Red Ink

by Julie Mayhew

  “Wey-hey, steady there. Too cold for ya?”

  “No, it’s fine.”

  “How old are you then? You don’t look very old to me.”

  “Fifteen.”

  “Yeah, yeah, thought so.”

  “I can pay though.”

  “Yeah, yeah, course you can. Never said you couldn’t, did I. Shouldn’t you be at school?”

  “Study leave.”

  “Right, yeah. GCSEs. Nightmare. Just done mine. You want a head massage?”

  Do I want a head massage? What is the right answer? If I say ‘no’ will I sound frigid? If I say ‘yes’ will I sound like a prostitute? “Yes. Please.”

  “No worries, I can do that for ya.”

  I like the feeling of someone else washing my hair. Mum used to do it when I was little in the bath, scrubbing her fingers against my scalp. “No nits for you! Agapoula mou!” She used to cut it too. I’ve never been to a hairdresser before. She said it’s easy when it’s curly because you don’t have to worry about straight lines. That’s how come she could cut her own hair as well.

  Daniel is lifting and then dropping my wet, heavy hair in the sink, getting rid of the soap.

  “Gotta lotta hair, intcha.”

  “Yes.”

  “S’nice.”

  “Thanks.”

  We would cut our hair in the kitchen, me and Mum, because you needed to be able to sweep up every curl afterwards. The hair trimmings would then get wrapped in newspaper so it couldn’t escape in the bin. If a bird took some of your hair, even a strand, and made a nest with it, you would lose your mind, Mum said.

  Daniel has turned off the showerhead. For a minute I think he’s finished but then I hear him pumping one of those big bottles on the counter behind the sink. There’s the squelch of something being rubbed between his hands and then he’s touching my hair again. It’s different now though, he’s not being rough and scrubby like before. He’s stroking my hair gently like it’s a cat. Then suddenly he drives his fingers, hard, forwards through my hair towards my forehead. He reaches my temples and presses a little, then drags his fingers back again, slowly. When he reaches the back of my head, he pulls my hair, just enough to feel good, not painful. Then he’s pushing forwards again, hard, pulling back, slowly. Again and again. I close my eyes and see the ghosts of the ceiling spotlights on the back of my eyelids.

  “That pressure all right for ya?”

  “Yeah, it’s . . . Yeah.”

  He keeps massaging. Forwards, hard, backwards, soft, a strong pull. Forwards, hard, backwards, soft, a strong pull. Then he stops, his hands resting at the edge of my face. He leans forwards and speaks quietly.

  “Need a cold rinse?”

  My eyes ping open. I am officially a prostitute.

  “It’s good for your follicles.”

  “What is?”

  “A cold rinse.”

  “Oh.”

  He blasts me with icy water and I want to squeal.

  Daniel ties my hair up in a towel and walks me back through the salon and over to a chair. He introduces me to Scott, who shakes my hand, which is the weirdest thing. I see my washed-out face looking back from the mirror, the turban of towel piled on top. I look like an utter dickhead. A sickly, pale dickhead.

  “Get you anyfink to drink?” Daniel asks me. He’s faffing around, tidying away Scott’s hairdryer and brush from the last customer.

  “Yeah, a Coke please.”

  “Okay, gotcha.”

  “And a smoked salmon bagel.” I’m trying to remember what else was on the list. “And a hot chocolate.”

  “Hungry now, yeah? Coming up.”

  Daniel disappears and Scott beams at me in the mirror. He pulls away the towel and starts combing my wet hair.

  “And what are we having done today?”

  “Cut it all off.”

  Scott asked me three times if I was sure. He tried to talk me into a shoulder-length bob but I said, “No, short.” When Daniel came back with my sandwich and drinks he looked shocked at the huge strands all round me on the floor. There was enough there to make a whole nest. A huge, insane palace for the London pigeons.

  Scott chewed gum and danced about to the music while he snipped. At one point he said to me, “Got any plans for the weekend?” and I just stared at him like a loony for the longest time before I could get myself together to answer. Mum used to say that in a silly voice when she was cutting my hair in the kitchen. Her pretend English voice. I never really got the joke. “Doing anything nice this weekend?” she’d go. “Going anywhere nice for your holidays? Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?” Ha ha, snip snip.

  “Well?” asked Scott.

  “No plans,” I’d told him.

  “You want to speak to Daniel about that then,” he’d said and winked at me in the mirror.

  I was a bit upset when it was all finished, about my hair being short, I mean. I tried not to look Daniel in the eye as he hovered about, taking off my smock, brushing hair off my neck. I didn’t want him to see me looking like I might cry.

  “Looks nice,” he’d gone. “Proper edgy.”

  I couldn’t speak. I knew Mrs Lacey would keel over when she saw me.

  At the counter, the plastic-haired woman told me how much I owed. I repeated it back to her, the figure sticking in my throat. My hand went into my jeans pocket and I pulled out Chick’s credit card. When the woman went to take it off me, I held onto the card just a little longer than I should have. She gave me a look. I loosened my grip. She put the card in the machine and then turned the keypad to face me. My stomach lurched. A pin number? I hadn’t even thought about needing a pin number. I tried Chick’s birthday. It didn’t work. I gave my birthday a go. I don’t know why, it was just something to try. Then I did 1,2,3,4.

  PIN REJECTED.

  “Have you got any other way of paying?” went the plastic-haired woman, still friendly but a bit firm. I stood there, feeling wobbly, my hand on the back of my neck holding onto the spiky hair that was there in place of my ponytail. I shook my head.

  “Can you ring my mum for me?” I asked her, sounding snivelly.

  This haircut was going to make even more of an impact than I’d first thought.

  The plastic-haired woman’s smile was fading.

  “Her name’s Rowena Lacey,” I told her.

  And I’d given the woman the number.

  THE STORY

  4

  This is the recipe.

  Take five pounds of hulled whole wheat. Hold it in your arms. Feel that it weighs nothing compared to the load that lays heavy on your heart. Wash the wheat, let your tears join in. Strike a match, strike up faith, light the gas. Watch the wheat bubble and boil. See steam rising like hope. Take the pot from the heat and pour the wheat through a sieve. Lay the grain on a sheet overnight to dry. Rest your head on your own sheets. Dream of a flower dying, shedding its seeds, allowing another flower to grow.

  In the morning, on the day of remembrance, put the wheat in a bowl with walnuts, almonds and parsley. Add a message of devotion, a wish for the future, your gratitude to God. Sprinkle in cinnamon, not guilt. Throw in sesame seeds, throw away your fear. Turn out your mixture and create a mound – a monument to love. Brown some flour and sift. Add a layer of sugar. Press flat. Finally, crush the skin of a pomegranate with the remains of your fury, and spread the seeds with love, in the shape of a cross.

  Maria did not dream of a flower dying. The night before her mother’s funeral, she did not sleep at all. She pressed one of Mama’s cardigans close to her face, letting it transport her back to a farm where cistus shrubs turn the air bittersweet. She listened to Melon’s snuffling breaths, envying the way her daughter remained untouched by grief. She thought of the day ahead, the day she would return her mother to the earth. She was not ready to let her go.

  Auntie Eleni had outlined the ceremony and recommended a plot. She had also pressed into Maria’s hands the pamphlet containing the recipe for the traditional kollyv
a – the boiled wheat.

  “But I can’t cook,” said Maria, scanning the recipe. “I can’t do it.”

  “You will find it within yourself,” Eleni insisted.

  And so she had.

  Letters and phone calls to the farm received no response. With his silence, Babas made it clear that he would not be journeying to England to bury his wife. Maria and Eleni would go to the funeral alone. Melon stayed with a considerate neighbour, playing with a collection of toys on their hearth rug, unaware of the furious rainstorm outside.

  Maria couldn’t help but find the downpour fitting. She wanted to feel the rain on her skin, have it cleanse her of her grief. She imagined the ancient river Lardanos, the river of holy water, evaporating into the air in Crete and falling on London’s streets. With her hair soaked through, Maria walked behind Mama’s coffin, and she listened to them read the psalm:

  For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

  Maria placed the resurrection icon in Mama’s hands and on her forehead they placed a wreath.

  Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

  Maria and Eleni took up candles, received light from the priest and watched the fire burn.

  Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean.

  They gave their kisses to Mama and they told her goodbye.

  Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

  At the wake, Maria took a spoon to break through the crucifix of pomegranate seeds. She passed among the small gathering, scooping boiled wheat into their cups, but soon found she could not hold herself up. Maria fell to her knees cradling the bowl and began crying with such a force she feared she would never stop.

  Indeed, the crying continued for weeks. A vast flood swamped Maria, pulling her beneath the surface of life. When the tears eventually dried, they were replaced by the soft, suffocating fog of depression. She was numb. Maria looked back on her days of rage and sorrow with a twisted sense of fondness. At least then she had felt something.

  “You need time to recover,” Auntie Eleni decreed. “We will find someone to care for Melon.”

  “No,” said Maria, the first word she had said with any real passion since the depression had taken hold. “A child needs its mother.”

  And slowly Maria returned, piece by piece. The green hue to her olive skin began to fade, she put food in her belly, her shoulders uncoiled, the pupils of her eyes reconnected with life. The brick lodged within Maria’s ribs began to crack and, though the splinters still caused jerks of pain, Maria found a new feeling growing inside – the fire of ambition. Here was rebirth – a flower dying, shedding its seeds, allowing another flower to grow. Her mother’s death had not been for nothing. Maria went back to school.

  It is a joyous moment when a life finds a target and a purpose, when a person realises what makes them special. It is like a stylus falling into place on a record. Music begins to play.

  The sign on the double doors of the office read, ‘Congratulations to Maria Fouraki, who will be joining the Adolescent Resource Team as a trainee social worker.’ Maria pushed through those doors, found her new desk and on it she placed the framed picture of her daughter on her first day at school.

  Melon had found her English voice and every day Maria marvelled at the clean-edged words that spilled from her mouth. She would be the Londoner Maria could never truly be.

  And they would go on to buy their own home in the city, not far from Kentish Town.

  And soon Maria would earn enough to afford the regular air fare to visit Crete.

  “I have this piece of thread,” Maria explained to little Melon. “The piece of thread that connects my heart to yours. This thread, it also binds my heart to home and to Babas. When something is tugging at Babas’s heart, I know, because I feel it too.”

  Maria understood that the past could not be forgotten and that history could not be altered, but the truth could be viewed from a new angle, an angle that pleased everyone.

  Forget what you know, what you feel about everything that has happened.

  This is how Maria would explain.

  Come and see things in a new way, she would say. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. The view from up here, it is rosy. The future from here, it looks good.

  36 DAYS SINCE

  “You can take your jacket off, you know.”

  “I’m not stopping.” I fold my arms across my chest.

  “You’re not stopping?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Amanda looks disappointed. These last few weeks she’s convinced herself we’re getting somewhere. If she was one of those detectives on TV and I was the villain, she’d be talking about ‘breakthroughs’ and about how she’d ‘worn me down’, stuff like that.

  “No, I’m not stopping. Sorry.” I’m such a cow.

  “But you came.”

  “Only to tell you I’m not coming any more.”

  “You felt you owed me that.”

  “Yes.”

  She smiles. I am dumping her and she’s smiling.

  “So, why have you decided not to come along any more? What feelings have led you to that decision?”

  “I don’t want to do that.”

  “What?”

  “The feelings stuff.”

  “Right.”

  The school kids are playing hockey on the field outside the window today. There’s something really satisfying about hitting a really hard ball with a big, wooden stick. Amanda follows my gaze out of the window.

  “Do you think that you’re all better now, Melon? All fixed?”

  “No, I think . . .” I’ve fallen for it again. I am talking. “I think I’m better off broken.”

  Amanda is looking even less dumped. She’s not listening to what I’m really saying.

  “Or maybe what I mean is . . .” How does she do this, get me saying things that I don’t want to say? “. . . what I mean is, I’ve written it all down, all the stuff about my mum, like you told me to, and I don’t feel any better.”

  “Maybe that suggests you haven’t written it all down yet.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe there’s more to say.”

  “Maybe.”

  I can see Amanda has photocopied some handouts. She’s worrying at the corners of the stack on her lap. Amanda likes handouts. They’re good for papering over the damage.

  “I’ve photocopied this for you.”

  She hands me the top sheet. She has a copy for herself too. The title reads, WHAT IS ACCEPTANCE? There is a cartoon girl next to the title. She is looking up wonderingly but confusingly at a rainbow.

  “What do we mean by acceptance?” asks Amanda. She has switched into teacher mode. I like her better when she’s off script. I stare at the confused cartoon girl. Isn’t acceptance just a matter of saying ‘yes’?

  “I found some photos,” I tell her. Who else can I tell?

  “Photos of what?”

  “Mum.”

  “Where are these photos taken?”

  “In Crete, when she was little.”

  “How did it make you feel finding those?”

  I refuse to answer that. Amanda doesn’t know how to talk about anything without bringing feelings into it.

  At our second session, I talked about the frumpy social worker they’ve assigned to me. She’s called Susan. Poppy isn’t allowed to do my visits any more because she knows me too well. They think it’s better that a complete stranger invades my house – a complete stranger who wears navy trouser suits that have gone bobbly on the thighs where her legs rub together. Anyway, I was telling Amanda about how funny I think it is that Paul, who is a social worker, is being checked up on by another social worker. He’s getting a taste of his own annoying medicine. Amanda goes to me, “Does that feel like a victory for you, that Paul is feeling uncomfortable?” as if I’m the bad person in all of this. It was only meant to be a joke.

  “Wha
t’s this acceptance sheet then?” I go.

  “You don’t want to talk about the photos of your mum?”

  “No.”

  Amanda looks down at her own copy of the handout, reading it for a moment as if it’s the first time she’s seen it. She must have hassled tonnes of teenagers with this thing before.

  “Okay, so, what do we mean by acceptance?” Amanda fixes me with an eager look.

  “Well, it says here . . .”

  “No, what does the word mean to you, Melon, in relation to your mum?”

  I start reading from the first bullet point on the sheet. “Acceptance does not mean you feel happy and contented about what has happened. Acceptance is . . .”

  “Melon, don’t just read the sheet. What do you think?”

  “Why did you give me the sheet then, if I’m not supposed to read it?”

  “Well, hand it back and we’ll talk first.”

  I thrust the sheet back at her with a huff. Amanda straightens out its creases and puts it face down on the pile on her lap. She looks at me, that hopeful face again, waiting for me to talk about acceptance. She’ll have to wait until dinosaurs walk the earth again.

  At our third session, last week, Amanda tried to talk me into joining some of the group activities at the counselling centre. If I wanted to, Amanda said, I could share my feelings with other teenagers who have lost someone. My feelings – everything is always to do with feelings! I said no. Who wants to sit around with a load of sad kids (both meanings of the word ‘sad’) and have some kind of blub-off? We’d all be competing to see who has had it worst. I’m not interested.

  “I found pictures of my dad too,” I go.

  “What, with the pictures of your mum?”