LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter One

      I haven’t touched the black coffee I poured half an hour ago, or the scrambled eggs. I really don’t have a hangover after Demi’s wedding, although it was certainly a day to remember. The string quartet playing Vivaldi was hilarious, Adie raising a champagne glass, acting the distinguished father of the bride, while my sister Bonnie sobbed in the corner and drank too many cocktails. She left him two days before Demi’s wedding after finding lipstick smudges on his shirt collar again. I told her it would be a bad idea to go back to him, and she gave me the usual reply: ‘But he needs me, Georgie.’ So I dragged her on the dance floor to bop to Aerosmith and watched helpless while she threw up outside in the lush grounds of the spectacular Cheshire mansion. Of course, Adie, the brother-in-law from hell, sidled over and led her away, promising to look after her forever, and I was left by myself in the bar.

      Then I was accosted by a man with a neatly clipped beard who tried to smooch with me to ‘Lay Lady Lay’, breathing down my ear like an asthmatic bloodhound. Not flattering, not even for a fifty-five-year-old woman who’s been single for almost six years and has hardly had a second look from a decent man in all that time. Not that I’m interested. I ditched the snorting bloodhound on the dance floor, strutted past Demi and Kyle, who were swaying together, their eyes locked, oblivious to the mayhem caused by her philandering father, and took a taxi all the way back home to Liverpool. It was a costly evening all round.

      This morning, my head aches so badly because I’m worried about my daughter and my sister. It’s ten o’clock and Jade didn’t come home last night. She left the wedding straight after the church service, wrinkling her nose and telling me she was going to a proper party where there’d be young people, not ageing has-beens making fools of themselves. Jade’s often out until two in the morning but seldom all night, and she’s not answering my texts, which is unusual. Bonnie’s keeping quiet, too – no reply to my six messages over the last hour. I assume my sister has a hangover and is still asleep. I expect she’s gone home with Adie. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was stifled in their airless bedroom, lying pale in the four-poster with the curtains drawn while Adie hovers overhead, fangs at the ready, rubbing his hands together with glee.

      Jade’s twenty-four: she knows she can do as she pleases but I’m becoming concerned. She often comes in late on a Saturday night after hours of non-stop clubbing, but not much gets in the way of her Sunday morning muesli and a 10-k run. Apart from the half-marathon she’s preparing for, she works as a personal trainer, so she knows the value of sleep and a good breakfast. I pour more coffee and breathe in roasted beans.

      I’m in a soft dressing gown to my ankles and furry boot slippers. I look a mess. My hair’s sticking out, dried with hairspray and sweat from last night’s dancing. My skin feels slack, like it doesn’t fit the bones in my face. I do a reasonable impression of Marge Simpson, but it’s nothing I can’t fix with an hour in the gym, a shower and a bit of TLC. I check my phone again, and then push the half-eaten breakfast away from me. I wonder why I thought I wanted scrambled eggs. I smile to myself. It’s the same thing with men: appetising and desirable at first glance, then too hot, then too tepid and finally unpalatable. I pour more coffee and check my phone again. The screen is blank and I feel the same way.

      I go down to the basement where the gym is: Jade’s Gym, where she brings clients for one-to-one fitness coaching. I close my eyes and remind myself that although I’ve lost Terry forever, the divorce gave me a four-storey semi-detached house with a huge mortgage, so that I can run my own business and Jade’s, too. My salon’s on the ground floor with a gravel parking space outside. The kitchen and lounge with the raised garden behind ageing French windows are on the first floor and there are three bedrooms at the top. Beauty Within was my choice of name, because it’s a beauty salon within my house: 5 Albert Drive. A lovely part of Liverpool: trendy and a little bohemian at the same time. Perfect for me. Jade and I revel in the fact that we don’t even have to open the front door to go to work, except to let in clients.

      It hasn’t always been that way. After all the dives and sweatshops I’ve worked in since I was eighteen, painting nails and waxing legs all hours of the day and late into the evening, pacifying fretting clients and fussy bosses, I’m grateful to have my own business, even if it’s sometimes a struggle to make ends meet.

      I spend ten minutes on the exercise bicycle and realise that I did drink too much last night. The wheels are spinning and so are the walls. I heave myself out of the saddle and crawl up three floors to my bedroom, shower, make myself presentable then check the time and the phone for messages. Nothing from Jade or Bonnie. It’s 11.30. I have to go out. I throw some things in a shopping bag, pull on a warm coat in dusky pink and some black boots and I’m off, striding across the park. I should make it for midday.

      It’s glorious outside: a beautiful March morning, early spring, and the park is a flurry of flowers, purple crocuses and a blanket of bluebells. The sky is pale blue and little clouds float across like toy yachts. There are the usual Sunday dog walkers: a black-clad Goth woman with a white wolf on a lead; a couple with a brown mongrel, clearly too in love to notice the dog running in circles and lifting its leg against a tree. I push my hands deep into my pockets, feel the breeze whisk my hair and tickle my cheek, enjoying the satisfying crunch of gravel beneath my boots. I may be fifty-five and unloved, but I try to cut a stylish figure. It’s important to me as a beauty therapist to look as good as I can, even if no one’s interested. I keep my hair smart, a rich honey blonde, and my teeth are in good working order. I had a smile that could light up a room, once upon a time.

      I turn into a row of terraces just five minutes’ walk from the park. These houses have a history. Once grand, later dishevelled, they now provide cheap accommodation and a good income for private landlords. I take out my key, ring the bell three times, which is my signal, and open the door.

      Nan’s in her usual place, by the gas fire, wearing the same old baggy brown cardigan. Uncle Wilf’s. She has a dark green woolly hat on and tufts of white hair stick out around her face. She’s sparrow-like behind black-framed glasses, with huge watery eyes, baggy tights and fluffy slippers. There’s a mug of beer on the table next to her, and a half-empty bottle of Guinness. She struggles to get up, pushing her hands on the chair arms to stand as tall as she can, and despite my protests, she heaves herself upright – five-feet tall now – to give me a hug. I pull her to me and her bones are as light as a chicken’s. She smells of Pears soap, beer and something musty like riverbeds.

      ‘How are you, Nanny?’ I say.

      ‘Did you remember to order next week’s groceries on the line? Did you bring the extra Guinness? I’m getting a bit low.’

      I start to empty the bag: beer, biscuits, cake, fruit, chocolate. She grabs my hand. Hers is thin-skinned – purple veins and brown blotches.

      ‘Oh, you’re my good girl, Georgina.’

      ‘Cup of tea, Nan?’

      ‘A Guinness’d be better, love.’

      ‘You drink too much, Nan.’

      ‘So the doctor says. But it keeps me company. Besides, Guinness is good for you. They say so on the telly.’

      I bustle about and notice the photos on her mantelpiece either side of the loud clock need dusting. Taking a tissue from the box beside her chair, I pick each one up carefully and wipe the glass. There’s a black-and-white photo, all smiles: Nanny and her husband, Wilf Basham, who was my mum’s elder brother. She’s my aunt but everyone calls her nan, never Aunty Anne or even Aunty Nan any more. A few years older than my mum would’ve been, she’s eighty-eight, but made of stronger stuff than either her husband, who died five years ago, or my poor mother, who never made it close to sixty. There are two photos of her wedding in a time when fashions were puffy dresses with petticoats under ballooning skirts. Uncle Wilf has the slicked-back hair of a Teddy boy and a long jacket, his face as serious as an undertaker’s.

      I

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