Feeling Curious (Part 1)

I had needed the holiday for what felt like forever.

For months, Nick had been telling me to slow down, usually while I was answering emails with one hand and stirring dinner with the other. I always said I was nearly through the busy period, but in medical communications there was always another approval round, another conference deadline, another sentence that three departments wanted softened before it could be seen by anyone outside the company.

I had always wanted to go to Croatia, as it had been seen as an up and coming destination to go to, so we booked a two-week holiday there.

——

By the time the taxi had left the bustle of Dubrovnik airport behind and began following the coast towards the hotel, I was finally able to switch off from anything happening back home. Or at least, that was the theory.

Nick had his sunglasses pushed up into his hair and one hand resting loosely over mine.

“Natalie, I think you can stop checking your phone now.”

“I’m not checking it.”

“You’re holding it like still you’re expecting somebody from the office to ring up.”

I looked down and realised I was, in fact, holding it.

I dropped it into my handbag. “Happy?”

“Enormously.”

I turned towards the window, smiling despite myself. The Adriatic flashed between the trees, white houses climbed the hillsides and bougainvillea spilled over stone walls in ridiculous pinks and purples. Somewhere below us, the sea stretched away in a sheet of blue that looked almost artificial.

It was nice to switch off for the next two weeks, with no meetings, forecasts or deadlines to hit.

The pharmaceutical company I worked for would continue functioning without me. I knew that intellectually, though my nervous system was maybe less convinced. But still, that wasn’t my problem for a fortnight.

Nick squeezed my hand. “You look knackered.”

“Thank you.”

“I meant beautiful and knackered.”

“That softens the bluntness.”

My reflection moved faintly across the taxi window as we rounded another bend. Freckles, green-hazel eyes, gold hoops at my ears, and all that copper hair falling several inches beyond my shoulders.

It was exceptionally thick, softly waved and cut with long layers around my face. I had worn some version of it for almost my entire adult life: sometimes longer, sometimes a little more layered, but never substantially different. Once I had dared to go brunette, which I had enjoyed for approximately three weeks before finally admitting that it wasn’t me and beginning the laborious journey back to copper.

Nick loved my hair. I loved it too.

There was nothing particularly complicated about that, although lately I seemed to spend considerably more time putting it out of the way than doing anything with it. I tied it up while I worked, clipped it back while I cooked and occasionally postponed washing it for another day because the thought of drying all of it after a twelve-hour day felt unnecessarily punishing.

Every appointment with Liz, my hairdresser, seemed to end with exactly the same conversation.

What are we doing today Nat?

Oh just tidy it up please

There was nothing wrong with it. That was the thing. I  liked my colour, the way it looked when I made an effort, and still courted Nick’s attention.

There was another change I had been trying not to make too much of. For the first time in almost twenty-five years, Nick and I lived alone.

Our eldest daughter was twenty-four and working in America. She had moved there after university, originally for what she described as “a year, probably,” which had somehow become a job, an apartment and the occasional message announcing that she had found somewhere selling proper British tea.

Our youngest, twenty-two, was working in Paris. She had been gone less time, but long enough that the silence she left behind had become part of the house.

Their bedrooms were no longer needed now as bedrooms. One had become a dumping ground for luggage, wrapping paper and things I was convinced I would eventually sell on eBay, while the other was slowly becoming Nick’s gym, with a treadmill and weights.

I missed the kids, obviously. But I also liked some of the quiet, which I felt slightly guilty admitting even to myself.

Twenty-five years of marriage had carried Nick and me through nappies, school runs, GCSEs, university applications, heartbreak, first jobs and a thousand ordinary family evenings. Now we had somehow circled back to something that looked strangely like the beginning.

Just the two of us again.

——

Going to Dubrovnik was the first proper holiday we had taken since both girls had left home. It was now nice to have more freedom than we used to have and we had almost no idea what to do with it.

The hotel sat above the sea outside Dubrovnik, all pale stone, glass balconies and cream parasols. Rosemary and lavender edged the paths, white boats moved lazily across the water far below, and the staff somehow remembered our room number after hearing it once.

Within the first few days, I could feel myself starting to wind down and settle into the relaxed way of functioning that seemed to come naturally to my husband. We stopped setting alarms and usually drifted down to breakfast somewhere around nine, taking the same table on the terrace if it was free.

Breakfast became our only real routine. Nick would come back from the buffet with coffee, fruit and far too much bread, while I claimed I wasn’t especially hungry and then steadily ate from his plate.

“You said you didn’t want anything,” he said on the second morning.

“I don’t.” I smiled and took a sip of my coffee.

After that, we would plan the day: perhaps take a walk the old town, or try somewhere for dinner. Most suggestions ended with, “Maybe tomorrow,” and neither of us seemed bothered by it.

We would go back upstairs, change and wander down to the pool with books, sun cream and whatever else we thought we might need. Nick liked to read beneath one of the cream parasols while I swam in the mornings, before the terrace became busy and the water filled with people standing in clusters talking rather than actually swimming.

I liked those first lengths best, before the pool became busy and I had to steer around anyone. I would settle into an easy breaststroke, moving steadily from one end to the other without thinking about much at all.

By the time I reached Nick’s end, my hair was completely soaked and slicked back from my face, the heavy copper length trailing down behind me. Sometimes I would pause there for a moment, letting the water sit just below my shoulders while I caught my breath.

Nick would look up from his book when I stopped, then quickly return to the same page as though he hadn’t been watching. I usually smiled to myself before pushing away for another length.

Afterwards I sat beside him with my hair dripping down my back while we decided what constituted the rest of the morning. Usually the answer was nothing.

—-

By the second afternoon, I had become restless. There was nothing wrong. That was almost the problem. I had no emails I needed to answer, nowhere I was expected to be and nobody waiting for me to decide anything. For the first day it had felt luxurious. By the second, some part of me was apparently searching for a task.

Nick lay beneath a parasol beside the pool, bare-chested, his book open on his stomach and his sunglasses gradually sliding down his nose. I had already swum, dried off, moved loungers because the sun had moved, ordered an iced water, reapplied sun cream and got back into the pool.

After my umpteenth swim, I got out of the pool and stretched out beside him on the lounger . It was wide enough for both of us if we didn’t mind being close, so I tucked myself against his side with my head below his shoulder and my legs across the bottom half of the cushion. Nick put an arm around me without looking away from his book, lifting it just long enough to avoid trapping my wet hair beneath his elbow.

“You’re soaking me,” he said.

“You’ll dry.”

I pulled part of the towel beneath my hair and settled back against him. It was still dripping steadily enough to leave dark patches across the fabric, but neither of us moved, and after a while Nick stopped pretending to read and let the book rest against his chest.

We stayed like that for a while, as I tried to have a doze. His hand rested loosely against my shoulder, my damp hair spread across the towel between us. Eventually I gave up trying to sleep, and moved to my own lounger and scroll through my phone.

One thing that was beginning to frustrate me more around the pool was my battle with my hair.

At home, I considered it one of my best features. It was thick enough that hairdressers always commented on it and long enough that, with a little effort, I could make it do almost anything. Here, after two days of swimming and heat, those qualities were beginning to feel considerably less useful.

It clung to the back of my neck, caught beneath the arms of my sunglasses and held the smell of chlorine no matter how thoroughly I rinsed it. When it was wet it seemed to weigh twice as much, leaving dark copper strands plastered across my shoulders, and when it dried the sea air encouraged every wave it possessed to expand in a slightly different direction.

I gathered the whole lot behind my head again and twisted it loosely into a knot.

The knot lasted approximately twenty seconds.

A heavy section slid free and landed against my shoulder. I sighed, pushed it back and walked towards the pool.

Nick lowered his book slightly as I passed. “You ready for another swim?”

“I know.” I lowered myself down the steps into the water. “I still don’t know what to do with myself.”

“That’s because you’re not very good at switching off.”

“I know. I wish I could.”

“You’ve moved your lounger three times.”

“The sun moved.”

“You reorganised everything in the beach bag.”

I rested my arms on the edge of the pool and looked at him. “Are you keeping notes?”

He smiled behind his sunglasses. “I like watching you.”

“Apparently.”

“Especially the swimming.”

He shifted the book onto the lounger beside him. “Very elegant. Very purposeful. Very composed.”

I knew immediately from his expression that none of those words was meant sincerely, so I scooped a handful of water towards him.

He turned his face away too late and laughed as it caught him across the chest.

“Charming.”

“You deserved that.”

“I did.”

He sat up, wiped the water from his sunglasses with the edge of his towel and then stood up.

“I’m going to the bar. What do you want?”

“Something cold.”

“Specific.”

“I don’t know. Surprise me.”

I smiled and pushed myself away from the edge.

He crossed the pool terrace barefoot, already beginning to tan after only a few days. I stayed in the water, resting my elbows on the edge while another loose strand of hair stuck itself to the side of my neck.

The pool bar stood beneath a cream canopy at the far side of the terrace, with pale stone counters and high stools. Nick leaned against the counter and began speaking to the bartender while I tried, for the third time in ten minutes, to gather my hair away from my shoulders.

Then a young woman from the hotel spa approached him.

I noticed her before she reached him.

It would have been difficult not to.

She wore a neat cream tunic, soft beige trousers and flat sandals, with a small tablet tucked beneath one arm. She was pretty, perhaps in her late twenties, with grey-blue eyes, strong brows and small gold hoops.

The first thing I noticed, though, was her hair.

It was pale blonde and buzzed to one short length all over. Her ears, neck and the entire shape of her head were all exposed.

I had always assumed a haircut that short would make a woman look severe, or somehow less feminine.

It didn’t seem to have done either to her.

She looked cool, elegant and completely unbothered by the heat. There was something almost strange about seeing so little hair on a woman when I was some thirty metres away with enough of my own to keep sticking itself to various parts of my body.

I found myself looking again as she stood beside my husband with perhaps a centimetre of blonde hair and nothing to rearrange.

I could not hear their conversation, but I saw Nick glance towards me and smile. The woman said something and he laughed politely, then the bartender placed two drinks on the counter.

That was my excuse.

I climbed out, wrapped a towel around myself and walked over.

“Is that my drink Nick?” I asked taking a glass from his hand

Nick turned. “Sorry Natalie, I was just talking. This is Marija. She works in the spa.”

“Hello Natalie, pleased to meet you,” Marija said in a distinctive Croatian accent. “I was just telling your husband about the fantastic treatments we offer here in the resort’s spa.”

“They have an exstensive range.” Nick said.

Marija smiled at me. “Your husband thought you might enjoy a massage.”

“Did he?”

“I said you might,” Nick corrected. “You’ve had trouble relaxing so far.”

“Have I?”

“Yes, and you have been fighting with your hair since we arrived.”

“I have not.”

He looked pointedly at the damp red strands stuck across my shoulder.

“All right,” I said. “A little.”

Marija glanced at my hair with professional calm rather than judgement. “The heat is not kind to long hair.”

“Exactly,” Nick said. “I am only thinking of your welfare.”

“How noble.”

Marija tapped something on her tablet. “We have one-hour appointment tomorrow afternoon. Very relaxing. No obligation to book anything else.”

I should probably have declined. I had never been particularly good at massages because lying still for an hour usually gave my brain an opportunity to produce a detailed list of everything I could otherwise be doing.

Instead, I found myself looking at Marija’s hair again.

Up close, it was even shorter than I had thought. The pale blonde made it look soft rather than harsh, and I could see the natural direction of the hair across the crown where it lay flat against her head.

Nick noticed too.

“That is a nice haircut, by the way.”

Marija smiled and rubbed the back of her head. “Thank you. It is still new.”

“Really. How new?” he asked.

“Three weeks since first time.”

“The first time?” I asked.

“Yes, when I had it done.”

There was enough amusement in her expression to tell me there was more coming.

“How long was it before you had it cut?”

Marija took out her phone. A few seconds later she placed the phone on the bar.

I actually laughed.

“No. Really. That was you?”

“Yes.”

The woman on the screen was unmistakably Marija, except she had long pale-blonde curls falling almost to her waist.

I looked from the photograph to the woman standing in front of me and then back to the photograph.

“Holy shit. You went from having all that hair to this?” I said, not really believing difference that they are the same person

“Yes.”

“Sorry if that came out wrong. That is a seriously bold to have done.”

She shrugged. “I wanted to do it.”

It was such a simple answer that for a second I expected something else to follow.

Nothing did.

Nick looked at the photograph again, then at Marija. “You look more striking now.”

“Nick.”

“What? She does.”

Marija laughed.

So did I.

I slide her phone back, still trying to reconcile the woman with all that pale-blonde hair with the one standing beside me now. Marija tucked the phone away and returned her attention to the tablet as though there were nothing particularly extraordinary about removing almost all of your hair in the course of an afternoon.

Perhaps there wasn’t.

“What times did you have available for a massage?” I asked.

“I have one available at Three-thirty.”

I nodded. “All right. Book me in.”

Marija smiled and began tapping at the screen.

As she entered my details, I became aware that my hand had moved to my own hair again. I gathered the damp length over one shoulder without thinking and held it there while she confirmed the appointment.

“Thank you.”

“You are welcome Natalie. I will see you tomorrow for appointment.”

“Yes you will.”

 

To be continued…