Sleeping Beauties by Mavis Cheek

Author:Mavis Cheek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ipso Books

17

Margery crossed to her wardrobe. Somewhere in his house Reginald Postgate would be waking and dressing and she wondered what he would wear. She had never seen him in anything but his Dental Regalia and it was hard to imagine him in shirt and trousers.

Or, as the little beautician had said with a wink, out of them.

From the wardrobe she at last took the gingham frock. It rustled and floated as she swung it off the rail, swished seductively as she gave it a whirl around the room, crackled excitingly as she held it up to her chin before the mirror. When she smiled she saw that she was really quite beautiful against the pretty lilac checks. As that young lady at the salon said, ‘Give It All You’ve Got. Wear something exciting – married men get into a rut. Leave me to do the rest.’ Margery was very happy to oblige.

The taxi was due at any minute. She folded the dress very carefully and placed it, with as much reverence as if it were a bridal gown, into a large plastic bag. The hallway was almost full. Baskets, bags, boxes lined the way to the front door.

Margery went over her list one more time: pots of honey, the honey cakes, special honey to sweeten his tea, and the hydromel, which looked a bit funny but fizzed encouragingly and smelled wonderful – all yeasty and sweet like a warm summer’s night. There were honey sandwiches, honey biscuits and honey-glazed ham; she had even found little golden tomatoes, honey sweets, and a circular white tablecloth with a motif of honeybees.

All this, she thought happily, was Giving Him What He Wants. The next best thing to having a hive to nestle in.

Beaming at the sunkissed world she gave the name of the Beauty Parlour to the taxi driver and said, leaning back, that after today she would never be the same again.

*

Caroline had not slept well. The night before she had been to see a film – part of Feminist Fortnight at the NFT. The film was about women bandits, living in the Indian hills, who selected only male travellers as their robbers’ meat. Literally. For not only did they steal from them, but they also salted them down and, apparently, ate them. The point being that these bandits were now liberated women, free from the domestic drudgery of washday in the Ganges or sweating over a hot khali.

All Caroline could do was think of Bernie and Rita sweating over a hot Le Creuset together. There was much to be said for domestic drudgery. Certainly as much as might be found in salting down a bloke or two for the rainy season, or using his rendered grease for hair lotion and facial moisturizers. Which, apparently, the bandits – in a heartwarming display of liberated good housewifery – did too.

Bernie had rung to wish her goodnight, ending the call abruptly by saying, ‘Well, I’ll go now. You need your beauty sleep.’

Needed her Beauty Sleep? He was beginning to find her unattractive already? He had never said such a thing before.

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