The End of the Shampoo and Set
But they are still there
Dear Friends,
I’m writing this from a place called Deal, which is past Dover and before Ramsgate. It’s a Cinque Port on the Kent coast and on a clear day you can see the hem of France from the shoreline.
My lodgings are in a small hotel where my bedroom window overlooks the milky green sea. I’m here to run a workshop as part of my new novel project and, a few days back, I extended my stay. The sea air and space was then, helping me feel expansive. After realising my phone would not ring, that Mum still would not call, my heart had begun to ache ever so slightly less and I wanted to continue to heal, thinking my sorrow might become alleviated in a linear fashion.
You see, back home, each morning I was waking with my jaw clenched so tight, it took a good hour for the ache to leave. But here, slowly, the tension upon waking was lessening. And so I told myself, if I sit quite alone by the sea with this new reality, this life without Mum, it might help me adjust to this world.
But, as soon as I had booked these two extra nights, my mood plummetted. It was as if I thought I could trick grief by giving myself more sea. Then last night I couldn’t sleep for thinking about her. I felt anxious, scared of the dark. I had to dare myself to put my hand out from under the covers to switch on the light.
I talked myself calm. ‘She would’ve liked to say goodbye,’ I reasoned. ‘But in the end she couldn’t. Remember you know her, like you know yourself. Remember that you would never blame those you love for not being there in that exact moment.’
I know/and I knew her. I keep reminding myself she only died nine weeks ago. And the two things still seem true: she is alive, and she is not alive.
Earlier today I made a pilgrimage to Deal Beach Parlour. She would’ve been there if she were well and alongside me. It was full of older women sat in pairs, having lunch or chats over tall glasses of milky coffee or hot chocolate. Difficult to believe that these days there is not one rain hat or purple rinse in sight. And maybe there never will be again. These women are missing, the shampoo and set brigade, from the time of Mac Coat clad women with once-a-week settings of hair. It was their ‘treat’, those occasional perms, sheer headscarves, hair spray; the closest I get to this nowadays is in the dressing rooms of drag queens.
The other day I asked my hairdresser whether she sets anyone’s hair anymore, and she replied, no, not since Covid. That generation has largely gone. This was my grandmother's generation. I was so used to seeing them in the high street, my mind’s eye had carried them all with me long after they’d stopped being there.
The older women in the ice cream parlour - my mother’s generation - have short feathered hair, or bobs, or long flowing grey hair over their shoulders. When a mother and daughter enter, out of the rain, they choose the table next to me. They look like one another, the arched noses and small chins, the straightened bobs and pencilled in eyebrows.
‘You’ll have to go up to the counter,’ the mum says. ‘I can’t get up and out now from here. You can take my card.’
This familiar scene is so soothing to be sat at the edge of. As I listen in to their conversation, something about school holidays, something about doctors, they debate whether to order jacket potatoes or toasted sandwiches. I peruse the menu, sliding into their moment. As they study the menu, I examine mine, and notice there are other things on the menu other than knickerbocker glories and banana splits. I think how I would’ve remarked on this to Mum, and I know we would have chatted on about how the parlour has diversified; they’ve had to to keep up with the times.
I study the hot sandwiches all of which are proudly stated as being SERVED WITH GARNISH. I now desperately want something with GARNISH, so I can see what this is exactly. There is something so delightful in the way it is so boldly stated. I choose a toasted ham and cheese sandwich on wholemeal and relish saying ‘with garnish’ to the waitress.
This trip was booked long before Mum died. My intention was to come here and work on the new novel (which is partly set here) plus run the Life Story Writing Workshop where I would learn more about the area through other people’s stories. In return they receive a memoir/life writing workshop for free. Eleven people booked onto the workshop, which was brilliant. But when last Sunday arrived, a storm had swept in. There were emails too: a bout of norovirus and one person had missed their Eurostar journey home. Half the people couldn’t make it. This was dispiriting, but I didn’t take it personally.
Not all writing workshops go to plan. But this one did, and the writers who turned up were full of remarkable stories. It was restorative. It is one of the most rewarding workspaces to be.
The group was still so very interesting. There was a husband and wife who’d come ‘to do something together’. Writing memoir is very personal, and I noticed as they wrote, how they ended up moving slightly further apart. At the end, the husband who ‘doesn’t do emotions’ folded his work in two, away from his wife’s eyes. In the final thirty minutes when everyone shared something, he read out the most tender description of how his mother used to make marmalade from oranges imported from Seville.
Earlier, while everyone was writing, I joined in too. I don’t see the point not writing when everyone else is. wrote about Mum on purpose. I felt if I faced the loss head on, the grief couldn’t sneak around the back and undo me while I wasn’t watching. This might work, it might not.
Here is something of what I wrote using an exercise based on Joe Brainard’s autobiography, I Remember.
I remember the way she wouldn’t lean onto me with her arm in mine, when walking
I remember the smell of her hair on my fingers after I cut it
I remember the day she died I had spent time cleaning under her kitchen sink
I remember the day she died, how she had shouted out ‘Karen and Minnie’. She had never grouped our names together out loud to us before. It felt unusual. Hours later, or was it the next day, Min had said she thought this was strange, somewhat meaningful, and I admitted that it had struck me the same. She was calling on us. She was telling us something about togetherness, and about our love and strength.
I remember, as her dementia progressed, she sometimes smiled at me, or into me, with the grin of a child. Her face encompassed a series of ages in these last years, not at all chronological. These intense smiling moments were always sudden. The last one I remember, I was dusting her beloved telly.
‘Why do you do these things for me?’ she asked, genuinely trying to figure it out.
‘Because I love you,’ I said, not looking up.
‘Ah,’ she said. Sounding very pleased. It was the only time she had let me declare this to her. She was all about the show, not tell. And it was then, during the smile, holding her smile right in that moment, the gapped tooth, the glee and lift in her eyes, she was Mum and yet she was a girl. This is what a mother can bring you. It enters you. It is you. The opposite of fear. Real love, held in a face.
Writing things coming up…
On Thurs 20th Feb, 6pm I'm chatting all things about my memoir Lifting Off with comedian and writer Rosie Wilby at Bethnal Green library, London. Free! Get your tickets here
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Tues 29th April - 3rd June is the next in person weekly (six evenings) Memoir Writing Course at Bookseller Crow, Crystal Palace. Details here
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And…I’m delighted to say I shall be tutoring an Arvon course alongside Jarred McGinnis from Monday June 16th - Saturday June 21st 2025 at The Hurst, Shropshire. Guest mid-week tutor is Evie Wyld. More details here: Arvon Tutored Retreat: Fiction - Inspiration from life
Write soon, write often, it helps.
Karen xxx
P.S. Thank you to all my paid subscribers. You are helping me in more ways than you know. And for those wondering how to support me, you could buy a copy of Lifting Off here or my novel In Search Of The Missing Eyelash here or/and for as little as a fiver a month, you can help keep me writing these once-a-month pieces of life writing by becoming a paid subscriber (click below) plus you get access to the VIP room. Thanks K x
Delightful and beautifully observed. Thank you. Mike - a new follower.
You are such a beautiful writer, Karen. Your mum’s love reaches out, reminding me of Betsy - my mother in law. I don’t think it’s a cliche to say love lasts eternally.