The Beauty Room

by Regi Claire

  ‘Hello,’ she mumbles, trying to wrestle herself into the coat without dropping the receiver. A strand of saliva-wet hair slaps her shoulder. She smiles as she catches sight of her breasts, hard and pert, in the oval mirror and for an instant her image is eclipsed by those sensations again – like flowers bursting and bursting fiery petals into a black sky.

  ‘Cel! How are you? Boys just went off to school so I thought I’d give you a buzz.’ Lily of all people. Prurient Lily hot on the scent, tracking her down from the other side of the globe.

  ‘Lily, hi. I’m okay …’ If Lily knew, she’d never stop asking questions; she loves private gossip, the more juicy the better. Celia remembers her account of the twins’ birth in graphic detail, including various recipes for cooking placentas. She grins, glances down at her bare feet, ‘Yeah, pretty much okay. And yourself?’

  She wiggles her toes as she hears Lily’s usual, ‘Fine, fine.’

  ‘So, did you get my letter?’

  ‘Letter? No. When did you post it?’

  ‘Last week some time. Everything’s kind of topsy-turvy right now. I’m having the house revamped and –’ Celia sucks her teeth.

  ‘Don’t worry, Walter’s calmed down. Tell you though, he was bloody mad after that call!’ Lily laughs her breathless giggly laugh which Celia will always associate with winter bedrooms and rose gardens.

  ‘Not with you, Cel, honestly. Probably more with himself even than your mum. He must have realised he can’t expect to be rewarded for legging it. And she did set up that trust fund for the boys. But you know, what with him being the only son and having his own business and a family … Anyway, he specifically asked me to say hello because he’s still away. An extended business trip to Australia actually, some wine-growers’ seminar. He said to make sure and ring you, see you were doing okay.’

  Why can’t he find out for himself? Celia kicks the wall, rasping her toes on the grit-rough plaster. He’s got the number, hasn’t he? The back of her head has begun to throb; the swelling’s the size of a five-franc coin.

  ‘Listen, Lily, I’d be happy to make more of that money over to you, I told Walter.’ If the decorators hadn’t removed the upholstered chair for the steaming, she’d have given it a good shove down the corridor. ‘Instead he got more furious. Ranted and raved about Mother and what a bitch she was. How he’d always done what she wanted.’

  There’s a pause at the other end of the line. Celia feels dribbles starting on the insides of her thighs, a feeling whose sleaziness she finds she adores and intends to prolong. No more kicking now. The throbbing in her head has subsided into a tingling – nothing a cold pack won’t cure. Idly she rubs her legs together.

  ‘Hey, Cel, you’re not crying, are you? Walter didn’t mean it, you know.’

  Didn’t he just! Then Celia says, ‘No, no. I’m fine.’ She smirks, wet to her knees now. ‘A little knackered that’s all. It was my first day back at work today.’ (And my first lay in years – a workman, in fact – but of course she won’t say this.)

  Better get in touch with Dr Caveng tomorrow for an emergency prescription, she thinks, and blurts out hastily, ‘Thanks for the photos, Lily. The twins have certainly shot up – young men almost. Are the girls double-queuing at your door yet?’

  Alex isn’t likely to have AIDS, is he? That’s her only worry now. Dr Caveng can deal with the rest.

  ‘Oh Cel, it’s good to hear you joking again. They’re gorgeous boys, aren’t they? Quite innocent to all appearances.’

  Celia decides to bring up the subject next time she meets Alex. Lily is still talking about her kids. Something, about Lyell pouncing on the phone at first ring and the frequency of Peter’s underwear change forgodsake. Now she’s giggling. Celia laughs, dutifully.

  And laughs a bit more. ‘I do look forward to seeing you all in the autumn, as you promised – it’s three years since your last visit. By then the flat should be in perfect nick: rich glorious colours, different ones for each room, to imitate the gemstones I work with.’ Barely hesitating, she adds, ‘No ruby red, I’m afraid. That’s too much like blood. Too unsettling.’ There. It’s said. A dare between friends.

  ‘Mm, yes. I’d go for something more muted myself.’ Lily is obviously playing dumb to avoid getting caught in the past, or has she forgotten their childhood games? ‘It must be so exciting to be your own mistress, Cel – total freedom, and no questions asked.’

  That’s one way of putting it. One way of reminding her that when all’s said and done, she is alone. By herself. Partnerfree is also partnerless. Her legs too have a near-dry feel to them. But then Celia recalls the caresses of Alex’s lips on her skin, his hands rippling through her hair, and all along his squat hardness slowly twisting, stretching her insides into an ache.

  She pulls herself together and replies, ‘Such a shame you didn’t get to fly over for the funeral. I missed you, Lily. It would have been great to have had you around. Like in the old days. Before Walter –’ She swallows. Lily has never regarded Walter as a wrecker of friendships. ‘Your mother was there, though. Funny thing is I saw her on the telly the other evening; they were showing the Carnival Parade.’

  ‘Cel?’ Lily coughs. ‘Cel, I’ve been thinking. About that extra money you offered … Were you really serious? Because, well, I’d love to try my hand at oil painting. Evening classes. Walter would doubtless see it as another of my “doomed hobbies”, so I’m hoping to surprise him when he gets back. You were serious, weren’t you?’

  Celia shivers inside her coat. ‘Oh yes,’ she says. ‘I was serious all right. Sounds like a good idea. Just give me your bank details and I’ll transfer a few thousand. As long as one of the pictures is for me!’ She forces a laugh. Her legs are perfectly dry now, and for a moment she wonders whether she has hallucinated the whole thing.

  They hang up soon after. Everything’s been said.

  By the time the phone rings again, an hour later, Celia has finished clearing the shelves in the Beauty Room, inside the vanity cabinet and along the walls. She’d started by unstoppering and unscrewing a number of the dusty old bottles, pots and tubes to have a sniff, but eventually gave up. Some of the stuff had gone rancid, some cloyingly sweet, some brick hard. Much of it had separated. With one arm she’d swept the lot into two empty banana boxes from the cellar, not even bothering to check which of the sprays, lotions, powders, creams and oils might still be of use, which wax mixtures and face masks, which mascaras, eye shadows, kohl pencils, lipsticks, nail varnish. Then the plastic clips and curlers, the scissors, files, tweezers. Balls of fusty cottonwool, powder puffs, brushes, lumpy tissues, lint strips, greyish face towels. No wavering, Cel, she’d told herself, if you want a clean break. And the four custard-yellow nylon make-up capes had glided on top obligingly enough. The only thing she’d saved (and put straight into the washing machine) was a stack of almost new fluffy towels.

  The caller is probably Lily, ready to apologise. It’s what used to happen when they were kids and had some sort of argument: the one with the guiltier conscience would invariably get back in touch to patch matters up.

  Celia lifts the receiver. ‘Hello,’ she says in a bright friendly tone to indicate she doesn’t bear a grudge.

  ‘Celia? Celia Roth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just checking you received those flowers for the funeral.’ The same voice as on the office phone. At least Celia thinks so. For an instant the corridor shudders around her, naked without its customary padding of wallpaper.

  ‘The flowers?’ she asks flatly. ‘We did have quite a few, as you might –’

  ‘Tulips. Black ones.’

  The receiver in her hand is trembling ever so slightly. She does her best to stay calm, but she can feel a runnel of sweat between her breasts. This has to stop. Stop now. If she doesn’t do something, no one else will. She’s been trained in client management dammit, under Eric’s personal supervision.

  Speaking with crisp deliberation she says, ‘It was nice of you
to remember my mother.’ And pauses. She’s heard Rolf’s footsteps upstairs. Moments later a window opens, shutters clatter, the window bangs closed, and she continues. ‘I’d have sent you a card, only there was no name or address. If you prefer to remain anonymous …?’

  She waits.

  There is no response.

  ‘Well, do you mind telling me who you are and what’s going on?’ She can’t quite help a note of fear and anger muddling up her question. ‘It was you, wasn’t it, that called me at Eric Krüger’s today.’ Accusing now.

  Still no response.

  ‘Nothing to say for yourself?’

  She waits again.

  ‘No? Then fine, and thank you.’ As she replaces the phone, she is shaking all over from the sustained effort to appear firm, and polite.

  In the kitchen she makes herself a double espresso, no milk, one sugar. Does her mother still have secret admirers? Lovers even? Leaning against the worktop, Celia stirs and stirs. Until the clinking of the spoon gets so loud it begins to reverberate inside her head. Turning into the rhythms of Johnny’s Carnival Band all those years ago. Now the saxophone’s joined in and lurches into the kind of gut-wrenching solo that sends people swooning into each other’s arms. Soon the casino’s old plum-coloured curtains will start to swing in time to the beat, and it isn’t hard to picture the dim figures of the ghost woman and her partner in one of the window recesses.

  Celia still hasn’t a clue who that partner was. Indeed, whether it was a man; a man with exceptionally graceful ankles and plump round calves. She adds another sugar to her espresso and keeps stirring. Her mother had also liked women – Margaret, of course, but she was a friend and naturally beautiful, just required the weekly facials and manicures. No, her mother had definitely seemed more keen on the less attractive women, the ones that needed her and her expertise. Those with lank hair and bat ears, with beak-shaped noses, small round mouths and eyes like dead fish. She loved fluffing them up. She’d spray and highlight their hair, drape it so intricately that large ears would lose their prominence. She’d blend different shades of foundation, apply a dash of powder here, some pearl blusher and rouge there, making even the worst profiles look stylish. Or she’d use various kohl pencils and liners to give more sparkle and fuller lips. She was, Celia has to concede, quite an illusionist.

  She raises her cup, takes a sip. On reflection, though, it was after Walter had left home that her mother really applied herself to the beauty business. Threw herself into it. As if determined to drown in the scents and lotions and colours of appearance. And disappearance.

  Celia had been eavesdropping the afternoon her brother made his big announcement.

  ‘Sorry, Gabrielle, but I can’t go on like this. I need more space.’

  No wonder, she’d thought to herself, with you being number-one son and nephew, and always in demand. Her ear was pressed to the keyhole of her bedroom door. The others were where she is now, right here in the kitchen.

  Earlier, Walter had given her a brand-new Astérix book, warding off her thanks like blows, his palms pushing up and outward in that splayed ambivalent gesture of his. ‘Voilà, sis. To keep you out of mischief for the next half-hour.’ His tone had been gruff, more like a command.

  Not a sound from their mother, not a word.

  He plodded on: ‘My own space. I’m old enough, you should know.’

  Another silence, then, ‘You of all people. Gabrielle? Say something.’

  Not a word. Nothing.

  ‘The Schlosshotel has offered me board and lodging now that my trial period’s over. GABRIELLE? You hear ME?’

  Nothing.

  Suddenly, the thump of chair legs hitting the kitchen floor.

  ‘Listen, I’ll never tell. How could I?’

  Coughs and gurgles, then crying noises and Walter’s voice, low and cooing now and quite unintelligible.

  Later he said their mother had been sitting with her chair tilted up against the wall, ‘gulping black coffee by the gallon and staring into space like I wasn’t there, never mind talking to her – till she swallowed the wrong way.’

  Celia wasn’t that stupid. So she’d punched him in the face, squarely, but not too hard – he was her brother, after all. He had laughed and pulled her hair, coming away with a thin fistful of her rat’s tails.

  16

  ‘HOW ABOUT LUNCH in Casino Mall for a change, Angelina?’ Celia suggests after the church bells have finished their traditional eleven-o’clock ringing. With deliberate casualness she adds, ‘My treat. To apologise for yesterday. I wasn’t quite myself.’

  Angelina is quick to accept and Celia envies her don’t-look-a-gift-horse-in-the-mouth attitude; she wonders whether the girl would have taken that bunch of tulips on her threshold for granted too …

  At five to twelve they’re out and away. The Carnival decorations have been removed and most of the confetti and streamers swept off the cobbles; Anders is a clean town once more, Eric’s jade-green Jaguar with its white leather upholstery scuffed by dog paws is parked on the corner of the pedestrian precinct. Celia smiles to herself, the old man is a dab hand at networking with the police.

  As they cut through the short arcade near the Old Town Steps, Angelina mocks the shoe displays, ‘Real provincial, don’t you think? No class, no style. They could learn a thing or two from us Italians.’

  Celia merely clears her throat and swishes her hair into a curtain to blinker-walk past; she’s had it with shoes en masse. A little further along, though, she prods the girl in the side of her faux leopard-skin coat and points at the male dummies modelling the new spring fashion – headless torsos with sturdy wooden poles for legs. ‘All brawn and no brains: the perfect men,’ she says.

  They’re still giggling when they start down the Steps. A few desultory snowflakes are swirling round them in the milkiness of another cold sunless day.

  They pass some students from the local grammar school who’re wolfing hamburgers and pastries, and slurping from cans. Then there’s a man in a white lab coat mounting the steps towards them two at a time, presumably to keep warm. Celia recognises him: it’s her impatient bottle-squirting optician. Just as he draws level and she is about to greet him, he calls out, ‘Oh, hello, Frau Roth. How’s the blinking?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Celia mutters, glaring after him.

  Angelina stares at her in astonishment and, two flights later, stops abruptly. ‘Celia, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Yes?’ Celia hopes it’s nothing personal. She doesn’t know the girl well enough for that.

  St Nikolaus’s on their right and the Protestant church over by the castle have begun to strike noon in a straggle of peals that makes it sound more like sixteen or seventeen had either of them bothered to count.

  ‘It’s about the boss …’ Angelina is looking away and Celia’s eyes follow hers terrace by rose-garden terrace, down, down and across to the small turret in the far corner where she and Lily used to play at Rose Red and Snow White. For a moment she imagines the earth in the flowerbeds, underneath their mantle of snow, warm and brown and pulsating like a bear’s fur. Then she notices the ripped streamers caught in the thorns, red, pink, green, purple, blue, yellow – the rags of a rainbow.

  Angelina has embarked on a garbled story about Eric’s handkerchief. Kurt, her boyfriend, had run out of Kleenex in the car and she’d realised about the hankie too late. ‘I mean, that it belonged to the boss. It’s ruined now. Time of the month, you see.’ She hesitates, bites her lip. ‘So, what should I do, Celia?’

  Celia gazes into the face turned towards her. The sensuousness oozing from its every pore, from the shimmering forehead down to the small mole on the chin, is almost insulting. Godknows, if Angelina had talked to her with such frankness only yesterday, she’d have blushed and fled, all the way home probably. But now she can allow herself to stay and smile indulgently. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says and pats the girl on the shoulder, half-stroking the luscious thick hair, while her left hand fingers the e
nvelope in her pocket with the emergency pills she’d picked up earlier from Dr Caveng’s practice. ‘Just don’t worry.’

  Celia likes the Casino Mall Restaurant. Perhaps because it reminds her of a cave; the civilised version of a cave, that is. Not what her father and Walter used to slither about in. More a sort of rococo grotto, with soft indirect lighting, satiny curving walls, a ceiling wreathed in ivy and other climbing plants like a hanging garden, and miniature trees in ornamental glazed pots between the tables. A grotto humming with voices and the clatter of eating.

  Angelina is putting on a little luncheon performance for the two men smoking at the table to their right, behind a tall yucca. Her head inclined, she seems to meditate over every forkload of polenta-and-broccoli-cheese before guiding it into her mouth with a delicate curl of her tongue.

  Celia sees the men glance over and comment to each other as they flick ash, their tanned jaws creased with amusement. They’re in their early thirties, Brylcreemed and dressed in bright shirts, orange and sulphur yellow. Their leather jackets are wadded over the backs of their seats, inside out, like designer-labelled cushions. A couple of wet show poodles, Celia thinks. Instants later she chokes on a piece of curried chicken, begins coughing and spluttering helplessly. Angelina holds out a glass of Coke to her, but she rolls her watering eyes, and grabs at a paper napkin.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she croaks, flushed redhot. She’ll keep her face down for a while. Judging by the intermittent slow scrape of cutlery from opposite her, the girl must have resumed her pantomime, quite happy with herself now that the handkerchief problem has been delegated.

  Celia muffles another coughing fit. Angelina’s voice out on the Old Town Steps had sounded so much like Lily’s, a long-lost echo from more than twenty years ago. And just as she hadn’t advised Lily to get herself a new boyfriend, preferably one with a brother, she hadn’t advised Angelina to buy a new handkerchief.