‘I don’t think I even want to know.’ The American stops me before I can disappoint her further but softens once I start twirling around, feeling the weight of the skirt flutter by my calves.
‘Now there’s a petticoat somewhere…’
‘No!’ I answer all too quickly. ‘This is fine, this is perfect.’
‘For once my dear, I completely agree with you. Now sit in that chair.’
‘Why?’
‘Just do as I say.’
I sit down and she scurries back over to me, her hands going to my hair, pulling out the claw clip and letting the knotty reality of my hair fall. She tuts at it and combs her nails from the roots to the ends.
‘Now normally us girls would use rollers but we don’t have time for that. No, I think we’ll have to dothe trick.’
‘The trick?’
‘Bluette called it the French Trick. She said it was a time-sensitive solution to looking “put together”.’
‘I like it.’
‘Now, head back, pass me the brush.’ I do as she instructs and watch her, face screwed up in concentration as she starts to pull strands together, smoothing my hair down against my scalp with hair spray, until she starts to twist it in her now rather dexterous hand and pins it to the back of my head.
‘I can’t remember the last time someone did my hair like this.’
‘Not your mother?’
‘I was never really the daughter that got her hair done,’ I shrug. ‘She probably would have liked me to be, but I’ve come to realise that parents don’t often get the child they envisaged having.’
‘Now who’s sounding like the sage?’ She looks at me in the mirror, a mistiness transcending over her. Her hand rests on my shoulders, giving me a reassuring little squeeze. ‘Will you do?’
‘I think this passes as making an effort, thank you.’ I crane my neck and press my lips into her powdery cheek. She closes her eyes and takes it in.
‘One more thing.’
She reaches around in a drawer and pulls out a necklace with some blue stones scattered around the neckline. ‘I think you should tell him.’ She says as she struggles with the clasp of the necklace.
‘Tell him what?’
‘Why you’re really here.’
‘I’m trying to get him back not scare him off forever.’
‘Don’t you think that he should know? Then you can start on neutral ground. Secrets aren’t good, Ava, they turn splinters into vast, horrible chasms.’
I shake my head. ‘I will tell him, just not tonight.’
‘But…’
‘Thank you for your help.’ I reach for her hand and squeeze it tightly and I watch as her resolution breaks a little, knows that her pleading is falling on deaf ears for tonight.
She straightens her own outfit and then goes to her phone, pressing one button and then waiting patiently by the handset until there is the faint crackle of another voice picking up.
‘Your carriage awaits.’
‘Maybe I’ll just stay here…’
‘Oh no you don’t.’ She reaches into her bedside cabinet, pulling out a bottle of clear liquid. ‘Dutch courage.’
