Page 63 of Secrets of Starshine
I check my emails, and get another little boost when I see one from the cruise recruitment company, inviting me to an interview day in London in three weeks’ time. I’m not sure if I’ll go – not sure if this is the right time for me to make any major life choices – but it’s nice to be asked.
While my phone is there in my hand, I find myself absently flicking through the photos in my gallery. I skip through the ones likely to turn me to mush – anything involving Archie or the girls – and settle at the shot of Larry, curled up on Ella’s lap. He looks so cosy and happy and safe, and I know from talking to her that it wasn’t always the case – that he was a nervous, half-starved stray when she found him.
Maybe, I think, I’ll get a dog. Jo loves dogs, and if it was well behaved, she’d probably let me bring it to work sometimes. Maybe adopting a stray might help – we could rescue each other.
I spend a while looking at local dog charity sites, but soon realise I am way too fragile for such an enterprise. Every dog I look at seems to come with a sob story – owners who have died, or got divorced, or couldn’t afford to keep them. Tales of abuse and neglect and abandonment. A lurcher called Bob in particular seems to look out of the screen at me with such sad eyes that I immediately start crying.
I put my phone down, and let the tears flow. Tonight, I am clearly going to be neither use nor ornament. Tonight, I am a wreck.
Tomorrow, I tell myself, will be different – tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life.
TWENTY-SIX
The new salon opened in the second week of February. We did a little ceremony with a big ribbon, and invited all our regulars in for free treatments. The place was packed, downstairs for hair, and upstairs for beauty. It smelled divine, thanks to the massage oils, and I could tell Jo was thrilled.
Since then, we’ve had a steady stream of customers, and she is already full of plans to expand the other two salons as well. It’s a good thing to be part of, and I am finding some satisfaction from the whole experience. My days are busy, and my nights…well, they’re still nothing to write home about, but I am staying as steady as I can.
I went to the interview for the cruise ships, and was actually offered a job – but in the end I decided it just wasn’t for me. Sam was disappointed, but I had to go with my instincts – and rebuilding at home seemed the better choice for me.
My little house is slowly starting to feel like a home again, although I’m not sure I will ever get used to the silence that greets me every time I open the door after work. It’s like I’m living two separate lives – the one I show to the rest of the world, and the one I slump back into as soon as I am alone again. The world where I miss my mum, and Sam, and Archie.
I’ve done my best – I’ve gone on a few work nights out, and even looked at some night classes at the local education centre. I’ve spoken to Mum about possibly coming to visit her in the spring, and I’ve registered as a volunteer at a local women’s centre.
I am, in short, doing my absolute very best to stay busy, to distract myself, to look to the future instead of clinging to the past.
It all sounds good on paper – but in reality, there is still a bedrock of sadness beneath all my new-found bustle. I find myself still thinking about them all, way more times than I’d like. Connie has stayed in touch, which in some ways makes it harder – getting little updates about life back in Starshine Cove is bittersweet. She avoids talking much about Archie and the girls, and even though I am desperate to hear about them, I know she is doing the right thing – it would be torture.
I’m not sleeping well, and wake up exhausted every morning. I don’t always dream about Starshine, but wherever I am in my night-time ramblings, they pop up – Archie appearing mysteriously in a dream where I’m in a supermarket, working on the tills and telling me I need to buy an inflatable raft in case there’s a flood. Lilly and Meg springing into a delirium about horse-riding through a post-apocalypse cityscape. A horribly realistic one where I found Lottie on the doorstep, barking to be let in, then too old to make it up the step. If dreams are in fact the mind’s way of processing real life, mine is messing up – because all they do is leave me awake and raw; the pang of missing them all is still as real as the first day I left.
I have been back for almost a month now, and I am still floundering, truth be told. I am functioning – eating and working and doing everything that is required of me – but I am still floating around in an ocean of regret. I am on auto-pilot every day, faking it for the sake of Jo, my mum and Sam, and probably myself – because surely, if I just keep going, if I just keep focusing on making my life mine again, it will all eventually come true.
At some point, I tell myself repeatedly, I will be fine. I won’t feel like this forever, will I? Lord, I hope not, at least, because it really does suck.
I am working very hard at taking one day at a time – and this, as days go, has not been a bad one. Despite the fact that I woke up this morning with my usual sleep-deprivation hangover, the day has passed in a flurry of chatter and work and singing along to random songs on the radio.
It is Valentine’s Day, and the enforced love overdose is offset by the fact that it is especially busy at work. Annie calls in for a blow-dry, the lady who I visited at home on the day the salon was flooded, and I’m thrilled to hear that she is still seeing her internet friend, and that she’s training to be a teaching assistant.
I clutch hold of good news these days, hold it tight and drain every last little drop of positivity from it. I might not be in a loved-up situation myself, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be happy for people who are. My mum sends me pictures of her and Kenneth having lunch on the balcony of their hotel in Lanzarote, where they’re currently on holiday, and Sam tells me that he’s out on a date tonight, which is exciting news. Most of the ladies who come into the salon are getting ready for romantic dinners with their other halves, and I am happy to make them look and feel fantastic before they go out. I switch off my own sadness, and instead choose to share in their happiness.
By the end of the day, when the last scheduled appointment is done and the trainees are gathering up towels to take to the launderette, I am wiped out. I retreat to the little kitchen at the back of the building, and put the kettle on to make me and Jo a well-earned cuppa. I enjoy this little bit of peace and quiet, this small routine – the last ten minutes before home. We’ve always done it – a brew, feet up, and a gossip about the day – and at the moment I appreciate it more than ever.
Jo’s not stupid, and she’s known me for a long time. She knows that something’s wrong, no matter how hard I try to hide it, and I suspect she’s been making an extra effort to stay a bit longer each night in case I decide I want to talk about it all. Sometimes I’m even tempted, but never quite enough to do it – because then it would become a thing. Then she’d ask about it every day, and I’d have to talk about my feelings, and once I do that I might not ever be able to shut up. All things considered, it seems like a safer bet for all concerned to just take them home with me every night.
I’m just adding the milk when I hear the sound of voices from the other room. Then Jo, shouting: “Cally! You have a walk-in!”
I pause, and frown. We often get walk-ins, and we try and accommodate them when we can – but this is cutting it fine. There is an unspoken rule that once the last brew of the day is being made, we have officially clocked off. I’m guessing that perhaps this is a hair emergency, and Jo is reluctant to send some poor woman off on her big Valentine’s night date with green streaks or a dodgy fringe.
I finish the coffees, run my hands over my hair to tidy it up, and put a smile on my face. Nobody likes a miserable stylist.
I walk through into the salon, and first I see Jo. She is standing by the door waiting for me, hands on her hips, a quizzical look on her face. Then, behind her, I see Archie.
I do a double take, and blink a few times, and look again, just to be sure. Yep. He’s still there, looking completely out of place in the middle of a hairdresser’s that has leopard-print wallpaper, surrounded by framed posters of products and styles.
I stare at him, frozen to the spot, incapable of moving a single step forward. Our eyes meet, and he smiles – a small smile, one that seems unsteady, unsure as to whether it will bother staying or not. I feel a rush of everything all at once: confusion, nerves, shock – and all of it topped by a strange sense of relief. Even being in the same room as him feels like a cool drink on a hot day.
“Archie,” I say simply, struggling with my loss of equilibrium. “Um…what are you doing here?”
I feel Jo watching us intently, her view turning to him as she waits for his reply. I wonder what she makes of him, this huge man in his battered Levi’s and Timberland boots and his traditional plaid shirt. He is certainly not our typical customer.
