My Story

by Jo Malone

  Mum decided to keep me away from the skincare salon because Madame Lubatti’s condition had worsened. There had been a couple more incidents in which the countess had wandered down the street and didn’t know where she was, and Mum was concerned that this worsening absent-mindedness could lead to an accident, outside or inside.

  I didn’t realise until a few months after it happened that Madame Lubatti had moved to a nursing home not far from us, nine miles away in Blackheath. She had been placed there by Mum, because there didn’t appear to be any other relatives or friends around. She also ensured Mr West was admitted to the same residence, as he suffered his own decline due to an unremitting fondness for alcohol.

  When I asked where Madame was, Mum just said, ‘She needed to go away to be looked after by doctors.’ But I couldn’t accept that she had disappeared, so I kept pressing to see her, thinking she was in hospital – and that was when Mum explained about dementia and the nursing home. ‘I’ll take you to visit, but you might find it upsetting, Jo. She’s not well.’

  I wish I had listened.

  Dad drove us there and, as we pulled up, the whole property looked bleak. Inside, all I could smell was liquid porridge and a mustiness that reminded me of the pages of an old book. But I was beyond excited to be seeing my best friend again, despite Mum’s warning.

  Madame Lubatti, dressed in a skirt and cardigan, was sitting upright in an armchair in her own room, looking out of a window on to a sun-soaked patio. She didn’t even turn her head as I walked in, hand in hand with Mum, and called out her name. As I got nearer, an old, frail lady devoid of lustre had replaced the formidable, fun spirit I knew, and that confused me. Nevertheless, I placed my hand on hers, flat against the armrest. Madame Lubatti’s head moved, falteringly, and she looked right at me, or rather, through me. The eyes that once sparkled now looked as empty as a dried-up well. To see someone who has given so much to your life in such a state was the most shocking thing. I know Mum found it distressing, too – her tears told me that.

  The room was sparsely decorated with a generic painting on the wall. There wasn’t an oil bottle, face cream or herb in sight – nothing that plugged her into her heart and soul. Even as a youngster, I could see how such an ordinary environment hardly helped her cause. In my mind, we needed to rescue and revive her. ‘Look at how unhappy she is!’ I said. ‘We have to take her back!’

  I felt so sad for my mum at that moment because I could tell she wanted to, but she explained that the countess wasn’t well enough to go anywhere. ‘We have to keep her safe, Jo, and she’ll be safe here.’

  I ran out of the room, down the corridor and burst through the main doors, rushing to Dad’s estate car where he and Tracey were waiting. I lay down in the large boot space behind the back seats and sobbed. I sobbed all the way back to Barnehurst, with Tracey leaning over the headrest, eating a pork pie, staring at me, looking puzzled by my tears.

  Madame Lubatti passed away within a year or so. I didn’t attend the funeral for the same reasons I never again visited the home – my parents didn’t want me to face the upset. Ultimately, Mum would become the main beneficiary of the estate. Not that this inheritance meant any great wealth.

  Madame Lubatti had been made bankrupt – a fact I had long suspected but didn’t have confirmed until researching this book. I know nothing beyond the facts reported in the London Gazette: a creditor filed a petition to the High Court of Justice in February 1973, but it wasn’t until May 1978, after her death, that the official receiver discharged that bankruptcy. This detail certainly casts fresh light on the pressure Mum was under, trying to keep the business going.

  It also explains why everything, including the Montagu Mansions apartment, every piece of furniture, and her entire wardrobe, was sold off. Nothing was left, but Mum was bequeathed a few items of sentimental value: a little black evening clutch that the countess carried to every high-society party; the engraved champagne coupes from which we had drunk bubbly grape juice; and some jewellery that included a pair of diamond earrings that Mum had designed into separate rings – a little rose made of diamonds, set on a gold band that she wore on each third finger. She would give me one of those rings for my twenty-first birthday – a keepsake of the countess who had inspired me to be who I am.

  But the biggest legacy – and one that Madame Lubatti entrusted to my mum before her dementia took hold – would be the black leather ledger filled with forty years’ worth of skincare formulations. When I saw this treasure on the dining table, I flicked through its recipes and could smell the rosemary and lavender captured in its pages. I then noticed that the last entries had been made in Mum’s hand, maintaining the life’s work of Madame Lubatti until the end. I think this gift was the countess’s way of officially passing the torch, allowing Mum to forge ahead with everything she had been taught.

  She started trading under her own name to be free and clear of any bankruptcy. Within no time, she would become the new go-to beauty therapist in London, carrying with her the goodwill of a loyal, affluent customer base, most of whom were clients she had been treating for years. For the first time in her life, Mum didn’t work for anyone else. She was her own boss, building her own reputation, and she was determined to make it a success.

  At home, Mum and Dad’s arguments seemed to intensify. I wasn’t sure whether it had anything to do with the pressure Mum felt, or whether Dad was up to no good. But I took my usual position at the top of the stairs, waiting for Mum to storm out of the living room in tears, rush past me and slam the bedroom door, which Tracey would then push ajar to creep inside and be with her. I didn’t move, knowing full well the usual pattern that would play itself out.

  After calming down, Mum would call me into her room. ‘Jo, I need you to tell your dad . . .’ and I’d be despatched downstairs to deliver a pointed message. Dad, sitting in his armchair, never blamed the messenger but always returned serve.

  ‘Well, you can tell your mum from me . . .’ And that’s how it went, with me going back and forth, rushing up and down the stairs – a pinball bouncing around, scoring points for both sides. This futile exercise left me with such a heavy heart, and I could have cried but crying would only have made matters worse.

  Sometimes, I’d walk into the living room to find Dad hunched over in a chair, head in his hands; that told me that he was hurting, too. But the worst episodes were when Mum was having a go at him about something or other, and he’d snap, saying he couldn’t take it any more. Instead of Mum running to her room, it was Dad who flew up the stairs, venting aloud while dragging his suitcase out of the wardrobe. ‘That’s it! I’M LEAVING!’ he boomed.

  The knot in my stomach turned into a tangled ball of yarn that could only be undone if Dad agreed to surrender and stay, but he never did. I’d chase him upstairs and stand in the doorway, feeling distraught as he threw clothes into a case.

  ‘Please don’t, Daddy, please don’t. Please stay. Please stay!’ I’d beg.

  But the red mist was too dense for him to hear me. The need to get away from Mum was apparently stronger than his need to remain for my sake. He’d be upstairs, case packed, out of the door, and speeding away in his car within ten minutes, telling me to behave for Mum. His absence made the house feel empty. But the thing about voids is that they start to feel commonplace the more they happen – a missing piece of the jigsaw that you stop noticing after a while. I learned to live with Dad’s comings and goings, even when those absences became longer and longer. One time it was a weekend; another time it would be a week. I simply learned to comfort myself with the sure knowledge that he’d return, which he always did. Dad was the magician who made himself vanish, only to reappear when the timing felt right.

  Where he went, I have no idea. All I knew was that when he dared to ring, Mum yelled down the telephone, accusing him of being ‘at some floozy’s’. She’d slam down the receiver and start calling him every name under the sun, providing little filter for my and Tracey’s ears.

  Th
e trouble with my parents was that they were two tormented souls who adored one another, even though it sometimes didn’t sound or feel like it. They were the can’t-live-with-can’t-live-without type of couple. I know a deep love existed beneath all their ego and resentment. I know it because I witnessed it one Christmas morning.

  As ever, they made an extra special effort for the festive season – the one week when nothing could interfere with family time. I remember that year for the Mary Quant patterned tights that Mum bought me, a gift that made me feel so fashionable.

  After Tracey and I had finished opening our presents in front of the fire, one little, unwrapped red box remained under the tree. ‘One more!’ I squealed. ‘What’s this?! What’s this?!’

  ‘That’s for your mum,’ said Dad, taking it from me to present to Mum, who was all aflutter when she realised she had a surprise. Sitting in her dressing gown, she undid the bow, lifted the lid . . . and that was when her face lit up as she picked out the most gorgeous silver necklace with an amethyst cross. She held the cross in the palm of her hand, then held it close to her chest. Dad started to fill up at the sight of her joy.

  ‘Why can’t it always be like this?’ I thought as I watched them stand and simply hug one another, staying there, in that moment, in that embrace. Two people no doubt remembering how good they used to make each other feel. Before life got in the way.

  To launch her new business, Mum rented a room in Chelsea, in a street within spitting distance of The Boltons, one of London’s most exclusive residential enclaves. The all-white room had enough space for one treatment table, her seat, and shelving for the product. Essentially, it was an average-sized bedroom turned into a makeshift salon, and that’s where the majority of clients would go, though she would also do house-to-house calls for a select few ladies. But however she worked, there was certainly no space for a Madame Lubatti-style laboratory, so the kitchen of our house now became a face-cream factory.

  My obsession with cleanliness not only had to contend with Dad’s mess but also the clutter of an at-home skincare manufacturer. Imagine Dad with his brushes, paints and canvasses spread out across the table, and then Mum with her ingredients, pots and creams littering the countertop, and you get the general picture. On top of all that, the laundry quadrupled because each night Mum brought home fourteen white sheets that clients had lain down on. It became my job to turn them around for the next day, as well as scrubbing clean the empty glass jars that needed to be refilled with product.

  Mum had to make dozens of cleansing and face creams every week, priced at £4.50 each. If she sold out, that was a healthy amount of money for our family, especially because Dad remained unemployed, still plying an occasional trade at the weekend markets. The financial pressure remained very much on Mum’s shoulders, which was why she needed the operation to tick along like clockwork, and why I became the eager volunteer.

  She had white enamel buckets on the stove to melt various oils and waxes; or she’d be making a skin tonic that had to be strained, so I’d fetch a big funnel, complete with concertinaed paper inside its neck, a bit like a coffee filter, and help her strain it. Eventually, she pulled Dad into the manufacturing process and, when he realised the money that could be made, he was only too happy to muck in.

  Mum convinced him that, as he was a good cook who easily followed recipes, he would also make an able assistant. She left him with a copy of Harry’s Cosmeticology – the must-read book in cosmetic chemistry – and showed him what to do, step by step, over and over again, until satisfied that he knew what he was doing. Dad was a smart man and a fast learner and, equally as important, this new role gave him a sense of renewed purpose. Soon enough, he was running that kitchen-lab like he’d been doing it for years, allowing Mum to focus on her clients.

  When I arrived home from school and smelled oils and waxes, it was actually a comforting aroma, since it meant something was being made, something productive was happening and Dad was occupied, which meant Mum would be happy. With all pistons firing and all hands on deck, a busy house pulling in the same direction often meant a harmonious house and that was fine by me. And the biggest irony of this new set-up was that it was Dad, not Mum, who truly taught me the art of making a face cream.

  ‘Dad? How does all this work, then? I don’t understand.’

  We were in the kitchen. Mum was still at work and I was holding her copy of Harry’s Cosmeticology. I had seen Dad dip into this cosmetic bible but, for me, its convoluted paragraphs and chemical equations made the pages look as bamboozling as my French textbooks.

  Dad, now churning out face creams with the ease of a baker making loaves of bread, was standing at the sink, sterilising one of the enamel buckets when he looked at me, saw my confusion, noticed the book in my hand and said, ‘Come with me.’

  He sat down at his drawing board on the table, as if to start a new painting, and pulled me in close so that I was standing next to his chair, our heads at the same height. He picked up his wooden palette and placed it in front of him. ‘Mixing a cream is no different to paint, Jo,’ he said as he took a small tube and squeezed out a wriggly worm from a tube of red oil paint. On the table, there was a tumbler of water, into which he dipped a brush before holding it over the swatch of paint, dripping in droplets of water. On the other side of the palette, he swished another brush around a patch of watercolour then added oil paint. ‘It’s oil into water or water into oil but it’s how you mix and emulsify them that creates the different results and textures,’ he added.

  ‘So it’s like art?’ I asked.

  ‘Exactly,’ he said.

  To be sure it sank in, he took me back to the stove for a practical demonstration – my own Blue Peter experiment courtesy of Dad. I had, of course, copied Madame Lubatti’s technique before, but this felt more precise, by the book. I stood at the cooker watching him heat the oil in an enamel bucket, and follow the formulations in Madame Lubatti’s book. On the countertop, he had lined up rows of jars with their black lids to one side, waiting for the mixture to be poured in. Once that was done, he placed them into the fridge, one by one.

  ‘We’ve got to keep an eye on how they set, waiting until a skin forms,’ he said. It was a bit like waiting for custard to set, and it took about an hour of constant checking. ‘We have to put the lids on just before it sets so that no dust or bacteria gets in there.’

  That afternoon, under his patient guidance, and with a little trial and error, I started making face creams. And so it was both Mum and Dad who put me on the path I now walk. She involved me in our little kitchen operation and he provided the one-on-one training.

  Over many weekends and evenings, my kitchen-lab apprenticeship continued to progress, and Mum seemed impressed that I had a natural knack for sensing when a cream was ready, as informed by my nose.

  ‘Mum!’ I’d say. ‘The cleansing cream is ready to pour.’

  ‘No, give it a few more minutes,’ she’d reply.

  ‘No, Mum, it’s ready now. I can smell it. It’s ready to pour!’

  Another time, I saw that she was adding a touch too much camphor oil to the hot almond in the pot. ‘Stop! That’s enough!’ I said. ‘The almond oil is going to burn.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly, Jo,’ she said. But she checked it anyway, and I was right.

  At the time, I didn’t realise that my acute sense of smell was guiding me, but there it was, making itself known, registering a quality that I wouldn’t fully appreciate until much older. My sense of touch wasn’t that bad either: I would check the gel as it came out of the bucket, take a dab on my index finger to see how quickly it solidified. But focus was still required because if you poured it too quickly, it would melt the pot; pour it too slowly and it would congeal. I was obsessed with getting everything just right, remembering what Madame Lubatti had taught me, ‘If you can’t do something perfectly, don’t do it at all. Remember that, Jo.’

  Mum also ensured that the gold standard was drilled home, impressing her high expe
ctations upon Dad and me. We were left in no doubt that there was zero room for error.

  As soon as she arrived home, she headed straight for the kitchen and was immediately on Dad’s case. ‘Did you sterilise the bucket?’ ‘Did you put the lids on correctly?’ ‘How much oil did you use? Not too much I hope!’

  I felt for Dad. ‘He’s spent all day making face creams. The least you could do is thank him,’ I thought. I felt that Mum was being too hard, looking to find fault. Increasingly, and probably as a result, Dad started to peel away from our operation and leave things in my hands, especially on weekday evenings when we saw less and less of him.

  Mum’s scrutiny of my work was no less demanding but I felt confident in my abilities, aware that I had found something that I was good at and passionate about. Although there was the time when Tracey meddled and messed up an entire batch.

  It was a summer holiday and I was spending my days in the kitchen-lab while other children my age played games outside or hung around together. But I had a job to do: make sixty or so pots of lemon cleansing cream, using pre-measured ingredients. While I was doing all this, Tracey was in and out of the kitchen, being the bored, annoying little sister. ‘Go away, Tracey! You know what Mum said about you not being in here while we’re busy!’

  She grumpily retreated into the living room, leaving me be. After a few final checks and a clean-up that left the kitchen spotless, I went upstairs to my room, feeling pretty good about the beautiful batch of creams that I felt sure would impress Mum.

  I was in my room reading a book when she arrived home, so I shot downstairs, anticipating some hard-earned praise. Instead, I found her standing in front of the open fridge, looking displeased. Each one of my lemon cleansing creams had a finger mark in its skin, a deep impression that had solidified like a handprint in setting concrete. ‘Tracey – you little bugger!’ I thought. Unsurprisingly, my sister was nowhere to be seen.

  Mum angrily unloaded the fridge and tossed the contents into the bin. ‘What a complete waste!’ she kept saying. ‘How could you let this happen!’