by Anne Brooke
“You’ve got a great face shape,” she says. “I love how green your eyes are. I’ve got some fantastic eye shadows that will be perfect for you.”
“Okay,” Olivia replies. “Sounds good, but as I said on the phone, I don’t want anything too heavy. I want to look like myself when I get married, not like someone nobody recognises.”
Debbie takes a drink of water. “No problem. I specialise in the natural look for brides. But do bear in mind that when I say ‘natural’, it won’t be the kind of natural you’d do yourself with your make up, as you need to add a little extra for the photographs. Otherwise you’ll end up looking washed out.”
Olivia can understand that. Because of Kieran’s love of photography, she knows a fair amount about colour and light. Just as long as she doesn’t end up looking like some kind of mad party-goer, she’ll be fine.
For the next half hour, Debbie experiments with a variety of looks on Olivia’s face. Olivia is happy enough with the creamy foundation and (thank God!) concealer, as well as the subtle drift of soft pink blusher on her cheeks – even though she never uses blusher herself. She prefers the pale and interesting look, but accepts Debbie’s argument about pale and interesting not looking great in the pictures. She even likes Debbie’s choice of taupe eyeshadow and brown mascara and nods her approval at the image in the mirror. Each time, she agrees something works on her, Debbie writes the information onto a pad on the desk for saving on her client record.
Olivia likes having a client record. It makes her feel vaguely important, which is nice, if unusual.
The one thing she and Debbie have problems with is the choice of lipstick. Olivia isn’t a keen lipstick wearer and she doesn’t have any lipsticks at home which are less than a year old. Yes, she knows she should throw them away, but as she only ever uses them when a posh party comes round, which is once in the proverbial blue moon, then there doesn’t seem any point. She hates waste and so far her lips haven’t exploded into terrible sores as a result of her beauty faux-pas. Must be the same as all the nonsense about sell-by and use-by dates on food. Maybe lipsticks are the same as yoghurts, in that sense.
So, from instinct, when Debbie sets out an array of lipsticks to choose from, Olivia goes for something dark. She presumes her fair complexion and auburn hair will need a lippie with some oomph to set off her wedding look.
Debbie frowns. “Are you sure?”
“It’s similar to the ones I have at home, though I don’t wear them often,” Olivia replies. “So let’s give it a go.”
Debbie duly layers Olivia’s lips with the chosen colour and steps back to take in the effect. She’s still frowning. “You know, I really do think you could use something lighter. Have a look.”
She whirls Olivia back to face the mirror again, and Olivia gives her completed face a good once-over. She looks more or less how she does for a night out on the town, although Debbie’s foundation and eye make-up choices are a definite improvement. She will have to take down the names of the products the beautician has used for the next mad social whirl. Still, Olivia has to admit Debbie might well have a point about the lippie. Maybe it doesn’t quite fit with the rest of her.
“Hmm, I see what you mean about the lipstick,” she says after a few moments. “What sort of colour do you suggest?”
“Don’t worry,” Debbie chips in, now looking triumphant. “I know exactly the thing.”
With that, she wipes Olivia’s lips clean and snatches a lipstick from her collection on the shelf. A few moments later, and Attempt Number Two is in place. This time when Debbie steps back, she’s smiling. “Perfect! Now, you look.”
Once more, she swings Olivia round to the mirror to view the full effect. Olivia gasps. It looks pretty damn good! The lighter and subtler pink of her mouth somehow lifts her complexion all over so the whole of her face seems different, and in a good way too.
“Gosh,” she says. “That’s brilliant. That’s definitely The Look and The Lipstick to get married in. What’s it called?”
Ten minutes later, Olivia has booked Debbie in her diary for another practice run a week before her Big Day, and also an appointment on the morning of her wedding itself so she can get the full works once more. She leaves the salon smiling and with her handbag complete with two Rimmel pale pink lipsticks. Life is good.
Next stop is the hair problem. Olivia isn’t a fan of hairstyling. The best she manages to do is blow-dry the whole caboodle whilst leaning down dangerously close to the floor to give it some body and then pin it back so it doesn’t get in her eyes. She likes to see the world at all times. You never know what the world will be up to, and she isn’t the hiding type. Still, she has to admit it probably is slightly mad to spend so many minutes trying to put body into her hair in the morning and then pin it back anyway. But she likes the way this routine makes her hair feel and there’s nothing wrong with that.
But an expert opinion can’t do any harm, and so Olivia does what any self-respecting woman in her late twenties would do. She asks her mother. Olivia’s mother owns two hair brushes and a styling comb (whatever this is …) and so no doubt possesses secret hair knowledge.
“Hairdressers!” her mother says, eyes glinting, when Olivia asks her one Saturday morning in the local coffee shop. “Now there’s a question. I wouldn’t recommend the lady I use, even though she works miracles on my hair every week, as she specialises in old bats like myself and she’s a one-woman business. But I’ll ask her to ask around and let you know what she says.”
“Thanks, Mum. You’re a star.”
“I know. Oh and there’s also a woman from church who works in one of the local salons. She might be able to do something for you. Her name’s Bernadette. Bernie for short. She’s lovely. I’m sure you’ll get on. I shall ask her at the very next service.”
Olivia’s mother is as good as her word and a week or so later, Olivia picks up the phone to find soft-spoken Bernadette (call-me-Bernie) on the other end of the line. She may have been Irish, like her name, but Olivia isn’t sure. She’s no good at accents and had once declared to her friends with every confidence that Billy Connolly was definitely Welsh, wasn’t he? She’s never been allowed to forget it. Her ear is not attuned to Celtic differences.
Three days later, a Wednesday evening, Bernie arrives at Olivia’s mother’s home to discuss hair options. Olivia has decided it will be nicer all round to suss out the situation concerning her hair at her mother’s who may well have some good ideas and who will at least be able to see what she looks like from behind. Those mirrors hairdressers hold up when the job is done aren’t really helpful. That said, she has to smile when she remembers what Kieran told her about the last time – several months ago! – he’d been at the barber’s.
“You know, it’s weird at the barbers, isn’t it?” he’d said one evening when they were watching Midsomer Murders on the video together.
“Oh? Why?” Olivia replied, making the mental leap from ‘barber’ to ‘hairdresser’ on the understanding that the word ‘barber’ hadn’t been used since 1899, or thereabouts.
“At the end, they always hold up a picture of some bald bloke I’ve never seen before behind me and ask me what I think of him. I can’t see him clearly anyway as I don’t have my glasses on but I think he’s a slaphead. Of course I’m far too polite to say that so I just say I think he looks great. Weird, isn’t it?”
Olivia had a moment out of time when she attempted to process what nonsense he was trying to tell her – she was primed to believe his every word of course – when he gave her a wink and they both burst out laughing. That of course led to kissing – did that happen with all couples or was it really just them? – and Midsomer Murders was entirely forgotten so Olivia never did discover who had murdered the old man in the wheelchair with a bow and arrow at the village fete or why.
The memory makes her smile just as a knock at her mother’s door announces the arrival of Bernie.
“Why doesn’t she use the bell?” Olivia asks a
s she goes to answer it.
Her mother smiles. “Because she’s local. You can always tell an off-worlder here from the sound of the bell. Local people knock.”
Or indeed simply come in, Olivia thinks. She well remembers the time she’d been staying at her mother’s and had wandered down to the kitchen at the crack of dawn (9.30am to be precise) in her night-gown to seek out some desperately-needed coffee. She’d reached the bottom of the stairs when the front door swung open and the postman popped in.
“Morning!” he yelled in a bright postman-y voice and then caught sight of Olivia poised on the bottom stair in her nightwear. His eyes widened – presumably with horror – and he gulped as Olivia tried to clutch her gown closer around her chest – it tended to be embarrassingly see-through in the wrong light. Without another word, he deposited his clutch of letters on the hall table and backed out of the front door, clicking it shut behind him.
“Morning, Sam!” her mother’s voice rang out from the kitchen, just preceding her as she tip-tapped down the hall into sight. “Oh, where did he go?”
“Hello, Mum,” said Olivia, still with her arms wrapped round her chest. “What on earth was all that about?”
Her mother took one look at her and burst out laughing. “Oh, darling! Look at you. No wonder poor Sam ran away. I forget you’re not a morning person, are you? And that nightie! Really, it covers nothing. Your grandmother would turn in her urn if she could see you now.”
“Nonsense!” said Olivia. “You’re exaggerating – surely I don’t look that bad.”
However, a casual glance in the hall mirror told her how right her mother was. Her hair had been unwashed for two days and was sticking up like a cockatoo in shock. Her skin was shiny and there was a huge spot about to launch its presence on her chin. To cap it all, the nightie had definitely been caught in the wrong sort of light. She swore she’d never wear it again. In the meantime, Olivia screamed and ran up the stairs as if the hounds of hell were behind her in order to make herself look vaguely presentable again. And dressed. Definitely dressed.
Half an hour later, a cup of coffee inside her, she asked her mother once more about the whole strange arrival of the postman.
“But it’s perfectly normal, darling,” her mother said with some surprise. “This is the countryside. Sam always leaves the post on the hall table. He takes it for delivery too. I’ve not posted any letters for years. I just leave them there and he picks them up. For really local ones, you don’t even have to use a stamp. He just delivers them on his rounds. It’s the way things work here.”
“Gosh,” said Olivia, thinking that maybe she and her mother had somehow been transported back to the 1950s without realising, but at the same time seeing it might not be such a bad place to be. It would never happen in the town. The countryside was indeed another country.
Back in the present, Bernie seems perfectly normal. A slight, dark haired woman with a ready smile and an air of confusion, which makes Olivia feel as if she isn’t likely to be overpowered with hair choices. This can only be a good thing. The hairdresser keeps nodding as Olivia lets her know what she would like for the wedding day: soft curls and shoulder length. She doesn’t need anything dressy as she’s already bought an ivory dupion silk hair band that matches her dress. It keeps her hair in place and she isn’t planning to wear a veil or anything nonsensical. If she’s getting married, she wants everyone to see her from the get-go. She’s never been a believer in false modesty.
Soon enough, Olivia and Bernie are in the upstairs bathroom, washing her hair at the sink. “I always like to try out what my ladies want,” Bernie says. “I like them to feel they’re in safe hands.”
“Good idea,” Olivia murmurs from beneath the lather, though she isn’t sure about being addressed as any kind of lady. Bernie doesn’t appear to be old enough for that, but maybe it’s another of the results of living in the country – people speak as if they’re living in the 1900s. She makes a mental note to stay in the town for as long as possible.
After towel-drying her hair, Bernie gives her a trim, taking off about half-an-inch to make it shoulder-length. The cut is good, and Olivia feels a burst of gratitude towards her mother for the recommendation. She feels even better when Bernie has finished style-drying her, and she can see the full – well, almost full as she doesn’t have the curls she wants yet – effect.
“Oh yes,” Olivia says with a smile. “That’s great. I love that. Thank you. Can we book a date for the perm?”
“Of course! I’d advise about a month before your big day, so that would be August, wouldn’t it?”
It certainly would. Five minutes later, and Olivia has an appointment with Bernie at her home at the beginning of August. This will give the new look plenty of time to settle down and look its best for the wedding. Result!
Ah, if only Olivia were able to foretell the future, then she may not have been quite so confident …
August comes along soon enough, and Olivia parks her car at Bernie’s house near the sea and checks her purse. Yes, plenty of money for payment plus a tip. She’ll also have to firm up Bernie’s availability for the wedding morning. She’d said that would be fine already, but Olivia likes to have her timeslots sorted. She isn’t a secretary at work for nothing.
After the chat is done and the coffee drunk, Bernie sets to work. During the two hours Olivia spends being titivated, she learns a huge amount about Bernie’s childhood, her big city upbringing, and how much she misses London but she had to move to the country because of her husband’s job. Olivia learns all about Bernie’s love of ballroom dancing and how she’d once been the Junior Ballroom Dancing Champion of her region when she was in her late teens. Sadly, she’d injured her leg when getting off a bus one morning and has never been the same since. She’d given up her ballroom dancing career and had trained to be a hairdresser instead. She loves colour and people and so it seems, to Bernie, to be a pretty decent alternative.
Olivia isn’t sure there really is much in common between dancing and hair, but she decides not to say anything because she doesn’t want to break Bernie’s concentration. Anyway it seems to be enough to say ‘hmm’ and ‘oh dear’ every so often and, besides, she can’t cut in with anything else because Bernie’s flow of words is unstoppable.
Here, Olivia is impressed. She’s always reckoned herself to be the talkative one in her family and in her relationship but she’s more than met her match today. Is this part of the reason why her mother was convinced she and Bernie would get on so well? Or maybe it’s revenge – Olivia can’t put it past her.
As long as her hair is a success, Olivia will be happy. And really she’s glad Bernie has found another job she likes just as well. She must still miss the dancing though – it would be crazy not to. Olivia, when young, loved watching those old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films and has always longed to be that elegant herself. Sadly, neither elegance nor the ability to dance has ever come her way. You have to live in the real world in the end – though meeting and falling in love with Kieran has been in itself more than magical, oh yes.
Speaking of the real world however, she’s been sitting for ages with the perming solution in her hair while Bernie ‘nipped downstairs for a cup of tea’. Surely she should be back by now? Then again, Olivia doesn’t have a clue when it come to how long perms – however soft – take to set and she’s absolutely sure the hairdresser will have everything under control. Nevertheless, the back of her scalp is starting to feel odd – not a burning sensation exactly, but more of a constant itch. Maybe that is supposed to happen? She tries to move her head very gently without disturbing Bernie’s handiwork to see if the itch goes away, but it doesn’t make any difference.
She’ll give it five more minutes – what harm can that do? – and then she will try calling out to see if Bernie is within answering range. Though she must be – the house isn’t large. Maybe she’s gone into the garden.
Olivia is just about to get out of the chair as carefully as s
he can for fear of disturbing the hair art when Berni skips back into the lounge.
“So sorry,” she says. “I was just chatting to another client to fix up a hairdo time for her on Saturday and we got talking. I almost forgot you were here!”
Charming, Olivia thinks. Always good to be invisible.
“Bernie, could you just check my hair, please? I’m getting itchy at the back so didn’t know if the lotion should be taken off now?”
“Yes, of course!” Bernie sings out as she trots behind Olivia. “There won’t be a problem as this stuff’s really good. Very gentle. But it’s about time to take it off anyway, so let’s see what we’ve got.”
What they have in the end looks very nice indeed. At least, once the whole thing has been brushed out and styled. She loves the way the soft curls frame her face and make her look less sharp-edged than she usually does. She’s probably been getting overly-angsty about the feel of the lotion. It’s no doubt the effect of all that wedding planning she and Kieran are doing. There’s a heck of a lot to think about.
Back at home, Olivia leaves her hair unwashed for a couple of days to give everything a chance to sort itself out and then settles down on the third evening to see if Bernie’s creation lasts quite so well at the hands of a novice.
Her shampoo and conditioner are the ones she always uses but, halfway through, something is wrong and her hair isn’t doing what it’s supposed to. Not in any shape or form.
“Kieran? Kieran?”
A couple of moments later, Olivia hears her fiance’s footsteps thundering through the kitchen and lobby to reach her.