Apricot Press

‘Looks a lot shorter, but it’ll soon grow back if you don’t like it.’

Patricia is sitting in the chair, watching herself in the mirror as the woman tugs her head back with each brush stroke. Her hair is dripping onto her shoulders.

The stall beside them is occupied by an older client. Her hair is thinning and there isn’t much to cut, but she comes for the conversation, not the service. One of the girls at the desk calls over to the stylist, asking where something is. The older lady sees an opportunity.

‘Terrible weather today, isn’t it?’

‘Terrible,’ Patricia shakes her head.

‘Is that a St Mary’s uniform? My friend just moved into the second floor. Alzheimer’s. Mind, I’ve heard terrible stories about the carers. One of ‘em barely talks — young lass with bright red hair, but so pale our Julie thought she was a ghost. Started at sixteen and never left apparently. Such a waste, in a place like that.’

The older lady doesn’t see the discarded foils, the mixing bowl of bleach by the windowsill, the hacked off red locks spilling onto the floor by Patricia’s feet.

‘You worked there long? Must be in your thirties, surely. Married? Any little ones?’

‘Just the one — husband that is — and two daughters,’ Patricia smiles. The older woman doesn’t think to look for a ring. She’s delighted, unlocking her phone and swiping through pictures. These are the grandbairns: the twins, Oliver and Daisy. And that’s Louis. He turns three in August.

Before heading home, Patricia stops by the supermarket to get a cake and a candle: just something small, to commemorate the fact she’s another year older. She feels compelled to do so each time. Once the day is gone, she can never get it back. In the car, Patricia nearly forgets her seatbelt. She turns up the volume on the radio: something young you’d hear in a club, back when everything was a few years ago and not suddenly a decade. Then it’s Cry by Godley and Creme: an oldie but a goodie. She fights the urge to collide with oncoming traffic. Onto Landslide by Fleetwood Mac: clearly, the radio has something to say.

Her mother calls out when she hears the front door open. Patricia kisses her forehead and cleans away the dishes. Any post today? But she knows the answer. Her mother can’t stand for long without help, so she certainly hasn’t been to the front door and picked up any envelopes the size of birthday cards. Patricia doesn’t get changed out of her uniform straight away, only loosens her top button. The fabric smells of piss and disinfectant, and her shoes stick out like black wedges, squeaking across the floor.

The house isn’t much to look at, mould creeping in at the edges and the carpet lifting at the corners, but at least it isn’t St Mary’s: where all Patricia can do is watch them in their chairs, hunched over, mouths agape. Patricia doesn’t want to know their names, so makes them up in her head. Soup always grunts when he eats and misses his mouth, so Curly sits on the table furthest away. Clocking out, Patricia sees the outside again. She sees faces and eyes and limbs. Inside, they just look at each other and see themselves. Not long now…

She hears the ceiling creak and still thinks it’s her brother upstairs. He moved away a few years ago. Life is always somewhere else for some: any house can be a home, in England, Spain, even Australia, she’s heard. Not for Patricia though.

When they ask, she smiles: I really do like it here. She always sits in the cleaning cupboard during break. It’s easier to vomit in there than the toilets. Easier to cover up. Otherwise, the other girls would ask her what’s wrong, as if everything was all right. They’d hear her heavy breathing, see her hands shaking and ask her if something had happened.

There was a birthday party once and she watched it through a window behind the brooms. A family of three generations sat around an older man, playing music from his younger years and sharing cake. His smile was toothless and joyful, with the bliss of a child. Patricia saw happiness, but her heart wrung out like a dry cloth, that familiar pain edging into her chest, throat closing, stomach turning―

Friday night, again. She pours her mother fresh water and puts down a new crossword book. On her way out, she always tells her mother she won’t be long. Her father used to do the same when he put the dog to bed. I’ll be back in five minutes, he’d say. Patricia wonders if the dog knew the difference between a minute and an hour, grateful her mother doesn’t. Perhaps ignorance is the answer. And, on the bright side, her mother never asks why the makeup, or the heels; Patricia never has to lie about where she is going.

In the car again, green turns to orange and she floors the accelerator.

It started as an accident, weeks ago. She’d simply gotten into the car one night and started driving. Reaching Tyne bridge, she was drawn like a moth to the glittering mermaids hovering around bars with their toy soldiers, spilling onto streets. The first time she had gone inside, she’d almost forgotten what to do. People like her didn’t belong in places like that. But an hour later, she’d relaxed and stopped scratching the rash on her neck, as the phantom wedges weighing down her feet disappeared at last.

The second Friday in July, she hadn’t meant to follow her, but it was late and she’d had too much to drink. It was the bar with the pop art – bright neon faces smiling down, frozen in moments of ecstasy; there was something reassuring about the fixity of their gaze. Patricia spotted the woman out of the corner of her eye and almost dropped her drink. The long blonde hair of — Sarah, Samara, Susan? — someone from her school days floated out of the door and Patricia’s feet started moving. She sped up as if to catch her, as if she had something to say, but continued on when a taxi pulled up and the woman got inside.

Tonight, it’s her birthday and the neon faces are waiting. Perhaps she will buy them a drink. The bouncer on the door is tall, with a buzzcut; she remembers his firm hands on her shoulders and the gravel rushing up to meet her face. More than once. She passes over her new ID. He squints but decides to let her in. And so, the search continues, for the long blonde hair of — Sabrina, Scarlett, Sophie? — someone she needs to see, after all these years.

But again, nothing. Just the same: dry mouth, dizzy vision, dulled thoughts. On the way back, Patricia takes her eyes off the road. Shuffle lands on Time by Pink Floyd and she slams skip; the build-up takes forever and she needs a chorus now, not in three minutes. She blasts through a red. The nursing home is lit up in the dark and the faint shadows behind the blinds solidify like a lump in her throat. She can leave at any moment. But she never does.

Photo credit: almani