la mirage

Barbara Cartland died last week. The old, pink lady of romance. She had a holiday house on the east coast of Sutherland near Helmsdale. Her biggest fan was a woman who owned a café in a fishing town nearby. The first time I saw the café I couldn’t believe my eyes. Everything was pink - curtains, floor tiles, tablecloths - even the sugar. In the far corner sat the most incredible woman - fat and probably in her fifties, she wore a huge blonde wig with a pink bow, her false eyelashes and pink, cupids bow mouth were exaggerated to the point of obscenity. Her dress was lacy at the edges, white cotton with mutton leg arms and a pink tartan sash tied round her waist, a theatrical bow at the back. She sat there, a malevolent doll, smoking a cigarette and glaring at any customers who dared to enter. A young couple in the corner spoke in hushed tones and gamely tried to ignore her - perhaps this was a tradition. She had made her money, so I was told, by sleeping with the fishermen, straight from the sea, for hard cash. She would walk around town still covered in fish scales dreaming her dream of a clean, pink place - lady like and demure - and to sit there, elegantly smoking, like a character from a novel.