‘Maybe,’ Jo said, sounding as unconvinced as I felt. ‘Though I have met this lovely lady recently. She’s trying to rent the shop underneath my flat – I own the freehold – but she’s just come out of a tricky relationship with a bloke who fleeced her. I’ve asked her for a drink to talk about it.’
‘Does she know you’re a lesbian?’
‘I think even the Queen knows I’m a lesbian. It’s just a drink!’ She winked at me. Nothing was ever just a drink with Jo. Another ‘project’ on the horizon, another drama triangle…
*
Debbie was laid low after the chemo and I popped in on Tuesday night once she’d stopped puking. Isabelle let me in and kindly made me a coffee to take through. She looked tired, her youthful face glazed with worry, dark smudges beneath her eyes.
‘Charlie gets so upset seeing Mum like this,’ Isabelle said in a small voice as she made my drink in the kitchen. ‘He’s had to go to Dad’s for a few days.’
‘It must be hard for both of you. I’m sure your mum loves having you here as a support, though. She will understand about Charlie. I would if it was Grace.’
‘Hello!’ I said as I walked through to the living room, almost spilling my coffee at the sight of Debbie. She was smaller and even paler than previously, and her bald head was protected by a cosy blue woollen beanie. I wanted to cancel this Friday’s vlog right then; she didn’t look well enough to stand up, let alone be fussed over and asked to try on clothes. A gust of wind might blow her over.
‘How are things today?’ I asked uneasily.
‘Better than yesterday. I’ve managed to eat a banana, though I can’t tell if it tastes like a banana. My throat and mouth are a bit raw.’ I sat on the chair opposite the sofa.
‘Look, do you think we should postpone to another week?’
‘No!’ she cried hoarsely. ‘I have to do it. It’s what kept me going yesterday when I couldn’t stop puking. I imagined myself at Samantha’s having my make-up done, Isabelle trying on clothes, having fun like a normal teenage girl. Please don’t cancel. I know I will feel a lot better by Friday.’
‘I’m not thinking of cancelling it. Just moving to another time.’ Though if I was honest, I had no idea when that would be as I was busy next week and Grace was back and then Lila went on holiday.
‘There’s never a good time when you have cancer. You have to just do things. I could so easily just sit here and give up because I feel so fucking awful, but I can’t; I want to live.’ I got up and hugged her.
‘Oh, Debbie, you’re wonderful! OK, Friday it is. You’re going to love the make-up artist!’
41
Norman’s Wisdom
‘Norman!’ Debbie cried as he opened the door to her at Samantha’s. She was wearing her lovely strawberry-blond wig this morning. ‘What are you doing here?’ We’d kept him a secret. ‘You’re not the amazing make-up artist, are you?’ she asked doubtfully.
‘I am the very same. I’ve come out of retirement. How are you feeling? Round three of chemo can start to feel brutal.’ He stepped aside so Debbie and Isabelle could come in. If Debbie had eyebrows, they would have been raised in surprise. We all knew Norman as a buttoned-up Oscar the Grouch.
‘Oh, I’m feeling more human today, though I’m not sure I look it – that’s your job to perform a miracle!’ Debbie looked marginally better than she had on Tuesday. There was a definite touch of colour in her cheeks.
‘Debbie, I can rejuvenate a corpse, so we’ll be grand.’
I held my breath, not sure how she would react.
‘Oh my God, that’s music to my ears,’ she laughed, and I sighed in relief.
Debbie stoically let us film her without her wig or any make-up, and Carl asked her to pose for some before and after photos for social media. The internet seemed to have a boundless appetite for emotional makeover stories. I wasn’t going to plug Spanx today – it wasn’t the right vibe – but Norman had come up top trumps.
‘I just emailed their PR department. All I had to do was mention Lila, Clothes My Daughter Steals, David O’Donnell and they couldn’t send them quickly enough. I got them the same day from a nice leather-clad young man on a motorbike.’ He winked playfully.
Debbie giggled, and as I watched Isabelle, the mantle of ceaseless worry seemed to slip temporarily from her shoulders. Having some light relief and remembering to be a normal teenager again was just what she needed.
‘Do you want to try them? Lucas used to wear them when he lost all his hair. Though they have improved massively in the last fifteen years.’ He opened the pink cardboard box, emblazoned with the gold Magic Brows logo, and pulled out Cellophane-wrapped packets of eyebrows, all different colours and sizes. There were eyelash kits too, extensions, whole sets of different lengths and colours, natural and the outlandish.
‘Oh, fabulous!’ Debbie cried, clapping her hands together. ‘Can I try different ones? I always wanted big bushy Madonna eyebrows like she had in the “Like a Prayer” video.’
‘Oh, yes!’ Norman laughed. ‘Lucas used to do a “Like a Prayer” homage with the crucifixes and dancing Jesus. It used to go down a storm.’
‘Can I have some eyelash extensions, please?’ Isabelle asked politely. ‘I’ve always wanted to try them but they’re so hard to do on your own.’
‘Yes, darling. I’ll show you some tricks so you can have a go at home too.’
We piled through all the clothes I’d had sent over. Debbie’s arms were aching from her veins collapsing and she wanted to cover up the bruises. I dug out some lovely pieces from Debenhams, M&S, H&M and Zara for the Christmas season, so long sleeves were in. As I hung the clothes up and steamed them on my rack in the kitchen, Lila sat with Norman as he prepped Debbie, and Carl snapped away as unobtrusively as possible.
‘Did Jo tell you about moving out?’ he hissed under his breath as I walked back in while Debbie was busy perusing the eyebrows with Isabelle.
‘Yes. I wonder if she’ll tell Debbie. I gather she’s made up her mind. It’s all happened rather quickly.’
‘The new woman, Christa, is coming over this week to go over a rental agreement. Should we tell Debbie?’
I stopped what I was doing and grimaced, usually a sign I needed Mini Amanda to step in, which she did from her office in Switzerland: Jo owes Debbie nothing. They’re not in a relationship. Debbie ended it, so can’t really complain if Jo is moving on with her life. Don’t get sucked in to another drama triangle.
‘Stay out of it, Carl. It’s not our shit. Remember how you hate Jo meddling in your crap.’
‘True. Smile!’ I pulled a thickie no-brain face as he clicked, relieved we could be us again without our own excruciating soap opera.
‘So, Debbie, how many rounds of chemo have you now had?’ Lila asked sensitively while the camera rolled.
‘Three, and three to go.’
‘How have you been coping?’ Norman dabbed at her face with his brushes, a master craftsman at work, deftly zipping between paint pots of trickery, camouflaging shadows with concealer, disguising tiredness with highlighter, adding a healthy glow with cheek stain.
‘This week has been tough. All the hair from my body has now completely fallen out, so that’s unpleasant. At least my hairy toes are nice and clean!’ Lila laughed and Norman smiled. ‘And my lady moustache hasn’t needed plucking – so there’s an upside somewhere. The thought of this has been like a shining beacon at the end of the tunnel. And Isabelle is looking forward to trying on some clothes. We need to be us again. Charlie, my son, is going to pop in when it’s all finished to give us his verdict.’
‘Try these slug eyebrows, see if you can pull them off. I have some of Lucas’s more dramatic wigs in the kitchen – we can team them with different brows. I’ve stuck on regular lashes that should stay put for a few days.’
Debbie’s eyes lit up. ‘You’ve never said much about Lucas,’ she said. ‘What happened to him? I know he died a while ago.’
Norman hesitated and glanc
ed at Lila, who was sitting next to Debbie in front of the white screen.
‘Do you want me to switch the camera off, Norman?’
‘No, it’s fine. I don’t mind sharing.’ He steadied his hand and dipped a tiny brush into a pot of gold eye shadow, tapped it so it rained a fine haze of ochre glitter, and swept it over Debbie’s eyelid. ‘Lucas eventually died of lung cancer. He’d never smoked in his entire life. It unfortunately appeared many years after he got the all-clear from an initial kidney cancer. The doctors weren’t sure they were related or if it was caused by years of passive smoking, performing in clubs and theatres before the smoking ban.’
‘Oh God, how awful,’ Debbie sympathised.
‘Yes, I’m so sorry,’ Lila offered.
‘Don’t be – he had a great life. He wouldn’t want anyone to be sad or feel bad, me especially. He wanted me to go out and meet someone else, have another great romance. But I couldn’t.’
‘How long has it been?’ Debbie probed gently. I silenced my immediate to-do list; I noticed Carl had stopped clicking, Samantha had put down her omnipresent phone and Isabelle had stopped flicking through the lashes.
‘Fourteen years. He died just after I moved in next door. We’d been together twenty years.’
‘That must have been very hard,’ Lila said quietly. ‘Moving house is one of life’s biggest stresses, and then to top it off with a partner dying.’
‘He was more than my partner,’ Norman said wistfully, applying more glitter to Debbie’s other eye now. ‘He was my life, which I know isn’t healthy, but I chose him over my family, my history, my everything. He was first diagnosed with cancer six years after I met him in the theatre. I was still so far in the closet to my family, the wood panelling was imprinted on my back, and I had divorced my wife because we both knew I was gay. She’d met someone else and I needed to free her. My family were cross; they are very religious so divorce was frowned upon. So when I eventually got together with Lucas, I knew they could never meet him, even if I introduced him as a friend. He was way too camp, way too flamboyant. They would have guessed straight away and then they would have known about me.’
‘Do you not think they knew deep down anyway?’ Lila asked, transfixed.
‘No, it would never have crossed their minds that I might be gay – it was considered against God’s law. I would be cast out into hell for ever when I died. Fire and brimstone.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘So I said to Lucas we would have to be together in secret, until my parents died. But they were showing no sign of dropping off the planet!’ He chortled louder this time. ‘So I compromised, kept my little flat and then lived with Lucas the rest of the time. When my family visited, I just entertained them there where there was no trace of who I really was and I always visited them alone. This was days before social media, so snooping was harder.’
‘Didn’t Lucas mind being a secret? Did he ever feel that you were ashamed of him?’ Debbie asked.
‘No, he was amazing. He said if I wanted him to meet them, he would tone down who he was, be less, be conventional, but I didn’t want that. I think that was one of the only rows we ever had. That and the fact ketchup does not go in the fridge! I told him he was never to make himself less for someone else, that he was his authentic self and should remain that way. He told me I was making myself less for my family, allowing them to deny who I was. He was right, but my parents would never have accepted who I really was. This was all such a long time ago, when it wasn’t as easy to be who you are.’
‘Norman, it’s still hard to be who you are, even now,’ Lila said lightly. ‘Look at David O’Donnell, outed by a newspaper because he’s living his real life cross-dressing. He had to make himself less so society didn’t ridicule him. But look at the reaction he got. The people supporting him outweighed all the trolls.’
‘True. I think the crux of it was I didn’t accept myself. So when Lucas was diagnosed the first time, I tried to juggle his illness and my family and I couldn’t. I wanted to be with him, help him through the hospital visits, the chemo, the fear, and something eventually snapped. I told my family.’
We all collectively held our breath. Norman changed brushes and searched through his silver flight case for the next mercurial pot in his transformational arsenal.
‘They disowned me.’ He artfully traced the top lash-line where the fake lashes curled up from the lid edge. ‘Even my brother.’
‘Oh, Norman,’ Debbie said, patting his knee. ‘You poor wee thing.’
‘Even your mum?’ Lila asked in a hushed tone, clearly astonished that people could be so cruel.
‘Yes. She was very much a woman who did what her husband told her. But one day, she turned up at Lucas’s flat – I had let my one go by then. I don’t know how she found me. Lucas was lying down recovering from a round of chemo. She said: “Norman, I love you, but your father will never allow this.” I asked her if she wanted to come in, she refused, but she gave me a long hug on the front step. She was crying. That was the last time I ever saw her as my mother. I tried so many times to see them, turned up unannounced, but it was horrendous. The insults… the bigotry, the anger about who I was and what I represented: shame on our family. In the end I had to stop trying for my own mental health. They just shut me out…’ Norman reached into his make-up box for a different brush. ‘Anyway, I’m assuming my parents are dead now. They must be – I’m seventy.’
A gaggle of cries echoed around the room.
‘How are you seventy?’ I shrieked, walking over and peering at his perfect skin.
‘Good genes!’ he laughed loudly. ‘Always moisturise!’
‘Norman, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a pair of jeans,’ Debbie joked.
‘Now, Miss Sassy Pants, we need to choose eyebrows… these or these?’ I didn’t understand how Norman could laugh after that confession. I thought back to my own ‘story’, Jim leaving me when Grace was newborn, making me homeless. Other friends, people I since told after the event, all asked the same thing: how did you carry on, knowing you were about to be made homeless with a newborn baby? And the answer was the same every time: you just do because what is the alternative? There are only so many hours in the day you can sit and cry.
‘Are you ready to see yourself?’ I asked Debbie a bit later on after we had tried on about four outfits, the clear favourite being a navy jumpsuit with three-quarter-length sleeves, wide legs, cinched waist and a galaxy of teensy gold stars.
‘I can’t believe it’s from Marks and Spencer,’ Isabelle laughed. ‘I would never go in there in a million years.’
‘I get your knickers from there,’ Debbie said indignantly.
‘Mum!’
Norman had persuaded Debbie to try on a very long blond wig that he set in a piled-on up do with a gazillion pins. Her eyebrows matched her hair – they looked freakily real and framed her dolled-up eyes perfectly. Isabelle had been given a pared-down look from Norman but with accentuated eyes and lash extensions that she was pleased with. He waved her hair with tongs, and I got her to wear giant gold hoop earrings and gold high tops.
‘Please can I wear trainers with it too?’ Debbie begged. ‘I don’t like heels, especially at the moment. I like being comfortable.’
‘I don’t have any. Sorry, I didn’t think.’ I felt bad because I should have known that.
‘Let me nip back home, I might have some things,’ Norman said. He wandered back in ten minutes later with a bin bag full of booty.
‘Oh, you’re like Shoe Santa!’ Debbie cried.
We all crowded round to see what Norman had grabbed.
‘Jesus, Norman, where did you get these Nike Jordan’s?’ Carl was impressed ‘They’re from the eighties! They’re mint.’
‘Lucas collected all kinds of shoes. We bought them when we went to New York once. He found them in a thrift store.’
‘They’re my size,’ I commented, eyeing them hopefully.
‘I like these,’ Debbie said, pulling out a pair of rainbow
Nike high tops.
‘Mum! You look better!’ Charlie said, clearly relieved when he arrived towards the end while Carl was taking the final few pictures. ‘You look like you again, maybe a bit prettier!’
‘How about me?’ Isabelle asked.
‘Yeah, you look OK.’ She hit her brother lightly on the arm.
‘What have you got from the makeover?’ Lila asked to camera. ‘What advice can you share with others on a cancer journey?’
‘Never lose sight of who you are. You are still you, even with cancer. You are allowed to be OK, even when you’re not OK. And this vlog has helped me see me through the chemo haze. It has helped my kids glimpse their mum again. And we had fun. That is so important! When you feel dreadful – and I have done this week – adding a bit of glamour can lift your spirits. And fake eyebrows – what a revelation – thank you Magic Brows!’
42
Blood Ties
I knocked on Norman’s door at the end of the following week with Grace and Samantha. The latest vlog episode had beaten all previous records for involvement. David O’Donnell, Trisha and Mina had shared it on all social media platforms across what felt like the entire world. They even talked about Debbie’s journey on the sofa, wishing her well the following morning. We now had over sixty thousand subscribers and the numbers continued to steadily rise. Magic Brows expressed their ‘sincerely hopeful wishes’ to advertise with us, which was further reason to celebrate. And we had appeared in several newspapers as more than a makeover vlog. ‘Clothes My Daughter Steals is a therapy session with a real heart and some serious glitter,’ Samantha had read out loud from the Metro.
The Single Mums Move On Page 28