Remy
It was a typical Saturday night.
With her tape recorder providing the background music, and her poster of John Taylor taped to the ceiling above her bed, Remy was quite lost to the new Duran Duran album,Rio. ‘Oh, turn this one up!’ she instructed her best friend, who did as she asked as ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’filled the room.
‘My eyeliner’s wonky.’ Remy coughed into the mirror propped on the chest of drawers before spitting on her finger to remove the outer eye flick that was not quite as straight or as bold as she wanted. She was aiming for part Siouxsie, part Debbie Harry, but right now looked more like Robert Smith of The Cure.
‘Do you want me to do it?’ Tony paused, hairspray can in hand, his eyeliner perfection, and his backcombed fringe now gloriously upright with just the right amount of tousle to his roots.
‘Bloody hell! I’ve got hairspray in my throat!’ She coughed again.
‘We must suffer for beauty. You know this!’ He tutted and shook the can, which rattled.
‘Can you do the back of mine?’ Angling her head, she could see there were one or two areas where her crimped layers had fallen flat. Her hair was wild and huge, the perfect volume and texture to fulfil every girl’s, and some boys’, dream of having big, bold hair. Tony picked up his comb and went to work on her locks.
They were precious, these Saturday nights. Something she looked forward to all week while working at the garden centre, where she sat on a stool at the checkout desk and ran plants and bags of compost through the till, waiting for whoever was buying to baulk jokingly at the price before handing over their pound notes and trundling off to the car park with a trolley full of greenery. There were some lovely regulars, elderly people who would peruse the shrubs, sniff the flowers, and treat themselves to a cup of tea and a toasted tea cake (which she got for free with her afternoon cuppa) in the café ran by Leering Len, who she knew not to be alone with, not ever.
Her job was quite unlike Tony’s; he was an apprentice with a photographic company in Bath. A natural, he had already learned the mechanics of taking pictures and was, apparently, outshining the senior team with his artistry and brilliant eye. The garden centre had been a stopgap. A job to fill the days after leaving school at eighteen, while she thought about what shereallywanted to do. What she wanted to do was earn money and buy make-up. Well, two years of living the dream, and it was, she had decided, time to get serious. She just wasn’t entirely sure how. Her parents were, she could tell, a little puzzled by her laid-back attitude. What she couldn’t make them understand was how reluctant she had been to rush into something and get stuck; far better, she felt, to take her time and make the best choices. Her mum had told her she hadher whole life ahead of her to do something meaningful, but the question was, what? With this in mind, she had begun to quietly explore the idea of getting a degree.
Tony was already talking about making the jump to a bigger firm, or a smaller firm, or going freelance! His dream was to work with models instead of podgy kids as he snapped school photos, or needy brides who often had a very unrealistic list of demands, wanting to look like Fawcett or Fonda when they were not similarly blessed.
Ashleigh too seemed to have a set path and had gone straight from St. Jude’s to Exeter University, where she was now two years into her three-year history degree.
‘What’s she going to do with that? Work in a bloody museum? I mean, you hear it every day, don’t you? “What the world needs is more historians!”’ Her dad had, despite her sister’s protestations to the contrary, been hoping she might go into medicine or law. A fancy-pants career for his fancy-pants girl. But it seemed it was not to be.
Remy had begun to feel as if she were being left behind, knowing the garden centre was not where her future lay, no matter how good the free toasted tea cakes. This thought had started to poke her awake in the hours before her alarm. And this was why she had a secret stash of prospectuses under her mattress. It felt prudent to keep them hidden, not wanting her parents to get wind of her idea and run with it at a million miles an hour as they always did, enthusing and beaming wildly as they steered the topic until she became no more than a passenger in what turned into their plan. Ironically, she felt drawn towards law, not that she’d share this with her mum and dad, knowing they’d have her wig, gown and gavel ordered and business cards printed if she so much as mentioned it as a possibility. There was also a small part of her that wanted to show her parents how smart she was, to make up for the disappointment they had felt at her not chasing the prize of St. Jude’s.
She decided not to say anything until she was sure of what she wanted to do, but a law degree certainly sounded interesting, and she had the grades. Had got the grades easily. Not that it was always on her mind. Tonight it was all about having fun with her best friend, unsure how she would break it to him that she was thinking of leaving Wiltshire and heading off to college, possibly even somewhere as far afield as Bristol. Just the thought of it was enough to make her truly appreciate every minute of their Saturday nights together.
‘What are we thinking? Pub then Concordes? Then a drive?’ Tony suggested.
‘Yes! Fab!’
Driving was their thing. The car a place to be that was away from home, going out, feeling free! Tony was teetotal, and with access to his mum’s Austin Allegro, it had become part of their routine. Plus, and she hated to admit it, travelling in the car to and from places with him or simply driving randomly was nearly always the best part of the night. With a mixtape blaring, they would chat and laugh at nothing in the lovely warm bubble of their own making. It was always a high point. Ensconced in that little motor she felt full of infinite possibilities as they giggled and gossiped and sang – oh how they sang!
There was a knock on her bedroom door, and her mum walked in.
‘Goodness me. I can’t see the carpet, it’s covered with clothes!’
She did this: pointed out the obvious.
‘Yep.’
‘And the noise!’ Her mum shielded her eyes with her hand as if this might quieten the music.
She caught Tony’s eye in the mirror and they both stifled laughter. Not only because Ruthie Brett was nothing if not predictable, but because they were giddy on life and almosteverything was funny. The floor was indeed covered in various items that they had tried on, rejected, and flung. She’d clear it up tomorrow or the day after that. It was hard to keep a tiny room tidy. She looked now at the floor, where the soft layer of shirts, jackets, and waistcoats made a lovely spongey layer underfoot that was not only nice to walk on but also hid the burn mark where her forgotten and briefly unattended hair crimpers had left a deep, dark gash, two sticky tarry lines on the cream pile, which had melted. Ruthie, she knew, would not be happy when they were discovered.
‘Could you turn it down a bit? Can’t hear myself think!’ Her mum rubbed her temples as if the volume of Le Bon’s voice was in some way damaging.
‘Sorry, Mrs Brett.’ Tony turned it down.
Keener . . .
‘Goodness me, it’s like fog in here!’ Her mum flapped her hand in front of her face. ‘Shall we open a window?’
Remy quite liked the fog, a heady mixture of White Musk, the scent they both wore, and Elnett Firm Hold, a can of which lasted them a weekend at most.
Tony stood and opened the smallest window.
