Chapter 5

So, what to wear, the slinky red or the black? Geraldine really could not choose, as they were both fabulous dresses. It had now been two days since her spray-on tan, and she decided it would be okay to take a bath and try to soak away the stress of the day. Geraldine had spent the most part of the day working on the project for Allbaston & Edgar’s who needed to save costs but had a typical old firm’s approach and did not want to hurt or lose their employees – a typical family firm scenario.

Allbaston & Edgar’s could not afford the staff it had for the productivity level it had. For the company to survive, Geraldine had to be ruthless yet had to seem compassionate. Her first cut would be in multi-employed families. By cutting all but the highest salary earner in families where more than one person was employed by Allbaston & Edgar’s she would minimise the cuts and thus the impact on other families that only had one income. But it was going to be tough, and by law she had to show the layoffs to be real redundancies, tasks no longer required.

The Allbaston & Edgar board were all old school and laudably put the staff before high profit margins. Now they were increasingly in competition with a new breed of post-Thatcherism-era companies that had put profit before all else. Whilst those days of greed were gone, the surviving Thatcherite companies had an ethos of profit that gave them an edge over the older family-orientated firms.

Before she ran the bath Geraldine dialled Edwards’ phone number and was pleased when he answered on only the second ring. Arrangements were quickly confirmed for the following evening; Edward would pick her up at half past seven. They were going to a restaurant; the table was booked, and Edward would not be drawn on the exact time of the booking or the location. Geraldine therefore had no idea how much leeway she had in the actual pickup time. Did ‘seven thirty’ mean ‘seven thirty’, or could she push it out until seven forty-five or even eight? She decided to worry about that tomorrow.

She stepped out of her clothes, tutted at the tan stains on her blouse collar and underwear, hoped that they would wash out, and then put on a thin dressing gown to wear until the bath was ready. She rubbed some Vanish soap onto the clothes stains to help them wash out later. Whilst the bath was running, Geraldine went through to her spare bedroom to choose some aromatherapy oils to add to the water. From her selection, she opted for lavender, geranium and peppermint and then went down to the kitchen and mixed them together in a little milk before going back up to the bathroom and adding her blend to the bath under the running tap water. Geraldine slipped the robe off and sat on the edge of the bath breathing in the aromatic vapours, taking deep calming breaths, trying to reflect on the lighter side of the day.

As she sat on the bath’s edge, Geraldine looked critically at the growth of hairs on her legs and decided that she really ought to have a wax; she did have some of that Australian cold wax that was all the rage at the moment but was not really feeling masochistic enough today; a shave would do for now. She stood and dipped a toe to check the temperature of the bathwater, decided it was just right, turned the taps off and stepped into the bath, lying and submerging as much of her body as she could.

As Geraldine lay and soaked, enjoying the faint scent from her oils, she decided that there probably wasn’t another person in the world that would have done what she had done in the tanning booth on Saturday. Pity she didn’t have a photo; it would have been sure to win a prize somewhere in one of today’s lifestyle magazines, with her in a suitable modesty-preserving swimsuit, of course.

As she lay and soaked a little of the excess tan solution washed from her and darkened slightly the bathwater, Geraldine knew that meant she would need to wipe down the bath straight after she had finished; she did not want a tide mark in her bath. As the water cooled, Geraldine relaxed, and her temperament lightened, and she laughed to herself as she wondered what anyone who had seen her after her first session in the tanning shop must have thought of the two-tone woman. She stood, lathered her legs and shaved them smooth, being slow and thorough, not wishing to miss any little dark hairs, or pick up any nicks that might show.

After rinsing her legs, she stepped from the bath, patted herself dry and then rubbed a mixture of Estée Lauder body cream and Rose essential oil into her skin. She looked at herself in the mirror, approved of the new tan but decided that she really could do with losing a couple of pounds; her tummy did have a bit of a bulge. The problem was that dieting always seemed to affect the bust first, and she did not want to reduce in that area. She washed the bath and put on a fresh robe, consigning all the clothes of the day into her laundry hamper, before heading to the kitchen to prepare a tuna fish and pepper salad.

The phone rang just as she sat down to eat her salad and watch EastEnders. It was Anne; she had just had the report of the water test done by that very helpful man’s company, and they had recommended a pumped water softener and osmosis filter system for the well water. It would only cost £2400, and she could pay over two years, interest-free, and they would give her all the soaps and detergents she would need for the next year as a bonus if she signed up straight away. An absolute bargain, as she spent so much on washing powder and soaps and dishwasher tablets, not to mention what she would save on mineral water.

“But Anne, you use L’Oreal hair products, L’Occitane soaps, Finish for the dishwasher and Arial for the washing machine. Are they going to give you a year’s supply of all those products? Wow, that’s not bad.”