The Library of Lost and Found(50)
“Lilian had just got married and Joe waited for me, for over a year. But we only saw each other that once in New York. His job made it difficult for him to come home. Eventually, we both realized that I wasn’t going to join him, and we put things on hold.”
She gave a small sniff. Her words started to stick in her throat. “After a few months, Joe met someone else and she fell pregnant straight away. He married her instead of me.”
She took a small ball of papier-maché and squashed it between her thumb and forefinger, briefly imagining how her life could have been so different. If only she hadn’t tried to be the perfect daughter. If only she had been braver. She’d have had the foundations in place for a different life, but she let them crumble.
“Well.” Suki sat back on her heels. She gave an indignant sigh. “It just shows that Joe wasn’t the right person for you.”
A lump swelled in Martha’s throat. Her eyes filled with tears, blurring her vision. “I know that he was the right person. I just had to make a choice. I did my best to please everyone.” She gritted her teeth to try to stop the flood of emotion that was threatening to overtake her.
Don’t have an outburst and show yourself up again, she told herself.
“You always try to please everyone else, rather than yourself,” Suki said.
Martha pressed the dragon’s chin too hard, her finger pushing through the fresh mush. She stared at the hole, then blindly around the room. “Sorry, I’ve damaged your repair.” She attempted to stand up.
Suki placed her hand on her arm, the weight of it pulling her back down. “Don’t worry about that. I’m so sorry, Martha.”
“They were my family and I couldn’t let them down. It’s too late for change now.” Martha slumped back down onto the floor.
“Don’t be so daft. My mum must be around your age and she’s just bought a posh little apartment in Marbella-ella, or however you say it. Her new fella is only five years older than me. You’re only as old as you feel.”
“But I feel bloody ancient.”
“Well, you don’t look it,” Suki said, before she took a second glance. “Well, perhaps you could do with a freshen-up. Just like this dragon. I’ll redo his chin, then he’s finished.”
“What happens then?”
“We’ll leave him to dry, for a day or so. Then he needs a light sandpapering and a rubdown of his rough bits. I’ve brought some paint, and we can resurrect him to his former glory.”
Martha flicked a smile. “I wish someone could do that for me. I’m going to my nana’s for dinner this evening.”
Suki looked her over from head to toe. “Well,” she said. “I have no other plans for the day, and I have my makeup bag with me. We could give something a try, if you like?”
20
High Heels
Martha had always been wary of hairdressers. The giant posters of glossy-maned twentysomethings displayed in salon windows usually bore no resemblance to the bored women who sat inside, holding cups of tea and sporting silver foil in their hair.
On one occasion, not long after her parents died, she plucked up the courage to venture into a Maltsborough salon. She took along a photo she’d trimmed out of a magazine. Gingerly presenting it to a pretty girl with jumbo caramel curls, Martha admitted that she’d not had a professional haircut for some years.
The girl made all the right noises, then took up her own personal challenge, to produce a hairstyle as little like the one in the photo as possible.
Martha left the salon with a haircut resembling poodle ears, her curls tight and crispy.
Since then, she’d managed her own hairdressing agenda, consisting of a once-a-year snip at her dead ends, and a conditioning treatment if it came free with a magazine. So it was with extreme trepidation that she allowed Suki to hover around her head with a pair of scissors.
“We’ll just do a little trim,” Suki said. The bells on her ankle bracelet jingled as she circled Martha, peering into her hair as if she was looking for eggs in a large bird’s nest. “I’ll tidy up your hair, then we can try out some eyeshadow.”
Martha nodded meekly. She tried not to grip the seat of the wooden chair as snippets of hair began to fall onto her lap, a strange mix of dark and light.
“It’s just a haircut.” Suki paused for a moment. “You’re acting like you’re in a rocket, bracketed for take off.”
“Sorry,” Martha said, thinking that’s exactly how she felt.
The feeling of another person standing so close to her was unsettling. With her eyes screwed shut, she could hear the swish of Suki’s dress as she combed and snipped. She smelled of patchouli and toast.
When Suki touched her hair, Martha felt like ants were teeming through her roots and she wasn’t sure if it was delicious, or if she wanted it to end very quickly.
She concentrated on sitting still until Suki announced, “Done.”
Martha opened one eye and peered up, then left and right. Alarmingly, she couldn’t see any hair in her peripheral vision.
“Do you want a mirror?”
Martha didn’t detect any concern in Suki’s voice. She didn’t have an oh-my-god-what-have-I-done tone. In fact, she sounded rather upbeat. “I’m not too sure.”