Pronto.
Chapter Five
Mum is home. I can smell frying mince and onions as I open the gate, skip up the steps and turn the key in the front door.
‘Poppy! Come in here. Tell me about today.’
I kick off my shoes in the hallway and join her in the kitchen.
‘Were you able to sort yourself out with something at the job centre?’
‘Yes, loads of very, very exciting stuff. Never realised that psychology was going to be so versatile! So yeah, watch this space. Not too closely straight away, but definitely watch this space.’
Mum seems to be channelling a lot of restless energy into the wooden spoon she’s using to stir the meat.
‘Does that mean you’ve got an actual start date? Is there an actual job with actual money or not?’ Fuckery. Thought she’d just be content with glib good news.
‘Not as yet. However, the guy at the job centre really knew his stuff, a total professional – he said just to hang tight, stay positive and I’ll be in my dream job in no time.’
Mum continues at the frying pan with frequent stabbing actions. I swoop in with my salvaging titbit.
‘And another piece of good news is that you won’t have to worry about dinner for me tonight as I’m going out with some old school friends!’
She puts down her wooden spoon and turns towards me. It’s the first eye contact she has made since I’ve entered the house. ‘Go on …’
‘Twins Leanne and Tom, we were close at school? I’m meeting up with them at eight o’clock.’
Mum starts to stir the mince again, but this time in a thoughtful, almost tender way.
‘And is Leanne a single girl like you?’
‘No, she’s married with kids, but Tom is single, I think. They own a gym.’
She’s smiling now. ‘Ah, Tom.’ She rolls his name around her mouth. ‘I like Toms. If I’d had a boy I would have called him Tom. I can’t say I’ve ever met a bad Tom. You know, I already have a good feeling about Tom. Well done, Poppy. See, didn’t we say to surround yourself with people! Roberta will be well chuffed when I tell her that you followed her advice. Why don’t you get them to pick you up here instead? That way we could meet them both, have a G and T together. I’d love to meet Tom. Owns a gym, you say? Must be a strong lad. Must look after himself.’
‘I haven’t even met him myself yet, not for years and years.’
Mum’s on one now. ‘I know your generation does things differently – leaves things a hell of a lot later. I was married, divorced and remarried by your age, but if it means you then move fast when you eventually do make up your mind … well, far be it from me to interfere. I think it’s wonderful.’ She opens her arms to me and wraps me in a cuddle, rocking us from side to side.
‘Oh, a wedding, Poppy, wouldn’t that be wonderful? We could have a marquee, or even go abroad. I love Spain, always have. And then maybe a baby … or two, especially if there are twins on his side, right?’
I let her envelop me in her embrace, indulging her in her reverie, breathing in the homely familiarity of her scent. I’m happy for the subject matter to be anything other than my current loser status. She pulls away and kisses my forehead, tucking my hair behind my ears.
‘I’m not being selfish here, you know. It’s for you I want all these things. All my friends have grown-up kids the same age as you, some even younger. But they are truly grown up – they’ve got careers and spouses and kids and mortgages and people carriers.’
I nearly find myself apologising. Just singing out a ‘sorry’ to placate her. But then I think, no. I’ve not done anything wrong. I’ve not hurt anyone. It’s not like I’ve been sitting around doing nothing. I’ve worked my arse off, and true, it’s not panned out the way I thought it would, but that doesn’t mean I’m a write-off. I’m not apologising for not being someone else.
‘Oh, I see,’ I say, nodding, as if I’ve finally caught up with what she’s really trying to tell me. ‘What’s a people carrier?’
She sighs and her arms drop to her sides. ‘It’s a car.’
‘But every car is a people carrier – what a ridiculous and pointless thing to say. Is this something your friends do while they’re comparing interest rates and how many times their kids can get pregnant? Make up new names for everyday items? Bet they have hours of fun: Oh, can you pass me that concave metal eating instrument? Ah, this spoon here? Yes, precisely.’
Her back is turned and she’s at the hob again. She used to laugh when I mimicked her friends in my squeaky Frank Spencer voice. But right now she is not laughing one bit.
I start to unpack my shopping bags. ‘So, about tonight … I’ve been thinking about trying out a bit of a new look. How would you feel about doing my hair? I fancy a change.’ I walk over to the hob and take the wooden spoon from her and start stirring the mince myself.
Mum looks at me, eyebrows knitted together. ‘A wash and blow-dry, you mean?’
‘No, I mean a complete makeover – cut, colour, restyle.’
Her glasses slide to the end of her nose and she shifts her weight on to her back leg, like she can’t quite take the force of what she is hearing.
‘You mean it? You’ll let me do your hair? Or do you mean you want me to book you in with one of the other girls at the salon? Annikka has just started, very on trend. I could ask her to fit you in.’
‘Well, I was kind of hoping you could do it.’
Mum’s hand lifts to her chin and she squints at me, shaking her head. ‘So you’re saying you are ready for a change?’
‘Yes! Definitely! That’s exactly what I want. I want to change. I want a new look, something fresh and fun and modern and memorable and—’
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Sweetheart, all those things sound absolutely thrilling, but this is a haircut we’re talking about. I’ll try my best, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up. We get this in the salon all the time. Someone gets dumped; answer: new hair. Someone gets fired; answer: new hair. A good hairdresser can go some way to helping in a crisis, but I’m not a miracle worker, love.’
‘I know, don’t worry. I think a change in how I look will help me look at myself differently, and then maybe I can make more changes … bit by bit.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘You trust me?’
‘I trust you.’
Mum’s face breaks into a huge smile and she shakes her head, lifting her eyes to the heavens as if her prayers have finally been answered.
‘So, when are you thinking of making this big change?’
‘Right now, if possible? I want something different for tonight, you know, something a bit more sophisticated, less studenty, today being the first day of the rest of my life and all that.’
She turns off the hob, grabs the wooden spoon from my hand and throws it into the sink. Pushing her glasses back up her nose, she runs her fingers through my long brown hair as if inspecting strands on a loom.
‘Okay, scraggy split ends will have to go. The colour could do with something to bring it out more; we could go lighter, or darker? Bit of both? Of course gentlemen prefer blondes, so you may want to think on that.’
She flicks my side parting forward into my face, then folds my hair over my forehead for a faux-fringe effect. She scrunches her nose disapprovingly and narrows one eye. Then she scrapes it all back from my face, smoothing down any stray hairs and gathering it back into a tight ballerina bun. Nose scrunch again, along with lip curl, so this mustn’t be working either. She then takes the tips of my hair and leans into me, holding them against my jawline, and she’s so close that I can almost read the tiny cursive of her thoughts. Her face opens up, her lips part and her eyes widen. She steps backwards, holds an L-shaped hand up towards my face and starts to nod.
‘Yes, yes, yes! I’ve got it now! Sit over there by the sink. I know exactly what I’m going to do with you.’
I sit at the kitchen sink, a starchy brown towel around my should
ers and a hideous whirring feeling in my stomach. She prepares her pots of dye, her brushes, spatulas, foils, brushes, scissors, hairdryer, curlers and straighteners, and plugs a very dangerous-looking hand-held device into the wall to charge. When she turns it on, it starts to buzz.
It is an electric razor.
I start to panic – what have I done here? I have pulled the grenade pin and now there’s no going back. One thing you don’t do with Mum is backtrack. Once the wheels are set in motion, you just have to hold your nerve or else she will make you regret it. So, this is it now. This is the last time I will look the way I do, for better or for worse.
Mum hands me a chilled bottle of cava and two glasses. ‘Open that. It’s high time we celebrated; with all that’s been going on, we’ve hardly stopped to catch our breath.’
I fill our flutes of bubbly right to the top. Mum stands beside me in her black hairdressing apron, plastic gloves on, scissors in the holster at her waist, a wild look in her eyes.
‘To new beginnings,’ she toasts, and we clink our glasses together, keeping eye contact as we both swig back massive mouthfuls. Mum then wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, rolls up her sleeves and gives her shoulders a little pump to loosen them.
‘So what happened with the other boy you were seeing? Jeffery?’
‘Gregory. Not that it matters. It’s over.’
Mum drains her glass and starts to comb my hair. ‘And was that your choice? To finish it?’ She tugs lightly, starting with the knots at the end.
I shake my head. ‘Not exactly.’
‘Well, never you mind, all the more reason for a ravishing new look. It was bound to finish. I’m just relieved it happened sooner rather than later; no use these things lingering on.’
I suddenly feel very defensive. It’s bad enough everyone thinking I was punching above my weight with him, never mind my own mother adding to the chorus of critics.
‘How could you know that, Mum? You never even met him!’ I spin around in my seat. She stops combing and holds the brush high in the air.
‘I didn’t need to meet him to know that he was wrong for you. I could just tell.’
‘Oh really? And how does that work then?’
‘Because I always knew when he was around. When I’d ring you, I’d always be able to tell if he was in the room or somewhere in the background because your voice would go all quiet and small. Whether he meant to or not, he made you nervous and self-conscious and … well, let’s say not yourself.’
I shuffle up in my seat. I think she may be on to something.
‘How was I “not myself”?’
‘You sounded different; you became all tight and whispery, like the air was being sucked out of you. It used to upset me. All those years trying to build up your confidence so you could take on the world, and then you get so far and fold yourself up again. So I know it’s never nice to have someone call things off, but in this case Poppy, I’m relieved.’ She strokes my hair gently and gathers it at the nape of my neck.
She’s knocked me for six with this. ‘I thought you’d be disappointed. I thought you’d like that he was so smart and charming and successful.’
‘Ha! I fell for your father because he was smart and charming and successful and look where that got me!’
I grab at my knees. I hate this conversation. Usually I bite my lip and try to distract myself – think of a book I’m reading or an essay I’m working on – but this time, before I even realise it, the words have escaped my lips. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I am so, so sorry.’
‘For what?’ Mum moves around to the front of my chair and places her hands on mine. ‘Poppy, talk to me. Tell me whatever it is. What’s wrong?’
‘What’s wrong is that you fell for Dad and he was a complete shit, and then rather than just leave and start again, you couldn’t because … you had me.’
Mum’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. ‘I’m not following.’
‘That’s what I’m sorry about. Sorry that you couldn’t just start over with no baggage and have a proper family with someone who loves you, and not be constantly tied to your ex-husband.’
Mum’s hand drifts to her eyes and she pinches the bridge of her nose. Then she sits on the lino floor in front of me and wraps her arms around my legs, resting her head in my lap. After a moment, she lifts her head to meet my gaze.
‘Poppy, I need you to listen to me when I say this. I mean really, really listen. This is important.’
I nod my head and hold my glass to my lips to stop them quivering.
‘Ray Bloom is not a bad man. He is just not good with people. He’s shocking with people. And the drink, the drugs and the other women didn’t help much either.’ Mum grabs my glass from my hand and takes a swig. ‘We were good together for a while, but we wanted different things, we stopped bringing out the magic in each other. Things got dark between us. Except for one glimmer of light, one spark of love and hope and warmth that lit something in both of us that we never knew was even there. A love that was – that is – bigger and brighter and more powerful than either of us realised we were capable of experiencing. And that is you, Poppy. He gave me you. So never, ever forget that having you was the most important and phenomenal thing that ever happened to me. To us both.’
I swallow a gigantic lump in my throat, grab the cava and top up her glass. ‘Weren’t you scared, leaving him, venturing out on your own?’
Mum tilts her head at me and smiles. ‘People couldn’t believe it when I actually did it. Actually packed my bags and left him. It was all over the newspapers; it made the six o’clock news. Why would a hairdresser with a small baby walk out on the drummer from the most famous band in the world? I didn’t want his money. I just wanted to live my own life. I wanted to make my own choices and be independent. Always so overprotective, your dad. Wanted to control everyone, keep us away from anything he thought might hurt us. It came from a good place, I suppose, but I knew it wasn’t right. Yes, I could have stayed in his gilded cage, tucked away in a mansion somewhere with servants and nannies and whatnot, but I hated the idea of it. Hated the idea of not living my own life the way I knew I needed to. He saw the world differently, as a dark and dangerous place; part of his artistic genius, I suppose.’
Her voices softens a little and she moves up on her haunches.
‘The thing that people don’t understand about being an artistic genius is that you’re not like everybody else; you can do something the average Joe can’t do. And that might sound like a gift, but to my mind, it isn’t.’ She stands, walks around to the back of my chair and resumes combing. ‘Genius can be a curse. I dare say it was a curse for your father.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
‘As much as I couldn’t always understand your father, Poppy, mostly I pitied him. Pitied him because his genius isolated him from the regular world and regular relationships. He saw the world a different way. He experienced things in a different way.’
‘Like music?’ I ask.
‘Like everything. I’ll give you an example. We were on holiday in Spain just after you were born. Lovely beach, lovely food, big jug of sangria – it was great. We’re sitting on the balcony watching the sunset and I’m really enjoying it; I’m admiring the pretty colours, the relaxation. Ray? You think he can sit there and enjoy it? No way. Of course he can’t. He starts picking up the cutlery and banging out a rhythm against the table. I say, “Put the knives down, Ray, we’re on holiday. Why can’t you just relax and enjoy the peace?” But he can’t relax, he can’t be at peace – that’s his problem. He starts talking all this deep and meaningful nonsense watching the sun go down on the horizon – how powerless we are against nature, how we are conditioned to see things to suit ourselves because we don’t like the truth … He was on one then. I knew something was rattling him inside and that I wouldn’t hear the end of it, so I got up from my chair and told him I was going bed. I couldn’t bear all this heavy, end-of-the-world stuff. I snuggled in beside you and smelt yo
ur lovely soft baby skin and he took himself off down the beach. Spent all night by himself, drumming knives and sticks on the rocks.’
There’s a quiver in my mum’s hand. I don’t know if it’s upset or anger. I reach up and take it regardless.
She sighs. ‘But you know what?’
‘What?’ I ask.
‘Next morning, he was fine. Better than fine. He was relaxed. It was like he needed to get it out of his system. He wrote the whole of Solar Power that night. Great album. Great sales. Artistic genius, see? Your father couldn’t help but choose his music and his career over his relationships. And in my opinion he made the wrong choice, because at the end of the day, it’s your relationships that keep you happy, keep you sane, keep you going. But that was Ray’s choice. If I had the choice, I’d not choose to be a genius. I’d choose to be average, to be normal. To be happy with a nice meal and a glass of sangria at sunset, surrounded by loving friends and family. But I guess we all have to make our own choices, find a balance, right?’
‘So how do you put all that behind you and move on?’
‘Well, you need to decide what’s good that’s come of it. Then take that good and cherish it, be grateful for it. Give it all your love and attention. And put all the rest in a folder marked “Shit Bits” and file it away somewhere it won’t bother you any more. Simple, but not easy, if you get me.’
My folder is looking fairly fat at the moment.
‘Right, keep your head still. And I don’t want to hear a word out of you until I say “job done”, do you hear that? Let’s give Tom something to get excited about.’
I start to nod, but she’s already yanked my hair back and is clipping the top layer up.
I try to focus on tonight. Yes, okay, I admit I was slightly obsessed by Tom when I was a teenager, but that was a long, long time ago. When I was about fifteen. So a lifetime ago. He could be a completely different person now. He’s bound to be. And I’m not looking for love anyway. I don’t even know if I’ve ever been in love. I’ve had a few one-night stands and short-term flings, but Gregory was the biggest relationship I’ve been in …
Don't Stop Me Now: The perfect laugh out loud romantic comedy Page 6