Tiffany & Co. have launched their Fall 2011 ad campaign and I’m breathless. A beautiful girl makes her way past New York’s Flatiron Building holding a bunch of red balloons, wearing a large silver lock pendant and all the right rings on her left ring finger. In the sexed up, hyped up, media clusterf**k that is most major glossy magazines, the Tiffany ad stands out a mile for it’s simplicity, romance, and sheer good taste. The notion that Tiffany & Co. understands very well is the notion of being truly ‘classic’. They get me every time.

My love affair with Tiffany & Co. started at age ten when I first watched ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s, not knowing what it was. The film stuck in my head for years until I caught it again in my late teens, thrilled to finally know its name. I recorded it, and watched it over and over until the VHS got snowier and snowier and suddenly I was in my early twenties. I dreamt of a life wandering down Manhattan streets with my take out coffee, my tiara, my big sunglasses and my cat with no name.

In real life I found myself in London studying Fashion. It was the early nineties and I was working hard to follow my glamorous dream. I worked so hard that when I graduated I had a job offer to go to New York to work for a predictions company. I turned it down because I was in love with the man who became my husband and father of my children. Manhattan could wait. I was in love. He took me to Tiffany in New York in 1997. Imagine then the potential for disappointment but it was just like the movie. It really was.

Going into Tiffany & Co. is like going into a bank. It’s very reassuring with its wood panelling, glass counters, and the men in suits making exorbitant jewellery sales with no mention of money. If I’m ever in the Bond Street store in London I always seek out my favourite Tiffany man, and that is because he made a significant moment special.

When my marriage ended, the Tiffany bracelet I had been wearing constantly for twelve years, a gift from my husband, now represented a chapter of my life which was closed. Wanting to replace it with something new and full of hope, I went to Tiffany’s in Bond Street and chose a simple silver bangle. Explaining the situation to the Sales Assistant, I tried to remove the old bracelet to try on the new but the catch had seized and it wouldn’t come off. ‘Allow me’ the gentleman said, and with a palpable clunk the old bracelet fell onto the glass counter. An era ended there and then. He handed me the new shiny bangle, a complete circle, observing that there were no endings, no beginnings and giving the moment due reverence.
That could only happen at Tiffany & Co. My purchase, though monumental to me, was completely inconsequential to Tiffany’s. And yet I was made to feel as though I had purchased the Tiffany Diamond itself.

In 2006 the ‘Bejewelled by Tiffany’ exhibition at Somerset House in London included the Tiffany Diamond, a huge canary yellow stone, a whopping 128 carats, in a single glass case next to a blow up of Audrey Hepburn in perhaps her most famous role. ‘How much is it worth?’ I asked a security guard. He repeated my question and then said,
‘It’s priceless Madam’.

Priceless. When you’re faced with a material thing that’s officially deemed priceless it’s quite a thing. No one can afford it. The poor and the rich are suddenly equal. All the money in the world simply can’t buy it. A bit like romance, style and unerring good taste. All of the things we have come to associate with Tiffany & Co. so perfectly demonstrated in their new advertisement. I think about my life and the journey I have taken in the opposite direction of my dream. I’m definitely not in New York, I’m still waiting for my bunch of red balloons, and I’m not quite ready to give the cat a name. One day I’ll find the place that makes me feel like Tiffany’s. When I do, you can make a large bet that I’ll be wearing a large silver lock pendant, stamped on the back with ‘T&Co.’.

‘Hi Love, just phoning to see how you are.  I’ll talk to you later ok? Bye’

‘Hey Sweet pea, I’m home if you fancy a natter.  Speak to you later. Bye’

‘Alright Darlin’?  Bag of Peas? Sounds more like a bag of shite to me!  Call me later Honey!’

‘Hi Darling. Hot boys in Abercrombie and Fitch!! Call you later!’

‘Hi love, its only me.  You ok?  Call me.’

In the dream she was wearing a rabbit fur coat and high diamante sandals. She ran out of the house in the middle of the night, the air was damp and cold, heavy smell of fir trees and sharp bursts of steam as she breathed.  She was running breathless to the only man who could help.  Her toes were freezing, white skin turning blue with cold.  Running up the lane, up that hill, up the track that ran behind The White Pyramid, up up up past the clay mountains.  Up to Blackberry Row, to the house that had stood empty for years.  There too was the old Morris, abandoned, a rusty heap, the ignition key they had long ago stolen now grasped tightly in the satin lining of her pocket.  Through the mist she could see him leant against that old car, waiting. She ran to him and buried her face in his coat, inhaling the familiar and comforting smell of Diesel oil.  Somewhere a dog barked low and loud, and she knew that they had found each other.

‘You have to go back now’ he said.

Anaïs woke with a start.  Absent-minded she got out of bed and hit the button on her answer phone.  It was Christmas.  There were Angels.

Lewis Carroll – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Anaïs was beginning to get very tired of having it all.  She had two beautiful children, a nice house with roses in the garden, a dog, and a man who loved her.  At least, he said he loved her.  This not being enough for the greedy girl, she had become weary and wondered how it would be to have an adventure.  One dreamy summers day, as she sat on a tartan picnic rug making daisy chains while her children watched canal boats drift slowly along the river, she felt very warm and a little bit sleepy…

‘I’m drunk I’m drunk’ muttered the White Rabbit and scampered off, in a slightly haphazard fashion, down a rabbit hole. ‘Hmmn,’ thought Anaïs ‘maybe I’ll follow him and see where I end up!’

Down, down, down the rabbit hole she fell.  ‘Heavens!’ she exclaimed, “I wonder where I’ll end up next!  This is probably very dangerous indeed, but there’s not much I can do about it now.’ Down.  Down.  Down.  The tumble continued for a very long time, until Anaïs finally landed on a picnic bench in what appeared to be a pub garden.  The White Rabbit hopped out from behind a hedge and sat down next to Anaïs, holding a pint of Guinness and a bottle of orange liquid, with a label on the front, which said (in Helvetica Bold) ‘DRINK ME’.

‘Well,’ thought Anaïs ‘I am very thirsty, and it can’t do me that much harm, surely.’ She downed the drink and noticed that the White Rabbit was still sitting beside her.  Suddenly, quite surprising herself, she kissed him.  And kissed him, and kissed him, for what seemed to be quite an eternity. It didn’t occur to her for one moment that it was an odd thing to do, though of course it was.

Then, all of a sudden, he got up and scampered off.  ‘Oh,’ thought Anaïs ‘whatever shall I do now?  I’ve no idea how to get back to where I was before.’

She looked about and then down to where the Rabbit had been sitting, and noticed that he had left behind a packet with the words ‘EAT ME’ (in Gill Sans) on the front.  Anaïs, feeling quite at a loss, opened the packet, which seemed to contain cheese and onion crisps.  ‘Hmmmn,’ she thought, ‘maybe if I eat these crisps I’ll go back to normal again.  I certainly can’t sit here all day.’  As she began to eat, she shrank to the size of a thimble.  At least it felt that way.

Anaïs began to think she should never have followed the White Rabbit down the hole in the first place.  ‘Oh my goodness,’ she declared, ‘I can’t just sit here and be small for the rest of my life!  I’m going to find that Rabbit, and demand to know what’s going on.’ But there seemed to be no way of getting back to where she had come from, the Rabbit had vanished, and being barely an inch tall felt to be quite a handicap.  She set off to find help.

Just then, she came to a clearing in the road, and there on a mushroom sat a Caterpillar.  ‘Excuse me,’ she said politely, ‘I think I need some help.’  ‘

‘Sit down.’ offered the Caterpillar with a German accent.

‘Why thank you.’ said Anaïs, and sat her self down on a nearby mushroom.  The Caterpillar turned over an egg timer, which seemed to indicate that Anaïs had precisely one hour of time, in which to get its advice.  She blurted out exactly what had happened, how she had followed the White Rabbit down the hole, kissed him, and ended up barely one inch tall in Wonderland.

‘And so,’ said Anaïs, ‘I need to know how to get back to where I was, and how to get back to my normal size.’

‘Impossible,’ remarked the Caterpillar, who looked completely unmoved by the story. ‘You can never get back to where you were, which was clearly not where you wanted to be in any case.  And as for returning to your normal size, well, define ‘normal’ for me.’  With that, the egg timer ran out of sand, and the Caterpillar gestured for Anaïs to get down off her mushroom and be on her way.

Anaïs huffed and started off again, back to the picnic bench.  ‘If only I had a cigarette!’ she thought.  Then she remembered that she had in fact been smoking before she had shrunk.  Looking about her she noticed the butt of a roll up cigarette she had thrown on the ground when she had been normal sized.  ‘I wonder if I smoke this whether that will make me big again.’ She took a drag on the huge cigarette and, indeed, did feel to be growing taller.  She grew and grew and grew until she felt fifty foot high.  ‘Nice,’ thought Anaïs, ‘I feel like a very big girl now.’  She felt very cocky indeed.

‘It’s no good trying to go back I suppose,’ said Anaïs to herself, ‘maybe I’ll have to try going in a different direction.’ and she set off again until she came to a House party.

‘Oh good!’ she thought, ‘I love parties.’  However, as she drew closer, poor Anaïs did not like the look of any of the guests, except for the Mad Hatter, who was seated at a table next to a Dormouse.  The Dormouse kept rubbing its nose and sniffing, much as Dormice do. ‘No room! No room!’ it cried as it saw Anaïs coming.

‘There’s plenty of fucking room!’ said Anaïs indignantly, which was very true.

‘Then why are you not sitting down?’ asked the Hatter.

‘I am’ she replied.

‘Well you can’t swear or smoke, young lady, otherwise we won’t have you’ he continued.

‘But that Dormouse is smoking,’ pointed out Anaïs truthfully. ’And in fact, so are you!!’

‘Don’t be rude,’ said the Hatter extinguishing his cigarette, ‘sit down and be quiet girl.’  Anaïs quite liked his strictness, having seldom been challenged by anyone before she fell down the rabbit hole, and obeyed demurely.

‘Everybody move round!’ shouted the Hatter suddenly.

‘But I’ve only just sat down’, said Anaïs, who was beginning to wonder whether she was coming or going, or if, in fact she had already been.  The Dormouse was the only one at the table who refused to budge, uttering a string of profanities that the Hatter did not appear to mind, or even notice. So move she did, and it was rather a shame as her new chair was most uncomfortable being very hard.  A short while passed, during which the guests at the table were moved around so much that Anaïs came to sit by the Hatter. It had to be said that they had a lovely time together; they indulged in all kinds of amusing conversation and the sexual chemistry was undeniable. Anaïs found herself rather falling in love.  ‘Oh I do hope he doesn’t get us to move around again.’ she thought, and the Dormouse seemed to hear this thought, or maybe she even said it aloud.

’Oh, he will’ it mumbled incoherently, ‘He’ll never sit next to the same person for very long. Your days are numbered.’

Suddenly, the Hatter took out his iphone and checked the time.

‘Everybody move round!’ he shrieked.

Poor Anaïs was most dismayed, and couldn’t help saying ‘But I liked sitting with you.’

At that, the Hatter looked at her as if she were the mad one. ‘Well I very much enjoyed sitting with you dear girl, but what’s that got to do with anything?  Move around!!’

The other guests at the table dutifully began the commotion of moving, but Anaïs could bear no more of it. She got up from her seat and ran away, as fast as she could, until she came to a soft bank, where she cried and cried and cried until she had cried a great pool of tears…

‘Oh, for heavens sake stop crying!’ Anaïs scolded herself.  However, it was no good, her tears would simply not subside.  She must have sobbed herself to sleep for when she awoke, she found herself in the arms of the White Rabbit.  ‘There, there’ he said, squeezing her tightly, ‘dry your tears.’

‘You could have warned me,’ gulped Anaïs who usually tried to be brave, ‘I followed you here to Wonderland, then you left me all alone and now I can’t get back home.’

‘Just try to have some fun, beautiful girl.’ whispered the Rabbit and held her close.  She snuggled into his soft furry belly, and for a matter of seconds she felt safe again. She was just going to ask the Rabbit whether he was drunk or sober when –

Anaïs must have fallen asleep again, for when she woke up, she was alone on the bank.  Next to her had been placed an old Sony Walkman and inside was a cassette tape tagged (in graffiti style writing) ‘PLAY ME’.  She put the headphones on and pressed ‘Play’. It was just her favourite type of groove and Anaïs simply had to dance. Losing herself in the music, she thought of the White Rabbit’s words and it occurred to her that until she could find a way out of Wonderland, she might as well enjoy the adventure.

to be continued…

The tops of her arms were covered in bruises where he had held her down, her wrists blazed with grazes and her back was a canvas of friction burns. If she had been dusted for prints, his would have covered every inch of her body. She was his plaything, at her request, and he loved the privilege implicit in destroying the efforts of her presentation.

‘Bunny ears’ she laughed, ‘should come with a health warning.’

He smirked, still lying in bed, watching as she showered.  The sticky sweaty salty smoky smell of sex, still on his hands, was now rinsing away from her body.  But the bruises remained. He liked to hurt her, he had to admit it, yet the thought of anyone harming this tiny fragile woman outside of this complicity made him feel angry and protective.  That was the problem with her.

He didn’t want to feel anything at all, but he did.  She wanted to feel everything. Vividly.  She wanted to feel the marks he left on her skin.  Some people may have said they were in love.

She was gathering her stuff together and, like a shape shifter, her appearance was different again from earlier.  She seemed at times kaleidoscopic, a million different images, versions, permutations, re-creations.

Her hair, usually beaten into submission by the hiss of the straightening irons, formerly glossed, smoothed and tightly bound, now fell loose in wet, platinum waves. ‘Got a shirt?’ she asked, rifling through his wardrobe, ‘White. Long sleeved’

‘Yeah, there’s one in there somewhere.  Why?’

‘I can’t be bothered with that suit, I’m in a hurry.’ She was already buttoning the shirt up, cinching it with a belt so that suddenly it was a dress, and slipping back into the black high-heeled mules.

‘What – you’re just wearing my shirt?’ He could never quite understand how she thought this stuff up.

‘Yes Siree’.  She flashed her eyes at him, smiled, and then kissed him full on the mouth before saying, ‘See ya – wouldn’t wanna be ya!’

‘Don’t forget these’.  He lifted the bunny ears from the bed knob where they had come to rest and handed them to her.

She got out onto the street, and lighting a cigarette, started off into the city.  In the early morning sunshine a dustcart pulled up on the pavement, she threw the Louis Vuitton bunny ears in and laughed.

She got out onto the street, and lighting a cigarette, started off into the city.   The bunny ears came to rest on a statue of Queen Victoria, she took a photo and texted it to him.  He received it and laughed, not knowing when he would see her again, but knowing he felt less alone.

Arriving at his apartment, she texts him ‘Let me in’.

He comes to the door and goes to kiss her before stopping short, ‘Bloody hell!  What are they?’

‘They are Louis Vuitton bunny ears’ she says barging straight past and into his place ‘don’t you know anything?’

He laughs and watches her behind, locomotion under the tight black Alexander McQueen suit she has somehow poured herself into.  As usual she smells of Spider Lily and the strange combination of stale cigarettes and chewing gum.  In the kitchen she makes for the sash window and heaves it up, extra high to clear the ears, which he now knows are some kind of theme for the evening.  She ditches the gum and lights a cigarette, exhaling precociously into the fresh evening air.

‘I thought you were giving that up’ he said.

‘I have’

Her constant provocation pissed him off sometimes. But mostly he enjoyed the fact that she could somehow destroy his composure, throw him completely off balance, and then make him hard.  She throws the spent fag out of the window and goes straight for the chewing gum again.  He lifts her up onto the kitchen counter and sits her up like an expensive doll.  Somehow she seems like a cartoon character in that bizarre headpiece and it kind of suits her. She sits there perched, white blonde hair, pale green eyes piercing through the black sooty mascara that would form powdery trails over her cheekbones when she got tired.  Her tight skirt is riding up and her legs are wrapping themselves around his waist.

She blows a bubble with the gum and it pops in his face.

‘Spit it out’ He holds his hand out and she gives a defiant look before obediently taking it out of her mouth and putting it in the palm of his hand.  He aims for the bin and scores.

‘Fluke’ she scoffs.

‘No way!’ he says and smudges her deftly applied red lipstick with his thumb, ‘You look ridiculous.’

‘I look fabulous, and if you -’

‘Shut up.’ He bites the tips of her fingers and the varnish on her nails shatters, the taste like acid and pear drops. ‘I want to fuck your brains out in those rabbit ears.’

She grins then narrows her eyes. ‘Do it.’

On days like today her hands shook as the memories overcame the present.  The smell of ripening tomatoes in the glass house, Severin’s words swirling in through grey wires ‘handcuffed in lace blood and sperm, swimming in poison, gasping in the fragrance, sweat carves a screenplay of discipline and devotion’, and the heat that had seared those words into the clay landscape that would shape her life.

Anaïs wondered if they could see the gaping hole where her heart should be.  She knew too well the careless man who had stolen it and shoved it in a glove box with an unpaid phone bill and a spent lighter.

He told her that she shone too brightly, that no man was worthy of her sole undivided attention. What a terrible thing to say to a person, thought Anaïs, and the words had scarred her and made her more lonely than she ever thought possible.  And it was an enduring loneliness.  The kind that comes back in the nights, no matter how bright the days are. He had made her unreal, a statue to worship, and his words had turned her to stone.

This secret, one of many, seemed too heavy to bear today. One man’s cowardly adoration had made Anaïs ashamed of the magic in her life. Resentful of her gift.  As it was she felt the need to be punished, maybe even hurt.

She filled her dark nights with pale lilacs, giant seashells sat like empty hands in corners of her home, the smell of faded Spider Lily, the inky black eyeliner, the bass lines.   The wind had told her to smile and forget though it knew, as she did, that she could not.

Anaïs hated Mondays.

Marie marched through the door heavily in Belstaff boots. Her gait was inelegant, like a farmer.  She had one of her angry rashes.  When she got mad her face and neck went purple, which clashed violently with her albino hair.  Anais followed her out to the courtyard and reached for the roll up and lighter in her pinny pocket.

“D’you want some coffee?”

“No.  I’m fine.  I just need one of these” Marie lit up a Marlboro light, and inhaled arrogantly.

“What’s up with you then?” Anais asked.

“Rupert doesn’t know I’m smoking again.  He’s being such a tosser about this apartment thing, and….” As she continued to splutter defiantly, vague suggestions of tears were building on her pale eyelashes. The mood in Marie’s florist shop would be bleak.  The staff would be in later, bitching about her in their tea breaks and Anais would have to laugh.

Anais and Marie went back years.  They had both turned up from London at the same time, and Marie had hired Anais because she had answered a rude question rudely, and knew how to deal with customers the Bond St way.  They found each other insufferable but had a grudging like for each other that never went away, despite their frequent ‘differences of opinions’. Marie was vile, there was no question of that, but Anais always managed in some small way to be amused by her often-appalling behaviour.  There was the strange habit of affecting different accents.  On a good day you’d get a kind of Madonna on helium American accent, on a bad day you may get a grating Australian, and you always knew you were in trouble with Marie if you got the clipped upper class British accent.  That was usually game over.  Another spat, another rash, more smoking.

Marie had been with ‘Rupy’ since their late teens. She was a rebel expelled; he was a private school boy prone to the type of giggling fits that only come so easily to the privileged classes.  She spoiled him when it suited her, with childish gifts of sweeties and junk food.  His being a plastic surgeon amused her, and it comforted her that one day he actually may be of some use to her. The spoils of his work were her bread and butter.  The spoils of her work were frittered away on expensive accessories, bottles of champagne and cigarettes. Marie made bold claims, she claimed she had once been possessed (which Anais thought may well explain the accents) and that her Mothers jewellery was too expensive to insure.  No one was sure whether to believe her or not.

“So I’ve had enough, and I called the Agents, and said absolutely no way.  And Daddy thinks I should just stick to my guns.  Ok, I’ve got to fly.  I’ve got 3 weddings this weekend and I’ve got two off sick.” The Belstaff boots stamped out the butt of her cigarette.  Marie found it hard to tolerate sickness, or any kinds of human weakness come to that.  Anais pulled her best sympathetic face, shook the parasol they had shared and put it back in the umbrella stand.

The lecturers had gone, spent post-it notes screwed up in empty lipstick smeared cups.   Anais started to clear the table and thought to herself that people never change, they just get more so.

Lost in a bookshop in the hot panicky Christmas Eve hustle she had frowned and nearly given up on present buying when Christian had appeared at her side,

“Can you find what you’re looking for?”  He asked, and Anaïs got the feeling it was more of a general question, opposed to being just about books.

“Not really!” She looked up. The lenses of his glasses were very thick, but the eyes behind the tortoiseshell frames were the palest blue she had ever seen, his eyelashes blond and shimmering. His features were aristocratic, with a constellation of freckles bursting over the bridge of his nose. His hair was a strange, though apparently natural, beige. She had never seen anything like it.  He wore a tee shirt bearing the name of the bookstore, but managed to transcend it somehow, so it could have been Armani.

They had bonded in the little time it took Christian to find the book in question, and after that she would pop into the bookstore whenever she was passing and the two became firm friends.

Christian was a clever boy. It was obvious from his appalling eyesight and his impressive recall that books had saved his life.  Literally.

“In a minute.  Can you make it then?”  He was already one headphone on.  Lost in the music, tenderly bringing the record up to speed, concentrating hard.  Escaping again.

Anaïs remembered how, when they were kids, Daniel would delight in playing the Shangri La’s at the wrong speed, and she would cry and cry until Chrissie stepped in,

“Oh don’t do that Sweetheart, you’re upsetting her,” she’d say, ruffling his hair.  Anaïs found the boyish urge to corrupt things upsetting, and would pester and pester until things were how they should be.  In adult life she had tried to kick the habit.  Life just had to unfold in its own way, right or wrong.

Now she reached for her tobacco, which lived under the cash register.  Suddenly the tables were filling up with the regular stream of retail staff who, having had enough of feigning politeness all day, typically screamed, screeched and bitched until hunger finally got the better of them and they would go home to not eat.   Retail people never have any money.  They’re so good at selling that their best customers are usually themselves.  Shop girls wages go around and around in a huge circle.

They look good though mused Anaïs.  Damn.  That fag would have to wait.

“Oh my God!!  That woman is insane!  I’m going to kill her I swear to God!!”  The staff from the Florists arrived in a group and ordered beers.  Next it would be shots.  Anaïs knew the drill.

“She’s such a freak!  That Australian accent is doing my head in.  And she did absolutely nothing today, that’s what’s so annoying!”

They found themselves a table and made piles of purses, mobile phones and make up bags.  They hoped to blow steam, to moan out the annoyances of the day.  Then Marie arrived and cut the banter dead.  They quickly took a new tack, all shifting around to make room for her at the table.  Anaïs caught the shifty glances they tried hard to hide.  The rolling of eyes and the disappointment that their annoyance would just have to dissipate and work itself out through their bloodstreams.

Marie came up to the bar.  “Can I get a round of whatever they just had?”  She asked, in the hyper American accent she favoured in social situations.

“Sure,” Anaïs replied.  An Americanism just to amuse herself.  Daniel caught it too and smirked as he served himself another bottle of beer and grabbed the tobacco from under the till.  “Did you sort out the apartment thing?”

“No.  So I’m going home this weekend to talk to Daddy, and Rupert can go fuck himself.”

Marie did the decent managerial thing, got the drinks in, called a cab and took herself and her Belstaff boots back to her flat and back to Rupert.  She would not speak to him for a week she decided.   Her staff heaved a collective sigh of relief as she left, and resumed their searing narrative of the day.  Token gay boy Alistair had them all in hysterics doing his Marie impression, the girls all squealing with delight.  Daniel had returned to the record decks.  To safety.  The music got increasingly Latin in flavour and El Morocco made its transition from day to night.

Anaïs lit the candles on each of the tables, stole the roll up tucked behind Daniels free ear, and snuck out into the courtyard.  As she blew smoke rings into the dusk, Gabe arrived.

“Darling,” he kissed her once on each cheek and gave her a big, feet-off-the-ground hug, “How are you? Is Al here?”

“In there holding court, doing his Marie!”

Gabe rolled his eyes and squinted through the windows.  Alistair had now left his seat and was giving the finale of his performance; the Marie stomp.  Daniel was looking on and frowning, one hand clamped to his headphones, head tilted.

“Has Dan dyed his hair?”

“Yep,” Anaïs said, “Mum did it I suppose.  It’s a bit weird isn’t it?  Still, I’m not saying anything.”

“Probably best.  I’d better go and get Al, get him home before he does an encore!”

Gabe shyly retrieved his lover; the girls from the florists stayed and turned their attentions to straighter boys.  They ordered Sambuca shots.  Anaïs poured them out and took one to Daniel whose expression had begun to soften.  The music had soothed him sufficiently and he took off the twelve inch and put on an LP.  “Fag?” he said.

Anaïs shook her head, “No,” She thought about mentioning the hair, “I just put one out.”

She was only 22 when she had Daniel, 25 when she had Anaïs.  They had different fathers and both had offered to make a decent woman of her.  Christine was of the opinion that she already was a decent woman and it seemed entirely bizarre to her that they felt duty bound to marry her.

She would say “Both my children were conceived in love.” and that was enough in her world.  She was a devoted mother, now and then, and made raising two children on her own look effortless.  The childhood she chose for them was dubious by most peoples standards, moving the tight family unit of three around haphazardly from the north of England, to London, to Paris, depending on where her mood and love life took her.  As a hairdresser she got work wherever she went, and quickly.  The gossipy nature of her work, and the ease with which people confided in her, meant that Christine and her children would always be quickly ensconced wherever they landed.

She spoke with a soft northern accent, having grown up in St Helens, a product of adoring working class parents who were amazed at her natural glamour, which had presented itself from birth.  Her older sister Shirley would always say,

“Our Chrissie’s been like that since she were born.  She could put on lippy before she could say a word!”

Anaïs always thought it was Christine’s voice that held the magic; the silky soft vowels and the affectionate, almost camp turn of phrase, calling everyone “Sweetheart” and touching people softly on the arm.  It seemed to hypnotise them.

Anaïs and Daniel were used to orbiting around Christine’s popularity.  She would fascinate men, and women did not appear to resent her for it.  She was always absolutely herself. She knew who she was and never showed any signs of self-doubt. It had simply never occurred to her to worry about life.  Even now in her early sixties she did not let age, or any concept of it, affect her.  She had a look going that had become her own, and modified it slightly over the years “just to bring it up to date”.  The beehive she had perfected in the sixties still remained in a softer, looser way, now a silvery blonde. The heavy eyeliner was obligatory and applied quickly and adeptly immediately on waking.  Always.  She wore high heels everyday and walked everywhere, only driving (terribly and much too fast in borrowed cars) if absolutely necessary.

These days she had a rent controlled apartment in the city, up numerous flights of stairs, which suited her existence and kept her young, or so she said. Her windows would be open whatever the season to let out the cigarette smoke and “let in the air”.

Daniels father, according to Christine (whose grasp on the string of lovers she had liaised with was vague to say the least) had been a sweet northern boy with twinkly blue eyes and an impish grin.  A drummer called Pete, who was in some band or other that used to play in the local dance hall.  “Such a lovely boy” she would say fondly “just not ready for the world”.  The apparent scandal caused by Christine’s refusal to marry Pete was what prompted her to remove to Paris for a bit.  And there whilst working part-time in a Parisian hair salon she had dated a fellow northerner, who had been in France for business reasons.  And that was how Anaïs came to be in the world.  “You could have dated someone French, Mum,” Anaïs would say,

“I did love, its just your father was English that’s all!”

“English.  And married”

“Oh don’t Sweetheart, I brought you up never to judge” Shirley was most insistent that marriage could only be successful if it were somewhat elastic in its flexibility. “Anyway I have you, pet.  Something to remind me of my Parisian days!”  She laughed and rolled her eyes.  Her passion for life and love was irrepressible.