Being Light 2011 by Helen Smith Page B

fingers up to the first joints where she has plunged them into the pots and she walks away from the plants.
    In the kitchen, her hands scrubbed and smelling of rose soap, Mrs Fitzgerald takes up one of the biographies she has been reading lately. She is conducting private research into the behaviour of people whose start in life is outwardly normal, but who later descend into madness. She reads about troubled comedians, shamed politicians, drink and drug addicted footballers, power crazy businessmen. What is it that connects them? Are there any external contributory factors? She deduces the link in one of those flashes when the staringly obvious hits for the first time. Every single one of the people in the books she has been reading has been damaged by notoriety. To ensure she learns from their mistakes, Mrs Fitzgerald vows to avoid notoriety at all costs. She pours a cup of very strong black coffee and opens a packet of l angue de chat biscuits to celebrate her decision.

    ‘There’s so much colour in my life,’ Alison tells Taron as the second shot of Tequila goes down. ‘Do you remember the first time you came here and everything in the house was white? The walls, the bed linen, the furniture? Now there are primary colours in every corner; toy trucks and post boxes and ABC books.’
    ‘Hey, keep up. That uptight white stuff was so early-nineties-single-woman. Things have moved on. You only had colour in your garden when I met you. It was symptomatic of your empty life. Now you’re enriched and fulfilled and there’s colour everywhere. I think we should celebrate that.’
    They lick the backs of their hands, sprinkle some salt, lick it, pour the tequila, pour the champagne, swirl, swirl, cover the glass, bang, bang, bang, drink the liquid, suck the lime.
    ‘Aren’t Tequila Slammers a bit of an eighties drink?’
    ‘Alison, some things are evergreen. What’s it really like, then, bringing up the baby?
    ‘Say you buy a Volkswagen Golf,’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You don’t expect to come home and find it’s extruded into a Volvo and you can’t park it anywhere.’
    ‘That would take a bit of getting used to.’
    ‘Exactly.’
    Alison composes a poem to send to Jeff.

                                            Colours
    Colours are wrapping me up in my living room
    Coming in from the garden
    Climbing the walls of the nursery
    Red trucks in the corners
    Yellow plastic crockery in the sink
    Green elephants in my bed
    Taron says it’s a sign of my coming of age
    But I’ve never believed
    A single thing
    She’s said

    ‘You’ll be sent to Poet Hell on judgement day to suffer eternal punishment,’ Taron tells her, and signals the end of the night by lighting up the last cigarette in the packet.

Chapter Twelve ~ Cherry Lip gloss

    The psychic postman brings a small package in a brown Jiffy bag for Alison the next morning. It contains a present of cherry lip gloss from Jeff.
    ‘My sister-in-law had a baby last year. She stopped going out or taking an interest in herself. A visit to the hairdresser, a bit of lipstick, you’d be surprised how much better she felt when she made a bit of an effort with her appearance.’
    A hand-written poem falls from the package as Alison opens it.

    Cherry Lip gloss

    Cloudy colour
    Sticky flavour
    Slicks your lips

    Temporary
    It slips away
    With the first lick

    Alison goes into the kitchen to make some lunch. A Sunday Times colour supplement feature on economical natural beauty techniques comes to mind. Standing at the hob, stir-frying things to a pulp in a wok, she slicks her fingers with olive oil and runs them through her hair and traces them over her dry lips. She mashes an avocado, spoons half the quantity into Phoebe’s mouth and smears the rest on her face. The postman is probably right. She needs to get out more.

Chapter Thirteen ~ Truly, Madly, Deeply

    Sheila Travers had no idea how much she depended on Roy until she lost him. She