Friday Reading

Memories crowd Deb's mind as she returns to the cocoon of childhood and the gradual dawning of worldly knowledge

I had to take a break there, I get so tired these days what with the baby and all this. Probably it’s because of the baby that I want to tell you everything and hopefully see you again. You’ll be his auntie. I think he’s a he although why I couldn’t tell you. Mother’s instinct. Yeah, right. We didn’t see much of that around our house did we? Mam was a funny kind of mother wasn’t she? I mean I believe she loved us and all that but it was a kind of distracted love wasn’t it? Like she didn’t really know how she had ended up in a semi-d raising two kids and having to cook dinner every day.

When you think about it – and I have believe me – she grew up in a funny house. All women living over Nana’s hairdressing salon which was full of more women (never a word about Nana’s husband, Mam’s father, only that he was a sailor lost at sea - I have my doubts about that story). Every time I pass a hairdresser’s and get a whiff of that hot chemical perfumey air I’m wafted back to our childhood. You and me helping out on Saturdays, trying to sweep up all those curls and strands of hair that skittered away from us in the draft from the dryers, wanting to save some to glue onto ping pong balls to make dolls’ heads, tidying the dog-eared magazines, and washing up the tea-cups with the stubborn lipstick marks on the rim, then running around the corner to buy sweets with our tips from the aul wans.

 We had fun didn’t we back then when we knew nothing about anything except our own little world? The salon was a cocoon. And in the evening when it was quiet we’d get to sit in the big chairs and have our hairs done. I loved the way Betty or Marion used to massage my scalp when they were washing it and when they brushed it the electricity made it fly around like dandelion fluff. And how would Modom like her hair today? Marion would ask me very solemnly and I’d giggle and shrug and say like a princess. She’d put it up in an elaborate bun and say Is your Highness satisfied? And I’d glide down off the chair holding my head very stiffly not to let the bun topple. Later of course I wanted it done like the movie stars in the magazines. You weren’t so keen on having yours done. You’d wriggle and squirm in the chair after five minutes. I think you hated the heat of the dryer. Only Betty could get you to sit still until she could trim your split ends.

 Remember the day you said you wanted it cut like a boy’s? There was ructions over that! Mam putting her foot down, saying No way, and Over my dead body. She nearly did die when you took a scissors to it yourself the next morning. Let out a blood curdling shriek when she found your hair all over our bathroom floor. As if someone had assaulted you. Then another scream when she saw the urchin with the raggedy hair sitting on your bed in your pyjamas. You were very pleased with yourself until she marched you down to the kitchen and sat you down with a tea towel around your neck to try and put some order on the mess, she said. You look like a stray kitten that’s been left out in the rain she said, snipping and combing and shaking her head. I marvelled at how she flipped her scissors around on her fingers, like a cowboy twirling his gun, their steely glint in the air like knives and the click when they bit, flashes clear in my memory.

 You did look just like a boy when she was finished and you were delighted with yourself. Mam just stood there, shaking her head wondering how she could have produced such a nutcase. Who’s this? Denis asked when he came down to the kitchen and saw only the back of your head. It’s me, Dad! You jumped up and ran to hug him. I’m a boy now, you whooped. So I don’t have to wear silly dresses any more or sit proper or talk nice and ladylike. Denis took your hands in his and laughed. You’ll have to be a gentleman instead and open doors for ladies and look after them very nicely. You pulled a face. But I won’t have to wear dresses and tights and patent leather shoes. I’m going to play football and fight. No you won’t, said Denis looking serious then. Fighting is not good. And if you really were my son I’d make sure you never got into fights with the rough lads. You kicked a chair then in frustration and Denis told you off so you ran back upstairs and cried in our room for an hour.  

   

Photo by Josh Rangel on Unsplash

Here’s the thing though, I think reading those magazines from the salon was our first introduction to sex. Remember how we pored over them in our little cubbyhole at the back of the shop? And how we giggled at the ads showing pictures of women in their bras and knickers? We loved the ‘horrorscopes’ as you called them, mine Aquarius, yours Scorpio. I still follow mine, looking for a way to define myself or a way to make choices, kinda like a roadmap and better than a religion. I’m not talking about the gobbledygook in the newspaper. That’s just made up to flatter the readers. I’ve studied the stars and the Zodiac and I think they can tell us a lot about who we are and why we are. I suppose you’ll think I’m cracked so I won’t go on. What about you? What do you believe or follow? I hope you have something to give you shelter from the storm.

  The best bit in those magazines though was the problem pages with letters from women whose husbands were ‘betraying’ them or whose boyfriends wouldn’t marry them even though they were doing ‘heavy petting’. When I asked Mam what that was she went puce. She said it was nothing important. Just things that men and women did and we’d know all about it soon enough. The women in the salon were always complaining about their husbands and boyfriends and at a certain moment the words would drop off into silence or disappear into You know what I mean? And the others would nod and say I do, I do, I do. Then there’d be a big fuss when a bride came in with her bridesmaids to have their hairs done. And then the mother of the bride would be in too. And everyone would be a twitter about the wedding and the dress and the flowers and the honeymoon and then there’d be cackles. I couldn’t make it out except that the wedding seemed to be one thing and being married was another thing altogether.

  Then came the day we found the word orgasm. That sent Mam into orbit. After reading us the riot act she snatched up the magazine and disappeared to the loo for the longest time. She looked a bit flushed herself when she came out. Rubbish, she declared and tossed the magazine in the bin so of course we snatched it out only to find she had torn the interesting pages out of it. I often wondered what she did with them. Did she bring them home to show to Denis?   

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Childhood memories are very potent aren’t they? I often wonder why we remember some things and not others. What do you think?