by Beth Moran
Hester, who probably knew all this already, using her X-ray vision, and seemed as unsurprised by my scars as she was by Polly’s bruises, clapped her hands together once to call the meeting to order.
Oh yes – we’d forgotten there was supposed to be a point to all this stripping.
“Leona, you’re first. Please stand in front of the mirror,” Hester said.
Leona, rolling her shoulders awkwardly, twisted until she faced the mirror.
“Now. Rowan, please tell Leona what you see.”
Leona stiffened; I think only Hester’s grasp of her shoulder prevented her from bolting out of the room. Leona didn’t usually wear much make-up, or dress in especially flattering clothes, but white was not a good colour on her.
Rowan pursed her lips in thought. “I see your eyes. They’re like, nice. And kind. You don’t look at me like you think I’m worse than you ’cos I’m young and I’ve got a kid and I never passed any exams.” She paused before continuing, “Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if you’d been my mum.”
Leona jerked in astonishment.
Rosa was next. “I see a woman who always put everybody first. It your fault your children are fine woman and man because you gave all your love to them. Did great job.”
Uzma said, “Rowan’s right. You look at people as though you really care about how they are. If I had a problem, I’d be glad to have you around.”
And so we carried on, right around the circle. By the end, Leona seemed somewhat shell-shocked. In a good way.
Melody went next. And one by one, fourteen women stood in front of that mirror, some of whom barely knew each other, others who had walked shoulder to shoulder through dozens of the challenges women face. There were many smiles, many hugs, many tissues spilling over the edge of the bin by the end of it. To say I felt terrified when I took my place in front of Marilyn’s oak-framed mirror didn’t begin to cover it. What did these women see when they looked at me? Did I want it to be the truth, or the mask I wore, the pretend Faith? Was she almost the same thing these days?
“I see a woman who is strong as well as tough,” Melody told me.
“I see a woman beginning to find out who she really is, and there is nothing more lovely than that,” said Mags.
“Faith, I see in your eyes and your crocodile scars a woman who has suffered, but hasn’t let it make her bitter,” Millie declared.
“Faith, I love your hair. Millions of women would kill for hair that colour and that thick. You must be doing something right to have hair that thick.”
“Thanks, Rowan.”
“I love that you have no idea how beautiful you are,” Kim said. “You catch the eye of most men you walk past, and don’t even realize. I even caught Dylan staring at you.”
Excuse me? Can we please erase that comment? Not helpful to my embarrassing childish crush.
“You were a survivor,” Marilyn said. “But now you’re well on your way to being a conqueror. I look at you and I see a kick-butt queen like Boadicea lurking just beneath the surface.”
“It’s the hair!” Janice said.
“It’s not the hair. Well, maybe a bit her hair. But it’s more than that. There’s something about you that inspires me to fight for what matters. You get what’s important. Not many people manage that.”
“Thanks, Marilyn.”
“You’re welcome, buddy.”
Polly was last, having been the last to get ready. We all told her pretty much the same thing.
“I see a woman who is beautiful, and kind, and precious, and deserves to be cherished, and treated with love and care and respect at all times.”
“I see a woman with many friends who love her, who will do whatever it takes to protect her and make sure she is safe and can live somewhere safe. Like my house. I have a spare room with a soft bed and cushions and a cream dressing table. You won’t fall and hurt yourself at my house, Polly.”
Polly hated every second of it.
She tried to cover up those bruises with her hands, stared at the floor, and looked as though she was trying to shrivel into her shame. I wondered how many times she had stood like that in front of the monster who decorated her arms.
It would be a long road, no doubt, but we were only getting started with Polly.
Hester then tried to move on to phase two of the evening, but we weren’t ready. We jostled her into the special place before the mirror and forced her to look at herself.
“Hester, underneath that chain mail you have the biggest heart of anyone I know,” said Ebony, a quiet soprano who spent most of the time caring for her elderly parents.
Hester snorted.
“Don’t you dare snort. It’s our turn now,” Janice barked. “I see the woman who brought me dinner and sat and ate it with me every night for two weeks after my no-good, cheating, brain in his pants husband ran off with the tart-with-no-heart. That’s above and beyond the call of duty. You go above and beyond.”
We carried on around the circle.
I said, “I see a woman who cares more about us than about what we think of her. Who is prepared to be disliked and moaned about if it means we can be better women. That’s a rare and courageous thing. You are selfless, Hester.”
“Got something in your eye, Hester?” Millie asked.
Hester span around like a soldier on parade. “Enough! We are now twelve minutes behind schedule, thanks to your long-windedness and sentimentality. Please assemble before the mantelpiece in concert formation. Quickly now!”
Our brief mutiny over, we all formed a huddle in front of the hearth. Before we had a chance to wonder why, Hester ordered us to “remind yourself of the most pleasing thing someone said to you in front of the mirror.” We did. There was a flash, and Hester took our picture. She handed it to Yasmin, an IT whizz, who took a couple of minutes setting it up on Marilyn’s enormous television.
First, she showed a still of the choir practice when we had been recorded. Then she flicked to today’s photograph.
Were they the same women? We looked taller, stronger, surer, freer. Beautiful. All of us except for Polly, who looked miserable and terrified. We looked raw, and we looked real.
“Choir. Do you need make-up and flattering colours and fancy fashion to be beautiful?”
No, Ma’am, we did not.
“What do you need?”
We called out the answers: confidence, to feel good about ourselves, to relax, great friends, honesty, to feel proud, to know we’re loved, to know we are accepted. We needed each other.
Are all choirs like this?
Or only the great ones?
“Now. This is what makes me mad!” Hester smacked her hands together. Uh oh. “Why did you need a special meeting, bullying, make-up remover, a pile of white T-shirts, and a mirror to discover this? Why are you not telling each other this stuff every week? Every night? Once a year? Why does it take a crisis, or a tragedy, or a birthday – or someone to die – before we can spell out what it is that makes them unique, and marvellous? What are you so afraid of?”
She glowered at us all.
“I tell you this. And it is not a threat, it is a vow. If we resort back to them” – she flapped one hand distastefully at the rehearsal recording – “we will do this again. And full nudity will be required. Rowan.”
Rowan reopened her suitcase and took out a bag of hairbrushes, like those you would get in a salon. She then took out straighteners, curlers, rollers, and a load of clips, grips, and other hairdressing equipment.
“Right. Hester said if we did okay I could do your hair. If you want. But I have to get my bus in an hour so it can’t be everyone.”
“Rowan, if you can sort this squirrel’s nest I’ll give you a lift home,” Leona said.
Kim put up her hand. “I can help, Rowan. I did a bit of styling on my beauty course.”
So, the weird evening morphed into a pyjama party, only with white T-shirts instead of pyjamas. Marilyn and I fetched more drinks and cakes while the
choir were primped and styled in Rowan and Kim’s capable hands. And they did seem more than capable. Rowan instinctively knew what would suit each of us.
“Can you cut hair, Rowan?” Mags asked, while Rowan began a complicated type of chignon.
“A bit. I’m not trained or anything. I just like it. I did all my sisters when they had their prom. Mum said it was only fair ’cos I wasn’t allowed to go to mine,” she replied through the grips in her mouth.
“Why weren’t you allowed to go?”
“I knocked one of the teachers out cold.”
“Knocked them out?” Uzma boggled. “How?”
“Punched ’em. They were windin’ me up. I used to have a right temper on me, then. Didn’t know what to do with all that stress before Hester taught me to sing it out.”
“Well, school can be quite stressful.” Mags raised her eyebrows while trying to keep her head still.
“Nah. Annabel, my social worker, said it was the baby messing with my emotions. By nine months they’re takin’ over, like an alien, she said.”
“You punched your teacher when you were nine months pregnant?” Uzma’s eyes were complete circles.
“Yeah. So I think they should’ve allowed me to the prom, really. Extenuating circumstances. My nan got me one of those baby slings, in red so it matched my dress and everything. I could’ve taken her with me. It wasn’t fair.” She pinned up the last twist of Mags’s hair and sat back to inspect her work.
“Perhaps you should train properly, if you enjoy it. Go to college, or get an apprenticeship in a salon?” I said.
“I could, but paying for the childcare would leave me skint. My mum watches Callie for me enough as it is. And it would only interfere with my music career.”
“You have a music career?” Mags stood up to go and look in the mirror.
“Not yet. But you can’t give up your dream.”
Rowan spent a long time on my hair, taming the copper curls into glossy ringlets, then pinning most of them up so I resembled a heroine from a Jane Austen novel.
“Rowan, would you come and do my hair for my wedding? I’ll pay you, of course.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, s’pose.” But I saw the gleam of joy in her eyes when she turned to pick up the comb.
“And my bridesmaids. There’s three.”
“And what about my work Christmas party?” Yasmin asked. “Will you do my hair for that?”
By the end of the evening Rowan had four bookings. We had a quick run through of “O Holy Night” as we cleared up, flicking our fancy locks and smiling at our new, more beautiful selves. I walked home through crisp moonlight back to my little terraced house, and made it nearly all the way there before realizing with a shock that I hadn’t once looked over my shoulder for Kane.
Chapter Nine
The summer I sat my school exams resembled a car crash. How could I concentrate on French verbs and simultaneous equations while struggling to survive? Waking up every morning wondering if my brother would still be alive. Waiting for the police to bash down the door, or social services to come and take me away. How could I find the time or energy to revise when I worked five nights a week, spending my nights off and weekends cleaning up filth, washing my clothes in the bath, and trying to stretch pennies into pounds so I could quell the constant hunger?
When all I thought about was avoiding the Snake.
My exam results were a disaster. I spent the summer washing pots, trying not to think about my prospects, and sinking deeper and deeper into a murky pit of despair.
At some point during the summer, I caught Snake’s attention. He started offering me drugs or alcohol. I declined. Any flicker of temptation I may have felt at the chance of temporary oblivion was quickly stamped out by the up close and personal knowledge of what that oblivion cost.
So he backed off a little, and began making me cups of tea. Or a sandwich. Bringing me a take-away. More than a little weird – cosying up in front of a rom-com and sharing a curry with my spaced-out brother and his dealer.
Sometimes I would come home to find he’d cleaned the kitchen. He paid me compliments – not creepy ones, but crafty ones about my smile, or how clever I was, or how he wished he had a sister like me. He told me time and time again that I wasn’t like the other girls – he admired my choice to stay clean and work hard. He would give me a lift to the pub if the weather was bad, and wait for me at the end of a late shift in his rusty car.
It took weeks, months even, but my life had shrunk to a very small world with few inhabitants. At nearly seventeen, desperate for any kind of meaningful connection, woefully starved of affection, with no idea of what a real man was like, no compass to assess normal behaviour, I slowly let Snake twist his evil lies around me.
I hated myself for it, but I began to enjoy the feel of his arm when he casually draped it around my shoulders, like Sam had once done. I let him hug me, squealing as he span me around when feeling playful. A couple of times he stuck a CD on and cajoled me into dancing with him in the living room while Sam beat time on the table. I had never danced with a boy before. Never really danced before. He started kissing me goodbye on the cheek before he left, or held my hand as he pulled me out of the pub door and into his car in a rainstorm, knowing my poor, starving heart would take the fake love of a wicked man if it meant I could for a few moments believe somebody actually cared about me.
As Sam grew worse, Snake shared his concern. My brother barely left his bedroom, rarely ate, or changed his clothes. He had lost any remnant of control, and my worry for him was a gnawing beast on my back. Snake suggested he take him to a doctor. I agreed, anxious beyond words to do something, anything. I don’t know what he said, or even whether it was the right decision or not, but Sam got admitted to hospital. I now lived alone with Snake.
It was November. The week of my seventeenth birthday. Snake was thirty-two.
For three days I got up, went to work, tried to eat and sleep. My lodger lay low, made sure there was food in the house, and kept the chaos to a minimum. He invited me to eat with him at lunchtimes, which I did, on edge but still pathetically grateful for the attention.
He’s not so bad, I thought.
Wrong. He was worse.
On the fourth day, I had an early shift. I came home to find dinner on the table. Not a sandwich this time, a proper meal. There were candles and a vase of flowers. He had laid out napkins and a bottle of wine.
My heart began to thump, either with nerves or anticipation, I had no idea.
“Happy birthday, Faith.” He entered the kitchen, holding out a gift bag.
“How did you know?” I took the bag with trembling hands.
“How could I not know? I care about you, Faith. Open your present.”
I obeyed him, unwrapping the tissue paper to find a dress. Bottle green, stretchy, short, and strapless. A dress those other girls would wear – the ones Snake said I was better than.
“Don’t you like it?”
“No, it’s really nice. Thanks.”
He smiled, appearing genuinely pleased. As if it mattered to him what I thought.
“Well, food is nearly ready. Why don’t you go and put it on, and I’ll dish up?”
I took my time removing my worn jeans and sweatshirt, pulling the dress on and zipping it up before wriggling out of my bra. I shut my brain off, not able to comprehend what Snake might be expecting from all this. Knowing he always took what he wanted, but still desperate to keep pretending that I was different, that I was special. He might even love me. I might even be loveable.
Brushing out my frizzed-up hair, I heard a sound behind me.
Turning, I found him leaning on the doorframe, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Well, well. Look what’s been hiding under those jumpers. You’re gorgeous.”
He stepped inside, carefully closing the door. My breath jammed in my throat. Snake, in my bedroom, his eyes glinting. Would I do what he wanted? Would I have any choice?
&
nbsp; “I thought dinner was ready.”
“Not yet.” He sat on my drooping single bed. “Come here.”
All those touches, the kisses, the compliments, the gifts tumbled around my brain like litter in a storm. With the twisted logic of a neglected child, I felt I owed him this.
I sat down. He put out one hand and stroked my face. “Don’t be afraid of me, Faith. I’m not going to hurt you.”
He lied.
Wednesday, I went round early to Sam’s to drop off some shopping and clean up a bit before taking April to choir practice.
When I let myself in, the flat appeared tidy. Slightly disconcerted, I went into the kitchen. The Formica work surfaces gleamed. New tea and coffee pots lined up smartly next to the sparkling kettle. Even the floor had been mopped.
I dumped the shopping on the table, and opened the tiny fridge door. It was already full. A half-eaten cottage pie took up one shelf. The others were stuffed with salad, vegetables, a packet of chicken breasts, cheese, fresh juice, eggs, and a chocolate cake.
Oh.
A prickle of irritation skittered up my spine and lodged at the base of my skull.
Squeezing a box of cereal and some tins into a well-stocked cupboard, I left the rest of the shopping and went to find Sam, ducking my head into a spotless bathroom on the way.
I found him in bed, conked out.
“Sam.” Shaking his shoulder, not a little roughly, I woke him up.
“Faith. What time is it?”
“Nearly one. Have you been in bed all morning?”
“No.” He pulled himself up to a sitting position, running his hand over thick beard. “I went out with April.”
“Where?”
“For a walk. The nurse told April I need to get out the house every day, so we walk now. To the river and back. It knackers me out.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t go so far, then?”
He shrugged. “I like it. It’s peaceful by the water. And if I didn’t I’d still be knackered.”
I tried to squish down my annoyance.
“Have you eaten? I brought some bacon.”
“Uh, yeah.” He rubbed his head, as if trying to get his mind going. “We had a salad thing, with fish. April’s been reading about a diet that can help your mood.”