The Men in her Life

disappear when she wasn’t laughing. She had never noticed them before. How long had they been there, she wondered. Maybe the haircut had not been such a good idea after all. Without a mass of curls blowing around it, her face felt very exposed. Holly gathered up her carrier bags and hailed a taxi to Knightsbridge.

    ‘I’ve come to take you out to lunch.’
    Mo hadn’t noticed Holly walk into her department, or at least she had been keeping a watchful eye on a tall young woman with short red hair hanging around the Calvin Klein but had been too busy folding her customer’s Mani suit to recognize her daughter with a new haircut.
    ‘Turn around,’ she made a circle with her hand.
    Holly twirled in front of her.
    ‘It’s gorgeous.’ Mo’s voice was decisive.
    ‘You really think so?’ Holly’s face broke into a broad grin.
    ‘You should have had it done years ago.’
    ‘Well, thanks.’ Holly’s face fell dramatically. She wanted people to like her new haircut, but was slightly alarmed by the implication that she had not looked her best for most of her adult life. ‘I haven’t slept, too excited, and it’s so hot outside,’ she began to explain her presence in the department store where Mo Worked, ‘so I awarded myself the day off in honour of New Labour, and I decided to change my life... and §et some clothes for summer while I’m about it... trouble is — everything seems to be linen. What’s the Point of linen?’
    ‘It’s cool and natural,’ Mo said in a helpful shop-assistant kind of way.
    ‘It creases as soon as you look at it, and then it goes shiny and out of shape,’ Holly pronounced and Mo knew better than to argue.
    ‘I do like your hair,’ Mo said, as they walked towards the escalators, ‘makes you look very young.’
    The haircut transformed Holly from Crystal Tipps to supermodel.
    ‘That’s one of the things I need your advice on.’ Holly linked her mother’s arm.
    ‘What’s that?’ Mo asked.
    ‘I think I may be getting wrinkles. I mean, how old do you have to be to start using Revlon’s Age-Defying foundation?’
    ‘Well,’ Mo considered the matter carefully as they glided down to the ground floor, ‘I think we should go and talk to my friend Sonya in Perfumery. But let’s have lunch first.’
    They went to a crowded sandwich bar in a side street just off Knightsbridge.
    ‘I’ll have Parma ham and mozzarella on grilled ciabatta,’ Holly said to the nice Italian man serving.
    ‘What a palaver for a ham and cheese toastie,’ Mo joked. ‘Prawn and advocado, for me, on white.’
    ‘Mum, it’s avocado,’ Holly told her.
    ‘No, is it?’
    ‘You always say that and you never take any notice. I mean, look, where’s the d?’ She pointed at the menu painted on the wall above the counter.
    ‘Well, it’s Italian.’
    There were some words that Mo always got wrong and it didn’t seem to bother her. It didn’t bother Holly like it used to. She had spent the first few years after leaving home trying to improve her elocution, then East End accents had become fashionable.
    ‘I bumped into Jack,’ Holly said, as they pushed back through the queue towards a little round table on the pavement outside, ‘he flew back to London to celebrate
    ‘There was something in the paper about people who said they’d leave if Labour won and people who said they’d come back — as if anyone cared what he’d do!’ Mo said. ‘Still, that never stopped him telling anyone who’d listen...’
    ‘Well, he is one of the most successful British film directors ever,’ Holly rose immediately to Jack’s defence. ‘I think people do care. I think it was an important thing to say...’
    ‘Oh well, if you say so,’ Mo said, taking a bite of her sandwich and looking at her daughter. At times, Holly was so much Jack’s child with her fiery colouring and the temper to go with it. She had exactly that way he had of swinging from pleasant to outraged in one go, with no build-up through irritated, annoyed, angry, on the way, and her blue eyes had exactly the same gleam, challenging anyone who dared to contradict her.
    ‘He’s asked me out to dinner with him tonight at the Ivy,’ Holly announced.
    ‘Oh good,’ Mo remarked neutrally.
    ‘Want to come? He said to ask...’ She leaned forward and took Mo’s hand across the table.
    ‘No, I don’t think so. Nice of him though. Send him my best...’
    ‘Why won’t you come?’ Holly demanded to know.
    Mo was sure Holly would