Page 77 of Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
Her mother’s eyes widened. ‘Oh, Nina, don’t! What if she breaks a hip?’
‘Or her fancy man might have an attack of sciatica at a pivotal moment?’ Nina suggested and they both giggled.
‘Tell you what, I’ll get dinner cleared away and then I’ll give you a mani-pedi if you like,’ Alison offered. Then she paused and Nina braced herself for an implied insult or passive-aggressive dig. ‘It’s just that I don’t have any of my nail kit with me.’
Relief made Nina quite light-headed although that might have been because she’d just stood up far too quickly. ‘I’ve got everything that you could possibly need to do a mani-pedi. Even a fancy foot spa! Come and have a look.’
There were few things that Nina could do right in her mother’s eyes but Alison’s hands clasped together in sheer, wordless joy when Nina wheeled her three-tier beauty trolley into the front room. ‘All my nail supplies are on the bottom level,’ she said. ‘I’ll go and sort out the foot spa.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Alison exclaimed. ‘You’re convalescing. I’ll do it.’
Fifteen minutes later, Nina’s feet were soaking as her fingernails were being buffed and filed and the only criticism that Alison had made was that when she went into the bathroom to retrieve the foot spa from the cupboard under the sink, she couldn’t help but notice that the bathroom tiles could do with being regrouted.
Nina quickly steered the conversation to the new gel polishes she’d picked up from the big beauty supply store on Shaftesbury Avenue and this was one thing that she and her mother still had in common. They discussed the new Chanel palettes, that no one had warned Alison that her eyelids would be the first thing to sag as she got older and how much primer she had to use to get her eye make-up to stay on, and if the Olaplex hair conditioning in-salon treatment was really all that it was cracked up to be.
It was a conversation that nourished Nina’s soul. Not just because she and Alison hadn’t exchanged a single cross word or sniped at each other once. It was also one of the few things that Nina missed about working in a salon; being surrounded by other women who were obsessed with products in the same way that Posy and Verity were obsessed with books.
Nina liked books as much as the next person. More than the next person, in fact, but she’d come late to a love of reading. She didn’t have much to contribute when Posy and Verity were really going for it on the book talk; exchanging titles of much-loved stories from their childhoods or reminiscing about their A-level texts or how they both spent their teen years reading Nancy Mitford and early Jilly Cooper novels.
So to be able to discuss the benefits of a tinted moisturiser over a BB cream or even a CC cream with her mother was, well … ‘This is really lovely. I can’t remember the last time that we got together and managed not to have an argument.’
Nina inwardly cursed herself as soon as she said it because it seemed guaranteed to lead to an argument, but Alison nodded her head in agreement.
‘I know,’ she said softly as she applied a second coat of deep-red polish to the nails on Nina’s right hand. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Nina, but sometimes I think you hate me.’
Maybe it was because she was still weak from the flu and didn’t have the energy for a ruckus, but Nina decided not to tense all her muscles and go into fight mode. ‘Of course I don’t hate you,’ she said and she raised her head so she could look her mother in the eye. ‘But there are quite a lot of times that I thinkyouhateme.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ Alison snapped, twisting the top of the nail-varnish bottle shut so violently that Nina was amazed that the bottle didn’t shatter. ‘I love you very much but you’ve made it clear what you think of me and my life and that you want no part of it.’
‘Well, no, I don’t want your life,’ Nina said very carefully. ‘I want my own life.’ Exasperation took over. ‘But come on, Mum, the way you brought me up meant that it was hard to see that there was another life out there. That I had options, choices …’
Alison had pursed her lips, chin tipped forward. ‘There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get married and have children.’
‘I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with wanting those things but not at twenty! I hadn’t done anything, been anywhere.’ Nina shook her head. She still hadn’t done anything but been on at least a thousand first dates. Still hadn’t gone anywhere but on a few mini-breaks and hen weekends.
‘But all the women in our family marry young. Have children young. It’s tradition,’ Alison insisted, even if it was a pretty rubbish tradition that should have been phased out fifty years ago.
It was time for Nina to blow her mother’s mind. ‘You do realise that the only reason why both Granny and Great-Granny got married so young is because they were knocked up,’ she blurted.
‘No! Nina!’ Alison shook her head, her mouth falling open.
‘Of course they were. Haven’t you ever done the maths?’ Nina watched as her mother narrowed her eyes and did the maths.
‘No! Oh my goodness!’
Nina took advantage of her mother’s shock to press on. ‘I didn’t rejectyou, but I have been angry with you. You were so determined that my life should follow one path, your path, when actually I could have stayed on to do A-levels, maybe gone to university. But you wanted me to be exactly the same as you.’
‘I wanted you with me, is that so terrible?’ Alison asked, patting Nina’s knee. ‘We used to be best friends but now I feel like I don’t know you at all. You don’t want me to know you.’
‘Oh God, if you knew the real me, you’d be horrified,’ Nina exclaimed, Noah’s words echoing in her head as they had done ever since he’d thrown them at her.
Alison reached out to brush the back of her hand against her daughter’s cheek.
‘You look so sad, darling. Not just today. When I see you, I think that you don’t look that happy for someone who’s meant to be living her best life.’
‘But it’s not my best life,’ Nina said and she was near to tears, determined to blame it on the flu or on the gentleness of Alison’s unaccustomed touch. ‘I feel like I’m lost. That for all my wanting to be wild and free, I’m as trapped as I ever was. My life feels so small, so dull.’
‘It’s not dull at all! You’ve got an interesting job with lovely friends and you live in central London.’ If Alison continued to list all of Nina’s achievements then this wasn’t going to take very long. ‘And you’re brave, Nina. You look the way you want, you live the way you want and I might not say it very often, but I am proud of you and I love you very much.’
