by Maeve Haran
On the way home they stopped at the chemist and Claudia went in to get the prescription filled. She had never thought she would miss her bossy, managing, bulldozing mother. But she did.
When she got home, Don was up, standing looking out of the sitting-room window waiting for her to get back.
‘How was she?’
Claudia longed to share her worry over her mother, but something stopped her. In London, Don had been a quiet tower of strength. When she was blue, he would produce an impish face, do some silly clowning, make her laugh, yet she sensed a change in him, as if it were he who was missing their old life even more than she was.
Men, she suspected, drew even more of their sense of self from work than women did.
‘Are you OK, love?’ she forced herself to ask him. ‘With living here, as well as having the flu?’
Don nodded, making an effort. ‘Fine. It’s just been more of a shock than I was expecting.’
‘Why don’t you go up to town and have a night out with your friends like I do?’
Don nodded. ‘Maybe I will. I’m sorry, Claudia, dragging you here and then going all pathetic on you.’
Claudia touched his cheek, softening. ‘The good thing about marriage is you can take turns to be pathetic. It’ll probably be me next.’
The sight of a mountain of cardboard boxes from their move, piled in the corner, caught her attention and gave her an idea. She’d always enjoyed going to the dump in London. There was something pleasurable about recycling. Even sorting things out into cardboard, plastic and wood gave you a sense of order. Maybe just what Don needed.
‘Why don’t you do me a favour and take that lot to the dump?’ she asked. ‘Meanwhile, I’ll sort out some lunch.’
As she bustled in the kitchen the thought came to her of an old saying of her mother-in-law’s: For better, for worse, but not for lunch. She hoped her mother-in-law didn’t have a point.
The doorbell rang, just as she started wondering what delightful activities her friends would be getting up to in London. Christmas shopping in Liberty’s? A coffee in Pret? Maybe a visit to the Wallace Collection or a glass of fizz in Covent Garden?
Claudia shook herself and answered the door. It would be Don forgetting his key as usual.
As it happened, Claudia would have felt shocked and sobered had she known what Sal was actually up to.
Wigs For You was in a small street in Soho, midway between Leicester Square and Oxford Circus. On a mad whim, and partly because she was late for her appointment with Rachel, Sal decided to travel the final bit by taxi rickshaw. She felt self-conscious at first, like a tourist being – literally – taken for a ride, then she began to relax and enjoy herself and the journey began to seem entirely magical.
Dusk was falling and all the Christmas lights on the Oxford Street store fronts twinkled and shone. In Bond Street the expensive shops vied to outdo each other with glitter and giant bows. Fortnum’s window, always a highlight, boasted a tableau of ‘I saw three ships a-sailing’. Gorgeously robed medieval figures watched three galleons loaded down with gifts, rocking gently up and down on mechanical cardboard waves. Outside little children pointed and laughed.
Sal was instantly back in her childhood, reliving the magic and wonder of Christmas morning. A sudden backwash of sadness engulfed her that her life had not turned out as she might have expected it to. No husband to bring her morning tea. No children to jump on the bed clutching their stockings to show her the tangerine and puzzles and chocolate money.
A brief image of snowy Oslo and the baby who had been so briefly in her arms came back to haunt her.
‘Frith Street,’ announced the rickshaw driver.
And there was Rachel, standing outside Wigs For You wearing a hairband with bobbly reindeer on it, and she had to laugh out loud. Despite all the worry, at this moment, life seemed suddenly precious and good.
‘Right, what are we waiting for?’ Sal greeted Rachel. ‘Let’s get wiggy.’
Inside, there was a delicious aroma of mulled wine. There was even a non-alcoholic version since a lot of the shop’s clients were cancer patients.
‘Maybe we could get a girl band together,’ Rachel suggested, trying on a Diana Ross curly version. ‘We could call ourselves The Survivors – as long as you didn’t ask me to join.’
Sal felt the urge to hug her but resisted. Rachel’s extraordinary self-mocking bravery discouraged easy sentimentality.
The assistant tied up Sal’s hair and flattened it against her head with kirby grips. ‘I like this look. Ena Sharples by night.’
The assistant selected various wigs. Short, red and bobbed. ‘Ooh, Mary Portas!’ Sal cooed. Then dark and long. Sal put her finger in her mouth. ‘Very Nigella.’ And, finally, a shoulder-length layered wig with russet highlights.
‘That’s the one!’ Rachel insisted. ‘No one would ever know it isn’t your own hair.’
On the assistant’s advice Sal bought a block to put it on when it wasn’t in use. ‘Then you can wash and blow dry it yourself, just like the hairdresser does.’
‘Think of all the money you’ll save on salon bills,’ pointed out the irrepressible Rachel. ‘And don’t forget a roll of double-sided tape. You stick one side to the wig and the other to your baldy head. No more red faces when your syrup decides to blow off in the wind – and you end up like Telly Savalas in a frock and leggings!’
Just as they were leaving, Rachel grabbed a pink nylon wig from a display model. ‘I’m going to have to get this!’ she insisted. ‘It’s only twenty quid.’ She plonked it on her head.
The amazing thing was, it looked great.
‘Tell you what,’ Rachel giggled, ‘let’s go for that drink. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we – no, let’s forget that bit, shall we?’
Sal led the way to the Paramount, right at the top of Centrepoint at the far end of Oxford Street, where they took the Express lift to the thirty-second floor. There they stood in the bar, crowded with pre-Christmas revellers, looking down on frosty light-bedecked London laid out beneath them.
Sal ordered two glasses of champagne. She wanted to forget the bloody cost, or whether they should be drinking at all.
‘To friendship old and new.’ For a brief second they held each other’s glance, then looked beyond at the dazzling lights of the city far below where people were getting on with the serious business of living and loving, and hoped fervently it would go on including them.
Laura set off for her new job, feeling pleasantly excited.
She knew this was a shockingly un-PC response, but she’d always loved playing shops as a child, weighing out potatoes and carrots on her mother’s kitchen scales, wrapping them in brown paper bags which she twirled over and twisted like the professionals she’d seen in the greengrocer’s. She was sensible enough to know that shifts in LateExpress would be a far cry from her mother’s kitchen and the challenges would be mind-numbing boredom, zero social status and possible RSI from swiping endless items through the till. But the truth was, she didn’t yet feel strong enough for a job which required decision-making or great responsibility. She was rather looking forward to just taking a few small steps.
Mr A turned out to be friendly and chatty and soon she had his family history: coming to Britain with nothing but his shopkeeping skills and slowly building up his business from one small corner shop to three outlets in West London. ‘And do you know how we did it, Mrs Minchin? By working all hours God gave and now Tesco Metro does the same!’
His greatest object of both pride and heartache was that none of his three sons were prepared to follow him into the business. ‘Too educated to work in shop. All want to be bloody bankers!’
Laura’s first task was indeed shelf-stacking. One of the other assistants showed her around the storeroom which was filled from floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes, each with the front torn off to reveal the contents. She was then shown how to use the price gun and given a list of prices to sticker onto each product.
‘Keep an eye out, Mrs Minchin,’ Mr A had warned. ‘They are like Tartar hordes, carry everything away in their schoolbags. Keep special eye on crisps and Coca-Cola.’
Then came the sandwich rush. Despite the modesty of much of his stock, it seemed that Mr A’s sandwiches were famous and that this was down to Mrs A, who came up with the recipes for unusual fillings.
‘Cheese and pickle still number one,’ Mr A confided to Laura, ‘but chicken fajita, hoisin duck, and falafel in pitta all sell pretty good. Also many onion bhaji butty.’
‘Onion bhaji butty?’ Laura echoed.
‘Fish and chip shop sell chip butty, why not onion bhaji butty?’
Just before one, Laura was taking her turn on the till when she noticed Simon’s long-time assistant, Elaine, musing in front of the sandwiches. Eventually, she selected a chicken Caesar wrap and a bottle of Evian, which she brought to the counter.
Laura swiped the sandwiches and water. ‘Thanks, that’ll be two pounds eighty. Would you like a bag for those?’
Elaine counted out the money and began to hand it over.
‘Laura!’ she blurted out, stunned. ‘I mean Mrs Minchin! What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Hello, Elaine,’ Laura replied, greatly enjoying herself. ‘I’m working here. Since Simon and I split I needed a job and, as you can imagine, there’s not a lot out there for a housewife who’s been at home for twenty-five years.’
‘Twenty-five years?’ echoed Elaine, who had only been married for three and was finding that hard going. ‘You were together for twenty-five years?’
‘We split up on our silver wedding anniversary. Good timing, eh? Can I pick that up for you?’
Elaine had let the bottle of Evian slither through her fingers in stunned amazement. Laura nipped round from behind the till and handed it back to her. ‘Sorry, better get on. Enjoy your lunch.’
A queue of irritable sandwich purchasers, in which Laura gleefully recognized the HR director from Simon’s office and another of the senior partners, had formed behind Elaine. Their expressions, when they recognized Laura, were priceless, as if they’d discovered the Duchess of Cambridge serving in KFC.
After the lunchtime rush, Mr A told her to choose a sandwich for herself, as it was her first day, and to take it off to eat somewhere peaceful on her break. She chose to sit on a cardboard box in the stock room and munched her onion bhaji butty, which turned out to be absolutely delicious, wondering how long it would take Simon to hear the good news of her gainful employment.
Not long at all, as it happened.
Mr A had asked her to sort through the stand of birthday cards at the front of the shop when her soon-to-be ex-husband, white with fury, burst into the shop.
‘What the hell do you think you’re up to?’ Simon demanded, taking in her admittedly not very stylish nylon overalls emblazoned with LateExpress on her left breast.
A very old lady who was browsing nearby jumped violently. ‘Hunting for a card for my sister. She’s going to be ninety.’
‘Not you!’ barked Simon.
‘As a matter of fact,’ Laura replied in a pleasant tone guaranteed to drive him berserk, ‘I’m taking your advice.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You accused me of being a leech, as I recall.’
‘Well, I never, how rude,’ commented the old lady.
Simon studiously ignored her.
‘You said I had sat on my arse for the twenty-five years of our marriage,’ Laura continued, straightening up the cards, ‘and that I should, I think your exact words were, get a bloody job.’
Simon looked as if he might pull the rack down on top of her in his fury.
‘I was angry. Anyway, I didn’t mean a menial job like this, which you have chosen deliberately next to my office for maximum embarrassment.’
‘Actually, I think you’ll find paid jobs, menial or not, are pretty thin on the ground. This is part time, which suits me since Sam needs me at the moment, and as you so kindly pointed out, sitting on one’s arse for twenty-five years doesn’t look too good on a CV. Although,’ she stooped to retrieve an envelope, ‘a judge might consider I was at least making an effort.’
Simon looked as if he’d like to throttle her.
‘Or he might consider that deliberately taking a job to embarrass me in front of my colleagues constituted unreasonable behaviour!’ he snapped back.
‘I think you’re doing that perfectly well without my help.’ She indicated two young women from his office who were surreptitiously pointing at him and giggling.
‘You’ll be hearing from me, Laura. How I put up with you for twenty-five years God alone knows.’
He turned on his heel.
‘Oh, my dear,’ sympathized the ancient card-buyer, ‘what a horrid temper. It makes me quite glad I never married. You’re much better off without him.’
Laura smiled back at her. She realized she was beginning to agree.
Claudia hated herself for being so grumpy. It was just that, here in Little Minsley, without her friends or her job, and with Don becoming so suddenly dependent on her, she was going quietly mad. Her mother was right, of course, that she’d never been a joiner. Maybe it was time she joined something now. She would start with the choir. After that she’d volunteer for something more substantial. Not church cleaning or bell ringing but something that might make her feel useful and involved. Volunteers, she’d read in a survey somewhere, were much happier people than the rest of society, and it was true she’d stopped being such a pain and was starting to be positive.
The Minsley Choral Society didn’t sound exactly like a hotbed of thrills and excitement, but, on the other hand, taking on Les Misérables would have been no mean feat, and everyone said singing was good for the soul.
Claudia decided to go down to the school where they met and to check it out. The only thing was, she was pretty convinced she couldn’t sing. What if you had to audition? Hideous memories flooded back to her of being the only girl in her class who’d been banned from joining the school choir owing to her inability to hold a note. Did she really want the humiliation all over again?
Outside the school there was a large board displaying parish notices, including one for the choir.
‘Interested?’ a voice enquired.
Claudia turned to face someone who appeared as much a refugee from the big city as she was. Unlike the usual tweedy or bejeaned males she’d encountered in Minsley, he was wearing a sweater in green cashmere and a tartan scarf under a soft and expensive-looking navy coat with the collar turned up. It gave him a faint look of José Mourinho. He even had the same faint scowl.
‘I might be,’ Claudia answered cautiously. ‘It depends if I have to audition.’
‘Scared, eh?’ The newcomer laughed. She had to admit his smile transformed his whole demeanour from stern to mischievous, which was a step forward. Without even realizing it, she found herself smiling back. ‘No auditions for our choir. All we ask for is commitment. Once you sign up, we have you for life.’
‘Like the Jesuits?’
‘Exactly like the Jesuits. Or the Scientologists. Daniel Forrest, by the way, I’m the choir master.’
He held out his hand. Claudia took it, wondering if his handshake would be limp and fishy like Peter Dooley’s or firm and friendly. It was almost vicelike. Claudia, who had a theory about the meaning of handshakes, felt a faint blush colour her cheeks.
‘It’s me who’ll be getting you to sign in blood,’ Daniel continued, a quizzical look taking in her confusion. ‘Have you sung before?’
‘Only at school. Plus hymns and all that.’
They had started walking tow
ards the village centre. ‘So why do you want to join? Sorry, I don’t mean this to be the Spanish Inquisition.’
‘I’ve just moved down here.’ For reasons she wouldn’t like to examine too closely she almost forgot to mention Don. ‘My husband and I used to live in Chiswick.’
‘Aha. Chasing the rural rainbow?’ She got the distinct impression this Daniel Forrest was putting a label on her and she didn’t like it one bit.
‘To be honest, I had to be dragged from London kicking and screaming. For a start I loved my job.’ She found she wanted him to take her seriously, and not dismiss her as a housewife.
‘What did you do?’
‘I was a teacher. French.’
‘Interesting. I run a charity for disadvantaged kids. Maybe I could interest you in that?’
‘I think I’ve had enough to do with education for the moment.’
‘Kids had enough of your dark sarcasm?’ She caught his impish smile as he recalled the Pink Floyd song and found herself suddenly thinking of Thierry and the Paris paving stones. Funny, he’d be about Daniel Forrest’s age now.
‘Sorry, did I sound disillusioned?’ Claudia apologized.
‘Just a little.’
Claudia couldn’t help smiling at his wry tone. ‘The real reason I came is because of my parents. They live here and they are starting to need looking after. So here we are in Little Minsley. I bumped into Betty Wilshaw and she suggested I join the choir.’
‘Glorious Betty! You know she used to be a chorus girl?’
Claudia thought about the white-haired old lady on the mobility scooter; she certainly had plenty of personality.
‘A Bluebell Girl at the Paris Lido, no less.’
Claudia blinked, trying to imagine the lively octogenarian in feathers and sequins at some of Paris’s most famous cabarets.
‘Our Betty high-kicked with the best of them. Called herself Betty Blue. She was quite an attraction, I’m told.’ They stopped by the zebra crossing outside the village shop. ‘So, will you be coming to choir next Tuesday?’