The Alibi Girl. C.J. Skuse

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СКАЧАТЬ makes you want to commit actual murder on their head? So I ask her.

      ‘So you don’t love him anymore?’

      ‘Oh, course I do,’ she laughs. ‘I were only joking. Just wish he worked on an oil rig or summut, so he’d leave the bloody house once in a while, you know?’

      I don’t get that either but, before I can ask, she hands me the same magazine I read six times in the waiting room and I’m treated to another glimpse of hairy Brooklyn and interviews with Liam Payne’s mother and the Britain’s Got Talent failure who’s had twenty facelifts and still hates himself.

      We used to play Britain’s Got Talent at the pub. It would be after the kitchen had closed for the evening. Auntie Chelle would be helping Uncle Stu in the bar and the boys would be upstairs and me and Foy would sneak down for midnight feasts of still-warm chips from the fryers and leftover baguette ends dipped in salad cream. We’d take it in turns to come through from the utility room, telling a sob story to the panel of stuffed toys on the breakfast bar then screech ‘Flying Without Wings’ into a vinegar bottle. Miss Whiskers and Thread Bear always put us through to Bootcamp.

      After half an hour, Steffi returns. ‘Let’s get you washed. Leave her with Jodie.’

      The one called Jodie, with the shoulder tattoo of moons and stars and the white DMs, appears beside the buggy, all smiley and young. ‘Yeah, I’ll watch her for ya.’

      ‘Don’t let her out of your sight, will you?’ I say.

      ‘No probs. Can I have a little hold if she wakes up?’

      ‘No, I’d rather you didn’t. Thanks. She’s better left to her own devices.’

      Steffi leads me back across the glittery floor to the sinks. I must get some glitter. I don’t know what for yet but I don’t use nearly enough of it. It’ll be November soon so I could get a head start on decorating for Christmas. Steffi’s pressing buttons and running water before I’ve even sat down. As I do, a bizarre kneading sensation begins in my lower back, rising up my spine and into my shoulder blades.

      ‘Oh my god!’ I jerk forwards and I realise it’s one of those massage chairs.

      ‘Is it too hard for you?’ she asks.

      ‘Um, no, sorry. I just never tried one before.’

      ‘Do you want me to turn it off?’

      ‘No, it’ll be fine. I think.’

      ‘It’s supposed to help you relax,’ she says. ‘But some people don’t like the feel of it. Let me know if it gets too much.’

      I lie back again and within moments I’m letting out involuntary grunts at the luscious deep kneading all over my back. I’m making noises people usually only make when they do naughties. Luckily, there are too many dryers on for anyone to hear me.

      ‘I’ve recently started selling Avon on the side actually,’ says Steffi out of nowhere. ‘Would you be interested in a catalogue?’

      ‘Uh—’

      ‘And I’m organising a party at my place on Saturday night if you’re free?’

      I’ve done nothing to warrant this invitation but I’m imagining she gets the smell of money off me, knowing I have four children at private school. ‘It would be difficult,’ I say, between grunts. ‘Saturdays are our family days normally.’

      ‘Bring ’em all along. Our kids’ll be there. They can watch Disney in the family room. The blokes usually go down the pub.’

      ‘My Kaden doesn’t drink. He’s more into his coconut water and plankton shots.’

      ‘Well he can sit in the other room watching Ant and Dec, can’t he? Go on, it’ll be a laugh. I can’t promise any food but people usually only want Pringles and Prosecco at these things, don’t they? Bring a bottle.’

      ‘Well I can’t drink at the moment because I’m breastfeeding but it sounds great. I’d love to come. Thank you.’

      And while my lips are saying I’d love to, I know I won’t go. I’m breaking into a sweat thinking about it. I’m like Ariel in The Little Mermaid. I’m ginger and I want to be with them – up where they walk and run and play all day in the sun. But I can’t be part of that world. And I absolutely cannot be ginger. That’s just how it is.

      But I say no more and after divulging her address, Steffi doesn’t ask me again. She vigorously rubs my head and I’m in ecstasy. By the time we’re on the second shampoo I’m used to the sensations and I just want to feel the pressing of her fingers into my scalp; the rubbing and rinsing and smoothing; the kneading into my back and shoulders. I want to lie in this synthetic coconut paradise forever. I crane my neck through the archway and see Jodie rocking the buggy while scrolling her phone.

      The salon’s getting busy now and the radio blares out ‘Despacito’ which one of them has turned up because ‘this was all we danced to on our holidays’. They went to Spain together, I gather, three of the staff. They spent most of the time ‘paralytic’ but it seems to make them very happy hearing the song again. They’re obviously a close bunch. Natalya with the Princess Leia buns knows all the words and whisks her hips in time to the music. Steffi and Toni are behind me, bitch-chatting about their ex-husbands. Meg with the topknot is folding towels and chit-chatting to her client about her own disastrous holiday to ‘that place where Maddie went missing’.

      ‘It rained most days. And there were all these turds in the sea. Then we got robbed and came home.’

      The taps go off and the water stops to a drip, drip. The chair stops massaging and I keenly feel the loss. A grey towel stinking of cooked mince wraps around my head and I’m led back across the glittery floor to get dried and styled. Jodie’s disappeared to make coffee. The baby’s still sleeping, no thanks to her.

      Any softness in Steffi’s face from the conversation about kids has skinned over. She’s concentrating now – brushing me roughly as the burning air from the dryer sets about my head. She scrunches, ruffles and shakes me until I’m dry before straightening it into a jet black bob with my parting once again located.

      She affords me a few more seconds of bliss as she rakes it through, shielding my eyes while caking it with Elnet. Before I know it, she’s holding up the mirror. Black bob. Brown eyes. The red is dead. Nobody would know it was me.

      ‘That alright for you, Mary?’

      ‘That’s perfect, thanks so much.’

      ‘You’re very welcome.’ She removes my cape and I flick off the brake on the pushchair and wheel Emily over to the desk to pay. I’m expecting her to mention the Avon party again but she doesn’t.

      The radio waffles on – an advert for a conservatory firm, twenty-five percent off windows and doors, some aquatics company are giving away fish and it’s Kids Eat Free at the Jungle Café – none of which I can take advantage of but I pretend like it’s all very reasonable.

      Then the door opens with a little jingle and three men file in, one after the other. There’s no rush to their movements. The first two wipe their feet on the mat, the third wipes his nose on his sleeve. And my entire body floods with ice СКАЧАТЬ