Allison’s Headline (Part 7)

It had been nearly two years since Claudia left for Monaco.

I still missed her. She was the only person I really bonded with during our time at the club. The other wives were friendly, and we would regularly meet up, but none of them understood like Claudia.

She has this simple ease about her. She could say something outrageous and then look offended when I laughed. I missed having one woman nearby who shared a form of bond when it came to my hair.

I would regularly write to her, and she would write back. Her letters were warm, full of sun, gossip, food, and small complaints about people with too much money and not enough sense. I loved them, but they were not the same as sitting across from her.

Kevin had taken over the captaincy at the club after Simon’s departure. That changed things for both of us. There were more responsibilities with certain club events, more attention, more of the wives’ circle. They were kind enough. Some were funny, but few I genuinely really liked.

I kept visiting Ruth when my hair needed some attention, though I had stopped being brave in her chair. The sharp blonde crop I had worn had long grown out into something fuller and easier to maintain. It now sat at my shoulders, warm dark blonde, lifted high at the crown and feathered around my face. The fringe was soft across my forehead. The sides were blown wide and curled back from my cheeks.

It looked smart and suited all forms of occasions. I looked respectable when I came to being seen as Kevin’s wife, now that he had more status at the club.

It also bored me.

Not at first. At first I enjoyed the softness of it. I enjoyed having hair that moved when I turned my head. Kevin liked it too.

“You look very refined,” he said one evening while I was getting ready.

I looked at him in the mirror.

“Is that a compliment?”

“From me, yes.”

So I kept it.

For a while.

I was freelancing by then. Advertising copy, some magazine pieces, whatever paid without dragging me back into an office. It suited me. Although we were now in a fortunate position financially, I liked to keep busy. I liked the unevenness of it more than I had expected. It gave me time to write something of my own.

I tried not to call it a novel at first. It was just a group of ideas that just evolved into a series of chapters.

——

One evening, after another season had ended, Kevin came home with news.

He stood in the kitchen with his hands in his pockets while I sat at the table surrounded by notes.

“I’ve been speaking to the club,” he said.

I looked up.

“And what did they say? Any news on the new contact?”

“They’ve had an offer for me to go out on loan.”

“On loan?” I said sounding a little thrown by what he had just said. “For how long?”

“A whole season.”

I put my pen down.

“That’s a whole year. Where is it at?” I asked, fearing it would be somewhere cold and wet.

He paused.

“Florence.”

“Italy?”

He smiled slightly.

“There isn’t another Florence.”

“There might be one near Leeds.”

That made him laugh, but not for long.

“They think it’s a good opportunity for me to prolong my career,” he said. “Different football. Different pace. A change.”

“But it’s a year away from home.”

“You could think of it as a year’s vacation somewhere with a much nicer climate than we have here.” He said, gesturing towards the rain hitting against our kitchen window.

“I guess. And after that?”

“We’ll come back.”

I knew enough by then to hear the space around that answer.

“When would we go?” I asked.

“Beginning of July. Ready for the pre-season.”

I looked at the pages in front of me. My woman in the book had been stuck in the same hallway for three days because I could not decide what she wanted next.

Then I looked at Kevin.

“All right.”

“All right?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want to think about it?”

“I am thinking about it.”

“And?”

“If we’re going to be unsettled, we may as well do it somewhere with better weather.”

He smiled then.

“That’s your answer?”

“For now.”

So we went.

——

The first weeks were strange. I was hot, tired, and usually one conversation behind everyone else. Kevin settled faster than I did. He often did. Training was hard, the football was different, and he came home worn out but lighter in himself.

We rented an apartment with high ceilings, green shutters and too many stairs when I was carrying shopping. I worked at a small table near the window, which consisted on producing some written pieces that went back to London. Some were for magazines.

The rest of the time, I worked on the book.

—-

Most afternoons, I took my folder to a café near the apartment. Caffè Vesper. Small marble tables, brass fittings, dark wood, men who seemed to have been sitting there since before I was born. The first time I ordered a cappuccino after lunch, the man behind the counter paused for half a second.

After that, I kept visiting the café regularly.

I liked it as your were allowed a level of privacy. The regulars were very pleasant despite the initial language barrier.

One afternoon, I sat in there by the window with my notebook closed and was getting nothing done.

Across the street was a salon.

The sign above said ‘Lucia’s.’

I had regularly passed it before without really noticing it, but that day I watched it. The sign was dark green with cream letters. Lace curtains covered the lower half of the window. Inside, I could see a chair, a mirror, bottles on a shelf.

A woman came out with a short dark bob, touching the side of it carefully. The hairdresser followed her to the door, talking quickly. She was in her thirties, neat, pretty, with dark hair pinned back and sharp eyes.

I looked down at my notebook.

Nothing.

So I paid for my coffee, gathered my pages and headed across the street towards the salon.

The bell rang when I opened the salon door.

The room smelled of shampoo, setting lotion and warm hairdryers. There were two chairs, one basin, a little desk and framed hairstyle photographs on the wall.

The hairdresser turned.

“Buon pomeriggio.”

“Buon pomeriggio,” I said, then ran out of courage.

She smiled.

“English?”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“No, no. I speak English.”

“Well?”

She laughed.

“Well enough.”

I liked her at once.

“I’m Lucia,” she said.

“Allison.”

“You have appointment?”

“No. I saw the salon from across the street.”

“That is also fine.”

“It was a whim.”

Lucia looked at my hair. Not rudely. Professionally. Ruth used to do the same thing. Hairdressers looked at hair and saw every decision that had led to it.

“You have styled hair,” she said.

“I do.”

“English style.”

“You could say that.” I replied, shrugging my shoulders slightly.

“Ahh, maybe you are tired of it.”

I stared at her.

“That obvious?”

“To me, yes.”

She pointed to the chair.

“Sit.”

“I haven’t decided anything.”

“You can sit and not decide.”

That sounded reasonable, though I should have known better. Sitting in a salon chair was already halfway to something.

I sat.

Lucia stood behind me and lifted the sides of my hair. In the mirror, the feathered shape rose wider, then dropped back.

“Nice hair,” she said. “Nice cut before. But now heavy here.”

She touched the back.

“And here.”

She lifted the crown.

“And maybe you want something less polite.”

I met her eyes in the mirror.

“Yes.”

The answer came out before I could make it sound casual.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I want a change.”

“That is many things.”

“I know.”

“Short?”

“Maybe.”

“Blonde?”

“I’ve been blonde.”

“Dark?”

“I’ve been dark.”

“Red?”

“I’ve been red too.”

She smiled.

“So. Difficult.”

“I prefer experienced.”

“Experienced is another word.”

I laughed.

At that moment a woman passed the window. She had dark hair set into a dense perm, glossy and rounded through the sides, tight at the crown, with small curls across her forehead. It was not soft. It had shape.

It reminded me of Claudia. The style she had gotten done for the day I was asked to cut it all off for her.

I watched her go.

Lucia noticed.

“You like that?”

I did not answer straight away.

I thought of Claudia at her front door in London with her dramatic perm and red lipstick, already knowing she would lose it. I thought of cutting those curls from her neck.

Lucia’s hand rested lightly at the back of my hair.

“A perm?” she asked.

I looked at myself in the mirror. The warm blonde layers. The careful fringe. The version of me everyone had accepted.

Then I looked at Lucia.

“Could you do something with that idea?”

Her eyes sharpened.

“Yes,” she said. “But not that exactly.”

“No?”

“No. For you, better.”

She did not rush. That made me trust her.

She stood behind me, lifting the lengths, weighing them, letting them fall.

“For this, we change colour first,” she said.

“Dark?”

“Yes. Rich. Then cut. Then perm.”

“You sound sure.”

“I am sure.”

It took most of the afternoon.

She cut away more length than I expected. The soft shoulder-length style became shorter and neater before the colour even touched it. Then came the dye, a deep glossy brunette that changed my face before the perm had started.

After that came rods, lotion, waiting, rinsing, more waiting, and Lucia moving around me with complete confidence.

Once a change had begun, I always felt calmer. The doubt lived before the first cut. After that, the decision had already been made.

When she removed the rods and shaped the curls, I saw that she had known what she was doing from the start.

It was not the same as the woman outside.

It was mine.

A dark, dense halo of tight glossy curls, rounded at the sides and crown. A short curly fringe sat against my forehead. The length came to my neck, enough to give shape without feeling heavy.

It made my eyes clearer. It made my face stronger. The old feathered softness had gone.

Lucia stepped back.

For a moment, I said nothing. I touched one side, then the fringe, then the curls near my nape.

“Well?” she asked.

“It’s different.”

“Yes.”

I kept looking.

“I love it.”

“That is better.”

She worked a little more product through the curls.

“You must not fight it,” she said. “This shape needs confidence.”

“I’ve only just met it.”

“You will manage.”

——

Kevin was home when I got back.

I heard him in the kitchen. He called my name, then appeared in the hallway with a tea towel in his hand.

He stopped.

There was a clean silence.

“Well?” I said.

He looked at me and forgot whatever he had been about to say.

“You cut it.”

“And permed it.”

“I can see that.”

I waited.

He came closer. His eyes moved over the fringe, the rounded sides, the dark colour. He lifted one hand and touched the curls above my ear.

“Sei bellissima.” He whispered, using one of few Italian phrases he had picked up.

“Grazie amore mio.” I replied, with a hint of an accent.

“You look and sound like a local” He chuckled.

His hand moved to the back, brushing the curls at my neck.

“It really suits you.”

I relaxed.

“You looked alarmed when you first saw it.”

“I was surprised.”

“That’s often the point.”

He smiled then.

“You look extraordinary.”

He kissed me, his hand still at the back of my head. Afterwards he touched the curls again, letting them spring against his fingers.

“This is going to make it hard for me to listen when you talk.”

“I should have considered that before spending the afternoon at the salon.”

“Too late now.”

He loved it. I could tell. He touched it whenever he passed behind me. He watched me in the mornings when I dampened it and worked Lucia’s product through the curls. He liked the dark colour. He liked the spring of it. He liked the fringe.

Most of all, I think he liked how sure it made me look.

So I kept it.

The season went well. Kevin played better than he had in a long time. The club wanted to keep him, and after weeks of phone calls, meetings and careful half-sentences, the deal became permanent.

When he told me, he seemed almost afraid to want it.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I think you want to stay.”

He sat opposite me at the table.

“I do.”

“Then we stay.”

“And you?”

“I’ve written half a book here,” I said. “It would be rude to leave before she ruins her life completely.”

He laughed.

“That sounds like yes.”

“It is yes.”

So we stayed.

——

The apartment quickly felt like home for us. I bought better notebooks. Kevin ignored that it was in theory a temporary stay, and made an effort to learn the language.

Then the heat arrived.

At first I kept the perm exactly as it was. Kevin still loved it, which made me more patient with it than I might have been. But the curls were dense. My neck was always warm beneath them. The fringe, which had looked sharp before, began to sit against my forehead in a way that irritated me.

I pinned one side back. I lifted the back away from my collar. I tied it up when I wrote.

It was still too much.

One afternoon at Caffè Vesper, I sat with my notebook open and the same sentence refusing to move. My cappuccino sat untouched. I lifted the curls away from my neck, let them drop, then lifted them again.

That was enough.

I closed my notebook and went across the street.

—-

Lucia turned when the bell rang.

“Allison.”

“Lucia, It’s too hot,” I said.

She laughed.

“Yes. Now we cut it.”

It was a simple as that with her. No small talk. Just straight to the task in hand. She put me in the chair, fastened the cape and stood behind me with her fingers in the curls at my nape.

“You want shorter.”

“I want less of it.”

“That is not always the same thing.”

“In this heat, it is.”

She lifted the back away from my neck.

“You still like the perm?”

“Yes.”

“But you want air.”

“Desperately.”

She took a magazine from the side table and opened it to a marked page.

“This is popular now.”

The woman in the photograph had a compact mass of curls. Tighter than mine, shorter at the back, full at the sides but controlled. The fringe was short and curly. The neck was clear.

It had the strength of my hair, without the weight.

“That is not less hair,” I said.

“No,” Lucia said. “It is better hair.”

“It looks high maintenance.”

“It looks high maintenance. It is not. Water. Product. Fingers. Finished.”

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

“You never believe me first. Later you agree.”

I looked again. The neck was what settled it.

“Yes,” I said.

Lucia smiled.

The first cut was at the back. She lifted a heavy section from my nape and closed the scissors. A dark curl fell onto the cape, longer than I expected. Then another. Then another.

I felt the air at once.

“You are smiling,” she said.

“I can feel my neck.”

“Yes. Exciting.”

“It is, actually.”

“I know.”

She worked quickly, taking the weight from the back, shortening the sides, tightening the fringe. The curls did not disappear. They gathered closer.

After the cut, she refreshed the curl and shaped it with her fingers until the whole style looked denser and cleaner. When she finished, the old neck-length perm had become a compact rounded cap of dark curls. The back lifted away from my collar. The fringe sprang short across my forehead.

She removed the cape and shook the cut hair onto the floor.

“Well?”

I turned my head from side to side.

The curls moved, but the shape held.

“It looks Italian.”

“You say this as if you apologise.”

“No. I mean it looks certain.”

“That is better.”

I put on my glasses. The gold frames looked right against the dark curls.

Lucia nodded.

“Now you are a writer.”

“I thought I already was.”

“Now you look expensive and difficult.”

“I’ll tell Kevin you said that.”

“He will agree.”

Kevin did.

—-

He was on the balcony when I came home, tired from training, shirt open at the throat, water glass in his hand. When I stepped through the door, he turned.

Then he laughed softly.

“What?”

“You’ve done it again.”

“I have.”

He came towards me. His hand went first to the back of my neck.

“That’s shorter.”

“That was the point.”

He moved his fingers into the crown.

“And tighter.”

“That was Lucia’s point.”

“She was right.”

I looked at him.

“You like it?”

He put both hands lightly at the sides of my head, feeling the rounded shape. Then he brushed his thumb along the short curly fringe.

“I really like it.”

“You liked the other one.”

“I did.”

“So?”

“Now I like this one.”

“That’s convenient.”

“For both of us.”

He kissed me in the hallway, then again in the kitchen. His hands kept returning to the back of my head.

“You’re taken with it,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You could try being subtle.”

“No.”

We went to bed before dinner.

Later, when the room was cooler and darker, I lay beside him while his fingers moved over the tight curls at my nape.

“This one might be my favourite,” he said.

“You say that every time.”

“I didn’t say it about the yellow disaster.”

“That was not a style. That was an emergency.”

He laughed.

“You’ll keep this one?”

“For summer.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the only answer you get.” I said, as I turned over.

He had learned to accept that.

My hair had never been a promise.

——

For several weeks, I loved the shorter curls. Lucia had been right. It was easy. In the morning I dampened it, worked in product and shaped it with my fingers. The shorter back helped in the heat. The café barman told me it suited me better, and I chose to take that as praise.

My writing improved too. I would not give the haircut all the credit, but it helped. The woman in my book finally left the hallway and went out into the street. She made several questionable choices, which gave me far more to write about.

Then, about eight weeks later, I realised something was wrong.

At first I blamed the heat. Then coffee. Then something I had eaten. Certain smells in the market made me feel sick. Caffè Vesper, which had always settled me, turned my stomach if I arrived too early.

I counted the days.

Then I counted them again.

When I told Kevin, I did it badly.

He came home with peaches and a newspaper, and I was standing in the kitchen with my arms folded, ready to blame him for something.

“What’s happened?” he asked.

“I think I’m pregnant.”

The peaches stayed in his hand.

“You think?”

“I’m late.”

“How late?”

“Late enough.”

He set the peaches down carefully.

“Allison.”

“I know.”

He came over and stood in front of me.

“Are you all right?”

That was what undid me.

Not joy. Not fear. That question.

“I don’t know,” I said.

He pulled me into his arms.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

The doctor confirmed it two days later.

I was pregnant.

The word felt huge and ordinary at the same time. Women had been pregnant forever, but nobody had explained how strange it would feel once it was happening inside my own body.

Kevin was quietly overwhelmed. He became attentive in ways that were sweet for one day and irritating by the third. He watched what I ate. He asked whether I should be carrying things. He looked at my stomach when he thought I would not notice, though there was nothing to see yet.

“There is no baby visible in my waistline,” I told him one morning.

“I know.”

“You’re looking as if one might appear if you concentrate.”

“I can’t help it.”

“You’ll have to learn.”

He smiled, but his eyes were bright.

I was happy. I was frightened. Often both within the same hour.

And then there was my hair.

——

The compact curls that had felt perfect in July began to feel like another task. The smell of the product made me nauseous. Holding my arms up to arrange the crown tired me before breakfast. The short fringe annoyed me when it sprang unevenly against my forehead.

One morning, Kevin found me glaring at the mirror.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“It’s my fringe. I can’t seem to get it to stay how I want it”

“Maybe it likes the attention.”

“More than I’m willing to give it.”

He came up behind me and looked at us both in the mirror. His hand moved carefully to the back of my head.

“I still like it.”

“I know.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to keep it though.”

I met his eyes in the mirror.

Pregnancy changed what I could tolerate. I wanted clothes that did not press, food that did not smell, rooms that were not too warm, and hair that did not need persuading into shape.

I lasted another week.

Then I went back to Lucia.

She took one look at me and put down the comb in her hand.

“You are tired,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And pregnant.”

I stared at her.

“How do you know that?”

She shrugged.

“I know women.”

“That is a convenient answer.”

“It is correct.”

I sat in the chair before she asked.

“I need it shorter.” I said, as she put the cape around me.

Lucia stood behind me. Her hands moved into the dense curls.

“You wanted air before,” she said.

“I want simplicity now.”

“That is different.”

“Yes.”

She looked at my reflection, not just at the hair but at my face.

“How short?”

I watched the curls spring between her fingers.

“Short enough that I don’t have to think about it.”

Lucia smiled slowly.

“Then we make you a mother’s haircut?”

“No.”

Her smile widened.

“No?”

“No. We make me a haircut that happens to belong to a pregnant woman.”

“That is better.”

She reached for her scissors.

“Then we cut.”

Lucia cut without making a fuss.

The first pieces fell from the sides, tight dark curls landing on the cape. Then she worked into the back, taking it close and clearing the nape fully this time. Air touched the skin behind my ears. The weight vanished from the crown.

“This is better,” Lucia said.

“You haven’t shown me yet.”

“I know before you.”

“That must be comfortable.”

“It is.”

She also warmed the colour to a copper shade, which was enough to catch the light without taking over.

The curls were still there, but now they sat close to my head in a short crop. The fringe was high and curly. My ears were exposed. The nape was neat. The sides were close without being severe.

When she turned the chair, I sat still.

Pregnancy had already changed my face a little. I looked tired, but clearer. The short hair sharpened that. It made my eyes look larger and my jaw stronger.

“Well?” Lucia asked.

I touched the curve above my ear.

“I can breathe.”

“That is not a compliment.”

“It is today.”

She smiled.

“It suits you. Stronger.”

She was right. It was stronger. It was also easier, and that mattered more than almost anything.

Kevin liked it too, though more quietly than the bigger curls. I could tell he missed them at first. Sometimes his hand reached for hair that was no longer there.

But he liked my neck bare. He liked the copper warmth in the sun. Mostly, he liked that I stopped sighing at the mirror every morning.

“I’ve missed you have your hair this short,” he said one evening.

“I know you have. That could be why Lucia removed half my hair.” I said with a wink.

“There’s not much left now.”

“I know.”

He touched the close curls at my nape.

“You look like you.”

“I always look like me. Just more exposed”

——

The months moved strangely after that. Time dragged when I felt sick or tired, then vanished when I realised how quickly my body was changing. I still wrote, but less steadily. Some mornings I sat with one hand on my stomach, waiting for movement I could not yet feel.

On the week of the due date, I made sure I had time to pay Lucia a visit to tidy my hair and give my curls a refresh before it was too late. I also opted for a more vibrant shade of red all over.

That night, Kevin and I lay together in bed. He talked to the baby when he thought I was asleep. He put his palm against my stomach and listened with serious concentration. He tried to hide worry with errands, food, blankets and questions about chairs.

It was a tender moment, and one that would mark the end of our time together as couple, as it was about to change the next day.

——

When our daughter was born, the world narrowed to her face.

She was small, furious and perfect, with dark hair flattened against her head and a cry far too large for her body.

Kevin cried before I did. He tried to hide it, which was pointless.

Later, when the room was quieter and she was asleep against me, he asked, “What shall we call her?”

We had talked about names for months and rejected nearly all of them. Nothing had stayed.

I looked down at her.

“Vesper.”

Kevin looked from the baby to me.

“After the café?”

“Yes.”

He looked back at her.

“Vesper,” he said.

The baby stirred but did not wake.

“That’s her,” I said.

And it was.

Life with Vesper was smaller than the life we had before her, but fuller too.

The apartment filled with bottles, blankets, tiny clothes, damp towels, folded muslins, unfolded muslins, and things we lost almost as soon as we put them down. I had thought a football crowd was loud. Then I had a baby and learned that one room at three in the morning could hold more noise than any stand.

Kevin was still playing, still training, still coming home tired and warm from the pitch. But he came through the door differently now. He listened first. If Vesper was crying, he went straight to her. If she was asleep, he lowered his voice without thinking. If I looked close to tears, he noticed that too.

My short curly crop suited that life. It was the easiest hair I had ever had. Water, fingers, sometimes no mirror. Lucia kept the shape neat whenever I could get across town to see her. The copper softened as it grew, but I did not mind.

For the first time in years, my hair was not a decision I had to make every morning.

That should have satisfied me.

For a while, it did.

——

Then one evening, after Vesper had finally gone to sleep, Kevin and I sat on the balcony with two glasses of wine. The worst of the heat had passed. The street below was still busy, but softer now. Someone had a radio on. Washing moved on a line across the way.

Kevin sat back in his chair with his sleeves rolled up and his face turned towards the last of the light.

I watched him for a moment.

“Would you give me a haircut?” I asked.

He turned his head slowly.

“What?”

“A haircut.”

“Why me? Can’t you go to Lucia’s?”

“I want one tonight?”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

He waited for me to laugh. I didn’t. I was being serious. Ever since I had Vesper to take care of, I wanted to rid myself of the morning hair chore.

“Allison.”

“I’ve bought a pair of clippers.”

That stopped him.

“When?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“A few weeks ago?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t mention it?”

“I wasn’t sure I’d want to use them.”

“But now you do.”

I touched the curls at my temple. They were soft and neat. They had done their job. They had carried me through pregnancy, birth and the first strange months of being someone’s mother.

But lately I had started thinking about having a buzzcut again.

But not like the ones I had had previously.

This one. Here. With Kevin being the one to do it.

“I don’t want Lucia to do it,” I said. “I want you.”

That changed his face. He was still cautious, but now he understood.

“Where are they?”

“In the bedroom.”

He gave a short laugh.

“Of course they are.”

I brought the box out before either of us could think too long. Kevin opened it carefully. The clippers looked ordinary in his hands, which made the moment feel stranger.

He moved a chair near the balcony rail. 

For a few seconds, neither of us moved.

“You can still change your mind,” he said.

“I know.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

He touched the curls at my crown.

“I remember the first time.”

“So do I.”

“This feels different.”

“It is.”

He wrapped a towel around my shoulders and stood behind me. Clippers now in his hand.

The sound was louder than I expected. I felt my stomach tighten, then settle.

Kevin placed one hand gently at the side of my head.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

The first pass started at my forehead.

I felt the pressure before I saw anything fall. Then the curls began dropping onto the towel and into my lap. A narrow strip opened across the top of my head, close and dark underneath.

Kevin stopped halfway back.

“All right?”

“Yes.”

He carried on.

More curls fell. In the evening light, the copper showed more clearly than it ever had on my head. I looked down at the pieces in my lap and felt a small tenderness for them. They had belonged to a version of me I loved.

Then they were only hair.

Kevin made another pass beside the first, then another. He took his time. He kept the clippers flat and steady, working over the crown until the top was short, dark-red stubble.

I lifted my hand and touched it before he had finished.

It felt wonderful.

Kevin saw my face.

“That much better?”

“Yes.”

He smiled then.

“Chin down.”

I lowered my head and he started at the nape. The old curls disappeared in small sections. Air reached my neck. His palm rested at my crown while he worked, careful and quiet.

When he reached the sides, he folded my ear down with his thumb and moved slowly around it. The vibration ran through my cheek and jaw.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Don’t stop.”

He didn’t.

By the time he switched the clippers off, the balcony floor was scattered with curls. The towel was covered. The street carried on below us as if nothing had happened.

Kevin stood in front of me.

“Well?” I asked.

He put the clippers down, then placed both hands against my head. His palms moved over the sides, the crown, the back.

He was quiet for a moment.

“You look stunning,” he said.

That was the word I wanted.

I stood, and more cut hair slipped from the towel onto the tiles. I touched my head with both hands. The buzz was close, even and warm beneath my palms. Not bald. Not severe. Just simple.

Kevin was still looking at me.

“You’re pleased with yourself,” he said.

“I am.”

“So am I.”

He kissed me, one hand moving over the back of my head. It felt different now. No curls. No shape to protect. Just his palm against the close softness of the buzz.

Inside, Vesper made a small sound in her sleep, then settled again.

“We should clean this up before the wind takes it downstairs,” Kevin said.

“In a minute.”

He smiled.

“In a minute.”

So we stayed there a little longer. My hair was around our feet, the clippers still warm on the table, and the evening cooling around us.

Kevin kept his hand at the back of my head.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

I looked across the street, at the windows, the washing, the last of the light.

“That I’m happy.”

He did not make a joke. He did not rush to answer. He just kissed the side of my head.

“Right,” he said softly.

And for once, that was enough.

I was not waiting for the next version of myself.

I was here.

With Kevin.

With Vesper asleep inside.

With the evening cool against my newly buzzed head.

 

To find out what was to become of Vesper, click here…