The Writing on the Wall and Other Stories

by Penny Edwards

  The entire flat, except the toilet and shower, which Martha explained were behind a small door in the far corner, was one room. Martha’s bed, apparently horribly uncomfortable until she’d added a top-up mattress, was to Sybille’s left while a tiny kitchen lay to her right. A bar divided the two and was decorated with multi-coloured lights, a feature that combined cosiness and an element of the theatrical effectively. A work table sat opposite the bed, the surface of which had on it Martha’s computer and more make-up than Sybille thought she’d ever seen in her life. Tube upon tube was lined up obediently in various rows, perhaps according to colour or shade, ready to do their work, and she thought how a face is just another canvas for anyone artistic like Martha, something that had never occurred to her as clearly before.

  There were posters and artwork everywhere she looked. One was very familiar: the post-war Parisian kiss that paid scant regard to passers-by and didn’t care about the bespectacled and beret-donned man who seemed to disapprove. Others she didn’t quite understand and whether generational difference, taste or her educational shortcomings were the cause, she didn’t really know. But she loved a large, purple canvas that bore a collage of pink and grey painted flowers, their Latin names written beautifully across them. She told Martha so, who smiled and thanked her. It was her own work. Sybille had suspected as much and was pleased that her pleasure at the spectacle had preceded that thought.

  Martha put the tap on and let a gush of cold water thud into the saucepan she was holding, then lit one of the two rings on her small stove and put the saucepan on it.

  “Tea?” she enquired of her visitor.

  “Of course,” came the reply. It was, after all, a tradition. “I’m warning you,” Sybille said with a grin all over her face. She was excited that a young woman wanted to spend time making up this craggy old excuse for a face, but old, unsettling memories were tucked in there somewhere and she didn’t want them unfolded. “I don’t want to be glammed up, I don’t want any of that…” She was speaking French and Martha was looking curiously at her. “I don’t want to look as if I’m going out for a night out. I don’t want any of that…”

  “I know, I know.” Martha’s voice was reassuring and Sybille watched her pour the boiled water into a pot. She believed her and quietly sighed with relief.

  “I don’t mind being one of your animals, something like that. But I’ll wipe it off before I leave, if you don’t mind. I don’t want people thinking, That silly old fool, what does she think she’s doing?”

  Martha handed her a cup of tea. She was an observant girl, despite her heart breaking. It was just the right strength.

  Martha couldn’t honestly say she relished anything these days; taking delight in something was a bit beyond her experience at the moment, but she did consider the prospect of making up an older face at the very least distracting in its novelty. She’d read the theory and listened to the lectures on the older skin but hadn’t had the opportunity to put her knowledge into practice. She made a cup for herself, then plonked down on the end of her bed.

  “Actually, I was thinking about a Russian doll,” she said and reached over to the other side of the bed where a packet of biscuits lay in wait.

  Sybille was shrieking. “Oh Lord, I’m going to look a right…”

  “Charlie?” Martha offered. “No, you’re not,” and there was a real certainty about her tone. Sybille laughed and accepted the chocolatey biscuits that were offered. She enthusiastically took two because she hadn’t had much lunch. Secretly delighted at an idea that was kilometres away from any notion her father had of glamour, she suddenly felt a hunger taking hold and thought it wouldn’t be long before she asked Martha for another couple of biscuits. It would be like being in the theatre. She could play a part.

  Martha got up and walked to the other side of the bed, bent down and produced a Russian doll from somewhere on the floor where she must have been keeping it. Sybille gave a broad smile. It was as if seventy odd years had melted away and when Martha brought it round for her to see, her mind could picture only the windowsill again with her own six dolls perched on it, some faded a little by the sun and ever so slightly dusty. And there was her mother looking on, no smile and raised eyebrows.

  Martha checked the brushes, powders and colours she needed.

  “How have you been, madame?” she asked in English.

  Madame answered in French. How she was always best answered in her own language. “OK, I think. Let’s just say, as well as anyone can be at eighty-six.” She must seem like a museum piece to Martha. “My doctor said my blood pressure was a bit up, but she doesn’t seem too bothered, so I’m thinking, if she seems all right about it, I’m not going to worry. How about you?”

  Martha shrugged her shoulders. There was nothing to say that she hadn’t already probably bored Sybille to death with and there was no significant change to report.

  Sybille offered her English. “I wish I could go to England and tell that blooming so-and-so what he’s put you through. You are going to be fine, you know. It just doesn’t seem it at the moment, does it?”

  Martha’s head went from side to side.

  “I’m going to see to it that you will feel better at some point. These things take time,” and she smiled her virtually toothless grin, which did slightly improve Martha’s state of mind, and she managed to smile back. “Take my Jean, for instance. After that horrible boyfriend I told you about, I thought I’d never find anyone. I just resigned myself to a single life because I never thought I’d trust anyone again. But he was lovely, kind, thoughtful and I could always have trusted him with my life. I never wore make-up, he knew that story of my dad, so he didn’t push me to do anything I didn’t want to. He knew these things run deep.” She paused. “You’ll find a Jean. I know you will.”

  It was very convincing and Martha had no intention of saying she didn’t believe her.

  Martha invited her model to sit down on a chair near the window, which she’d placed at an angle that had enough light to show her face in its natural colour but without the harshness of too much sun.

  “I do love the theatre,” Sybille said as she settled herself in the allotted position. It was a conversation she’d decided to continue from their last meeting, as if a minute hadn’t passed since the last sentence and nor had several nights’ sleep and a few more meals.

  “It’s pure escapism; you can just lose yourself in another world, forget your troubles.” She was enjoying this attention. “Don’t laugh, I often wished I’d gone into that world myself. Well, when I was little. Of course, my dad wouldn’t have approved. Been almost akin to me deciding to be a lady of the night. So I settled for office work.” She paused and allowed herself to be re-positioned by Martha. “God, if I were young now,” she said and smiled at the thought of her young self in a generation not guided by parental wishes. Who the hell would she have been?

  Martha put plenty of foundation on Sybille’s face and under-eye cream to lighten the darkness there. Sybille closed her eyes as Martha gently rubbed in all the cream. Nobody had been as physically close to her as this since Jean had died twenty-three years ago. She’d forgotten how soothing a simple touch of the face could be and how transformed her thoughts. From seemingly nowhere her mind conjured up the sea that she adored and the little beach they’d usually strolled along. She could hear the crashing waves, excited children and the occasional bark of Claude, their dog, as he scampered back and forth from them, delirious at being off his lead. It wasn’t easy, seeing all those children, but the sea was magnificent and could always be relied upon to shift her mood into a more positive direction. She almost felt the big grin on her face as she watched the tide.

  “If you were my granddaughter,” she said, “I’d blooming well ask you to do this every day.”

  Martha gently stroked her face with a soft brush. It was very comforting and made her realise s
he hadn’t been cared for like this for a long time. She missed that. She particularly missed the unexpected pleasure of someone thinking of you when you didn’t know they had been. Jean had been good at that. He often had had little surprises up his sleeve and enchanted her with treats he knew she’d love.

  “I never had children,” she heard herself saying. “Jean and me. It never happened. It’s hard. You get on with life, of course you do, you don’t have a choice, but first there are your friends with their children. They grow up and move out, so you feel as though you’ve got your mates back again and you think, at least I didn’t have that heartbreak of little ones leaving, but then there are the grandchildren. And you can’t help feeling you’ve been dealt a bit of a blow.”

  Martha applied the blusher to Sybille’s cheeks, perfect red circles that had no intention of disguising their purpose. Rosy and healthy, they belonged to the pure contentment of a doll. She didn’t respond to madame’s revelation. It didn’t seem to require one and any attempt to tell her that she was sure life had been good anyway sounded limp and unworthy. She thought about how expected children were, though voices were less clear on the subject, she supposed, since Sybille’s youth. She couldn’t think about them. Right now, they were about as far off the table as they could be. She carried on with Sybille’s cheeks. Her skin, with its valleys and mountains, offered quite a challenge but in the last half-hour, she noted, her thoughts had been completely absorbed in her model’s life.

  It was an hour or so later when they both looked in the mirror. Martha was eager to see madame’s reaction and she beamed when she saw her friend’s delight. It was almost a shock when she saw her mouth turned upwards. A while ago, the guy in the patisserie had said he liked her smile. He even had the nerve to ask her why he hadn’t seen it recently.

  Sybille was extremely happy with the result; in fact, pleased as punch. First, she screamed, and then she laughed, and then she put her right hand across her mouth and touched her nose with her forefinger.

  “Oh my God,” she said loudly and in perfect English. The Russian doll, with its flowered scarf wrapped round its chin, though decrepit, was recognisable, with its blushed cheeks, pink lips and long lashes. The scarf was a smart move as well as a correct one. It covered her wrinkly old neck. She loved the whole thing and said so.

  “Another tea?” Martha asked and she nodded. Water was put in the saucepan and onto the oven.

  “Tomorrow,” Sybille said firmly, for the attention she’d received had given her confidence, “you and me, we’re going down to the fountain. We’re going to see the filming. If nothing else, it’ll be a laugh.”

  “We’ll have to get up early,” came the reply. Martha’s French was perfect, Sybille thought. If she closed her eyes, she could barely detect an English accent.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank friends who have read previous drafts of some of these stories and given very helpful advice, and one friend in particular who has read every word and who has always supported me. I would also like to thank my husband for the many, many hours he has spent reading the manuscript and for all his love and support, and my daughter, whose enthusiasm spurs me on.