Free Face by Bridget Brighton

you don’t. And you deserve to be told.”
                  “So tell me.”
                  “It’s easier if we meet up.”
                  “First tell me how you found out. This so-called big secret.”
                  “Let’s just say it wasn’t very well hidden- your mum’s choice.”
                  “Is this about Mum and Dad splitting up? That’s hardly a secret. It’s Pity City at school for me right now.”
                  “I didn’t know. Sorry. It’s something else...”
                  “Cliff, can you see why this is bothering me? Can you? Stop and think how psycho you’re being: phoning up a complete stranger, claiming to know secrets about their private life?”
    I just ranted at his wardrobe, at a blank wall. He starts to stutter, going on the defensive, tense breaths horribly magnified. I snap my phone shut with a pincer motion. Immediately I am thinking about Mum, and I need her to be downstairs. Reason being, I have this gut lump: a secret? It’s possible.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Ten
     
    By the time I reach the bottom of the stairs I’ve already changed my mind. I mean, what could Cliff possibly know about my mother that I don’t?  We’ve been trapped alone in this house for months. Trying to pretend nothing’s changed.
    Mum has gone to th e Recycling Point of course. I’ve poked my head around the door of the living room, the kitchen, still looking for old Mum, subtle Mum. She has the face of a stranger. Not a stranger, an acquaintance. An acquaintance who is trying to start up a friendship and finds themselves met with reluctance. Her attempts at physical contact veer out of nowhere, attacks of artificial cheer applying pressure to a bond that is hanging by a thread. Look at what isn’t said Mum, there’s whole conversations. (Conversations that are no doubt concluded behind my back, with Dad.) At least she’s guaranteed to be in a certain radius of the house- she can’t get too far, in the physical sense. Being There: one parenting box ticked. Mum would be pleased.
    What I want now is to get one long look at her face in action, which I realise I have been refusing to properly register. Because Mum is not a natural secret-keeper. I hold onto the memories of her old expressions: the need to be understood, quick-fire explanations, rhetorical questions, a climax of justifications. Words grabbing like a fist. The Liz Taylor face did self-righteous more naturally than most, but perhaps that was Mum shining through. But how will a SexyFace Extreme do strained secrecy, on Mum? I curl into the sofa and can’t imagine, so I wait.
                  Cliff again, this time it’s a link to a site. He’s got guts. I consider not opening it for all of three seconds. Odds are it’ll be entertaining. It’s a link to Campaign for Original Face, C.O.F. What is this exactly, an admission? Another attempt at humorous conversation? Seven is going to pay for this, for letting him think his face- his anything- matters to me.
                  A woman’s face appears, a Natural. Her eyes twinkle, her gap-toothed grin promises the delivery of a punch line any second; she has the kind of old-fashioned face that you might say is made for comedy- although it wasn’t made for any such thing, of course. I laugh at her, I can’t help myself. She got my attention, with a little bit of repulsion mixed in. I’m listening.
                  “Campaign for Original Face has sent you something to make you think: The One, otherwise known as The Legend of Disappearing Dave.”
                  A short film begins: Dave is standing in a bar full of women, clearly psyching himself up. He has a face from an Inspiration range- I can’t put a name to it straight off. He grabs a flower from a vase on a table- a single