who'd saved my life on Wednesday night.
'Hello.' I handed over the prescription. He scanned it and clucked sympathetically. 'Take a seat.'
While he ducked behind the melamine divider to get Mam's happy pills I noticed they'd all kinds of nice things that I'd missed on my mercy dash on Wednesday night.
Not just the usual chemist paraphernalia of painkillers and cough mixtures but mid-range face creams and, most distracting of all, nail polishes. This is how I feel about nail polish
…
A few of my favourite things
Favourite thing No.
My nails: A testimonial
All my life I've hated my hands. I'm prone to short limbs anyway and nowhere is it more pronounced than my fingers. But about six months ago, at the behest of Susan, I started getting my nails 'done'. Which means getting them lengthened and strengthened with all sorts of fake jiggery-pokery. But the best bit of all is they don't look fake. They just look like nice nails, a nice length, painted a nice colour. (No horrible witchy femme fatale red talons for me.)
I am different when my nails are done. I am more dynamic, I gesticulate more, I am better at scaring my staff. I can indicate impatience by drumming on table tops and I can wrap up a meeting with a few choice clatters.
I am now utterly dependent on my long nails. Without them I'm like Samson without his hair, I feel naked and devoid of power. And I no longer laugh when people make fun of girls who regard breaking a nail as a disaster, because a broken nail has the same effect on me as kryptonite on Superman.
For the first time in my life I've started buying nail varnishes. I'd always felt sort of left out in that department but I've made up for lost time and now I have lots of them. Opaques and clears and metallics and glitterys and opalescents.
The only problem is what to do when things go wrong at work, now that I can't bite my nails any more. I might have to get false ones to bite, the way people get fake fags once they've given up smoking. Or indeed, I could take up smoking.
When the man re-emerged with the happy tabs, I'd selected a nail polish: a milky beige colour, the same colour as the January sky, which is absolutely horrible on the January sky but, interestingly enough, quite chic as a nail varnish.
' That's a nice cheerful shade,' he said.
I thought that was a funny remark for a man to make. Especially because it wasn't true.
But then when he started reeling off instructions — 'Take the anti-depressants once a day, if you miss a day, don't double up the dose the next day, just carry on as normal. Only take the tranquillizers as an emergency, they're highly addictive' - I remembered that on Wednesday night he'd thought the tranquillizers were mine. Evidetldy, he also thought these pills were for me and I wasn't sure quite how to go about telling him they were for my mother.
'Um, thanks.'
'Take care,' he called after me.
Back at Mam's, anxiety began growing inside me. I needed to go home. I had to
a) do my laundry
b) put out my wheely bin
c) pay bills
d) set the video to record I love 1988 .
Also, in the outside world, I had to
e) get a birthday present for Cody
f)get fancy tights for Davinia's wedding (I had to masquerade as a guest even though I'd be working at it.) (I really should get a clothing allowance because I have to buy so many gussy clothes for work. Hats and cocktail dresses and whatnot.)
g) get my nails done.
The second I stood up, I must have conveyed my purposeful air to Mam because she said anxiously, 'Where are you going?'
'I have to get home, Mam. I've my laundry to do and -'
'How long will that take you?'
'A few hours, so -'
'So you'll be back here by three. Or why don't you bring your laundry here and I'll do it for you?'
'There's no need.'
'I do it much nicer.'
'Yes, but I've other things to do too.'
'What about me? Are you going to leave me here on my own?'
I drove away, fear sitting in my stomach like a bag of stones. There had to be other people
'Hello.' I handed over the prescription. He scanned it and clucked sympathetically. 'Take a seat.'
While he ducked behind the melamine divider to get Mam's happy pills I noticed they'd all kinds of nice things that I'd missed on my mercy dash on Wednesday night.
Not just the usual chemist paraphernalia of painkillers and cough mixtures but mid-range face creams and, most distracting of all, nail polishes. This is how I feel about nail polish
…
A few of my favourite things
Favourite thing No.
My nails: A testimonial
All my life I've hated my hands. I'm prone to short limbs anyway and nowhere is it more pronounced than my fingers. But about six months ago, at the behest of Susan, I started getting my nails 'done'. Which means getting them lengthened and strengthened with all sorts of fake jiggery-pokery. But the best bit of all is they don't look fake. They just look like nice nails, a nice length, painted a nice colour. (No horrible witchy femme fatale red talons for me.)
I am different when my nails are done. I am more dynamic, I gesticulate more, I am better at scaring my staff. I can indicate impatience by drumming on table tops and I can wrap up a meeting with a few choice clatters.
I am now utterly dependent on my long nails. Without them I'm like Samson without his hair, I feel naked and devoid of power. And I no longer laugh when people make fun of girls who regard breaking a nail as a disaster, because a broken nail has the same effect on me as kryptonite on Superman.
For the first time in my life I've started buying nail varnishes. I'd always felt sort of left out in that department but I've made up for lost time and now I have lots of them. Opaques and clears and metallics and glitterys and opalescents.
The only problem is what to do when things go wrong at work, now that I can't bite my nails any more. I might have to get false ones to bite, the way people get fake fags once they've given up smoking. Or indeed, I could take up smoking.
When the man re-emerged with the happy tabs, I'd selected a nail polish: a milky beige colour, the same colour as the January sky, which is absolutely horrible on the January sky but, interestingly enough, quite chic as a nail varnish.
' That's a nice cheerful shade,' he said.
I thought that was a funny remark for a man to make. Especially because it wasn't true.
But then when he started reeling off instructions — 'Take the anti-depressants once a day, if you miss a day, don't double up the dose the next day, just carry on as normal. Only take the tranquillizers as an emergency, they're highly addictive' - I remembered that on Wednesday night he'd thought the tranquillizers were mine. Evidetldy, he also thought these pills were for me and I wasn't sure quite how to go about telling him they were for my mother.
'Um, thanks.'
'Take care,' he called after me.
Back at Mam's, anxiety began growing inside me. I needed to go home. I had to
a) do my laundry
b) put out my wheely bin
c) pay bills
d) set the video to record I love 1988 .
Also, in the outside world, I had to
e) get a birthday present for Cody
f)get fancy tights for Davinia's wedding (I had to masquerade as a guest even though I'd be working at it.) (I really should get a clothing allowance because I have to buy so many gussy clothes for work. Hats and cocktail dresses and whatnot.)
g) get my nails done.
The second I stood up, I must have conveyed my purposeful air to Mam because she said anxiously, 'Where are you going?'
'I have to get home, Mam. I've my laundry to do and -'
'How long will that take you?'
'A few hours, so -'
'So you'll be back here by three. Or why don't you bring your laundry here and I'll do it for you?'
'There's no need.'
'I do it much nicer.'
'Yes, but I've other things to do too.'
'What about me? Are you going to leave me here on my own?'
I drove away, fear sitting in my stomach like a bag of stones. There had to be other people
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