Whitethorn Woods (36 page)

   I suppose it was good that she even saw me, most of them didn't. But to be seen and identified as peaky wasn't good. It was a funny phrase, something people said in British soap operas to someone who was about to die or who was pregnant or getting dumped.

   Peaky.

   Not a good thing to look. I hoped that Fabian hadn't heard. I smiled more brightly than ever, hoping to beat off whatever dull, dead sort of vibes I must be giving off.

   "I know, I know. I have to smile like that every night," the tenthirty said sympathetically. "Sometimes I feel like a big bawling session and that's when I have to smile most."

   She was very kind, interested and made me think she cared. I'm sure she's very good at her job, making ladies feel confident about lingerie—I bet they all confide things to her at her work because she sounds interested in other people. I looked around to see whether Fabian was in earshot. We had strict rules about not burdening the clients with our own personal problems.

   "It's just my husband, I think he's seeing someone else."

   "Believe me, he is," she said, applying her lip liner.

   "What?" I cried.

   "Sweetheart, I work for a place that is packed to the gills every night with people's husbands getting the catalogs just to ogle over them. That's what husbands do. It's not a problem unless you make it into one."

   "What do you mean?"

   "Listen to me—I know this, they like to look at the pictures and chat up birds. They don't want to leave their wives. They're not sorry they married them, it's just that they hate to think that it's all over and that they are missing out on whatever else is on offer. They sometimes feel that they've been filed away under 'Married Man.' Cross-reference, 'Dull Man.' A sensible wife would make nothing of it; the problem is a lot of them make a great, useless fuss about it—weakening everything as a result."

   I looked at her in amazement. How did she get such wisdom? This woman, whose modeling name was Katerina but who was probably called Vi, like myself at home.

   "You mean, put up with infidelity and cheating and pretend it isn't happening? You seriously mean that?" I asked her.

   "Yes, in a way I did mean that, for a bit anyway, until you know definitely it's true—and even if it is you must know definitely if it's going to be the end of the world if he has a bit of a whirl. Soon it could be nothing but a confused memory."

   "But suppose it's not just a bit of a whirl. Suppose he really does love her and not me. What happens then?"

   "Well, then he walks," said Katerina. "And there's nothing any of us can do. I'm just saying that the very worst scenario is to make a fuss now. Right?" She looked as if she had finished with the subject so I went onto autopilot again, got her hair rinsed and blowdried it to perfection. As she left she gave me a big tip.

   "You'll survive, Pandora, see you in six weeks," she said and glided like a lithe panther out of the salon.

   "Your eleven o'clock lady not in yet, Pandora?" Fabian had a control of the salon that would have been envied by any military leader in a war room. He knew what was going on, or not going on, in every corner. Together we looked at the appointment book. New client. A Ms. Desmond. It meant nothing to either of us.

   "Find out how she heard of us, won't you, Pandora?" he said, on the ball about work twenty-four hours a day.

   "Yes, of course, Fabian," I said automatically.

   Actually I would spend the time trying to find out how this had happened, my five-year-old marriage to Ian unraveling.

   First I had accidentally seen the bracelet in his drawer. for my darling, to celebrate the new moon, all my love, ian. I had no idea what he meant. We hadn't seen any new moon together recently or that I can remember at all.

   But it might be referring to something that was about to happen. I checked the diary: there would be a new moon on Saturday next. Possibly he was going to take me away somewhere to celebrate it. I wouldn't spoil the surprise. But there was no mention of an outing on Saturday, instead the rather depressing news that Ian would be away for the weekend on a conference. Still it didn't dawn on me. I must be very foolish. Thick? Trusting? Apply which word you choose.

   But last night Ian was very late home from the office and I went to bed at eleven because I was exhausted. I woke at four and he still wasn't back. Now this was worrying. He has a mobile phone, he could have called me. I tried calling him but he had the phone on voice mail. But at that very moment I heard his key in the door. I was so angry with him that I decided to pretend to be asleep and avoid a row. He took ages to come to bed, but I never opened my eyes. At one stage he went to his sock drawer and took out the bracelet. I opened my eyes just wide enough to see him smiling at the engraving and then he put it away. Deep in his briefcase.

   Ian always left the house earlier than I did. It took him ages to get to work in his car but he needed it for work. And for who knew what else? He could only have had three hours' sleep. He asked me what time I had gone to bed.

   "Eleven o'clock, I'm afraid I was dropping. What time did you come back?" I asked.

   "Oh, early hours of the morning, you were sleeping so very peacefully I didn't want to wake you. Such a bloody great fuss on at the office . . ."

   "Still, think of all the overtime," I reassured him, trying to force the suspicion out of my mind.

   "Not sure they'll pay anyway and listen, love, I have to go away for the weekend, there's a conference, bit of an honor really— I suppose I should be pleased but I know it's your weekend off so I'm so sorry." He put on his little-boy face that I used to find endearing. Until this morning, when I found it sickening.

   He was having an affair.

   Lots of things fitted into place now. I had made a list of all these things when he left.

   I had an hour before I needed to go out myself but I did not feel like washing up after Ian's breakfast, cleaning Ian's house, preparing Ian's dinner. I put on my coat and headed out the door as soon as I heard his car leave. I got on the first bus that came to the stop. It wasn't going to the part of Rossmore where Fabian's was but I didn't care. I just wanted to get away from the house where I had once been so happy. Once. But it was now like a prison.

   The bus stopped at the far edge of Whitethorn Woods and then was going to turn round and go back to wherever it had come from. Like a zombie I walked up through the woods. People said that they were going to be dug up to make a new road but that might just be a rumor. Anyway if the woods did go it would be nice to have a look at them now.

   I walked on, fighting back the sick feeling of dread in my chest, the feeling that it was all over and Ian loved someone else. Some horrible, scheming girl.

   He had been taken in by her, bought her a bracelet and was going to see the new moon with her.

   I had followed the wooden signs to the well. We used to come here when we were kids but I hadn't been since. Even at this early hour there were people praying. An old woman with her eyes closed. Two children with a picture of someone, their mother probably, asking for a cure. It was unreal and kind of sad.

   Yet, I thought, now that I'm here, it can't do any harm. I told St. Ann the situation. Quite simply. It was amazing what a short story it was really. Boy loves girl, boy finds other girl, first girl heartbroken. There must have been thousands and thousands of similar stories told here.

   I didn't feel any sense of hope or anything. In fact I felt a bit foolish. I didn't know what I was asking her.

   To afflict this new woman with some awful illness, maybe? St. Ann wouldn't do that.

   To change Ian's mind, really, I suppose that's all I wanted.

   Then I walked briskly to the gates of the woods and caught a bus to work.

   I traveled with a grim face into Rossmore and all morning I kept remembering more damning proof of the affair. The way he had refused to go bowling last week—normally he couldn't be kept away from it. How he had changed the subject twice when I asked him to do a business plan on buying that corner newsagents near us out in our suburb which was for sale and making it into a salon.

   "Let's not be too hasty," he had said. "Who knows where we'll be in a year or two?"

   Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted.

   "Your eleven o'clock lady is in," one of the juniors called.

   Ms. Desmond was waiting at the desk. She had a nice smile and she asked me to call her Brenda.

   "What a lovely name, Pandora!" she said wistfully. "I'd love to have been called that."

   Fabian didn't encourage us to tell clients that these were madeup names, in fact he actively discouraged it.

   "I think my mother was reading an over-fancy book at the time," I said, taking the grandeur away from it to reassure her.

   I liked this woman. Brenda Desmond handed her coat to the junior and sat down while we looked at her in the mirror.

   "I want to look terrific for the weekend," she said. "I'm going

off to a really gorgeous place in the country to look at the new moon with a new fellow."

   I looked at her reflection in the mirror and told myself that all over this town there were people going away for the weekend with new fellows. It didn't have to be Ian. My pleasant, interested smile was still there.

   "That's nice," I heard myself say. "And are you serious about him?"

   "Well, as much as I can be, he's not entirely free, alas, he says that's no problem but, you know, it does throw a wrench in the works. Funny phrase, that, I wonder where it comes from."

   "Probably it's quite a literal thing, like, you know, if a wrench falls into the works of some machine or is thrown into it, it sort of wrecks the whole machine," I said.

   She listened, interested.

   "You're right, it's probably quite straightforward. Are you interested in phrases and where they come from?"

   She was treating me like a real person with views, not someone who would crimp her hair. But I had to be sure that she was the one before I pulled every tuft of her flat, greasy hair out by the roots.

   "Yes, I am interested in words, I was just thinking about the word
bandbox
this morning. Do you know where that came from?"

   "Well, oddly I do, I looked it up once: a bandbox was a light box that held bands, like hair bands, I suppose, caps, millinery, that sort of thing."

   "Does it now?" I was actually interested. Imagine her knowing that! And why should a bandbox be so fresh and clean? But enough speculation. Back to work.

   "What do you think you'd like done?"

   "I don't really know, Pandora, I'm not much good about hair, I have to work so very hard, you see. We are flat out all the time. So this is a real excitement for me, I called in a sickie this morning, I can't go in tomorrow with a new hairdo or they'd suspect and then on Saturday I'm off for my wicked weekend with a colleague."

   "Where do you work?" I asked her. I could hear the words booming, resounding, echoing in my head.

   Please may she not say Ian's company.

   She said Ian's company.

   My hands were on her shoulders. I could have raised them and put them around her neck and choked her until she was dead. She wouldn't have been expecting it, you see, so it would have worked. She could be lying dead in the chair now.

   But I resisted it. There would have been too many repercussions.

   Instead I talked about hair.

   "You wear it fairly flattish," I said, amazed that I could function at all.

   "Yes. Do you think I should have it higher, and maybe some more shape? What do you suggest?" She didn't want to know what I would have suggested.

   I thought of my Ian running his hands through this woman's horrible limp hair, telling Brenda she was beautiful as he so often told Vi she was beautiful. It was almost too much to bear.

   "It's quite stylish the way it is," I said thoughtfully. "But let me ask Fabian, he always knows."

   I tottered on unsteady legs to Fabian.

   "New lady just loves her hair the way it is, think she could be a regular, can you come and tell her she looks fine."

   He peered across the salon.

   "She looks ludicrous," he said.

   "Fabian, you asked us to use our initiative to second-guess people, I'm doing that and suddenly now it's wrong." I looked offended.

   "No, you're right."

   He glided over and touched her head in that way he does. "Ms. Desmond, Pandora, who is one of our most esteemed stylists here, asked me to give my opinion. I think the classic style you have cho sen is perfect for your face, complements your features and I feel that all you need is a little, tiny trim."

   "You think it's nice?" she asked foolishly, and the great Fabian closed his eyes as if to say it was almost too nice to describe. It also prevented him from having to lie to her face.

   "Lucinda," I called to a junior. "Take my lady and give her a very good, thorough shampoo," I called. I hissed to Lucinda—who in real life was called Brid—to beat her head on the basin and get lots of soap in her eyes. The child not unnaturally wondered why.

   "Because she's an evil tramp and is sleeping with my best friend's husband," I hissed.

   Brid-Lucinda obliged. Brenda Desmond was brought limping, near blinded and aching back to my station. Brid-Lucinda had kicked her for good measure, pretending to fall over her feet. I put the greasiest gel I could find into her already-greasy hair and dried it until it looked like rats' tails on either side of her head. I cut it so that it ended up wispy and uneven. When any of the others looked over at it, I shrugged as if to ask, what could I do when these were the instructions I got?