Chapter Twenty-Three Feel Like a Woman
I have an important task to perform this morning and I call my mum to tell her what she has to do. As I expected, she’s not happy.
‘I don’t want to come out without any make-up on,’ she whines. ‘I would never do that normally and I want to look ten years younger than I really am, not like some frumpy version of me.’
I understand completely and am always bemused by before and after photographs where the person is simply frowning with slumped shoulders in the first and smiling with a brightly coloured top on in the second. Perhaps a smile is all it really takes to make us look and feel younger. It’s certainly cheaper than Botox.
She arrives at the travel agents in the early afternoon and, as expected, she’s far too glammed up for the task in hand. Although she wouldn’t take any notice of my instructions, Josie is not one to take no for an answer.
‘Come on, Mrs S,’ she says, taking off the beautiful blue scarf my mum wears to bring out her eyes. ‘You gotta give these beautician people something to work with, can’t have their job done for them by the time you get there.’
She leads Mum into the bathroom, where she stands like a petulant schoolgirl while Josie takes a cotton wool pad and cleanser to her make-up. I have to suppress a giggle as I remember all the times through the ages that Mum has stood wiping make-up off me, whether it was when I was five and had liberally applied her best lipstick to my lips, cheeks and eyelids or when I was fifteen and she was telling me that I looked like a floozy.
Once wiped clean of her make-up and stripped of her accessories, we take Mum out into the shop, where Charlie has gathered together some customers. With me taking the video on my phone and Josie doing the interviewing, we began that really awful section of 10 Years Younger where members of the public have to guess the poor victim/participant’s age. I always find this really cruel — those taking part have often gone through real trauma, and there we are bringing them down even further by telling them those events have taken their toll and they do indeed look ancient. That’s why we’re not going into the street and instead are using kind customers who understand what’s going on and know what to say.
‘Gorgeous cheekbones. I’d say she’s seventy-four,’ says the first, as instructed.
‘I can see where Angie gets her looks. I’m calculating that you must be nearly eighty though you don’t look it,’ says the next, getting a smile from me for the impromptu compliment.
‘Look at those ankles,’ says another. ‘You must have been a dancer. I’d say seventy-six.’
My mother is in fact seventy-seven and we’ve organised the answers so that they average out at this exact age. I know she’ll be disappointed that they haven’t arrived at a younger age but, as Josie said, we have to give the beauticians something to work with, and as my mum really doesn’t look bad for her age, I can’t see how they’re going to knock ten years off her appearance. But that’s their job, and after doing our video and emailing it to Zoe, we send Mum on her way to the first appointment — the dentist for a whitening — and get back to work.
‘So the grand unveiling is tomorrow night at seven?’ Charlie checks and I nod as he puts the details in his phone.
‘Mum doesn’t know yet but it’s a fashion event at the hotel,’ I tell him. ‘Zoe’s place hosts them for one of the big boutiques every year; they showcase the spring ranges and people buy tables so it raises money for breast cancer research. I’ve got us a table, so everyone is invited.’
‘Including your new squeeze, David?’ asks Josie.
‘Alas no, he has a golf club thing going on, so I’ll be with my usual partner-in-crime,’ I say, although even if we had got to that stage, calling a man in his late fifties a squeeze seems a bit of a push. My new cuddle, maybe — one day.
‘If there’s a raffle, Mercury should donate a prize,’ says Charlie. ‘What do you think people would want?’
‘If they can get Mrs S. looking sixty then I’d say a little of what she’s had.’ Josie laughs.
‘Oh Lord,’ I reply with a sudden sense of panic. ‘What if they do even better and my mum is standing there looking younger than me?’
‘You’d never hear the last of it, that’s for sure.’ Charlie is guffawing but I don’t think it’s particularly funny.
‘I need to have my hair done before tomorrow.’ I’m looking up the hairdresser’s number in my contacts. ‘It’s not just Mum but everyone going is there to see spring fashions so they’ll all be dressed to the nines.’
‘Good point,’ agrees Charlie. ‘We’d all better look dapper. The Mercury Travel table should shine like a little mirrorball hangs permanently over us.’
He says this looking up to the ceiling and waving his hands airily. I know what he’s thinking and he says it almost immediately.
‘Why don’t we have one in the shop? I’m going to buy one.’
He sits back down and gets straight onto the internet; a husband and wife come in asking about last-minute availability in Madeira so I leave Charlie to his search and take them to my desk.
* * *
‘Angie, do you mind me using the footage of you dancing with Felipe to promote the Vienna trip?’ Josie asks towards the end of the day. ‘We’ve only got a couple of spaces left and it would be good to have it full by the end of the week.’
As it’s already in the public domain on the dance school social media, I tell her to go ahead. In truth, I’m actually quite flattered by it as Felipe makes me look a far better dancer than I ever felt.
The dance trips are practically sold out and I know from talking to some of those who’ve booked that there’s a mixture of dancers and non-dancers going. As Marianne said to me, some people simply love to watch dancing and they’re going for the romance and spectacle of the city as much as anything. I’m extremely excited to be accompanying Mum and Dad on this trip as I’ve always wanted to go to Vienna but for some reason never have. My ex-husband used to like the sun and, of course, when Zoe was a child, she loved beach holidays too so that’s where we tended to go. It’s another aspect of life post-divorce or post-kids that you have to consider — what you actually enjoy doing with your free time. I only realise at this precise moment that I haven’t been to a beach resort in two years and I don’t miss it. I’ve stopped thieves on a cruise ship and sung karaoke in New York — two things I definitely wouldn’t have done with the ex. I wonder what kind of holidays David prefers.
I’m snapped out of my contemplations by a call from my mother.
‘They’re amazing!’ she screams down the line. ‘I didn’t know teeth could sparkle like this. I’m on my way back to Mercury — Charlie will want this treatment when he sees me. I look like that Rylan person on the telly.’
‘Mum, no — you can’t come back,’ I reply quickly. ‘We can’t see you until the makeover is finished. I want to be as surprised as everyone else, but trust me — Charlie is going to want everything you’re having done. I’ve already seen him holding up his jowls in the mirror.’
Mum gushes about needing to show someone and I smile with the whole of my face — it’s wonderful to hear her so excited. She has a room at Zoe’s hotel so that Dad doesn’t see her until the grand reveal. I tell her to get booked in and relax for a couple of hours. I know the wardrobe people will be with her shortly, so she has a busy schedule ahead. Reluctantly, she agrees to stick with the plan.
‘I don’t have jowls,’ says Charlie when I finish the call. ‘It’s simply a jawline in need of a little contouring.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ I say with a snort. ‘And in my case it’s a lot of contouring.’
* * *
I head home wondering how I’m going to fill the evening as every inch of me wants to head over to Zoe’s hotel and see these amazing teeth Mum was enthusing about. I know I’m going to have to scour my wardrobe for something a little bit special. Despite the warning not to overshadow Mum, I am very worried that she’s going to look like my younger sister after all this. However, when I put the key in the door, I very quickly learn that my time has already been commandeered.
‘Angie, come into the studio,’ calls Patty. ‘We’ve been rehearsing something and I need to know what you think.’
Guessing that I’ll enjoy whatever the Granny-Okies have cooked up, and now with a glass of wine, I open the door to the garage.
It’s very dark in there. I can hear the three of them shuffling in the corner but can’t quite make out what they’re doing. There’s a chair not far from the door and Patty tells me to sit down then close the door. I do as I’m told, plunging the room into further darkness as the only shard of light disappears.
‘Are you ready?’ Patty calls out.
My eyes are adjusting to the light and I can tell that they’re all wearing something long and shiny. If it weren’t for the giggling I would suspect a satanic ritual were about to take place with me being the victim. As it is, I’m merely being experimented on in the name of entertainment.
Suddenly, the opening chords of an eighties classic starts up and then that famous thrash of the cymbals and drums — dah, dah-dah-dah. It’s ‘Eye of the Tiger’ and I can’t wait to see what they do to this.
A single light bulb goes on and I’m puzzled as Patty has strip lights in here usually. I realise she’s rigged up the single work light that her hubby used to use to work on the car and thrown the cable over the garage beams so it hangs just above her head.
Sheila and Kath appear from the corner: the shiny outfits are boxing robes and underneath they’re wearing silk boxing shorts and vests. They even have the little boxing boots on in matching colours. As the intro plays through, they pretend to skip and spar with each other, then the vocals begin and they stop fighting to sing the verse, but as the chorus begins Patty emerges from the darkness.
Oh my word, what is she wearing? Yes, the robe, the shorts and the boots, but she appears to be topless and then she reaches the light and I see it’s an inflatable fancy-dress bodysuit that looks like a muscled six pack. It’s very disconcerting to see my friend looking half naked and with a man’s upper torso. I reach out to touch it but Patty flicks my hands away then licks her finger and sizzles it down her fake chest.
A boxing match ensues with Patty defeating first of all Sheila and then Kath, all while not missing a beat of the song. As it fades and she’s doing her victory lap, the girls get up and pull the stoppers on Patty’s outfit, making it deflate.
I stand and give a round of applause when it’s over.
‘Did it work?’ asks Patty, breathless.
‘If you lot can sustain all those little boxer skips every night then I think the audience will love it,’ I tell her. ‘Although it was very weird seeing you come on stage topless, even more so when you went all saggy.’
‘It was even more weird looking at myself. I have to say, you see all of these articles for women about being “beach ready” but at least we have the option of wearing a one-piece and covering up. Men have to have their torso exposed all the time and it’s not a comfortable thing to do — even when it’s fake. No wonder most of them opt for baggy T-shirts.’
‘Are you saying they have it harder than us?’ I ask.
‘Just reflecting that I’ve found another reason why I prefer being a woman.’
She then launches into Shania Twain’s ‘Man! I Feel Like a Woman!’ and the four of us conga dance to it all the way back to the wine bottle in the fridge.