by Shari Low
Well, no more. We had to get this under control, do one last push to get the house finished, then I had to look at getting back out to work and earning a decent salary, preferably part-time so that I could still have lots of time with my gorgeous girl and I wasn’t spending my wages on childcare. Then my husband and I were going to get quality time together and have fun and sex. Lots of sex. I’d just had a Brazilian and I wasn’t afraid to use it.
For the first time in months I felt a seed of optimism and a boost of energy and confidence that this was all going to be fine. We’d get there. I just had to find a way to get past the obstacles and tackle them one by one.
‘Did I forget to tell you that you look great?’ Josie asked. ‘My God, girl, you definitely do. Like me in my younger days but without my killer bosom.’ Usually, I would brush off the compliment, but this time I didn’t because I knew that she wasn’t far off the truth. I’d been preened, pummelled and plucked into a level of polished grooming that I hadn’t achieved since some time in the 90s. I was about to thank her when I realised that Josie was still talking.
‘None of those Wonderbras in my day. Although a pair of socks tucked in the bra did help. Anyway, I’ve been thinking . . .’ I always got nervous when Josie said that – there were no bounds as to what could come out of her mouth next. ‘Would you like me to look after Cassie a couple of days a week?’
The OCD fairy had apparently now been replaced by the Grant-Any-Wish fairy.
‘But you work.’ My cousin Michael had become quite the entrepreneur and opened a chain of coffee shops that were doing fantastic business. He’d wanted to make Josie the manageress of one of the shops but she’d refused, choosing to work behind the counter instead. ‘What do I want to be running things for? I’ll stick to chatting to the customers and having no responsibility thanks very much,’ she’d told him.
‘The good news is that Avril’s coming home,’ Josie said, confusing us with the undertone of sadness. That was great! Since Avril had gone to work in a beauty salon on a cruise liner Josie had missed her dreadfully. ‘But the bad news is that Michael’s shutting up shop and moving to Italy. That boot he married has finally worn him down and he’s moving to the village her parents live in.’
I put my hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. Even though they were adults now, Josie lived for her family and having Michael so far away would be horrible for her. I could see her struggling and only just managing to get her sadness under control.
‘Anyway, they’ve sold the shops so if I don’t manage to fatally poison the cow with doctored mince and potatoes in the next month, they’ll be off and I’ll have my days free again. If it suits, I’d love to have Cassie, Lou.’
‘Lou-ou-ou,’ Cassie mimicked, giving a disturbingly accurate depiction of how her Auntie Ginger greeted me when she’d had a few too many beverages.
‘Josie, that would be fantastic and Cassie would be in heaven.’ It was true. She loved her Auntie Josie just as much as she loved her revered Auntie Ginger.
I still had a feeling that we were at the bottom of a very large mountain, but my two fairy godmothers had just shoved my buttocks up the first few steps.
I heard the door bang and Red wandered into the kitchen, his hair dishevelled, no doubt from sleeping on the plane, and his eyes pink with tiredness. Cassie screamed in delight and he swooped on her, covering her with kisses.
‘Daddydaddydaddydaddy,’ she shouted gleefully and my heart melted as it always did when I saw him with her. I’d realised long ago that watching the man you love, loving your child is the most incredible thing.
Eventually, he broke off, kissed Josie, then his sister, then paused when he got to me.
‘You look . . . different.’ His tone was puzzled but his expression made it clear that he liked what he saw. ‘Have you done something?’
There was a bang as Ginger’s head thudded against the table.
‘Are you sure we came from the same womb?’ she groaned. ‘Only, I’m way, way smarter than you.’
I took over before the moment was gone. ‘Ginger treated me to a makeover. What do you think?’
He reached down and gave me a long, leisurely kiss on the lip, a proper kiss, not the quick pecks we’d become used to over the last few months. He even had the focus to ignore the naan bread that his sister slapped across the back of his head.
‘Cassie, if I never teach you anything else,’ she told my daughter, ‘public displays of affection should be outlawed.’
‘I think you look stunning,’ he told me when he came up for air. ‘And I can’t wait until tomorrow.’
Tomorrow. My hand flew to my mouth. Tomorrow. Cassie’s christening! I’d organised the church and the restaurant after- wards. I’d got Red’s favourite suit back from the dry cleaners. Cassie’s beautiful dress and little white ballet pumps were all ready. But as for me? The face, hair and body may have been saved from ruin, but I still hadn’t got round to sorting out an outfit. ‘Bugger, I need to go find something to wear,’ I gasped, jumping up from the table.
Thankfully, my fairy godmothers had overlooked nothing.
Ginger smiled. ‘There’s something hanging on the front of your wardrobe that I think you might like.’
Forty
The minister tried really hard to hide his disapproval of our music choice, but didn’t quite manage it. The sounds of Style Council singing ‘You’re the Best Thing’ belted out from a boom box as we all took our seats, Red and I sliding into the front row with Cassie and her godparents, Lizzy and Ginger.
Immediately behind us sat Josie, Michael and the boot, with their two delicious little dark-haired toddlers. Next to them were Lizzy’s ex, Adam and Alex the lawyer, with the late arrival of my parents – much to Josie’s obvious disgust – completing the row. Red’s family was lined up in the front pew across the aisle and behind them were Rosie, Angie and all the rest of the staff from my old salon. I was so touched that they’d all come, with the exception of Pamela, who had met a Tahitian rugby player when she went off to travel the world, married him, and was now running a guest house in Bora Bora.
Ginger leaned over to whisper in my ear, allowing me a whiff of the Buck’s Fizz she’d had at breakfast to celebrate the occasion. Thankfully, the minister was notorious for going AWOL after one too many in the Dog and Sausage on a Friday night, on one occasion necessitating the vicar from the next parish to stand in for him on a Sunday morning. It had been the talk of the town, but attendance grew by twenty per cent the following week so perhaps it was God’s way of putting out some subliminal advertising.
‘You know I don’t believe in any of this, don’t you?’ she hissed.
I nodded, and then buried my face in her mane to whisper back. ‘I’m not sure I do either, just covering all the bases.’
The minister beckoned us forward to the stone font on a raised marble platform in front of us, and began the ceremony, asking each of us to pledge to care and protect our baby. As Ginger and Lizzy took their vows, even the threat of eyelash massacre couldn’t stop the tears.
It had been a rough couple of years, but we’d got through it and come out of the other end, still together, still in one piece, still in love with each other and with our daughter. And as the minister poured the water over our little angel’s head, and was rewarded with a ‘No no no no no! Bad man!’ I said a silent prayer of thanks to the gods, the heavens and the Make-Any-Wish-Come-True fairy.
A fantastic life was out there for us. Now we just had to go make it happen.
Forty-one
Lizzy
The St Kentigern Hotel, Glasgow. Saturday, 1pm
‘Why do they always make these little packets of shortbread so difficult to open?’ I asked Lou, no mean feat when you are trying to wrench open impenetrable plastic packaging with your teeth.
‘Because they were designed by carbohydrate-hating blokes,’ Lou replied. ‘If a woman designed that packet it would be much larger and there would be a handy tea bag supplied for dun
king.’
I finally got the packet open, took out a biscuit and picked up my magazine. We’d been due in the spa an hour ago but Ginger was still sleeping and Lou and I felt no inclination whatsoever to get out of bed. We never got this kind of time together any more and it seemed a shame to interrupt it with massages and seaweed thingies.
I stretched out, and then relaxed again against the stack of pillows.
‘Do you think we could just stay here forever? I mean, who’d notice? How long do you think it would take anyone to come looking for us?’
Lou laughed. ‘Lizzy, have you actually met your family? I reckon they’d be up here banging on the door within an hour of your absence being noted.’
Smiling, I acknowledged that she had a point. My brood were chaotic. Wild. Demanding. And I wouldn’t have them any other way. I’d always thought it was a shame that Lou hadn’t had any more children. She was a great mum. A natural. And even now, with everything that she was going through, her first thought was always for Cassie.
I felt a knot of sadness stick in my throat and I swallowed it back down. This wasn’t the time. This was supposed to be a light-hearted break from all the bad stuff. No stress. No pressure. No demands.
‘What are you thinking?’ Lou asked. I realised she was looking at me and had even put down her copy of Cosmo to wait for an answer.
‘About kids and the stresses and chaos at home,’ I replied quickly, hoping I’d pulled it off.
I think it worked as she just smiled and said, ‘I don’t know how you do it, Lizzy. I’ve only got one and I’m in a permanent state of borderline panic. Do you remember her first day at school? There was I, completely wired, and you just took everything in your stride like you didn’t have a care in the world.’
‘Yeah,’ I said wistfully. ‘I should have got an Oscar for that performance.’
Forty-two
Lou
2007 – Aged 37
The air was thick with apprehension as the crowd moved forwards, children clutching the hands of their parents, some of whom were making polite conversation, others shooting nervous glances at the strangers around them. Suddenly it was all too much.
‘A peg! Look, Cassie, it’s a coat peg! With your name on it!’
As the other parents took one step further away from the deranged woman screeching at an inanimate object, my daughter groaned. ‘Mum, you are totally embarrassing.’
Realising that I may have been just a little highly strung, I murmured an apology. ‘Sorry, honey, just got a little overexcited. But I’m your mother, it’s my job to embarrass you.’
Cassie gave up trying to look perturbed at this very obvious break with decorum and burst into giggles. This was the worst one yet. Worse than when I started a Mexican wave at her dance display. Worse than when I tried to make life a little easier by cutting her fringe when she was sleeping and she woke up looking like the last remaining member of an 80s techno band.
But in my defence, this was a special day. A landmark event. It was my baby’s first day at school.
School!
Where had the years gone? It seemed like no time at all since I sat in that New York toilet and watched that blue line appear on the stick with only a phantom Cyndi Lauper for company.
Now she was standing there, in her smart navy pinafore, a scratchy grey blazer and very shiny shoes, her uncontrollably thick mane of ginger hair tied back in a baby-blue ribbon. Yes, she continued to mimic every aspect of her Auntie Ginger’s appearance and personality. Therefore, emergency measures had been enforced to ensure that this disturbing genetic situation wouldn’t lead to unfortunate circumstances.
‘Now, what do you have to remember?’ I asked quietly, as I kneeled down to help her hang up her coat.
‘That there are cameras in the playground and you can see everything.’
‘Good girl.’
I know, I know, it was wrong on every level, but the only thing I could think of to keep her on the right side of angelic was to tell her that the lamp posts and fence around the school contained invisible cameras linked to my computer, that allowed me to watch her at all times. I had a foreboding vision of her in the playground shouting, ‘I didn’t mean it, Mum, honest!’ to a six-foot wall of chain link.
I’d tell her the truth eventually, but at the moment I needed a little help to constrain her fearless nature and indignant sense of justice. Only last week a nine-year-old boy who was at least a foot taller than her had stolen her best friend’s skateboard and Cassie’s response had been thoughtful, concise and intelligent . . . right up until the point where she decked him.
Incidents of vigilante behaviour aside though, I knew she’d be fine. She was a sociable, extrovert little soul who made new friends in minutes and was desperately looking forward to being able to spend all day with the pals she’d already made at nursery.
Yes, there were tears, worries and small moments of panic, but they were all mine. In the unlikely event that I ever became prime minister, I was going to make it mandatory that all parents be given free therapists who specialised in separation anxiety.
Another kiss, another hug, another embarrassed mutter of, ‘Mu-u-u-u-u-um,’ and it was time for me to leave her to it. As she skipped off into the class – skipped! – I dragged myself out into the playground with the consoling thought that if she had any unbearable pangs of loneliness she could always go have a wee chat to a lamp post.
‘Coping?’ Lizzy asked.
‘Not so much,’ I replied. ‘I know, I’m pathetic. Don’t tell Ginger.’
Lizzy smiled and ushered a straggling group of older children through the door. Since her eldest had become a teenager and moved to high school she’d been working as a classroom assistant and absolutely loved it. She was a natural. Fun, smart, bubbly, loads of energy, with a screech that could silence a class in an instant. The fact that she’d smashed a window with a football during her first month on the job had also ensured that she entered into school legend as the coolest adult ever.
She was always calm. Never ruffled. And when it came to kids, family, school, parenthood, she could cope with absolutely anything. I was totally in awe of her.
On the personal front, despite many attempts to set her up, she remained resolutely single and a fan of the old three-date rule. I could see her point. She’d been married since we were so young that she was loving the chance to do all the things that the rest of us did in our twenties – with the addition of an occasional night out at a fabulous new gay nightclub in town with Adam and Alex. They were one big, unconventional family now – like Will and Grace but with two children and a permanent partner added to the mix. I had a hunch that she would still have preferred the whole ‘happy ever after with a straight husband’ scenario, but she’d come to terms with the reality of the situation and was pretty chilled about it. Content.
‘So, all set for tonight?’
I nodded. Today was a landmark day for more than one reason. It was my daughter’s first day at school . . . and the first day of a whole new start for me.
Forty-three
‘Are you sure you’re OK? You really do look like you’re coming down with something,’ I asked Lizzy again early that evening.
‘I’m fine!’ she snapped, before regaining her normal sunny disposition and saying, ‘Right – shag, marry, throw off a cliff. The choices are Robbie Williams, Jon Bon Jovi or Enrique Iglesias.’
‘Lizzy, come on. Everyone will be here in less than half an hour and . . . Oh my God! I’ve just had the strongest sense of déjà vu. This is exactly what we were doing all those years ago before the first opening night.’
‘No way!’
‘It was! You were reading some magazine and asking me the same question. The only difference was that you were pregnant. Hugely pregnant.’
‘Wow, life’s weird. If you open another salon in twenty years’ time, count me in.’
I rubbed the small of my back to pacify the ache that was starting there. ‘Bloody hell
, I hope the rest of the night doesn’t follow last time. Remember? Two of my boyfriends had a fight and then Ginger was so pissed she fell off the reception desk. Thank God you went into labour and distracted everyone.’
‘Glad to be of service. I’m happy to yell “Fire,” and set off the sprinklers if it all goes horribly wrong tonight.’
I groaned inside at the very thought. So much was hinging on tonight. So much. Five years after the first one closed, I was opening a new CUT and, if it were possible, I was even more nervous now. Back then – other than the ever-present threat of Josie being arrested for financial fraud – I only had myself to worry about. If it failed, so be it. I was so young and if I’d made a huge mess of it there was plenty of time to pick myself up and get over it.
This time was different. This time it would affect Red and Cassie and our future. Not to mention all of my old staff who had quit their current jobs to come back and work with me. I had to make sure it was a success. Pressure! I’d never had a migraine in my life but I was pretty sure I had one coming on now. Or it might just be that my diamanté-studded, retrotastic headband was pulled on a little too tight. Internal pep-talk time. I was ready for this. It would be fine. It was the culmination of years of experience and it was going to pay off.
The week after Cassie’s christening, I’d gone to work in a Glasgow salon three days a week and loved every moment of it. I’d have been happy there for another few years, but then the most unexpected thing had happened. After legal action that took over three years and added at least a dozen wrinkles to my forehead, the courts had ruled in our favour and the surveying company that had missed all the faults in our house prior to us buying it had been ordered to refund the cost of the building work plus interest.
