by Fiona Gibson
“I’ll be wearing the papier-mâché disaster,” she retorted, pulling up her legs and trying to nestle into the unyielding sofa. She glanced at the overdressed Christmas tree in the corner of the room. An ungainly angel, its features crudely drawn in felt tip, was perched on the top.
“That’s Mum’s contribution,” Ollie explained. “She’s like a little girl when it comes to Christmas.” He indicated the clip-framed pictures. “That’s Celia, my mum.”
“She looks so young!” Hannah exclaimed.
Ollie smiled. “She doesn’t look like that now. They were taken years ago, when I was a baby.”
“Why are there so many pictures of her?”
“She was a model until—well, she couldn’t work anymore. Stuff happened to Mum. She hasn’t modeled since I was a kid.”
Hannah frowned, wanting to know more. “Was she famous?”
“No, she didn’t do designer shows or any of that. She was more your thermal underwear catalogue kind of girl. You want something to drink?”
“Just tea please,” she said, hoping that didn’t sound feeble. She’d told her mother that she’d be home after costume fittings. She had no intention of overstepping the mark by going home with boozy breath.
Ollie ambled through to the kitchen. Alone in the red room, Hannah got up to examine the photos. Celia. The name was familiar. Unusual, old-fashioned, matching her makeup and hair. There’d been some Celia mentioned at home: maybe a day care worker at Nippers, or a friend of her mum’s who’d drifted away. “Celia Tibbs,” she murmured.
Hannah glimpsed her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. She was wearing her own jeans, Zoë’s floaty top and a beaded bracelet that she’d nicked from a hippy shop on Bethnal Green Road. Her face was made up with stolen eye shadow (in “Pewter”), lipstick (“Candy Girl”) and mascara (“Cocoa”). She’d painted her nails Very Cherry but had decided it looked too goth and quickly covered it with Mauve Kiss. No wonder she’d been late for theater workshop. Getting changed after school used to take her five minutes max.
The phone rang, and Hannah heard Ollie taking the call in the kitchen. “Hey,” he said gently, “it’s okay. Yeah, just got a friend here. Of course I will.”
Hannah examined her nails. Zoë had been right: nicking stuff wasn’t that difficult. Plenty of shops didn’t put security stickers on their goods, and Zoë knew which ones were “safe,” as she put it. You could use one hand to pick up something and examine it, while your other hand closed around a small item and casually slipped it into your pocket. Or you could pick up two of the same thing, put one back and leave the other concealed in your loosely clenched fist; a white-knuckle grip was a giveaway. Bigger items were trickier, but not beyond the well-practised lifter. Last week Zoë had gleefully showed her the chocolate leather jewelry box she’d pinched for Veronica’s Christmas present. You just had to be calm, brave and know exactly what you wanted, and, Hannah surmised, those were pretty smart rules for life.
Ollie said, “Love you, too.” Hannah frowned. It was a girl he was talking to. Did Ollie have some girlfriend on the go? Surely he wouldn’t speak to her with Hannah sitting a few feet away. “We’ll talk later,” he added, then emerged from the kitchen with two mugs of tea.
As he set them on the floor, Hannah tried to bring up the issue of him crooning, “I love you” without sounding weird or possessive. Where was Zoë’s Cosmo when she needed it? “Ollie,” she started, “I just wondered…”
He looked at her, then his lips were on hers, and he was kissing her more forcefully than on the towpath; it was dizzying. Hannah’s foot collided with her mug, but she didn’t stop to worry about the spillage and mess because her head was full of kissing and wanting him. “Let’s go to my room,” Ollie murmured.
Hannah’s heart lurched. “Can’t we stay here?” she managed to say. Her mother would know if she went to bed with him, even if they did nothing more than lie there kissing. She’d come home supposedly from an extremely innocent theater workshop costume fitting with I’ve been to bed with Ollie Tibbs scrawled all over her face. Anyway, he didn’t just want to kiss in his bedroom; he was seventeen and a boy and he wanted to do it. “Hey,” he said, taking her hand, “it’s okay. Hang on a minute….”
Stepping over the puddle of tea, he sauntered across the living room, straightening his T-shirt and jeans, and started rummaging through the drawer of a pine unit. What was he looking for? God, thought Hannah: he’s getting a condom. Is that where he kept them, in a drawer in the living room for his mum to find? He was going to get his thing out and expect her to put the condom on for him. They’d had a go at rolling them on to bananas in sex ed at school. Mrs. Finch had rolled on her own rather enthusiastically, then whipped it off with a flick of her wrist and pinged it across the room into the bin. It had been screamingly embarrassing.
Hannah’s heart was walloping in her chest. She wanted to be at home, lying in a chocolatey bath, merely thinking about doing all kinds of delicious things with Ollie. “Here it is,” he announced, pulling something from the drawer and stuffing it into his pocket.
“What is it?” Her voice sounded strangled.
“Come out to the balcony and I’ll show you. I’m desperate for a cig. Mum goes mad if I smoke in here.”
He took a key from its hook, unlocked the door and they stepped outside. The balcony was dominated by a collapsible plastic washstand, which was heavily laden with underwear. Bras and knickers glittered with a fine covering of frost. Ollie didn’t seem to notice, or at least didn’t comment. Maybe, thought Hannah, his mum left her underwear out here all the time. She felt safer here. Nothing scary or dramatic was going to happen on a balcony with traffic crawling about all around them.
Ollie fished out a battered packet of cigarettes and a box of matches from his jeans pocket. He lit a cigarette and pulled out the other, slightly larger box. Hannah’s lips still tingled from the kiss. “Here,” Ollie said, handing her the box. “Sorry I didn’t have time to wrap it.”
“What is it?”
“Early Christmas present, nothing much.”
She opened the box and lifted the silver chain from its velvet nest. It was so delicate, with tiny pink crystals spaced along the chain, that she feared she might snap it by breathing on it. “I had no idea…you didn’t need—”
“I wanted to buy you something.” Ollie stared at his feet.
She looked at him. The gaudy colors of Christmas lights flitted across his lovely face. He’d chosen and bought this for her; this pool of silver in her palm. “Ollie,” she said, “who were you talking to on the phone?”
“My mum, why?”
“I just wondered.” She stared at the necklace, then placed it carefully back in its box. “It’s gorgeous,” she said.
Ollie kissed her again, in full view of his mother’s red lacy knickers and said, “So are you.”
20
Jane stood on Max’s doorstep, fluffing her hair to erase an imprint caused by the Santa hat she’d worn all day. She’d come straight from Nippers’ Christmas party; her entire body felt coated by a fine layer of sugar. She raised a hand, about to knock. “I just want a holiday,” came Veronica’s voice, “a bloody holiday, Max, like normal people have.”
Jane had come to show Max glass samples for his window, and to take Hannah home. She couldn’t decipher Max’s response, didn’t want to hear it. She’d turned into a snoop: first Hannah and Zoë, gleefully speculating on her crumbling bones and withering vagina. And now this. She could picture Max, his mouth set firm, his eyes gone cloudy—his I’m-not-really-here face.
“I work hard,” Veronica charged on, “and I deserve some little treats. D’you know how much effort I’ve put in to get this range off the ground? I’m exhausted, Max. Look at me. I’m completely shredded.”
It must be exhausting, Jane thought, blending aphrodisiacs all day. “You go,” Max snapped, “with Dylan and Zoë.”
“Are you kidding? I’m not taking them. I’m meet
ing up with Hettie and Jasper in Chamonix like I always do, I—”
“So why d’you need me?”
A pause. “Of course I need you,” Veronica declared.
Jane gripped the handle of her sample box. If she hurried away they’d hear her and think—and know—she’d been listening. How humiliating would it be to be caught creeping back down the steps? Hannah was in there, hearing all this—or maybe the girls were beautifying themselves at Veronica’s. They seemed to drift between Max’s house and Veronica Villas. Perhaps Max should build a bloody tunnel.
Jane felt stranded on the step, hating the bitterness that was flooding her veins. This was where Hannah preferred to be these days. Jane was aware that teenagers push their parents away; what she hadn’t been prepared for was the ragged hole they left behind.
A slight figure with heavy fringe had stopped on the pavement. Dylan, the canapé server, cocked his head and gazed up at her. “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I’ve come to collect Hannah.” Max and Veronica’s voices had faded. Jane clattered quickly down the steps.
“Why didn’t you knock?” Dylan enquired.
“They sounded…busy.”
Dylan smirked. “Having one of their moments? Thought they might. She wants a holiday—not with us, of course. She never takes us.” He sounded resigned.
“Have you seen Hannah?” Jane asked, not wishing to be drawn into criticizing his mother.
“They’re at our place. Come on, I’ll show you. They’re just back from one of their little…sprees.”
All Veronica had been able to afford after the divorce was an immaculate three-story town house with vast bay windows and what looked from outside like a loft conversion. “Better take off your shoes,” Dylan said, showing Jane into the faintly perfumed hall.
“Really?”
He grinned, indicating three small chrome cages on the floor. They looked like little prison cells for shoes. “One of Mum’s rules.”
Obediently, Jane pulled off her boots. She noticed that Dylan’s trainers remained on his feet, and wondered if he was having her on. “Zoë, Han, you up there?” he yelled upstairs.
Jane peered into the living room. It was immaculate, almost a replica of Max’s porridgy room. There was no evidence that human beings actually engaged in activities or even breathed in there. Shrugging at the girls’ lack of response, Dylan led her into the room. In his scruffy black T-shirt and jeans, he looked like he’d wandered into the wrong house. He had pale, gangly arms, a flicker of mischief about him, and looked about fourteen. “Sit down,” he said. It sounded like an order, so she did.
“Dylan,” she said, “do Max and your mum, do they usually—”
“What, argue like that? Yeah, sometimes. Mum likes her own way.”
She glanced at her stockinged feet. “Max isn’t really the skiing sort.”
“She reckons that if he’s the cycling sort, then skiing shouldn’t be a problem….”
Jane laughed. “They’re kind of…different.”
“Mum and Max?”
“Skiing and cycling,” she said, thinking, yes, that too. A ripple of laughter came from upstairs, and Dylan went up to fetch the girls. A typed sheet of A4 lay on the coffee table. Jane speed-read the text:
FoxLove. A tantalising new snack range to enhance your libido and entire well-being.
There was a picture of her at the top—the fox herself—with her hair mussed forward and lips hanging ajar in a half-pout.
With my new range, I aim to bring you good health, maximum vitality and an enhanced love life beyond your wildest dreams….
“Hi, Mum.”
Jane sprang up. “Oh, Han, I didn’t hear—”
Hannah’s mouth was set firm. She glanced from her mother to the leaf let. Zoë appeared beside her, quickly rearranging her features to appear marginally less hostile. “Hi, Jane,” she said with fake brightness.
Jane smiled tightly. “Han, are you ready? I’d like to get back.” She snatched the box of glass samples at her feet.
“Okay.” Hannah sighed.
They would leave, Jane realized, without her seeing Max or showing him the samples; she had no intention of interrupting the skiing row. She wouldn’t see him now until after Christmas, a thought that made her feel hollow, and which she tried to banish. Hannah slung her bag over her shoulder. There was something different about her; something around the eye region. Jane frowned. “Have you plucked your eyebrows?”
“Yes.”
Behind the girls, Dylan shuffled uncomfortably. “They look…different,” Jane hedged. Hannah’s dark, dramatic eyebrows—her former eyebrows—had been mercilessly plucked into cotton-thin curves. The entire brow area was puffy and pink.
Don’t flip out, Jane warned herself as they left Veronica’s house. It wasn’t as if her fifteen-year-old daughter had gotten a tattoo or had a bolt put through her tongue.
It was only eyebrows.
Dear Jane,
Thank you for your enquiry about my courses. I am pleased to inform you that places are available in February, as is accommodation at Hope House, which is within walking distance of my studio. I attach details of prices and arrangements regarding meals, etc. If you’re still interested please book accommodation with Mrs. McFarlane on 01797 345678. I look forward to confirming your booking at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely yours,
Archie Snail
Jane hadn’t expected a reply from Archie himself. She’d imagined that several assistants would run the admin side. Those swooped-down eyebrows—then Hannah’s, plucked to near-invisibility—flashed into her mind.
Heck, she’d book a place. Hannah regarded her with such disdain—and was it any wonder when she lived her life so cautiously? With anticipation fizzling in her stomach, Jane tapped out her reply.
21
Hannah glanced around the small, cramped shop. Strings of sequinned felt birds hung from the ceiling. Among the usual selection of jewelry, photo frames and trinkets someone had managed to squeeze in a Christmas tree festooned with glittering baubles. It was Christmas Eve. Hannah’s breath felt tight in her throat. The salesgirl was tapping on a laptop on the counter. “Looking for something?” she asked, glancing up.
“Just browsing, thanks,” Hannah said. There was a tremor in her voice. Now she was here—on the verge of doing it—she was feeling less sure of herself. She’d never done it without Zoë lurking nearby, projecting silent support.
Zoë had begun to feel like a big sister to her. Hannah had always wanted a sister, but even an annoying, grubby-nosed brother would have been better than the big fat nothing her parents had produced. That’s how she’d thought of the worry dolls. Not as bickering sisters but the kind who’d be happy to listen and always knew how you were feeling. Like little Zoës, come to think of it. She glanced at a heap of multicolored glass beads and coils of silver wire on the counter beside the laptop. So the girl made her own jewelry. Zoë had nicked a bracelet from here but had somehow managed to lose it by they time they’d got back to Hannah’s. “What’s it matter?” Zoë had said. “It’s not like it cost me anything.”
It didn’t seem right, stealing something that someone had made with their own hands. It could have been one of her mum’s glass panels, and Hannah knew how much care went into making those. Of course, everything was made somewhere—yet stealing was easier to justify if the trinket had been mass-produced by the billion in some factory in China.
A hippyish elderly woman was putting on clip-on earrings and asking the salesgirl if they suited her. They’re lovely, really bring out of the blue of your eyes. At the back of the shop a dad and his bored-looking son were deliberating over packs of Christmas cards. This time, Hannah hadn’t asked Zoë to come with her. She’d wanted to do this alone, to pick a present for Ollie in exchange for the pink crystal necklace. Zoë would have taken over, picking something horribly expensive, which wasn’t what Hannah wanted at all.
She scanned carved w
ooden boxes and a selection of silver-colored lighters in a wicker basket. That was it: a lighter. Small, understated, kind of grown-up. She picked one up, enjoying its cold weight in her hand. It was curved, almost kidney-bean shaped. It felt classy.
Her fingers curled around it. She imagined giving it to Ollie that evening. She’d just turn up, and if he wasn’t in she’d leave it with his mum—she wanted to meet this Celia Tibbs in the flesh—or tuck it in the corner of the landing by the door to his flat. She felt that familiar surge of excitement. Shoplifting wasn’t about needing things; look at Zoë and the plastic doll’s head. It was about being daring—experiencing that heady rush the moment before you did it. It was about feeling alive.
Hannah glanced up at a shelf laden with hand-painted vases, and moved her hand clutching the lighter to the open zip of her bag. She uncoiled her fingers. Drop—in it went. That would do it. Unlike Zoë, she knew when to stop. She wouldn’t be greedy; she’d just have the lighter and leave. Then, to make her excursion worthwhile, she nicked a tan leather purse, a pen encrusted with fuchsia sequins and a tiny mirrored photo frame.
The salesgirl was threading beads on to wire and didn’t acknowledge Hannah leaving the shop. The bell dinged as she opened the door. After the warmth and the incense smells, the air felt cool on her face.
Hannah checked her watch, surprised by how long she’d been in there. A good twenty minutes. She’d have to be quicker next time—more efficient. She glanced around the bustling street. It was almost dusk; the street glinted with Christmas lights, which usually looked tacky but today seemed oddly beautiful.
Hannah started to walk, feeling carefree and happy until it landed—a hand, the fingers spread—on her upper arm. Hannah tried to speak but no sound came out. The Christmas lights blurred before her eyes. And a voice said, “Excuse me, I think there’s something in your bag you haven’t paid for. Could you come back into the shop?”