I can’t think of anything I’d like to do less. I can just picture it. Alice, all full of fake bonhomie; the oldies getting squiffy and promising loudly (and falsely) to keep in touch.
No. I’d rather stare at my uneaten cake and find out what’s on Radio 4.
Yet it stings.
It’s the, ‘You’re very welcome to join us’, thing. It wasn’t, ‘Oh no, Hester, you have to come to the pub! It wouldn’t be the same without you!’ Ha! It’s like I’m an afterthought. And now my silly eyes blur and kaleidoscope Alice’s face in front of me.
But I still have my pride. I have achieved what I set out to do. I have learned how to use a computer. I am finished here.
‘No thank you,’ I say and then the lie just slides out of my mouth. ‘My daughter and grandchild are visiting later. I have things to do today.’
‘Oh?’ Alice seems to chew the word and then the bright smile is plastered over her face once again. ‘Well, I hope you have a lovely time with them? It’s been great meeting you?’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ I say, before walking quickly away towards the exit.
I catch Binnie’s eye, and I can see her look of surprise.
I expect Terry is laughing in his grave.
MELISSA
As the stylist cocks the mirror to show her the back of her hair, Melissa can’t help picturing a shaven-headed teenager in a Moscow bedsit.
‘Looking gorgeous, don’t you think?’ says Susie.
Melissa nods and forces a tight smile. They say the best hair comes from Russia, and this type of blonde is worth every penny of the ￡400. If only she could get rid of the lurid Gulag imagery.
‘Those’ll see you right for another six weeks or so,’ says Susie, with a kindly squeeze of her shoulders.
‘Great, thanks Susie.’
But it’s hard to feign the enthusiasm she knows is expected. The whirr and blast of hairdryers and the tinny thud of the background music have anaesthetized her into a kind of stupor. She can’t even quite remember what she and Susie had been talking about during the endless hours she has been sitting in this chair. She feels somehow bonded to it.
Her reluctance to get up prompts Susie to speak quietly into her ear.
‘Why don’t you finish your tea before you go?’ she says in her soft Geordie accent. ‘Boss likes to get people out the door, if you know what I mean, but you’re all right for a bit longer. My eleven o’clock hasn’t even arrived yet.’
Melissa murmurs her gratitude as Susie bustles away and reaches for the delicate china teacup cooling next to the jumble of brushes, scissors, and tongs in front of her.
The cloth pyramid of camomile tea has a greasy shine to it and the liquid is tepid and almost slimy as it slips down her throat, which feels scratchy. She coughs experimentally and begins to fret. It would be the worst time to come down with something. She could picture herself croaking miserably at people over the music of the party. There’s some zinc and vitamin C at home. She’ll dose herself up with them later.
Looking back at her reflection, she runs a hand through her hair, turning her head this way and that. She takes care not to snag the tiny plugs woven into her own thin, expensively dyed tresses, which now hang in glossy waves the colour of butterscotch, wishing yet again that she didn’t always do this. Wonder about the provenance of the hair, that is.
Surely there’s nothing wrong with it? It’s no different from the Bio Gel that adorn her fingers in a colour she is told is ‘French Nude’, although Melissa thinks her fingertips look a bit creepy. Android, almost. She wonders what percentage of her is now artificial.
But the extensions feel different. She pictures some poor pretty girl losing the only asset she has so that a rich woman thousands of miles away can enjoy the weight of it on her shoulders. All too easy to picture the grubby transaction involved in selling your own hair.
It is as she is musing gloomily on this that she feels a strange prickle of unease, like there has been a ripple in the atmosphere, a tiny, fizzing depth charge deep in the primeval part of her brain.
She frowns and looks around.
Someone is watching her. Melissa turns her head sharply to look at the main window. It is slightly steamed up and the displays of flowers – ugly spiky things that she privately detests but which are presumably deemed stylish – obscure the view a little but she can see a swatch of High Street outside.
People drift or march past the window. It’s a perfectly ordinary day in North London.
Life bustles on, oblivious to Melissa. No one is looking in at her.
Of course they aren’t. What was she expecting? Who was she expecting?
She gets up crisply and walks to the desk to pay, her stomach still roiling queasily from the shock of thinking she was being watched. Her back aches and her bottom is stiff from hours of sitting.
Susie seems to materialize from nowhere and, taking care not to damage her newly faked nails, Melissa rummages for her purse and then opens the small wooden box that has been discreetly placed in front of her, containing the bill.
Melissa knew that this morning wouldn’t come cheap, but still, the cost of hair extensions and styling, manicure, pedicure, and eyebrow threading, at almost ￡600, gives her a thrill of transgressive pleasure.
She hopes Mark will choke on his coffee, as she pushes her credit card across the counter to Susie and looks for a twenty to leave as a tip. If he’s going to behave like one of those husbands, then she will be one of those wives.
Outside on the High Street it feels like the contrast button on an old television has been turned up too high. Everything is too bright; nauseatingly colourful. Melissa feels the sharp pinch of a headache beginning in her forehead. She finds her sunglasses and pushes them onto her face a little clumsily, eyes greedy for the shade. A branch of Boots is just over the road and Melissa decides to buy some water and paracetamol before setting off home. Maybe she can head this thing off at the pass so she can enjoy the party later. The caterers will be almost finished now and all that needs to be done is to oversee the Ocado delivery, which is bringing the majority of the booze. It’s a bit late, but they let her down yesterday, citing some sort of freezer catastrophe. She hopes the champagne will have enough time to chill for this evening.
It is as she is crossing over to Boots that Melissa feels the crawling sensation again, like fingertips skittering across her skin. She is certain now that it isn’t in her head. She read once that it’s something to do with peripheral vision.
Someone is definitely watching her.
Melissa’s heart begins to thud uncomfortably hard as she whips around in a full circle, eyes narrowed behind her dark lenses. Someone has just been swallowed up by the doors of Superdrug but she didn’t see them clearly. The High Street is busy – full of normal people, gazing into phone screens, yanking irritable children along, or, in the case of the few old people dotted about, ambling painstakingly with shoppers or small decrepit dogs. No one is staring at Melissa.
Goosebumps scatter across her arms and she shivers, even though the air is close and heavy. A car alarm shrieks nearby and Melissa flinches. The air feels soupy, with traffic fumes mingling with the cigarette smoke wafting from a doorway, where a young woman’s head is bent over her mobile, apparently having a furious conversation at low volume.