Birdseye Page 9

  Annie walked to where Anthea was turning her head from side to side, tweaking her curls.

  ‘Anthea,’ she said, ‘it’s got nothing to do with your grandmother. I’m the one telling you, you can’t leave the house dressed like that.’

  ‘Chill, Mom.’ Anthea’s voice was dismissive. ‘Everyone wears clothes like these.’ She pouted at herself in the mirror. Her lips glimmered pink; her cheekbones were accentuated by streaks of bronze.

  ‘Angela doesn’t,’ Annie said.

  She should have known better. I braced myself, waiting for the explosion.

  ‘Miss Angela the pure, Angela the high and mighty, Angela the bloody snow queen.’

  ‘Anthea,’ Annie warned.

  ‘Oh I know, I know. Mind your language. Wear a decent skirt. Find a “pretty” blouse. I suppose you’d like me to wear an Alice band while I’m about it. Oh God, I am so gatvol of all this.’ Anthea flounced away from the mirror.

  ‘Anthea, I’m telling you to change before you go out. You can dress any way you like when you leave home, God knows I can’t stop you, but while you’re staying under my roof—’

  ‘Your roof? It’s not your roof and you know it. That old witch holds the purse strings and doles out little bits here and there, when she decides we need them. And you pretend that you’re in control, telling us to be polite and speak to people nicely, but you’re a joke.’

  ‘Anthea,’ Annie’s voice was even quieter now. ‘Enough.’

  ‘I’m sick of watching my tongue, sick of being under her thumb. Face it, Mom, if she weren’t up there, we’d all be able to do what we want. She’s got you and Dad trapped, and you know it. Well, you can have your pathetic little lives, knot yourselves to her purse strings, tell your silly little stories about how you met and fell in love to make yourselves feel better about being stuck here, obeying her every command. But I’m not going to.’

  I looked at Annie’s pale face. Anthea was mean, and I hated her.

  ‘Is your boyfriend coming to pick you up?’ I asked.

  Anthea turned and saw me, sitting with my book in the doorway. ‘What are you doing here, creep?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Boyfriend?’ Annie asked.

  ‘How could I ever have a boyfriend?’ said Anthea. ‘You never let me do anything.’ She looked at me, her eyes narrow, daring me to speak.

  But I was angry and tired of her bossing all of us around.

  ‘So who’s the boy with the motorbike then?’ I asked.

  ‘Motorbike?’ Annie said faintly.

  ‘If looks could spit, I’d be surfing.’ I’d heard Andy saying that the other day, and from the way Anthea was glaring at me now, I could see exactly what he meant.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said.

  ‘Oh really? I thought I saw you getting onto the back of this huge motor-bike with a boy with a big droopy moustache and sunglasses. His hair was long enough for a ponytail and he was wearing leather pants and a leather jacket, with chains on it and studs and stuff on the back.’

  Anthea leaned against the mantelpiece, tapping her nails in a slow warning rattle, and I knew I had gone way, way too far. ‘But maybe I was wrong,’ I said lamely. ‘Maybe it wasn’t you.’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t me, you little bitch.’

  Annie gasped and I rocked back against the doorframe. The thing about Anthea was, she never cared when she went too far. And nobody ever made her pay the way she made sure I paid for every little thing I did wrong. This time I’d be paying for a long time. So I might as well make the suffering worthwhile.

  ‘So how come I could see your broeks because you were wearing that skirt?’ I pointed at the offending garment. ‘And why did he stop at the top of our road and not come to the door to meet Mom and Dad? And why did the girl I think was you sneak in through the front window? But of course it wasn’t you.’ I mimicked her voice. ‘Oh! My gosh!’ My eyes widened. ‘If it wasn’t you, who could it have been?’

  ‘You lying little turd.’ Anthea’s stiletto kicked the book from my hands.

  ‘You sneaking, creeping little shit. You’re always around, always under my feet.’

  ‘Stop this now!’ Annie tried to intervene, but Anthea was in full flow.

  ‘Why don’t you go back to your shit-hole and stay there? You might as well because, believe me, no one’s ever going to be coming to pick you up for a date. I suppose I should feel sorry for you. But sorry’s too good for you. You’re just an ugly, pathetic little piece of nothing.’

  ‘Anthea.’ Annie managed to stop the tirade. ‘Enough. Now, this boy, his bike … is this true?’

  ‘Oh, so what if it is? Just leave me alone!’ Anthea teetered from the room at speed.

  ‘Oh Lord.’ Annie collapsed into the chair near the fireplace. ‘If this is what she’s like at sixteen …’

  I grunted, absorbed in a mental list of all the names Anthea had used. Not many of them were new, but I did have ‘shit-hole’ to add to the repertoire.

  ‘Bird? Does Anthea have a boyfriend?’

  I turned a page.

  ‘Bird, look at me.’

  It was one thing to tell on my sister when she was in the room, but I’d said as much as I was going to.

  ‘I’d better go up and talk to her,’ she said.

  I was used to Annie talking to herself like this; she certainly wasn’t talking to me. I thought of slipping out of the room, but the sad line of Annie’s mouth stopped me. I got to my feet, walked to the chair and put my thin arm across her shoulders. ‘Don’t worry, Mom,’ I said. ‘She’ll get over it.’

  Annie turned to me and hugged me tight. ‘You’re such a funny little thing.’

  I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Pale-skinned and gawky, with not one distinguishing feature that could possibly be called attractive. Anthea was right, I was ugly. Pathetic too. I looked down: my bare feet were grimy around the toes, and my knees were grubby from climbing my tree. Nothing felt better to me than standing on one slender branch, hugging another, and feeling the wind whip me from side to side. Letting go would be a stupid thing to do, but I longed to spread my arms wide and soar, up to where sisters couldn’t get to you, and brothers were cycling around the corner on their way home, and Moms and Dads didn’t always look so worried, and it didn’t matter what you looked like.

  ‘Mom,’ I said. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Yes, darling, what is it?’

  ‘Do you think I’ll always be ugly?’

  ‘Ugly?’ Annie looked at me. ‘You’re not ugly.’

  ‘Mom,’ I said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Birdie, Birdie, Bird.’ Annie pulled me tighter to her. ‘I can’t tell you if you’ll be tall or short, or curvy or slim. But one thing I can tell you is that you are not ugly.’

  ‘Oh, Mom, please,’ I said again. ‘Look at my hair’ – it was dull, dragged back into a messy knot – ‘and none of my clothes ever look right.’ I tugged at the waistband of a skirt Alice had worn donkey’s years ago.

  ‘Well!’ Annie laughed. ‘Look at me. I haven’t had a decent haircut in years.’

  ‘And you never buy yourself anything new to wear.’ I mimicked Anthea’s voice.

  We looked at each other appraisingly.

  ‘You know,’ we both said at the same time, ‘you could be quite pretty, if you tried.’

  Annie burst into giggles, and I laughed with her, madly, giddily drunk with love for the wonderful woman who was my mother.

  ‘I tell you what, Bird,’ she said suddenly. ‘Let’s show them.’ She cupped my face in her hands and said seriously, ‘Why don’t you and I go on a spree? A new hairdo for us both, and clothes for you that aren’t hand-me-downs.’

  ‘But what about money?’

  ‘Do you know something?’ Annie’s eyes were shining. ‘I couldn’t give two hoots! I feel like looking quite pretty.’

  ‘And Anthea? Don’t you want to talk to her?’

  ‘Anthea can
wait,’ said Annie. ‘She won’t listen to me now anyway. Come on, Bird. Let’s have an adventure!’

  8

  So Annie and I went to Rose-Marie’s. It wasn’t a chic hairdressing salon, not like the one in the Harbiton arcade. Rose-Marie’s hadn’t moved with the times at all, but to me it was magical. The name was written on the window in big curly pink letters and where there should have been a dot on the ‘i’, there was a big gold star. When I looked through the window, all sorts was going on – women having their hair washed, or cut, blow-dried, put in curlers. A lady painting someone’s nails. And the smell! It hit me as I walked through the door. It was all of my sisters using the bathroom at the same time to prepare for Friday night.

  I was eight years old and had never been inside a beauty parlour. I had often gazed at the women who sat swathed in bright pink or blue plastic gowns in Rose-Marie’s. I knew them all: Mrs Pile, Mrs Simpson, Mrs Philpot and Mrs van der Riet. But in Rose-Marie’s they became different people. That day Mrs Pile’s head bristled in ranks of curlers. Big round bouncy ones in the middle section, skinny prickly ones pulling her hair up from behind and in front of her ears and at the back of her neck. The curlers were graded by colour: the big ones bright pink, the medium-sized ones green, and the smallest ones yellow. Her face looked surprised, as if her eyebrows were permanently raised.

  ‘I can’t be bothered with all this fuss about blow-waves,’ she was saying. ‘Nothing beats a proper set. This will last me all week.’

  Heads turned as we walked in.

  ‘Why, Annie Marchbanks.’ A woman in a bright pink smock put down an enormous dryer and bustled forward to meet us. ‘I haven’t seen you in … I don’t know how long.’ She was tiny, her dark hair almost as tall as she was. She had snapping black eyes and her eyeshadow was a heavy streak of pearly green. Her lips glistened red, like the cherries we bought at Christmas.

  ‘Hello, Rose-Marie,’ my mother said grandly. ‘My daughter and I are on a quest. We are looking for beauty, and it struck me that you might be just the right person to help us.’

  ‘Annie, you can still make me laugh.’ Rose-Marie’s eyes glittered in her thin face. ‘You mean it? You want a makeover?’

  ‘Not only me, but my little Bird as well.’ Annie pulled me forward.

  Rose-Marie smiled, then she leaned forward and looked at Annie more closely. ‘Annie,’ she said, a look of horror on her face, ‘have you been cutting your own hair?’

  ‘It’s just so much easier,’ Annie said apologetically. ‘But today, Bird and I decided that we deserved a treat.’ She looked flustered and anxious. ‘That is, if you’ve got time?’

  Rose-Marie’s eyes gleamed. ‘Let’s have a look,’ she said.

  Suddenly, I wanted to leave. Annie looked forlorn. In the soft pink lights of the shop, my mother, who always looked so beautiful to me, was dowdy and shabby. Her dress was faded, her sandals were scuffed and the heels of her feet were cracked. She wore no make-up and her dark curls straggled onto her collar.

  But Annie had come this far and she wasn’t turning back. ‘I need a new look, Rose-Marie,’ she said. ‘Can you help me?’ The right words spoken to the right woman.

  ‘Oh yes.’ Rose-Marie’s eyes were really gleaming now. ‘I know just the style for you.’ She picked up a file with ‘Classics’ emblazoned on the cover in the same colour pink as her shop name. Rose-Marie had a penchant for pink. That was a word I’d heard Orville using when he and Annie were talking about Ma Bess: ‘Kindly remember, Ann, I have a penchant for Lapsang Souchong.’ Orville spoke in a Ma Bess sort of voice, and he and Annie giggled like naughty kids, and they looked embarrassed when I asked Orville what ‘penchant’ meant. But he still told me that it meant a particular liking for something and then he told me to run along because he and Annie were busy, only they didn’t look that busy to me.

  Anyway, Rose-Marie definitely had a penchant for pink. And gold stars – there was another one over the ‘i’ of ‘Classics’.

  She flicked through the folder until she came to a woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. ‘Michelle Pfeiffer’ it said under her picture, and something about a film called Ladyhawke. Her hair was short, cropped and wispy at the same time.

  ‘Some looks never go out of style,’ Rose-Marie said, and I could see what she meant. Annie would look like a film star with her hair like that, framing her face and catching the light. It wasn’t big or puffy like Anthea’s; it was perfect.

  ‘Do you really think it would suit me?’ Annie asked.

  ‘Trust me, Annie,’ Rose-Marie said. ‘You know how many people would die for bone structure like yours? Your hair will be a bit curlier, but the look will be fabulous on you. Lorraine! Take Mrs Little and shampoo her please.’

  Then she turned her full attention to me. ‘And what about you, young lady?’

  I rubbed one shoe against the other. As I looked down, all I could see were the huge knobs of my knees. ‘I don’t know,’ I mumbled. ‘I hate my hair.’

  ‘And no wonder,’ Rose-Marie said. Gently, she removed the elastic band that held it scrunched in place. ‘You need a short, easy cut,’ she said.

  Long hair had always been a signature of the girls in our family. Angela’s fell in a shining silken sheet, like white rain. Anthea’s was a long and tumbled mass of curls. Even Alice’s, sternly braided and sensibly tied back, was long. Annie’s hair had never been shorter than her shoulders and, at times, before she attacked it with a pair of scissors, it had reached as far as the middle of her back. And here was Rose-Marie, suggesting that both of us go like sheep to a shearing.

  The words of a song jingling from a radio on the back counter snagged my attention. The singer said she was walking on sunshine. I tried to think golden sunshiny thoughts but all I could imagine were silver scissors snipping away. ‘I don’t know,’ I mumbled again. I looked at my hair in the mirror. Long and stringy, it dribbled down my back. ‘Will you cut it very short?’

  Rose-Marie looked at me kindly. ‘There’s plenty of time for you to grow it when you’re older. For now, why don’t we see what we can do?’

  ‘You girls have come to the right place,’ said Mrs van der Riet from under her face mask. ‘Rose has a very good eye for what suits people.’

  And so I was introduced to the arcane secrets of the Cult of Beauty. Annie and I spent two hours there, soothed by the gentle buzz of conversation. A beauty parlour, I discovered that day, is a wonderful place to sit and listen and gather up snippets of people’s lives. There’s something about the atmosphere that allows talk to wave and curl through the perfumed air.

  There were four other women in varying stages of reconstruction. Mrs van der Riet lay with a face mask smeared on her face. It didn’t stop her from talking, though – thin words between lips that didn’t move for fear of cracking thick white paste. Rose-Marie tied a gauze net over Mrs Pile’s curlers, then lowered the dome of a large drier over her head. Mrs Philpot sat with her hands spread on a towel, waiting for the red varnish on her nails to dry. Lorraine, Rose-Marie’s right-hand woman, massaged the thick foam on Annie’s head, while Rose-Marie finished drying Mrs Simpson’s thick grey hair into a neat bob.

  After Lorraine finished washing Annie’s hair, she called me into the chair. Her firm hands massaged my scalp and I began to relax. Annie sat in another of the black leather seats, draped in a bright pink gown, her wet hair combed back from her face. Her eyes were enormous in her pale face. I watched her in the mirror, and she caught my eye and winked. I winked back and we both giggled. Rose-Marie came to stand behind her, scissors at the ready. She looked at Annie in the mirror and smiled. ‘Okay?’ she asked.

  Annie swallowed and smiled uneasily.

  Rose-Marie lifted a long strand from Annie’s head. ‘Here goes,’ she said, and snipped. She worked like a whirlwind, a flurry of flashing blades and falling hair. Annie’s face emerged. Her eyes, if possible, looked larger, darker and bluer. Her neck longer. Her mouth fuller and happier.

  Rose-Ma
rie held a mirror up so that Annie could see the back of her head. ‘You’re lucky, Annie,’ she said. ‘All you have to do is this.’ She ran expert fingers through Annie’s hair, and the curls sprang to her command, framing Annie’s face.

  My mother turned her head this way, and then the other.

  ‘Rose-Marie,’ she breathed, ‘it’s beautiful.’

  And then it was my turn. I looked anywhere but at the mirror as the scissors did their work. ‘She’s got lovely hair, Annie,’ said Rose-Marie. ‘It’s fine, but there’s plenty of it. It just needs to be cut regularly.’

  As the hair fell, my head felt like it wanted to float from my neck.

  ‘You can look now, Bird,’ Rose-Marie said, and I stared at a stranger in the mirror. Large pale-grey eyes wide under dark thick brows. Mouth made suddenly generous. A nose that looked sweet. My fringe – I had a fringe! – feathered onto my forehead. I couldn’t speak. It suddenly didn’t matter that my skirt had been worn by Alice and Anthea and possibly even Angela. Everything about me seemed new.

  9

  I put a small yellow curler into my ballerina box. It was prickly. When I scrunched it in my hand, it left little stinging marks. I couldn’t imagine a whole crowd of them pressing into my scalp, and Rose-Marie had told me some women even slept with them in, for a bouncier, springier curl. She said I was welcome to take one home with me, and one of the plastic pins that skewers it into place. Rose-Marie said most people have blow waves these days, they make the curls with a hairdryer, but she still had plenty of clients who liked a set, with prickly rollers. I tried to imagine feeling that pain every week. ‘No pain no gain’ is what Jane Fonda said on her exercise tape, the one Anthea bounced up and down to on Sunday afternoons when she was bored. Jane – that’s what Anthea called her – didn’t even look sweaty. She just smiled and said: ‘Feel the burn.’