by J. M. Hewitt
‘How did you get out?’
‘This woman came along, luckily. She was in there when I first went in. Oh my God, Jules, she was naked!’ Paula’s eyes widened at the memory. She was no prude, but it seemed so totally inappropriate.
‘Eww,’ said Julie.
‘Yes, so she came back and luckily let me out. I invited her to dinner with us last night, she’s here on her own.’
‘Why’d she come back to the sauna?’ said Julie.
‘She left her bracelet in there or something. Lucky for me she did; nobody else was coming along. Oh, and then I lost my bloody bag. I thought it had been stolen from the sauna, but Anna – that’s the woman who let me out – found it and returned it.’
There was silence at the other end of the phone.
‘You still there?’ Paula asked.
‘Yeah. Just, it seems like this woman is your guardian angel or something,’ said Julie, and Paula noted the careful tone she used.
She frowned as she looked at the phone. Was Julie jealous of her new friend?
‘What’re you on about?’ she scoffed.
‘Is she single?’
Paula nodded. ‘Yes, and skinny as a rake. Seriously, Tommy and I had the most beautiful steak dinner last night, and she only ate half a plate of salad!’
‘Careful, sweetie. There are women who make it their life’s ambition to nab men like your Tommy. Just be on your guard,’ said Julie.
Paula felt a flare of irritation, just as she had on the shopping trip. The woman was just one constant lecture. And what was with the continual digs at Tommy, the insinuations that he was going to go off with another woman? Just because it had happened to Julie…
She took a deep breath, not wanting to get into another fight with her best friend. ‘She doesn’t need to “nab” Tommy, she’s very wealthy herself, got a good career, her own business.’
‘So, she’s skinny, independent, got her own money; she doesn’t sound very desirable at all,’ replied Julie drily.
‘She barely even spoke to Tommy, she hung out with me,’ said Paula defensively. ‘Anyway, I have to go now because she’s picking me up soon. We’re going to the hair salon together.’
‘It’s your first full day on the cruise, where’s Tommy?’ asked Julie.
‘On a fishing trip with some guys he met.’ Paula closed her eyes and clutched the phone tight, suddenly unable to listen to the disapproving sound of Julie’s silence. ‘Gotta go, babe, I’ll call you again!’
She hung up just as a knock sounded on the suite door. She hurried over, opened it and greeted Anna, noting as she did the spots of colour in the woman’s high cheekbones and the thick winter coat she was wearing.
‘Have you been out on deck?’ she asked.
‘Yes, just waving the boys off on their fishing trip,’ Anna said. ‘I thought you might be there.’
Paula frowned. She hadn’t been invited to wave them off, she hadn’t even known what time they were leaving. How had Anna known?
‘I had a lie-in,’ she answered lamely. ‘Did Tommy tell you what time they were going?’ And if so, when? she wondered. They’d not spoken much last night, and she was sure he hadn’t mentioned the details of the fishing trip.
‘No, I was just taking a walk up there before our appointment. We’re already at Bruges, you know. It was great docking and watching the day-trippers speed away on the boats. We’re docking again later in Ouddorp and picking them up there.’
Suddenly it seemed to Paula that Anna knew an awful lot more about her husband’s trip than she did. She hadn’t even realised the cruise ship would dock to let them off and collect them again later at a different place.
She thought of Julie’s words of warning and felt something dislodge inside her. Why hadn’t Tommy asked her if she’d see him off this morning? She smiled brightly at Anna, pushing her paranoia deep down inside. After all, if Anna was trying her luck with Tommy, she could have easily gone on the fishing expedition herself. ‘I’ll be sure to meet them when they get back,’ she said as she glanced at her watch. ‘But first, let’s go to the salon and get my hair sorted out!’
Chapter 9
Before
My mother was both a prostitute and a drug addict.
Or so I was informed on my first day at secondary school.
At eleven years old I knew the basics of sex, but to me it was what people in their twenties did, not women like my mother. And drugs?
I thought of Kevin, our neighbour who sat in his back garden and puffed away on big white roll-ups, the unmistakable scent drifting over the fence, reaching my nostrils as I sat out there in all weathers, waiting patiently for my mother to finish up with her customers.
That was all I knew of drugs: funny-smelling fags that weren’t such a big deal seeing as you could smell them practically everywhere you went on my little council estate.
The girl who told me what I hadn’t known about my mother was called Suzanne. She was small and wiry and looked like a ferret. Like me, she was friendless, and looking back, I think now it would have made sense for us to reach out to each other. But in her desperation to be liked, she bullied me.
She made her announcement in front of my brand-new class, before the teacher came into the room. In shock, I said nothing. Instead, I thought about my home, the door to the bedroom that I mustn’t enter if it were closed, the matches and ashtrays and that peculiar scent that I’d put down to Kevin next door but often smelled like it was coming from upstairs.
I wasn’t sure which was worse: my mother the prostitute or my mother the drug addict.
The girls in the class, those well-adjusted, well-liked girls that Suzanne and I would never be, jumped on her proclamation. Whore, druggy, slag, scag. Words that started as a whisper were picked up and passed around, until the classroom was roaring.
‘She’s not!’ I found my voice at last, and even though it trembled, I said what I was supposed to. I denied it.
‘Settle down, come on now.’ The teacher came in, bodies scattered into seats, laughter and pointed looks hung in the stale, sweaty air.
From beneath lowered lids I watched the girls who had called my mother those names.
‘Where’s your dad?’ hissed Suzanne. ‘Was he one of her punters?’
Punters.
My mother called the men in her room ‘customers’. They used to be referred to as her ‘friends’, but that had changed since I’d got older. Two different words that meant the same thing.
The teacher stood in front of the class, coffee-stained shirt, bright eyes and unflattering glasses. As he settled in behind his battered desk, he promised us that the next few years would be among the best of our lives.
He lied.
* * *
For once, my mother’s door was open when I got home, and she was in the kitchen, propped up against the worktop, still in her dressing gown.
I watched her for a while, trying to remember the last time I had seen her in clothes. My mind worked backwards until I recalled her taking me to town at the start of the summer holidays to buy my new school uniform. Six weeks ago.
‘Mum,’ I said as I closed the kitchen door behind me.
She tipped a fag out of the box and clutched it between her yellow fingers. I waited for her to ask me how my first day at school had gone, but she simply lit her cigarette and continued staring out of the window.
‘What’re you looking at?’ I asked, coming up to stand beside her.
‘Nothing,’ she said.
I remained there for a little while, next to her, breathing in the cigarette smoke and trying to ignore her overpowering perfumed scent. It was warm in the little kitchen and I pushed up my sleeves, laying my arms on the cool of the worktop. I waited for her to comment on the scars that criss-crossed my arms and wrists, but she said nothing.
‘Mum, can I ask you about my dad?’ I held my breath; I’d never asked her anything like that before.
She uttered a laugh as she crushed out the cig
arette in the sink. ‘Nope,’ she said as she pushed herself upright and stretched. ‘Will you put some dinner on while I have a bath?’
Without waiting for a reply, she slouched away, her heavy tread on the stairs signalling the end of that particular conversation.
* * *
There was a girl at my new school who was living an even worse life than me. Her name was Rebecca Lavery, and she was dirty and smelly and thin as a rake. I wasn’t any of those things because I’d learned how to use the washing machine when I was seven, and the iron and the shower, and I’d been cooking for myself and my mother since I was eight. I took comfort in the fact that Rebecca’s sorry state of affairs was briefly more interesting to the other kids than the fact that my mother was a prostitute and a drug addict. I got a reprieve, for a short amount of time.
One day, I was sitting outside the nurse’s office after having an accident with a scalpel in the art class. I’d given up cutting myself for sympathy, attention and physical comfort. Turns out when you’re no longer tiny and cute, the teachers and nurses don’t give a free hug with every incident that involves a bandage or a plaster. I still cut myself, though, because along with the blood came a feeling of release and relief. It was short-lived, and I tried not to do it often, but the sight of the sharp blade and the anticipation of that blessed emotion had been too tempting that day.
The nurse told me I looked pale as she deftly and efficiently patched me up, and I was to sit in the outer office until she was sure I wasn’t going to pass out. I waited for her to comment on the faded scars that adorned my arms, but she said nothing.
As I perched on the chair, thinking of nothing and nobody, thin-as-a-rake Rebecca came in from the corridor.
‘Mr Heston told me I was to come here,’ she said, and it was a moment before I realised she was talking to me.
I shrugged. I hadn’t summoned her; why was she telling me?
‘Rebecca?’
It was the nurse, the same one who had bandaged me up. She hurried over to Rebecca and crouched down next to her, putting her arms around the thin girl’s shoulders and pulling her close. From my corner, I watched in awe and envy.
‘We’re going to ask you some questions,’ she said, her voice muffled as she spoke into Rebecca’s hair. ‘They might be difficult for you, but it is very important you tell us the truth.’
They moved as one into the nurse’s room, and two official-looking suited women followed them in. Later, just as I was deemed fit to return to class, Rebecca came out with the two women. Her eyes were red, and both of them had their arms around her.
‘It’s okay, you won’t ever have to go back to your home again,’ murmured one. ‘You’ll be staying in a temporary home. The people are very kind, and they’re very much looking forward to having you stay.’
The news was all over the school. Rebecca was being assaulted at home by a man she called ‘uncle’. Many men came and went, apparently, and I couldn’t help but think of my own house.
I never saw any of my mother’s customers; they had no interest in me, or perhaps they didn’t even know I existed. I wondered what they would do if they saw me when they had finished with my mother. Might they take an interest in me, an unhealthy interest like the ‘uncle’ had had with Rebecca? Would I then be summoned to the office and treated with tenderness and kindness and put in a home where people were nice to me? It was a thought that would stick with me.
There were tears, crocodile ones mostly, from the girls who had shamed Rebecca for the way she looked and the way she smelled. But all I felt was envy. She had been rescued and was moving to a home where only love and kindness and care were waiting for her.
Chapter 10
Paula leaned her head back against the sink and sighed with pleasure. Across the salon she could hear Anna’s soft voice as she spoke to the stylist. She wondered what Anna was going to have done. Her hair was already short, shaved up the sides, longer on top. An out-there style that Paula would never have been able to carry off, but she had to admit that with Anna’s petite and boyish frame, it looked very high-end. The woman had no roots to speak of either.
‘We’re going to leave the conditioner on for around thirty minutes,’ said the stylist as she massaged Paula’s head.
‘Great idea, reverse some of the heat damage from that sauna,’ murmured Anna.
She sounded very close, and Paula opened her eyes, closing them again as the conditioner flicked across her eyelids.
She felt Anna’s hand then, on her shoulder, and she relaxed.
‘What are you getting done, Anna?’ she asked, wincing as the woman behind her tugged at her tangled hair.
‘Hmm, just a trim. I was thinking of highlights, but you know, I think I like it how it is at the moment,’ replied Anna.
The salon phone began to ring, and the stylist’s hands stilled in Paula’s hair. ‘Are you all right if I just get that?’ she asked.
Paula waved her away.
‘I hate that,’ she said in a low voice to Anna, ‘when salon stylists have to double up as receptionists.’ She paused and gave an awkward laugh. ‘Do I sound like a snob?’
‘No, it’s a particular bugbear of mine too,’ replied Anna. ‘I mean, we pay enough money for them to hire someone to answer the phone, right?’
‘Yes!’ Paula smiled and settled back against the basin. ‘Hey, do you want to get an early lunch when we’re done here?’
‘Ms Masi?’ A second hairdresser came into the salon, and with a bright smile she summoned Anna over. ‘I’m ready for you now.’
Thirty minutes later, Paula’s stomach rumbled noisily as the stylist unwrapped the clingfilm from around her head. She looked over at Anna, realising the other woman hadn’t answered her question about lunch. She opened her mouth to enquire again, but clamped it closed as she ran her eyes over Anna’s impossibly skinny body. She had barely touched her salad last night, what if she had an eating disorder? Would it be horribly insensitive to keep on inviting her to meals?
‘What are your plans for the rest of the day, Anna?’ she asked.
Anna shrugged. ‘I think we’re stopping for a couple of hours when we dock to pick up the men. I might get off, have a look around.’
Paula nodded. Clearly, Anna was planning to be there when the men boarded. Was she intending on picking one of them up? Julie’s warning rang in her mind again. Was she going to be there in the hope of bumping into Tommy in particular?
‘Merda!’
Paula didn’t understand the language, didn’t even know what nationality her stylist was, but she got the tone.
‘What?’ she asked. She looked up and around at the other woman.
The stylist’s face had drained of colour.
‘What?’ Paula asked again. She reached behind her, pulled her hair over her shoulder and peered down at it. ‘Oh my God,’ she muttered. Looking back up at the stylist, she held up the strands of hair. ‘What happened?’
‘What is it?’ Anna’s voice floated across the salon.
Paula couldn’t speak. It’s hair, just hair. It’s not your health, it’s not a death. It’s just hair, she told herself.
But it wasn’t, not really.
Anna’s gown whispered as she crowded around with the two other stylists. Paula heard a gasp, long and drawn-out, and she felt the hairdressers’ fear in their silence.
‘Is this bleach?’ asked Anna sharply, lifting a hand to pat at Paula’s hair. The look in her eyes was of sympathy mixed with horror.
Despite the two hairdressers talking in crisp tones at each other, gesturing to the dish that had been used for the deep-conditioning treatment, Paula did not ask again what had happened. She did not demand that it be put right, that she receive a refund and further complimentary treatments, or insist that she speak to the manager of the salon. There was nothing that could fix this in the here and now.
‘Just… dry it,’ she said, her voice thick.
In the mirror she watched the three women behind he
r exchange worried glances. She heard her own breathing accelerate. Suddenly feeling very constricted, she pulled at the neck of the gown that covered her. The Velcro peeled away and she stood up, leaving the gown on her chair.
‘Forget it,’ she said in a strange, strangled voice, and as the others watched, she hurried to the door of the salon and pushed through it.
In the corridor, she paused, one hand on the wall, and was it her imagination or were the walls closing in on her? She heard the click of heels approaching from inside the salon, and she pushed off the wall and darted through a door, up the winding stairs, feeling dizzier and fainter as she went round and up and round.
Out of the corner of her eye she spotted a door, large and metal, and she pushed on it and burst through. The wind, howling and bitter, made her gasp, and belatedly she realised she was out in what must be minus temperatures in a thin top with no coat. She wrapped her arms around herself and, putting her head down against the wind, made her way to the railing.
Eyes stinging, she forced her head up and looked to the sky. It was a metallic grey with dark, swollen clouds. Fat raindrops cascaded around her, stinging her skin and soaking her already wet hair.
Her hair.
She caught a fistful of it and peered sideways. It was bleach, she knew instantly. Anna had been right. That wouldn’t have been so bad had she been blonde, but the mixture had turned her glossy black hair a garish orange colour. And not all over, which might also have been a little bit better, but in splodges.
How had the bleach got in the dish? Had it been left over from a previous customer? It didn’t matter anyway, she thought, as she tilted her head back and let the rain lash down to rinse the horrid mixture from her hair. There was no changing it.
She put a hand on the cold railing and stared out to sea, hoping to catch a glimpse of Tommy returning from his adventure. But there was no sign of life on the choppy ocean; it stretched dark and barren and empty all the way to the horizon.