by Mavis Cheek
‘And how have you been getting on?’ she asks Chloe.
Chloe smiles. The smile is bursting with pleasure.
Something about that smile makes Tabitha stiffen.
All over.
Nonsense.
She has only been in her cubicle for a little over an hour.
What can have happened in so short a time?
‘I’ve got three makeovers lined up,’ says Chloe.
That could happen in so short a time.
‘Three?’ Tabitha’s voice cracks like Callas post-peak.
She coughs.
Puts out her hand to steady herself by clutching one of the reception desk cherubs, which comes off in her grasp. She looks at it. It smiles cheekily back at her as if pleased to be free.
‘Oops,’ says Chloe. ‘Place is falling apart...’
Tabitha swallows. And rallies. She looks at her watch. ‘You scarcely had time to give them a proper consultation. You know how important that is to the Initial Treatment. How long did you talk to them?’
Behind the desk Chloe clenches her fists, counts to ten.
‘You know, if you have not done a proper consultation then I shall feel obliged to be here while you –’
Chloe seeks, and finds, inspiration.
‘They’re all coming back. Didn’t have time this morning. They were all a bit rushed – you know – just passing and saw the offer in the window sort of thing ... So I’m seeing them again for a proper consultation before they come in for the makeover. Next week actually. A sort of mini-appointment – free – because, after all, I am only a trainee.’
Tabitha looks relieved and anxious at the same time. Chloe looks relieved and angelic, a combination she has no difficulty with at all.
‘Have I done right?’ she asks sweetly.
‘A good solution,’ says Tabitha warily. At least she will see them for herself. ‘When exactly?’
‘Oh,’ says Chloe airily, ‘I’ve said Wednesday, but they’ve all got to ring and confirm. You know how it is ... ’
‘Did I hear that the sunbeds are in use?’ Tabitha looks at the timer on the top of the desk. Chloe picks it up.
‘No, no – ’ she says, ‘I was just dusting it.’ She peers at Tabitha’s hand, still holding the cherub. ‘Shall I stick that back on?’ she asks.
‘You can try,’ says Tabitha, sadly, ‘but I don’t suppose it will ever be quite the same again.’
Behind her the door of the cubicle opens. Saved by the bell, thinks Chloe, whipping the timer out of sight.
The bride-to-be issued forth. She was certainly a radiantly beautiful creature now. Her eyes shone and she had the look about her that said Queen for a Day. Despite her sweatshirt and jeans she moved as if she were the very Goddess Hymen herself, impeded by the heavy silvery satin and pearls of her gown. Of the pink mouse there was no trace.
‘Blimey’ breathed Chloe in both awe and envy, ‘we can do magic in this place.’
‘Not quite,’ said Tabitha with a snap. ‘She brought her own happiness from within. Remember that. The glow of beauty can never be entirely imposed.’
Chloe said ‘Mmm ...’ noncommitally, thinking that Super-models had their photos taken when they were under the weather or the boyfriend had been a bit uppish, so happiness had nothing to do with it. Necessarily. But she was wise enough not to say so. She had those makeovers organized and that was the main thing.
Well, nearly organized. There was still the matter of getting them back again for a Proper Consultation if Tabitha was going to keep her bargain and go out. She wrote down their telephone numbers and tucked them into her bra. She’d do it tonight: call them from home, tell them they had to come in. Give them the summons.
‘Yes,’ said Margery unhesitatingly.
‘I’m not at all sure about any of this ...’ said Caroline cautiously.
‘She who dares, wins,’ said Chloe.
‘Oh, I don’t know that I need to,’ said Gemma crisply.
‘You’ll be charged full whack if you don’t,’ said Chloe.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
12
It is an odds-on certainty that the three women who on this beautiful clear summer’s day prepared to make their second trips towards Chloe and the salon would, at that precise point in their lives, have eschewed all other attributes in their quest for the elixir of beauty.
None would have stopped to even consider the offer of The Top Job; Do Me A Favour their expressions would say. Margery would have spurned Hamburg Young Pianist, Caroline would have rejected Head of the French Department and Gemma, if offered it, would have declined quite easily the opportunity to become a Director of Hambros. Towards the Beauty Parlour they travelled, in hope and expectation. Two very dangerous modes of transport.
*
‘Now remember,’ said Tabitha, pacing a little too rapidly back and forth across the eau-de-Nil carpet so that she felt quite giddy and had to sit down, ‘in a proper consultation you talk about skin type, their usual beauty routine, what kind of life-style they go in for, etc, etc. And you get a picture of what the client requires. You take your time and you let them talk. You are allowed, just this once, to express an opinion on their beauty habits, which you will almost certainly find unacceptable. In this way you will know your client and be able to give her what she wants.’
Chloe smiled. ‘Thanks for the reminder,’ she said, and looked at her watch. Nearly blast-off. Her head fairly ached with this manipulation and effort. She had managed to get Tabitha completely booked up that morning, so that she would only be able to watch from a safe distance.
And not
hear anything
at all ...
What she had to say to her three had best not be overheard. What she had to say was not exactly correct salon procedure.
*
‘Men are very stupid,’ said Chloe, keeping her voice low. ‘They see beauty only as a road towards lust. It is no good,’ she tapped the appointments book, ‘expecting them to recognize your other unseen qualities like ...’
For a moment Chloe was stumped. She was also running out of elegant language, which she always found a bit like taking a run at a hill – fine for the first hundred yards then it tended to teeter off. Tabitha could go on for ever. Chloe dredged through her brian. Mustn’t teeter now ...
What qualities? What qualities were there? Big eyes, small nose, good cheeks – flauntable knockers as a bonus – what qualities were going to overtake that lot? She looked at the hopeful pair of eyes which looked back at her expectantly. She thought harder. Qualities? What did they used to say about the Virgin Mary at school?
‘ ... like kindness and goodness ... ’
The pair of eyes blinked.
What did they used to say about Chloe at school? Qualities she lacked? Went on saying it until she became thirty-six, twenty-three, thirty-six, no pimples, and then fell silent.
‘ ... like brains and good typing ... ’
The eyes blinked anew. Their owner was not much of a typist.
Chloe took a run at the hill again. ‘Exactly. No good being kind and good and brainy and qualified ... ’ here the run at the hill failed ‘until they’ve got a direct message ... ’ completely ‘ ... from dick to brain. And that’s what you want the makeover for. Right?’
The eyes looked hopeful.
Well, thought Chloe, well – Tabitha said much the same: Make the Best of Yourself. Chloe was just a little more blunt. She was convinced that if Tabitha had a sex life, she wouldn’t be half so wet – talking about the women who came to the salon as ‘having something of their own to bring’ or ‘challenging’ (too bloody true, thought Chloe again, looking at this one), but none of them was going to set the world ablaze even when she’d finished with them. When the Beauty Parlour was hers she wouldn’t need to take on dross like this lot.
‘You’ve got to understand lust.’
Silence.
‘Oh,’ she said, suddenly wearying of the linguistic struggle, ‘please yourself.�
��
Margery squeaked, and put a hand in front of her mouth apologetically. This was all far too important to interrupt. If Reginald Postgate was going to get a message from – Oh crumbs – that bit of himself down there to brain – she had to concentrate. Margery wished to become initiated in the Ways of a Woman of the World, which clearly this young woman was.
‘When he is with me he sings, he hums, he smiles into my eyes. That, surely, is love?’
‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ said Chloe. ‘They are wriggly things, and if they can find a hole to slip through, they will.’
Margery clutched at her heart. She must woo, win, secure him. It wasn’t that he would wish to escape, but if Mrs Postgate, Old Queen, made trouble he might feel obliged to buzz off? In short, and remembering the Bruch opera, she realized that she must embrace the Lorelei and turn herself into a Dental Siren.
She leaned forwards and concentrated on Chloe’s pronouncing face. She was not going to end up like a drone, she was not going to end up as just another worker bee – she was going to be Queen. She had never seen such tenderness in a dentist’s eyes before, nor really had she ever seen such tenderness in any man’s eyes before. But this was possibly due to most of her previous encounters taking place in the dark.
Never again.
Sunshine. With her new teeth and new face and new frock she could embrace Reginald with confidence, in a blaze of sunshine. A makeover, and Reginald would be hers. She trills a line of Bruch. Chloe winces.
‘Now remember ... ’ says Chloe quickly, reading aloud from What Sex Means for the Intellectual: Bedside Trinkets for the Mind: ‘remember that the sexual embrace can only be compared with music and with prayer.’ She closes the book with a bang and winks. ‘Bugger the singing,’ she says, ‘go for the body.’
‘Oh,’ said Margery happily, ‘I fear no lust. You have no idea how exciting it is when he snaps on his thin rubber gloves. He does it so expertly!’
Chloe pretended she had not heard. The thought of this person getting into rubber wear was vomit-worthy.
She smiles demurely at Tabitha who is engaged at the far end of the salon. Tabitha smiles back.
So far so good.
Margery is hers.
*
‘I don’t think that is altogether true,’ said Caroline, considering Bernie. ‘Some men can eschew sex for the greater good of their marriage.’
Chloe blinks. ‘In that case they’ve either got no balls, literally ...’
‘This one has,’ said Caroline, the smugness irresistible.
‘Or they have other women on the side.’
‘Never, he says.’
‘In that case,’ said Chloe without a pause, ‘he’s seriously damaged as a human being and you should have nothing to do with him. I mean, that’s why the brain and the dick are directly connected by the arterial nerve. It’s the Ever-Ready Factor.’
Chloe had done rudimentary physiotherapy and had an alarming way of suddenly using the right terminology for something entirely bogus.
‘Are they?’ said Caroline, confused.
‘Of course they are.’ Chloe felt utterly confident on this one. ‘That’s what dicks were put on the outside for – so they were Ever-Ready for the slightest hint of a parking-place.’
She put her perfect little hand over her mouth and nose to simulate Ground Control. ‘Dick to Brain, Dick to Brain, tits ahead, tits ahead ... ’ and then laughed knowingly. She really was very convincing.
Caroline, both fascinated and repelled, decided that this young woman knew a thing or two that she didn’t, and might have some useful battle plans.
‘What was his wife? Paraplegic or something?’
‘I wish,’ said Caroline.
‘He’s a bit of a nerd then?’
Caroline bristled. ‘Certainly not.’
Chloe sighed. ‘I can just about understand a bloke staying with a frigid woman if he looks like Quasimodo – but if he looks even partway reasonable – he’s likely to be Very Damaged Goods. In fact, like I said, the sort of bloke who suggests a little bondage now and then? Or rubber sheets? Next thing you know he’s got nine of ‘em under the floorboards.’
‘She said he felt like a brother to her, so they gave it up. I’m not so sure she still feels that way now,’ she added miserably.
She was remembering the previous night, when she went round to Bernie’s house and found Rita sitting all tucked up on the sofa cushions eating little white grapes and looking like a kitten in clover. Bernie had looked at his wife fondly several times, much as if he would like to stroke her. Caroline was pretty sure that unless she did something dramatic, he soon would.
Rita had once said to her that sex with Bernie made her feel sick, but on the sofa last night, nibbling those grapes with her sharp little teeth, she did not look like one who would let a little post-coital biliousness spoil the repossession order.
‘Beautifying Action is definitely required,’ said Caroline in a pure shaft of Zen understanding. ‘He’s worth fighting for.’
Tabitha, looking up, thought how charming the two of them were with their heads so close together. Clearly Chloe was getting it right.
‘Ah,’ said Chloe conspiratorially, ‘going to war, are you? Then you’ll be needing warpaint. And a motto.’
She opened Bedside Trinkets gravely and consulted it. ‘Here we are. You should also remember what Voltaire said ...’
Caroline blinks. Voltaire? I do not believe this, she thinks. Out loud she says ‘What?’
‘It is not enough to conquer; one must know how to seduce.’ Chloe closes the book. ‘Is he right, or is he right!?’
Caroline reels. A Beautician quoting the King of the Neoclassicists? Oh my God, she thinks, half-excited, it’ll be high heels next. She can feel them growing on her ... She leans forwards to hear more.
*
With regard to the dick to brain issue, Gemma said, quite briskly, she thought it would be best to pursue the line of thinking that said all men respond in that Pavlovian way, and act accordingly.
The few out there who genuinely didn’t – Gandhi came to mind – would not object since they were quite clearly on another spiritual planet altogether.
‘And should bloody well stay there,’ says Chloe spontaneously.
Gemma feels desperate, keen to get back to the flat and relieve Megan from Phonewatch (Ansaphone on the blink – male God). She is convinced that if he doesn’t ring by today he will have forgotten her. She had, on the purchase of a quarter bottle of mediocre Martell, vowed that if so, she would do something drastic. Seducing Megan’s Jim came to mind.
Surely the God of such a devout chapel girl would intervene to save His lamb from the painful experience? I’ll do it if he doesn’t ring, God. You bet I will.
‘I feel this is my last chance.’
Chloe scrutinizes her. She nods. She notices the creep of low self-esteem, of bitterness – what her Gran calls Sourpussitis.
‘You were a looker once, weren’t you?’ She puts her head on one side and screws up her eyes. ‘You can still see traces of it... ’
Gemma, feeling somewhat akin to an Ancient Site and just about resisting the urge to slap the irritating loveliness of that face, says, ‘Yes, well, I haven’t quite got down to the Roman Level yet; so what are we going to do about it?’ Her fingers crossed, for in her heart, that much-depressed muscle, she did not believe he would ever ring again.
‘Well? What do I get for my money?’
Chloe made an arc with her hand as if she were wielding a wand. ‘The Works. We can do magic you know.’ And she winks.
‘I want to look so good he throws all the other photographs away ... ’
‘Photographs?’
‘I mean addresses ...’ Gemma lowered her voice a little.
Chloe recognized deception when she saw it. ‘No more porkies,’ she said. ‘Just tell me the truth.’
Gemma does.
‘The makeover will last through the night,’ says Chloe.
‘What happens in the morning?’ said Gemma guardedly.
‘That depends on how good you’ve been during the night,’ Chloe replies, very seriously.
And it is a serious business. Gemma’s heart sinks at just how serious she is. Chloe beckons her closer.
Tabitha, gazing from afar, congratulates herself. She has trained her assistant well.
‘And finally,’ pronounces Chloe, turning to the Great Book, ‘you should remember – um –’ She reads, discovers, smiles.
‘Might use this for myself. By someone completely unpronounceable again. They are never British.’ She pushes the book towards Gemma and points. ‘How do you say that?’
‘Giraudoux,’ says Gemma wonderingly.
Chloe peers. ‘You do?’ And shrugs. ‘Amazing they ever learn to pronounce it.’ And reads: ‘If a woman goes everywhere with a crowd of admirers it’s not so much because they think she is beautiful, but because she has told them they are handsome.’
She closes the book. ‘See what I mean?’ She scrutinizes Gemma, who is momentarily lost for words and smiling rather hazily. ‘You’ve got a good mouth somewhere under that lot,’ she adds. She leans forwards, drops her voice and says, ‘I heard a very good lipstick story from my friend Jo-Jo –’
And she tells it to Gemma. With gusto.
‘Amazing, eh?’ says Chloe with satisfaction.
It certainly is. The Somewhere Under That Lot falls open. Gemma, if no longer hazy, is to say the least – staggered.
‘Good eh?’ says Chloe. ‘Trust Jo-Jo – she comes up with them every time. Tell him that at the right moment and he’ll love it.’
‘He will?’ says Gemma cautiously.
‘Sure,’ says Chloe. ‘Sure.’
*
Chloe sells the dream; the dream is bought. Power, Chloe feels it within her hands. She is not going to relinquish it, despite Tabitha’s disapproval. After all – she’ll never know.
‘Tell me what you want,’ she urges, ‘and I will make it happen. Come closer, closer.’
They do. They impart. They absorb.
*
‘Slap on the mascara and get the skirt hitched up a bit, whatever your romantic dream of him is,’ says Chloe, ‘because it’s the only truth he’ll know.’