Worn Out Wife Seeks New Life

by Carmen Reid

  By now, Tess was a strange combination of excited and exhausted. She would have paid double if she could leave right now and be finished… be done! Maybe she was overcome with bleach fumes, but she agreed to the mirrorless request; anything to bring this session, now entering its third hour, to a close. And, she looked downwards, through slightly closed eyes, at the magazine on her lap. She read words about so and so’s plans for an unforgettable summer on Nantucket island, but none of it meant anything to her. Her heart rate felt a little elevated and she wondered what on earth she had allowed to happen here. She’d let some hip LA hairdresser loose, completely unsupervised, on her hair! Her head was pushed down so he could trim the back of her hair, but she opened her eyes wide and tried to take in a side view. Bright baby blonde strands! It was so shocking, she thought maybe she should just close her eyes again.

  Okay, okay, she told herself… hadn’t she already reasoned that she could dye whatever Miguel had done straight back to her usual colour again. And surely whatever this weekly mask was, it could undo the damage of a severe bleach job. She kept her eyes shut tight through the cutting, through the blasting of the dryer and the finickity fiddling of what she guessed was a hot curling tong.

  At last, the frenzy of activity around her head slowed and then, after a final tweak or two, it stopped.

  ‘Oh my gosh,’ Miguel said. ‘Tess, I’m almost nervous about showing you now, but I have got to tell you, I absolutely love it.’

  ‘You’re nervous?’ Tess said. ‘I’m frightened to open my eyes.’

  ‘Wait, wait,’ Miguel said and they whizzed her, in her chair, to a different place.

  ‘Okay, you have a mirror now,’ Miguel told her, ‘it’s time to take a look.’

  So there, she finally opened her eyes and stared and stared some more at her reflection.

  It was terrible…

  But it was also wonderful…

  It was laugh-out-loud outrageous… and totally wrong.

  But maybe… it was also totally right…

  She couldn’t decide. She was so shocked!

  She was a blonde, definitely a blonde.

  A bright, straw blonde, but with a deep, punky two inches of dark roots. She had a fringe… a fringe?! Something she’d not looked out from under since she was twelve. And then there was all this twisting, turning movement of gentle corkscrew curls… and… oh good lord… was that pink? Pink? Oh yes, indeed… the bottom half of her hair had been dip-dyed a beautiful shade of coppery pink. In the course of one morning, she had gone from Courtney Cox to Courtney Love.

  ‘Oh my God…’ she whispered.

  ‘But it’s oh my God good, right?’ Miguel asked.

  He was squatting so that his face was level with hers as they looked in the mirror.

  ‘You look ten years younger, Tess. It’s a cliché, but in this case, it’s true. You look late thirties, less serious, less weighed down. You look like someone who is enjoying life again.’

  ‘Pink?’ she said.

  ‘This shade washes out in around twenty washes. So it can be totally gone by the time you get back to the office. But if you love it, come back in a fortnight and we’ll put something more permanent in.’

  ‘Blonde?’ she said. ‘I wasn’t expecting to go blonde…’

  ‘You’re remembering our talk about weekly masks and avoiding chlorine? Plus, I’ve left roots, so you’ll only need a little top up every three months or so. I can write down the details of what I’ve done for your stylist back home.’

  ‘And curls?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ Miguel held up the curling wand, ‘now, we’re going to do just a tiny mini tutorial. This is a curling wand, not a Geiger counter. You are a smart lady, and you can work out how to use this.’

  ‘Pink and blonde with curls?’ Tess was still transfixed by her reflection. She would have to re-think her make-up… she would have to re-think her clothes… maybe she would have to re-think her choice of career. And her children? Dave? Her office? What would any of them make of this?

  In something of a daze, she over-thanked Miguel and his assistant. She endured the mini curling tutorial and then, finally, it was time to leave the chair. Miguel kissed her goodbye and she paid the gigantic bill, plus tip… about twenty per cent, the receptionist informed her when she asked what was right.

  And as she stepped out into the blasting sunshine of a summer’s day in Studio City, LA, she put her hand every now and then to her bouncy blonde curls just to check that they were definitely real. She felt shocked, but she also felt amazing! Somewhere underneath her enormous sense of surprise, she knew that this was the push she had needed. This was the first of many pushes. Blonde and pink-haired Tess was ready to be bolder and braver. She’d been almost ready for this haircut and Miguel had made it real. She was ready for other things too… it was time to not just step but to jump out of her comfort zone. Time for new things, new beginnings… a whole new chapter.

  Natalie!!!!! Wait till you see my hair!!!!

  she messaged, and couldn’t help noticing that there was still no word from Alex.

  26

  It was nearly 5 p.m. and River was heading out to Stratford shortly to see the first of the Shakespeare plays she had tickets for: The Tempest. She was feeling quite positive about the day she’d had so far. In the morning, she’d gone for a long walk across country paths suggested by Dave. Then she’d stretched out, showered and made a very nutritious and wholesome brunch before drinking three coffees and smoking four cigarettes in the garden to get herself into the proper writing frame. Five whole hours of wrestling with the script and the script notes had followed. She was positive about the structuring work she’d done, the dialogue she’d written and the opening scene she’d worked on. But still the feeling that she’d not yet hit the nail on the head, not yet unlocked the key to this whole rewrite nagged at her.

  Deckchairs on the Titanic was the phrase that kept coming to mind and bothering her a lot. Was she merely rearranging the deckchairs on this script, while ignoring the fact that the whole thing was doomed to sink beneath the waves? If she didn’t steer it well past the imminent icebergs, it was going to be just another sucky script made into another sucky teen movie. And her career might well go down with the ship.

  Her phone flashed with a message and her heart sank when she saw it was from Phillip.

  How’s it going, superstar? Hope you have something we can look at? Wanting to show agent and talent attached how script is shaping up so they can get excited and sign up. Have anything yet? Even a few scenes? Just a full outline? Lemme know.

  Just a full outline? Weren’t they always asking for ‘just’ the outline? Didn’t they realise that the outline was the hardest bit. The outline was the plot, the beats, the twists, the characters? The outline was the bit you sweated blood over. Once the outline was good, well then, it wasn’t exactly plain sailing, but at least you had a sound map for your journey.

  She messaged back:

  I can get you an opening scene tomorrow, does that sound okay? Still working on outline… feel I’m about to make a breakthrough with that. Keep the faith. Gonna be a good one.

  Then she messaged:

  My English garden party? Do the dates I sent work for you? My old friend, Franklyn Gregory, is hoping to come along.

  As she’d suspected, the reply was instantaneous. Well, dawn had broken in LA and Phillip was always working.

  Franklyn’s coming?

  * * *

  Well, he said he would try. And let’s face it, not much else happening in Stratford.

  * * *

  He’s in Stratford this summer?!

  * * *

  Yeah… this is where all the cool kids are. It’s adorable. You should try it.

  * * *

  What date can F do?

  * * *

  He’s OK’ed both of these. I’d say Sun though. A safer bet than Fri for theatre people. That’s theataaaaaaaa. We’re in luvvie England now.

  *
* *

  Marking my diary now. Flying to London tomorrow. Look forward to hanging with you R.

  Yup, gonna be cool. Wait till you see my house and garden. The roses!!! I wanna live in England just to be surrounded by these roses.

  * * *

  It wasn’t logical to think that she would bump into Franklyn on every trip to Stratford, but as River got ready to go out for the evening, she paid extra care and attention. When she was finished, she was pleased with the effect. It was arty rock and roll, her favourite look: leather leggings, silky blouse, big earrings, straight hair and a particularly luscious deep rose lipstick. Ankle boots with the highest heel she could manage for driving were the finishing touch.

  As she was heading to the car, she ran into Dave. He had a crutch under one arm and a watering can in the other hand.

  ‘Should you be doing that?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘One-crutch watering?’

  ‘Totally fine,’ he assured her. ‘If I let things in the garden die, Tess will probably break my other ankle, so that would be riskier. Have a great evening!’ he said with a wave of the watering can: ‘Is it a hot date?’

  ‘No…’ she laughed, but enjoyed the implied compliment, ‘theataaaaa darling, theataaaa.’

  ‘But of course… enjoy!’

  So many tourists! Tourists in the streets where she jostled for a parking space, tourists on the pavements, tourists outside the theatre, inside the theatre and in every single row of the theatre. Almost everyone with their phone out taking selfies and videos and waving at the folks online.

  River settled into her seat and read though the programme carefully, trying to ignore the savages on either side of her, who were obviously here to see tonight’s celebrity actors in the flesh, and not for the Shakespeare experience.

  She’d never read or seen The Tempest before, but as the curtain went up and the play unfolded before her, she was surprised to find herself deeply moved by the acting, the plot and oh, the words, the words, the gorgeous words and phrases raining down on the audience.

  In the darkness, eyes fixed on the stage, River drank in the words and the rhythms of the language. Yes, it was old-fashioned and the meaning of some of the phrases passed her by, but the wonderful torrent washed over her: We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

  She found herself thinking back to high school and the growing realisation that she was going to be a writer, because she was determined to try to bring the ideas, and the characters and stories she’d created, to life. She was going to try to explain just what it was like to be in someone else’s head, seeing the world through their eyes.

  To her parents’ horror, she’d gone to a dramatic arts college in New York, and, at first, she had tried her hand at acting, directing, even film editing, but it was always writing that called her back. She loved it best and it loved her right back. Of all the tools she could use, words were the ones that proved not the easiest, that was for sure, but the ones she wanted to come back to again and again. And the delightful solitude of writing. The quiet time away from every other demand the world makes, weaving stories out of imagination and thin air… and coffee, plenty of coffee.

  Her parents never wanted this life for her. Like her brothers and sisters, River was supposed to find a solid profession. Her Latino-American family was full of cops and nurses, a teacher and a social services worker… these were responsible, public service kind of folks. They all lived in and around New York. They hung out with each other on Sundays, visited her Mom on Mother’s Day, took the grandkids round. Whereas she was off in LA on her own. Yes, they were all so proud of her when Spangled was a big hit. It was something visible they could see; they could smell the proverbial success. ‘Here’s our Hollywood superstar!’ … ‘Our daughter wrote that…’ She could tell that for a few years, at least, they stopped worrying about her and her career, let alone her lifestyle choices.

  But then when she sold the gorgeous apartment, when she reported only small TV writing assignments… well, then they began to worry all over again. And recently there had even been talk of, ‘You can come back to New York… move in for a while… find your feet…’ It was horrendous. It was just so dreadful to be approaching forty – the big four-oh – and feel that the life you’d spent almost twenty years trying to create for yourself could be slipping away.

  As the play moved on through the final act, River was in love with the sheer romance of theatre: the lights… the costumes… and the poetry. She could feel tears dropping onto her cheeks. Theatre… it didn’t even make any sense in this completely digital world, where everyone had a Netflix subscription and could watch whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. But nevertheless, theatre was a dream, the daydream… the romance. Oh… but how could you ever explain this to people? That you were in love with the dream of writing really good stories, and you continued to chase this dream despite the costs, when other people had pensions, mortgages, dependable healthcare and savings accounts, not to mention ten-year to retirement ‘runways’.

  Oh jeeezus, her career was a mess, her life was a mess and definitely her finances were a mess. She should sell her current apartment and re-think. But she couldn’t even do that because of the terrible situation with the pool and the apartment management… and why was she even thinking about all this crap when, ‘Full fathom five thy father lies / Of his bones are coral made / Those are pearls that were his eyes…’

  What the hell was she going to do about the script? How was she going to get it to turn out right? And what was she going to send to Phillip?

  This was serious. It felt like a final chance. If this didn’t work out well… maybe she would have to quit.

  27

  Alex opened his eyes. It took him several moments to re-orientate himself. He was looking at his ceiling… it was greyish white. Did that mean it was early evening? Or early morning? What time had he fallen asleep? How long had he been asleep for? What had he been doing before he fell asleep? His brain felt slow and sticky as he tried to think through the answers to all these questions.

  Down on the dusty floor beside his bed was his phone, so he picked that up and looked at the time. It was 1.56 p.m. He vaguely noted the stack of messages, WhatsApps and even actual voicemails that would have to be attended to and he noticed the date too. It was high summer. Out there on the other side of the pulled-down blind, there was sunshine and ice creams, paddling pools and holiday trips, sunglasses and swimming shorts, suntan lotion and waves. He couldn’t stand it. Maybe it would be a little easier to feel so miserable when it was cold and wintery and everyone else was more wrapped up and miserable too. But to be so unhappy when out there was this bright, shiny, strobe-lit summer world was horrible, awful.

  He glanced around the room for prompts about what had happened before he’d fallen asleep at around dawn. There were four empty cider cans standing in a row on his bedside table. In fact, he was so thirsty now that he gave the nearest one a shake and on finding some fluid down at the bottom, he tipped the can to his lips and drank down the flat, sour apple-ish goo.

  He could still see the note he’d left his sister in a scrunched-up ball on the floor. There was no bin in this cramped room, so rubbish just had to fall where it landed and sit there. He’d had a plan to go away in the hope that it would make things better. He’d thought he would get on a train and get out of London, go somewhere new… to the countryside… get fresh air… greenery… see new scenes, and meet new people. He’d answered an ad for work on a farm in Devon. He’d written his note to Natalie, packed his bag, locked his room behind him… then he’d set off down the road, taken the bus and then the underground train to Liverpool Street station, but it was 6 p.m., and he hadn’t expected all this rush and flurry of people. People in suits, people in shiny shoes, carrying briefcases, talking into their phones, rushing to platforms, jostling down the stairs. It had completely overwhelmed him. Who could be bothered to do all this
? To get up and rush for trains to get to work, where they would rush from one thing to the next, and then rush onto the train and home again. Jesus Christ! He wanted to scream at everyone: fuck off and die. Fuck off. Go home. Leave me in peace. Calm the fuck down!! And a rush-hour train ticket to Devon, even one way, turned out to cost far more money than he had. So, he’d turned on his heel, found some quiet little pub where he’d drunk much of the train ticket money and waited until everything was much calmer and then he had gone back ‘home’. Not home really. This horrible little room where nothing happened, and nothing changed. But at least he was left alone. No one bothered him here. No one interfered. But now he had no idea what he was going to do.

  He looked at the messages his parents had left him. He didn’t want them to worry about him, that was the first thing. And he didn’t want his parents to know that he’d left his job, that was the second thing. And he certainly didn’t want his parents to know how bad he was feeling, how hopeless and pointless and… he struggled to think of a word that summed it up. He just didn’t care, about anything or anyone or even about himself.

  Everything felt like too much effort.

  Every single thing.

  He didn’t even want to wake up in the morning. He didn’t want to get out of bed and begin the tedium of this day; the effort of dragging himself through from hour to hour… working out what to eat, what to drink, how to fill the everlasting minutes of every hour. And then all through the night, he could not bear the struggle to fall back to sleep all over again.