June

A little something I wrote a few years back (yes I am cheating on the whole writing-up-to-date-blog-entries front). 

***

It began on a railway station platform, as so many things do. She had long given up on finding Narnia (the last foray into a wardrobe had been purely a space-efficiency experiment) and instead had her mind on shoes, piña colada lollipops, and the graffiti on the opposite wall. It didn’t say anything intelligible, so she wondered why the person responsible had bothered. 

An unstable evening breeze was making its way down the track, navigating suitcases and transporting pockets of leftover aftershave from the sweaty necks of tight-collared commuters. It would keep its course, more or less, until upset by an oncoming train, when in order to escape it would rush up the platform sides and spill itself over the fence. 

Summer had got tired early and was uneasy in the evening light, backing away behind clouds. Jane noticed it lingering in hanging baskets whose tendrils the breeze could only just reach as it swayed and swerved. She noticed it in the eyes of the man on the platform opposite, who couldn’t quite make up his mind whether he needed the sunglasses he was fingering. She noticed it most of all in the blackened buddleia heads, hanging limply over the rails. A season delighted by children running to their mothers with chubby fistfuls of pretty weeds had let the side down on the romanticising-the-ordinary front. Of course, it could have just been the fumes.

The Adventures of Scarlet Ferwin, Episode One

Dedicated to and written for the amusement of Jane

EPISODE ONE - IN WHICH SCARLET DISCOVERS HER TRUE HAIR COLOUR

Dear Diary,

strange things have been happening. Last night I dreamt about Barbie, and woke up disgusted at the neon pinkness of it all. Imagine my horror when, while washing my hair in the shower, the water began running exactly the same pink! Nothing can account for it, not even all the raspberry jelly I'd eaten at Felicity's 'Low Calorie Indulgence Party' the day before. Or the large slice of strawberry gateau I rewarded myself with when I got back. I think perhaps I should call the plumber. I mean, people don't leak food colouring, do they?!

*****

Dear Diary,

today the cat has really been getting under my feet. I know we called him Sir Marmaduke the Third, but really, there is a limit to the imperiousness I will put up with, even from a cat. I decided some hands-on contact was the only cure and grabbed the little furball to give him a bath. No one told me cats don't like water. I ended up soaked head to toe; there was so much water dripping off my face that I couldn't see properly to rescue the poor thing! Still, four kitty treats later and he seems to have recovered, though I swear he's a pinker shade of white than he used to be...

*****

Dear Diary,

fashion disaster! Today was lunching with the girls (Valerie is finally back from her Paris photo exhibition and we managed to drag Miranda away from that Spaniard she's been shacked up with), so of course I wore my signature red dress for maximum 'Scarlet' impact. And what do you think Miranda had the temerity to call me? Dame Edna! Well of course I was furious, but the girls dragged me off to the ladies', and there I was confronted with the candyfloss I call my hair - WHAT a clash. How can I not have noticed? And what does it mean?! My hair has always been red until now, I simply don't understand. I will hide in my house until I can mend it.

*****

Dear Diary,

so it turns out that Daddy has been hiring Borrowers to dye my hair while I sleep since my childhood. He'd been so set on calling me Scarlet that when I turned out a Different Colour he just took matters into his own hands. What a sensible man! Although I do wish he'd thought to mention it before I moved away. Now I'm going to have to find my own, and they're notoriously hard to come by - always hiding in teapots on rivers and that sort of thing.

To be honest, the shock of discovering that my red hair isn't really red, was nowhere near as bad as finding out my true hair colour. No one, and I mean no one, must know that I am actually - wait for it - blonde. The shame! Can you imagine how I would have turned out if it weren't for Daddy's intervention? A blonde Scarlet should just never happen. It would be like calling someone with freckles Diana.

I think I will buy Daddy that Louis Vuitton bag after all. I can probably get it online while I wait for Waitrose to deliver my hair dye.

*****

Stay posted for the upcoming Episode Two: In Which Scarlet Attempts to be Alternative.