My Story
Page 13
I applied the face mask, then left her to relax as I returned to the kitchen – potting some orange skin food and adding extra oil, mixing it into a white jug for the second stage of the massage.
That’s when I heard Mum’s hurried footsteps approaching from the hallway. ‘What are you going to do with all that? Why are you making so much?!’
I ignored her.
‘It’s such a waste of materials!’ she snapped, and she shoved the jug across the countertop, like it was a plate of food being rejected.
I threw her a glare that I held, and meant, for a few seconds. ‘Mum, don’t. I can’t have a whole day of this . . .’
And then, inexplicably, like a child throwing a tantrum, she started screaming and ranting incoherently. I thought of my client Helen – she’d hear everything. I rushed to Mum. ‘What are you doing?! Ssssh! SHUSH!’ And in an instant, faster than I could click my fingers, she stopped. I could see the confusion in her eyes, and she surely saw the horror in mine.
‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’m going upstairs to finish my treatment.’
I grabbed a small pot of orange skin food, leaving the remainder in the jug, and picked up a kettle of hot water with my other hand. I brushed past her and walked into the hallway. And then, as I neared the stairs, VVVOOOP! – a huge dollop of face cream came flying through the air and splodged diagonally across my face. Mum had grabbed the jug and hurled it at me. Bull’s-eye.
Pot in one hand, kettle in the other, I looked at her, and in the face where I had just seen anger, I saw sadness, maybe a tinge of regret.
‘That’s it,’ I said, calmly. ‘It’s over.’
She said nothing as she turned back into the kitchen.
In my heart, I felt something snap, forever broken.
Upstairs, I washed my face and returned to finish Helen’s treatment. ‘Everything okay, Jo?’ she asked. I forced a smile but I think she noticed that I was on the verge of tears, and it was hard to disguise my shaking.
Mum came upstairs and stood in the doorway but I didn’t give her a chance to say anything. ‘Get. Out,’ I said.
I actually finished the rest of my appointments that day, and Mum stayed out of the way. On the train journey home, the sadness weighed on me. ‘If I stay a moment longer,’ I thought, ‘this will be my life.’ I also heard Dad’s voice in my head. A distant echo. ‘It’s okay, Jo’s here – she’s got it!’ But I couldn’t make this neat and tidy. It was unfixable. It was too big. And yet, as much as I knew what I needed to do, I struggled with the idea of letting go.
I lay curled up in bed for two weeks solid, either sleeping or crying, and constantly ruminating. Mum and Tracey didn’t call. Neither did Dad, but I didn’t expect him to. Even if he knew what had happened, it wouldn’t have been like him to get involved. Gary picked up the pieces and gave me the room to mourn, mourning the loss of the mum who never really returned from hospital. The imposter who threw that face cream at me wasn’t Mum; she was a stranger that the illness had created, a mean-spirited and irascible stranger who hadn’t previously existed. I don’t know whether it was the bang to the head or the illness that had placed her in the Maudsley. But as much as I was cognisant of the trauma she had been through, the switch in her character was no less hurtful. And it hurt. It hurt like hell.
I’m not one to mope and, after about two weeks, it reached a point where Gary had seen enough. He brought me a cup of tea and sat on the side of the bed one morning and proceeded to issue a gentle kick up the arse. ‘Okay, this has gone on long enough,’ he said. ‘I’m going to go to work and you are going to get up and make a decision: are you going to dust yourself down and build again, or are you not? When I return this evening, we will have dinner, you will have made a decision and we’ll talk it through together.’ He stood up, kissed me on the forehead, and left for the day.
Nine hours later, he arrived home to find me in the kitchen, showered, dressed, and cooking coq-au-vin. I offered him a glass of white wine and clinked mine against his. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ve dusted myself down. I want to rebuild.’
PART TWO
Wings
ELEVEN
The story of Jackie Pullinger remained a burning torch of inspiration, and I remembered how she packed up her world, left behind her comfort zone, and arrived in Hong Kong with something like ten pounds to her name. But regardless of her limited funds, she had trusted her instincts and taken a leap of faith.
I hadn’t known how to leap until circumstances, and Gary, provided the forceful shove. I didn’t even know what I was going to do. All I knew was that I was good at one thing: making face creams and giving facials. ‘That’s where you start,’ said Gary. ‘You’re going to do what you’ve been doing for your mum, only now you’ll be doing it for yourself.’
His building surveyor’s wage would cover our mortgage payments, food shop and utility bills, but if we were going to do more than exist, I needed to book appointments quick and make my business work. It’s a pressure any entrepreneur will be familiar with when weighing the pros and cons of any launch: we have those moments when we think, ‘What can we lose and what can we gain?’ As I saw it, Gary and I had nothing in reserve so we had nothing to squander. I couldn’t lose him or our marriage, and they were the most precious things in my life. If my solo venture went south and we lost the flat, so what? We had rented before, we would rent again. And if work truly dried up, I would find a job somewhere. A funny thing happens when you mentally paint the worst-case scenario: the risk doesn’t feel so loaded and the leap not as daunting. That’s the thing about the fear of failure – it stems from the height from which you can fall. It is a long way down for established entrepreneurs who have built brands, mini-empires and reputations. But at this juncture, in early 1989, I could only fall the height of the kerb. Moreover, having emerged from such a bad experience with Mum, I didn’t see how much worse things could get. I had reflected enough. It was now time to get going again. And how does anyone get started? Easy. You start by getting off your arse and making difficult calls.
I took out my pocket-sized address book, sat at the kitchen table and wrote down the names of the women I had personally brought to Mum’s business. Twelve names. That was my starting point. I called each one, explaining that Mum and I had gone our separate ways. ‘I have no clinic and nowhere for you to come for a treatment,’ I said, ‘but if you are still happy for me to do your face, I’d be happy to come to your home. If not, I will completely understand.’
Without hesitation, they each wanted to follow me. I placed a tick against their names and started crunching the numbers with a calculator. With a single treatment costing £45, if I did two treatments a day, five days a week, I could earn a maximum £450 in a week. I figured that I’d clear at least £800 a month because some women would come fortnightly. It might not have been the clientele from Balfern Street, but it was better than nothing. Moreover, the backing of these women made me feel that I was worth something, after a period of feeling worthless; it breathed life into the hope that I could actually do this and start anew.
Next, I took stock of the basic tools and apparatus I’d need. I had four white Egyptian cotton bed sheets from Peter Jones, so I took a pair of scissors and slit them down the middle to create eight covers for the treatment bed, meaning there would be enough for four people a day (two sheets per person per treatment). But I still needed a bed. I applied for a £100 overdraft facility at the NatWest bank that afternoon . . . and got turned down. That rejection was no bad thing. It started a lifelong rule that still hasn’t been broken to this day: I’ve never had an overdraft on any personal account. Mum’s debts, Dad’s gambling and the bank manager’s refusal taught me not to spend money I don’t have.
In the end, I sourced a portable, fold-up bed that came in its own suitcase-style cover and cost £50. I already had two holdalls from Marks & Spencer: one for the sheets; one for the face creams. All that was left were the fundamental tools of the trade: the canisters, jugs and
raw materials that I had left at Mum’s. I called her, remained civil, and explained that I would need to retrieve my belongings. She put the phone down, giving me no choice but to visit Balfern Street one final time.
Gary drove me there but stayed in the car – I didn’t want to drag him into this unholy mess any more than necessary.
Tracey opened the door and I walked into the sitting room to find Dad on the sofa, cup of tea in one hand, newspaper open across his lap. ‘Jo!’ he said, looking surprised. Mum appeared in the doorway, calm, indifferent, watching me as I moved toward the big wooden dresser where I knew the jugs and oils were kept. The silence was awful and I couldn’t wait to gather my things and get out of there. But the dresser was bare – Mum had already cleared it out. I turned around and she just stared at me. As for Dad, he didn’t know where to look or what to do with himself. It was unfair that he was caught in the middle, and I felt sorry that he had been placed in such a position. I kept looking at him even though he couldn’t look at me. He sighed. ‘I don’t know, Jo. I don’t . . .’
And then, in my head, from nowhere, an instinct came shooting out of my mouth. ‘Oh my God, Dad. Everything’s in the boot of your car, isn’t it?!’
He shot up, picked around his pocket, tossed me his keys and ran out the house, shouting, ‘I don’t want any part of this!’
I picked up my bags and walked outside. I flicked the boot to Dad’s red BMW and my hunch was spot-on: all the ingredients and oils and ten canisters – my half, if you like – were there. I loaded it into the boot of Gary’s car before returning inside to find Mum standing in the hallway.
‘I’m your daughter! Why are you doing this, Mum?’
‘No, Jo. Why are you doing this?’ she sneered. ‘Breaking everything up.’
The notion that I had done anything other than try to keep everything together was preposterous but there was no reasoning with her. I turned and walked out the door. Before I even reached the pavement, Tracey came rushing out, holding a single plastic bottle.
‘I think this is yours, too, Jo,’ she said. The poor girl was so torn, and that one item was her offering. I gave her a hug and told her to look after Mum before returning to the car, with tears streaming down my face.
Back at the flat, and in the days that followed, I partly hoped that the phone would ring, but it never did. Not for two weeks. Eventually I decided to be the brave one. Mum picked up, heard my voice and put the phone straight down again. We wouldn’t ever repair this break. I splintered from the family then, and Dad and Tracey drifted away with Mum. I wanted Dad to drive over and be there for me, but he chose not to be, probably because he knew it was a choice between Mum and me. By staying away and making no contact, his loyalties were painfully clear. The pull from Mum and Tracey proved too great. I wanted him to do more than he did but that had been the story of our life. And I think I knew back then that something had snapped in our relationship, and things would never be the same again.
The reality about splits in families is that time, fortified by stubbornness, wedges itself between people and makes the gap wider, leading to an estrangement that becomes unbridgeable. That’s what happened. My parents and sister effectively disappeared from my life. There would be the odd telephone call now and again but each one amplified our distance. Mum couldn’t forgive me for going it alone and, when resentment sets in, it can erode relationships.
As I stepped away, Tracey very quickly replaced me at work, and she and Mum became a team, continuing on with the business. They had enough clients and materials to continue trading and earning a living.
I have never stopped loving my parents, but there comes a time when enough is enough. I had no energy left for the continual fighting and the bitterness that was making me miserable. Having hung in there for so long, I had to leave for reasons of self-preservation. I had to leave to focus fully on Gary, me and our survival. I had to make my own choices now and that meant moving on, preserving the past – the days we laughed, the struggles we overcame, and the memories we shared – as something treasured.
I actually believe that this sorry state of affairs fuelled my drive and will to succeed, determined as I was to put as much distance between me and the struggle that seemed to define my childhood.
When I deliver talks to young entrepreneurs today, I point out that our individual backgrounds, adversities and struggles are part of life’s tapestry. Each stitch – every memory, emotion, lesson or heartbreak – is woven into a complex design that is not necessarily of our choosing. Pull one thread – try to change, fix or remove one aspect – and the whole thing would come undone. We wouldn’t be who we are. And maybe we only find meaning in events when we look back and see how every thread weaves together, and why it was weaved a certain way.
I didn’t think that way at the time, of course. I thought more about Jackie Pullinger’s example, and how she had left behind everything that once felt safe, albeit in drastically different circumstances. But she inspired me to let go of what scared me – not having stable foundations beneath my feet, not feeling safe and, ultimately, thinking I wasn’t that bright. I had previously doubted whether I could go it alone, whether I was even good enough to go it alone. But I picked up a bottle of rosemary oil, unscrewed the lid, placed it to my nose and breathed in its aroma, as if it was a reviving smelling salt. I closed my eyes and leapt into the unknown with my husband holding my hand. And I started to do what I wasn’t very good at – I started to believe in myself.
I laid out the jars and oils on the countertop of my kitchen and placed them alongside the lemons, avocados and yoghurts bought from the supermarket. Using my four plastic jugs and two saucepans, I got to work that first day after returning home, making a face cream while simultaneously cooking a casserole. By the time Gary walked in through the door, I had twenty-four face creams in the fridge and dinner on the table.
My first appointment was forty-eight hours later with a lovely lady called Alicia Castillo, who lived in a street near Sloane Square. I felt strangely nervous ahead of that first Monday morning treatment, probably because the stakes felt so high.
Gary had dropped me off early so I headed to a nearby sandwich shop, Angelo’s, to order a cup of tea and a cheese and tomato toastie. I sat outside, squatting down, leaning back against the window, with my portable treatment table and two holdalls to one side. And I gave my twenty-five-year-old self a pep talk to quell the nerves. ‘You’re bloody good at this . . . nothing has changed . . . everything’s going to be fine . . . this is how you start.’
As soon as I stepped into Alicia’s flat, I wondered what I had been fretting about. She, like the other eleven clients, reminded me that the service – the facials – was simply on the move instead of being confined to one place. To prove the point, she had lined up three friends to follow her hour, meaning that I had four back-to-back appointments.
Another staunch supporter was former British Olympian Gina Sopwith, who had known me since the Airlie Gardens days. If ever there was a sober voice of reason, it was Gina, who was one of my most trustworthy and honest sounding boards.
My original clients would recommend me to friends and spread the word. In essence, they were not only my ‘founding clients’ but my organic marketing and PR team. Thanks to them, I would have ten new clients by the end of that first week. Twelve had become twenty-two, building a head of steam as I was simultaneously finding my feet. And one supportive call that I didn’t expect would come from Buckingham Palace.
The Duchess of York’s name was on my scribbled list of twelve, and I had left a message on her answering machine. She called me back one evening and listened with great interest as I explained everything, even my trepidation about starting from scratch.
‘I have an idea,’ she said, ‘why don’t you come to the palace, we’ll have a cup of tea, and we’ll work all this out.’ Of course, I didn’t only want to go over for a cup of tea, so I agreed to take my treatment bed and give her a facial at the same time.
Driving is not one of my strong points but, in my defence, my dyslexia sometimes makes me pause for thought on certain lefts and rights, and my sense of perspective isn’t helped by my lazy eye. It’s not surprising that Gary suggested we do a dry run the night before ‘so that you feel confident about the route’. I suspect it was about giving him confidence, too!
He drove and I wrote down the lefts and rights at this set of lights and that roundabout. Doing the dry run definitely made me feel better, as did the fact that I didn’t have to worry about what to wear. My white lab coat, worn over a black shirt, black tights and matching shoes was the only uniform I needed.
Upon arriving outside the magnificent frontage of Buckingham Palace, two police officers checked my identity at the main gate, noted the folded treatment table in the rear seat, and waved me through. ‘If you can park over there, madam,’ said one of them, pointing to the right of the gate in front of the palace.
I pulled up and was in the middle of taking out the bed when I heard a commotion and the sound of steps running across gravel. I looked up to be confronted by the startling sight of three policemen hurrying towards me. ‘Not there! You can’t park there!’ said the most stern-looking bobby. ‘You were told to park over there,’ and he gestured to a spot where all the other vehicles were parked. I had driven on to an area where there must have been some kind of concealed pressure plates, triggering an internal alarm. I was mortified. ‘I need you to reverse and park in the correct spot, madam.’