183 Times a Year (12 page)

Romeow now wears a look of scorn suggesting I really must be as stupid as I appear. Finally, he manages another low meow before promptly completing a one eighty degree turn, whereupon I'm left to look at the backside of a ginger fur ball.

‘I'll take that as a no then shall I Romeow?' No movement, no sound. ‘Thanks,' I exclaim, ‘I love you too.'

I open the kitchen door and am greeted by two very giggly teenagers. Well, one real one and one middle aged woman acting like one. Ruby's holding a glass of wine, Cassie a glass of water – I hope? They both turn to look at me. Cassie is actually smiling.

See,
miracles do happen.

‘Oh, hey Mum,' Cassie says, eyes twinkling. ‘We've had a great time. Ruby's like aaammaaaaazing. She's so sick and so funny and clever, and like, well, everything really. We have soooooo much to tell you,' she gushes.

‘Yes, she is pretty amazing, isn't she,' I reply. Ruby catches the sarcasm in my voice and casts me a look. I feel slightly ashamed at the small stab of jealously running through me.

‘And,' Cassie continues, ‘here's your money back.' She hands back the crisp notes I'd robbed Peter to pay Paul. I'm confused.

‘So you didn't buy anything then?'

‘Well, yeah, sort of. Ruby said I need to try it on to show you then you'll understand.' I raise my eyebrows, intrigued. Cassie is grinning like a cat, well, not our cat, but the proverbial Cheshire cat maybe, and disappears upstairs.

‘So,' I say, grabbing myself a glass and filling it from the opened bottle of wine next to Ruby. ‘It looks as though you two have had a great time?'

‘Yeah, we've had fun, and Cassie's a great kid really.'

‘Hmmmm,' I reply. ‘I suppose she is when she's not screaming and crying and telling me she hates me. Clearly I don't have what it takes to be so bloody … well … sick,' I exclaim. Ruby eyes me suspiciously and laughs.

‘You're her Mum for god's sake; you won't be cool for at least another fifty years!' We both laugh and I feel the tensions of the day start to dwindle. She's right of course. Does there ever come a time when one's parents are cool in the eyes of their children? I think of my own dear Mum and Dad and smile inwardly. They're both mad, in their own unique way, especially Dad, but cool? Yes, I suppose they are.

‘Well, what do you think?'

Cassie has breezed back into the kitchen. She is modelling, in the exaggerated style of a catwalk model, a beautiful but very
familiar
dress. I look from Cassie to Ruby, to Cassie and back to Ruby again.

‘Is that –?' I begin to say.

‘Indeed it is,' Ruby replies before I can finish my sentence.

The dress opens my dusty box of memories and I'm suddenly transported back to a darkened assembly hall intermittently lit by the flashing lights of the weekly school disco or the more important monthly one held at the local leisure centre. Kisses are stolen in shadowy corners and my stomach flips at the sight of Mark Lyndsey with his fashionable highlighted mullet and white socks. If I'm lucky he'll grab me for the slow dance at the end of the night and we'll probably smooch to Spandau Ballet's
True
or the Jackson Five's
I'll be there.

Really? You were that soppy?

It's the 1980s and I'm a teenager again. This was a time when we really believed Ra Ra skirts and white stilettos were as sophisticated as drinking Pernod and black or Malibu and lemonade; a time when Margaret Thatcher ruled and ruined the country, and a time of yuppies, greed, massive youth unemployment and YTS schemes; of miners strikes, Arthur Scargill and lost industries; the birth of the VDU and VCR's, the Mobile phone and the Walkman; a time of Ska music, the New Romantics, Billy Bragg and Rick Astley; a time when Lionel Richie saw us
Dancing on the Ceiling
after saying
Hello.
This was also the time of Band Aid and Live Aid and a time when we believed, for those of us who cared, we really could make a difference to the starving millions of the world through the union of music.

God, how naive were we?

‘Oh my god,' I scream, ‘I haven't seen that dress in years!' The dress in question is one of a select few designer ones owned by Ruby's Mum. Bought for her during the 1960s (by a famous London gangster, so the story goes), later worn by Ruby and I
during
the 80s.

The dresses themselves were beautiful but not bo-ho enough for the fashion icons we actually believed we were. So Ruby and I dragged them kicking and screaming (quite mercilessly when I look back at the photos) into the 80s. Leggings, fishnet stockings and lace gloves were added along with rubber bracelets, layers of beaded necklaces, cropped bolero-style jackets and of course the signature big earrings and big hair with lace ribbons and headbands to finally complete our own street urchin twist.

And yet here was Cassie, another generation on in another century wearing the very same dress I had worn nearly thirty years earlier and Ruby's Mum twenty years prior to that.

‘It's a designer dress, vintage,' Cassie beams as she saunters, hand on hip, around the kitchen. ‘Ruby bought me a new pair of shoes and a statement necklace to bring it up to date. But look,' Cassie proceeds to pirouette around the kitchen like a small child playing dress-up, ‘doesn't it look good?'

Cassie stops abruptly and turns to look at me, grabbing the back of a chair to steady herself. ‘And you should have seen Ruby in action, Mum, with Chelsea. She like so owned her, it was hilarious. Chelsea so thinks she's the knees bees when it comes to fashion, but now, thanks to Ruby, Chelsea thinks I'm friends with a bloody fashion designer for god's sake,' she squeals. I look at the young woman standing before me.

‘You look lovely Cassie, really beautiful,' I say. She smiles at me. ‘Thanks.'

The dress is a tranquil teal in colour and provides the perfect contrast to her lengthy, dark hair and dark eyes. Her legs are slender and unlike mine, long, which is one thing she can thank her Dad for.

When did your little girl turn into this woman?

‘I don't know,' I suddenly say out loud, still looking admiringly at Cassie

‘
Oh for god's sake,' Cassie snorts. ‘There's always bloody something with you isn't there? What don't you know?'

I sigh inwardly. ‘No I didn't mean you Cassie,' I begin to try and explain.

She may have the body of a woman but the brain is still in the oven – roasting quite nicely, but not yet cooked. What did that article say that Ruby quoted? A work in progress or something? Yes, that's what I see before me, a work in progress.

‘Actually Cassie,' I say looking at her again, ‘it is very short isn't it?' Cassie rolls her eyes at me.

I don't remember it being that short when I wore it?

‘Yes, but my arms are completely covered up.' Cassie states this as if it makes perfect sense but unfortunately makes very little to me.

‘And?' I reply.

‘Oh my actual god, it's just the bloody rule isn't it?'

‘What rule?'

‘The bloody fashion rule,' she says raising her voice.

‘Cassie,' Ruby cautions.

‘Well,' she replies sulkily, ‘did she give birth to me to torture me or is it just that she has absolutely no bloody clue about fashion what so bloody ever? No don't tell me,' she continues answering her own question, ‘it's both.'

Ruby's smile vanishes. ‘Cassie, don't talk to your Mum like that, she's given up a lot for you, made sacrifices that you have no idea about and gone without just so you didn't have to.'

Cassie is slightly taken aback at Ruby's rare show of anger. Her eyes begin to fill up and her bottom lip quivers slightly.

‘But it's just a fashion rule that EVERYONE knows,' Cassie shouts defensively. ‘Gak Wonk and everyone say it.'

‘Well, as I clearly missed that one somewhere, would you care to enlighten me please Cassie?' I feel sorry for her but slightly amused at the same time.

Cassie
sighs heavily. ‘The rule is,' she continues, her voice breaking a little, ‘if you're not showing your arms you HAVE to show your legs.' Cassie stares at me intently, desperate not to blink and let the tears balancing just above her bottom eyelashes, fall. She's sorry but she'll never say it.

‘Well then, that makes perfect sense. Now give us another twirl.' I smile at Cassie and she smiles back before quickly turning away to wipe the tears that won't go back to where they came from. Cassie then tries to master her walk in her new, very high heels. Cassie is happy again; I like to see her smile.

‘And it's a designer dress,' she repeats, ‘I'll definitely fit in at Chelsea's with this dress.'

I wonder at the basic human need to assimilate. The necessity for that badge or uniform that suggests we belong; affirmation that we do fit in, somewhere. With Cassie, for the moment, it's the fake brigade (as Maisy calls them), but then Maisy isn't really any different in her membership of all that appears to be gothic and black. I suppose that's why Facebook and the Twittersphere and whatever the hell else is out there in our computerised, virtual world, works so well. Its confirmation we're not alone.

My thoughts have let me drift for a moment but Cassie's voice is pulling me back, demanding my full and undivided attention.

‘Mum. Mum, are you listening to me? Do you want to hear what happened to us or not?'

‘I'm all ears,' I respond enthusiastically.

‘What?' Cassie screws up her face and frowns at me. ‘What are you talking about? I didn't say a bloody thing about your bloody ears.'

‘What? No, I meant – oh it doesn't matter. Tell me your story Cassie.'

Chapter 11

MAGNIFIQUE

LIZZIE

‘Well,' Cassie says thrusting a glossy fashion magazine at me. ‘Look at page twenty-two. Who do you see?' I can't see anyone in particular. My eye is temporarily drawn to the opposite page and the advertisement of the exquisitely designed perfume bottle that costs more than a month's wages and a watch that costs more than the house we live in.

I look back at page twenty-two. It's a collage of who's who in the fashion world, a sea of faces, all with their own caption underneath. It's a world so far removed from my own it may just as well be a work of fiction from one of the many books in the Fantasy section of the library; a world of perfect, polished people with unashamedly critical stares and a world quite literally of gross incomes.

I scan the photos several times but I'm still none the wiser. I try to read the tiny writing underneath but am only presented with a mass of blurred words. I reach for the reading glasses in my bag.

‘Nope, I don't see anything,' I say looking up at Cassie and Ruby.

‘Oh Mum, look again,' Cassie insists. I ring my slightly sweaty hands nervously and scan the page once more. I can feel Cassie's hot, agitated breath on the back my neck as she leans over me.

What the hell am I supposed to be looking at?

‘
I don't know?' I didn't mean to but I've said my thoughts out loud, again.

‘Oh Mum, really?' Cassie sighs. She swipes the magazine from under me and points a very erect, angry finger at one of the photos.

‘Loooooooook, just look will you.' I follow her extended digit and, replacing my reading glasses once more, find myself looking at a dark haired woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to Ruby. I pull the magazine closer then just as quickly pull it away again. I swear my eyes are getting worse. I attempt to read the name under the individual with the slightly obnoxious expression.

‘Fr-an-coise Li-bert,' I say, pronouncing it Libert as it is indeed spelt before realising the correct enunciation is Libair. ‘Francoise Libair,' I declare. I pull my glasses off and lift my face up to look at Cassie and Ruby. ‘Who is she?'

Cassie looks at Ruby and hits the middle of her forehead with the palm of her hand.

‘Oh my actual god. Really? You don't know who Francoise Libert is?'

Suddenly the front door swings open and a morose Maisy breezes past looking – if it's at all possible – more gothic than ever.

‘S'up loser?' she says to Cassie. She looks straight past me and nods at Ruby. ‘Right Ruby?'

‘Hey there Maisy,' Ruby replies. Maisy's barely there smile disappears. She scowls at Ruby.

‘My name is NOT Maisy, its Mania.'

‘Mais – I mean Mania,' Cassie interrupts like an excitable puppy. ‘Who's this?' she petitions Maisy, stabbing the photo on page twenty-two with her finger. ‘I bet even YOU know WHO this is?' Maisy refuses to hold the magazine but casts a surly eye at the photo Cassie is pointing to. She is quiet for a moment and
I'm
secretly hopeful I've found an ally.