by V Clifford
‘Thanks, Mac.’ Genuine words.
He nodded and bit the inside of his cheek. ‘Take it easy, Viv. And don’t go anywhere that will get me into trouble.’
She remembered that the officer in Aberdeen was only happy to let her come home because of Mac’s position.
‘I’ll be here.’
He waited in the car until she was inside the building.
A hot shower and bed were all she aspired to.
Chapter Seventeen
Wednesday Viv spent recovering in bed ignoring every form of communication until teatime, when she mustered the courage to punch Sal’s number into her phone. Relief flooded through her when a recording of Sal’s voice said, ‘Please leave a message.’ As she did so, Viv recognised her own familiar pattern of resistance for what it was. Fear. Fear that rose in equal measure with the quickening of her heart at the thought of Sal’s beautiful face, her razor sharp intellect, and her emotional wisdom. The knowledge that she was someone that Viv could spend a long time with was much more scary to her than any Aberdeen heavy with a tattoo. Somewhere in Viv’s soul she knew she needed Sal, and there was no stronger reason to resist her.
Wallowing in bed had given her ample time to reflect on her behaviour over the last few days. First, her indiscretion with Almond Eyes. She shook her head in despair. What the hell had that been about? Then Gabriella. Who was probably a nice enough woman . . . very generous, Viv. But God, what was Gabriella next to Sal? What was she thinking? A night with the telly was the only way out of her head.
By Thursday, a hair day, she still struggled to stretch, barely able to raise her arms to wash her own hair. She flicked through her diary checking the kinds of haircuts that she might have to tackle. She decided that she was being pathetic. Most were more than doable. Only one client with long layering, who even on a good day had Viv feeling as if she’d had an hour of body-pump. She rang and left a message asking to postpone the appointment. With that done she went into the hall cupboard and raked around for a large canvas bag with wheels on it; a discarded Christmas gift from her mother that had been gathering dust for a couple of years. To get to it she had to shift all manner of things, including a box of old photographs. She made the mistake of glancing at the top of the bundle. Before she knew what she was doing she was on the hall floor going through them one by one. They spanned her adult life. Viv sat with her back to the wall and let her tears flow, until the telephone rang. Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she took a huge breath before lifting the receiver. ‘Hi. Viv here.’
At first she imagined it was a repeat of yesterday’s threat but then Gabriella’s defensive voice broke the silence. ‘It’s Gabriella. I got your email . . . We need to talk.’
This had Viv on the starting blocks, ready to run in the opposite direction. ‘We need to talk’ was the kind of non-negotiable statement that Viv had shrunk from all her life.
‘Gabriella. I’ve got to work today . . . ’ Viv heard the dead tone and sighed, thankful not to have to explain any more and resigned to Gabriella’s reaction. Dawn had had many faults and couldn’t be trusted, but strangely enough she had trusted Viv, and that had mattered more. Returning to the photographs lying on the floor, she gathered them back into the box. She spotted the bag beneath the hose of an old vacuum and eased it out. Her mother had said it would come in handy one day. Viv smiled at the recollection of her own response and how, more often than she liked, her mother turned out to be right.
Before she left for work Viv checked her emails. There was a short, badly written response from Walter’s alleged stalker, arguing that Walter was the one with the issue. That he was always turning up at things, and in places where he knew that she would be; including the hair salon. This should be easy to check. Viv sent Walter an email asking where he had his hair cut. Then she tucked her rucksack into the bag and shrugged as best she could into a jacket. After locking up she headed towards her car.
Viv’s first client was in Cluny, an area of Edinburgh regarded as the superior fringe of the muesli belt. With its large houses within walking distance of good comprehensives, the area had a real mix of ageing hippies and lefty conservative corporates. Viv counted four different school uniforms on her way.
Ricola Wedgewood, with her distant connection to Josiah and therefore a tenuous link to Darwin, was a tiny, shy, intellectual woman whose husband, a company director whose name she hadn’t taken, worked abroad. She spent too much time with the NCT group and people at the school gate, who wanted to discuss nothing more than breast-feeding and anything else to do with their children. Consequently when Viv arrived there was often some more testing question hovering on Ricola’s lips. The door was ajar and Viv pushed it open and shouted, ‘Hi Ricky! It’s me, Viv!’
Somewhere above another door opened and Ricola rushed down the stairs with a towel on her head. ‘Have you heard of this new digital programme that can make an exact replica of your bones?’
Viv smiled at Ricola’s back as they strolled through her hallway to the kitchen. ‘I have, as a matter of fact, but only because I saw a piece on the news about it. Surely if your bone is defective you don’t want an exact replica. You want something new that works better than the old one.’
Ricky furrowed her brow. ‘You’ve got a point there. I hadn’t thought of that.’
They laughed as Viv began to set up. ‘What’s the plan today?’
Viv knew that whatever the ‘plan’ it made no odds. Ricky never had her hands at peace. Once Viv had counted Ricky ruffling her hair twenty-two times, which was quite something given that for most of the forty-five minute slot Viv had been cutting and blow-drying her hair. As Viv laid out her gardener’s sheet, Ricky took bread out of the oven and laid it on a cooling tray.
Viv nodded towards the loaf. ‘It’d be safer to put that somewhere else. I’d hate to get hair on it. Besides the smell would be a delicious form of torture.’
Ricky smiled and removed the bread to the utility room. As Viv waited, she glanced at a tabloid lying open on the kitchen table, unusual for Ricky. The page three headline read, ‘False alarm at Country House Ball’. Viv only got the chance to start the first paragraph before Ricky returned. ‘Have you read this?’
She pointed to the article and Ricky stood on tip-toe to look over Viv’s shoulder. ‘Oh yes. It’s about a famous diamond going missing then turning up in the family vault.’
Viv was intrigued but had work to do. She would wait to get the lowdown online later.
Ricky, however, had other ideas. ‘I’ve met them, you know. Bryce is on the board at Gordonstoun; the Newhall boys were there. Amazing what you learn at governor’s dinners. That story is a follow-up.’ She pointed to the paper. ‘The other day the headline was “Jewel Theft!”.’ She laughed and ran her hand through the air describing an imaginary headline. ‘“Cat burglar comes to Scotland. Has Monaco run out of jewels”?’
Viv smiled and dug into her kit for her scissors. It was unlike Ricky to get drawn into local news. Her usual idea of a chat would shame the academics that Viv used to work with.
Before Viv started cutting, Ricky said, ‘If the phone rings you’ll have to excuse me for a minute. I’m waiting for a call from my GP.’
‘No problem. So are we having a change today or sticking with your safe bet?’
Ricky sat straight as a rod, as Viv had taught her, with her feet firmly planted shoulder-width apart. A squint body meant squint hair. ‘Not sure I’m strong enough for a change. Let’s just keep it as it is for now.’
Viv continued to cut into Ricky’s short choppy layers. The phone didn’t ring until Viv had almost finished the blow-dry and Ricky leaped up to the handset and took it into the hall. Viv was party to all sorts of personal stuff, often stuff that she didn’t see needed to be a secret, but she had long since understood that the stories she encountered were not hers to tell. When Ricky returned she was grinning from ear to ear. ‘Good news. Tests are all clear.’
Viv smiled. ‘Great.
’ No notion of what had been tested but delighted that whatever it was Ricky was relieved.
Ricky let go of a huge breath. ‘You can do what you like with my hair now.’ Unable to resist, she ruffled it then sat, her body language completely transformed. ‘Where were we?’
‘You were saying that you weren’t strong enough for a change but it’s too late now. I’m almost through.’ Viv stepped round in front of Ricky and pulled at tendrils reaching for her cheekbones. ‘Yes. That looks really good. Not many women can get away with this elfin look, but you can. Eat your heart out Twiggy.’
Ricky snorted. ‘I wish. The eyes are beginning to sag. Not much I can do about that though. I’m definitely not up for surgery. Although Bryce did suggest it.’
Viv was horrified. ‘You don’t need surgery! I’d kill for peepers like yours.’
‘You’re a sweetie for saying that. But you know what Bryce is like. Never satisfied.’
Bryce wasn’t the only husband who was a full-time critic. He wasn’t exactly George Clooney himself, but it didn’t stop him. God help their children.
Viv was keen to get more information about the false alarm at Newhall but had another client to see before she could go home. She arrived slightly early and sat in the car outside the house, only a short distance away from Ricola’s, and checked her phone. There was a message from Walter. She rang him back. ‘Hi, Walter. How’s it going?’ She was aware that this kind of social fluff was an irritation to him but, hey, tough.
‘I was just wondering how you were getting on with . . . ’ He must have put his hand over the speaker because all she could hear was his muffled voice speaking to someone else.
‘If you’re busy I’ll ring you back.’
‘No. No. It’s fine. I’ve had an email from you know who. Explaining a few things, things which make sense in the context of . . . ’
Viv interrupted, sensing that he was backing off. ‘I have also had an email from her.’
‘Ah! So what story has she spun you?’
‘Whether it was a story spun or not, Walter, are you sure you would like me to carry on my search? It didn’t sound like the kind of thing that I’d be able to help with.’ She cleared her throat. ‘After all you’re the one with the legendary people skills.’ When in doubt she appealed to the ego.
He gave the slightest chuckle. ‘Perhaps the stress of work made me exaggerate. I appreciate your trouble, Viv, but I think I’ll be able to handle it after all.’
Viv shook her head. ‘I didn’t go to any trouble. I only sent her one email.’
‘I’ll square up with you if tell me what your fees are.’
‘Let’s call it a favour for old times’ sake, Walter. And if I were you I’d still find someone to speak to. Your supervision clearly isn’t cutting the mustard. Everybody needs someone to talk to . . . even you.’ She knew she’d lost him at ‘if I were you’ but it was worth a try.
Viv got slightly nervous in the company of her next client, especially if there was no one else around. She’d spotted his huge frame towering over a small female in the crowd at the book launch the other night but she didn’t think he saw her. He was on sabbatical, which meant working from home. Viv usually did his hair at his office, a safe place with secretaries knocking and entering at any moment, in the New Royal Infirmary. On one foolish occasion he made an inappropriate suggestion, allegedly in a joke, which Viv batted straight into orbit, giving him a look that had made him wither. Ralph Mullan was at the top of his game, a neurosurgeon whose attention to detail had always been admired. He was not shy and wore his intellect heavily on the sleeves of his Savile Row linen suits, some of them now a fraction too tight. With too many conferences his belly had begun to droop over a belt that was bound to have cost more than Viv’s whole outfit. His hair, a mane of shiny dark locks, was his crowning glory. He believed he could trace this to his Spanish ancestry when sailors from the Armada swam ashore off the Ardnamurchan peninsula on the west coast. Viv rang the bell and Ralph answered, specs on his forehead. He looked surprised to see her.
‘Oh, Viv. Is it that time already?’ He stood aside and beckoned her in. ‘Can you just give me a minute? I must save what I was doing.’
‘Go ahead. I’ll set up in the kitchen.’ The kitchen was shambolic. Dishes piled up by the sink, unread newspapers on the table, among them the Red Top that Viv wrote an occasional anonymous column for. Lucy, Ralph’s wife, must be away. She was also a doctor but had decided to go part-time until the children were a bit older. Viv sensed that the children had been something of a shock to Ralph whose Porche 911 didn’t have space for a conventional baby seat.
‘I’ll go and get this mop washed. I’ll only take a minute.’ He gestured to a high- backed chair at the table. ‘Grab a seat,’ he said, as he took off towards the stairs.
At the other end of the table lay a copy of the book from the launch, sitting next to his laptop, which sprang into life when Viv accidentally nudged it as she reached for the book. She was tempted to look but only glanced at a screen full of graphs before lifting the book and leafing through it as she leaned against wall beside the double patio doors.
When Ralph returned he was dripping all over the floor. No idea that he should have given his hair a good rub with a towel before traipsing back through the house.
‘I don’t know how I could have forgotten. It’s desperate. In fact I wish I’d had it cut last week. I was at a white tie do at the weekend and it looked a bit theatrical.’
Viv’s ears pricked up and she laid the book back on the table. There are very few such events in Edinburgh and it was too much to think that there’d be more than one in a weekend. Without thinking she said, ‘Oh, that must have been Thurza’s,’ then immediately wished she hadn’t. She fiddled around getting her kit ready.
He shot her a quizzical look. ‘The Countess of Newhall.’ He doesn’t pronounce the h. ‘You know her then?’
Viv looked at him with knitted brows.
‘Of course you do. Silly me. There are very few whose locks don’t come under your tutelage.’
‘Did you have a nice time?’
He shrugged. ‘As fundraisers go it wasn’t at all bad. Why were you not there?’
Viv laughed. ‘Not enough dosh. Did you have to take a table?’
‘No. I was invited by some other rich sod who had been talked into it. You’ll have heard about the diamond.’
Viv nodded, trying not to look interested.
‘What a crazy bitch she is.’
Viv was even more intrigued, but wrapped a gown round his shoulders and combed his wet hair back from his face. ‘You looking for a change or six weeks’ worth?’
He laughed. ‘That’s what I love about you, Viv. No messing about. Straight to the point. Six weeks’ worth, please.’
Viv set to work, and he, not beyond being impressed by aristocracy, carried on his story about the ball.
‘Apparently at some point during dinner, a woman sitting at Thurza’s table took a close look at the diamond and commented that the thread that had been used to secure it was different from the thread used for all the other jewels on the dress. Thurza said that it wasn’t surprising given that the diamond was a newer addition. But the woman insisted that the diamond had been sewn on with cotton thread, which was completely wrong for the silk fabric. Thurza tried to argue that it was fine, but by this time Toddy, her dullard of a husband, had overheard some of their conversation and was intrigued. The upshot of all of this was that Thurza had removed the real diamond and put it in the family vault for safe keeping, then replaced it with a piece of cut glass. Said she was worried that someone would steal the dress. I’m amazed you haven’t heard the details if you’re her hairdresser.’
‘I saw her on the morning of the event. It sounds like a sensible move to me.’
‘Ah, but Toddy thinks she was squirrelling.’
Viv shook her head. ‘Thurza doesn’t need to squirrel.’
‘Well apparently . . . ’
Viv clasped her hands over her ears. ‘I don’t want to hear it. Don’t tell me any more. If Thurza tells me then fine, but I’m not interested to hear goss.’
He laughed again. ‘We’re lucky to have you. You could dish the dirt on all of us anytime you fancied.’
‘Yeah. And how long would my business last if I did? How’s Lucy?’
‘Oh she’s fine. Down south seeing her aged parents and leaving me to my own inadequate devices.’ He gestured round the kitchen. ‘I need looking after, Viv.’
‘My heart bleeds. Where’s the au pair?’
‘She’s around but her remit was only to care for the children and I’m not included.’
This really did make Viv laugh. ‘It’s a tough life. You living on calorie-counted dinners?’
He looked hurt and patted his belly. ‘Suppose I could do with it. Luce left me food in the freezer.’
‘God, Ralph! What are you like? Did you not have a mother who cooked?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘No. My mother was a nippy Glaswegian politician who didn’t have time to cook for us. She was too busy looking out for everyone else’s kids.’
Viv had forgotten about his early family life. ‘Never mind the sob story. You’re a grown-up now and it’s about time you started caring about that waistline.’ She grinned. ‘Otherwise you’ll have to give up on the Boss belt.’
He patted his belly again, a gesture which had obviously become a source of comfort. Viv, concerned, shook her head. ‘It’s nothing to be proud of, you know. And as a proper doctor I’d have thought you’d be on the case.’
‘Cobbler’s bairn. That’s me.’ They both laughed.
‘Spare me.’
Viv lifted Ralph’s hair, thinking how many men would be envious of his mane. ‘So what’s the project that’s keeping you at home?’
‘An offer for another job, actually. It’s not common knowledge, but I’ve been headhunted for a post in Sydney, and even though I’m not sure I’d want it, I’ve got to consider their not insignificant terms. Lucy wasn’t keen but now that she’s seen the amount of money they’re offering, and the state of the art unit that I’d be running, she’s coming round. How d’you fancy coming to Sydney to cut my hair?’