Material Girl (35 page)

I lean forwards to give her a hug, but she turns and walks away, shutting the door behind her.

I have barely finished flicking through
Elle
for the second time when the door flies opens and Dolly stumbles back in.

‘That was quick,’ I tell her.

‘I’m spent, Lulu. I’m exhausted, and that fool is driving me doolally, doolally I tell you! Take it all off again, Lulu, I’m going back to the hotel.’

‘Fair enough,’ I say, as she slumps down into her chair and drops her rings on the counter, scooping up a dollop of hand-cream. ‘Shall I put a CD on? Have you got any others, or do you want Ella again?’ I ask.

‘Ella will be fine. Good music can stand repeat plays. It occurred to me, Lulu, when I was upstairs just now, that I meant to ask you: When you went home did you talk to your chap? Last night, when I sent you home to confront him? Did you actually confront him?’

‘There was no confrontation. Well, not that kind at least. Although there was a pasta … incident. But there was football on.’

‘So you didn’t even try, darling?’ she asks sadly.

‘No, well, barely. But he wanted to watch the football, there was nothing I could do.’

‘But you must try, Lulu. We must always try, in everything. And you say he wanted to watch football? Well he couldn’t have watched it if you’d, say, thrown a plate through the television. This is what I mean, Lulu, we must try, and try, and try harder! If something is to be wonderful we must all try harder to make it wonderful. I hear this damn foolish notion these days that if something doesn’t come utterly naturally, then it is too much work. Love shouldn’t be that hard, they say. What rubbish! What could be harder than love, day in, day out, when there is a choice there? But what can be more rewarding? You should try tonight instead, perhaps, Lulu?’

I sigh. ‘We’ll see.’

‘But you must.’

‘Why? What is it that’s so important to you?’ I ask, already exhausted at the prospect of trying to pin Ben down, again, to a conversation he doesn’t want to have and a truth he doesn’t think he owes me.

‘Well, now. It
is
important to me, Lulu. Because I don’t want you to be a silly girl who lets this fool get away with it. And because, in a way, you remind me of me. I like your glamour, Lulu. And I like your spirit. And I won’t let some damned man spoil those for you.’

‘Thank you,’ I tell her, and pull her hair back from her face, wiping her clean. The CD plays quietly in the corner.

‘Dear Ella, she smoked about one hundred cigarettes a day, you know.’

‘It’s amazing she didn’t cough up ash,’ I say.

‘Well, darling, so did Nat King Cole, that’s where his voice came from. Cigarettes aren’t all bad, especially if you don’t want to live to a hundred. Do you smoke, Lulu?’

‘Sometimes. Not often. Mostly if I’m drunk.’

‘I think you might like it, as a habit. It gives you a bit of time to yourself, during the day, these five-minute pockets
of time just for you, dotted into your life at regular intervals, and it might calm you down a little, Lulu, stop you getting so flustered all the damn time.’

‘Do you still smoke?’ I ask, dabbing at the black mascara on her eyes.

‘Oh no, Lulu, not now, but I used to, all the time. Oh I smoked in public, Lulu, when it wasn’t fashionable for a woman to do so. But it empowered me, in a way. I think perhaps a little too much. This was in the Fifties, and the Sixties, when my hair was still dark, and so long I could wrap it around my throat like a scarf to protect me from the wind. It was down to my waist, almost black, and it always smelt, faintly, of those menthol cigarettes, and lavender. We all smelt of Lavender, my sisters and I. I told you I would tell you about them, didn’t I? Well when I was young, before Charlie took me to Los Angeles, we lived in Broadstairs, darling, by the sea. And my mother’s house always smelled of lavender, you see, there were bushes all around the house like a sweet-smelling insulation, keeping out the bad smells, Lulu, and the bad people as well. The wasps warned them off, they would sting the bad ones away. I stayed out of the sun, I was pale, with this long, dark hair. I had four sisters, Lulu, four. Imagine that! The fights were glorious in our little house, we all shared a room, and Eileen, my oldest sister, she would boss us about and the screams could be heard down the beach and beyond, across the water maybe! But I was the youngest, Lulu, the baby, and so everybody spoiled me and nobody wanted to upset me too much. We all looked the same of course, me and Eileen, and Lucy and Margaret and Anne. We all had our long, dark hair and our violet eyes. My mother used to say we were one egg split into five.’

‘But they weren’t all as beautiful as you?’ I ask.

‘Well, yes and no, Lulu. Striking, yes. But everybody
always used to say there was something about me. I was the grand one, the dramatic one, sweeping into rooms. I knew the effect that I had. You must feel it too, Lulu. When you walk into a room, and you see one hundred sets of eyes flick towards you all at once like the breeze blew them your way. It’s a warm breeze, that’s for certain. But it’s still just a breeze. For a while I thought those eyes meant that I deserved the world, and should have it –
But look how much everybody wants me
, I thought.
I am a goddess, and a goddess should get what she wants
. But age teaches you that it is just not true. You get what you deserve, and beauty only deserves those glances. Anything more you have to fight for like the rest of them. But my mother always called me urgent, you see, and the boys always called me luminous. I suppose I practised it as well. I developed this lonely quality to my voice. A kind of arrogance, I suppose, because of being so spoiled, and being the baby. My mother always said that I was flushed with life and that is what really gave me my beauty, so even though as sisters we all looked almost the same, I had a look that was only mine as well. She said that I always appeared excited and a little out of breath. I had the look of a girl who had run all the way down the beach, desperate to find somebody, to tell them good news. That’s how she described me.’

‘It sounds like you were very close.’ I rest the hot muslin on her face and it makes her jump a little, but she doesn’t say anything, and instead takes deep breaths.

‘Oh, yes, we were very close. We were like a fairytale really. We lived in Broadstairs all that time, in the lavender house, and my mother, Winifred – but her friends called her Fred – was a tiny woman, with glasses that sat on the end of her nose as if poised to fall off. My sisters were all just older versions of me in temperament, and we were all just younger versions of our mother, truth be told. And she wanted us to
do everything, try everything. We’d read poetry to each other and sing songs and dance. Men would come and call and we’d each go off for walks along the beach. Anne was the worst, sometimes two walks a day, with two different men! And sometimes we’d come back with sand in our hair, and sometimes not. And some of our neighbours would tut at us in town, but my mother would fix them with a stern stare and say seriously, “I have been a slut myself, so why not my girls?” She rolled her own cigarettes. Maybe one of these days I’ll show you. And when Charlie said he’d take me to LA, well she damn near put me on the plane herself. And there were no tears. Because nobody died, you see, Lulu. That was her motto, you know. “A woman should display strength and grace,” she said. “A woman shouldn’t topple in the wind.”’

‘What about your father, where was he?’

‘Oh, he left one day, and nobody really seemed to notice. It was better that way. I think the noise disturbed him, you see.’

‘And you slept with boys on the beach and your mum encouraged it? How old were you?’ I ask, surprised.

‘Oh, in my teens, I suppose. Eighteen, maybe. But it wasn’t sordid, Lulu, it was joyful. Life-loving. We had so much fun in those dunes, it was the start of life. Some people thought that life could escape you, in a little village like that, but you can bring life to you anywhere you go, it will come and find you if you want it to. The problem was that the boys didn’t always see it that way, as fun and life-loving and joyful, and they always proposed, to all of us. Of course, Anne fell pregnant, so she accepted quite early, but not the rest of us. And of course in those days most girls longed to marry, the boys couldn’t understand it, but we were never the sort, we were having too much fun with our mother in Lavender House. And it was always a mistake to ask us. Of course I did end
up marrying, four times, but still. It was always a mistake to ask. I can’t count how many proposals I’ve had, more than there are Chinamen. And I always thought, why have you proposed, you see? Just to keep me, just to trap me? Let’s just take what we can give each other and move on. You don’t have to give it a name, or make it permanent. It won’t be. You can’t be happy all of the time, you can’t live like that forever. And I’d mourn them, these men who weren’t always ready to move on, but my heart was still in the grave of one love affair when I’d start making eyes at another man. It nearly killed me, but I couldn’t help it, Lulu! It was all because I was beautiful. Oh Lulu, I was spreading havoc before I knew any better.’ She smiles sadly and it slips from her face as she falls asleep. I take off the last of her make-up, but she jolts upright about five minutes later as I whisper around the room tidying up. Pushing herself to her feet, she shuffles her M&S slippers towards the door.

‘My car will be upstairs. I’ll see you tomorrow, Lulu. Friday. For fish!’

I check my watch. It’s an hour before I am due to meet Helen for dinner. I look in the mirror. I look okay. I swipe ‘Heartbreak Blue’ across my lips and head for Charing Cross Road.

I spot her stickering books on a table. She looks even more unkempt than usual. Her blonde hair has formed a thicket on her crown, it looks like it hasn’t been combed or washed in days. Her cardigan has a hole which she pokes her thumb through. Her dress is pink with black and yellow flowers, buttoned up at the front. The top button is straining to burst. Her cowboy boots are scuffed and dirty and brown. The black around her eyes is the same as usual, with lashings of mascara. She has a layer of puppy fat that keeps her warm. A streak of cheap glitter is splashed across her lips.
Her cheeks are more flushed than usual, she has gone crazy with cream blusher and she has a round pink circle, like an apple, on either cheek. I grab a book off the nearest counter – it’s Steinbeck,
The Winter of our Discontent
– and head over.

‘Oh, hi,’ I say, as if I am utterly surprised to see her, here, where she works every day.

She looks up, and a smiles breaks across her face like a warm wave.

‘Hi! How are you?’ she asks, her eyes wide. She reaches out a hand to touch my arm but stops herself.

‘I’m good, I’m well, how are you?’

‘I’m good. Really good. I mean, I’m bored, of course,’ she gestures at the books on the table, ‘but I’m so glad you came in. Can I tell you something stupid? I’ve been waiting for you for days!’ She rolls her eyes dramatically and laughs.

‘Really?’ I ask, taken aback.

She points at her cheeks.

‘I don’t know what I am supposed to be looking at,’ I say, confused.

‘My blusher!’ she says triumphantly.

‘Right?’ I am confused.

‘I, like, completely copied you. I know that makes me, like, a complete rip-off, of you, but I just thought it looked so nice, and then I saw it in
Vogue
as well, and I thought I should, like, try it, but I wanted you to see it. So …’

‘So?’ I say.

‘So what do you think?’

‘Of your blusher?’ I ask.

‘Yeah! Does it look all right?’

‘I think …’ She looks like a Russian doll. I lean forwards and rest my thumbs underneath her cheekbones. ‘I think you need to blend it a little more,’ I say, and smudge it in. Her cheeks feel plump under my thumbs like stress balls
that bounce back into place as soon as you’ve squeezed them.

She stares at me, her pupils dilating. I don’t know what I am doing. ‘Do you think you could, like, show me? Properly?’

‘What, how to blend blusher? I suppose, I don’t see why not.’ I hold her gaze for as long as I can before looking away.

‘How about tonight?’ She claps her hands and squeals like a child.

‘Oh no, I can’t tonight, I have plans.’

‘How about Saturday?’ she suggests, without a breath, without a doubt or an insecurity.

‘Okay, I could do Saturday.’

‘Great! Fab! I know this great bar, it’s all dark and mysterious and you can smoke one of those hubble bubble pipes. It’ll be, like, a complete laugh. What do you think?’

‘Okay, it sounds like fun. Shall I meet you here?’

‘Yeah, I’m working till eight on Saturday – boring! – so if you want to swing by here, we could get a cab. It’s near Marble Arch.’

‘Okay. I’ll bring some samples.’

‘Great, why not?’ she says, and smiles a huge smile again. I smile back as honestly as I can.

‘Well, I’ll see you then, then. My name is Scarlet, by the way. Oh, can I pay you for this?’ I offer her the Steinbeck.

When she takes it from me she touches my hand. ‘Don’t be rubbish, Scarlet, I’ll get it for you, I get a staff discount. It’ll cost me, like, two pounds or something. I’ll give it to you on Saturday, then you can’t stand me up!’