There were only a couple of women in the salon having their hair done, having facials and manicures, so it wasn’t crowded. Nevertheless it seemed like an all too public space. I wanted Catherine’s pedicure to be done in private and I was pleased when we were escorted away from the main area of the salon into a special pedicure section. Catherine sat down in a raised hydraulic chair, not unlike a dentist’s, although it was upholstered in white leatherette. There was a footstool and a low table from which Sophie was going to operate.
‘When did you last have a pedicure?’ she asked.
‘It’s my first time,’ said Catherine.
Sophie nodded knowingly, and said, ‘Basically we recommend a pedicure and paraffin treatment every three weeks.’
‘Paraffin?’ Catherine asked.
‘Oh yes,’ Sophie confirmed, though without explaining anything.
She began laying out her instruments, the tools of her trade: toenail clippers, toe separators, pumice stone, different grades of emery board, cotton-wool swabs, and then a variety of bottles, one or two that were labelled as nail-varnish removers or cuticle softeners, but mostly blank and inscrutable. Then she produced an enamel bowl full of water and set it at Catherine’s feet.
‘Now there’s nothing in here to worry about,’ she said. ‘Just water, Epsom salts, plus a few drops of essential oils: lavender, rosemary and geranium. And I want you to give your feet a really good soak.’
Catherine did as she was told, and our pedicurist then disappeared. I’m sure there’s nothing inherently pleasurable about sitting in a salon soaking your feet in lukewarm water. In fact, if Catherine was anything to go by, it’s a procedure that’s likely to bring on a fit of the giggles. I didn’t giggle but I would have agreed that the pedicure had started on a moderately absurd note. After fifteen minutes we were thinking we might have been forgotten, but Sophie returned, bouncy as a puppy, carrying a big absorbent towel with which she dried Catherine’s feet.
‘Now I’m going to put on some avocado foot cream,’ she said. ‘That will soothe your soles nicely and improve circulation.’
We nodded and watched as she worked some greenish goo into Catherine’s feet.
‘You know,’ said Sophie, ‘a lot of people think that walking around barefoot is good for you, but I disagree. You’re all too likely to cut your feet or pick up a fungus or bacteria. And, of course, you must always wear plastic or rubber sandals at the health club or in poolside showers.’
We both assured her that we would.
‘Next, I usually have to remove any old or chipped nail varnish. Not a pleasant job, and obviously not necessary in this case, and then I cut and shape the nails. Now you’d think that’s a simple enough procedure, but you’d be amazed how easy it is to get wrong, and badly cut toe-nails can be really dangerous.’
‘Really?’ said Catherine, all exaggerated awe.
‘Really. Because badly cut toe-nails affect the way you walk, they cause discomfort and that can cause you to transfer too much weight to the heels. There’s really only one option here. I’m going to cut them straight across, anything else can give you ingrown toenails. And length is all important too, short enough so that they don’t touch the edges of your shoes or cut into adjacent toes, but long enough so that they provide some protection to the tips of your toes. Is that clear?’
She looked at both of us, willing us to understand, as though she had explained, albeit in layman’s terms, some state-of-the-art piece of microsurgery. We confirmed that we understood.
She began to work with her clippers, purposefully but delicately. It seemed to me she was performing an intensely, unbearably intimate task. Much as I loved Catherine’s feet, I wasn’t sure that I’d have been able to clip her toenails in that way. Something about it would have felt too intrusive. Sophie had no such qualms. Soon she put down the clippers and worked on the nails using a smoothing disc and a buffer.
Next she pushed back what little cuticle there was round the edges of the nails, and she looked at Catherine’s feet in admiration, though I wasn’t sure whether it was in admiration of the feet themselves or of her own work. She felt Catherine’s heels and the balls of her feet.
‘Normally I’d now have a go with a skin slougher or pumice to remove any dead skin or calluses, but there’s no need for that here,’ she said. ‘You’ve got really good feet. Really.’
Then it was time to varnish the nails. You know it was Cecil Beaton who said of Coco Chanel, ‘She wore no red on her fingernails but reddened the tips of her toes on the theory that feet were a dreary business and required every aid.’ Ever since I read that I’ve felt very differently about Coco Chanel. Dreary business indeed. Not that Sophie appeared to find the business at all dreary.
‘The most popular colour is still the good old fire-engine red,’ she said. ‘That’s because it looks good with almost any kind of skin. Nude colours or corals can be used to enhance a dark or tanned skin tone, and these days we can have a lot of fun with metallics.’
‘No,’ I said as gently as I could, not wanting to disappoint her. ‘I don’t think we want to have fun with metallics.’
‘Are you sure? I can recommend Revlon’s Sahara Gold, from their Exotica collection, which personally I’d describe as giving a shimmering, crystalline, golden-brown effect.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Or Silver Sparkle by Creative Nail Design.’
‘No,’ said Catherine, helping me out. ‘We’ll go for the good old fire-engine red.’
‘I think you’ve made a very good choice,’ said Sophie.
She inserted foam rubber separators between Catherine’s toes and applied a base coat to the nails, and when it was dry she started to put on the red varnish. She had the steadiest, most precise hand I think I’ve ever seen. Each nail was painted in three sure, clean strokes, one down the centre of the nail, then one down each side. There were no blots, no runs, no hint of hesitation. The job was done rapidly, though not hurriedly, and then she allowed five more minutes to pass before applying a clear top coat.
‘Now, I want you to sit there and not move a muscle for the next fifteen minutes.’
Catherine did as she was told and Sophie went away again. Catherine’s toes were still splayed apart by the separators and they gave her feet a curiously deformed look. But I knew it was going to be worth it. Our pedicurist hadn’t really done much that Catherine couldn’t have done for herself, yet there was something oddly pleasing about the presence of an outsider, of a professional touch. Whether there was any erotic element to it I wasn’t sure.
When the fifteen minutes was up Sophie returned to tell us that the procedure was over.
‘Before you go,’ she said, ‘can I recommend a product called Adiol?’
I’d never heard of it and assumed it was some fancy cosmetic product that she was selling on commission, but no.
‘It comes originally from the horse-racing fraternity,’ she said. ‘Grooms used to apply Adiol to horses’ hoofs to strengthen them, but then the grooms themselves noticed their own nails becoming much healthier and stronger.
‘You know, nails are structurally very similar to horses’ hoofs. So the scientists at Adiol refined their product and Adiol Nail-Strengthening Cream was born. It’s rich in vitamin E and collagen but it contains no formaldehyde or toluene, and I can personally vouch for it.’
We were sold, and we bought a bottle. It was time to go home. With some reluctance Catherine slipped on her shoes. It seemed a shame to cover up all that hard pedicuring.