his forehead with an impatient gesture. There was a continued satisfaction though in playing the game of sex with Marisa – she gave herself up to the pleasure of it, and he appreciated that. She was feline through and through. Any man would want to stroke her and make her purr. But after a while …

  * * *

  ‘Poor old Imo.’ Through the small panes of the salon window, Jude watched her best friend walk down the street towards her car. The tall, slender figure wrapped in a black wool coat seemed upright and purposeful, but Jude worried. Imo was suffering. And she was in shock. But who wouldn’t be? Who was prepared to be widowed at thirty-five?

  ‘Do you think she’ll cope?’ Hazel sighed. She was wearing a white blouse, a lilac cardi draped around her shoulders, and a navy pleated skirt. Neat as ever, Jude thought. Not a hair out of place.

  ‘Case of having to.’ Jude looked around. ‘And where’s Daisy?’

  ‘In the back garden.’ The phone rang, Hazel moved to answer it and Jude slipped through the tiny kitchenette at the back of the salon. She opened the back door on to the patch of grass they called a garden, and at the same moment something small and scampering in an orange puffa jacket and lime-green trainers shot past her.

  Jude smiled as she filled the kettle. There was time for a quick coffee and a cigarette before she got to grips with a new set of Fancy Fingernail extensions for her next client.

  ‘And funerals are so depressing.’ Hazel was standing in the open doorway, one hand smoothing her grey hair from her brow. Her pale eyes were reflective. ‘Wouldn’t you think there’d be a pleasanter way of saying goodbye?’

  ‘Will it be in church?’ Daisy chipped in from her position crouched on all fours under the salon’s reception desk.

  Jude looked over Hazel’s shoulder at her little blonde bombshell. ‘The crematorium, darling.’

  ‘Will Uncle Edward go to meet his Maker?’

  ‘Er – sort of.’ Jude spooned coffee into a mug. Perhaps it had been a mistake sending Daisy to a C of E school. They pretended the God stuff was just a sideline, confined to morning assembly and learning decent manners. But it seemed to be rammed down their throats at every opportunity, poor loves.

  ‘Can I come?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re too young.’

  ‘“Suffer little children”,’ Daisy reproached.

  ‘Maybe next time,’ Jude heard herself saying. Next time? The water boiled and she poured it into her mug. Strong and instant. Tonight, tonight … The words of the song spun through her mind. Who knew what tonight would bring?

  Hazel eyed the coffee. ‘Daisy, would you run up and fetch one of Granny’s special Earl Grey tea bags?’ She pulled the cardi closer around her shoulders.

  Daisy – still on all fours – cocked her head to one side enquiringly.

  ‘Fetch, Timmy!’ Jude located her cigarettes in the deep pocket of her black shift and pulled one out of the gold packet. It was all very Famous Five, but if that was what made her daughter happy … And she needed to have a word with her mother about tonight.

  Daisy shot through the kitchenette, whizzed through the back door and could be heard clattering up the outside staircase that led to the flat they shared then on to Florrie Hall’s flat on the second floor.

  ‘It’s hardly healthy,’ Hazel murmured.

  Armed with cigarette, ashtray and mug of coffee, Jude eased past her and flopped into the nearest black chair. In her opinion, too many people obsessed over health – mental and physical. Weren’t there more important things in life? Like having a good time, for example. ‘Nothing wrong with a vivid imagination,’ she said. For every hair extension and contact lens that Jude owned, Daisy had an animal – complete with name, personality and noise. And why not? Jude grinned. ‘Let’s face it, a girl needs a vivid imagination to deal with the opposite sex. Daisy’ll have a head start.’

  But Hazel clearly wasn’t having any of this. Her arms folded and her light blue eyes narrowed in preparation for war. ‘She’s confused.’

  ‘Aren’t we all?’ Jude drew hard on her cigarette. Not now. She didn’t want to argue with her mother now. But: ‘There’s nothing wrong with my girl,’ she protested. ‘She always becomes human again at mealtimes. That’s what counts.’

  Right on cue, Daisy dashed back in, tea bag thankfully in paw rather than mouth.

  ‘Good dog.’ Aware she was rubbing it in, Jude retrieved it and went to re-boil the kettle.

  ‘Poor child.’ Hazel let out a faint sigh as she sat down. ‘If only there were a father in the nest.’

  ‘Here we go,’ Jude muttered under her breath. She stirred bag and water with rather more vigour than necessary and splashed in some milk. She didn’t need this. All she wanted to do was think about tonight. ‘Nests run more smoothly without the male bird.’ Re-entering the salon, she slapped the mug down in front of her mother. ‘He’s well out of it.’ And besides. Daisy’s father had been married at the time of his affair with Jude, and far too busy placating those who lived in his other nest, to worry about who might be arriving in the new one.

  Hazel put on her disapproving face. Below it, the white blouse was buttoned high to the neck. ‘Don’t tell me that men don’t have the nesting instinct,’ she argued.

  Something about her mother brought out the worst in her, Jude reflected, feeling her patience disappearing fast. They helped one another, but although she subsidised her mother’s pension, Jude always felt she herself got the better deal. Because who else would look after Daisy when she was working? In term-time there was after-school club, but women didn’t want to be beautiful just in term-time, they rather fancied it in the holidays too. Still, her mother drove her to the edge – more often than Jude cared to admit. Of course she loved her. But … And sometimes it was a big but.

  She sat down again and stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Most men enjoy having two women,’ she told her mother. ‘It’s a desire buried deep in the male psyche.’

  ‘Ears,’ Hazel said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ears.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ Sometimes, Daisy’s animal improvisations were so good that Jude simply forgot she was in the room and blithely broke all the Proper Parenting rules. She eyed herself in the mirror. Did it suit her, being blonde?

  ‘God has ears,’ Daisy said knowledgeably, returning to her position under the desk. ‘Even Uncle Edward might be listening.’

  Jude hoped not. She twiddled a
strand of hair between her fingers and thought of him dying in the bedroom. How much more awful it would have been for poor Imo if he’d died during sex. God … what would you do? Where would you put him? What would you say to the paramedics? How did close contact with dead flesh actually feel? Jude shuddered and got up to tip the contents of the ashtray into one of her shiny black bins. But in Imo and Edward’s case it would be most unlikely, she decided. Imo had always implied sex to be a rarity, foreplay a far-off dream and satisfaction a complete and utter fantasy.

  Jude fetched a clean black towel and wheeled her manicure trolley from the back of the salon. Since The Goddess Without did everything from hair removal to nail art, and massage to makeovers, she had a separate trolley for each beauty procedure, lined up in a row, primed and ready for action. ‘Ma, about tonight…’ she began.

  ‘Will Uncle Edward go to heaven?’

  Jude positioned the trolley carefully. She would speak to her daughter’s form teacher. Christian values were one thing, but paediatric brainwashing was something else entirely. ‘Probably.’ She crossed her fingers behind her back.

  ‘And dogs?’

  ‘Dogs?’ Jude frowned. Perhaps her mother had a point, Daisy did seem confused.

  ‘Do dogs go to heaven too?’

  Ah. Jude leaned over and slapped her daughter’s behind playfully. ‘Only when they die, sweetie. And you have to vamoose back upstairs. Pronto.’

  ‘But at least it’ll be nice to see Vanessa at the funeral.’ Hazel rose to her feet but only got as far as the make-up trolley. ‘Is this a new pink?’

  ‘Fuschia.’ The friendship between her mother and Imo’s had apparently begun during an amicable discussion of feminism at a meeting of the W.I. ‘Friendly? Can you imagine it?’ Jude had once joked to Imo. ‘My mother saying women should be women, and yours sending her a doormat in the next post.’ But despite their differences, the respective mothers had remained friends and Jude and Imogen, aged twelve and five, had soon followed suit. They were different, too, but in Jude’s opinion shared the values that mattered. And that was what counted.