Can't Anyone Help Me? (16 page)

He made an effort to gather himself together and feebly offered to drive me to wherever I wanted to go.

‘What? And be on my own with you for a moment longer? I don’t think so,’ I said derisively. ‘Don’t worry, I can get a bus.’

‘Wait a minute, Jackie.’

I watched as he fumbled around in the drawer before pulling out two more ten-pound notes to add to the money I had demanded from him. Holding them out to me, he attempted to get round me again. ‘Buy yourself something pretty while you’re there.’

I snatched them out of his fingers and pushed them into the pocket of my shirt without any show of the gratitude he might have expected or even a word of thanks. ‘Something pretty’ were the last words I would have used to describe what I was planning to buy. Without giving him another glance, I slammed the door behind me and set off for town.

First I went to the local branch of a large chemist where I browsed the makeup section. Watching my mother shop had taught me the rudimentary facts about what I needed. I inspected the rows of powders, blushers, lipsticks and other items, all promising instant transformation. Samples covered the backs of my hands until I found a foundation that matched my skin tone, and an orange lipstick that I thought was the perfect shade. Next, I chose a dark eye shadow, black liner and matching mascara. Then, from another aisle, I added red hair dye to my growing basket of purchases.

The next stop was the hairdresser. ‘Cut it all off,’ I said, flicking my plait in front of the stylist, a middle-aged woman, who viewed me worriedly.

‘Are you sure, dear?’ she asked, no doubt fearing that an avenging mother might appear, demanding that it was all put back together again.

‘Yes,’ I answered firmly. Then, because she still looked apprehensive, I continued, ‘My mum’s paying for it. It’s a birthday present. I just became a teenager.’ On the spur of the moment I added, ‘And she’s agreed I can start looking like one.’ I gave her what I thought was my most winning smile.

It worked, and an answering one lit her face. ‘Well, how nice. Shall we wash it first, dear?’

Not wanting to ask her how much extra that would cost, I just said, ‘No, I did it myself this morning.’ After all, I knew that, once I was back in my uncle’s house, it was going to get wet enough. She beckoned me to take a seat in front of a large mirror. A voluminous black gown was draped around my shoulders. My plait was undone, my blonde hair brushed out so it fell in waves down my back. She picked up the scissors with her left hand and my mass of hair with her right. I felt cool air on my neck and heard the clipping sound as she snipped away, section by section, the hair my uncle had loved until a golden carpet lay on the floor.

I had not wanted it cut off in one piece – I knew from my mother’s friends that human hair was made into the hairpieces that so often adorned the coiffured heads of someone with less abundant hair than I had. I had no intention of allowing a part of me to be turned into a mass of curls that would spend the rest of its life sitting either on top of a nest of hair tinted the same golden shade as mine or pinned to a white plaster model. First I made her cut it halfway. Then, assessing the length, I twisted my head round and asked for a little more to come off until it hung a couple of inches above my shoulders.

I watched the junior sweep it up until it overflowed from the dustpan, then enjoyed seeing all those long strands thrown into a bin. That’s the end of that, I thought.

A different face from the one I was used to stared back at me in the mirror. It seemed less round and my eyes appeared larger, but there was still the dusting of freckles across my nose that made my face look childlike. My fair brows and lashes were insignificant, but I already had plans to change them as well.

I ran my fingers through my hair, fluffed it so that soft curls fell around my face. Then, with hooked thumbs, I pulled it back behind my ears. ‘Like it?’ the hairdresser asked, as she held up a mirror for me to admire the back, and I nodded that I did.

Next stop was a small boutique that catered for teens. Inside I flicked through the rails in a determined fashion. Black jeans, a tight, long-sleeved T-shirt and a leather belt with a large silver buckle were soon piled on the counter. The assistant, a girl of around sixteen with black dyed hair and a silver stud in her nose, looked at me disdainfully. She pointedly moved the price tags so I was looking at them. ‘It’s my birthday today,’ I improvised again. ‘I’m thirteen,’ I told her, in case she thought the clothes I had chosen were unsuitable for a twelve-year-old. ‘My mother said I was old enough to choose for myself.’ Another doubtful look came my way. ‘It was her who told me about this shop,’ I added ingratiatingly.

That was not exactly true – my mother never shopped in the area where my uncle lived. But when I had accompanied her to the hairdresser and glanced longingly at a similar shop’s windows, she had said that the clothes were cheap and tacky. However, that was not the message I wanted to put across at this particular moment.

‘Birthday’ worked on her as it had on the hairdresser. The disdain left her face as she smiled and told me she remembered her first ‘grown-up’ outfit when it was her choice and not her mother’s.

Seeing that she was now firmly on my side, I told her there was something else I wanted. Suddenly feeling shy, I said, ‘A black bra, please.’

I didn’t want to wear the sensible white teen one my mother had bought for me under duress beneath all my new black clothes.

A tape measure was wound expertly under my small breasts, then again in the centre. ‘A size thirty, A cup,’ she said. Seeing my pout of disappointment, she assured me that the bra I held was cleverly constructed to make the most of my measurement.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll take it – but I want to try everything on.’ I gathered up my selection and went into the changing room. Off came the pleated skirt, the blouse with the Peter Pan collar and the pastel jumper that were the foundation of the wardrobe my mother considered suitable for a twelve-year-old girl. I put the bra on first. The shop assistant was right: I had a bust – a small one, but it was there all the same. Next I pulled on the jeans and T-shirt and buckled the belt round my waist.

‘Yup,’ I said to myself, as I preened in front of the mirror. Not quite there yet, but very cool.

‘I’ll take everything,’ I said to the assistant. ‘Birthday money,’ I told her, as she caught sight of the notes I unfolded.

‘Lucky girl,’ she said.

Yeah, right, really lucky.

Out of the shop I went, clutching bags with the shop’s smart logo on them. Then I walked round the corner to a shoe shop. No way was I going to wear my Clarks sandals with black jeans.

A pair of Dr Martens was what I wanted – those work boots with their thick soles and round toes that laced right up the ankle. It might have been the latest craze with teenagers but it was a style my mother called ‘ugly’. I was determined to possess a pair.

‘Birthday present,’ I said, for the third time that day. Once again it worked, turning dour assistant into instant friend, and my latest purchase was placed in a bag.

All that shopping and spending was thirsty work, I decided, so I took myself to the popular local café. There I ordered a large frothy coffee. I spooned in the sugar and watched it sink slowly into the foam. I was pleased with my day’s shopping, and for a few moments, I happily visualized returning to my uncle’s and trying everything on together.

I pushed aside the thought that was lurking at the back of my mind: And then what?

Suddenly I became aware of the people around me and realized I was the only person sitting alone. At some tables groups of friends squeezed together, gesticulating and talking animatedly. There were couples, some with small children. On one adjacent table a mother sat with her teenage daughter. They looked happy in each other’s company and were talking together, the girl giggling as her mother shared an amusing anecdote. All around me I could hear the buzz of laughter and chatter. I did not want to admit it to myself, but suddenly I felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. It was as though I was in an invisible bubble that separated me from the world around me. It was as though I could see all those people but they were completely unaware of me.

A memory slid into my mind then. I had a picture of a pavement café with just a few tables and chairs outside a bakery. There, the air was scented with the aroma of freshly baked bread, coffee and pine trees. Above me the sky was a vast expanse of cloudless blue, and the huge yellow globe of the sun cast down its hot rays.

There was an olive-skinned man who spoke in a different language and placed in front of me a small glass of coffee. My father and I were sitting there together. He was smiling – a warm smile that felt like an embrace. He had bought me my first cup of coffee. Not like the frothy one with a scattering of cocoa powder on top that I was drinking now, just a freshly made brew of strong black coffee. I remembered the happiness I had experienced then, and recalled how content I had been simply to sit and bask in his company. I had thought it the most delicious thing I had ever tasted.

We had laughed together at a tabby cat that was sitting with its leg raised, slowly and carefully washing itself. ‘Playing the cello,’ my father had said, with a chuckle, and I laughed with him. But the memory failed to warm me. Instead it made me feel empty and sad. I pushed it firmly away: I didn’t want any dark clouds hovering on the horizon to spoil this momentous day. ‘I’m celebrating my independence,’ I told myself, and picked up my cappuccino.

I dawdled in town a while longer and went to a music shop. I chose two cassettes, Madonna’s
Like A Virgin
, and a hip-hop one the assistant recommended by some young black Americans called Run DMC. I cheered myself up with the thought that Kat would like listening to those and that my parents would hate them.

Shopped and now completely spent out, I made my way back to my uncle’s house. I gave him what I hoped was a scornful look when he gasped at the sight of my shorn hair, then carried my bags upstairs and locked myself into the bathroom. I squeezed the tube of red dye on to my hair, rubbed it in to spread it evenly, then combed it through. Not wanting to splatter the bathroom’s white tiles with red blotches, I decided that the safest place to sit while it ‘took’ was in the bath. I filled it, climbed in and waited for thirty minutes as the leaflet had instructed.

Once my watch told me the time was up, I ducked my head under the water, until I was reasonably sure I had rinsed it all off. Out of the bath, I blew it dry with my aunt’s hair-drier. When I surveyed the finished job I thought that, although it was a bit patchy in places, it still looked pretty startling and that was exactly what I wanted.

Next it was time for my face to get its makeover. I smoothed on pale foundation to hide those freckles. Next I stroked mascara on to the blonde lashes I disliked so much. I had watched my mother ‘put on her face’ too often not to get it right, and leant in to the mirror to colour my eyebrows.

Then it was time for the final dramatic touch: the orange lipstick. One sweep and a new me stared back from the mirror. Enormous blue eyes, framed by thick black lashes, under a delicate arch of darkened brows, stared back at me. I felt a twinge of excitement – I looked so different. No longer was that childish plait swinging across my back but bright red hair curled around my face while a fringe swept across my forehead.

I wriggled into my new clothes and stood in front of the mirror. ‘
Voilà
,’ I said out loud (well, I had attended
some
French classes). Goodbye to wearing children’s clothes and looking like a child. The girl reflected in my aunt’s bevelled mirror no longer looked like one who came from an expensive privileged suburb but one who was sussed and well able to take care of herself. And she certainly looked older than her twelve years. ‘Wicked,’ I said to myself. This was definitely the new me.

That day I felt as though I had been reborn. I stared into the glass willing the other child, the one who had been scared, controlled and needy, to leave. I was now a teenager who dressed in black clothes and wore orange lipstick. I looked like a person in charge of her life. ‘One who won’t take shit off anyone’ were the words that came into my head.

The blue-eyed-blonde-haired-baby look that I so hated, and my uncle and his friends so loved, was gone. My darkened lashes looked longer, my face thinner. I placed one hand on my hip and tossed my hair. ‘Wicked,’ I said again. I flicked my hair one last time and sauntered nonchalantly downstairs to face my aunt and uncle.

They looked a bit startled. My uncle muttered something about me looking nice, and my aunt did as she normally did: cooked and made small-talk. ‘You look very grown-up, dear,’ was all she said.

When I returned home, my mother thought otherwise. No doubt fearing her wrath, my uncle had dropped me off with my case. Before I even had the front door open, he had sped away down the road.

A stream of questions was fired at me: where had the clothes come from, what had I done to my hair and what did I think I looked like? She wanted the red dye washed out immediately.

‘Can’t. It’s semi-permanent,’ I said defiantly. One or two washes might make it fade but that was all. She was only too aware of that.

‘Whatever will the school say?’ she moaned. ‘Thank goodness it’s the holidays and there’s another week left. I’ll ask my stylist what we can do with it.’