Chapter Six
There’s a deli in Devizes
It’s Friday, and although I’m heading over to Josie’s tomorrow evening, tonight I have nothing better to do than watch Cassia Carver’s weekly live vintage cocktail-making. (From aGlowgetteraccount I still have the log-ins for; I’m not a total amateur.) I’ve been obsessing about Cassia even more than usual recently, for some reason. Anyway, I pour myself a giant glass of Rioja and wait until about ten other people have joined her live, so I don’t look too conspicuous.
Before we get to the main event (making a Snowball, as it’s heading towards Christmas), we have to endure some ‘tablescaping’, which involves Cassia waving a red tablecloth in the air like she’s trying to antagonise a passing bull, then laying out lots of#eclecticgold plates ‘sourced from local antique markets’, one of which I definitely saw in Dunelm in Swindon last weekend. She’s twittering on about#simplepleasureswhile she waits for ‘everyone to join her in the scullery’. I mean, what? It’s not bloodyDownton Abbey, Cassia. She’s also wearing a belted brown jumper dress that would make me look like Friar Tuck. So annoying.
As making a Snowball takes about thirty seconds (you just add lemonade to Advocaat, let’s be honest with ourselves here), Cassia strings it out for about twenty minutes by telling some tedious anecdote about how when she was a child she used to think Advocaat was made of avocados, which is clearly made up as no child has even heard of Advocaat and would certainly not care/have ever thought about what it’s made of. She also keeps doing that irritating wink at the camera and then a kind ofbobbing curtsy thing when she sticks the maraschino cherry in the top of the Snowball. I really want her to spill it. So, slightly Rioja-ed up, I start typing ‘snow bollocks more like’ into the live chat but then rememberGlowgetterabsolutely loves her, and doesn’t particularly love me, so delete it.
I wonder if she knows about the WULT® thing? I’m guessing that as I said yes, Merlyn wouldn’t have needed to tell anyone else on the list. I wonder why I was top of said list – it’s not like I’ve got that many Instagram followers. Maybe it’s just Merlyn keeping an eye out for me, like she always seems to. But I also wonder why Merlyn didn’t do it herself. Mind you, she’s about sixty-five, maybe it’s not worth it if you’re only going to come out the other side looking forty-five… pretty much pointless. I finish my Rioja and get an early night.
The following day, I have no plans other than an intensive getting ready session before I go to Josie’s. I spend the morning wearing a double chin reducing peptide mask I was sent to try, (which has the appearance of a damp jockstrap that loops around your ears) while I work on an article for theBeautyBuzzwebsite, which hasn’t commissioned me in ages. I’d originally pitched an idea about the new ‘glass skin’ trend that teenagers seem to love, and the dangers of really young girls using the high-potency Korean products you need to achieve it. It was calledPlease Keep Off The Glass. Anyway, they weren’t keen on my ‘wait till you get to my age’ stance (Seoul-based ChokChokie is their biggest sponsor) so the one they went for is about salicylic acid toners and whether they’re safe to use, and I’ve decided to call itPeel Or No Peel. To say I’m pleased with that headline would be a massive understatement.
Thanks to this, which must surely mean I’m getting my mojo back when it comes to puns, and now that I’ve decided to go ahead with the WULT® treatment (and actually have a date for the pre-treatment consultation next week), I’m in a reasonablemood as evening arrives. I’m also trying a new contouring make-up trick for jowls, because now that there’s a possibility of looking younger on the horizon (if the treatment actually works, that is), they are bugging me more than ever. It’s all about using bronzer and highlighter to create shadows under your chin that aren’t really there. In dim lighting, and as long as I make sure I speak to people straight on and not at an angle, it seems as though it may work. In fact, it could even be a ‘contour de force’…
Josie’s door knocker is shaped like a bumblebee and quite heavy, and I find it impossible not to slam it down really hard, making what could be considered an impolite level of noise for a Saturday night dinner guest who hasn’t really brought anything of note with them. Well, I do have a body scrub for Josie and some Kiehl’s for men stuff for Keith. But the bottle of Orvieto Classico I also brought is only two-thirds full. And as for the chrysanthemums, which I bought last week to give to Mother Pells as an apology for pocket dialling her, every single petal except two has dropped off on the thirty-second walk to Josie’s – leaving a trail of white exclamation marks along the road.
Josie is cooking her signature chicken with potatoes and prunes for me and our friend Keith. Keith – an acerbic, moustachioed green energy consultant – lives in a converted chapel in a village a few miles outside the town, and his husband Stephen is, like Josie’s wife Laure, often away. Josie and Keith call themselves ‘work widows’ and moan about and miss their spouses in equal measure.
Héloïse opens the door, hair shiny with head lice lotion. Okay, what do I smell of today, Héloïse? At least I don’t have nits.
‘You smell of poo,’ she says.
Wow, no frills tonight. I smile because, after all, Josie is pretty much my only friend nearby, if you don’t count my mother, which you don’t. And also, my mother lives twenty minutes away, which is not nearby, in the same way that the M&S garage is not nearby.
‘Fox poo,’ continues Héloïse, without breaking eye contact.
‘Right. That’s quite specific,’ I say. ‘Anyway, is your mum…’
‘There.’ Héloïse interrupts and points to the road behind me and indeed, there is a fox shit, and indeed, it has my footprint right in the middle of it. I do that thing where you lift your feet and look at the bottom of your shoes, one after another, like you’re practising the Charleston.
‘Take them off.’
‘Okay.’ Why do I always obey her?
I walk into Josie’s cottage, holding both boots, shouting, ‘I’M TAKING THEM OUT THE BACK, THEY’VE GOT FOX SHIT ON THEM,’ and at such a pace that I inadvertently scrape one of them on the hall wall. I spot Héloïse rolling her eyes.
Later, after the chicken, Josie is squatting in the back garden wearing rubber gloves, hosing my boots down. A few feet away, I stand with Keith in Josie’s (far too small) ‘gardening Birkenstocks’, smoking some of Nandy’s weed that I found in my pants drawer.
‘I don’t feel you’re apologising quite enough, Ms Pells,’ says Keith, sniggering.
‘Sorry Jose. And in my defence, Keith, I did clean the hall wall…’
‘It’s okay, Erica.’ Josie’s voice is muffled as she’s pulled her top up over her nose to hide the smell. ‘I’d rather do it myself. To be honest they’re cleaner than they were before.’
‘Oh really? Great. Thanks,’ I say.
‘Are you both ready to go to the pub when I’ve finished? Evelyn from next door is coming round in ten to keep an eye on Héloïse. I just need to put the leftovers in the fridge for Laure. She’s back from Geneva tomorrow. She loves the bits around the edges where the pomegranate molasses go all Marmitey on the potatoes…’
She goes back inside muttering something about Tupperware while I hand the joint to Keith.
‘I got the Kiehl’s face wash you like, and the hand salve,’ I say, pleased I actually remembered to bring them over.
‘You’re an angel. My dry cuticles are indebted to you.’ He eyes me closely. ‘You look foxy, Erica.’ He snorts with laughter at his own joke. ‘Too soon?’
‘Thanks darling,’ I say. ‘I’m trying a new make-up thing.’
‘You certainly are, girly-pop! The Perch won’t know what’s hit it.’
