Red Bob
Nick made the risotto while I sat at the island and tried not to touch my hair every thirty seconds.
I had not got very far with that. My hand had been to the side of my head, behind my ear and across the back of my neck enough times that afternoon for the movement to become embarrassing. I kept expecting the familiar weight at my nape. Instead there was short, soft hair, then skin, then the cool air in the kitchen.
Nick had rolled his sleeves up and was stirring the rice with one hand while opening the wine with the other. After seeing the pixie, holding my face between his hands and telling me I looked incredible, he had done what he always did when he sensed that I was pleased but slightly overwhelmed.
He had started cooking.
The ordinaryness of it helped. There were mushrooms on the chopping board, a glass of wine within reach and a radio playing quietly beside the sink. Rain had begun against the windows, gentle enough that I only noticed it when neither of us was speaking.
Nick poured the wine and set a glass in front of me.
I rubbed the back of my neck again.
“It’s cold,” I said.
He looked over from the hob. “Cold?”
“Not actually cold. I can just feel the air there. I keep expecting there to be hair in the way.”
He left the risotto for a moment and came around the island. His hand settled at my nape, his thumb just beneath the close line Liz had cut.
“That is a lot less hair than there used to be,” he said.
“I’m aware.”
“You’ve had enough for two people for most of the time I’ve known you.”
“That is rude.”
“It is also accurate.”
I smiled, but I did not move his hand away.
“It doesn’t feel wrong,” I said. “That’s what I hadn’t expected. I thought I might be sitting here wondering what I’d done. Instead, I just keep noticing it.”
His fingers moved once over the close hair.
“You don’t have to decide everything about it tonight,” he said. “It’s new. Let it be new.”
I looked at him. “You are being remarkably sensible.”
“Don’t make a habit of noticing.”
He went back to the hob before the risotto caught. I watched him add another ladle of stock, then picked up my glass.
After a moment, I said, “There was nothing wrong with the bob.”
“I know.”
“I loved it. But I kept seeing short hair and thinking about it. Then I found that photograph, and after a while I stopped pretending I was only looking.”
Nick glanced over his shoulder. “You had it open most evenings.”
“Not most evenings.”
“Enough evenings that I recognised the woman’s forehead.”
I laughed. “That is an alarming level of observation.”
“I live with you.”
“Did you know I was going to do it?”
He turned the heat down and looked at me properly. “I knew you were working something out.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because you would tell me when you were ready.”
The answer was simple enough that I had no useful reply to it.
“That is annoyingly decent of you,” I said at last.
“I have my moments.”
“Very occasional ones.”
“Still enough to be worth keeping.”
When we sat down to eat, the haircut stopped being the only thing in the room. It was still there in every small movement: my ears uncovered when I tipped my head back to drink, the cool patch at my nape when I turned towards the window and the lightness when I pushed the top away from my forehead. But we were also just eating dinner on a wet Saturday night, arguing mildly about how much parmesan belonged in a risotto.
“You always think it needs more,” I said.
“It nearly always does.”
“That is not a reliable rule.”
“It has served me well.”
“In what context?”
“Pasta. Risotto. Life in general.”
“You are impossible.”
“Yet here you are.”
“With a short haircut and a bowl of cheese.”
“A very good evening, then.”
I laughed, and the last of the tension I had been carrying since Liz left loosened.
After dinner, I rinsed the plates while Nick wiped up the items on the drainer. It was one of those jobs we did without needing to talk. He passed me things. I handed them back.
He reached past me for a glass and his hand brushed the back of my neck. I felt it immediately, enough to make me turn.
Nick drew his hand back. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“I didn’t expect you to feel it from there.”
“Neither did I.”
He smiled. “That explains why you keep turning round.”
“I am not turning round.”
“You are turning round a little.”
“I’m getting used to it.”
“I know.”
There was no teasing in the way he said it. Just affection.
—-
Later, we sat on the sofa into our nightwear with a blanket over both of us, although neither of us really needed it. Nick chose a film we had seen before, which meant we could talk through parts of it without missing anything important.
I rested my head against his shoulder. After a while, his fingers settled into the short hair above my ear. He did not reach for it as if he were examining it. It was simply where his hand landed when he pulled me closer.
“You’ve found a new place to put your hand,” I said.
He looked down at me. “Have I?”
“You know you have.”
His thumb moved gently over the close hair. “I like it there.”
I watched the film for a moment, then said, “I think I expected my hair to feel stranger than has done.”
Nick did not answer immediately.
“Instead,” I went on, “I feel more obvious. Not in a bad way. I can’t pull it forward if I’m tired or hide behind it when I don’t want to think about how I look. It’s just my face.”
He tipped his head slightly so that I had to look at him.
“You’ve never needed to hide from me,” he said.
“I know. It isn’t about you.”
“I know that too.”
“I’m not even sure it’s about hiding. I just had long hair for so long. It did a lot of the work.”
He smiled. “It did. It was very committed.”
“Exactly. I could rely on it to be there.”
“And now?”
I looked down at the blanket. “Now I have to be there.”
Nick’s expression changed slightly. He was not making a great statement out of it or trying to turn it into something larger than I meant. He simply looked as though he understood.
“You are,” he said. “And you look very good.”
I smiled. “That is much less profound.”
“I can be profound if you like, but I think I prefer being accurate.”
“You’re very pleased with yourself.”
“A little.”
The film continued in front of us, but neither of us was paying it much attention. Nick’s hand was still at the side of my head. I could feel the warmth of his palm through the short hair and the faint roughness of his thumb moving near my temple.
“You keep looking at me,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You’re not even going to deny it?”
“It would be a pointless denial.”
I turned towards him. “Is the haircut really that much of a shock?”
“It is not just the haircut.”
“Then what is it?”
He took a second before answering, and I knew he was trying to get it right.
“You knew what you wanted,” he said. “You thought about it, and then you did it. I like seeing you do that.”
I held his gaze.
“You have done all of this for yourself,” he added. “It is your hair and your face. I’m not claiming any part of it. I just happen to be very glad I get to look at you.”
The care in his voice made my face warm. I was suddenly aware again of how little hair there was to hide behind.
“You make that sound very good,” I said.
“It is very good.”
I kissed him before he could say anything else.
The kiss began in the easy way it often did between us, with neither of us making much of a decision about it. His hand was still at the side of my head, and I turned my face towards him. There was no curtain of hair between his fingers and my neck now. I could feel the warmth of his palm at my nape and the light touch of his mouth against my temple more clearly than I had expected.
“Don’t stop touching it.”
He smiled, and I kissed him again.
—-
By the time the film finished, neither of us had been paying much attention to it for a while. Nick switched the television off, and we went upstairs without discussing it.
In the bedroom, I stood near the bed while he closed the curtains. I was aware of the haircut again: the short nape above the collar of my jumper, the little fringe across my forehead and the strange openness around my ears. Nick came up behind me and rested his hands at my waist.
“You’re thinking,” he said quietly.
“I can’t help it.” I smiled.
He kissed the side of my head, just above my ear. The touch made me smile.
“You really do like it,” I said.
“I really do.”
I turned to face him. “You know I would have done it anyway.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you looking at me like that?”
He smiled, not trying to hide it. “Because you look beautiful. Because I like seeing you pleased with yourself. And because I’ve been married to you for twenty-five years and I’m still allowed to be surprised by you.”
Something in my chest tightened pleasantly.
“That is a very good answer,” I said.
“I had help. You gave me plenty to work with.”
I kissed him before he could say anything else.
We undressed without hurrying. The intimacy between us was familiar, but the haircut changed small things. Nick’s hand returned to my nape and the close hair above my ears, not as though I had become somebody else, but as though he was learning a new detail of someone he already knew by heart.
When we made love, it was warm, unhurried and entirely mutual. I did not feel watched or examined. I felt wanted, and I wanted him just as much. His touch at the back of my neck brought the haircut back into my awareness, but only as part of the closeness of being with him.
Afterwards, we lay together in the quiet room. Nick’s fingers moved gently over the short hair at my nape once more.
“Still good?” he asked.
I turned towards him. “Still very good.”
He laughed softly and kissed my forehead.
I had spent the day worrying that the pixie would make me feel exposed. Lying there with Nick’s hand warm at the back of my head, I understood that exposed was not the same as unprotected.
The haircut was mine. His pleasure in it had not made the choice for me, and it did not need to explain it. But I was allowed to enjoy the way he looked at me now.
For that first night, it was enough.
To Be Continued…
