Women Behaving Badly_An uplifting, feel-good holiday read Read online

  “Hi, Mavis. I wonder whether you could do me a huge favour?”

  “Yes?” People rarely asked Mavis for favours, and a huge favour sounded ominous.

  “I thought I’d do a makeover for an article I’m writing, and it occurred to me that you might be just the person.”

  “You’re doing a what?”

  “A makeover. You know. You get someone with —” Alice’s voice trailed away awkwardly for a moment — “someone with a good face and complexion who doesn’t wear much make-up, and you sort of transform them.”

  “Transform them how?”

  “With make-up. I’ve got all these wonderful samples, and I could try them out on you. Then if it works out well, we might be able to do it properly and get a photographer down to take pictures, and you’d appear in our colour supplement. Gabs thought you’d be the ideal candidate.”

  “Gabs?” What had Gabs to do with all this? Had Alice and Gabs been meeting behind her back? Not just meeting, but discussing her appearance? Mavis experienced a stab of jealousy.

  “Yes. You know what Gabs is like. She’s really into make-up and stuff, and I’m not much good at it, and when I told her I needed a — a model, she said you’d be ideal. She said you had good bone structure and lovely skin.”

  “Gabs said that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” No one had ever praised Mavis’s bone structure or skin, not even Clifford (but then he was usually preoccupied with other bits of Mavis). Was Alice telling the truth?

  “That’s quite a compliment, coming from Gabs,” Alice said.

  “Yes.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Will you do it? Come round here one evening and have a makeover?”

  “I don’t mind coming for this — this makeover thing, but I’m not sure about the photographer,” Mavis said. She had never been comfortable having her photo taken, as she was never sure what to do with her features while it was happening.

  “Well, never mind about that now. I could just find out what suits you, and then use it for my article. Gabs has already done me; I’m dark. It would be helpful to have someone who’s fair.”

  Fair? Was she fair? Mavis scrutinised her face in the kitchen mirror. Certainly she had been as a girl, but now her skin was more sallow than fair, and her hair, which had been quite a nice dark blond, had turned to mouse streaked with grey.

  “Mavis? Are you still there?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure that I’m fair, though.”

  “Well, you’re fairer than I am, and I’d really like to do you. Please? It won’t take long.”

  “Can I bring Mother?”

  “Of course you can. We always love to see her, and Gabs says she’ll pick you both up.”

  “Gabs will be there too?”

  “Gabs is going to be doing it. Believe me, Mavis, you don’t want to be made up by me.”

  Mavis wasn’t sure she wanted to be made up by anyone, but it would be an evening out, and if she could take Maudie there’d be no problems with finding a sitter.

  “All right,” she said, feeling rather reckless. “I’ll do it.”

  On the evening in question, Gabs called for Mavis and Maudie promptly at the time they’d arranged.

  “Ooh! A pink car!” Maudie said. “Are we going to confession?”

  “Not today, Mother,” Mavis told her. “Nice car,” she added. “It’s a very interesting colour.”

  “My sister calls it the tartmobile,” Gabs said. “She thinks it’s terribly vulgar. I love it.”

  When they arrived, Alice was waiting for them. She had set up a mirror on the kitchen table, together with rows of bottles and tubes and brushes. She went to make coffee (Mavis had rather been hoping for something stronger) while Gabs set to work. Maudie, meanwhile, was settled in front of the television, and the front and back doors were locked in case there was a repetition of her last escapade. Mavis was relieved to see that there appeared to be no sign of Alice’s son. She had always felt awkward with young people, especially young men, and she didn’t want this one watching her undergoing such a personal procedure.

  “You know, you have got lovely skin,” Gabs said, tilting Mavis’s face towards the light. “You just need to look after it properly.”

  Mavis wondered whether she ought to feel offended at what could have been perceived as a criticism, but Gabs had such an artless manner that it was hard to take offence.

  “What am I supposed to do?” she asked.

  “I’ll show you.”

  An hour and a half later, Mavis was transformed. Gone were the shadows under her eyes, the bushy eyebrows, the sallow complexion. When she looked at herself in the mirror, the face that looked back at her was the face of a stranger. She put up a hand to touch her cheek to make sure it really was her. Her skin felt soft and creamy and glowed a subtle pink. She ran her fingers along a newly plucked eyebrow. Long dark lashes fluttered beneath glimmering eyeshadow, and when she smiled, the smile was a pretty dusky rose colour.

  “Goodness!” she said.

  “Yeah. Great, isn’t it?” Gabs said. “What do you think?”

  “I — don’t know.” Mavis was used to her old face and her old skin. She wasn’t sure that she had the personality to carry off this new look.

  “I think you look fabulous,” said Alice, who had been watching and taking notes.

  “I feel a bit like those people on that television programme. Mother likes to watch it. You know the one. They whiten people’s their teeth and give them plastic surgery, and they come out looking — artificial.”

  “But I haven’t changed you,” Gabs said. “That’s your face and your features you’re looking at. I’ve just brought out the best in you.”

  “I suppose so.” Mavis wondered whether she was supposed to be grateful. So far, she wasn’t making a very good job of it.

  “I know,” said Alice, “let’s have a proper drink, and then you can have another look. I’m sure it will grow on you.”

  They all had several drinks, and Mavis began to feel decidedly better. The face in the mirror, pink with expensive blusher and cheap wine, was beginning to look a bit more like her own. Perhaps she could get used to it after all.

  “Of course, you know what would help?” Gabs said.

  “What?” Mavis was feeling decidedly nervous.

  “If we coloured your hair. Not that there’s anything wrong with the colour, but everyone does it nowadays.” (Did they?) “We could put in some highlights. It would give your face a nice lift. You’d be amazed.”

  Mavis was beginning to think that she’d had as much amazement as she could cope with for one evening, but another part of her thought, why not? What had she to lose? It was years since she had changed the way she looked, and she’d hardly noticed that the same old foundation and hairstyle didn’t look at all the same on Mavis at fifty-something as they had on Mavis as a young woman.

  “Could you do it?” she asked Gabs.

  “Sure. No problem. I do my sister’s, and she’s never complained. We’ll fix a date.”

  “I think I’d like to get used to this makeover thing first,” Mavis said, “if you’d show me how to do it myself.”

  The following day was Friday, and Mavis was taking a half-day off work and meeting Clifford for their final date before his operation. Determined to wear her new face for him, she spent a lot of time getting ready, carefully applying some of the samples Alice had given her. She went a bit wrong with the eyeliner, but managed to do the rest very satisfactorily, and when she had finished, she was pleased with the result. Clifford would be delighted. It would be a little good luck present for him.

  But Clifford was very far from delighted.

  “Mavis, what have you done?” he demanded when she opened the front door to him.

  “What do you mean, what have I done?”

  “Your face!”

  “I was given some new make-up. Don’t you like it?”

  “No,
I do not! It makes you look — you look common.”

  “Clifford, what a horrible thing to say! I go to all this trouble, and you insult me!”

  “I didn’t ask you to do it, and I certainly never wanted you to. I like you the way you are. The way you were, I mean. I liked the old Mavis.”

  “Well, I like the new Mavis, so I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to it.”

  Hitherto, Mavis had always given in to Clifford where her appearance was concerned. It had been Clifford who had always said that he liked her the way she was, and so for his sake (and because she herself wasn’t particularly bothered), she had never tried anything new. But she had had no idea that he would take such a violent dislike to what was, after all, just a bit of make-up. Not for the first time, it occurred to her that perhaps it was time she started pleasing herself.

  And the old, chivalrous Clifford — what had happened to him? There had been a time when Clifford wouldn’t have dreamt of speaking to her like this, but nowadays, he was becoming increasingly critical, and on one or two occasions, like today, he had been bordering on downright rude.

  “It’s those new friends of yours,” Clifford continued. “I knew they were a bad influence.”

  In fact, Clifford knew very little about Gabs and Alice, but had always seemed oddly jealous of them. Mavis had long known that in the compartment of his life that he kept for her, there was no room for competition, and since she had few friends and was largely tied to Maudie, there had never been anything for him to worry about. But Alice and Gabs were new territory, for Clifford as well as for Mavis, and she knew he didn’t like it.

  “Are we going to stand arguing on the doorstep all afternoon?” Mavis asked, thinking longingly of Dennis’s. Clifford’s unpleasantness would have merited a sulk, but there wasn’t time. He was going into the hospital next week. If they didn’t make the most of this afternoon, she knew she would regret it.

  “Well…”

  “I’m wearing some…” She whispered something in his ear.

  “Really?” Clifford looked pleased.

  “Yes. Really.”

  “Just for me?”

  “Of course just for you. Now, come on, let’s make the most of this afternoon.”

  But the afternoon was not a success. For a start, Dennis had apparently paid one of his rare visits to the flat, and the bed, which they always left with clean sheets, had obviously been put to use for Dennis’s own amorous couplings. Someone had drunk the bottle of champagne they’d left in the fridge, and Mavis’s special device, which she’d inadvertently left behind last time, had been moved, its open box lying accusingly on the bedside table.

  “Oh!” Mavis was quite overcome. “How awful!” She felt that she would never be able to look Dennis in the face again (she overlooked the fact that she’d only met him once and was unlikely to meet him again).

  “Dennis is a man of the world,” said Clifford, who had regained some of his good humour on the journey while he regaled Mavis with accounts of all the things that could go wrong after a bypass operation.

  “I don’t care what he is. That’s not the point!”

  “It is his flat.”

  “That’s not the point, either.”

  “We’ll book a hotel room, shall we?” Clifford said.

  Mavis glanced at her watch. The nearest hotel, she knew, was some distance away, and she mustn’t be late home.

  “The car, then?” Clifford said, seeing her expression.

  Mavis knew that this was generous of Clifford (perhaps he was trying to make amends?). They rarely made love in Clifford’s car, and it had always been the venue of last resort. While it was a large car and the seats reclined, Clifford too was large, his build unathletic, and the exercise had rarely been worth the considerable discomfort it engendered.

  And then there was the problem of finding a suitable parking place. Years ago, when they had been younger and more reckless, they had been discovered in a leafy lane by two young policemen, and Mavis had never quite recovered from the embarrassment of having to explain what she was doing (hadn’t it been obvious?) while trapped between Clifford and the steering wheel with her knickers round her ankles. (Clifford, half-suffocated by Mavis when she reached across to wind down the window, had been unable to speak at all.)

  “I know,” she said now. “We’ll go to my house.”

  “But what about your mother?”

  “Mother will be fast asleep. It was her morning at the day centre, and it always tires her out. I think it’s worth the risk.”

  But we all know what happens to the best-laid plans, and this one was no exception. Mavis and Clifford had barely settled themselves on Mavis’s bed and Clifford had just finished unwrapping Mavis and was preparing to get stuck in, so to speak, when Maudie came into the room.

  “Oh, there you are, Mavis,” she said. “Shall we have a cup of tea?”

  “Mother! Get out at once! This is my bedroom!” Mavis shot up in bed and pulled the covers round her.

  “Who’s that man?” Maudie asked, apparently unfazed by what she saw. “Would he like a cup of tea?”

  “Mother, go away!” Mavis shouted.

  “You’ll catch your death like that,” Maudie remarked, standing in the doorway. “So will your friend.”

  Mavis’s friend, who appeared to have run out of patience, had disappeared under the bedclothes and was trying to struggle into his trousers.

  “A fine to-do this is, Mavis.” Clifford’s voice was muffled by the duvet, but his anger was beyond doubt. “And me with my bad heart. You said she’d be asleep!”

  “Well, as you see, she’s not.” Mavis too was angry — angry with herself, angry with Clifford, but most of all, angry with Maudie. Would she ever be able to call her life, never mind her home, her own? “Mother! Go away now!”

  How long this situation would have lasted is anyone’s guess, but it was at this point that Pussolini decided to join in the proceedings. Glimpsing Maudie’s plastic bag trailing along the floor behind her, he went in for the kill, puncturing it with his claws. There followed an unseemly scramble, in the course of which Clifford made his escape, gathering up the rest of his clothes as he went; the cat, terrified by all the noise, fled through the open bedroom window, shattering one of Mavis’s favourite ornaments; and Mavis, naked and disappointed, was left to deal with the mess.

  “Oh, Mavis. You’re crying. What’s the matter?” said Maudie, bewildered by all the fuss.

  “Everything,” wept Mavis, scrubbing at the carpet with an old towel (the plastic bag had been half full). “Everything’s the matter. And it’s all my fault.”

  “Of course it’s not, dear,” said Maudie, stroking and patting Mavis’s shoulder. “It was the fucking cat.”

  “The what?”

  “The fucking cat, dear.”

  “Mother!”

  “It’s all right, dear. Everybody uses that word nowadays. I heard them on the telly.”

  “I think,” said Mavis, sitting back on her heels, “that perhaps it really is time you went to confession.”

  The Fourth Meeting: August

  It happened that the date that had been fixed for the next meeting was the day after Clifford’s operation. Alice wondered whether Mavis would be feeling up to it, and said so on the phone to Gabs.

  “Poor Mavis. She’s bound to be worried. Do you think we ought to leave it for a few days?”

  “Oh no. Let’s take her out and give her a good time,” said Gabs. “It’ll take her mind off things.”

  “Do you think?” Alice wasn’t sure.

  “Yes. Trust me, Alice. What Mavis needs is a bit of fun.”

  “What kind of fun exactly?”

  “How about a surprise?”

  “I’m not sure.” Mavis had never seemed to Alice to be the kind of person to enjoy surprises, particularly if the surprises were organised by someone like Gabs.

  “Okay. No surprise, then. But we could take her into town for a meal, and then do a bit o
f shopping,” Gabs said.

  “Won’t the shops be shut?”

  “They stay open late on Fridays.”

  “But she mightn’t want to do any shopping!”

  “Alice, I’m disappointed in you. Of course she’ll want to go shopping. Everyone loves shopping.”

  Alice herself was not particularly fond of shopping. She had neither the time nor the spare cash to do the kind of recreational shopping people seemed to indulge in these days. She shopped for necessities. She suspected that Mavis might well feel the same way.

  “And then there’s her mother,” Alice said. “We can’t really take her.”

  “True.” Gabs considered for a moment. “I know. How about your Finn? Couldn’t he sit with her? He seems a capable sort of guy, and it wouldn’t involve much — just keeping an eye on Maudie and staying clear of that awful animal. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”

  Alice tried to picture Finn supervising Maudie, plus plastic bag and feral cat. “I suppose it might work.”

  “Of course it’ll work! I’ll put it to him if you like.”

  “No, I’ll do it.” The less contact Finn had with Gabs, the better. “And then I’ll phone Mavis, shall I?”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  When Alice phoned with their plan, Mavis sounded doubtful. “I’m not sure,” she said. “It rather depends on how the operation’s gone.”

  “But you won’t know, will you?”

  “I was trying to think of a way of finding out, but you’re probably right.”

  “So it might be better to spend an evening with us rather than at home worrying. After all, there’s nothing you can do, is there? And at least you can talk to us.”

  “Are you sure your son can manage?”

  “He’ll be fine.” In fact, Alice wasn’t at all sure, but provided the cat was locked out and Maudie was locked in, there wasn’t much that could go wrong — nothing of a life-threatening nature, anyway. “We’ll call for you at six, shall we?”

  On the appointed evening, Alice and Finn arrived promptly at Mavis’s house.

  “This is so kind of you, Finn,” Mavis said.