Midnight. Annette arrived, a rabbit under each arm, outside Madam Fifi’s late night pedicurists, a narrow building up a city centre side street. A police siren wailed in the distance.
Her gaze scaled three anonymous grey storeys. Annette stepped forward, pushed open a blank wooden door with no handle, and entered.
‘Hello.’ Annette placed her new rabbits on the pink reception desk. ‘I have an appointment.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m Annette Helstrang.’
‘I know.’
‘I live at Plescent Street.’
‘I know.’
‘I’m twenty-one.’
‘I know.’
‘I know.’
‘I …’
‘I know.’
Annette’s expression indicated she’d like an explanation.
‘We have a file on you.’ For the first time removing her attention from the holiday brochure on her counter, the receptionist retrieved a thick, pink folder from the pink pigeonholes behind her.
A genteel xylophone version of I’m Sending a Letter to Daddy wafted down from an overhead speaker; rarely a cause for optimism, Annette often found.
With an insouciant thud and a flurry of dust, the pink folder hit the pink counter.
The rabbits ignored it, nibbling at the desk top.
‘We have a dossier on everyone,’ said the receptionist, flat-voiced, as Annette flicked through its pages. ‘Fifi insists. We even have a file on her, which she uses to discover endless new facts about herself. Its contents never cease to amaze her though she never reads it.’
Madam Fifi was thorough. Everything was in Annette’s file; her birth, school days, early college years, embarrassing photos of her as a child with various saucepans stuck to her head after pretending to be a dalek, her mum, her dad, the first time she’d met Lucy Smith, Danny Yates arriving at her house in Lucy’s cab, Danny Yates as a child, saucepans stuck to his head after pretending to be a dalek.
Later chapters featured predictions for the rest of her life. Annette didn’t read them, not wishing to ruin the surprise.
But one thing heartened her; in all the dossier, there was no mention of the week spent camping in southern France. It seemed Madam Fifi didn’t quite know all. ‘There seems to be a piece missing.’ Annette closed the folder, placing it back on the desk.
‘That’ll be in the supplemental.’
‘The supplemental?’
The receptionist disappeared beneath the desk. Seconds later, thud, another thick document hit it. ‘Everyone must have a supplemental,’ she said.
Annette checked the supplemental’s crisp, pink pages, with their blood red script. And there it was, the week in France, with a saucepan stuck to her head after pretending to be a Napoleonic bunker. ‘Is this standard practice for a pedicurist?’ She rippled through yet more pages.
The receptionist took the file from her, placing it back beneath the counter. ‘Madam Fifi is not a pedicurist.’
‘Then what is she?’
‘A disturbing pedicurist. I wouldn’t have my feet done by her. She steals toes. Has a whole collection back there. She won’t show them to you but they’re there, row after row after row of them, each in its own matchbox. One day, she hopes to make a whole new set of feet from them. She calls it God’s little army of toes. Toes’ll be important come the next millennium, she reckons. You probably knew that, being the mystical one. Mystical, maybe, but weird? You don’t know weird till you meet Fifi. Fifi insists on tying her customers to the table.’
Elbows on counter, chin on palms, she studied Annette’s face before asking, ‘Ever considered a nose job?’
Annette felt at her nose, never having considered such an operation.
Fifi’s secateurs could do that like you wouldn’t believe. Of course we’d have to sell your nose on, to cover costs. She’s efficient like that. Madam Fifi uses ear lobes as pastry fluting.’
‘I see.’ Annette still wasn’t sure why the Mysterious Legs had sent her here. ‘Well, can you tell her I’ve arrived?’
‘Why not?’
‘She already knows.’ Her gaze settled on an eye-shaped camera blinking above the door. ‘Fifi knows all.’