“Beauty is Strength” is a short story in the book “The Persimmon Tree and Other Stories” by Marjorie Barnard. A more complete discussion of this book will appear in a later entry at this site. All of the quotes in boldface are taken verbatim from the story.
This story begins with a woman going to the beauty salon for her regular appointment.
- “The locks lay dank against her head. A sleepless night always took the life out of her hair. It was part of the weariness of being over forty that you daren’t have any emotions, they took it out of your looks too much. A month at the beach hadn’t done her hair any good either.”
It hadn’t been a good holiday.
- “She would rather, after all, have stayed home with Ced. When he had urged her to go she’d taken it for granted that he was being generous as he always was.”
While the girl in the beauty salon adjusts the hair dryer, the woman sees herself .
- “It was from moments like these, when you saw your face isolated, that you learned the truth about it. Her mouth looked hard and disappointed, and round each corner there was clearly discernable, in this impartial light, a little bracket of wrinkles….Her cheek bones looked high and stiff and on her throat, where age first shows itself, the working of the muscles showed too clearly, and the skin under the chin was ever so puckered.“
The woman begins to question why her husband sent her away on this month-long holiday and thinks of the suspicious tell-tale signs she found when she returned from the holiday to home.
- “Three dress shirts. And he’d said he’d been nowhere…He always grumbled at getting into a dress shirt but he looked his best in evening dress…To see those three new-laundered shirts was like picking up a bird’s feather bright with the tell-tale mating colors.”
The woman remembered a letter addressed to her husband lying on the table when she returned from the holiday.
- “She recognized Viola’s handwriting at once large, eager, rather unformed. It was bulky; even in Viola’s sprawling script, a long letter. She had weighed it speculatively and put it by with an open mind. She wasn’t, she often told people – particularly Ced – a jealous wife, nor would she be but for the possessive streak as strong in her as instinct in an animal…Why exactly had Ced stayed behind when she went to the beach? All she could remember was something vague about business.”
The woman’s salon session continues.
- “She stared at her grotesque image. There was a bright red spot on either cheek. Her spirits plunged even lower…She never imagined he’d let her down. What if he were serious and he wanted her to divorce him? Her mind widened in horror. That would take everything from her, her home, her background,, her position. A woman could only divorce successfully if there was another man waiting for her. She would have to make a new life. She was too tired, TOO OLD.”
But then her hair styling was done.
- “For a moment she forgot her troubles. It was a beautiful wave, her head never looked better She began to make up her face, rediscovering all its lost virtues…She, not he, was in the strong position. If he wanted to be a fool, he’d have to pay for it. She bent forward and looked into her own eyes, bright once more under the influence of eye shadow and mascara – and then she would win him back again. While she had her looks she could do anything. She had been through an ordeal but now she felt secure again. She wasn’t even very angry. She had put on again the whole armor of sophistication. If anyone was going to look foolish it was Ced and Viola—especially Viola.”
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