Jonathan Lee - High Dive

Marina stood in the doorway, absorbing this remark. Then she blinked and said, ‘It is best to divide this into a two-stage process. Otherwise you look like a melted panda.’

Freya sighed. The slab of grey stone in which the basins sat had a theatrical shine tonight. She put the eyeliner down. Earlier in the week someone with over-plucked eyebrows had complained that the lavatory lighting was insufficient for the proper plucking of eyebrows. Bulbs of greater wattage had been installed above the mirrors. Every natural pattern in the stonework showed, skylines and trees and thin and thick clouds.

‘We can talk,’ Marina said.

‘I’m fine. It’s nothing.’

‘The quality of nothing has not such need to hide itself.’

With a pink tissue Freya blew her nose.

‘I’ve been seeing a Shakespearean,’ Marina said. ‘It’s finished now. His toenails scratched me in bed. He’s very successful at everything, but there were the toenails — scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch. It’s very boring, also, to be around someone so pleased with themselves.’ She glanced at herself in the mirror. ‘Your love life, Freya. Is that what’s making you so sad and messy?’ She placed her handbag by a basin. She took a hairbrush out. ‘Shall I?’ she said.

There was an awkward moment — it seemed a strange offer — but Freya didn’t have the energy refusal might require. There was a single chair against the wall. The toilet attendant they used for events had already left for the night. ‘Here,’ Marina said. She turned the chair to face the mirror. Freya sat down and Marina moved behind her.

‘I know you saw me,’ Freya said. ‘Coming out of the room the other day.’

Marina began to run the brush through Freya’s hair in long and even strokes. She separated sections. She eased the brush through knots. The brush made a scuffing electrical sound that came straight out of childhood.

‘I’m such a cliché.’

Marina looked up.

‘A big fat cliché. He’s with Sasha now.’

Marina laughed. ‘John?’

‘Yeah.’

‘If anything, darling, I think you are … Yes, under-clichéd. It is Sasha who is the cliché. It is John.’

Freya stared at her own reflection, and at the face of Marina floating above it, and for a moment thought she could smell the too-strong perfume of Wendy Hoyt, hairdresser ordinaire.

‘You could do with being a bit more whingeing,’ Marina said. She rested the palm of her hand on Freya’s head. ‘I mean, you look a bit pathetic now , yes. But generally, a bit more emotional — it would be good. You are more like what a man should be, but isn’t.’

Freya opened her mouth and closed it.

‘It’s OK to be sad sometimes, Freya. You almost lost your father, yes? You already lost your mother. Your friends have gone to colleges. You thought you would be all alone.’

Something about the simplicity of this summary caught Freya off guard. A barefooted lady in a silky dress came in, humming a tune, heels dangling from her left hand. Freya said, ‘Use the ones in the restaurant.’

The humming stopped. The door closed. Easy.

‘That’s the spirit,’ Marina said. She put the brush down, rested her hands on Freya’s shoulders. ‘It gets you thinking, no?’

‘What does?’

‘Your father being ill. It makes you think about your mother.’

‘A bit.’

‘It makes you think about what it would be like if you never saw her again, and it stayed like this. If news came tomorrow that she was dead, that it was her who’d had a heart attack. Or that she’d actually been dead for weeks and you’d missed the funeral. Months, maybe. Longer.’

It seemed to Freya that Marina was getting into the swing of this a little too easily.

‘You are a lovely girl, Freya. You don’t have to feel, every time you do or think something that isn’t lovely, that these feelings are your fault.’

‘I don’t. I don’t think they’re my fault.’

‘Well,’ Marina said, ‘that’s good.’

‘You.’ Why not say it? ‘Everyone’s in love with you, Marina. My dad, everyone. I wish I could be more like you.’

‘When I take off this make-up,’ Marina said, ‘it is not pretty. My face is like an animated raisin, Freya. Sunshine — I wish someone had warned me. You’re going to work in documentaries one day.’

‘Me?’

‘You’re going to work for David Attenbrow. You’re going to go to amazing places, Africa. You’re going to get mud in your socks and they will underpay you but you’ll be happy, and you’ll meet a cameraman who is a bit short, maybe, but makes you laugh.’

Another guest came in. Freya was thinking that most cameramen would surely be tall. The guest used the toilet and handed Marina a fifty-pence piece. She walked out without washing her hands.

‘I guess,’ Freya said. ‘Whatever happens, even if he gets sick again, I guess I’ll manage.’

‘Pah,’ Marina said. She got up and rinsed the fifty-pence piece under the tap, then put it in the pocket of her skirt. ‘Manage. Who wants to manage? Fuck that.’ She looked in the mirror again. ‘I lost someone I loved once, you know? My husband. I joke about him. I make things up. I make it like we weren’t in love, and it’s funny. People prefer things that are funny, yes? But he was — it’s not something to discuss. But he was a person I loved. And when you come out of the initial feelings about it, the feeling depressed, it’s not like you’re improved. You just feel different, y e s? And the thoughts can come back at any time. Maybe you just have to settle for saying something like this. Something like, “My mother does imperfect things, and so does my father, and so do I.” If you want an alternative to feeling all chewed, you can choose to think that. A choice. I mean, I know it is still a bit … what would you say?’

‘Lame?’

Marina’s lips threatened a smile. ‘Lame. But maybe it is still worth thinking. It’s not that all parents are worth the worrying. Some definitely are not. Some are lame. It’s much more simple and selfish than that. If you get in touch with your mother again and give her another chance, one of two things will happen. You will develop some kind of relationship, or you won’t. Either way, you will have done what you can do. It is always better to clear the air, even if the air often stinks.’

‘Is that an Argentinian saying?’

‘No,’ Marina said.

The lights above the mirror did not flicker. ‘You’re quite good at this, Marina.’

‘I have spent money on cheap wisdom. But the best thing I heard? It was free. It was about one of those parties that everyone gets invited to, where the night comes and you don’t want to go, and you want to make an excuse and stay at home with a movie. You know the ones. It would be inconvenient to go for an hour — that’s all, inconvenient. You are tired or something. Hungover. Maybe you have a cold. But for the person whose party it is, it would mean a lot if you went. And my friend said to me that for most of us, for decent people, the choice each day isn’t between doing something good and doing something bad. It’s between doing something good and doing nothing. So, this is my advice, if you ever want it: always go to the party.’

There was silence for a while. Marina kissed the top of Freya’s head. ‘OK?’ she said.

‘OK.’

Always go to the party. Maybe there were worse rules to live by. It didn’t seem to cover every eventuality, but maybe in time it would.

Marina said, ‘Let me know if you feel like going to the pool sometime. I’m actually an excellent swimmer.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I am good at most things,’ she admitted.

‘My dad told an important guy to go fuck himself. One of the Prime Minister’s staff.’