It was 8 am, and Debbie had done her yoga, completed her three-mile run, accompanied by her jet-black poodle, Perro, and enjoyed a nutritious breakfast of muesli, fruit and non-fat yoghurt. And now she was in the salon, Perro snoozing on an old towel in the back room where she kept all the supplies.
It was a full hour before she would open, and three hours before Mrs Mosby, never an early riser, would arrive – she was never on time for her appointments. But Debbie wanted everything to be absolutely perfect for this first Royal Blowtox Treatment. She put on one of the classical CDs loaned to her by Liz, so much more tasteful than Muzak or whale song. She set out scented pillar candles, although she wouldn’t light them until shortly before Mrs Mosby’s arrival.
The food and drink were all ready. Admittedly, things weren’t quite as she had originally envisioned them, because of Mrs Mosby’s – she searched for an acceptable word and settled on “eccentricities”.
Debbie had planned to give her Royal Blowtox customers a Kir Royale on arrival, with crème de cassis and Champagne. She would also offer them a beautifully presented dish of Liz’s fudge, recognised as the best in the Cotswolds. And there would be a selection of the tea room’s celebrated petits fours, both sweet (almond tartlets, chocolate mousse cups and colourful macarons) and savoury (bite-size choux pastries with prawns and chopped egg, and palmiers with goat’s cheese and pesto).
But as she had been trained to do, Debbie held an initial consultation with Mrs Mosby to check that she was a suitable candidate for Botox. She ascertained that Mrs Mosby was in perfect health. But then came the – no, not ridiculousness –
eccentricities.
Mrs Mosby couldn’t drink anything containing bubbles. So, it would have to be crème de cassis mixed with Chablis. As well as that, Debbie had bought still Malvern Water, which was what the Queen drank, so should be acceptable. Mrs Mosby was also lactose intolerant, gluten intolerant, had a nut allergy, and couldn’t touch eggs or shellfish.
That ruled out the best fudge in the Cotswolds and every one of the tea room’s petits fours. Debbie poured out her woes to Nicholas, the tea room’s owner, and he immediately rose to the challenge.
“I’ll make them from superfoods – guarana, spirulina, that sort of thing. There won’t be a drop of milk, a speck of nut or a grain of wheat anywhere near them. She’ll have nothing to complain about.”
Debbie wasn’t convinced, but the superfood petits fours, now sitting in the fridge alongside the water and wine, looked delicious.
At least there was one thing she knew Mrs Mosby wouldn’t complain about, and that was her allergy to animal hair. The very first time Mrs Mosby entered Deb’s Beauty Salon, she spotted Perro lying inoffensively in the corner.
“Get that dreadful creature away from me!” she demanded. “I’m severely allergic to animal hair – I can feel my nose beginning to run already.”
For the first and only time, Debbie ignored the dictum that the customer is always right.
“Excuse me,” she said with quiet dignity, “but that is quite impossible. Perro is a poodle, and poodles do not shed hair. That is why labradoodles were bred, crossing poodles and Labradors to create a hypoallergenic guide dog.”
Mrs Mosby must have sensed that the presence of Perro was non-negotiable. She sniffed a bit, and dabbed ostentatiously at her nose, but she didn’t repeat her demand that he be removed.
When Debbie got to know her better, she realised how extraordinary it was for Mrs Mosby not to insist on getting her own way. But on this occasion, Mrs Mosby was desperate for Debbie’s help. She took off the Rodier headscarf to reveal hair that was a virulent orange.
“A dreadful, dreadful salon in Cheltenham,” Mrs Mosby complained. “Unbelievable incompetence - I refused to pay, of course, and I’m contemplating suing.”
Debbie knew this was complete lie. She recognised a home dyeing disaster when she saw it. But her role was not to judge, it was to help. She had to strip back the colour twice before she could transform it into the platinum blonde that was her own trademark. Mrs Mosby had presumably sought her out for this very expertise. It took from 10.30am until 4pm to accomplish the task, but Mrs Mosby, turning her head from side to side as she admired herself in the mirror, was satisfied.
“Robert always says I look like Marilyn Monroe,” she said, and Debbie fervently agreed, again able to accept that the customer – and even the customer’s husband – was always right.
Mrs Mosby became a regular customer after that, although she cancelled appointments if Debbie was off on a training course, refusing to submit herself to the care of Debbie’s assistant, Poppy. There were quite a few cancelled appointments, since Debbie took every opportunity to enhance her skills.
Mrs Mosby was always keen to experience whatever new therapy Debbie had mastered: hot stone massage, paraffin wax with essential oils, the anti-pollution facial. And she sometimes recommended the salon to her well-heeled friends. Debbie hoped the Royal Blowtox Treatment would prove popular, especially if the friends didn’t have so many – eccentricities.
But while Mrs Mosby might not be the most congenial of clients, she was a successful businesswoman, and Debbie admired that very much. If she had Mrs Mosby’s money, what could she not do? She would move into bigger premises, perhaps even open another branch, hire more assistants, and continue her own training – reflexology, perhaps, and chakra crystals.
She also admired Mrs Mosby’s style. Debbie had a great fondness for pink, which she felt went particularly well with her blonde hair. But was she stuck in a rut? Mrs Mosby had comprehensively reinvented herself over the years. She had started out as Marilyn Monroe, with tight sweaters and capri pants, but now that she was in her mid-fifties (Debbie had ascertained this during the Botox consultation, but had been sworn to secrecy), she had turned to the timeless elegance of Coco Chanel. And that included transforming her halo of platinum blonde hair to a sleek dark bob, a task that Debbie had executed perfectly.
Mrs Mosby now generally wore classic two-piece suits, the skirts just skimming her knee, although on occasion she turned up in the equally classic Little Black Dress, accessorised with expensive jewellery and vintage handbags.
She also dispensed wisdom she had gleaned from her new idol. On one occasion, when Debbie complimented her on her new outfit, she revealed that Chanel had said: “Dress like you are going to meet your worst enemy today.”
Debbie always tried to learn from Mrs Mosby, but she couldn’t think how to apply this to herself. She didn’t have any enemies, let alone a worst one. There had been that awkward time at school when she and her best friend Lorraine fell out because they both fancied the same boy. But he ignored them both and went off with Corrinne Hughes.
And how exactly would you dress to meet your worst enemy? Surely the most sensible thing would be the trainers, leggings and crop top she wore for her early morning run, so that you could get away from them as quickly as possible.
But Mrs Mosby was smirking the way she did when she had said something particularly significant. She seemed to relish the idea of meeting her worst enemy. Which was probably just as well, Debbie reflected, since where enemies were concerned, Mrs Mosby certainly had a lot of them. Debbie’s favourite quote, not that she knew who said it, was “It’s nice to be nice,” but that wasn’t part of Mrs Mosby’s philosophy. She didn’t seem to mind who she upset.
She didn’t even mind upsetting Debbie, whose landlady she was. The rent for the salon had never been cheap, but after Mr Mosby’s sad passing, Debbie was suddenly notified that it would increase in three months’ time.
She had brought up the issue with Mrs Mosby during her next appointment, a full-body massage, convinced there had been some administrative error.
Mrs Mosby’s voice was muffled through the massage table face hole, but there was no mistaking what she said.
“I beg your pardon? You should be thanking me. I deliberately kept your increase less than the others because I like you. But if you’re just going to moan at me, I don’t see why I should do you any favours. You keep going on about wanting to be a better businesswoman, so here’s a tip for you – put your prices up, and then you’ll be able to pay your rent. And now stop talking. I’m trying to relax.”
For a second, Debbie considered pressing down sharply on Mrs Mosby’s sciatic nerve. And then, shocked that she could even think such a thing, she began massaging Mrs Mosby’s upper back with expert rhythmic strokes.
She couldn’t possibly put up her prices – Mrs Mosby and her friends might be able to pay London rates, but the salon’s other clients would reluctantly decide they could no longer afford appointments.
But perhaps the Royal Blowtox Treatment was the start of a new and profitable era. Debbie invested every spare penny into her own professional development, and if there was any justice in the world, it was time it paid off.