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

Maurice does not talk to Mrs Fish either. She and Mrs Blump glance at each other. They have come for the same thing. Last week Maurice had told some delicious gossip. ‘Of course, dear Mrs Fish, I know you won’t breathe a word of this to a soul,’ he had whispered, and Mrs Fish had listened, palms sweating, lips moist, excited. Every day since then had been beautiful. She had dialled her fellow retailers of scandal and they had repaid her quite splendidly.
    â€˜Would you like me to hand you the rollers?’ she said.
    â€˜No thanks, Mrs Fish,’ Maurice replies absently. ‘It’s quicker just to grab them myself.’
    She sighs.
    Then inspiration strikes. ‘Anton,’ she chimes out.
    Anton looks up from the tiny knobs of hair he is scrabbling over.
    â€˜Who was that pretty girl you were dining with last Friday?’ she calls.
    There is silence, lapping over them, absorbing them all, drawing them on into something that has begun and cannot be stopped. Maurice’s hands hover over Mrs Fish’s hair. Instinctively he is caressing her cheeks, marking time. She quivers, partly at his touch, partly at the mounting unspoken excitement.
    â€˜Me?’ says Anton. ‘Mrs Fish, I’m sure you’re mistaken. It can’t have been me.’
    â€˜But do tell us what you thought you saw, Mrs Fish,’ says Maurice.
    Mrs Fish glows as the conversation gathers around her. She has caught them; they are listening; and the pace of the salon has perceptibly slackened, for which everyone will be grateful. Her mouth puckers over the big teeth.
    â€˜But of course it was you at the Maytime on Friday, Anton. You and the girl, so pretty in her long green dress. I said to my husband, Isn’t she pretty? Who? he said. The girl with Anton, I said. Who’s Anton? he said. He’s at my salon, I said. It was our wedding anniversary. We’ve been married fifteen years, though he says you wouldn’t believe it, and I can still wear a bikini in spite of the stretch marks. She’s lovely, my husband said, though of course I’d rather have you. Go on, you wouldn’t, I said. Yes I would, he said. But what about you, do you fancy that Anton? I nearly died. Men are funny, aren’t they? I’m sure it’s him, I said. He wears onyx rings. That’s him then, my husband said. Don’t you think his girl’s pretty Maurice?’
    The dryers are roaring all around. Maybe Maurice hasn’t heard. Could their heat be too much for him? He is gasping for air, his face red, then pale.
    â€˜Must be such fun,’ says Mrs Fish archly, ‘living together, you two. I wouldn’t like to go out with one of you. Bet you swap notes.’ She giggles, snuggles down into her chair. ‘That’s if I was younger of course. Not that women of my age don’t have something to recommend them. That’s what my husband says. Looks at all those saucy magazines!’ She claps a hand to her mouth, glances at salmon-coloured Mrs Blump. ‘You know what I mean. And I say to him, Any time you feel like a fling. Not me, he says. I know when I’m well off.’
    The silence has thickened, in a frightening and sickening way. Suddenly Mrs Fish knows something has gone wrong but she does not know what it is. ‘I guess I’m lucky,’ she says, her voice as bleak as she looks. And her reflection twists grotesquely — her big teeth, protuberant eyes, and wet hair shining spotlessly back at her.
    â€˜You said you were taking your nephew to the Maytime, Anton,’ says Maurice above her.
    Mrs Blump, pink and porcine, touches her forehead briefly. She is old; nobody pretends to her any more that she is, could be, or might ever have been at all beautiful. She has felt Anton’s hot tears as he bent over her. It’s been worth her money today. ‘Don’t hurry, Anton,’ she says. ‘Why don’t you have a rest? Nobody’s