Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
In the afternoon I made us all a slow-cooked casserole with beef, vegetables, and my handmade horseradish dumplings. Maddie was right when she told me the house was fully stocked with food. In the utility area, behind a door in the kitchen, was a row of giant American fridge-freezers, stocked with every food imaginable. There were also cupboards filled with tins, soups, pasta, rice and an array of flavourings, spices and herbs.
Later Grandpa and Layla laid the wooden table in the corner and kept praising me for the delicious smell coming from the casserole. Earlier I’d asked Layla what she’d been eating, and she said that she often went hungry as buying Zac baby food and nappies was her priority. She felt bad about asking the people who let her sleep on their sofa for food.
After I’d served us all a bowl of casserole and offered everyone a piece of crusty bread, we all dived in. To see Layla wolfing down my casserole brought tears of happiness to my eyes. Blinking them away I glanced at Baby Zac playing in his travel cot and Humphrey asleep in his basket by the kitchen island. That was not where his dog basket normally lived but given what had happened earlier, I’d decided to not let him out of my sight. The house felt peaceful and calm.
‘So, Layla, have you always been a cleaner?’ I asked, feeling the warmth from the casserole engulf my body.
She shook her head. ‘I started out doing a hairdressing apprenticeship.’
Grandpa mopped up some casserole sauce with a piece of bread. ‘Why did you stop?’
She smiled and pointed at Zac. ‘I needed a job which fitted around him. Cleaning houses in the mornings worked in the early days when he was tiny as he would sleep a lot. Ryan didn’t have to do much when he looked after him for me.’ She took out something from her handbag which was slung over the back of the chair. ‘I still carry around my hair dressing scissors and combs.’
‘You should go back to it,’ Grandpa suggested.
Layla sighed. ‘Eric, I would love to go back to it. Whenever I stay on someone’s sofa, I always offer them a quick trim. Some take me up on my offer.’
Grandpa ran his hand through his white tufty hair. ‘What do you think, Layla? In your professional opinion – should I go shorter? A buzz-cut maybe?’ His eyes twinkled with excitement.
Layla giggled and then studied Grandpa’s hair. ‘Eric, I think a little tidy up and maybe comb both sides as opposed to just one.’
She had a point. Grandpa’s hair was neat on the right side and unruly on the left.
He smiled. ‘Everyone at eighty should embrace their wild side.’
‘Worrying,’ I said, jokingly, as Layla got up and went to smooth down Grandpa’s hair.
‘How did you and Ryan meet?’ I asked, putting my greasy hair up into a messy bun.
‘I met him on a night out with my mates,’ said Layla. ‘It was my first night out after having Zac – he was three months old.’
‘Do you think you and Ryan will have a reconciliation?’ Grandpa asked.
Layla shook her head. ‘He said some nasty things. Zac and I are not going back there.’ She studied Grandpa’s hair at the back of his head. ‘Blimey, Eric, it’s quite long. I could trim it so it’s above your collar.’
‘Deal,’ said Grandpa, ‘I want to look my best for the ladies of Harp Brook.’
Layla gasped at what Grandpa had said and I rolled my eyes.
After dinner, Layla put Zac down upstairs in her new bedroom. I raced upstairs and fetched my bag and suitcase from Layla’s room and went to search for another room to sleep in. I stared at the doors leading to the west wing. What was behind those doors? I was intrigued and nosey at what sort of expensive furniture lay behind them. All the doors were locked, which was what Maddie had said. I tried to bend down and peer through the keyholes, but I couldn’t see anything.
I decided that I didn’t want to sleep in Maddie and Frank’s master bedroom, so I walked along the hallway and found myself crossing over into the west wing of the house. The doors would probably be locked like the ones leading to the west wing downstairs, but I decided to find out. Feeling anxious and with a trembling hand I turned the handle on the first door I came to. It wasn’t locked. I skipped a breath as I entered.
Flicking the light switch I gasped. My eyes were met with an explosion of colour. A spacious room stood before me with walls painted in a gorgeous royal blue colour and adorned with beautiful oil paintings of peacocks set in gold frames.
In the centre presided a king-sized bed with burnt orange silk bedding. A vast fitted wardrobe stretched the length of one wall, and a dressing table nestled against another wall. On each side of the tall window opposite the bed were two full length dusty-pink draped curtains.
Leaving my suitcase and handbag by the bed, I pulled them across and let my eyes roam. On the dressing table were Maddie’s face creams and make-up bags. I assumed this was the room where she got dressed.
Sliding back the wardrobe doors, I saw that it was full of all her clothes. They were in strict colour order, which made me smile. Below the clothes were racks of shoes, all neatly stacked. Maddie had always loved an organised and tidy wardrobe. There were numerous full-length mirrors dotted about the room.
I spotted little constellations of photos. One was of us both on holiday in Greece three years ago. We’d run off to Greece for a week at the last minute, just the two of us. Frank wasn’t on the scene, so it was just Maddie and me. That was the holiday we spent daydreaming about opening our beach café. I would do the cooking and she would cover the front of house. We spent hours at a little bar planning out our business idea on Maddie’s phone and sipping cocktails. It stayed a daydream as life got in the way but thinking of that holiday gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. In most of the photos, we had a colourful cocktail in our hands, sunburnt noses, and goofy smiles.
There were several of us as little kids stood with Dad before he packed his things and left. He didn’t stay with the tall woman from Glasgow. After a year he left her for his now second wife and has been happily married ever since. I wondered whether Mum knew Maddie had these photos up of Dad. Tiny knives of guilt pricked my heart as I stared at Dad’s face, his messy brown hair and his friendly smile. We’d lost touch over the years, which nibbled away at the edge of my mind. But Mum had told us it would upset her if we contacted him.
On a mirror tucked away at the back of the room were three photos of teenage Maddie standing with Josh, the guy she’d dated while she was at university. He’d worked at the café on the campus. Mum disliked him from the moment she laid eyes on him. ‘He’s got nothing going for him,’ I remembered her saying. ‘Maddie, you have to aim high in relationships or you will end up with someone like your father.’ I stared at the photos. Josh’s long arms were wrapped around a grinning Maddie. He was tall with black curly hair and a boyish smile. Josh and Maddie were together for most of her years at uni. She said they knew each other inside out and he was the only guy to make her laugh so much her sides ached. I struggled to visualise Frank doing the same to Maddie. I wondered whether he was okay with her having photos of her ex-boyfriend on her mirror.
Surveying the room I sighed with contentment. It was nice to see Maddie had somewhere to be her colourful and vibrant self. A worry ballooned at the back of my mind. Was Frank as controlling as he was with everything else when it came to designing their house? Did Maddie not get a say in decoration? Had she agreed with Frank that she would have one room hidden away upstairs that would be styled and designed by her to make him happy? The thought left me feeling uncomfortable.
After catching sight of my reflection in one of the mirrors and groaning at my washed-out and grubby look, I collapsed on the bed. Lying down I was hit by a wave of exhaustion. It had been quite a day. The bedding was a myriad of embroidered lavender and blue flowers. It smelt of Maddie’s expensive flowery perfume. I hoped she was okay on her flight wherever it was over the Atlantic.
Closing my eyes, I let my mind wander. It replayed what Maddie had said earlier about Olivia knowing Harp Brook. My chest ached for Olivia. I wished she was still alive. She could have come with me to Harp Brook. We would have had such a laugh, drinking Frank’s expensive wines, eating our body weights in chocolate and dancing to Christmas songs around the manor house. Rubbing my chest, I sat up and pulled up my handbag by its straps. I took out Olivia’s pink notebook. Maybe if I read some of her book it would feel like she was here with me.
I flicked over the first page and read what Olivia had written.
Step One. Change Me on the Outside.
When my wonderful friend died, I took drastic action and dyed my hair from brown to black and then cut it to above my shoulders. Side note: my hair touched my lower back before Sophie passed away. This was a drastic move.
Cutting and dyeing my hair wasn’t something I did to help me grieve. I did it because I was angry and took out all my frustration on my hair.
After days of yelling up at the sky, sending God a lot of angry prayers and crying about how unfair life felt after watching my best mate die, I became a tornado and destroyed as many personal possessions as I could. This felt shockingly good. From smashing up photo frames, burning random things in the back garden to hacking my clothes to pieces, I was furious with life.
One day after collapsing into an emotional heap on my bedroom floor, surrounded by broken belongings, I decided to channel my fury in other ways. Seconds later I got the idea about my hair and went on the hunt for some kitchen scissors and hair dye.
This is not the approach I would advise. Kitchen scissors do not give you a stylish cut. Grief makes you do all sorts of strange things. Even though my hair looked terrible for days after and a hairdresser had to spend a good hour fixing the mess I’d made, the change in how I looked helped me.
When I stared at myself in the mirror, I was no longer the sad, grieving friend whose world had caved in around them. There was someone new staring back at me and I had a strange sense of detachment. My grief for Sophie didn’t go away. It will live inside me for the rest of my life. But after my drastic haircut, I created a new version of Olivia. This helped me to move on with my life.
Changing myself on the outside was the catalyst for easing the pain inside of me.
Having nice hair was a big thing for Olivia. She spent a small fortune on washing, styling, and maintaining her black silky locks. She must have been hurting a lot when she cut her hair off. I read on as she joked about sitting in the chair at the salon post her kitchen scissor cut and her usual hairdresser nearly fainting at her jagged ends.
After coming to the end of the chapter I reminded myself of my reflection in one of the full-length mirrors. My hair was piled up on top of my head in a greasy knot. Since Olivia had died, my hair had become something I groaned at when I entered the bathroom back in my flat. I was always too exhausted to do anything with it so I simply wound it into what I felt was a bun shape and cursed it every time I went to the toilet. If Olivia was here, she would have something to say about it.
I was the sad, grieving friend staring at herself in the mirror. Looking away I caught sight of the pink notebook lying on the bed. I had spent too long staring at the person in the mirror. An idea sprang to mind.
Leaping off the bed I raced downstairs and went into the kitchen to find Layla making everyone a cup of tea. ‘Zac’s out like a light,’ she said, cheerfully. She pointed to the baby monitor. ‘I always carry it with me now that we’re little nomads.’
‘Layla, how do you fancy giving me a haircut?’
She looked shocked. ‘Really? Now?’
I nodded. ‘What do you think?’
‘What sort of haircut? Remember, I never finished my apprenticeship.’
Taking a deep breath, I let the words on the tip of my tongue tumble out. ‘Chop it to my shoulders – yeah?’ I’d always had hair which reached down to my lower back, so this was going to be quite a change.
Grandpa chuckled as he walked into the kitchen and caught sight of me sitting on a kitchen chair whilst Layla cut my hair. ‘Short haircuts are great when embarking on an adventure,’ he cried, lifting his hands in the air. ‘Let’s go large!’
Layla giggled. ‘Eric, you sound like one of the teenagers from the pub.’
He punched the air. ‘My granddaughter, Nadine, is always telling me to go large. I’ve no idea what she means but it feels good to say it.’
Later after I’d showered, washed, and blow-dried my newly cut hair, I looked at myself in one of the full-length mirrors and gasped. Layla had cut my hair to my shoulders. It now gave me an unexpected bolt of happiness.
The person staring back at me was different to the washed out one who looked in this mirror earlier.
I noted the way the ends of my hair flicked up in little curls on my shoulder and when I turned my head, my hair looked alive and glossy. As I left the room to go downstairs and model my new hairstyle now I’d washed it, I smelt a hint of vanilla. It made me stop, press my forehead against the wood and whisper, ‘Hope you like it, Olivia.’
Both Layla and Grandpa clapped and cheered as I twirled about the kitchen showing off my new shorter cut. Even Humphrey barked at me, but I scowled at him as he was still in my bad books.