‘Are you in this evening?’ I asked.
‘Why?’ She was instantly suspicious. ‘What do you want? But hear me now! I’m not minding your dog, I’m not hemming your skirt and you can’t borrow my car. I’ve a life too, you know.’
‘Advice is what I’m looking for.’
‘Buy the thing.’
‘What thing? No, Mum, that’s not –’
‘Just buy the thing, whatever it is. Life is short. That’s my advice.’
‘I’ll be there about eight.’
‘We’ve already had our dinner. Gluten-free sausages.’
‘Since when are you gluten-intolerant?’
‘Hah! We’re not! We’re just being adventurous. I’ll tell you something, you wouldn’t know the difference. Next week, we might try vegan cheddar.’
I whizzed home to feed an ecstatic Crunchie – she always behaved as if I’d been gone and given up for dead for about three hundred years – then left again to meet Claire. Foolishly I arrived on time and parked five houses down from Mum and Dad’s. Seven minutes later, Claire’s car bounded over the speed bumps. Even before she came to an abrupt, ear-piercing halt, her electric window was whining open and her stylish, oyster-grey nails were beckoning me over.
She refused to ever get into my car. The heating didn’t work and it made her depressed.
The night was misty. Scuttling along, hugging the wall, hoping to avoid any neighbours, I slid into her warm, fragrant, leather-lined Audi. ‘Lovely smell,’ I said.
‘Diptyque,’ she said. ‘Tuberose. They do air fresheners for cars now.’
That was Claire all over. Right at the front of the fashion vanguard. Ever-questing, snuffling out new brands – skincare, handbags, lifestyle. Devoted to Porter magazine! Never afraid to spend money!
She gave me a quick hug. ‘Am I late? God, I am. So, are you okay?’
Her hair, in a fashionable shade of mouse brown, was in a fabulous, falling-down French twist, her skin glowed and although I didn’t know what age she was currently claiming to be, she looked good for it.
‘Your face.’ I took a second look. ‘Where’d your pores go? It’s amazing.’
‘Had a thing done.’
She was always having things done. Her favourite phrase was, ‘I’m not going down without a fight.’ （That, or ‘Make it a strong one.’）
She deserved to look as great as she did. She had a personal trainer and – crucially – showed up for her sessions, instead of texting ten minutes before the start, pretending she had a sore throat （which was what I’d kept doing the few times I’d signed up）。 The only carb to cross her lips was vodka and she was very susceptible to Goop, obediently buying their powdered unicorn hoof or whatever their latest thing was. Her one blind spot was a fondness for fake tan but, on that matter, she couldn’t be reasoned with. Everyone has their weakness.
She was so invested in her youthful look that she didn’t like spending time in public with Margaret, who was younger than her, because Margaret had ‘aged gracefully’ （according to Margaret）。 Or ‘gone to hell, entirely’ （according to Claire）。
Their battleground was Margaret’s hair. Margaret had stopped colouring it a few years ago, but as far as I was concerned she was the real winner because it was now this amazing cool silver colour. I reckon she actually looked better than she had in her twenties.
Sometimes I thought about doing the same thing myself – the freedom was alluring. Think of all that time and money I’d save. Even more importantly, consider all the emotional energy saved – the last ten days before my roots got done were hard going.
‘Did it hurt?’ I asked Claire. ‘The thing you had done?’
‘Oh Christ, yeah! Even after six co-codamol.’
‘Six? Claire!’
And there you had at least two of the differences between Claire and me: I too would like the poreless skin, but I wasn’t prepared to suffer for it. Instead, I spent a fortune on serums, doing constant ongoing research. It was one of my many micro-obsessions.
The tragedy in all of this was that our second youngest sister Anna, had The Best Job in The World, an executive at McArthur on the Park, a PR company which repped some of the most exciting skincare on the planet.
In practical terms, it meant that we had glorious, giddy-making access to free products. And even so, I still couldn’t stop buying things. Free stuff is always lovely. But nothing is as alluring as New and Exciting. Or More.