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  Chapter Seven

  It’s easy to leave the toilets, less easy to turn out into reception in full view of the double doors. I hang back, loitering. Elvis bounces spritely from the white corridor, and is promptly delivered onto the pavement. The doors part around him, far too many faces are hurrying past but nobody is standing still, not directly out front, the doors are shut again. Surely he wouldn’t be standing right there, would he, like my date?

  So I make a decision. I march at those ridiculously sized totally transparent doors and they shoot open and present me to the world as I fake-stroll out into the fresh air, take a deep breath, and a fraction more air moves in through my nose. Nobody approaches me. I’ve adopted a casual pose in the centre of the pavement and faces flow past, vivid statement eyes on disinterested shoppers. So I’ve got to do the looking, too. A visual sweep in both directions does not raise any immediate suspects. A wide group of teenagers cross the road towards me, but on brief inspection, they are all girls. Over the road, somebody is concealed within the doorway of a shop front like a proper stalker. I glimpse an elbow. I edge along to line myself up, and it’s only a man pausing to prise the lid off a coffee. Not a teenager. Cliff it seems, has gone.

  I spy the dog with the sad face tied up outside the Health Centre.

  “We meet again, boy. Hey, don’t I look any better?”

  ..................................................................................................................

  I am walking home along the High Street when my phone rings, it’s Seven again. I answer and she switches her face to sullen.

  “Why did you hang up on me? I didn’t mean anything about your face- I just meant, watch out for Cliff.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me! I don’t know what I can say to you anymore, you’re so sensitive.”

  Her eyes search out mine, I won’t give them. I get a sudden flash of straight whites.

  “So tell me what happened!”

  “He’s a perfect Rex Rayne. Even better than Dollar.”

  “No!”

  “He was stood there in a Bugs Bunny suit.”

  Seven shrieks, tosses back her head. Her edges go soft for a split second.

  “I marched outside to confront him like you said, and he’d gone.”

  “Told you he was a Natural.”

  “You said if he was a Natural he’d wait.”

  “I messaged him straight back for you, I said you needed to know if he was a Natural.”

  “What? I don’t need to know anything about him!”

  Seven does her evil laugh: three syllables, emphasis on the last. I glare at her. Glaring never works with Seven, she has some kind of force field that repels them.

  “You want to date a Natural? I’m rescuing you here.”

  “Who said anything about a date? It’s just a conversation that never happened.”

  “You don’t know anything about this guy.”

  My dent comes.

  “I do know one thing: I know to try a bag of carrots next time.”

  I turn into my street and the reflective house on the corner catches my dent as I pass, reflecting it back to me in multi-colours. Seven is scowling out of my phone, she thinks I’m winding her up with my smile, but I can’t stop - I’m too funny. My stomach rumbles; it’s nearly lunchtime and I can’t remember the last time Mum planned a meal and carried the concept through to warm, comforting reality. Baby is going to come out addicted to a quick sandwich. I imagine her pouting as she stares overwhelmed, into the fridge. Listing forward, front-loaded with those pouty lips and the bump.

  “I’ve got to go.” I tell Seven. “Pregnant one needs help thinking.”

  “Wow, I keep forgetting about the baby!”

  “You wouldn’t if you saw her. Or had to live with her.”

  “How long has she got left?”

  “Any day now, but I was ten days late. She’s massive. Enhanced her face yesterday, gone all pouty.”

  “Revenge face.” Seven nods her approval. “Good for her.”

  I walk up to the front gate and give it a nudge with my foot and pause on the ‘welcome’ mat to steel myself and tuck my phone away. (Seven might actually enjoy this confrontation, but I don’t need an audience.) Concentrating hard on misery and not smiling, I ease open the cheerful yellow front door and find Mum behind it.

  Chapter Eight

  Mum is in the front hall and has one hand splayed against the wall and it becomes apparent that she is trying to ease herself down to retrieve a pile of clothes. She holds a weight-lifters stance, knees splayed.

  “Ah, good timing. Could you...?”

  Mum sways slightly, and rests a shoulder on the wall. I dive in and scoop up the clothes and take in her new face, awake. Whatever she says, I must not react with my Smile Blocker.

  “So?” Mum says forcefully into my silence. “What do you think?”

  Her brows are softer now; I have to observe carefully to see them jump up, the challenge. New faces are harder work. She is actually pouting at me but I don’t think she means to, it’s just how that type of lips sit.

  “Sexy.”

  “You don’t like it.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She rolls her fat-lashed eyes to the ceiling. We are two Updates face to face. Mine is the real surprise.

  “It was just a bit of a boost. Look, your father left me. That hurt. Everything revolves around this now,” she gestures at the bump. “I needed some fun.”

  “You look fun.”

  “I don’t know why I feel the need to justify my face to you.”

  Mum pushes off the wall and lurches towards me, seizing the pile of clothes. They rest across the bump, a shelf wide enough for the lot. “It’s not like you were going to react with a lovely supportive smile, is it? That would have been too much to ask.”

  My features freeze. Has she guessed? Something registers on Mum’s face. We watch each other like predators and she sniffs the air.

  “You smell of Health Centre.”

  “I’m ill, I’ve just been.”

  Mum’s aura switches from attack to defence; caught in the act of negligent single-parenting. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “It’s a cold.”

  “Why didn’t you get the car to take you? Or I’d have driven you. I’m taking this lot to the Recycling Point anyway.”

  “What about the baby?”

  “Just don’t sneeze on the bump, I’ll be fine. Do you need to go upstairs for a lie down?”

  I reach out to carry the clothes for her.

  “I can manage,” she says. “You should rest. You got anything else for the pile?”

  “I’m not sorting clothes now.”

  “There’s a parcel for you from Radiance. If you urgently need to recycle, I can take this lot tomorrow instead?”

  “Up to you.”

  I grab my Radiance parcel from the bottom of the stairs and run up to my bedroom. I must be getting some control over this face at last!

  Ten minutes later there’s a hesitant tapping on my bedroom door. It’s the pauses in between that particularly wind me up. She’s going to come in, so why pretend otherwise? I keep my head down, as her massive bulk eases into my field of vision.

  “Only me...”

  She is using the doorframe as support, her substantial bosom heaving. I wait for the usual complaint to arrive.

  “Stairs getting steeper?” I prompt, to get it over with.

  “You said it. And how are your nasal passages holding up?”

  “That’s gross, Mum.”

  Mum tries a connecting smile. I hold my face in neutral.

  “Shouldn’t you be resting downstairs?” I suggest.

  “I’ve been sat down all day! I’m supposed to be walking around. Doctor says it can get things moving.”

  We both look at the bump. My first thought: is there any mum left behind that monstrosity? Kid’s going to come out starting-schoo
l size. Mum wraps both arms around the fatherless kid.

  “My, what a spacious room you have.” Mum says

  “Not funny.”

  I’m not getting into that argument again, the changing dimensions of my room- it’s not why she’s followed me upstairs.

  “You look different.” Mum says.

  Here we go: I make brazen eye contact. Encouraged, she moves towards me; her eyes are a warm olive, part of the package to make men feel at ease. She raises a hand, it extends towards me, and for one horrible moment I think she is going to try and stroke my cheek. But the hand withdraws to settle on her own face, where her fingers press at the skin around her new mouth. She starts to lower herself down next to me on the bed, a task in itself. Slowly, slowly, until the thigh muscles surrender and her rear end hits the duvet.

  “Oooph”

  I wait for the aftershocks in the mattress to subside. She turns to me.

  “Tell me that wasn’t a Smile Blocker.”

  I give her the full effect.

  “Did you notice it when you first came in?”

  “Hard to say, exactly. It’s not the first time you’ve tightened your mouth at me, is it?” Mum peers suspiciously at each feature in turn. “Tell me you can still smile. Please.”

  I shut my eyes, shut out Mum and think of Dollar. It’s hard, the dimple flickers but Mum is close enough to catch it.

  “Oh God, there’s more!” she says. “Where on earth did you get that face from?

  “It’s Maverick.”

  “Not by Ultiface then, I take it?”

  “Nanoperfect.”

  “Nanoperfect!” she spits the word. “How ironic! When you’ve gone and messed up your happy and your angry faces in one fell swoop. What an Update. What a product.”

  “You used to experiment at my age. You told me.”

  “Not like this! Oh True, I loved your last face! You and Seven were such a nice, neat pair. Did something happen?”

  I turn away to look out the window.

  “Maybe I got bored of nice.”

  Mum heaves a huge sigh, I’m hoping it’s of resignation. I look back to search her new features, and notice the dark circles beneath her fluttery eyes. Maybe, just maybe, I am going to win. Mum’s chin draws inwards, like there’s something else she wants to say. She can’t resist reaching out to straighten the nearest cushion. (That grates; my mess is mine, it helps me to relax.)

  “I actually came up here to talk to you about Dad.” She takes my hard, no-comment face as permission to continue. “I saw him yesterday. He came up to me at the supermarket.”

  “And?”

  “He mentioned you haven’t returned any of his messages.”

  “What did he say, exactly?”

  Mum’s upper body deflates onto the bump, cutting off her sigh.

  “He asked about me, how I was. That didn’t go down well, as you can imagine. I strode off. Well, waddled really. He’s desperate to keep in contact with you, asked if I’d talked to you about the baby. Then he offered to carry my bag.”

  “Hah.”

  My Smile Blocker tugs, it feels right. Mum flinches and my face feels even better.

  “I told him I married more than just a bag carrier.” she says

  “What did he say to that?”

  “He did his hurt look.”

  “He’s pathetic.”

  “Granted, this is not his finest hour. But he is still your Dad.”

  “He left, that’s not being a Dad. It’s just a word. Vocabulary Unrecognised.”

  “He moved out because of me, because of things between us. He loves you, you do know that don’t you?”

  “Why are you sticking up for him? I thought you hated his guts.”

  Mum’s olive eyes are in retreat but it’s not her I’m attacking.

  “It’s complicated.” Mum says

  “Stay or go. Sounds simple to me.”

  Mum clutches at her bump, my sibling. It plainly isn’t going anywhere.

  “You should probably listen to his side of things.”

  “I’m not talking to him. Ever. You don’t get to walk out, and still have nice little catch-up chats.”

  Clouds stuck outside my window like cotton wool. Someone might have said that before, that’s not my fault. It’s what they are.

  “He had a woman with him.”

  How dare she slip that in, all casual. (“Looks like rain.”)

  “She was a real Marilyn,” Mum adds. “Pouty lips and swaying hips, needy eyes. Tottered off, red nails curled around the trolley...”

  Mum mimes a swaying bimbo, claws out, her pout elongates into a smirk. I practise my Smile Blocker, Mum’s smirk drops.

  “Was it his trolley?” I say

  “She’s not his type.”

  I’m beginning to see that our family is some sort of game to her, with the pieces ever reducing. Why not throw in a random Marilyn-Monroe-look-alike, for a bit of light relief?

  “And you were?”

  Mum’s face does something I regret- I’ve gone too far. Now she won’t accept my gaze.

  “Actually yes I was, and I still am his type. Minus the bump. Up to you if you want to contact him.”

  She hoists herself off the bed and pauses to fill the doorway, her face is all emptied out. Her complaint, when it comes, is sadder than I expected:

  “That cruel Maverick face does not belong on my daughter. What could you possibly imagine was going to happen that’s good, to a girl with a face like that?”

  Chapter Nine

  I can’t take this much longer: the sight of Mum feeding. We’re sat at the table, me opposite Dad’s ex-chair. I chopped salad, Mum served me the half of pizza where the cheese topping is slightly less burnt, but I shouldn’t have come down. She knows about My Face History, knows my nice face isn’t coming back. She has taken to wincing at my every expression.

  Mum raises a narrow slice of pizza to her lips and lines it up point first, a flash of teeth and she drags off a sheet of cheese, swiftly folded in by fingers. She chews self-consciously- the lips seem to be getting in the way of this. Her vast lips are glossed with cheese grease and I swear I can hear the food squishing around in the silence. I was losing my appetite anyway; this pizza is texture alone.

  “I can’t taste anything.” I say

  “Colds do that,” Mum says, “if you leave them to take hold.”

  Her eyes fill with tears.

  “Bit my lip.”

  Fingertips to clumsy wide mouth, but there’s no blood, only tomato. She massages the skin hard, pressing circles that alternately pucker and stretch her lips. I find this oddly mesmerizing.

  “Day two is always the worst, with the tightness,” she complains.

  I turn away and sneeze, a blast into the air.

  When Merlot decides to join us, I don’t get rid of her straight away. She’s a pop-up advert out of my phone, for Ultiface. Merlot is facing Mum. Her gaze is self-contained, demanding nothing of Mum, nothing of our kitchen beyond. She is the cool breeze passing through Mum’s house of cards. I wait for the surge of bitterness- she’s Dollar’s girlfriend after all- but it doesn’t come. In fact, I find I like her even more today. Her nose is Seven’s inspiration, distilled elegance, but it’s definitely not that. Her top lip peaks in the apex of two triangles, descending noticeably towards their outer edges. I feel- she makes me feel -an almost imperceptible twinge of sorrow at her new vulnerability. That’s it then: today she’s selling a down-turned mouth for Ultiface.

  “Somebody needs a hug.” Mum says flatly.

  I slide the phone across the table towards me and close Merlot. I’m immediately offered a link to check out her CelebSite, Merlot clutching Dollar at parties, being clutched. I prefer the History of a Style Icon: an animation that fills the air with Merlot, her features dissolvable, each face a part of the history of Ultiface. Merlot is never upstaged by her features. Even at her most extreme last year, with statements filling her face and vying for attention: that know
ing mouth; the LeaderNose; FantasySwimmingPool eyes, heavy-lidded. You can have my face, but you don’t get me. I catch myself sitting straighter, shoulders back, not trying to smile because Merlot doesn’t smile and doesn’t do Maverick, only versions of poised perfection. Mum watches, chewing slowly.

  Inspired, I return to my bedroom to rip open my clothing parcel. Dad signed Mum and I up to Radiance following storage issues at home. You’re supposed to get one new item for every item recycled. I haven’t recycled for ages, so I know exactly what this will be. It is confirmed when I unfold a top that is stretching the boundaries of my style parameters. True O’Reilly is set for mainly casual stuff, and this neckline is properly plunging. I mean, they’ve got my measurements, I’m so not the tits-out type. They’ve styled the narrow sleeves I like right now, the dart at the back, structured for my body type. I hold it up against me. Emerald green – so they have my eye colour up to date. I slip it on, yank at it. It’s perfect, except, it’s too low cut. Radiance are nudging at my comfort zone, attempting to challenge my perceptions of what is ‘me,’ to expand their profits. I admit I’m tempted: it’s an amalgamation of every top I ever loved and wore out. Nothing of the items I sent straight back, unworn. Have I got to compete with my mother’s pout now? I study my reflection in the screen of my phone, and try to emulate a certain Merlot-sadness. Think distant small-scale tragedy, a downwards turn of the mouth.

  When his name appears behind my face my hand flies to my collarbone, my exposed skin. My stalker has returned. I expect I won’t reply.

  You still infectious?

  What happened to the power of an unopened message?

  Feeling better, thanks for asking.

  I type it but I don’t send it. He might think I genuinely am thanking him for his interest in me- a dangerous path, gratitude.

  Why hang around the Health Centre if you’re worried about catching something? I send instead.

  We need to talk. (Should I get written permission from Seven first?)

  What a gift. My fingers fly triumphantly over the keys.

  I’m really totally madly busy.

  Is Seven with you now?

  He’s got to be winding me up. Like a child, a small child.