by Hodge, Sibel
‘No.’
‘They mistook you for a mental patient and sectioned you?’
I couldn’t wait any longer and blurted out what had happened with Doctor Savage and Justin.
‘It’s weird, but since this whole change-your-life thing started, I haven’t really thought about Justin at all. And then today, he turns up out of the blue wanting me back.’ I stopped wrapping the biscuits and turned towards her.
‘Surely you’re not even considering going back to him.’
I sighed. ‘I just don’t know what to do. I’ve been racking my brain all afternoon, trying to think. I’m so confused. Just when I’ve started to get my life back on track, he turns up again.’ I took a breath. ‘Since this whole challenge thing started, I’m starting to really question what I want. I’m not sure that Justin is it anymore. And the one thing that really hit home today is just how desperately I want children. I want to settle down and have my own family, instead of borrowing yours all the time.’
So, here’s the thing I haven’t told you yet: officially, my nan is my only living relative. Unofficially, of course, there’s Ayshe’s family. My parents died in a car crash when I was five, and I’d gone to live with my nan, who'd brought me up. We’d always enjoyed a close relationship, and she was a constant source of inspiration to me. Sadly, she was now suffering from Alzheimer’s and was completely cuckoo. But the reason I hate to mention it is because you’d probably be thinking of that well known phrase ‘time heals,’ when, in fact, all it does is fade the past into a kind of sepia blur, like a hazy, out of focus photo. And I’m not proud of this, but no matter how hard I try now to remember my parents, I really can’t. Instead, all the memories I have are of Ayshe’s family taking me under their wing at the worst time of my childhood. Birthday parties they had for me, making me feel the centre of attention, as if I was special, trying to let me forget that it should’ve been my parents baking me the cake and playing pin the tail on the donkey. The family gatherings they always included me in, giving me a sense of belonging, despite the fact that my parents couldn’t. Knowing that I could always go to them with a problem, and they would drop everything to be there for me. Don’t get me wrong, my nan had always been great, and I loved her to death, it’s just that for the longest part of my life, I felt like I’d been stealing my best friend’s life. And the thing that only really hit me today was that maybe I just wanted my own family and sense of belonging so much, that I’d pinned all my hopes on Justin, even though perhaps he wasn’t the right one.
‘I think deep down that you know what the right choice is. You just have to have more faith in yourself to make it. Maybe the answer will come if you stop thinking about it.’ She put her arm round my shoulder and paused for a while. ‘You have to come shopping with me on Saturday. I need a new outfit for my hen night, and you need to get out of those old clothes. There’s nothing like a bit of retail therapy to boost your confidence.’ She looked me up and down. ‘Oh – and Charlie has sort of invited himself to the hen night.’
‘Charlie! But he’s a man. He can’t come on your hen night.’
‘Yeah, but he’s gay so it doesn’t count. Anyway, you know what he’s like. I’m sure he’ll liven up the night.’ She giggled. ‘Atila told me today that he’s booked a surprise for you and me the day after the hen night. He won’t tell me what it is yet, but he thinks we’ll love it, and it can count as part of your daily challenge as well – I can’t wait, it sounds so exciting. And from next Wednesday onwards I’ve got three whole weeks off work, yippee!’
‘Mmm, wedding next Sunday and then off on your glorious honeymoon. Oh, you’re so lucky to be getting married.’ I poked her in the leg. I was slightly green with envy. Well I was only human.
‘It will happen to you, too, I know it will. Stop worrying about your life so much and chill.’
I stuffed one of the biscuits we were wrapping in my mouth. ‘These are really good, where did you get them?’ I mumbled, spilling crumbs down my front.
‘Mum got them from the Turkish deli – oh, and speaking of her, she’s organized a family dinner next Monday night. She wanted to do a traditional Turkish henna night for me before the wedding, and you have got to come.’
I reached for another biscuit and dunked it into my mug of cold coffee. ‘Ooh, sounds like fun.’
‘You know what Mum’s like. It’ll probably be completely over the top and Dad will be pissed again.’
She slapped my hand away as I reached for another biscuit.
I uncrossed my legs, picking up a letter from the coffee table. ‘Do you want me to post this? I’m going into town tomorrow. Thought I might get Marco to try and do something with my hair.’ I studied the writing on the envelope.
‘Mmm, it’s about time.’ She looked up at my hair.
‘I didn’t know you donated to the Animal Defence League.’ I waved it about.
‘Thanks, but it’s not mine. It’s Kalem’s. He’s sent them money for years – hey, you know what; I think the right guy for you is someone who’s like Kalem.’
‘Huh?’
‘Trouble is,’ she mused, ‘you always go for the wrong type. What you need is someone more basic.’
‘Basic?’ I frowned. ‘You mean boring?’
‘No. I mean someone more down-to-earth, who’s stable, sensitive and more family-orientated instead of the usual materialistic arses you normally go for who take longer to do their hair in the mornings than you do. The problem is that you’re obsessed with perfection, but you’ve got a distorted view about what perfection really is. You think the perfect man comes in the perfect little package: flawless good looks, perfect job, rich, expensive car. It’s easy to get swept up by all that. But that’s just surface stuff. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.
I ran a hand through my unruly curls, deep in thought until Ayshe sprang up, collecting a pile of the neat little packages – well, hers were neat, mine looked a bit shite. ‘Come on, get your feet out. I’m going to give you a proper pedicure. I saw that mess you made last time you tried. What if the doctor gets to see your feet again?’
Chapter 9
Friday, day 5 – Stilton Sauce Stains
I scurried into town the next morning at the crack of dawn, hoping to book in with Marco before the busy weekend rush started. He was a bit of a bully, but he really did work wonders with my hair – apart from the time he’d given me a crispy perm which was so tight I looked like Shirley Temple and had to walk around with conditioner on my hair for two days, trying to get it to relax.
I pushed the door open to find Charlie sitting alone in the shop, highlighting cap on and Clingfilm wrapped round his head. Marco was Charlie’s on-off boyfriend. Today it must have been on.
Marco danced over towards me. ‘Helen! Where have you been?’ he sang in a camp accent, picking up sections of my hair, studying it with intense interest. ‘Urgh!’ He jumped back, discovering the split ends. ‘You are sooo freaky!’
‘Can you do anything with it?’ I asked.
‘He’s doing me now,’ Charlie butted in.
‘Now, now, I can do both. I am the great Marco.’ He flounced, very prima donna-ish, clapping his hands loudly to call Susie, his long-suffering assistant. ‘Sooz! Get the lovely Helen gowned up and put her there.’ He pointed to the empty leather chair next to Charlie.
‘How are you, then, Charlie?’ I sat down, staring at the ridiculous sight of him crammed into black leather trousers, which were so tight they must have been shrink-wrapped onto him, and a shrieking pink, shiny top. His belly was contorted into rolls of flab beneath it, which looked severely uncomfortable, and I was sure he’d been stuffing socks down his trousers again.
‘I’m fabby, darling.’
‘Why aren’t you working?’ I eyed his sock with suspicion.
‘Waiting for inspiration.’ Charlie glanced over and caught me looking.
Charlie was an IT boffin who worked from home, mostly late at night, banging around like a crazed ins
omniac.
He picked up a pair of reading glasses and slid them on. ‘Who would you most like to look like?’ He waved an OK! Magazine at me.
‘Out of who and who?’ I glanced over at him as Marco shoved his beaky nose in the colour charts.
Charlie looked baffled. ‘Who?’
‘You said who would I most like to look like. Is there a choice between certain people, or is it out of any of the six million billion people in the whole world?’
‘Oh, I see what you mean.’ Charlie nodded in thought.
‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous,’ Marco snapped at Charlie.
Marco pushed a colour chart under my nose. ‘You must have some streaks put in. I was thinking…soft copper and caramel. Hmm? Oh, my God, I think I can see a grey hair!’ He blinked at my head about five million times. I moved closer to the mirror and studied my hair.
No, he must be mistaken, I couldn’t see anything – wait a minute, though – oh, God! There was one. It was standing up on end and opera singing to the whole world its existence. I tried to pull it out but Marco slapped my hand away.
‘Ha!’ Charlie scoffed. ‘I knew you couldn’t go a whole day without being a bitch.’
‘Oh, shut up! I know what I’m talking about.’ Marco glared at Charlie.
‘Oooh, grumpy knickers.’ Charlie flicked through the magazine.
‘Whatever you think, Marco,’ I said.
‘Sooz!’ Marco bellowed in my ear and his giant Elvis quiff wobbled like a jelly about to collapse.
Susie ambled over with a disinterested look on her face. Her hair colour changed every time I went in there. This week it was pink and white.
‘Mix up these colours and then get Helen a latte,’ he barked at her.
Charlie held up a picture to me. ‘OK, out of David Beckham and Posh?’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Who would you most like to look like?’ He rolled his eyes.
‘Oh, we’re back to that, are we?’ I studied the picture.
Marco tutted at him and began sectioning off my hair; he applied lowlights and then wrapped them carefully in foil.
‘Neither,’ I said.
‘No.’ Charlie insisted. ‘You have to pick one.’
‘Why would I want to look like David Beckham?’ I asked.
Charlie crossed his legs, squashing his sock. ‘Well, I would.’
‘But you’re a man, sort of.’ Marco pointed the end of his comb at him.
I took a sip of my coffee and splurted it out, laughing.
‘What have you done to your eyebrows? I’m soo jealous, I love them.’ Marco scrutinized my eyebrows.
‘She finally started plucking them again,’ Charlie said.
‘Ah. I’ve started up my salsa and merengue classes again.’ Marco looked up at me in the mirror. ‘Had to stop for summer, no one wants to be gyrating around in the heat, do they? You should come. From what I hear, you’ve been moping around in your flat ever since you threw that shagger out.’
‘Who told you that?’ I shrieked, glancing over at Charlie, who looked sheepish.
Marco cocked his head at Charlie. ‘He did.’
I sighed. ‘Well, it seems that the Justin wants me back.’
‘Agh!’ Charlie gasped. ‘What are you going to do? You can’t go back to him!’
I gulped. ‘I’m not sure.’
Marco wagged a bony finger at me. ‘Mark my words: once a shagger, always a shagger!’
****
Four lattes and five OK! Magazines later, my hair was tousled and teased to perfection. Marco described the new look as, super-freaking-sexy. On the outside I looked like a new woman, but inside, I wrestled with emotional turmoil. I spent most of the afternoon trying to figure out what to do about Justin. One minute I’d made up my mind to give it another try and the next, I’d decided it would never work. Thoughts buzzed round in my brain about Justin and how happy we’d been in the beginning. He’d always been a big charmer: full of sweet talk and showering compliments, until the day he started his new job and everything began to change. It was just little things at first, like admiring himself in the mirror constantly, strutting round the flat like a peacock on Viagra and using more beauty products in a day than I used in a whole year. He’d go to work reeking of aftershave and come home smelling like the women’s perfume counter in Boots. And then gradually he became more and more distant, getting back later every night. But of course the crunch had come when I’d discovered the offending underwear. Or had it?
It suddenly dawned on me that I must’ve known what was going on all along. Maybe not on the surface, but on some deep, intuitive level. You know how you look back after the fact and start to piece together all the little strands of information and events, finally discovering that they don’t fit together like they should? I’m sure that most of us have been lied to and betrayed at one time or another, but for all these months I’d refused to admit to myself that I knew and chose to ignore it. Because what would that make me? A desperate idiot for putting up with it for so long? Or a straitjacket candidate? Perhaps naïve was a better description. In fact, I was beginning to question whether I’d even been in love with him at all. Had it just been some kind of insane infatuation? Or was I so consumed with the longing to have my own family that I’d denied the obvious for so long, clinging onto something that wasn’t even really there in the first place?
I massaged the jumbled pile of muscles in my neck, hoping to ease the tension which felt like an avalanche had fallen on my head. I couldn’t stand it anymore and decided to take my mind off things by surfing the net with the intention of buying Ayshe and Atila’s wedding pressie. I’d never actually bought anything online before, but Ayshe assured me she’d done it hundreds of times and nothing could possibly go wrong. I was always worried about those horror stories you hear where people steal your credit card details and your identity – though I wasn’t quite sure why anyone would want my identity – or my credit card, for that matter. It was almost maxed-up to the limit. But I’d promised Ayshe I would get her a much fawned after cappuccino-maker, and she’d given me the web address of an exclusive little coffee outlet called The Coffee Bean. I selected the model the happy couple wanted and added it to my shopping basket. One hundred and nine pounds and ninety-eight pence. I hummed away to myself, entered my credit card and delivery details and clicked the send button. Don’t know what I was worried about, really, it all seemed quite simple.
And then the computer got stuck, mid-send.
I waited for about five minutes. Nothing happening. I clicked on the back key and was transported through cyberspace back to the credit card and delivery details again. So I repeated the exercise, filled in the details and clicked the send key. It got stuck again.
‘Bugger,’ I muttered, going through the whole process again. And again. And again. This time I was getting seriously annoyed. I gave up after another five goes and wandered, frustrated, into the kitchen to make some coffee. I’d just have to do the normal thing and pop into Argos or John Lewis – or anywhere, in fact, that your order wasn’t going to get lost in a jumble of computers in cyberspace.
I slurped from my mug and sat down to check my emails. Ten of them had just appeared in my inbox. Clicking on the inbox file, I paused, mid-slurp. The colour drained from my face. They were all from The Coffee Bean confirming my order for ten cappuccino makers!
‘For God’s sake!’ I put my chin in my hands and stared at the screen in disbelief. ‘Shit, shit, shit. I don’t want ten! I only wanted to spend a hundred and ten quid, not eleven hundred. They’ll never have to buy a cappuccino maker again for the rest of their lives.’
I went back to the website and scanned it frantically for a contact number. Grabbing my mobile, I paced up and down listening to the ringing tone echoing in my ear.
‘Come on, come on.’
I glanced at the clock. Six o’clock. Damn, I bet they’ve all gone home. I stamped my foot as a recorded message informed me they were now clos
ed for the weekend; no one would be there until Monday morning. I bit my fingernail. There wasn’t any other option, I’d just have to phone them on Monday and hopefully cancel nine of the bloody cappuccino makers.
****
I took great care getting ready that night for my date with Dr Savage. God, I realized I didn’t even know his first name! I decided to go for the casual, sexy look and pulled on a pair of bootleg jeans and a low-cut, clingy, black top. Squashing my boobs into a new M&S push-up bra, I admired the effect in the mirror. My pièce de résistance was a pair of black, sparkly, pointed toe high-heel boots. Ayshe had picked them out in Asda, where she assured me they were the spitting image of the new Jimmy Choo winter collection, only about five hundred pounds less.
I’d just downed a glass of wine and soda – purely for medicinal reasons, of course – and was busy putting the finishing touches to some dark brown eye make-up and a vibrant orange lipstick when the door bell rang. My eyes flew to my watch. It was only seven. He wasn’t due for another half an hour. Blimey, he was keen! I rushed to the door, then hung back behind it, giving my hair a quick scrunch up before casually opening it.
‘Oh,’ I exclaimed when I saw Justin standing on the doorstep.
‘Hi, Helen.’
I expected my heart to melt at the sight of him, but strangely it didn’t. ‘Justin, what are you doing here? I thought you were going to give me time to think about things.’
‘What’s there to think about? You know you want me back.’
‘I just need some time to sort things out in my head.’
‘You look a bit tarted up. Got a date, have you?’
‘Yes, actually.’
‘Can I come in? ’ He sauntered past me without waiting for an invitation, wafting Wild Stallion aftershave all over the place. His spiky hair had been gelled with enough hair products to keep Nicky Clarke in business single-handedly. I glared at his head. It looked like he’d poured a whole bottle of Sun-in over it.
I cocked my head to one side. ‘Well?’
