Crystal Balls (24 page)

I join in the game with utter reluctance but the situation calls for it. “Right. Right.” I nod, catching sight of two people out of the corner of my eye. “Can I leave you to
come back to me with quotes for the work, please? As soon as possible if you don’t mind.”

“Consider it done,” he replies before turning to leave. “Hello!” He gestures to the suited guys standing in the way of our exit. “We’ve got company, it
appears.” His voice is wooden and unconvincing.

“Hello there!” I chirp. “We’ve finished the viewing now, it’s all yours.”

We brush past the guys with our sharp exit.

Outside, Brian lets out a frustrated moan while I stifle giggles at his pathetic attempts at acting.

“Tina, come back with me,” he groans.

“To where?”

“My place.”

I hesitate for a moment but shake my head reluctantly.

“Brian, I can’t. I really can’t.” My diary has scheduled valuations on the hour for the rest of the afternoon. Unlike him, I can’t afford to pay someone else to do
the job, not yet anyway, so it’s all hands on deck.

He throws his jacket across his arm, pulling his car keys from his trouser pocket. “You know something, Miss Harding?” he protests. “If I didn’t know better I’d
think we were jinxed!”

He shakes his keys, clearly agitated and dispirited. “You don’t have some sort of bad curse hanging over me, do you?”

“Not over you!” I answer brusquely. “But I’m bloody well beginning to wonder if there’s a curse over me!”

Chink!

Our glasses slam together as we toast the bride once more.

“To Sam!” we cheer.

“To the girl we thought was still a virgin!” Jessie squeals.

Sam rolls her eyes, as reluctant as ever to be dragged into any conversation concerning her personal life. “Just because I didn’t put myself about, Jess!” she retorts
boldly.

“You didn’t put yourself anywhere, Sam, apart from in a bloody library!”

We laugh in chorus.

“Now, now, children.” I step in to protect my sister even though I know Jess is right. “Look at Kate and me – we put out with everyone going in our student days but our
Sam is the only non-singleton amongst us. She must be doing something right.” I pat her hand patronisingly “Exactly what are we doing wrong, Sam?” I ask, only half-joking.
She’s one step closer to passing
Go
than I am. Funny, after all these years when I always thought Sam was the complete nerd who would be stuck on the shelf while I would be married to
some handsome tycoon, carrying our beautiful children on my slender hips while handing out autographs. It never dawned on me that she would have the high-flying career, retro apartment and be
married first. The fact that she’s carrying a little extra weight and has no fashion sense hardly seems relevant now. Life has a funny way of working out.

“Your problem, Tina, is that you expect too much,” she replies, slightly slurred in speech. She’s only had three drinks.

It was a rhetorical question actually, Sam.

“You want the fairytale and it doesn’t exist.”

Will someone please steer the conversation away from my love life and quick?

“
Pretty Woman
was a film,” she continues. “That crap doesn’t happen in real life!” She takes a gulp of wine, placing the glass clumsily on the wooden floor.
Crack!
The stem breaks in two and the glass falls on its side with the red content spilling out across the beech-laminate flooring. “Oops!” she hiccups.

“Don’t move.” Jess uses her long nails to collect the large pieces of glass followed by the smaller fragments while I run into the kitchen to grab the kitchen roll and
duster-buster. These wet and dry things are a godsend. How did our parents cope with such a lack of appliances and gadgets? And Rabbits?

Kate follows me in. “How much has she had?” she says under her breath.

“Not enough, Kate! It’s her hen night and if she remembers it then we’ve let her down!”

Kate claps her hands together with spiteful glee. She can be such a bitch sometimes. “Oh, you’re so mean!” she says, sending the blame back to me with a boomerang effect.
“But I’ve never seen Sam drunk before so I’m in for it!” We high-five each other before returning to the lounge to clean up the mess.

I’m so glad Kate has made it. She has always been a major part of my life, and Sam’s, that it would seem strange giving my sister a send-off without my side-kick next to me. When we
were nearing sixteen Mum and Dad let us go out into town one night with Sam. I remember it like it was yesterday. She took us to a bar where you had to be twenty-one to enter. But in we walked with
Sam and Jason, one of her past dorky boyfriends. We couldn’t believe it, the bouncers just let us glide right past them. Inside, Kate and I stood there feeling so grown-up, gulping cider and
black until our pocket money had dissipated. We were plastered in Constance Carroll make-up, with hair six feet high permeated with a full can of Insette hair spray. I swear it was us who damaged
the ozone layer. Shortly after the gap in the ozone was announced, the hairspray was reinvented with a CFC-friendly logo on it. It never worked as well. How strange. Looking back we must have been
a hilarious sight with our theatrical make-up and granny boots. But that was the fashion in the eighties and like all teenagers, experimenting is all a part of growing up. Sam just let us get on
with it and no matter what we got up to, or who we got off with more like, she never said anything to our parents and she kept everything we did top secret. We thought she was the coolest big
sister in the universe. In some ways, I still do.

“I know, let’s play Fuzzy Duck!” Kate suddenly screams, jumping up from the floor, giving us a flash of her underwear from beneath a skirt that barely covers her bottom. She
grabs two more bottles from the kitchen and quickly returns and refills our glasses to the brim.

“How do you play that?” Sam asks.

She really is clueless.

Kate explains the rules of the game where we each take turns to say ‘Fuzzy Duck’ until someone stuffs up and gets it wrong. But it’s clear to see that Sam can’t quite see
the humour in its simple repetition; not in theory anyway.

“Sam, stop asking questions and just play, will you?” Kate chides, never one to mince her words. “Just remember that when someone says ‘Does he?’ the game reverses
and you have to say ‘ducky fuzz’
,
which is the reverse to ‘fuzzy duck’. Get it?” She snorts loudly, winking at me. She and I are experts at this game – we
learned it on our first Club Eighteen to Thirty holiday. We were just eighteen and it was our first holiday away together. We made a pact that when we had graduated we would return to become
holiday reps. That way we could party day and night and get paid for it. Perfect!

“You start, Tina,” Kate orders.

“Fuzzy duck,” I say, looking to Jess.

“Fuzzy duck!” Jess belts out, clapping with excitement.

“Fuzzy duck,” Sam joins in with monotone boredom.

A wickedness breaks across Kate’s face.

“Does he?” she says, and turns back to Sam.

Sam looks at Kate. “Does he fuck,” she says deadpan.

We keel over with laughter, screaming and pointing at her drink while she sits there oblivious and we wait for the penny to drop. This makes the situation all the more comical as she
hasn’t a bloody clue that she’s said it wrong. But that’s the beauty of such a stupidly simple game. “In one – in one – in one!” we cry, thrusting her
wineglass at her.

“Oh no!” Sam’s hands clasp her face as the realisation of what she said becomes clear. “I got it wrong! I said ‘does he fuck’ instead of ‘fuck he
does’ . . . oh God . . . what is it again?”

“Now do you see the humour in the game, you great big square?” Jess ridicules.

Unable to answer, Sam’s wineglass covers her face as she knocks back the Rioja in one impressive swoop, leaving a red moustache decorating her mouth.

“This game’s brilliant. Let’s play again,” she slurs. “I’ll start.” She clears her throat and musters up some concentration. “Fucky
duck!”

Sam rushes to the toilet for the third time as Mark waits impatiently, brush in one hand, hair dryer in the other, ready to create the trial hairdos.

“What did you do to her, you naughty girls?”

Kate and I shrug innocently.

“We just stayed in and played a few games, Mark,” I say. Kate nods in agreement. “She’s not a drinker,” I add sympathetically.

“Doesn’t that show.”

Sam returns, pale and shaking, and sinks into the chair as Mark gets to work like a man on a mission. I catch him glancing in the mirror, taking in the clock on the wall behind, and smile at him
kindly, knowing full well we’ve kept him late. He doesn’t smile back but I know Mark well enough to say that he’ll be loving every second of the drama.

He blasts and flat-brushes Sam’s hair until it’s dry before scooping it up and rolling it into an immaculate French pleat. He gently teases out some of the underneath strands,
wrapping them around his fingers in an attempt to add some curl and softness to her look.

“You’re wasting your time, Mark,” I tell him. “Sam’s hair hasn’t a kink to it. Has it, Sam?” Her eyes are closed and she doesn’t answer.
“Sam!” No answer. I give up. “Try the tongs but don’t burn the back of her neck like you did that poor girl. Remember?”

Sam’s eyes fly open.

“Just kidding, Sam, go back to sleep,” I taunt wickedly.

A young whippet of a girl, dressed in the black salon uniform, taps Mark on the shoulder and whispers in his ear before walking away. “That’s one of my juniors.” He motions to
Kate. “She says can she please have your autograph before you leave.”

Kate swivels around on the stool, gloating at me. She loves this bit of her job, who wouldn’t? “
I’m so famous, I’m so famous!
” she sings to me, grinning like
a two-year-old, deliberately preening her long blonde hair in the mirror. “
La la la la!”

“And modest with it, you vain cow!”

For the most part I’ve felt remarkably renewed, given the copious amounts of wine we put away, the remnants of which have discoloured my teeth and left a black line running across my
bottom lip. But now I’m really flagging and, lying back against the basin, I feel my eyes blinking rapidly, fighting to stay awake. That’s the trouble with these seats, they’re
just too damn comfortable.

Mark opened his salon just over a year ago, after spending the past decade or so as a mobile hairdresser. The location is amazing, slap-bang in the middle of the city centre but with amazing
rent and rates thrown in for good measure. The décor is state-of-the-art with low-level triangular basins and red-leather reclining chairs with built-in foot rests. I swear I’m
practically horizontal but it sure as hell beats sitting upright with your neck at an awkward angle, cursing as the water gushes down your face attacking the fake tan and non-waterproof mascara.
Never again!
I’d sooner pay a few quid more and enjoy the experience.

Keith, Mark’s second junior, is massaging the conditioner through my hair with his fingertips and, while my head is still slightly tender, each application of pressure is sending my body
into a deep state of relaxation. As his hands knead my scalp from base to crown, I feel all the impurities and late stress escaping from my pores.

Mark thrusts a pile of magazines onto the glass shelf in front of me before sending orders for more coffee. White, no sugar.
Perfect.

“Pity Sam couldn’t have stuck around to give her tuppence’ worth,” he says, spraying my hair with much-needed detangler. “Did she say how she wants your hair to
look, Tina?”

I put the magazine on my lap and look at him through the mirror. “She said it was up to me, Mark.”
That’s the truth. “
Just do something bridesmaidy and nothing
that will take the shine from her.”

He sniggers cruelly. “You sooo don’t mean that, my girl!”

“I
so do
mean that, Mark.” I’m totally offended. “She’s my sister and this day is about her and no-one else and I’ll be damned if anyone or anything
gets in the way of that.”

I’m shocked at my little outburst.

“Okay,” he yields cheerfully.

“Ooh!” Keith leans over my shoulder, pointing to the back page of the glossy magazine. “I’ve always wanted to see one of them.”

I think you mean ‘one of those’, darling.

I look across to the opposite page from the one I’m reading and just stare while Mark bends forward nosily. I feel his warm breath on the back of my exposed neck.

“Destiny calling!” he reads aloud. “Density more bloody like. Bunch of con-merchants, the lot of them!” I’m tempted to jump in, telling him he’s wrong, but on
what grounds? What solid evidence do I really have that the predictions given to me weren’t derived from a quick imagination and a penchant for a fast buck? Although at the last reading she
did describe Brian to a tee. Okay, she added that he’s a hard man to tie down and so far that hasn’t surfaced. In fact, he’s keeps coming back for more. Well, maybe not more given
that ‘more’ implies something having happened in the first instance.

My skin develops goose-bumps as I recall the old lady at the Psychic Fayre telling me of my failed past and advising me to trust myself.
Only you know who and
what is right for
you.
I thought I did. I think I do. But sometimes life throws so many balls at you that you catch the ones closest to you, dropping the others without a moment’s thought and you never
think to pick them up the next time your hands become free. It sometimes feels like a game of bingo. You wait excitedly for your numbers to be called out, but when they’re not, you never
think to make the most of those numbers you were given. You know, make them work for you. You spend the rest of your life mourning over the numbers that could have been. They could have been
yours.

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