Sleeping Beauties Read online

  Perhaps it hadn’t been that witty. Too obscure. Keith. Oh God. She nearly gave him her commiserations. She had always thought it went with Kevin as one of the world’s worst names. She must try very hard to find it appealing. Like beer. Roll it over the tongue. Get used to it immediately.

  ‘Keith. What did you like about my letter, Keith?’

  She winced. Overdoing it a bit wasn’t it? Calm down. It had tripped off the tongue reasonably well.

  ‘You were the only one to answer up-front.’

  ‘I was?’

  ‘You said the thing that attracted you to the advertisement was part ownership of a château. Everyone else, bar none, said nothing about it except vague things like always loving France or some such. You were very honest. I like honesty. I put the château in as a deliberate attraction. And you didn’t go on about deep and meaningful relationships – you know.’

  ‘I know,’ said Gemma, trying to sound bright. ‘D’accord,’ she added for emphasis.

  He paused, and then said cautiously, ‘Er – it gets a bit stilted if we talk in our second language. Save it for France.’

  Her epiglottis responded equally cheerfully and she made a noise quite similar to the click-singers of South Africa.

  He waited politely. She swallowed. ‘Mmm?’ she said, which was as much as she dared.

  ‘Shall we have dinner?’

  Oh thrill. None of her Dog and Duck encounters suggested anything more than a pub sausage.

  She found she was nodding, which seemed a somewhat unconstructive response so she tried ‘Yes’, which came out all right.

  She suggested a brasserie nearby. She had never been in it but what she said was, ‘I often take my clients there. It’s quite good.’ She was thinking:

  Dinner?

  Bugger.

  What could she wear?

  What was the point of having a flat-mate several sizes bigger than her?

  Ah well.

  Sod it.

  She was stalking a man.

  Such things were too important for financial considerations.

  Change the subject, quick. ‘Um – what do you look like?’ she asked.

  ‘I look all of my fifty-one years. I have a suntan, close-cut greying hair, denim shirt, Levis and an MGB GT.’

  ‘Parked outside or at the table with us?’ Ha Ha, she thought.

  ‘Will they mind casual clothes?’

  ‘Oh no,’ she said, praying they wouldn’t.

  ‘Only I’m not into dressing up.’

  She thought of a blazer and flannels. ‘You sound just my glass of Beaujolais,’ she said, lowering her voice while wincing at the egregious wit.

  ‘Nice photo, yours,’ he said. ‘And what will you be wearing?’

  Cold clutching of heart. Something about five years out of date? ‘Oh – um –’

  ‘You women,’ he said. ‘So many clothes.’

  If only he knew.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I’ll recognize you.’

  ‘Now when?’

  ‘Just get my Filofax.’

  She made a scuffling sound with her bedside Edith Wharton.

  He gave a date.

  ‘That’s fine,’ she said, pretending to write it in with her finger. ‘Can I ring you if anything goes wrong?’ She didn’t like to ask for his number directly.

  There was a slight pause, and he said, as if thinking it through, ‘No-oo. I’m not going to be in London that day. The best thing is if I ring you mid-morning to confirm.’

  He was very positive. She liked that.

  ‘Might ring you between now and then for a chat. Would you mind?’

  Shin up a ladder with a box of chocolates if you want to, she thought. And said, ‘That’d be lovely.’

  ‘Well, I probably will then. I look forward to meeting you in the flesh.’

  She crossed her legs rapidly. Flesh!

  ‘A bientôt.’

  ‘Si,’ she said lamely, thinking ‘merde’.

  She replaced the receiver hurriedly and hugged herself, aware of stars suddenly back in the heavens. She pulled the towel around her, staring mistily into the mirror – Levis? MGB GT? Château?

  Outside, a floorboard squeaked. Swift and silent as a laser she crossed the room and flung wide the door. Outside Megan looked nonchalant. ‘Are you getting back in the bath?’ she asked. And then she shrugged. ‘And who are you meeting at La Gioconda?’

  Gemma tapped her nose and said nothing.

  Later, from the secret recesses of her undies drawer, she produced a new lipstick. Bought with the reckless abandon of a woman on an overdraft who needs something. Along with several hundred million other women around the world she had no idea why lipstick gave her a boost, only that it did. She had bought Evening Crimson because the name had the ring of a French summer’s night about it. Magical sunsets bleeding into the paysage. Maybe she really would get to see them.

  That beauty parlour, she thought, tapping her teeth with the golden cylinder thoughtfully. Half-price did Megan say? But even half-price it would not be affordable. To think that a few years ago it was a mere bagatelle to visit her aromatherapist for a de-stress. The only difficulty then had been how to find a window in her busy Filofax. She looked at Evening Crimson, thought about lips. Fellatio and Filofax. Every City man’s dream. She looked at the lipstick and smiled again. Perhaps it still was.

  Keith? Keith?

  Ah well, beggars can’t be choosers. Too bloody true.

  She could hear Megan’s snores down the corridor. She knew why her flat-mate wanted her to go out more. It was so she could stay in more with Jim. Whenever he came to collect her, or dropped her off, or had a reason to visit the flat, he behaved like a very large gangly bird on a very small pliant perch, and since the reason for this was his shyness, or fear, of Gemma, he could never be persuaded to stay over. Well – maybe he could now. Gemma, replacing the lipstick out of sight, suddenly felt she could afford to be kind.

  In fact, suddenly she felt she could afford anything. Even a trip to the old pussy – just to see what was on offer. She felt her face with her fingertips. The skin wasn’t bad, she thought. On the other hand, she felt it again, it wasn’t good either. Beauticians were a caring bunch in her experience. Perhaps she would pop along there. Just to see.

  11

  Chloe had vowed to herself that she would persuade the next three women who came in to have a major overhaul – a real 10,000-mile service – a serious stab at true transformation.

  So far, it seemed that the only thing most women were prepared to risk with a trainee beautician was massage. And Chloe was getting a little fed up with it. She did not mind effleurage of the face as a beginning to the more creative process of cleansing; nor did she mind effleurage and petrissage for the hands, arms, legs, feet as a winding-down service. But what she really wanted was to amaze, create, shock them with what she could do for their looks. She wanted to do Makeovers.

  Fat chance.

  It was all very well for Tabitha to smile sweetly across a mound of tensile customer and indicate that the customer is always right, but Chloe was not convinced. Let old-fashioned Tabitha think it, but Chloe had begun to contemplate a little persuasion, more firm than friendly, in future.

  The First Three To Step Through That Door, she said to herself. After all, what was the harm? Tabitha did it all the time, gently and carefully, and persuaded many women to have a go at something a bit different. If she, Chloe, carried on like this she might as well turn up her toes and join a massage parlour and take the extra fifty quid for intimate practices.

  OK. OK.

  She had made another little mistake. Well – Otto was sometimes a bit demanding of an evening – and she couldn’t afford to offend him – so she sometimes felt spaced-out the next day. But it was really only a little mistake. All that happened was that once, when Tabitha had popped out of the salon, Chloe persuaded her newly arrived client, while deep kneading over her medial arch (front foot massage), to have a
pedicure.

  Unfortunately, as Tabitha pointed out rather crisply afterwards, there are more ways to judge the efficacy of a pedicure than merely the state of the toenails. Like how much time the client has available. The pedicure ended up in a flurry of activity as Chloe tried to get the nail varnish hard with a hair-dryer in time for the woman to get to a vital lunch date. ‘Stocking toes stuck to newly applied varnish,’ said Tabitha, ‘are no advertisement for salon skills.’

  When the woman rang to complain, Chloe hung her head in shame and let a tear escape. Tabitha softened.

  ‘Concentrate on the question of Initial Treatment,’ she said. ‘It is good salon policy. Begin gently – as if you were a lover.’

  ‘You what?’ thinks Chloe.

  ‘When the client first visits us it is the wooing period. The moment the client has dared to step across the doorway the beautician must coax her into a future relationship. The Initial Treatment should be basic. It should allow time for discussion, diagnosis, homecare. It should allow time for thinking about available cosmetics, suitable products, for building up confidence so that the client will return. A client who goes home and removes her shoes to find her stockings stuck to her toenails, is not likely to feel a hundred per cent ready to come back.’

  Tabitha looked enquiringly: ‘Is that clear?’

  Chloe thinks that it is up to the customer to know how much time they’ve got. The beautician can’t be responsible for that.

  Chloe knows that the real money is in the transformation of a woman. Chloe feels that Tabitha spends too much time in the psychology department.

  Tabitha’s view, and how Chloe yawns when she expresses it, is that the Beautician is to the Woman, as the Armourer is to the Man. And just as there is no point for a man to be put in the field, armour or not, until he has the head and the stomach for the fight, nor is there any point in rushing a woman into redefined eyebrows and moustache removal until she is quite, quite sure she can handle the results.

  In Chloe’s book women want to look beautiful, they want to look beautiful quickly, and they want to pull, or get money, and preferably both, before the wrinkles get too gross.

  For instance, this wedding make-up that Tabitha is locked away with now. How Chloe would love to get her teeth into a wedding make-up. She watched the pale-faced, pink-eyed young woman cross the salon floor and her fingers itched. But Tabitha said the bride-to-be was far too nervous to have someone new, and whisked her away without further argument.

  Chloe, still fuming, looks out at the world beyond. It is full of the most ghastly-looking people, particularly women who should know better, so why aren’t any of them taking advantage of the special offer and arriving in droves?

  She drums her fingers. Oh yes. The next three women, whatever they come in for, will book for a makeover. Tabitha is well out of the way for the rest of the morning. Chloe will give them the chat, and once they are persuaded, she will make them an appointment – each one on the same day so that Tabitha can go out and leave her to it, as she promised. People should keep their promises. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, she thinks vaguely.

  And if she is quick with the throughput of these three women today – why – Tabitha won’t know anything about it and she won’t be able to interfere. Just to be sure, she puts the sunbed timer on the reception desk facing her. It has a nice little ping to it and is easy to set.

  I’ll make them beautiful all right, she thinks. She looks up and sees a round, fiftyish face peering in at the window, misting up the glass with its breath, pressing close with its yearning face. She wrinkles her nose, faltering momentarily in her resolve, or at least – she mouths ‘Come In’ to the worried moon face – as beautiful as possible given the raw material. And that out there, worse luck, was material about as raw as they came.

  A challenge, she encourages herself. It’ll be just like dressing up dolls. She smiles, even more alluringly. The face smiles back. Nice teeth, thinks Chloe, pity about the rest. Still, by the time she has given her the spiel, the woman will be in her power. Easy to persuade by the look of her. Nervous. Well – a bit gross actually.

  You are Number One, she thinks, no matter what you look like. So, Number One, Come On Down ...

  And in goes Margery, into sweet-faced Arachne’s den.

  She talks of love and honey and teeth and last chances.

  Chloe adjusts the timer. Wouldn’t do to overrun.

  You want to be Queen Bee?

  You want to be the sweetest?

  You want to give him a buzz?

  I can do that.

  An appointment for a makeover and you can tell me your dreams.

  Margery is thrilled. Margery is appalled. Margery succumbs.

  ‘Well, this man you see –’

  ‘Married?’

  Margery nods.

  ‘And I want him to know, that is I want him to see –’

  Chloe pats her shoulder encouragingly. ‘You don’t have to say anything else. I understand.’

  Margery thinks there can be no more rewarding word in the whole world right now – understand. How wonderful to be able to talk about it at last. She needs that so much.

  Chloe opens the appointments book and fills in the first morning slot with Margery’s name and her home telephone number. Now the client cannot renege no matter how unsure she becomes during the next week. Then she looks up with a beautiful, wide smile and says charmingly ‘Well, that’s that then.’

  ‘It is such a relief,’ says Margery, ‘to meet someone who understands about these things. I know that I –’

  Ping! goes the timer.

  ‘Sorry’ says Chloe, ‘time’s up, I’m afraid.’ She hands Margery her appointment card and ushers her out.

  *

  Only two to go.

  She sees another pale and anxious face peering in. Blimey – this one’s not much better. Younger, of course, but – shifty. She has the collar of her denim jacket turned up and flicks occasional looks over her shoulder. Hunted. Better convince her she really is at the right place. Chloe peers. She could be – well – if not beautiful, striking. Heighten those cheekbones, whiten the ruddy skin, give the eyes more emphasis. The face retreats, almost floating away from the slightly misted window. Chloe smiles and does an unseemly thing: she beckons.

  Caroline, deeply ashamed, retreats no further. She stares at the cherubs and the shells and the cushiony interior as a vegetarian might stare at a pie shop. But breathing deeply, remembering that Rita never has an eyebrow out of place, she sheds her feminism at the doorway and enters. Feminism is fine, she thinks, but it doesn’t keep you your man. Chloe beckons harder.

  Caroline suppresses the memory of a postcard she recently sent to a friend which defined Post-Feminism as Keep Your Bra and Burn Your Brain. All very well, all very well – but the adage of Love and War also sprang to mind.

  You want to wipe out a rival?

  I can do that.

  Make an appointment for a makeover and you can tell me your dreams.

  Caroline, with brows beetling so much that Chloe’s fingers twitch to get hold of some tweezers.

  ‘You see, he has this ex-wife – and there is to be a dinner party – and I can’t cook and she can and –’

  I mean, you can tell me your dreams then.

  Ping!

  Chloe rubs her hands. Next!

  *

  One more needed, one more enters. This time a smartly dressed woman – deadly dull clothes – perhaps forty – whose face bears the marks of defeat and whose eyes are dulled and joyless, something of a victim. Nice figure, though, and nice face beneath the dismal sagging. Too much eyebrow, nice curly hair and, disguised by some pale lip sheen, a really good big mouth.

  Could certainly do something there.

  First question. ‘It really is half-price?’

  Chloe curls her lip a little. She nods. She’ll be able to do anything she likes with this one too. A relief because she looked, at first, as if she was
a woman of the world.

  ‘There is someone I really want to impress.’

  ‘Love or business?’

  ‘Both,’ says Gemma, surprising herself.

  ‘No problem. I can do that.’

  ‘You could look on it as an investment, couldn’t you?’ says Gemma, needing encouragment. ‘I mean, you don’t often get the chance of security and glamour combined in one man, do you?’

  ‘Well –’ says Chloe, thinking of Otto. ‘Not at your age perhaps.’

  Gemma is temporarily stung. Fucking cheek. And then she realizes. The girl speaks the truth. It is what, in the old days, she would have called shooting from the hip.

  ‘There are rivals,’ she says, thinking of the bag of letters he received.

  ‘I’m at the top of the list but we’ve only spoken. He hasn’t seen me yet.’

  She puts her hand to her mouth, suddenly embarrassed.

  Chloe’s eyes do not even flicker. Nothing surprises her about the world.

  You want to turn him on too much to resist?

  I can do that.

  Make an appointment and tell me your dreams.

  Gemma smiles with relief as the date is written. Chloe responds. She looks at Gemma’s mouth.

  ‘We’re meeting in a restaurant you see. And somehow I’ve got to get myself across –’

  Chloe nods.

  ‘When you get to a certain age and the opportunities don’t... ’

  Ping!

  ‘See you then,’ says Chloe, and shows her the door.

  Returning, she leans on the reception desk, fondles one of the cherubs, and dreams.

  Come, then, into my Parlour, she winks at the golden babe. And I’ll teach you how to fly.

  And she strokes the appointments book as if it were living flesh, before shutting it with a bang.

  Ping!

  *

  Over her shoulder Tabitha says in a gentle voice, ‘No need to rush.’ And she closes the door of her cubicle softly behind her. She is quite relaxed. There is something about pure concentration which removes the worries of the world and, in fairness, the girl had needed quite a bit of concentration. If only they would not take Brides magazine so literally ...