My stomach was fizzing like a glass of Alka Seltzer – one where someone had put too many in and it was in danger of frothing over the top. I’d tried taking deep, calming breaths, I’d tried breathing slowly – in, two three four five six seven eight, out, two three four five six seven eight. I’d even tried not breathing at all, but none of those things had helped. The effervescence wouldn’t even subside, let alone go away and leave me in peace to get on with getting ready. I was in danger of arriving at my destination foaming and frothing at the mouth like a dog with rabies.
There was also a thumping in my chest that skittered about between a vague salsa rhythm and an even vaguer hip hop beat. And as if that wasn’t enough to contend with, my tongue and the roof of my mouth felt as dry and ragged as pages torn out of an old, yellowing newspaper.
This was ridiculous. I should never have gone on Alex’s Facebook page yesterday. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have seen that it still said Relationship Status – Married to Beth Dixon, and still had the photo of us, petting those damn donkeys on Santorini on our honeymoon. And I wouldn’t have seen that he was going to be at a party at the Dubai Marina Yacht Club tonight. And I wouldn’t have started wondering if I could get him close enough to some railings to push him over. Or if the music would be loud enough to cover the splash.
I looked at my hair in the mirror – the hair I had just tried to put up in the quick and sophisticated style Henry’s hairdresser had once shown me in case I needed to do it myself in an emergency. At the time, I’d laughed – who has an emergency hairstyle? Now a wave of frustrated despair rushed over me. Of all the times to be staying in a five-star hotel whose beauty salon couldn’t fit me in because it was New Year’s Eve and they were fully booked up with guests who’d had the forethought to book well in advance. If Facebook had told me, well in advance, that tonight I would know where Alex was going to be, then that’s when I would have booked an appointment. The elegant little topknot that the hairdresser in Winchester had shown me how to do, with a few twirly-looking tendrils falling daintily to frame my face, was just not working. How she’d managed to get what there was of my hair into any kind of knot on the crown of my head was beyond me. All I was getting was a ratty little pineapple of sticky-out bits which were in no way elegant. And as for my face being framed by twirly-looking tendrils, falling daintily or otherwise, I looked like a scarecrow who’d been dragged through a couple of hedges backwards. I pulled it all out, shook my hair free, and started again.
The air conditioning in the bedroom had, up until about five minutes ago, felt just right. My top lip, however, was now pursing itself in concentration under a fine film of perspiration. The same unwelcome chilly moistness was starting to trickle down my back, and I was glad I’d decided not to put my lovely dress on until after I had finished doing my hair and make-up.
How did some women do this sort of thing all the time? Was it normal to spend this long faffing about in front of a mirror just to be able to be seen in public? I’d always been a wash and go kind of girl – most of the time I didn’t even bother with a hairdryer. A squirt of shampoo, a dollop of conditioner, a run through with a comb, and I was usually good to go. Since working for Henry, however, I’d been introduced to all kinds of sprays and serums and spritzes I’d never even known existed. Products I’d previously marched past in Boots, their labels making no sense, their contents having no possible bearing on my life, had suddenly become recognisable. There was a hell of a lot of stuff out there for people to spend their money on, and then spend even more time and effort messing about with. My new and very full spongebag was twice the size of my old, half-empty one. I just hoped it was all going to be worth it.
Doing my best to ignore the fizzing and thumping, I threw my head forward, scraped my hair towards the top of the back of my head with my brush, and held it in place with my left hand while my right wrestled with the little clear rubber band thing that the hairdresser had given me a couple of. I twisted it round, pulling the bit of hair through five times, each time thinking that this was when it would snap. It held the hair in place and it seemed to be the closest to the right part of my head that I’d achieved so far.
Encouraged by this bit of success, I picked up the little doughnut thing I’d also been given and carefully pulled the hair though that. Now I was supposed to wrap the bits of hair round it, completely covering it, and tuck them under, securing them in place with a few hairgrips. I’d have sworn the hair wasn’t long enough to do that if I hadn’t seen the hairdresser do it with my own eyes – and it hadn’t been cut at all since then so, if anything, it might even be a fraction of a millimetre longer.
Willing it to actually have grown a fraction of a millimetre while being pretty damn sure it hadn’t, I started pulling a bit of it over the doughnut and tucking it underneath. It just about went under, but the hairgrip I shoved in after it really had nothing to attach itself to and just sort of sat in my hair like the spare part it technically was. I gently removed it and dropped it back on the dressing table as surplus to requirements, then set about tugging under and tucking in other bits of hair.
The scrunchie-type hair band I had to wrap round it was the same shade of dark purple-pink as my dress. Sending up another of those silent prayers that I wouldn’t destroy what I’d managed to do so far, I carefully stretched it over the hair-covered doughnut, twisted it at the back, and stretched it back again. Twice seemed to just do it, thankfully, so I smoothed out the crinkles a bit and stood back to take a proper look.
The resulting style was a fairly distant poor relation to how the hairdresser had done it but, hey, she’d had years of training and experience behind her. This didn’t look too bad, and anyway, it was probably about as good as it was going to get, so I gave it a quick spurt of Frizz Ease hairspray, then another for good luck and left it at that. Job done.
I looked at my watch. It was time to get my glad rags on and be on my way. I had no idea how long I’d have to wait for a taxi to Alex’s party.
Unwinding my bath towel from round me, I gave my back a final pat down before spritzing myself with the Ted Baker Pink body spray that had been one of the presents in my Christmas pillowcase. Giving it a moment to dry, I gathered my shoes and clutch bag – there’s so much to remember to do, with this dressing up lark – checking that my phone, with the destination of the party in it was in the bag. This was where most women would probably have pulled on some lovely new underwear, something like one of the sets I’d bought for our honeymoon. Only there would be zero point in me bothering with any of that. I could be wearing Bridget Jones’s biggest, ugliest granny-pants, because even if I did find him, Alex wouldn’t be getting close enough for it to matter what I had on under this dress.
Sliding the garment off its hanger, I stepped into the deliciously silky fabric. I’d never in my life even looked at a dress like this and imagined myself in it. This was the sort of dress worn by go-getting women with high-flying careers and fancy cars. This was a Davina dress – she’d have the lipstick and nail varnish to match. It was hard to imagine it ever being a Beth dress. But the woman in Galeries Lafayette had been so insistent that I try it on and she’d already shown me so many other things that I’d said no thank you to. And I’d fallen in love with it the moment I looked in the mirror.
It looked like a completely different version of me standing there, a glamorous, confident version and, although I’d never thought of myself in that way, I rather liked it. And I had to admit that with all these beauty treatments I’d been having, my skin really did have a lovely, smooth glow to it that I hadn’t even realised had been missing.
And now, standing here in it, with the right matching shoes and bag, even my silly hairdo didn’t manage to detract from how good it made me feel.
Picking up my bag, I took one last look in the mirror. I was dressed to kill and ready to go.