by Anna Maxted
“Unless you’re a woman,” I blurt. “Then you’ve got to hang on to your hair at all costs. Your head hair, that is”—the words ooze and gel and I feel like a puppy stumbling over Tinker-toys—“unless you want to be an outcast, you’ve got to be bald all over except for your head.”
Robbie’s monobrow gathers in a faint crease.
“I know how you feel—about the balding bit,” I say. (Yet another gem to add to my bulging file, Infallible Seduction Lines.)
Happily I don’t want to seduce Robbie, and so we embark on a long and informative chat about antibalding weapons and wiles. We talk about hair stimulants and scalp surgery and vitamin B and vaccinations and antibiotics and slaphead genes and wigs and hereditary alopecia and flushing the system with six glasses of water a day and iron in the blood and the Pill and androgen sensitivity and deep breathing and zinc and blackcurrants and thyroid dysfunction and high temperatures—
“High temperatures?” I say, alerted to a hitherto unknown hazard.
“Oh yes,” says Robbie, grimacing. “A high temperature can thin hair—I read it in Sunday magazine. So the last time I got the flu after killing meself in the gym, I sat for ninety minutes in a cold bath. Nearly got pneumonia!”
“And”—I finish the sentence with him—“serious illness can cause hair loss!” We laugh together and I wonder if now would be a good time to slide the conversation round to Andy. Because it strikes me that he and Robbie are such good friends that if Robbie fancies me they must have discussed it. I’m keen to know if Andy sanctioned this drink. According to Babs, Andy is useless at hiding his feelings. And I’ve been thinking about his request for a welcome-back kiss at the karaoke party. I know it was only a joke, a bad taste joke, but it makes me wonder. That’s all.
14
I HAVE NEVER TOLD A MAN NO. DON’T HOLD YOUR breath, I still haven’t. But when Robbie sweeps me home on his Vespa and insists on seeing me to my doorstep, expectation hangs heavy in the air, and I feel obliged to speak. I bleat that I had a nice time but if it’s okay with him I’m very tired so I won’t invite him up although I do like him and everything but I’m going out with Chris and—Robbie holds up his leather-gloved hands in mock surrender.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he says. “Natalie. I’m not asking you for anything. Chill.” Then he grins and zooms off like a wasp into the cold night. I gaze after him, red-faced. I think, most people want something.
My father wants me to meet him at 8 A.M. “My dear, how are you?” he drawls on my machine. “Your mother’s knickers are in a twist.”
I play back the tape and even though I know his concern is genuine, it sounds contrived. He doesn’t sound like any father or gynecologist I’ve ever met. To be fair, he has an excellent reputation as an ob/gyn, albeit a terrible one as a father. (In Hendon, at least.) I think he did his best. Only he was hopeless at fatherhood, in the way that some people are hopeless at math. He did the weekly shop once, returning triumphant from Waitrose with bacon, custard, and a cornflake packet the size of a horse box.
“No one in this house eats any of these things,” said my mother wearily.
“They don’t?” replied Dad, surprised. “Not even for breakfast?”
Mum visibly drooped. “Frosties,” she says, sighing. “We eat Frosties for breakfast, Vince. Even you.”
Dad scratched his head and grinned his dozy boyish grin, which, a long time ago, might have charmed her.
“Ah well,” he said. “Never mind.”
That was the problem. He never minded, she did. If he drilled a hole in the wall she minded that he never got around to buying a Rawlplug. When he left, the house looked like it was made of Emmental. (Until two years ago, when Babs came round with her triple-decker tool kit and plugged, plastered, put up—shelves, pictures, light fittings.)
I arrive at Dad’s hotel on the dot of eight. I haven’t been sleeping well and—while I resent being bad at a basic biological function—it’s easy to be on time when you’ve been ceiling-watching since 6 A.M. My father, though, is an expert sleeper and marches into the cool white lobby a good twenty minutes after the sleek receptionist alerts him to my presence. My innards flip as I wonder if he might be cross, but Dad is so good at being unbothered I can’t imagine it. He is the Western capitalist epitome of Zen now that he owns what he wants in life. A shrug-offable relative in Sydney won’t trouble him so long as she stays remote and doesn’t demand money.
“Good gracious!” he cries, raising his hands in mock shock and beseeching the attention of an invisible crowd. “I say, will you look at her!”
I glance around before realizing he means me. Although the lobby is deserted, I shrink inside my coat. My father spoke like a normal person until he moved to L.A., whereupon he acquired an accent that hovers somewhere between Stephen Fry and Dick Van Dyke. While I have overcome my shame at his Hollywood English, his greeting baffles me. The words are joyous but the tone is appalled. No doubt I have committed the cardinal Californian sin and put on weight. Compared to Kimberli Ann, I am Augustus Gloop.
“You look…young,” I say, hugging him. Dad is dressed in what I believe Americans term “leesher wear” and appears to be sponsored by Ralph Lauren. For a man who once bought jeans from The Gap in a bid to seem funky, his style is remarkably coherent. The tan deck shoes, the fresh pink shirt, the cream trousers—he might have stepped from the fashion pages of Which Yacht? magazine. His hair is very black and crisp, his face is the shade of a goatskin bag my mother once had, and his skin is suspiciously taut.
We sit in the restaurant on stiff chairs and his first words are “My dear girl, you can always sue.”
I am about to ask why I’d want to sue Kelly and Tara when I realize that Dad is referring to my employers.
“Oh!” I exclaim, and then, “I don’t know, but thankfully it’s nowhere near that stage yet, it’s not definite, and, um, to be honest I have made a few mistakes recently. If they do decide to shelve me, I don’t suppose I can blame them.” I stir my espresso to free up the carcinogens and fight the urge to light a cigarette. My father ruffles my hair.
“Nonsense, poppet,” he cries, “I won’t have it! My girl is but an angel!” I smile indulgently at this paternal blip, poke some toast around my plate, and give Dad an explanation-lite of why my job is on the brink.
“I’m here for you, my dear,” he declares.
“Thanks, Dad,” I croak, “but it’s fine, I’m in control.” Though it’s impossible to faze him, I am equally creative when relating why I let the grandchild out of the bag. There’s no point in revealing what a wicked girl I am to my doting dad when I know that my mother will have snipped the shocking tale from an X rating to R. She would never let her ex-husband know that mother-daughter relations are less than perfect.
“Poppet,” says Dad, sipping at his freshly squeezed orange juice, “I’ll be frank—this news about the girl, it’s quite a curve-ball. Yet your mother assures me the woman has never demanded money.”
I tense at the implied slight on Kelly but understand that the comment reveals more about my father than it does about her. I also note that Dad has begun to process his new status, in theory at least.
“Will you…will you try to speak to Tony?”
He shrugs. “My son has made it known he wants nothing to do with me,” he says briskly. “What can I do?”
I search his smooth, brown face for signs of disappointment, but they are expertly hidden.
“I’m sure he’ll come round,” I say, as I’ve been saying every month for the last fourteen years.
“No doubt he will,” agrees my father, as usual. His shoulders stiffen, just a little, and he exclaims, “Tony gave your mother a collection of photographs. Nice-looking girl.”
“Yes,” I murmur, delighted. “Yes, they both seem…lovely.”
My father claps his hands suddenly in dismissal and booms, “Your mother is dreadfully worried about you, poppet and, I must admit, so am I. Tell me, dear, are you taking sufficient c
are of your health? How is your diet? Is there any way in which I could be of use to you?”
I dip my head, grateful yet mortified. I must be more of a porker than I thought. I feel dizzy. Possibly because we’re leaping from one subject to another like a pair of frogs.
“I’m fine, Dad, really I am,” I say.
“If you feel unable to confide in me,” he replies gravely, “I know that Kimberli Ann would be overjoyed to discuss any issues you have. Our personal trainer-slash-nutritionist-slash-herbalist is a delightful chap, and if you have any queries, Kimberli Ann would be happy to pass them on.”
“Dad,” I say, wishing Babs were here to witness the moment my own father accused me of being a lardarse, “it’s a kind offer, thank you and, er, thank Kimberli Ann. But, um, I’ve just seen the time, and I think we’d better get going to the Job Center. I think otherwise we might have to queue.”
“My dear,” replies my father. “I am not here to help you choose between a paper round or junk-mail distribution. My concern is what is wrong with you. I find it hard to believe that anyone would dismiss a young lady with your qualifications. You were an A student—you excelled at school from the age of four! You might have slipped up at university, but we all have our off days. And you established a superb reputation in publicity within a year of joining the profession. The industry magazine referred to you and your subordinates as “the crack publicity team!” This ballet company head-hunted you, for heaven’s sake! This talk of redundancy is absurd! Absurd, I say! Unless the cause is of a personal nature. Which I suspect it is. And I’d like us to talk about it.”
I mentally remove myself from St. Martin’s Lane Hotel. I feel that Dad has embraced the American way of Talking About It sixteen years too late.
“It doesn’t matter,” I mutter. I feel like a witness to a stranger’s fate. Dad stares at me, eyes wide.
I’m wondering if this is surprise or surgery when he cries, “Natalie, wake up! What in god’s name are you trying to achieve?”
I stare back. I believe that parents only have the right to yell at their children if they’ve done their time. As Dad only did half of his before escaping to Malibu, I feel he is morally required to address me at normal pitch.
I say, “I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
He shakes his head. His hair remains impassive and I wonder if I will go bald before he does. I know I should appreciate my father galloping to my rescue like an orange knight, but I don’t. I blame my mother. She magnifies the severity of any given situation to the power of ten. I dread to think what she said to lure him to London. I sigh. I am tired of being bothered and wish to sink into a green smoke of nothingness, the Wicked Witch of West Kensington. All I want is for Babs to be my best friend and Chris to be kind and Tony not to be cross and Andy to be contrite and things to be how they were. I want to rewind the years.
I won’t care about work. I can’t care about work. I don’t care about work.
“I don’t care about work,” I whisper, testing the thought on my tongue tip like mustard.
“Beg pardon?” says my father. He shifts in his chair and I can tell he’s given up on me. Eventually he murmurs, “If your job does go belly-up, which looks likely, I can twist a few arms.”
I think I don’t want to be such a deadweight that Dad has to twist people’s arms to make them employ me—particularly as he’s not enough of an international mogul to ensure there’s no comeback—but I smile and say, “Thank you.”
“Poppet,” says my father, “I mean it. I didn’t quite comprehend how serious matters were. I don’t mind telling you, I feel most uneasy.” I smile again, seeing past his brown face and stiff hair to a safe dark world of not very much.
He sighs, looks at his Philippe Patek watch and then at me. “I wish you’d spoken up. I’m flying home in, what, five hours from now, but if I’d known the severity of the situation, I would have most certainly stayed longer. I could always ask my secretary to postpone my flight if—”
That’s all I need. “It’s really not necessary, Dad,” I say, “but thank you. Look, you’d better go, you don’t want to miss your plane.”
My father pinches my cheek. “Now,” he intones, “if that redundancy does materialize and you want me to get my attorney on to it, I will—that fellow can detect a case for litigation at twelve thousand miles, although I doubt even he—well, no matter. I’d like you to give me a tinkle tomorrow, and I shall be speaking to Kimberli Ann about the matter we discussed earlier. I trust you’ll update your mother. I assume she will be in touch about the girl, anyhow.”
He hesitates, then adds, almost shyly, “If you see Tony, be sure to send him my warmest regards.”
Concern comes easy when you live half a planet away from the problem. I hug my father good-bye, then take the tube to the GL Ballet. It’s not yet lunchtime and I can’t face Matt. Or rather, I can’t face his reluctance to face me. Who can I face? Mel. I haven’t seen her since the Manics. I don’t dare ring Tony, but Mel will have seen him. She’ll know if I remain banished from court. I jog to her dressing room. There is a full dress rehearsal for this evening’s press showing of Romeo and Juliet. On a normal day, I’d be at my desk, fielding urgent inquiries from the second cousin of the assistant sub at Budgerigars Today (can he have tickets for tonight?).
Then again, so what? I’m at that stage of drowning where the water is soothing you to death. I knock.
“Yeth!” cries a voice. I peer round the door. “Oh hello,” says Mel. Her greeting is less fizzy than usual. She is sitting on the floor, a small wraithlike figure, naked except for knickers, and I can see fine downy hair covering her tiny body like a shroud. She is horribly thin—all sinew and skeleton—and for no reason, I’m irritated. I want to snap, You look revolting! I don’t.
“How are you?” I say shortly.
“Fine, thanks,” she replies, tossing her hair. “Can you pass me the sticky tape?” I pass the surgical tape to her outstretched hand and watch. She has peeled a pile of flat round cotton wool pads into halves and pressed them over the top of each foot—from the ankle to an inch above the toes. The first time I saw this ritual I thought she was doing it to protect her feet.
She’d burst out laughing. “I don’t have a good instep,” she’d explained. “My feet are straight, there’s no arch. They don’t make the correct shape when I’m on pointe, so the ballet mistress said, ‘Let’s try padding.’ The artistic director loved it so much, I’m not allowed to be without it. It exaggerates the curve of the foot, it’s much prettier. Lots of people do it.”
She’d dabbed brown foundation over the mounds of cotton wool, then stuck the false curves to her skin with surgical tape. She does this now, then rises like a small ghost, pit-pats to the mirror, and lifts her left leg high until her body clock reads “ten to six.” Satisfied that her DIY arches are perfect, she pulls on her tights and retrieves her shoes from the top of the radiator.
“Show us yer arches then,” I tease when the pink satin ribbons are tied. She lifts herself onto pointe with a grin. “Oh my, you are so glamorous!” I squeal, and she giggles.
“I will ring Tony,” she says abruptly. “But I haven’t sent him a Valentine’s card. I’m too stressed, I’m working so hard, not like some dancers I could mention, swanning off to Verona!”
I’d forgotten about the Verona trip, and I’d forgotten that in two days it’s February 14. Or rather, I’d buried the fact in concrete. Matt and Julietta must be flying to Italy this afternoon. But my ears are twanging for other reasons.
“Have you, uh, not rung Tony, then?” I say, trying to sound casual.
“I think he’s a sweet boy,” she huffs. “I am fond of him, but being a dancer is like being a nun!”
Further inquiries reveal that Tony has rung Mel an unprecedented four times since Friday and she is yet to get back to him. And while Tony’s former flames—most of whom found themselves burned out after twenty-four hours—might call this justice, I feel a twitch of sympathy f
or my brother. Four calls in five days. That’s about my lot for the year.
I run back to the office where, to my relief, Belinda tells me that Matt is in meetings until he and Julietta leave for the airport at five. I float through the rest of the day, untouchable. I see off the chancers clamoring for press tickets (“fax me a copy of The Builders Weekly’s dance page and I’ll see what I can do”), I tell my mother what she wants to hear (“That rave about his metallic gold Benz convertible did seem forced, you can tell he misses Hendon”), I don’t brood about Chris (“I won’t brood about Chris, I won’t brood about Chris, I won’t…”), and I don’t ring my brother (though I realize with a selfish rush of hope that if Mel is being coy, Tony might need me to divert the path of true love to his door).
At 6 P.M. I switch off my mobile and leave for the Coliseum. Belinda natters and chatters—as Matt says, she’s a lovely girl if only she’d pause for breath occasionally—but I don’t hear her. I am watertight, airtight, as cold and impenetrable as a spaceship, my hatches whirring down against alien invasion, lights red, alarms wailing, wah, wah, wah. Belinda and I stand in the foyer handing out tickets and programs to the press like bread to a gaggle of geese. I fawn, flirt, and foist drink on the hacks in the interval, then I take the tube home and fall like a brick into bed. I remain stiffly awake until four, then sleepwalk to work the next day. My bottom has barely brushed the seat of my chair when the phone rings.
Six minutes later, I am leaning blearily against the wall of a toilet cubicle wondering how I managed to book Matt and Julietta onto a plane that arrived in Verona at 8:25 rather than—as I stated in a neatly printed itinerary—left Gatwick at 8:25 and how unlucky it was that the next plane to Verona didn’t depart until 8:00 this morning and that Matt had to book himself and a distinctly underwhelmed Julietta into a flea-bitten Travel Lodge while their soft Verona hotel beds lay frivolously bare. It was also unlucky that Matt had to pay a surcharge to switch flights and spend forty minutes soothing the irate photographer (who’d wanted to shoot Julietta reaching from her balcony bathed in the golden kiss of the early-morning light, but would now have to settle for the less affectionate bog standard lunchtime light).