Face (8 page)

“I actually came up here to talk to you about Dad.” She takes my
hard, no-comment face as permission to continue. “I saw him yesterday. He came up to me at the supermarket.”

             
“And?”

             
“He mentioned you haven’t returned any of his messages.”

             
“What did he say, exactly?”

Mum’s upper body defla
tes onto the bump, cutting off her sigh. 

“He asked about me, how I was. That didn’t go down well, as you can imagine. I strode off. Well, waddled really. He’s desperate to keep in contact with you, asked if I’d talked to you about the baby. Then he offered to carry my bag.”

              “Hah.”

My Smile
Blocker tugs, it feels right. Mum flinches and my face feels even better.

             
“I told him I married more than just a bag carrier.” she says

             
“What did he say to that?”

             
“He did his hurt look.”

             
“He’s pathetic.”

             
“Granted, this is not his finest hour. But he is still your Dad.”

             
“He left, that’s not being a Dad. It’s just a word. Vocabulary Unrecognised.”

             
“He moved out because of me, because of things between us. He loves you, you do know that don’t you?”

             
“Why are you sticking up for him? I thought you hated his guts.”

Mum’s olive eyes are in retre
at but it’s not her I’m attacking.

             
“It’s complicated.” Mum says

             
“Stay or go. Sounds simple to me.”

Mum clutches at her bump, my sibling. It plainly isn’t going anywhere.

              “You should probably listen to his side of things.”

             
“I’m not talking to him.
Ever
. You don’t get to walk out, and still have nice little catch-up chats.”

Clouds stuck outside my window like cotton wool. Someone might have said that before, that’s not my fault. It’s what they are.

              “He had a woman with him.”

How dare she slip that in, all
casual. (“Looks like rain.”)

             
“She was a real Marilyn,” Mum adds. “Pouty lips and swaying hips, needy eyes. Tottered off, red nails curled around the trolley...”

Mum mimes a swaying bimb
o, claws out, her pout elongates into a smirk. I practise my Smile Blocker, Mum’s smirk drops.

             
“Was it his trolley?” I say

             
“She’s not his type.”

I’m beginning to see that our family is some sort of game to her, with the pieces ever reducing. Why not throw in a random Marilyn-Monroe-look-alike, for a bit of light relief?

              “And you were?”

Mum’s face doe
s something I regret- I’ve gone too far. Now she won’t accept my gaze.

             
“Actually yes I was, and I still am his type. Minus the bump. Up to you if you want to contact him.”

She hoists herself off the bed
and pauses to fill the doorway, her face is all emptied out. Her complaint, when it comes, is sadder than I expected:

“T
hat cruel Maverick face does not belong on my daughter. What could you possibly imagine was going to happen that’s good, to a girl with a face like that?”

Chapter Nine

I can’t take this much longer: the sight of Mum feeding. We’re sat at the table, me opposite Dad’s ex-chair. I chopped salad, Mum served me the half of pizza where the cheese topping is slightly less burnt, but I shouldn’t have come down. She knows about My Face History, knows my nice face isn’t coming back. She has taken to wincing at my every expression.

Mum
raises a narrow slice of pizza to her lips and lines it up point first, a flash of teeth and she drags off a sheet of cheese, swiftly folded in by fingers. She chews self-consciously- the lips seem to be getting in the way of this. Her vast lips are glossed with cheese grease and I swear I can hear the food squishing around in the silence. I was losing my appetite anyway; this pizza is texture alone.

             
“I can’t taste anything.” I say

“Colds do that,” Mum says, “if you leave them to take hold
.”

Her eyes fill with tears
.

             
“Bit my lip.”

Fingertips to
clumsy wide mouth, but there’s no blood, only tomato. She massages the skin hard, pressing circles that alternately pucker and stretch her lips. I find this oddly mesmerizing.

“Day two is
always the worst, with the tightness,” she complains.

I turn away and sneeze, a blast into the air.

              When Merlot decides to join us, I don’t get rid of her straight away. She’s a pop-up advert out of my phone, for Ultiface. Merlot is facing Mum. Her gaze is self-contained, demanding nothing of Mum, nothing of our kitchen beyond. She is the cool breeze passing through Mum’s house of cards. I wait for the surge of bitterness- she’s Dollar’s girlfriend after all- but it doesn’t come. In fact, I find I like her even more today. Her nose is Seven’s inspiration, distilled elegance, but it’s definitely not that. Her top lip peaks in the apex of two triangles, descending noticeably towards their outer edges. I feel- she makes me feel -an almost imperceptible twinge of sorrow at her new vulnerability. That’s it then: today she’s selling a down-turned mouth for Ultiface.

             
“Somebody needs a hug.” Mum says flatly.

             
I slide the phone across the table towards me and close Merlot. I’m immediately offered a link to check out her CelebSite, Merlot clutching Dollar at parties, being clutched. I prefer the History of a Style Icon: an animation that fills the air with Merlot, her features dissolvable, each face a part of the history of Ultiface. Merlot is never upstaged by her features. Even at her most extreme last year, with statements filling her face and vying for attention: that knowing mouth; the LeaderNose; FantasySwimmingPool eyes, heavy-lidded. You can have my face, but you don’t get me. I catch myself sitting straighter, shoulders back, not trying to smile because Merlot doesn’t smile and doesn’t do Maverick, only versions of poised perfection. Mum watches, chewing slowly.

             
Inspired, I return to my bedroom to rip open my clothing parcel. Dad signed Mum and I up to Radiance following storage issues at home. You’re supposed to get one new item for every item recycled. I haven’t recycled for ages, so I know exactly what this will be. It is confirmed when I unfold a top that is stretching the boundaries of my style parameters. True O’Reilly is set for mainly casual stuff, and this neckline is properly plunging. I mean, they’ve got my measurements, I’m so not the tits-out type. They’ve styled the narrow sleeves I like right now, the dart at the back, structured for my body type. I hold it up against me. Emerald green – so they have my eye colour up to date. I slip it on, yank at it. It’s perfect, except, it’s too low cut. Radiance are nudging at my comfort zone, attempting to challenge my perceptions of what is ‘me,’ to expand their profits. I admit I’m tempted: it’s an amalgamation of every top I ever loved and wore out. Nothing of the items I sent straight back, unworn. Have I got to compete with my mother’s pout now? I study my reflection in the screen of my phone, and try to emulate a certain Merlot-sadness. Think distant small-scale tragedy, a downwards turn of the mouth.

             
When his name appears behind my face my hand flies to my collarbone, my exposed skin. My stalker has returned. I expect I won’t reply.

             
You still infectious?

What happened to the power of an unopened message?

             
Feeling better, thanks for asking.

I
type it but I don’t send it. He might think I genuinely am thanking him for his interest in me- a dangerous path, gratitude.

             
Why hang around the Health Centre if you’re worried about catching something?
I send instead.

             
We need to talk. (Should I get written permission from Seven first?)

What a gift. My fingers fly triumphantly over the keys.

              I’m really totally madly busy.

             
Is Seven with you now?

He’s got to be winding me up.
Like a child, a small child.

             
I waited for you outside the Health Centre.

The word
s fire off into public and I’m left in a dragging panic. Where did that come from? My fingers are too fast for my brain. I’m sluggish with unprocessed stuff since Dad left. Think cool breeze, think Merlot. When my phone rings, I’m prepared.

             
“What do you want, Cliff?”

It hits
to me that he’s turned his phone to face the wall and I’m addressing the corner of a double stack wardrobe, and a section of aqua coloured wall. His bedroom? Basically, I’m talking to myself again.

             
“I’ve got some information that might interest you.”

His voice is
magnified, steady. He’s holding his mouth too near the phone, whispering, it startles like he crept up on me. I fast conclude: freak.

             
“Look, I only just found out what Seven said to you...ignore it. I do not need to see you. I’m going now.”

             
“It’s about your Mum.”

This takes a moment to process
. I adjust my visual picture of old Mum, to less familiar-lips Mum.

             
“How do you know my Mum?”

             
“I don’t. But I know something about her that I’m pretty sure you don’t. And you deserve to be told.”

             
“So tell me.”

             
“It’s easier if we meet up.”

             
“First tell me how you found out. This so-called big secret.”

             
“Let’s just say it wasn’t very well hidden- your mum’s choice.”

             
“Is this about Mum and Dad splitting up? That’s hardly a secret. It’s Pity City at school for me right now.”

             
“I didn’t know. Sorry. It’s something else...”

             
“Cliff, can you see why this is bothering me? Can you? Stop and think how psycho you’re being: phoning up a complete stranger, claiming to know secrets about their private life?”

I just ranted at his wardrobe, at a
blank wall. He starts to stutter, going on the defensive, tense breaths horribly magnified. I snap my phone shut with a pincer motion. Immediately I am thinking about Mum, and I need her to be downstairs. Reason being, I have this gut lump: a secret? It’s possible.

Chapter Ten

By the time I reach the bottom of the stairs I’ve already changed my mind. I mean, what could Cliff possibly know about my mother that I don’t?  We’ve been trapped alone in this house for months. Trying to pretend nothing’s changed.

Mum has gone to th
e Recycling Point of course. I’ve poked my head around the door of the living room, the kitchen, still looking for old Mum, subtle Mum. She has the face of a stranger. Not a stranger, an acquaintance. An acquaintance who is trying to start up a friendship and finds themselves met with reluctance. Her attempts at physical contact veer out of nowhere, attacks of artificial cheer applying pressure to a bond that is hanging by a thread. Look at what isn’t said Mum, there’s whole conversations. (Conversations that are no doubt concluded behind my back, with Dad.) At least she’s guaranteed to be in a certain radius of the house- she can’t get too far, in the physical sense. Being There: one parenting box ticked. Mum would be pleased.

What I want
now is to get one long look at her face in action, which I realise I have been refusing to properly register. Because Mum is not a natural secret-keeper. I hold onto the memories of her old expressions: the need to be understood, quick-fire explanations, rhetorical questions, a climax of justifications. Words grabbing like a fist. The Liz Taylor face did self-righteous more naturally than most, but perhaps that was Mum shining through. But how will a SexyFace Extreme do strained secrecy, on Mum? I curl into the sofa and can’t imagine, so I wait.

             
Cliff again, this time it’s a link to a site. He’s got guts. I consider not opening it for all of three seconds. Odds are it’ll be entertaining. It’s a link to Campaign for Original Face, C.O.F. What is this exactly, an admission? Another attempt at humorous conversation? Seven is going to pay for this, for letting him think his face- his anything- matters to me.

             
A woman’s face appears, a Natural. Her eyes twinkle, her gap-toothed grin promises the delivery of a punch line any second; she has the kind of old-fashioned face that you might say is made for comedy- although it wasn’t made for any such thing, of course. I laugh at her, I can’t help myself. She got my attention, with a little bit of repulsion mixed in. I’m listening.

             
“Campaign for Original Face has sent you something to make you think: The One, otherwise known as The Legend of Disappearing Dave.”

             
A short film begins: Dave is standing in a bar full of women, clearly psyching himself up. He has a face from an Inspiration range- I can’t put a name to it straight off. He grabs a flower from a vase on a table- a single red rose. “Tonight, Dave is looking for The One,” says the voiceover, mock-scientific, with bottled excitement. The bar is packed with raucous women in tight groupings, all with their backs to him. A glossy mane of hair here, a backless gown there. Which way shall he try his luck? The women turn en masse, every face a Marilyn Monroe. Blank faces that come to life upon seeing Dave- or do they? Their gazes settle over his shoulder. Behind Dave, another man enters with Dave’s face- Brad Pitt Inspiration, that was the range- and another, and another, until there are two crowds on opposite sides of the bar. The soundtrack is female voices rising in anticipation, blending with masculine tones, as the identical men weave into the identical women. The rose is crushed underfoot. The C.O.F logo appears over the top, the three letters stamped over that gap-toothed grin, belonging to the female face of C.O.F.

             
“Oh, Hi.” Mum does a kind of double-take. Comical, like she’s been caught red-handed. “You never sit down here anymore.”

             
“I’m all recovered. How are you?”

I watch
the SexyFace do fleeting suspicion. She answers like it’s a job interview, upbeat but guarded.

             
“Fine, really fine. A bit tired.”

She is standing in the centre of the roo
m, a vast arena of personal space encasing the two of them, mother and child. She feels closer than she is. Mum turns a slow circle and I’m struck by how normal she looks from behind. Then it’s all bump and double-bump lips in profile. She opts for the same sofa right as me, drops into it with a huff.

             
“How’s baby?”

             
“Couple of elbows to the internal organs, busy as ever.”

There is
a stillness about her, she’s sizing me up. Is that a sign of guilt?

             
“I’m glad you’re feeling better, that’s one less thing to worry about.”

             
“Mum, are you having an affair?”

Mum makes a sound like laughter
retracting.