by Diana Evans
‘Fine.’ Melissa rolled her eyes at Hazel, who in turn was rolling her eyes at what hippie-shit confused rubbish she had just been spouting and now returned to perusing the merchandise.
‘I was calling to see if you’re ready to sign up for ten weeks, that’s ten for the price of nine! Remember the special offer? And I can also —’
‘I’m shopping, can I call you back?’ Melissa said.
‘OK! That’s fine! There’s only three days left to take advantage of the revised special offer, though! I’ll wait to hear from you!’
‘OK, thanks, bye.’
‘Bye!’
‘God, that woman is so pushy! I hate it when people are pushy, it has the opposite effect. Is there no escape from capitalism, from everyone trying to make a buck?’
‘Who was it?’ Hazel was assessing a two-tone blue coat against herself.
‘Oh, just baby stuff. What was I saying?’
‘You were saying that if it wasn’t for your gorgeous man you’d be living in Peru and there’s not only one way of living life and things might have happened a different way if they hadn’t happened the way they happened, or something like that. Do you know you seem to have this ridiculous fixation with being strong and alone and unconventional and – what’s the word? – resistant. Like, you can’t just live your life the way other people do. What is that? You’re dog-headed, that’s what you are. It’s gonna mess you up. Lots of women would love to be in your position. What do you think of this coat?’
‘Hm, don’t know, I think it would hang cheaply …’
‘Hm.’ Hazel put it back. ‘Do you know what you and Michael need?’
‘What?’
‘You need to spice things up a bit. I bet you haven’t fucked in ages, have you? Look, here’s one for you.’ She picked up a red dress, tight, bulge-clutchy, low at the bust. ‘How about this?’
‘It’s slutty.’
‘It’s sexy!’
‘It costs sixty-five pounds.’
‘Yes, that’s cheap, for a whole dress? God, the fashion industry is so wasted on you. Try it on, go on. Sometimes the best garms are the ones you’d never pick out yourself.’
‘Well, I’d definitely never have picked that one out. OK, I’ll try it on. Are we going to MAC? I need powder.’
They went to the changing room, Melissa with the red dress and a couple of tops, Hazel with a mound of skirts, trousers and blouses, several of which she bought. Melissa bought the dress, commanded by Hazel (‘Michael will love you in it, he’ll eat you up’), and afterwards they went to MAC, which was situated by the main entrance in the make-up hall. It was guarded by a gang of beautified creatures in black clothes listening to dance music, the MAC ladies. They wore their make-up pouches slung on belts around their hips, from which they flipped out eye pencils, mascaras and colours to paint the faces of the weak. They were deliverers of blue, scientists of pink. They knew the secrets to lifting a dull skin and mattifying a stubborn shine. They had understanding browns, many shades of it, placing them above those brands who allowed only a few dark tones to be flawless. At the entrance to the enclosure was a podium above which a muralled face with cascading hair waited with pen and paper, making appointments for makeovers. Her eyes were meticulously designed, broad streaks of shadow, temple-bound, a layer of silver studs along a light-blue background, and beneath this, cool green eyes staring nonchalantly out, acknowledging their hipness, their futurism. Around her women lingered by the cabinets, trying out the glosses and putting lipstick on their hands, looking for better versions of themselves, or they sat on high stools with their eyes closed and their faces lifted to the power of the lady, hoping for transformation.
Among the staff were two gay men in tight jeans and leather waistcoats, likewise heavily made up. ‘You OK there, babe?’ one said to Melissa, who was studying the pressed powders.
‘Do you have NC45?’
‘We’re out of that one, sorry babe. Do you want to try something similar? We’ve got a new range come out. Gives more coverage.’ He slipped a compact out of one of the revolving display cabinets and opened it. Melissa said she’d try it and her name was added to the list. A few minutes later she was sitting on a high stool while he puffed at her face with a thick brush.
‘Oh that goes nice on you.’ He dabbed and flicked with his brush some more. ‘Have a look,’ and handed her a mirror. She was lightly almond, perky.
‘Looks nice,’ Hazel said.
‘Isn’t it too dark?’
‘No! Gives you a glow. You’re just not used to it. That’s the mistake a lot of people make with make-up. They see it and think too light too dark too red too yellow or whatever, cos they’re so used to what they see in the mirror. But what you see in the mirror is only like a blank sheet of paper, right? It’s meant for colouring in.’
‘Exactly. That’s what I was basically just saying,’ Hazel said. ‘I think you should get it.’
‘OK, I will.’
MAC ran a special offer of a free lipstick if you returned six empty compact cases, which Melissa loaded out of her bag.
‘Babe, I don’t mean to be rude but your eyebrows need doing, love.’
‘Yeah, I’m always going on at her about her eyebrows.’
‘Changes your face. It does.’
‘I know, I haven’t had time to get them threaded lately …’
‘Got to keep yourself beautiful. You’ve got a lovely face, darling. Don’t waste it.’
‘See,’ Hazel said as they walked away, linking Melissa’s arm, though she was taller so Melissa changed it round and linked hers instead. ‘Don’t you feel like a new woman? You’ve got a red dress, a new face, new lipstick – time to get it on. I promise you, all you and Michael need is some time alone together and you’ll be sweet. Get a babysitter for a night. I’ll come over and babysit if you like.’
‘What? You? Will cross the river? To babysit?’
‘Of course I will, what do you take me for? I can see when two people need some emergency loving. You and Michael are not going to break up. I won’t let it happen. I mean, if you two broke up I’d stop believing in love! I’d stop believing there was hope for any of us!’
‘OK, OK, calm down,’ Melissa laughed, out through the revolving doors with their bags, out from the subterranean whirl and back into the weather, cool air on their faces, into the pigeon-stepping crowd. ‘You don’t need to worry, though. You’ve always got men on your heels. Tell me about your love life. What’s happening, anything interesting?’
Hazel, going on thirty-seven, had for some time been on the lookout for ‘the man’. She did believe that there was one man, a right man, of the fairy tales, and she wanted to find him and marry him and buy a house and have babies who would run around the garden wearing nappies that she couldn’t be bothered to change. She wanted to go the traditional route, but she was beginning to worry that it might never happen.
‘There has been a development, actually,’ she said.
‘Really? Oooh.’
His name was Pete. He was Greek–Moroccan via Harrow. They met at the milk-and-sugar stand in Starbucks, she putting chocolate on her cappuccino, he putting cinnamon on his latte, his shoulder half a foot higher than her shoulder, pleasingly, as she liked it, possible prince material, they lingered, a lot of chocolate and a lot of cinnamon, drew it out with more sugar, by the time they looked at each other side-on these were two very sweet beverages, he smiled, she smiled, and they had a little conversation about how they liked their beverages, and then they were sitting at a table by the window talking and getting to know each other. He was a travel consultant and liked clubbing and going to the gym. He ticked all the boxes, muscles in the forearms, apparently intelligent, sense of humour, does not live with his mum, has no children – but Hazel was not going to get ahead of herself.
‘You don’t meet the man of your dreams in Starbucks,’ Melissa said.
‘Well that’s what I’m thinking, innit, it’s like meeting someone in
a club or something. But you never know. I’m leaving it to the stars. Right now we’re just hanging out. It’s only been two months. He’s gorgeous, though. He is gorgeous. He looks like Al Pacino.’
‘Let’s see.’ Hazel handed over her phone. He did look a bit like Al Pacino. ‘So have you slept with him yet?’
‘What do you think, it’s been two months, of course I have. Can’t you see the bags under my eyes? We’re at it like rabbits. He is wild, you know, even by my standards, but he’s sensitive with it. Best cunnilingus this side of Kentucky. That boy knows exactly where to flick me.’
‘Do you mind, I’m trying to eat my edamame beans!’ Melissa spluttered.
They were now sitting across from each other in Wagamama waiting for their mains.
‘You asked.’
‘He sounds almost too good to be true. Maybe you do meet the man of your dreams in Starbucks.’
‘We should have a foursome some time – you, me, Michael and Pete.’
‘What kind of foursome?’
‘Not that kind of foursome,’ they were both laughing, ‘God, some people just have sex on the brain! You know I wouldn’t be able to share you with anyone else.’
Despite their joking, Melissa was remembering with nostalgia those exact same times of helpless, compulsive honeymoon love with Michael and feeling jealous. A foursome was a terrible idea. When new couples get together with old couples there is only unhappiness for the latter, watching the lovebirds glow at each other and gaze at each other and lock hands uncontrollably under the table. She mumbled something vague, avoiding the suggestion.
Hazel noted her noncommittal tone. ‘But you and Michael have your twosome first. Seeing as we’re on the subject, when exactly was the last time you fucked?’
‘Do you have to be so crass?’
‘I’m serious, man, this is important. If you stop having sex it just dies. It’s the life force. It’s crucial, you’ve just got to do it. Tell me, when?’
‘I don’t know, months. We’re basically flatmates.’
‘Oh no. Me and Oli were like that in the end, it’s horrible.’
‘There’s no time, though. I can’t be all the things my life is asking me to be. It’s too much.’ Melissa was hiding it but she was close to tears.
‘But he’s a man, Lis. He needs it. You’ve got to make time for him, otherwise you’ll lose him.’
‘I don’t want to make time. The little time there is left I want for me, not him. I don’t want to be answerable to someone’s sex drive.’
Hazel was appalled. ‘Jesus, listen to yourself. You’re disturbing me now. Answerable? Is that how you see it?’
‘Yes, frankly. We’re not lovebirds any more like you and Starbucks. It’s been thirteen years. How many times can you keep having sex with the same person without it becoming vapid?’
‘What does vapid mean?’
‘Kind of dull and flat.’
‘Why don’t you try something different, then?’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know, use your imagination!’ Their food arrived. Melissa was having ramen and Hazel was having vermicelli. ‘All I know is that you’ve got to make love. Men need to feel wanted. So much can go wrong when they don’t feel desired. Instead of thinking of it as something you have to do, for him, make it for you, know what I mean? It’s a two-way thing.’
‘Hm,’ Melissa said, unconvinced.
‘Wear that red dress. Go on, get penetrated. Give him blowjobs. Everything will be fine.’
‘You’re so disgusting.’
‘You know you want to,’ said Hazel, and they tucked into their noodles.
*
Thus cajoled, thus alerted to the imperatives of their partnership, their perfection, their chocolateness, Melissa and Michael went out on a date. Not to a party, no fraternising with other people and forgetting about each other. Just the two of them, a nice quiet dinner in a good restaurant, some wine, some music, easy adult conversation, perhaps followed by a walk hand in hand in the romantic winter’s night, an evening of remembering each other and feeling like a couple again, of laughing together, flirting, a tipsy, canoodly ride back home in a cab afterwards, then rounding off with some steamy, redemptive copulation.
That was the plan. In preparation, for they had to look their best, dress up for each other, Melissa went to the mall in Bromley to get her eyebrows threaded. There was a pod there where three Nepalese women worked all day holding the string between their teeth. They hewed at her brazen follicles, snipped at stray hairs, eventually achieving a sharp, thinned-down brow which always made her look alarmed for a couple of days until it softened. While she was there she also bought some red high heels to go with the dress, the kind of shoes Hazel might wear, in fact it was as if she had spotted them with Hazel’s eyes. Meanwhile Michael attended to his own follicles, setting his clippers to a close grade 1 and shaving three weeks of growth off his scalp. It always gave him a cleaner, chiselled look, and there was that promising moment when Melissa was finishing it off for him, as was their custom, gliding up with the blade from his neck to his crown, neatening the edges, rubbing at the stubborn patches, she had to stand very close to him in order to do this, between his knees, her arms raised over him, and already they were reminded of how perfectly her smallness slotted into his largeness, his length, his octopus arms. He couldn’t help but stroke lightly down the backs of her legs as she stood there, a blush of Saturday afternoon sun coming in from the window twins. It was a warm, natural moment. So there was hope. They could return. Perhaps it really was this easy.
Hazel arrived in a blaze of southward trauma. ‘God, my satnav wouldn’t work. It just died on me, I had to read a map! I ended up taking Vauxhall Bridge instead of Battersea. Didn’t know where I was. You need to come back to civilisation, man. Wow, you two look be-auu-tiful.’
They were pictures of themselves. Oiled, snipped and perfumed, Melissa in the new lipstick and powder, the dress and shoes, darker and taller than she knew herself to be, and Michael also wearing red, a new V-neck sweater beneath the chestnut leather jacket. They were matching.
‘I don’t know why Mummy and Daddy have to go out tonight,’ Ria said. ‘Why can’t you just stay in and have a nice time?’ She hated it when the two of them were leaving her for some private adventure. It made her feel bereft, like the world was dissolving.
‘Sometimes,’ Hazel said, ‘adults need time on their own, and anyway you’ve got me to hang out with now. What shall we do?’
Make cakes, watch TV, have a disco, eat cakes, make a house, have some hot chocolate, shrink, not have a bath. These were just some of the things. Ria stood in the doorway watching them go, wearing her one white glove and her strange nightwear of cotton strap dress on top of fleece pyjama suit. She watched them right up until they turned the corner into the high street and all that was left to see was the plane tree leaning out into the road and the moon behind it. Then she went back inside.
Open air! Childlessness! Pramlessness! And carlessness. They walked. It was a windy night. That was the first thing. It was the kind of wind that blew at you from all directions so that whichever way you went your hair still got trashed. Melissa got frizzy up the high street while Michael was trying to hold her hand, down the slope they went to the station to take the train to Crystal Palace, where they were going to have dinner. Michael had booked a table. They were going to a secret gig afterwards as well, which Melissa did not know about. He was trying to re-enact another long-ago night when he had taken her out for her birthday to the Soho Theatre, afterwards they had walked through the London streets in the dark as she loved to do, bound for a restaurant in Covent Garden, holding hands, he a little way ahead, leading her, she enraptured by the mystery of it, the excitement of not knowing. Tonight was going to be just the same. He would lead her and she would follow, enraptured. As they stood on the platform he put his arms around her and she sheltered in his leather coat. It was stilted, though, that was the second thing,
not like before during the haircut. They felt that they were putting on a show for themselves and watching it uncomfortably. The train came slowly in, its low lights shining over the tracks. They got on and sat next to each other, facing the dark windows.
When the Crystal Palace was still standing, when people had come from miles and miles to see the colossi of Abu Simbel and the tomb of Beni Hassan, there had been two ways to get there, via the High Level line or the Low Level line. The High Level line was no longer in use; it was the Low Level platform on to which Melissa and Michael disembarked, climbing the many steps up to the street after a rustling, verdant journey (the foliage thickens and closes in around the tracks along the way, as if you are going into a different world). Dutifully hand in hand they emerged on to the street, into this rolling, hilly town on the far south edge of London, where from the pinnacles of the steeps the city centre is a shimmering, distant valley view of many coloured lights. You can hear seagulls, possibly bound for Brighton, it is so far out, it has a seaside sensation, and they and other birds soar amidst the peaks of the two Eiffels, the taller standing in the park on the flat plane of Crystal Palace Parade, the shorter at the top of Beulah Hill towards Thornton Heath. Up they walked in the frizzing wind towards Westow Hill where all the restaurants were. There were lots of people about, spruced up for Saturday night, people who had moved out here for affordable places to live, thus joining in with the endless expansion of the city, bringing Kent and Bromley into the party, making Brixton central and Dulwich hip. With these people had come the trendy furniture boutiques and wholefood juice bars, the vintage clothes shops, and the indigenous folk, those who had watched all this happen, carried on in their own sweet way, the boys who came down from the tower blocks with their dogs, the old folk who couldn’t believe the price of a flannel in Sainsbury’s these days. There were other couples too, walking hand in hand more naturally, peering at the menus in the windows beneath the awnings.
The place Michael had booked was one of those chic and stately modern places with elegant chairs and no music, where the food is considered the only music necessary and actual music an unnecessary distraction. There was gold panelling around the doors and windows, light-grey tablecloths. A stern, unsmiling host placed them next to a pillar in the centre of the room, neither discreet nor intimate, and they struggled in this classy sterility to vibe. Melissa ate wood pigeon for the first time in her life and didn’t feel right about it. They tried hard not to talk about the children, but it was difficult, and they ended up talking about the mice. Between intermittent silences they sipped from their different wines, his red, hers white. At the next table sat an old couple who also had nothing to talk about and had given up trying to make it look as if they did, both of them with tight looks on their faces and deadened eyes.