Sleeping Beauties Read online

  Chloe arrives, delightful in her breathlessness, sweeping away Tabitha’s doubts with the radiance of her smile, a nymph with pink cheeks and sparkling eyes – hair, fair as corn, dancing around her face, lips curved and pink as a cupid’s bow above a pile of books clasped to her sweetly rounded breasts. She smiles above the weighty tomes. Gives a little apologetic moue, and plonks them down on the reception desk.

  ‘Blimey,’ she says, ‘talk about heavy ... Should’ve used Mum’s shopper.’ She rubs her shoulder. ‘This arm’s giving me real gyp. Now I’ll need the doings. Ha Ha.’

  It sometimes takes Chloe a while, especially after a weekend, to resume The Boudoir Mode.

  She stops. She notices Tabitha’s expression. She puts her perfect hand to her mouth and says, ‘Oops, sorry’ and gives a sweet smile. She straightens her beautiful neck and looks down her nose as Tabitha has taught her to do. She rearranges herself and says ‘Not doings, massage.’ Her voice is strangely different, with all the vowels rounded.

  ‘Good morning. So sorry if I am late. I called at the library on my way.’ It would not have been surprising if she had added ‘Look Peter, see the dog,’ or ‘Run, dog, run ... ’ in the manner of an infant reading book.

  ‘So I see,’ says Tabitha, mollified, but eyeing the books in some puzzlement. Up till now books have not been a great feature in her assistant’s life. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because,’ says Chloe proudly, ‘I am going to improve myself. And improve my conversation with the clients. Like you said I should. Poems – Milton – that sort of thing.’

  Tabitha closes her eyes, momentarily.

  Chloe reaches for a book which has a small piece of paper marking a place. She opens the book at the place and reads from it, finger raised.

  ‘Helen of Troy was considered so perfect that when –’ she pauses, checks that Tabitha is listening, continues ‘– that when the potters of Greece learned their art, they moulded the first bowls upon her breasts ...’

  Thoughtfully she gives her own a squeeze, looking pleased, before closing the book. ‘Now there’s something to tell the customers. And it’s – ’ she checks the title again – ‘Ancient History. Nothing controversial in that – now is there?’ She folds her arms a shade defiantly.

  Tabitha has no time to debate. Her ten o’clock appointment is nearly here and she has yet to complete her own toilette. She thinks, fleetingly, of Spain, before entering her massage cubicle to cosmeticize. Chloe will deal with the client until she is ready.

  But something clutches at Tabitha’s heart. She turns, looks upon the lovely face of her assistant and she, too, raises a finger. Her voice is as neutral as she can manage. ‘Chloe dear,’ she says, ‘not the bit about the potters, I think ...’ She speaks with feeling. ‘Just try the weather: warm for the time of year ... possibility of April showers ... That sort of thing?’

  Chloe nods, those golden curls belying the blackness of her thoughts. Tabitha, in her opinion, is bland. She resumes reading, safe in doing so until the client arrives. By now Chloe’s beautiful eyes are like saucers.

  When the ten o’clock appointment, a shade early as Tabitha always advises, enters the salon, usually a profoundly calming experience, she is somewhat confused to be greeted by Chloe with the information that in her humble opinion they’d got this thing about Helen and Paris all wrong.

  ‘Ah,’ says the ten o’clock appointment, stumped.

  ‘As in Troy?’ says Chloe, checking her book. ‘Homer?’

  The ten o’clock appointment nods.

  Chloe takes it as encouragement.

  ‘Well it’s all wrong. Written by two blokes – can’t get my tongue around the other one – Uripiditis or some such – sounds like something you scratch, anyway. Well – naturally they’ve got No Idea.’

  Chloe winks.

  The ten o’clock appointment widens her eyes.

  Chloe stabs at the the book for emphasis. ‘Because they don’t know what it takes – never been in a beauty salon in their lives, have they?’

  Considering Homer and Euripides, the ten o’clock appointment is bound to admit this is unlikely.

  ‘Anyway – this Helen is said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Father a bleeding swan,’ Chloe tuts, ‘mother raped.’ She tuts again. She shrugs. ‘Tell me about it ...’ She looks heavenwards with her eyes.

  As does the ten o’clock appointment, upon whom it seems to be incumbent.

  ‘The thing is,’ says Chloe, now prodding the air for emphasis, ‘Paris never saw her. Just kept writing to her saying he’d heard how beautiful she was, and was coming to get her. Sometime. She hadn’t a clue when. All he said was he’d be there when he’d got a boat. Well – you know men.’

  Chloe shrugs. So does the ten o’clock appointment, who is longing for a cup of weak tea with a slice of lemon. It was all she expected as she came through the door, just weak tea with lemon – not a walk down the annals of time. ‘Ah,’ she says again.

  ‘See,’ says Chloe, ‘he didn’t write and say that he’d heard she was a good lay or fun at a party or anything like that. Just,’ she checks the text:

  ‘You fill my vision by day and it is you

  My soul sees by night when my eyes are asleep.

  What can it be when I see your face,

  You who have conquered without my seeing you?

  No woman of beauty is like you,

  Not Phrygia nor anywhere under the sun ...’

  Chloe closes the book.

  ‘Phrygia,’ she says kindly, ‘doesn’t mean she’s gone off sex. It’s just a bloody great chunk of the world apparently. And Paris is nothing to do with France at all.’

  She looks confused for a moment but brightens. ‘So there she is, Helen, not sure when he’s going to arrive, all done by letter and never seen a photograph, and wanting to be at her best. After all, she’s a Babe. So she stops going out so she gets enough beauty sleep, drives her husband nuts with her wanting new clothes and make-up, makes him shave every night he wants a bit of nooky in case he roughs her up, and goes demented when she gets her period because of the spots ... Well, we’ve all done it, haven’t we?’ says Chloe expansively.

  The ten o’clock appointment chooses to concur.

  ‘And then, of course, late – he gets there. And what’s happened? Helen’s got fed up waiting. Her hair’s a bloody mess, she’s been out with the girls the night before and come in fancying a bit – hubby hasn’t shaved but what the hell – she gets up in the morning hungover and spotty because its that time of the month again, she’s all roughed up on her supposedly milk-white and rose-petal cheeks, hair like a nest for nags, and her maid nips in and says, “Paris will be here in ten minutes, he’s just going through customs now.”

  ‘Ten minutes!

  ‘So she has a cry, then a scream, chews her frock, smacks her hubby one for duffing her up — and Paris comes in to find her looking like the back end of a chariot and throwing a wobbly.

  ‘Her husband, King Menewotsit, has had enough and says “Take my wife.”

  ‘Paris says, like blokes do, that he’s got sudden urgent business elsewhere in Phrygia and backs off. Helen ping-pongs between them for a bit and the Greeks feel a bit insulted. After all, he wrote and ordered her so to speak. So they go to war, which is just about the only other thing blokes can think of to do.

  ‘And that, I reckon, is more than likely the truth.’

  She puts down the book and smooths her overall. ‘Now,’ she says, ‘how about a nice cup of weak tea? With lemon, isn’t it?’

  And the ten o’clock appointment, still reeling, sinks on to the soft leather couch gratefully.

  Tabitha is ready. Recovered from her history lesson, the short woman in T-shirt and leggings is also ready. Very ready. She rises from the couch and wrests herself from the tantalizing promises of Beauty Today. Before discovering Tabitha’s Beauty Parlour, Mrs Baker could never bring herself to study such magazines; now, triumph within her grasp, she can look – apprais
e – dare.

  *

  Mrs Baker was undergoing treatment for cellulite, among other things. She had already enjoyed several sessions of Slimatone wherein her buttocks and thighs had been plugged into an impressive series of rubber discs which vibrated and tingled away her years of exuberant eating and several childbirths. She could definitely see an improvement in her shape, and with Tabitha’s strenuous, knowing fingers doing follow-up massage, she felt well on the way to a full recovery.

  All she wanted was to be able to tuck her T-shirt in one day – not much to ask in these days of greed and avarice. And perhaps to have a builder or two wolf-whistle at her ...

  Mrs Baker found her domestic life rather boring on the whole. She was given to musing out loud, as she lay on the couch, about its iniquities and Tabitha was aware that Mrs Baker needed watching on this. She sought diverse opinions and could be outspoken.

  Tabitha ducked and wove skilfully, maintaining the Golden Rule of the Beautician’s Art: all conversation to be kept to uncontroversial matters; no politics, no religion, no children’s upbringing. Outside these pale and pretty walls wars may rage, mosques may burn, children show no mercy – but here, at Tabitha’s, the world becomes small, quiet and cosy. A world of women flowering for their menfolk, be they employers, husbands, lovers or sons.

  And if some client should begin upon a topic destined to raise the level of vascular activity, or lead to erythema, Tabitha stays silent and keeps the rhythm of her fingertips unhurried, regular, unimpressed. It is an art: passed on to her by Bettina, passed on by her to Chloe. Along with the textbook guidance for Beauty Parlour Employees: personal appearance must be immaculate and indicate the nature of the work.

  Chloe’s appearance is now immaculate. But it has taken effort.

  She arrived with perfect features – an ideally proportioned face is one which has equal measurements from the tip of the nose to the lowest part of the chin, and from the outer corner of the eye to the tip of the nose – blonde hair, blue eyes, generous lips, compact hips, small waist, full though not disproportionate bust, a good height of five foot six (being tall enough to see over the reception desk without craning her medium stretch-unlined neck).

  She also arrived with grubby fingernails, bitten cuticles, ill-cut hair, eyes like a panda’s from black mascara, and an ambition to become a super-model. And she smoked. Fortunately for Tabitha she had one defect: knock-knees. It was this misalignment that saved her from stardom and saved her for Tabitha’s Parlour. They dealt with it positively – by lowering the hem of Chloe’s overall and saying no more about it.

  After the knees there was another problem, for she came with a predilection for curry (cheap night out with the boyfriend) but Tabitha put a stop to that. Only the scents of nature’s perfection, or man’s bottled emulations of such, were allowed: flowers, blossoms, herbs and roots, or their laboratory equivalent – woodland, pasture and garden. No more birianis then, or chicken korma – vulgar, smelly stuff. Tabitha’s assistant must set her diet above such things.

  Now the obedient Chloe glows in Tabitha’s textbook image.

  She is young. She has neither comedone nor milia, line or furrow, seborrhoea or pustule – her skin is alive and taut and her eyes gaze forth with the milky white purity of a breast-fed babe’s. She is fresh as woodland flowers even if, occasionally, there may also be a whiff of woodland smoke about her, a hint of the woodland bonfire. For the curries she has abandoned, the filter tips she has not. With the flaming joy of youth that knows it will live for ever, Chloe smokes secretly; her one rebellion.

  In all other respects she is as willing to become what Tabitha requires as Tabitha is to create her. For Chloe is ambitious. She came to learn the Beautician’s Art, first as handmaiden, later as equal, and finally – the last great powder-puff of achievement – as successor. Something which Tabitha looks kindly upon. It was the same with Bettina.

  But though the girl has charm, though the girl has poise, though she has ambition, Tabitha knows that she will never – quite – succeed to her cloud. Tabitha sits at the very peak of Salon Cirrus, dispensing beauty as Athena showered stars. At best, Chloe will attain the puffy edge of Stratus, to go no further, always remaining there, looking up. Chloe will remain there, ambitious as she is, because Chloe has never had, and never will have, a broken heart.

  It is this dimension of compassion, born out of lost love, which took Tabitha to her Cirrusian heights. She gives her All to this most ancient of arts. Into Beauty and Beauty’s Ways Tabitha has plunged her fallen hopes, thrown her bruised grief, hurled her salt-stained tears.

  Chloe sees it largely as a business.

  And the world beyond the salon walls seems ready for such a departure. Chloe sees no point in giving a depth that extends further than the skin’s Stratum Corneum. Whereas Tabitha’s giving reaches beyond, down and deep, to the very living Stratum Malpighii itself.

  She returns all concentration to her client.

  ‘Interesting girl, your assistant,’ says Mrs Baker cautiously.

  ‘Interesting?’ says Tabitha, equally cautiously.

  ‘Well – she was telling me all about Helen of Troy ...’

  ‘Not the Greek potters?’ says Tabitha a trifle sharply.

  ‘No –’ says Mrs Baker, perplexed. ‘No – nothing about them ...’

  Tabitha’s heart lifts. ‘Well that’s all right then ...’

  ‘Well –’ Mrs Baker says, even more perplexed. ‘I suppose it is ...’

  Today her client is even more chatty, more nervous, than usual. Less inclined to lie back and enjoy the quiet pinkness of her cell. She requires a manicure. Something in the outside world has made her nibble her nails. Tabitha gives her a deep cleanse, then sets and checks the Slimatone pads before calling Chloe.

  Chloe needs to be called a second time because she is immersed in another of her books. Also, she sometimes forgets to answer to her name. This is because it is not her real name. Her real name is Maureen (dew of the sea) and though Chloe (green shoots on the bough) becomes her, out of hours her friends and family alike refer to her as Mor – thus may she be forgiven. But as Tabitha pointed out, Maureen hardly sets the right poetic tone for a Beauty Parlour.

  She is called again, and responds.

  Her mind is suddenly back on the job. She looks at her hands. One of her nails is broken because she went bowling last night and, strictly speaking, she should have spent time on fixing it this morning. Now she is to give a manicure and it is hardly an advertisement if one of her own nails is duff. She had better keep it hidden from Tabitha.

  She enters the cubicle.

  What she needs is a boyfriend who does not take her to bowling alleys.

  What she needs is a boyfriend with class. Or at least with brass.

  What she needs is a boyfriend who has money, which Wayne hasn’t.

  And a boyfriend without brains. For which Wayne does qualify.

  And you try getting a condom on someone after they’ve had six pints and a vindaloo.

  That’s what broke the nail – not the bowls, which were easy to hold on to by comparison.

  Thus does Chloe’s mind wander.

  Tabitha, meanwhile, keeps her cupid’s lips firmly closed as she tucks up Mrs Baker and switches on the machine. For Mrs Baker is talking about Sonny, her four-year-old son, and his birthday party yesterday. An event to make Helen of Troy and her tantrums pale into insignificance. Tabitha nods and coos from the back of her throat, turning away and pretending to look for a wire at the point where Mrs Baker mentions thirteen small boys’ behaviour with the ice-cream. What Tabitha would like to say, of course, is that small boys who repaint sofas in strawberry and vanilla should have their bottoms smacked.

  She does not say this.

  She must thank such small boys really.

  Several mothers of small boys are her most regular clients.

  Frazzled, and afraid of what the frazzlement might do to their looks and therefore their marriages, they come a
s frequent supplicants to Tabitha’s haven. So Tabitha listens to Sonny’s birthday antics silently. Having seen the results of family life, Tabitha is quite glad that she avoided it.

  Chloe pulls the trolley, all the while concentrating on keeping her broken nail hidden, only half listening to Mrs Baker’s birthday party tales and what a naughty boy Sonny really was. She negotiates the couch, concentrating on keeping the flaw from Tabitha’s sharp eye, and perches on a white leather stool at Mrs Baker’s side. Made it, she thinks, and gives Mrs Baker a bright smile.

  Mrs Baker, it seems, is still banging on about the naughtiness of Sonny. Tabitha listens imperviously, nodding and agreeing, and showing a light darkening of the eyes in sympathy of the tale which continues to unfold. Chloe emulates her, while she places the client’s nearside hand on her towelled lap.

  ‘Yes,’ says Mrs Baker, with grim satisfaction. ‘After he licked up the ice-cream he poohed on the carpet again, so I threw away the book and put him in the garden for the night. To hell with it, I thought, I must teach him a lesson somehow, and it was quite warm. I might keep him out there for one more night – just to be sure he’s got the message about toilet training. What do you think?’

  Tabitha continues to nod with a semi-smile, and there is a hint of approval in her eyes. ‘You may well be right,’ she says.

  Chloe is astonished. This seems rather Draconian to her. After all, on the whole Sonny is a sweet little boy. She picks up Mrs Baker’s hand and begins cleaning it a shade too fiercely.

  ‘And then, if he still doesn’t respond, I shall just have to put him in the cellar ...’

  Chloe, who has been adding more nail-varnish remover to fresh cotton wool, drops the bottle and looks pleadingly at Tabitha. Tabitha is unwavering.

  ‘You know best,’ she says lightly.

  Mrs Baker is satisfied.

  Chloe is aghast. Anglo-Saxon forms upon her lips, though she does not speak.

  The Slimatone pads in place, the fluffy warm towelling tucked all around, Tabitha switches on the machine and departs, saying ‘Chloe will take care of you now.’