A Love Story for Bewildered Girls Read online

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Grace. She was so used to answering a question with a question that she no longer noticed she did it.

  ‘I mean, we wouldn’t want anyone else to know, especially not the children. No one else but you does, he’s Monty, an Arabian stallion, and I’m Minty, a pure-bred American palomino. I asked Monty, Arthur that is, if it would be OK to talk to you about this and he said he didn’t mind at all. He knows you wouldn’t tell anyone. You won’t tell anyone, will you?’

  ‘No,’ said Grace, and this was true of course but the fact was that she often wanted to tell her sisters and her friends all sorts of things that her clients told her about. Dolores for example would have been completely delighted to hear some of it. Her sister Bella would have had a field day. It was one of the worst things about being a therapist – the client confidentiality clause. Because sometimes the things people said were just so interesting it seemed a shame not to share them.

  ‘We’ve bought a salt lick but I can’t say I like it, and we’re considering getting a water trough. We could put it on the patio we thought, next to the gazebo, and no one will ever be any the wiser. We thought we could tell the children it was for the birds to wash in. What do you think?’

  She looked excited and Grace was glad for her and thought about saying, ‘I think it’s a bloody excellent idea. Why the hell not?’

  ‘What do you think?’ said Grace, mirroring Denise’s cross-legged posture. ‘Are you happy with these horse role-plays?’

  ‘I love them! They make life ever so much more fun.’

  She liked Denise. It was easier of course to enjoy your work when you liked your clients but she was a professional after all, she could listen to anyone, but not just anyone came because she was in private practice and she charged £80 an hour. Sometimes she felt bad about that, guilty even; maybe she could take on some of the less well-off or institute a sliding scale. If she was a truly good person she wouldn’t have gone private at all, but she had long ago admitted to herself, after a traumatic stint in an underfunded alcoholic outreach programme, that severe pain was too much for her to bear. Was that a terrible admission on her part? Yes. But she liked her house which her clients paid for and after all, she justified to herself, wasn’t she still being of service? Didn’t everyone deserve to be helped? She did believe that and yet it still rankled her as she listened to banalities and repetitive complaints and obsessions and some mildly odd scenarios. Those were her daily bread and she could coast through them with ease. It made it that much easier to wake up in the morning. It made her day interesting, sometimes fascinating, but not over-stimulating or stressful. It made it, she admitted to herself now, possible to sleep at night.

  ‘I’m afraid our session’s nearly over for today,’ she said to Denise, and leant back in her chair. ‘Is there anything else you would like to go over before we finish?’

  ‘I just wanted to tell you about the saddle,’ said Denise.

  The reality of it was that Grace loved her job.

  After work that day Grace went to Manfred’s on the way home. His shop as usual smelt of burnt coffee and anti-bacterial spray, the heating cranked way up in all weathers. She went there far too much, out of a combination of guilt that Manfred worked about fifty hours a week more than her and laziness. As a result, she seemed to spend a lot on items discounted because of their sell-by date.

  ‘Ah Grace,’ he said to her now. He was a very good-looking man Grace could appreciate if not be attracted to, taller than her, with one of those triangular swimmer’s bodies and a long face framed by thick black eyebrows that nearly met in the middle. Grace liked to think of Manfred as a twenty-something romantic hero trapped in a corner shop but that was patronizing, as he never expressed any discontent at being there.

  ‘Good to see you,’ said Manfred, and Grace liked the fact that he always seemed to mean it. ‘What can I do you for? I’ve got lovely frozen peas that came in two minutes ago. Sweet. Succulent. You’ll love them.’

  ‘I don’t like peas very much.’

  ‘You can’t live your life on biscuits! I worry about your dietary requirements. Here, have a baklava.’

  ‘How is baklava better than biscuits?’ asked Grace.

  ‘Freshly made by my mate. He’s into his cooking. All home-cooked ingredients. None of your E55 rubbish. Have one.’

  And he passed her a small sticky slice. She put it into her mouth.

  ‘And how’s the love life?’ asked Manfred.

  ‘What love life?’ asked Grace, trying not to spray crumbs over the counter.

  ‘Young woman like you. Lots of beautiful girls out there.’

  ‘Then why aren’t you married yourself?’ asked Grace.

  ‘I’m picky,’ he said, and grinned. ‘Can I interest you in these eggs? You could make yourself a nutritious omelette. Bang in some of my frozen spinach and you’ll be sorted. I’ll give you them twenty-five per cent off seeing as there are only five. It’s a bargain.’

  This is Annie’s solution to Violet’s unstable mental state

  As soon as she started to make money as a lawyer, Annie stopped dyeing her hair over the bathroom sink and went to the most expensive salon in town to have it done. Cheap hairdressers were one of the other things she didn’t believe in; if a mess was to be made it was better to make it yourself. But oh, the relief of no longer having to rub at the stains on her hairline with the cigarette ash left over from her three-times-a-day cigarette. She liked to wear her hair swept to one side like a brunette Veronica Lake, and if you don’t know how much it cost to get it to look like that then surely you wouldn’t be able to afford it. Soon she also began to have a blow-dry twice a week. God forbid that she should wash her hair at home. It would take time for things to escalate but they did. One day there would be a personal shopper at Harvey Nicks, an underfed girl called Catrina whom Annie didn’t like much, but who had perfect taste in form-fitting garments. Then there was the tortuous regime of waxing and the obsession with La Perla underwear. Moisturizer that shouldn’t have been that expensive but was. What was it made of – diamonds? The sweet chemical smell of the dry cleaners that she loved to sniff when her clothes came back. Facials that tore every piece of dirt from her pores. There were deep tissue massages every two weeks and her trainer Nigel, who was the only person she would accept being shouted at by. Mani-pedis obviously and bags so expensive they could have fed a family of six for months. And shoes, too many shoes. Extensive eyebrow maintenance and a MAC habit. And that’s what it felt like, like maintenance, like car upkeep. She did it all at high speed to fit it in with her workload. She viewed it as part of her workload. She was always immaculate, just like her mother, who had never had an off-duty day in her life. Her mother had never, not once, let her father see her without her make-up on. ‘Even if you have to get up half an hour earlier, Annie, no man wants to see what he really married before he’s even had his breakfast.’

  As a child, she had despised the amount of effort her mother seemed to have to put in: all that time wasted in ladies’ boutiques that smelt of Nina Ricci and hair salons that smelt of Elnett. But against Annie’s better wishes her mother’s standards had all stuck. The day-to-day of it was so tedious that her daydreams involved hems that were coming down and stocking ladders and going out bare-faced and with chipped nails. Violet had her hair cut in the local hairdresser’s, where for twenty quid you could get a trim, a cup of tea, and a copy of OK, together with a range of conversations about cellulite and bad boyfriends. Annie half wished she could adopt this casual approach but she couldn’t even get past the front door.

  ‘It’s like you’re a celebrity and I’m a civilian,’ said Violet. ‘Come on. I dare you. Wear your slippers to Manfred’s. They’re nice slippers. Go on. You can do it. There aren’t any paparazzi outside.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘But Manfred wouldn’t care! He loves you.’

  ‘I can’t and that’s that,’ said Annie. ‘Are you going to work?’
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  ‘Should do,’ said Violet.

  ‘Violet.’

  ‘You’re “Violeting” me.’

  ‘Are you going to work or not?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Then I suggest you put some clothes on.’

  Violet was not so much dirty as chaotic, a tendency which had led Annie to impose draconic restrictions on her natural strewing tendencies. ‘And I’ll thank you to keep this to your room’ was, Violet would swear, Annie’s most common utterance to her in the first months of them living together as she threw a forgotten object at her. Now Annie’s newest theory was that the fewer choices Violet had to make, the more she would be able to do things other than lie on her bed looking at the ceiling or sleep a sleep so deep that it took an old-fashioned alarm clock placed in a saucepan to wake her up.

  ‘You can’t not go when you don’t feel like it,’ said Annie.

  ‘You and your Protestant work ethic,’ said Violet. ‘Anyway, you think both of my jobs are stupid.’

  ‘That’s because they are stupid. You sell angel candles and crystals and other crap to new age idiots. And occasionally you take people’s coats off them in a club that smells of spilt pints and men who are wearing too much Lynx. Neither of these jobs can be classed as meaningful or profitable vocations. You have a degree. Why the heck aren’t you using it?’

  ‘It’s only an English degree, which you have been telling me is good for nothing since the day I met you. And some of the people I speak to of a day are very spiritually advanced, I’ll have you know. And some of the men are OK.’

  ‘They’re leching bastards who would screw anything that moved.’

  ‘That’s no way to speak of people who talk to angels!’

  ‘You need a proper job. Then you’d be more … motivated.’

  ‘Do we really have to do this now?’ asked Violet.

  ‘I’ve bought you a laundry basket but there’s no way I’m picking up your dirty knickers, so get up and sort out all this washing. I presume it’s washing, since it’s on the floor.’

  Violet ignored her and rolled over.

  Annie’s latest solution to ‘the fear’ was de-cluttering. Violet could sometimes manage to brush her teeth and wash her hair now that Annie had removed all of her bathroom excess, leaving behind only Colgate, Radox and Herbal Essences. Bit by bit Annie had applied the idea of reduction to the rest of the flat she owned.

  ‘It makes you realize,’ said Annie on the phone to her mother one night, ‘how much rubbish you accumulate. All those CDs you never listen to. All those bank statements.’

  ‘I’ve been telling you that for ages,’ said her mother. ‘Just what the lady on House Doctor used to say. She dressed ever so nicely. It changed my opinion of them.’

  ‘Decorators?’ asked Annie.

  ‘Americans. After all it’s such a big country, there must be some decent people. I’ve decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. I’m going with your Auntie Dorothy to New York for a shopping trip,’ said her mother.

  ‘Pardon?’ said Annie.

  ‘Before Christmas. We’ve got a very good deal. Apparently, that Bloomingdales is as good as John Lewis.’

  ‘You’re leaving the country? You never even leave Lancashire.’

  ‘Annie, you know that’s not true,’ said her mother with a sigh. She would be sitting in the hall on a loveseat she’d had Annie’s dad make especially, talking on an actual real telephone because she believed neither in cordless nor in mobiles. ‘I’ve been to Leeds to see you lots of times. And that time I went to London with the Women’s Institute.’

  ‘Cosmopolitan,’ said Annie.

  ‘Pardon? I have no idea what you’re talking about, Annie. Everything used to be much simpler, you know. You bought two packets of sausages, one of frozen peas, and a bag of potatoes and that was dinner for all of you set. There’s too much choice now, I think. That’s why all of you young ones are so confused.’

  ‘It’s the yoghurt that does for me. Organic, flavoured, goat’s milk, full fat, soya, Greek, with bobbly chocolate bits in. I want yoghurt. God, if I took Violet to Morrison’s now she’d freak.’

  ‘I do wish you wouldn’t go there. I prefer Sainsbury’s.’

  ‘Well, I don’t, all right?’

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t end your sentences in that slovenly way.’

  ‘I know, mother. And you also wish I was married, had two children called Julie and John, and lived in a five-bedroom house down the road from you with a spa and spent the rest of my life doing my nails.’

  ‘I do not. By the way, the Chiltons’ house is for sale.’

  ‘I’m not interested. I like my flat. I love my job. I like my life here.’

  ‘I know. I don’t mean to interfere.’

  ‘Well, you are.’

  Annie always tried not to let her mother wind her up but she knew it was a losing battle. She looked at her hair to see if she had any split ends but of course she hadn’t.

  ‘I want you to be happy.’

  ‘I am happy. You want me to be what you think of as “settled”.’

  ‘And what’s so terrible about that? I want what’s best for you. What mother doesn’t? I know your flat is very nice and everything but I wish you were nearer home.’

  ‘It’s near enough.’

  ‘You know what I mean. Your father would like to see more of you.’

  ‘Well, tell him to get in the car. What you mean is what mother would want her daughter living in the inner city with a deranged woman for a flatmate.’

  ‘All I’m saying is that Violet is a very sweet girl and I like her but you shouldn’t be sharing a flat with her any more.’

  ‘At my age? Or because Violet is odd?’

  ‘Well, what’s wrong with me saying that? It’s true.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Don’t try to get me in a muddle. It was fun for you when you were younger but, well, I don’t like to say this but I’ve always been one for speaking my mind so I’ll say it, she’s a sponge on you.’

  ‘A bathroom one? A trifle one?’

  ‘Well, I was trying to have a sensible conversation with you, Annie, but if you refuse to see my point of view about Violet then I’ll …’

  ‘Force me at gunpoint into Sainsbury’s?’

  ‘You do too much for that girl and you know it. You shouldn’t be wasting your time on her, not at your age. You’re not getting any younger.’

  By now Annie was halfway between exasperated and bored.

  ‘Ah, I knew it was coming. The biological cut-off panic. The marital advice.’

  ‘Well, why should I lie to you? It’s true. You should have stuck with that nice Michael Wrigley.’

  ‘You couldn’t stand Michael Wrigley! You said, and I’ll quote you here, “His father’s got no money and his mother’s no better than she should be.” For God’s sake, Mum! How many times do we have to have this bloody conversation? You’re the one who thinks that no one is good enough for me! You’re the bloody one who tells me not to let my standards down, not to give it away, not to bloody …’

  ‘I will not be talked to in this manner, Annie. I will not be sworn at and spoken to in that tone of voice when all I am thinking of is your welfare, your fertility, and the future of my grandchildren. Annie? Annie?’

  It was the first time Annie had ever put the phone down on her mother in her life. She felt a great sense of satisfaction followed immediately by an equally weighty sense of guilt. If she put them on a set of scales which would win? Gradually the guilt started to tip it, so that an ache appeared at the base of her brain, an ache she could feel would soon overtake her whole body with the urge to ring back. Should she ring her back and apologize? No, she bloody well wouldn’t; she would occupy herself until the urge passed. Her mother was ridiculous – she was only twenty-nine for God’s sake, she had plenty of time for the whole settling down thing. She shook her head and feeling clearer walked into her bedroom. What needed doing in here? Should she
hoover? No, it didn’t need it, she hoovered every other day with her Dyson in parallel lines. Dust? There was no dust. She had got all of this off her mother, it was the way she had been brainwashed to think that housework was an atheist’s version of the divine. She could get down on her hands and knees and scrub at the floor tiles in the bathroom with a toothbrush like her mother did, seemingly for fun but looking alarmingly like somebody praying. Oh god of cleanliness, here I am with my humble bleach, please have mercy on me. Why am I like this? She was suddenly furious with herself. Why am I just like her? I don’t want to be like her. Her phone rang.

  ‘For God’s sake, Mum! What do you want now?’

  ‘Interesting greeting. I am not, however, your mother.’

  ‘Who is this? Why have you got this number?’

  ‘It’s Larry Olivier.’

  ‘Why are you calling me?’

  ‘For conventional reasons. Would you like to come out to dinner with me?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘How about Saturday?’

  ‘I can do it in about half an hour.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘That’s what I said. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘Then I will most definitely take it. Give me your address and I’ll pick you up.’

  ‘I’m not giving a strange bloke I don’t know my address! Do you think I’m stupid? I’ll meet you at Sukothai. Eight. I’ll book.’

  And she cancelled the call.

  I’m not doing my bloody eyebrows, she said mentally to her mother. So there.

  This is how Grace met the woman (II)

  Grace was on her way back from Eustacia’s house on the Yorkshire coast where she had spent the weekend with Eustacia and Tess and Tess’s precocious twin boys. She had enjoyed seeing her sisters but the twins were annoying. If I could ever have a child it wouldn’t be made to eat brown rice and miso soup and be banned from TV, Grace thought. I would feed it entirely on strawberry milkshakes and Pringles and expose it to many hours of rubbish kids’ programmes in the hope that it would turn out easier to be with than Rowan and Linden. Their names irritated her. She couldn’t help thinking that even if her children had grown up hyperactive and obsessed with Disney, she could have done a better job. Maybe it was different when they were your own, maybe all your good intentions went out of the window under the stress of sleep deprivation and screaming. Maybe she would have ended up being the type of mother who smacked their children in supermarkets and swore at them for dropping their sweets on the pavement. She would never have the opportunity to know.