The Best of Fiona Kidman's Short Stories by Fiona Kidman Page A

very small offering, let my crooked smile fall on you, without refusing its warmth?
    Oh no, I feel your delicate instincts withdraw, into the frail frightened person who is you, and I fear that the cold will lie there and grow in you till you become like all the rest.
    I help May off the train. She is not surprised to see me, as usual she simply accepts my presence. As we touch the platform she clasps my hand in hers, in preparation for the short walk to the sheltered workshop.
    One last glance back at the train as it pulls away and Blossom’s face is turned to the window. As I look, she allows herself a shy, secret smile in my direction. So much, much better than a public declaration of sympathy. In that one tiny moment, which is between her and me alone, I own the world.

The Stung Ones

    M AURICE AND A NTON are running late and they are fractious. Their quarrels are public but never permanent; nor do they appear to carry weight. It is doubtful whether either of them is strong enough to bear the burden of a long quarrel.
    â€˜Head back, Madam, head back,’ Anton says testily to the elderly pile of salmon-pink flesh in the chair at the basins. The voluminous neck arches painfully back into the black plastic headrest. The feet teeter dangerously in mid-air.
    Mrs Blump grunts. ‘The water’s cold,’ she says, punishing him. She does not want to punish him; he makes her, and it hurts her more than him. She wants to find him kind and affable and indiscreet; otherwise she’s wasting money; she cannot be made beautiful and she knows it. Keeping her self-respect , she calls it, and no doubt that is true, but the larger truth is the excitement of the familiar faces, the whispered confessions from cubicle to cubicle, the cups of coffee she pays double for having them brought to her with humble deference, the flattery — these are what she’s really here for. Yet today Anton is fractious and may deny her the weekly allowance which sustains her from one appointment to another.
    â€˜It’s keeping its shape well, don’t you think? You cut it so well last time,’ she says, hoping to please him as he kneads the shampoo in.
    â€˜The ends are splitting — but there, Madam should have conditioner more often,’ says Anton, implying that she is mean.
    â€˜Rub harder,’ she snaps, punishing him again, and hating herself. ‘What’s wrong with your fingers, Anton? They’re like jelly’
    â€˜I did five perms yesterday. My hands are sore, Mrs Blump.’
    At last he leads her to the chair, head cowled by the mopping towel. She sits, ashamed, hating him because the mirror tells her she is at her ugliest and he is quite beautiful. He stands beside her, letting the contrast sink in. Slowlyhe dons his onyx rings which he has discarded while he was shampooing; he draws them carefully up his slender fingers; flicks a tendril of his free-fall, shock-sheen hair into place; fingers his client’s so very thin dripping grey wisps; dries his hands; and adjusts his paisley scarf a little to the left.
    â€˜How would Madam like it set?’ he asks languidly.
    â€˜I trust your judgement, Anton,’ she murmurs, humbled. ‘As always.’
    Maurice ushers Mrs Fish from the basin to the seat beside Mrs Blump. She is unlovely too, though much younger, with pale eyesand oatmeal skin, and hair that must be styled, she says, to suit her husband and never herself. Her teeth are covered with lipstick. She bares them ecstatically as Maurice scoops her hair through the comb, but she is looking at herself like a stranger. Behind the comfort of her own bedroom mirror she is a tolerable figure, but here, under the cold lights and Maurice’s eyes , she becomes someone she would rather not recognise. ‘It’s the light; this vulgar fluorescence,’ she tells herself. She would not tolerate it at home. There the lamps are shadowed and roselit.
    Because of the rush