‘Of course when I got home, I couldn’t resist trying the lipstick on in front of the mirror. It made me look older, harder, the kind of girl who wouldn’t be bothered what her father thought. I pulled a chair over to the window and stared at the people passing by in the street, hoping they would look up at me and see this mysterious, beautiful woman and wonder about me. I can’t have been more than about fourteen.’
I could tell by the trembling of the ladder that Mr Roberts was laughing below.
‘Anyway I was so wrapped up in this daydream that I didn’t hear my father’s footsteps outside the room. He stormed in, almost pulling the door handle off he was so angry.
‘“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he yelled. “I come home tired from work, take one look up at my own house and what do I see but you sitting there half-dressed like a prostitute in Amsterdam. Clean that muck off your face straight away.”’
‘Were you half-dressed?’ Mr Roberts asked.
I’d been wearing my school uniform. My hair was tied up tightly in two plaits. I didn’t even know at that time what a prostitute in Amsterdam looked like. I had to research it in the encyclopaedia at the school library.
‘Molly, were you half-dressed?’ Mr Roberts’s voice jolted me back to the present.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’d stripped down to my undies. I was leaning forward so the men passing by could see all of me. Every so often I’d lift my leg and pretend to scratch it so I could stretch it out again, give them a better look. There were about five men standing outside the window watching me. I liked it. I liked them watching me. I put on a show. I promised them that I’d be there the next day too.’
Mr Roberts tut-tutted with delight.
‘I think I’ve finished up here now,’ I said, shoving one of the boxes to the side. I pulled my skirt tight around my knees as I climbed down, smoothing it straight with my palms when I reached the safety of the shop floor.
‘Tim,’ I said, hours later as we sat entwined on the park bench. ‘Why do we never talk?’
‘Hmmm. . . ?’ His foot stopped tapping on the grass. He lifted his chin up so he could look at me. ‘We’re always talking,’ he said.
‘We’re not. I don’t mind. I just wonder if we should do a bit more sometimes. Maybe we could go to the pub or something.’
‘Come with me.’ He stood up and held out his hand to help me up. I started to walk automatically towards the centre of the park where the paths were brightly lit and clearly marked, but Tim had other ideas. ‘Not that way!’ he said.
Instead he took me into the bushes that edged the park, holding down branches for me to climb over, catching prickly twigs so they didn’t tear my clothes. I followed him, complaining.
‘Shhhh.’ He put a finger over my lips. We were standing against a house wall that backed on to the park. ‘Put your ear to the wall. Can you hear anything?’
I shook my head.
Tim frowned. ‘Come this way,’ he said. I followed Tim again round to one of the cul-de-sacs running off the park. ‘Stare in the window as you walk past. Not too obviously, but take a close look.’
A woman was sitting on the sofa talking on the telephone. She was twisting a lock of hair round and round a finger, laughing and speaking into the receiver.
‘And now come back and listen properly,’ he whispered and I made my way back. ‘Put your head really tight against the wall.’
I still couldn’t hear anything but the bricks felt warmer against my cheek. I nodded at Tim, pretending it was working and he looked pleased.
‘I listen to her a lot,’ he said. ‘She’s one of my favourites. I call her the happy woman. But they’re everywhere, Molly. Think about it. You don’t even have to go against the wall once you become expert. People speak into the phone and someone miles away hears their voice, but what they don’t realise is the hundreds of other people those noise waves have to go through in order to get to the right one. All those other words they’ve picked up on the way. That’s why we’re always talking. You just have to train yourself to listen.’
It made sense. That was the stupid thing. What Tim had just said made perfect sense. Before I followed him back, I put my ear back against the wall. I could swear I heard a giggle and then a series of random words – horse, field, bikini – prickling through my skin. It was as if I was joining in the conversation, a dowsing wand between both speaker and listener.
Tim and I fought our way back through the undergrowth in silence until we reached the bench. And then as I was about to say something about his theory or just say anything because I wanted it to be only our words we heard between us, he kissed me.
The next night in Miranda’s hair salon, Edith Piaf seemed to be the only person regretting nothing as Miranda cursed under her breath. She was struggling to perfect her back-combing technique on my hair and things weren’t going well. She’d already snapped at me for eating Smarties while she worked.
‘Your hair’s too thin,’ she complained. ‘I don’t think this is going to work. It’s not falling out, is it? I’m sure it was thicker than this last time.’
She kept peering across my shoulder at the magazine clipping she’d Sellotaped on the salon mirror. It was of a woman walking along a beach with two small dogs yapping at her heels.
‘You can’t even see what her hair looks like,’ I pointed out. ‘And why is it my fault anyway?’
‘It’s the general spirit I’m after,’ she said. ‘All that just got out of bed stuff and hungry eyes they’re always going on about.’ She brushed my hair in angry up and down movements until I could swear it was starting to crackle under the strain.
I looked at my reflection, more unkempt witch than tousled pillow, before putting my fingers up to trace the outline of my lips. They seemed fuller somehow. Redder. A great big sign of how often I was being kissed. Tim and I still hadn’t gone further although I kept my eyes shut often now, as he preferred, and leant against him more with my whole weight, hoping he’d take the hint that I wouldn’t really mind if he wanted to do a bit more. I closed my eyes now, feeling a tremor run through me.
‘Now what’s wrong with you?’
I jolted up as Miranda prodded me painfully on my shoulder.
‘You’re looking a bit peewally, if you don’t mind me saying,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to walk you home?’
‘No.’ I’d managed to keep Miranda out of my room so far, just giving her the general impression that I was in some kind of flat, with bathroom and mini-kitchen. I didn’t want any horror she might feel at my lack of home comforts to spoil my satisfaction at this life I was carving out for myself. I tried to change the subject. ‘So who is this woman you’re torturing me into looking like anyway?’
‘Oh Molly, you’re not telling me you don’t know who this is?’
I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw Miranda’s expression. She was genuinely shocked.
‘Now that’s only Brigitte Bardot,’she said.‘The original sex goddess.’
‘Her?’ I peeled the photograph of the mirror so I could look at it closer. ‘She’s a bit old.’
‘Well she is now, silly. The life she’s led though, it makes your heart bleed. I’ll tell you the whole story one day. And of course she’s gone all animal mad as those sort of women always