Prologue

It was Chloe’s idea. I want to be clear about that, because later, when I was sitting on the sand with the sun on the back of my head, I replayed the whole afternoon looking for the exact moment I should have said no, and there wasn’t one. There was only a Saturday in July, a table outside a café, and my best friend leaning across it with a grin I had known since we were eleven.

Lunch

‘Okay, but hear me out,’ Chloe said, stabbing a cherry tomato with her fork. ‘We should do something stupid today.’

‘Define stupid,’ I said.

We were twenty-three, we had both taken the day off, and the whole seaside town was bright and loud and smelled of chips and suncream. We were sitting at a metal table outside Bluebell’s, where we had eaten lunch nearly every Saturday since we moved into our flat, and I was happily half-asleep in the heat with my feet on the spare chair.

I had always been the lazy one. I had long black hair that fell almost to my waist, straight and heavy and glossy, and I did almost nothing to it. I washed it, I plaited it when it was windy, and that was the end of the story. I had blue eyes that people always remarked on because of the contrast, and the kind of skin that went golden-brown by the first week of June, with a scatter of freckles across my nose and shoulders that never quite faded in winter. I had never thought of any of it as particularly special. It was just how I looked.

Chloe looked different. She was pale, the kind of pale that goes straight from white to lobster without passing through any shade in between, and she had fine, straight, pale blonde hair that fell to the middle of her back and lay flat against her head by lunchtime however much she fussed with it. We had been best friends since our first week at secondary school, and in all that time she had never once let me leave the house without a comment about my hair. Oh, you’re so lucky, Jen. People are always staring at you, Jen. I would kill for your freckles. She said it lightly, laughing, and I always laughed too. I thought it was just a thing that best friends said.

‘Stupid,’ Chloe said, ‘as in, we walk into a random hair salon, right now, with no booking, and we pick each other’s haircuts.’

I laughed. ‘Like a dare?’

‘Like a dare. But fun. You pick mine, I pick yours. Whatever we want. And the other person isn’t allowed to look until it’s finished. Total surprise. We can sit with our backs to the mirror.’ Her eyes were sparkling. ‘It’s a bonding thing. Like trust falls, but with hair.’

I thought about it for about three seconds. It sounded silly and harmless and exactly like the kind of thing Chloe came up with when we were bored. And I trusted her. I trusted her more than anyone. I knew that she would never do anything to hurt me.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Deal. But nothing crazy. I’m not coming out with a mohawk.’

‘Obviously not,’ she said, and she smiled at me with such perfect, easy, sisterly warmth that I did not notice she hadn’t actually agreed.

Velvet & Shears

We finished our salads and wandered up the hill, away from the beach, into the narrow side streets behind the high street where the shops were small and a bit crooked and the pavements were hot underfoot. We passed two salons that looked too posh and one that looked too sad. The fourth was perfect. It had a big front window, a hand-painted sign above the door that said Velvet & Shears, and another sign propped on the pavement that read Walk-ins welcome!

‘This one,’ Chloe said at once, and she pulled the door open before I could say a word.

It was cool inside, and bright, all white tiles and pale wood and green plants, with music playing from a speaker behind the counter. There were two stations at the back, with wide mirrors and tall chairs. A woman was sitting at the front desk, filing her nails, and when she saw us she stood up with a smile.

She was in her mid-twenties, with a heart-shaped face and a perfect cupid’s-bow mouth done in dark red lipstick. Her hair was a rich chestnut brown, cut into a razor-blunt bob that skimmed her jawline and swung when she moved. She wore a black tunic with the sleeves pushed up, and she looked like a girl in a magazine advert for hair products.

‘Hi, ladies! Welcome to Velvet and Shears. I’m Marnie. What can I do for you?’

‘Hi,’ Chloe said brightly. ‘This is going to sound a bit weird. We’re doing a sort of game. We want to pick each other’s haircuts, but without the other one knowing what’s happening. We’re not allowed to look in the mirror until it’s all done. Total surprise.’

Marnie’s whole face lit up. ‘Oh my gosh, I love that. I have never done that before. Yes. Absolutely. We can do that.’ She looked from Chloe to me, and her eyes lingered on my hair for a second longer than I expected. ‘Who’s first?’

‘Me,’ said Chloe. ‘Jen’s picking.’

Chloe First

Marnie led Chloe to the first chair and turned it around so that she was facing the wall instead of the mirror, then fastened a black cape around her neck. I stood beside them, thinking hard. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Chloe’s pale hair, always so limp and flat, had never looked right to me hanging down her back. It needed edges. It needed some structure.

‘A blunt bob,’ I said. ‘Chin length, really straight, super sharp. I think it’ll look amazing on you.’

‘Oh, that is so good,’ Marnie said approvingly. ‘Great choice. Very chic.’

‘I love it,’ Chloe said. ‘Perfect. Do it.’

‘You can wait over there,’ Marnie told me, pointing to a little sofa by the front window, next to a stack of magazines. ‘Music’s loud and the dryers are noisy, so you probably won’t hear much. And no peeking, okay? That includes you.’

I took a magazine and flopped on the sofa, and I flipped through pages without really reading them, watching Marnie comb through Chloe’s hair and lift it between her fingers. I saw Chloe say something, and Marnie laugh. I saw the scissors flash. I saw long pale hair slip down the cape and land on the floor. I smiled, feeling very pleased with myself, and went back to my magazine.

I did not see what was happening in the other chair, because there was nothing to see. And I did not hear it, because Chloe had leaned over towards Marnie and was speaking in a very low voice, and the speaker above my head was playing a pop song at full blast.

What Chloe Said

I know what Chloe said, because three Saturdays later, in bed, I made her tell me. And because Marnie, who had never once seen the point of keeping a secret, told me the same story herself, laughing, with her hand over her mouth.

‘Can I tell you something?’ Chloe had murmured, while the scissors hummed. ‘You have to promise not to say anything.’

‘Ooh,’ said Marnie. ‘Go on.’

‘Jennie is my girlfriend.’

This was not true. It was not true even slightly. We had never once held hands, and Chloe had a very long and complicated history with a boy called Danny that she was still, as far as I knew, working through.

‘Oh my gosh, you two are so cute,’ Marnie said.

‘Thanks. Here’s the thing. She has wanted to shave her head for, like, forever. Since before we met. She talks about it all the time. She’s obsessed with the idea. But she’s way too scared to actually do it. She keeps saying she’ll think about it, and then she never does.’ Chloe pulled out her phone and showed Marnie a photo of me, on the beach, with my black hair streaming down to my waist. ‘Look at her. Look at that hair. It’s a crime, right? But she hates it. She’s always saying it’s too much. So I thought, this is my chance. I picked this game so that she’d finally go through with it.’

Marnie stared at the picture for a long moment. According to her, she actually felt a little sick. It was the most beautiful hair she had ever seen on a person.

And then she said, ‘God, I would love to.’

‘I want it as short as it goes,’ Chloe said. ‘A sixteenth of an inch. All over. Nothing left.’

‘A sixteenth? That’s practically bare.’

‘She’ll want that. She’ll say she doesn’t, because she’ll be nervous, but she’ll want it. And I don’t want her to chicken out when she sees the clippers. So I’m going to tell her it’s a head massage first. A scalp massage. Can you play along?’

Marnie bit her lip. She thought about it for about as long as I had thought about the dare. Then she grinned.

‘Oh, I can absolutely play along.’

Marnie told me later that what she remembered most about that moment was a small, strange, bright feeling in her chest, a feeling like finding the last piece of a puzzle. She had been cutting hair for six years. She had a bit of a reputation, in the salon, for being a little too enthusiastic when somebody came in wanting to go short. And she had never, ever been given a head of hair like mine.

The Massage

‘Okay, Jen!’ Chloe called, waving. ‘You’re up!’

She had her new bob, and it was beautiful. I stared at her as I crossed the salon floor. It hung in a sharp, glossy line at her jaw, swinging and shining under the lights, and it was so much better than her old hair that for a moment I couldn’t speak. Her pale face looked suddenly narrow and elegant and strong. I would like to say that I felt a flicker of unease. I didn’t. I just felt thrilled for her.

‘Chloe! Oh my God. You look incredible.’

‘I know,’ she said, and shook it from side to side with a smile that I had never quite seen before. ‘You did good. Now come on. It’s your turn.’

She steered me to the chair, her hand in the small of my back, and turned me round so I faced the wall instead of the mirror. Marnie fastened a cape around my neck, then smoothed it over my shoulders, and I felt her fingers brush the length of my hair as it fell down my back.

‘So,’ Chloe said. She had dragged the other chair across the floor, and now she sat in it right in front of me, knees almost touching mine, so that her new bob and her shining eyes were all I could see. ‘I picked your cut. But I also had a little extra idea.’

‘Oh no.’

‘Oh yes. I asked Marnie to give you a head massage first. A really good one. A proper deep scalp massage, to relax you before the haircut, because I know you’re going to be nervous. It’s on me.’

I melted. That’s the only word for it. I felt a rush of love for her, and a sharp little twinge of guilt for having thought, even for a moment, that she might be up to something. ‘Chloe. That’s so sweet. Thank you.’

‘Anything for you,’ she said, and she squeezed my knee.

‘Okay,’ said Marnie behind me, in a warm, easy voice. ‘Let’s get you comfy. Head back, please. All the way back. Look up at the lights and try to relax.’

I tipped my head back until I was staring at a ceiling of white spotlights, with a few green leaves hanging down from a plant above the mirror. My hair hung straight down behind the chair, almost brushing the floor. Chloe’s face floated in the corner of my vision, smiling. She was gripping the arms of her chair very tightly, I noticed, but I thought she was just excited.

I heard a click. Then a soft, high-pitched whirr.

The Clippers

A cold, humming vibration touched my forehead, right at the hairline.

I jumped slightly. ‘Oh! That’s, whoa, that’s strong.’

‘It’s a really good one,’ Marnie said soothingly. ‘Premium. It works deep into the muscle. Stay nice and still for me.’

‘It’s tingly,’ I said, with a little giggle. ‘It’s like a, I don’t know. Like a buzzing toothbrush.’

‘That’s the vibration. It helps release the tension.’

I had never had a scalp massage before, and I decided that it was weird but nice. I felt the vibrating head slide slowly back from my forehead, along the centre of my scalp, in a long, firm line. It went all the way to the crown. There was a funny sort of tug along the way, and a light, whispery sensation on the back of my neck, like a few tickly threads sliding down into my collar.

‘Mmm,’ I said, closing my eyes. ‘That’s actually really good.’

‘I’m so glad,’ said Marnie. And she did sound glad. She sounded, in fact, almost breathless with happiness. ‘Honestly, I’ve got to say, your hair is gorgeous. It’s so long. And so thick. I can’t get over how good it looks.’

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘It must be such a nightmare to wash.’

‘Mm. A bit.’

‘I mean, it’s so shiny. It’s like silk. I’m honestly a bit sad,’ she said, and her voice shook very slightly, ‘that I’m only getting to spend an hour with it.’

I frowned slightly with my eyes still shut. That was a strange thing to say, wasn’t it? Was she going to be the one cutting it? Maybe she meant that she wouldn’t get to see it again after today. Maybe, I decided, she was just one of those people who talked a lot while they worked.

The vibrating thing moved over my forehead again, a little to the left, in another long, firm stripe, and I felt more of those soft tickly threads slither down my neck and under the cape. I wriggled my shoulders.

‘Does it, sorry, does it have bristles or something?’

‘Little ones,’ said Marnie. ‘For circulation.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘Hold still, sweetheart. Nearly there.’

Chloe was still holding my gaze. She was sitting very upright and very straight, with her lips slightly parted and her pupils very wide, and she was watching my forehead with a strange, intent, hungry look. It was the sort of look people have when they’re watching someone open a present they’ve bought.

‘You okay?’ I asked her.

‘Never better,’ she said. ‘Just relax, Jen. Close your eyes.’

So I did.

I felt it work its way across my head, row by row, stripe by stripe. The buzzing blade swept down one side of my scalp, behind my ear, over the top of it, then passed on to the other side. I felt the strange, delicious chill of cool air on skin that was suddenly bare and very sensitive. I felt a warm hand cup my chin and tilt my head forward, and the vibration moved up the nape of my neck in a series of long, slow, careful strokes, one after another, and a weight that had hung there all my life drained away like water out of a bath.

‘Your poor neck must be so tired,’ said Marnie. ‘All that weight.’

‘Mm,’ I murmured.

I should have noticed that my head felt lighter. I should have noticed that the air was cold on my scalp. I should have noticed that Chloe had started breathing very fast. I didn’t. I was lying back with my eyes shut, floating in a warm, buzzy, sleepy haze, thinking that it was kind of the best thing that had ever happened to me.

Reveal

The whirring stopped.

I let out a long breath. ‘Oh my God. That was amazing. That was the best massage I’ve ever had. Can I buy one of those?’

No one answered. After a moment, I heard Marnie put something down on the counter with a small, gentle click.

‘Okay,’ she said, and her voice was bright and very slightly unsteady. ‘Ready to see?’

‘Wait, what about the haircut?’

‘Close your eyes,’ said Chloe softly. ‘Keep them closed.’

I heard Marnie’s hand on the back of the chair, and then the chair swung slowly round. I felt the air change on my face. I felt the light shift beyond my eyelids.

‘Okay, Jen,’ Chloe said. ‘Open them.’

I opened them.

The girl in the mirror had a head like a polished egg.

It took me several seconds to understand what I was looking at. The mirror was huge and bright, and she sat in the middle of it, in a black cape, with huge blue eyes and a freckled nose and a pale, naked, shining dome where my hair should have been. A faint grey shadow dusted her skull, like pencil on paper. Her ears stuck out. Her neck looked long and thin and exposed. She looked terrified.

I lifted my hand, very slowly. She lifted hers. I touched my head, and it felt like velvet, and like sandpaper, and like nothing at all.

Something strange came out of my mouth, a small broken noise somewhere between a gasp and a laugh.

‘Oh my gosh,’ said Marnie, clapping her hands together under her chin. ‘Look at you. You look amazing.’

‘I look,’ I said. My voice came out in a croak. ‘I look, where’s my hair? Where’s my hair?’

‘You look stunning,’ said Chloe. She was on her feet, her hand pressed to her chest, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, Jen. You look so brave. You look incredible.’

‘What did you do to me?’

‘It’s the haircut I picked. The deal, remember? No peeking. You agreed. You said it was a bonding thing.’

‘I thought you’d do, like, a trim! I thought you’d do a bob! I thought, I said no mohawks!’

‘It’s not a mohawk,’ Chloe said, with a perfectly straight face, and Marnie put her hand over her mouth.

‘It’s the most gorgeous head shape,’ Marnie said, stepping close and running her palm over my scalp with a kind of reverent, shivering delight. ‘Honestly, it’s perfect. Some people have a lumpy skull, but yours is just flawless. It’s so smooth. And that tan, with the freckles, with those eyes. You could be a model.’

‘Sixteenth of an inch,’ said Chloe, tracing a finger across my crown. ‘Super short. Super clean. Look how it shows off your face.’

‘It’s so, I mean, I just,’ I said. Tears slid down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop looking at the girl in the mirror, bald and wide-eyed and unrecognisable. I had been wearing my hair long since I was five years old. I had never imagined that I would ever see this person. ‘Chloe. I can’t. I can’t believe you.’

‘Hey. Don’t cry.’ She wrapped her arms around me from behind, resting her chin on the top of my bare head, so that both of our faces looked out at us from the glass. Her new bob swung against my ear. ‘It’s just hair. It’s fun. We said fun. It looks incredible, I promise.’

The two of them stood there, one on each side of me, Chloe’s arms tight around my shoulders, Marnie’s hand resting lightly on my head. They were both smiling. They were smiling at the same time in exactly the same way, brilliant, shining, delighted smiles, and I didn’t notice that there was something strange about that.

‘You look amazing,’ said Marnie.

‘You look amazing,’ said Chloe.

I wanted to believe them.

Saturdays

I sat in the chair for a long time. Marnie brushed the cape down and shook out the black hair into a thick pile on the floor, and I looked at it for a moment, long and shining, and then I couldn’t look at it any more. Chloe disappeared to the front desk, and I heard her talking to the receptionist in an easy, bubbly voice, and then she came back with her phone in her hand and a strange, glowing smile on her face.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘All sorted. I’ve booked us in.’

‘What?’ I said. ‘For what?’

‘For next Saturday. And the Saturday after that. And the one after that.’ She was counting on her fingers. ‘Weekly. Eleven o’clock. For both of us. I’m going to keep my bob sharp, and you’re going to get a, what did you call it, Marnie?’

‘A tidy-up,’ said Marnie, beaming. ‘A fresh sixteenth. It’ll keep the shadow off and the skin really smooth. Honestly, it’s the best thing for a head like yours.’

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘No. Hang on. I’m not, I’m going to grow it back.’

‘Of course you can grow it back, babe,’ Chloe said. ‘Eventually. But you can’t let it grow out all patchy and scruffy. That would look awful. You need to keep it neat in the meantime. Right, Marnie?’

‘It’s so much better when it’s regular,’ said Marnie.

‘Chloe,’ I said. ‘I don’t think.’

‘It’s fine,’ she said, and she squeezed my shoulder, quite hard. She was still smiling. ‘We’ll talk about it later. Come on. We’re going to the beach. It’s a gorgeous day.’

She paid at the desk. She did not let me pay for anything. As we left, Marnie gave me a bright wave from the doorway, and she called, ‘See you next Saturday, Jennie! I can’t wait!’, and she said it in a voice I would think about a great deal in the weeks to come.

The Beach

I wore my sunglasses and a baseball cap at first. I wore them all the way down the hill, with Chloe’s arm looped through mine and her bob swinging in the sunshine, past the shops and the ice cream stand and the smiling families, and I didn’t dare look at anyone. I could feel every breath of air on my head. I could feel the heat and the sea breeze and the sun, all against skin that had never touched any of them before.

We found a spot on the sand, near the water, and Chloe spread out her towel and pulled my cap off my head without asking. I gasped.

‘Don’t. People will see.’

‘People are going to see anyway,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to get some suncream on that. You’ll burn.’ She pulled a bottle out of her bag, and she squirted a pool of white cream in her palm. Then she started to rub it into my scalp.

I had been about to protest. But the words fell away. Her hands were warm and slow, working the lotion over my head in long, careful circles, and for the first time that day I felt something that I hadn’t expected at all.

It felt good.

It felt, in fact, amazing. It was like nothing I had ever known, the soft nap of the stubble under her palms, the way every touch sent a little shiver down my spine, the breeze sliding right over my skin like a cool hand. When I walked down to the water, the sea spray hit my scalp and it felt like silk. When I waded in and ducked my head under, I came up gasping and laughing, and there was no hair plastered across my face, no weight dragging me down, no heavy rope wrapping round my neck. I just came up clean and bright and light, with water streaming off my head, and the whole sky seemed to be shining.

I had not realised how much my hair had weighed. I felt like I had been wearing a heavy coat all my life, and someone had finally taken it off.

‘See?’ Chloe said, when I came splashing back up the sand, dripping. She had been watching me from the towel, with her chin in her hand. ‘I told you.’

‘You didn’t tell me anything,’ I said. But I was laughing. I was, I realised, kind of happy.

I rubbed my hand over my head and felt that tiny, fine, silky fuzz. It was so soft. And I thought, quite calmly: I’m going to grow it back. I’m going to let it grow right back down to my waist, and nobody will ever do this to me again. I’ll just have to say no to Saturday. I’ll tell Chloe I’m busy. I’ll tell her I’m ill. I’ll cancel.

I turned the idea over in my head, and I couldn’t work out how I would ever do it.

Because Chloe had already put the appointments in both our calendars. Because she had paid, in advance, for the first month. Because she had taken my phone to enter Marnie’s number, and she had made me promise, with a hand on my arm and her face very close to mine, that I wouldn’t miss a single one. And because, when I tried to find the right words, there was nothing in my head but that bright, heavy, sparkling smile.

A Different Chloe

The rest of the afternoon passed in a warm, sunny blur. I sat on the sand with my knees pulled up, feeling the sea air on my head, and Chloe sat next to me, so close that our shoulders touched. She didn’t stop touching me all afternoon. She pushed my sunglasses up my nose. She brushed sand off my shoulders. She stroked the back of my head, over and over, with a soft, absent-minded sigh, as though she were petting a cat. At one point she lay down on my towel, put her head in my lap, and looked up at me with half-closed eyes.

‘You know what?’ she said. ‘I think this is the best thing we’ve ever done.’

I looked down at her. Her new bob had fallen back from her face, shining like glass. Her cheeks were flushed. She was prettier than I had ever seen her, and she knew it. I could see that in the way she held her head. I could see it in the way two boys walking past on the sand looked at her first, and at me second, and then looked away.

‘I’m glad you like it,’ I said.

‘I love it.’ She turned her face and pressed her cheek against my bare knee. ‘Same time next week.’

It wasn’t a question. It was never going to be a question.

We walked home along the seafront at sunset, her arm round my waist, my head cool in the evening air. When we reached our front door, she took my keys out of my hand before I could find them and unlocked it herself. She told me which towel to use. She told me what to wear to bed. She told me she’d make the tea, and I should just sit down and relax, she’d look after everything.

I sat on the sofa and ran my hand over my head, and I felt the stubble prickle against my palm. I thought about long black hair, and weekly appointments, and a woman with a blunt brown bob who had said, I can’t wait. I thought about how to say no.

Chloe came in with two mugs, sat down beside me, and gently, firmly, took my hand and put it back in my lap.

‘Don’t fidget,’ she said, and kissed my bare head. ‘You’ll just make it worse.’

Part Two

Two Months Later

I never cancelled a Saturday.

I would like to say it was because Chloe wouldn’t let me, and in the beginning that was partly true. For the first couple of weeks she drove me to Velvet & Shears herself, parked right outside, and walked me through the door with her hand on the small of my back. But somewhere around the third Saturday I stopped needing to be walked. I got up on my own at ten, drank my tea, and found my keys, and by the time I stepped through the door of the salon Marnie already had the cape in her hands and a grin on her face.

‘Morning, gorgeous! Same as always?’

‘Same as always,’ Chloe would answer for me, from the chair beside mine, where Marnie had just finished sharpening the edge of her bob. And Marnie would set the clippers to a sixteenth of an inch, and I would close my eyes, and ten minutes later I’d step out into the sunshine with the sea breeze on my bare head and think, I’ll start growing it out in September.

September came and went. I told myself October.

It was the middle of September when I worked out that something else had changed, and it wasn’t my hair. It had started in the car, after the fourth appointment, when Chloe had put her hand on the back of my head to say something, and then hadn’t said it, and just kept her hand there. We sat like that, with the engine ticking, for a long time. Then she leaned over and kissed me, softly and carefully, as though I might break, and I was so surprised that I forgot to kiss her back until she had pulled away and gone pink to the tips of her ears.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I just. I’ve wanted to do that for ages.’

I didn’t say anything. I put my hand on her cheek and kissed her again.

That was seven weeks ago. We were not a joke any more, or a game, or a thing best friends do. We held hands on the seafront. We kissed in the doorway of Bluebell’s, and the waiter pretended not to notice. Chloe had moved out of our flat at the start of the month and into a tiny studio across town, because she said that if we were going to do this properly then we should do it properly, with dates and nerves and taking each other home. I missed her in the mornings. I wasn’t allowed to say so.

And she adored my head.

There was no other word for it. She touched it constantly, a palm cupped round the back of my skull when we were watching television, a thumb stroked over my temple when she thought I was asleep. She would stop in the middle of a sentence and just look at me, with her lips slightly parted. She kissed the top of it when she said hello. She kissed it when she said goodbye. One evening, in the kitchen, she had run a fingertip very slowly from my forehead to my nape and then whispered, so quietly that I almost missed it, ‘God, I love this.’

I had tried to feel angry about the way it had begun. I really had. But every time I opened my mouth to say what I felt, there was so much other stuff in the way. The sea air on my scalp every morning. The ten minutes I didn’t spend drying and brushing and plaiting. The way people looked at me in the street now, curiously, a bit stunned, as though I were a statue that had been delivered in the night. The way the sun had gone to work on my head all summer, and turned my scalp the same warm golden brown as my arms, and scattered a fine sprinkle of freckles across the crown that I had never known were there.

I still had plans. I did. I still planned to grow my hair back down to my waist, one day, once I’d worked out how to say no to a girl who had my diary on her phone and my heart in her hand.

But I couldn’t lie to myself any more. The shaved look was growing on me.

Date Night

Chloe turned up at seven on Friday evening, with a bottle of white wine in one hand and a long black case under her arm.

‘What’s that?’ I asked, kissing her at the door.

‘Surprise.’ She was wearing a pale blue summer dress, and her bob swung sharp and glossy against her jaw, and she smelled like peaches and sea salt. ‘Wine first. Then surprise.’

I had cleared the flat for her. I had put candles on the coffee table, and the lights down low, and a playlist that I had spent too long choosing. She sat on the sofa and tucked her feet up beneath her and told me about her day, and I sat beside her and laughed in the right places and watched her mouth while she talked. We drank the first glass quickly. We drank the second more slowly, and she held my free hand in her lap and drew little circles on my wrist with her thumb.

‘Okay,’ she said at last, setting down her glass. ‘Surprise time.’

She pulled the black case onto her knees and unlatched it. Inside, nestled in grey foam, lay a slim silver tool with a wide, flat head, and a coiled cable, and two little plastic combs in a neat row. The front of the head was a thin, bright, golden mesh, so fine that it looked more like jewellery than machinery.

‘Clippers,’ I said.

‘My clippers,’ Chloe said. ‘I bought them. Marnie told me which ones. They’re professional.’ She turned the case towards the light, so that the gold mesh gleamed. ‘I thought, you know, if we’re doing this, I should learn how to do it properly. I can’t keep paying for it. And I want to do it myself.’

‘Do it yourself? Chloe, I’m not, you can’t.’

‘Why not?’ She tilted her head, and gave me a smile that was as sweet as honey. ‘You trust me, don’t you?’

I looked at her, at the glossy bob and the pink cheeks and the clear grey eyes, and I felt that old, bright, sinking feeling rise in my chest. It didn’t feel like fear. It hadn’t for weeks.

I should tell you, because I didn’t know it that night, that those clippers weren’t the kind Marnie used at the salon. They were a different sort altogether. They had a name, which I learned much later, and the name was foil shaver, and what it did, when you ran it over a head that had already been cropped to a fine sixteenth, was take away the last of everything. Not the stubble. Not the shadow. Everything. It was the one thing Marnie had never done to me, because she had wanted to save it, as a kind of treat, for a better moment.

Chloe had asked her what the best one was. And Marnie had told her.

‘I trust you,’ I said.

The Floor

‘Good,’ Chloe said. ‘Then sit on the floor.’

She spread a big white towel across the rug in front of the sofa, and I sat down in the middle of it cross-legged, with my back against her knees. She poured me a third glass of wine and put it in my hand. She sat on the sofa behind me and lowered her thighs on either side of my shoulders, and I felt her arm sliding down across my collarbone, and her mouth brushing the top of my head.

‘Close your eyes,’ she murmured. ‘I want it to be a surprise.’

‘It’s going to be exactly what it always is,’ I said. ‘A cut.’

‘Humour me.’

I closed my eyes. I heard the cable uncoil. I heard a soft click, and a thin, buzzing hum, higher and quieter than Marnie’s, like a bee in a jar.

Then there was a cool, smooth, humming weight at the back of my neck, and it slid upward.

The Clippers

I cannot describe how different it was.

With Marnie’s clippers there had always been a faint, bristly grit, a scratchy sound as the blades combed over the tiny stubble they had left behind. These made no such sound. They went over my scalp like a hand over silk. There was a faint, whispering glide, and a tiny, delicate tickle, and then a clean, cool freedom behind them, as though a breath had passed over my head and taken every last trace of fuzz.

Chloe worked slowly. She did the nape first, in long, firm strokes from the base of my neck to the crown, and I felt the little brush of her knuckles on my skin each time she lifted the clippers away. She did the left side, folding my ear down gently with her thumb and running the head around it in small, careful arcs. She did the right. And every time she finished a stripe, she bent and pressed a kiss to the bare patch she had just made, a soft, lingering kiss that sent a shiver all the way down my spine.

‘You’re so quiet,’ she whispered.

‘I’m trying to stay still.’

‘You’re doing so well.’ Another kiss. ‘You’re so good for me.’

I should have said something about that. I thought about it, in a hazy, drifting sort of way, with my eyes closed and my wine glass tilting dangerously in my fingers. I thought about the way she’d said it, so softly, and the way my stomach had gone warm and strange. I decided to think about it later.

She did the crown, going back and forth in long straight lines. She did the back, tilting my head forward until my chin rested on my chest. She did the temples, right down to the hairline, where the skin was thin and the blades tickled. She ran her palm over my entire head, slowly, to feel for anything she had missed, and she made a small, low sound in her throat.

‘There’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Jen. There is nothing there.’

I heard the quiet in her voice. It wasn’t the quiet of someone disappointed. It was the quiet of someone who has just had something beautiful put into her hands.

Eyebrows

I would like to say that I knew what was coming. I didn’t. I was floating in a haze of wine and warmth and Chloe’s thighs on either side of my shoulders, thinking that the haircut was over and that she was about to switch off the clippers and wrap her arms around me.

The clippers did not switch off.

Chloe’s hand slid under my chin, tilting my face up, and I felt her bend over me from behind. Her hair fell forward and brushed my cheek. There was a long pause, a very small, very pleased sort of silence, and I felt her smile against my forehead.

She was looking at my face, upside down, with her eyes about six inches from mine. And I knew, afterwards, exactly what she had been looking at. She had been looking at my eyebrows. They were thick, dark, black arches, just like my hair had been, the last bit of the old Jennie still standing on my face. And she had had an idea.

The whining buzz came down towards my forehead. The cool little head of the clippers touched down on my left brow, at the inner corner, and swept out, in one swift, smooth stroke, to the tail.

My eyes flew open.

‘Chloe!’

‘Shh,’ she said, and she did the right one.

It took no more than three seconds. It was a single clean pass over each brow, and when the clippers lifted away there was a cool, slippery draught on my forehead, and a faint tickle as a few last black hairs slid down my nose. I lay there, with my neck tipped back and my mouth open, staring up at her upside-down face.

‘You,’ I said. ‘You just. Chloe. My eyebrows.’

‘I know,’ she said, and her voice shook very slightly. ‘Sorry. They looked lonely.’

I lifted a trembling hand and touched my forehead. Where there had been a thick, familiar ridge of hair there was nothing. Just smooth, cool skin, and the little bump of bone beneath. I could feel my pulse jumping in my throat. I waited for the anger to arrive. I waited for it to rise up and spill out. I waited for the huge, hot feeling of betrayal that I had been waiting for since July.

It did not come.

What came instead was something odd and warm and breathless, like standing at the top of a slide. I was surprised. I was very, very surprised. But I wasn’t angry. Not really. I looked at Chloe’s face, upside down, flushed and nervous and shining, and her teeth were digging into her bottom lip.

‘You could’ve asked,’ I said.

‘Would you have said yes?’

I thought about it. ‘Probably not.’

‘Exactly,’ she said. And she kissed me.

A Long Time

It was a long, upside-down, sideways, clumsy kiss, and it turned into a different kind of kiss when I twisted round on the towel and she slid off the sofa onto the rug. The clippers clattered onto the floor, still humming, and neither of us picked them up. I put my hands on her face. She put hers on my head, both palms flat, sliding over the smooth skin as if she couldn’t believe what she was touching. We kissed for a very long time. We kissed until the candles burned low and the playlist ran out and the wine glass tipped over on the rug, and neither of us moved. At one point she was laughing into my mouth. At another she was whispering my name against my neck, over and over, like a word she’d only just discovered.

When we finally pulled apart, we were both breathless, and she was sitting in my lap with her hands cupping my head and her forehead resting against mine, and her eyes were enormous. There was a crease between her brows, and a small, wondering smile on her mouth.

‘Come with me,’ she said.

The Bathroom

She took my hand and pulled me to my feet, and led me down the short hallway, past the bedroom and the coat hooks, to the bathroom door. She pushed it open with her shoulder. She didn’t turn on the main light. She reached across and flicked on the little bulb above the mirror, so that everything was gold and soft and warm.

She stood me in front of the glass, and stepped back, and put her hands on my shoulders.

‘Look,’ she said.

I looked.

I do not know how to describe the person who looked back at me. I know only that for several seconds I didn’t recognise her, and that when I did, it was in a rush, like a wave breaking over my head.

My head was perfectly smooth. Not bare, the way it had been at the salon, with that faint, grey, pencilled shadow lingering under the skin. This was a different kind of smooth. It gleamed. It had the soft, polished, flawless sheen of a pebble pulled from a stream, or a piece of carved wood rubbed with oil, and in the warm light of the bulb it seemed almost to glow. There was not a single bristle on it. There was not a single dot where a follicle might have been. It looked as though there had never been hair there at all, as though I had been born like this, a smooth, rounded, honey-gold dome, set on a long neck above a straight pair of shoulders.

The summer had been kind to it. The sun had turned my scalp a deep, even, golden brown, a few shades darker than my cheeks, and the colour deepened in a soft, natural gradient from my temples to the crown, like the skin of a ripe peach. Scattered across it, thickest at the very top and thinning out towards my ears, was a delicate dusting of freckles, tiny and tan and irregular, like a sprinkling of cinnamon on a cream-coloured cake. I turned my head, and they caught the light, and shimmered.

Without the frame of my hair, my face had changed. It looked broader and more open, the cheekbones suddenly high and sharp, the jaw clean, the mouth full and pink. My ears were small and neat and close to my head. My neck looked long, and graceful, and bare.

And my eyes.

I hadn’t realised, until I saw them in that mirror, how much my eyebrows had been doing for me. Without them, my eyes looked huge. They looked wide and startled and unearthly, an intense, glittering blue, set in that warm brown skin like gemstones in a gold setting. The brow ridge above each one was smooth and pale and curved, perfectly clean, with a faint glossy sheen. My lashes were still black and thick and long, and they stood out against my skin like ink. The whole effect was so strange and so strikingly beautiful, so much like a sculpture of a goddess from some forgotten culture, that I couldn’t stop looking.

I lifted a hand to my cheek and the girl in the mirror lifted hers. I tilted my head and the light slid over my skull in a long, curved, liquid line. I opened my mouth slightly. She did the same.

‘Oh,’ I breathed.

‘I know,’ said Chloe.

‘Is that. Is that really me?’

‘That’s you.’ She was standing right behind me, her arms sliding around my waist, her chin on my shoulder. Her bob swung against my bare skin. Her face in the glass was close to mine, and she was gazing at the reflection with a look of such pure, soft, helpless adoration that for a moment I forgot to breathe. ‘That’s you, Jen. That’s exactly who you were always meant to be.’

She pressed a kiss into the side of my neck, and then another, higher, just under my ear. I closed my eyes. I felt her smile against my skin.

‘From now on,’ she said softly, ‘I’m going to be your barber.’

‘Chloe.’

‘No more Marnie. No more Saturdays at the salon. I’ll do it myself, every week, right here, just the two of us.’ She kissed the corner of my jaw. ‘I’ll keep it this smooth. I’ll take care of everything. You never have to think about it again.’

‘I was going to grow it out,’ I said. It came out as a whisper, hardly a sentence at all. ‘In the autumn.’

She laughed, very softly, right next to my ear. It was a tender, loving, utterly certain sound. She turned me gently by the shoulders, so that I was facing her, and she lifted both of her hands to my smooth, warm, golden head, and she held it as though it were the most precious thing she had ever been given.

‘Oh, Jen,’ she said, and she kissed me, long and slow. ‘You’re never going to have hair again.’

I should have said something. I know that now. I should have said, no, or wait, or I haven’t decided. I should have opened my mouth and told her that she did not get to decide, that I would grow it back whenever I liked, that it was my head and my choice and my life.

Instead I stood there, in the soft gold light, with her hands on my head and her mouth on mine, and over her shoulder I watched the girl in the mirror close her enormous blue eyes and smile.