An Inherited Desire

This story brings together both the Vesper and Allison stories that I have enjoyed writing over the past year

---

Ever since that warm night in Florence, when Kevin stood behind me on our apartment balcony and buzzed my hair short while our newborn daughter slept in the next room, my head had never really been left alone.

That sounds careless. It was not careless. I paid attention to it. I always had.

Throughout the years, I grew my hair. Cut it. Bleached it too bright. Dyed it back. Permed it. Cropped it. Let it grow softer. Cut it sharp again. Then, in the end, as the years passed, I let it go silver and kept it tidy, apart from the colour appointments I pretended were only maintenance.

For years I told myself there was always a reason. The weather. Work. Motherhood. Convenience. Age. A bad haircut. A better one. But the truth was easier than that. I liked changing it. I liked deciding. I liked getting rid of one version and seeing what was left.

 

That had never stopped.

——

We stayed in Florence for two more years after Vesper was born.

I still think about those years more often than I admit. The shutters. The dry heat. The mornings when Kevin left early for training and I would venture out pushing the baby pram to the shops. I became fluent enough in Italian that I stopped translating things in my head, and when it was time for us to return to England, I was more torn than I expected.

Kevin retired from playing not long after. We moved back north, not properly into Manchester, but close enough to feel it there in the weather, the voices, the football, the habits neither of us had really lost. We found a village in Cheshire with a shop, a church, a pub that changed hands too often, and fields behind the house that looked different every day without doing very much at all.

The house was larger than we needed at first. Four bedrooms, a long driveway, a garden Kevin pretended not to care about and then slowly took over. I was no longer working for agencies by then. I wrote more novels, not quickly, but steadily enough to stop calling it a phase. Kevin found work after football at an insurance brokers, which sounded so unlikely to me at the beginning that I kept waiting for someone to explain the joke. But he was good at it. He liked routine more than he had ever admitted when he was young.

Vesper grew up and did exactly what children do after making your entire life revolve around them. She left.

First London for university. Then a job at a consultancy firm that seemed to involve too many hours, too many trains, too many hotel rooms, and too many calm emails sent in the middle of the night. Later she left that too, or half-left it, and found her way towards weddings, planning, organising, holding other people’s chaos in both hands and making it look deliberate.

She settled in London with Claire.

We did not see her as much as we wanted because that is what distance does. It turns seeing your child into something that has to be arranged. But we spoke all the time. Phone calls. Video calls. Messages about trains, weather, food, hair, birthdays, nothing. The ordinary little proofs of still being involved.

——

During our most recent video call, we were talking about them coming up to stay for my seventieth birthday the following weekend.

When Vesper’s face appeared on the screen, I noticed her hair before I noticed anything else.

“You’ve changed your hair,” I said.

She smiled, touching the side of it as if she had been waiting for me to say it. “Oh, yes. The colour. I fancied going lighter for summer.”

Her brunette bob had become honey blonde. Not bright. Not yellow. A soft expensive blonde that warmed her face and made her eyes look clearer. The cut was still a bob, but smoother now, with the ends turned under at her jaw.

“It really suits you,” I said.

“Thanks, Mum.” She looked at me through the screen. “Have you thought any more about your own bob?”

I touched my hair without meaning to.

At that point mine was silver, softly curled, full at the sides and neat at the nape. It had been a bob for some time, though not always the same bob. I had edged towards it gradually through my sixties, taking the length up in careful stages, telling myself each cut was sensible. I had embraced my age, as people liked to put it, though I had still paid a woman every six weeks to make sure my version of embracing age looked polished.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I might just get a trim.”

Vesper gave me the look she had inherited from me. The one that meant she had heard the words and didn’t necessarily believe them.

We left it at that and moved on to birthday plans. What time they would arrive. Whether Claire had a meeting on the Friday. Whether I wanted to go out for lunch or stay at home. It was all ordinary, but after the call ended, I stood in the hall and looked at myself in the mirror for longer than I had intended.

The bob was lovely. That was the problem.

It was full, soft, silver-blonde, the curls arranged into a shape that looked mature without looking neglected. People complimented it. Kevin liked it. Vesper liked it. I liked it too, which made the dissatisfaction harder to explain.

I put my hand to the side, lifted the curls away from my ear, and imagined the hair gone from there. Then from the nape. Then higher.

I thought about it for the rest of the evening.

——

The next day, I left for my appointment at the village salon with no decision made, which meant, of course, that the decision had already been made.

The salon was small and bright, with pale walls, product shelves, two chairs and my young stylist called Stacey, who had cut my hair often enough.

“Just the usual?” she asked, lifting the cape from the hook.

I sat down and looked at myself.

The curls sat around my face, neat and obedient. Soft silver at the front, a little warmer underneath, brushed into the kind of shape women are praised for keeping. I had taken care of it. I had paid attention. I had not been careless.

“No,” I said. “Not the usual.”

Stacey’s eyes came up in the mirror.

I lifted one side of the bob away from my ear. “I want it short.”

“How short?”

“Short short.”

She looked pleased, but careful. Hairdressers learn not to show too much excitement until a woman is past the point of denial.

“Above the ears?”

“Yes.”

“Soft on top?”

“A bit. But not too safe.”

She smiled then. “All right.”

The cape went around my shoulders. She combed through the curls, lifting them out, feeling the shape of the bob before undoing it. I watched her in the mirror for a moment, then stopped watching. There is a point before a cut when looking too hard feels like trying to talk yourself out of it.

She started at the nape.

I felt the first section lifted, the cool air where her fingers parted the curls, then the close metallic sound of scissors cutting through silver hair. It was thicker than I expected when it fell. A soft clump landed on the rose-coloured cape, still curled, still holding the curve it had taken months to grow into.

I looked down at it.

The next cut was easier.

She worked around the back first, taking away the weight at my neck. Hair fell in pieces, some large, some small, silver curls sliding down the cape and onto the floor. The shape I had walked in with began to collapse quietly. There was a strange pleasure in that. Not in losing something ugly, but in watching something perfectly good become unnecessary.

By the time she reached the sides, my ears had begun to appear.

I had not seen them properly framed by short hair for years. They looked smaller than I remembered. My gold hoops suddenly had nothing to hide behind.

Stacey smiled when she saw me looking. “That opens your face right up.”

“That is a polite way of saying there’s no going back.”

“There isn’t,” she said.

I laughed, and she cut higher.

The bob became a crop in stages. First a short rounded shape, then something closer, cleaner, with the nape clipped in and the sides tapered. When she brought the clippers to the back of my neck, the sound made something in me sit up and pay attention.

That sound had history.

The clippers touched my nape, and I closed my eyes for a second.

Stacey cleaned the back carefully, then worked around the ears, leaving the top soft and airy, with a slight side-swept fringe that stopped it looking severe. She dried it with her fingers, lifting the silver lightly, then used the scissors again, snipping away anything too heavy.

When she finished, I looked at myself and did not immediately smile.

That was how I knew it had worked.

I had to catch up with it.

My face looked sharper. My brows stronger. My neck longer. The short silver crop sat close at the sides and nape, soft on top, modern without trying too hard. It changed the way my earrings looked. It changed the way my head sat on my shoulders.

I felt 20 years younger again.

“Well?” Stacey asked.

I touched the back first.

Clean. Close. Almost bare at the lowest part of the nape.

“Oh,” I said.

She looked pleased. “Good oh or bad oh?”

“Good,” I said, though I was not sure good was enough. “Very good.”

When I stepped out of the salon, the afternoon air went straight to the back of my neck. I stood on the pavement for a second with my hand there, smiling, then not smiling, then smiling again. It was ridiculous how much lighter I felt. I had only lost hair. Quite a lot of hair, yes, but still. Hair.

——

By the time I walked home, I had touched the nape at least twenty times.

Kevin noticed before I reached the door.

He was in the front room window, pretending not to look out of it. When I came in, he was in the hall.

He looked at me.

Then he looked again.

Then he smiled.

I noticed that too.

“Well?” I said.

He came closer, eyes on the side of my head. “That’s short.”

“That is what I asked for.”

“I can see that.”

“You like it?”

He touched the back of my neck, not quite asking permission but gently enough that it did not matter. “Yes.”

I stood still.

His fingers moved over the clipped nape once, then stopped.

“It feels nice,” he said.

“It does.”

He looked at me in that way he had when he knew something before I had said it.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“That never means nothing.”

He smiled. “You’ll tell me when you know.”

I knew then that the haircut was not finished.

Not really.

——

As the weekend approached, we got the house ready for Vesper and Claire’s visit, and somehow the crop became less of an ending each day. It had turned into something else. It was waiting.

Kevin had been in a state since breakfast.

He said he was only getting ready, which involved folding guest towels, checking the fridge for milk, standing in the kitchen without doing anything useful, and then walking into another room to do the same there.

I found him in the hall carrying towels under one arm and oat milk in the other.

“You do know she’s our daughter,” I said. “Not a paying guest.”

He looked at the towels. “Yes, but it’s Vesper.”

“I know who’s coming.”

“And Claire.”

“Claire is not coming to grade us.”

“No,” he said. “She’ll just notice.”

I took the towels from him. “She probably will.”

He seemed to accept that as a reasonable concern.

The house had a freshness about it before people arrived. Flowers by the sink. A list on the counter. Sauce on the hob. Wine waiting. Everything in order, but not relaxed. I checked my list even though there was nothing left to do.

Kevin came up behind me while I was standing at the island.

“You’re touching it again,” he said.

I took my hand off my hair. “I’m not.”

“You were.”

“I was thinking.”

“You think with your fingers.”

I turned round. He was wearing the moss-green jumper he always wore when the weather turned damp, and he had that expression he gets when he knows something before I say it.

“It’s new,” I said.

“It’s been nearly a week.”

“That is new.”

“In hair terms?”

“Yes. In hair terms.”

He stepped closer and touched the side above my ear. Just once. His thumb moved over the close silver taper. Then he touched the back, where the clippers had cleaned up the nape.

I stayed still.

“You like it?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You liked the bob too.”

“I did.”

“You liked the curls before that.”

“I did.”

“You liked everything.”

He gave me a small smile. “I have had practice.”

I laughed, but he was still touching the nape of my neck.

After a moment he said, “You’re not done with it.”

I looked back at the list on the counter and did not answer.

He laughed then, quietly, because that was answer enough.

—-

The doorbell went just after two.

Kevin got there first. I was only a step behind him.

Vesper stood on the step with her small case in one hand and rain on her coat. Her hair was different again from the call. Not the colour, but the finish. Honey blonde, cut into a smooth bob that curved under at her jaw. Centre part. Soft movement through the front. Clean line through the ends. Very well done.

She looked at my hair.

I looked at hers.

Neither of us said hello for a second.

Then she smiled. “Oh.”

“I was going to say that.”

She came in and hugged me. Her coat was cold from the rain. Her hair brushed my cheek. She smelled of shampoo and train coffee.

When we pulled apart, she looked at my crop again.

“That’s short.”

“That is what I asked for.”

“Can I?”

I tipped my head a little.

She touched above my ear first, then the taper at the side, then the back, just feeling the closeness.

“It really suits you,” she said.

“I know.”

She laughed. “Good.”

Kevin took her case and asked about Claire’s train.

“She’s still on the later one,” Vesper said. “If the meeting ends when it’s meant to.”

“I’ll get her.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I know.”

Vesper looked at me. “Is he still stressed?”

“He’s been like it all day.”

Kevin said, “I can hear you.”

“Yes,” I said. “That’s part of the pleasure.”

——

The afternoon moved along in the usual way at first. Tea. Wet coats. Journey talk. Work. Claire’s delayed meeting. Rain in London. Rain here. Wedding clients behaving badly. Vesper had stories about two mothers, one florist, three seating plans, and a panic over flowers. Kevin listened to every word with full concentration.

But I kept noticing her hand going to her bob. She touched the ends. Tucked one side back. Let it fall forward again. Smoothed it at the jaw. Then stopped herself. Then did it again.

It was a beautiful cut. That was obvious. It also looked like hair that was being checked too often.

—

Before we ate, we all freshened up for the evening.

At dinner we ate pasta at the kitchen table while the sky darkened outside. We both watched as Kevin got carried away with pouring our wine, though he said he hadn’t. Vesper told us more about work. I asked about Claire. Kevin asked about trains. Everything sounded normal. It was normal, on the surface.

Then, after dinner, Vesper dried her hands by the sink and said, “We can stop doing the good family version now.”

Kevin looked up from the dishwasher. “The what?”

“The nice version. The one where we all talk properly and no one says what they actually came in carrying.”

I said, “She’s right.”

Kevin looked between us. “Have I been performing?”

“Yes,” Vesper said. “Very politely.”

He sighed. “I’m going to the station.”

“You were going anyway,” I said.

“Yes, but now I’m going with dignity.”

He put his coat on, checked his keys, checked the time, checked the milk again for no reason at all, and left.

The house changed when the door shut behind him.

I quickly went upstairs to put on my cardigan. When I came back into the living room, Vesper was stood by the shelf where the old photographs lived. I followed her and sat down while she picked one up.

It was the photo of me holding Vesper as a baby. My hair buzzed short and my face drawn with tiredness. I had always thought I looked half-awake in it.

Vesper looked at it for a while.

“That was my first photo of me holding you,” I said. “We had a photographer from your Dad’s club take it for us.”

She was still looking at my head in the photo.

“Your hair was so short.”

“That was your father’s doing.”

“He was very proud of himself.”

“He still is, when he remembers.”

She smiled, but only a little. “Did you like it?”

“The haircut?”

“Yes.”

I thought about it.

“At first I liked not having to bother with it, especially as I had you to look after,” I said. “Then I liked it for itself.”

She nodded once. That answer seemed to make sense to her.

She put the photo back down, then noticed an old photo album on top of the unit.

“Is that the one from when we lived in Italy?”

“Some of it,” I said. “London too, I think. Bring it to the table. I’ll make us tea.”

When I returned carrying two china mugs, she had already opened it.

“God, Mum,” she said. “You look gorgeous in this one. And so does Claudia.”

I put the mugs down and looked at the photograph.

There I was, younger than I felt I had any right to have been, with a pale blonde spiked pixie that must have taken half a tin of product to persuade upwards. Beside me was Claudia, smooth-headed and shining, one hand at her scarf, smiling like she had dared the camera to make something of it.

“Gosh,” I said. “I loved that style.”

“The blonde?”

“The height. It took forever.”

Vesper smiled.

“Have I ever told you that it was me that shaved Claudia’s head.”

“Yes, Mum. Only about a million times.”

“I know. I still can’t believe I did it.”

“She looked hot like that,” Vesper said.

She meant it lightly, but the smile faded as she looked down at the photograph.

I looked at her bob again. The shape was perfect. The ends sat neatly at her jaw. Claire would have loved it. I could see that straight away.

“You keep touching your hair,” I said.

Her hand stopped halfway up. “Do I?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t realise.”

“That usually means more than realising.”

She let out a breath and looked down at her hands.

Then she said, “I keep thinking about shaving it again.”

There it was. No build-up. No fuss. Just the truth.

I did not speak straight away.

She glanced at me. “That sounded sudden.”

“It isn’t sudden.”

“No.”

“No, it isn’t.”

She looked at the dark window. “Claire loves this hair.”

“The bob?”

“She really does.”

“It’s a very good bob.”

“That’s the problem.”

I said nothing.

She touched the ends again, then made herself stop. “It’s polished. It behaves. It looks adult. It looks settled.”

“And you don’t feel settled in it.”

She gave a short laugh. “Not really.”

“What do you feel?”

She took longer with that.

“When I’m bald, I don’t have to begin the day by tending to hair,” she said. “I don’t have to arrange it or decide anything about how I want to wear it.”

I knew exactly what she meant.

I put my hand up to my own short crop. “When I had this cut done, I liked it.”

“You should. It’s gorgeous.”

“But I’ve spent the whole week thinking I stopped too soon.”

She turned and looked at me properly then.

I had not meant to say it out loud. But once it was there, I knew it was true.

I stared at the photo of myself and Claudia and knew what I wanted.

“Do you want to buzz it again?” she asked.

“Not exactly,” I said.

Her expression changed.

“All of it?”

“Yes.”

Her eyes filled at once. “Mum.”

“I know.”

“You’re serious.”

“I am. I’m turning seventy tomorrow, and I want one more change before anyone tells me I’m too old to want one.”

She rubbed her palms on her trousers and shook her head once. “I can do it. I want to. But this is different.”

“Because I’m your mother.”

“Yes.”

“That’s fair.”

She looked at me for a long moment. “Are you frightened?”

“A little.”

That helped her. I saw it land.

“Good,” she said, then grimaced. “Not good. You know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“Do you want to do it now? Like, right now?”

“Quickly,” I said. “While your dad is out.”

We went into the kitchen.

She dragged a dining chair over the tiles and both of us flinched at the noise. Then we laughed too loudly because we were both worked up.

I went upstairs and changed into an old raspberry-red shirt I did not mind ruining. When I came back down, she had already set things out on the table. Clippers. Scissors. Bowl. Flannel. Foam. Towel. A small mirror.

“No razors,” she said.

“I know where they are.”

Kevin’s disposable razors were in the bathroom cupboard. A cheap multipack. Practical and joyless. I brought them downstairs and put them next to the bowl.

Vesper looked at them. “He will notice.”

 

“Well, I think he’ll notice something more obvious than a missing razor.”

That made us both laugh again, which helped.

<a

I sat down. She tucked the towel around my shoulders and had to do it twice because her hands were shaking a bit.

“You can still say no,” she said.

“So can you.”

“That is not an answer.”

“I know.”

She stood behind me. I heard the clippers move in her hand. Then the switch.

The sound filled the kitchen.

“Top first?” she said.

“Yes.”

Her left hand rested on the crown of my head. Then the clippers touched my front hairline and moved back.

I felt the short silver top lift and go. A strip opened over my head. Cool air touched the skin behind it at once. Hair slid onto the towel and down my neck.

I shut my eyes.

That first pass did it. Everything in me settled. It felt distantly familiar after all these years.

“You’re smiling,” she said.

“I know.”

“I thought you might.”

She kept going. Another pass. Then another. Across the top. Down one side. Around the ear. The crop came away section by section. Little bits landed on my cheek. One stuck to my sleeve. A lot fell onto the towel.

She got calmer the longer she worked. Her hands found the rhythm of it. Pass. Brush the hair away. Check. Go again.

When she stopped, the room felt strange in the silence.

She came round to face me.

I lifted my hand to my head. Fine silver stubble all over. Soft. Even. Alive under my palm.

“Oh,” I said.

She crouched down in front of me. “Too much?”

I shook my head.

“You’re crying.”

“No.”

“You are.”

“My eyes are old.”

That made her smile, though only just.

I wiped under one eye and touched my head again. “I’m happy.”

“I know.”

I looked at myself in the dark window and barely recognised the shape of my own head.

Then I looked at the razors on the table.

“If we’re doing it,” I said, “we’re doing it.”

She nodded once.

She filled the bowl with warm water and spread shaving foam over my stubble with both hands. The foam was cold enough to make me flinch, but after a moment the feeling settled. She covered the whole of my scalp carefully. Then she picked up the razor.

“I’m not rushing,” she said.

“Don’t.”

She started at the front. One slow stroke back through the foam. Then another beside it. Then another. I could hear the blade more than feel it at first. Then I felt the bare skin left behind, very exposed to the air.

She took her time around my ears. Rinsed the razor constantly. Stopped once to wipe foam off my eyebrow.

“You’ve got me.”

“I know.”

“Not there.”

“I can see where I’m going.”

“Can you? Because I can’t.”

She laughed, and that took some of the fear out of it.

By the time she wiped the last of the foam away with the warm flannel, I was trembling a bit. Not with panic. Just with the force of it.

“Pass me my glasses,” I said. “I want to see.”

She handed them over.

I put them on and looked at her first. Then at the small mirror. Then at my own hand as I raised it to my head.

Smooth.

Completely smooth.

I touched the top. The side. The back. Nothing left. No roughness. No missed patch.

“Well?” she said.

I laughed once, then cried properly for a few seconds, and then laughed again because I was embarrassed.

“It feels right,” I said.

She let out a breath she had clearly been holding. “Good.”

“Not simple,” I said.

“No.”

“But right.”

She rested her forehead against my knee for a second. I put my hand on the top of her bob without thinking.

The shape of it was still there. Smooth. Controlled. Finished.

She went still under my hand.

“Sit down,” I said.

She looked up at me. “Mum.”

“Sit down.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” I said. “But do it anyway.”

She gave a nervous laugh, then stood and changed places with me.

I wrapped the towel around her shoulders. Her cream blouse disappeared under it. The bob sat neatly above the towel, still perfect, which made what came next harder.

I picked up the scissors.

My hand was not steady either.

“You don’t have to make it neat,” she said.

“Hey, I’ve done this before.”

“I know.”

I lifted the back and cut into the nape.

The first chunk came away into my hand. Thick. Warm. Much more hair than I had expected. It dropped onto the towel.

Vesper inhaled sharply and gripped the chair.

“You all right?”

“Yes.”

I cut again.

The line of the bob went quickly. That was the strangest part. A haircut that finished could be undone in less than a minute. The back opened first. Then one side. Then the other. I worked around her ears carefully. The longer front pieces hung on for a bit and then went too.

Soon she had an uneven crop all over.

She reached up and touched it. “I remember this stage.”

“So do I.”

Then I picked up the clippers.

I started at the crown, just as she had done with me. First pass. A pale strip opened through the rough blonde crop. She closed her eyes at once.

I kept going. Over the top. Down the sides. Around the ears. Over the nape. Honey-blonde hair fell everywhere. On the towel. On the floor. Onto my bare arm. One bit stuck to my head and she laughed when she saw it.

When I finished, she had pale golden stubble all over. It changed her face completely. Her eyes looked larger. Her brows looked stronger. The nose ring stood out more.

I stood beside her. “You could stop here.”

She looked up at me. “Would you?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

She took the foam and rubbed it over her own head first, using both hands. Then I spread it properly and picked up the razor.

Her scalp was warm under my palm.

I started at the front. One slow stroke. Then another. Then another. She stayed very still. I went carefully around the ears and down the back, rinsing the razor over and over.

When I wiped the last of the foam away, she touched her head at once.

Her whole face changed.

She did not cry. She just softened. Everything tight in her dropped away.

“There,” I said, removing my glasses.

She stood up.

We looked at each other in the kitchen, both bald, both damp from the flannel, both surrounded by hair and towels and foam and evidence.

Then she stepped straight into me and I held her.

The towel slipped off one shoulder and fell half to the floor. She laughed into my neck and then nearly cried. I put my hand over the back of her bare head and held it there.

“My girl,” I said.

We stayed that way for a while.

The clean-up was hopeless.

Hair everywhere. Mine under the chair. Hers by the table leg. More of it stuck to sleeves and socks and the edge of the bowl. She tried picking it up with damp hands and only moved it round the kitchen.

I got the dustpan. Then I found one piece of her bob caught on my shirt cuff and stopped to look at it.

“Don’t keep that,” she said.

“I’m not keeping it.”

“You are thinking about keeping it.”

“It was a very good bob.”

“It was.”

I dropped it in the bin. Then I took it back out and looked at her.

She burst out laughing.

In the end I threw it away properly. Or most of it. Kevin was bound to find some in spring.

We had nearly got the kitchen back under control when headlights moved across the window.

Vesper froze.

“That’ll be them,” I said.

The front door opened. Kevin’s voice came first.

“We’re back. I got the oat milk she claims not to need.”

Claire’s voice followed behind him. “I never said I didn’t need it.”

Then they came into the kitchen.

Kevin stopped dead.

He looked at me. Then at Vesper. Then at the table. Then at the razors.

He put the paper bag down very slowly.

“How many did you use?”

I started laughing. I could not stop it. Vesper had both hands over her mouth.

Kevin picked up the packet. “These were new.”

“You have more,” I said.

“Sharing now, are we?”

Claire had stopped in the doorway.

She was looking at Vesper.

First at the smooth scalp. Then at the face under it. Then at the bits of honey-blonde hair still caught in the towel on the chair.

For a second she said nothing. I saw the loss cross her face. Not huge. Not dramatic. Just real. Then something gentler came after it.

“I was going to tell you,” Vesper said.

Claire looked at her and said, “No, you weren’t.”

Vesper gave a small, guilty smile. “No.”

Claire walked over to her and touched the side of her head above the ear.

Vesper shut her eyes.

Claire swallowed once. “I’ve missed this version of you.”

Then she looked across at me and smiled. “And Allison — nearly seventy and somehow making bald look elegant.”

Kevin glanced at me. “She already expected that level of praise.”

“I did not,” I said.

“You absolutely did.”

Vesper laughed, and the room loosened.

Kevin had still not touched my head. I could see he wanted to and did not know whether he should in front of everyone.

“Go on,” I said.

He came over and put his palm on the crown of my head.

His face changed straight away.

“Very smooth,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You all right?”

“Yes.”

His thumb moved once at the back. “You look like yourself.”

Vesper said, “I already told her that.”

Kevin glanced at her. “Then you were right.”

After that there was nothing sensible to do except make tea.

Kevin filled the kettle while muttering about ruined razors. Claire wiped the table again, even though it no longer needed wiping. I swept more hair out from under the chair. Vesper sat down, still touching her own head every few minutes, not out of nerves now but because she could not stop.

We all ended up at the kitchen table with mugs in front of us.

Claire sat close to Vesper with one hand at the back of her neck. Kevin sat beside me and kept reaching over to my scalp without thinking. I let him.

“You’re going to wear a hole in it,” I said.

“I’m checking the work.”

“You are not qualified.”

“I have experience.”

“That was years ago.”

“It still counts.”

Vesper leaned into Claire. She looked tired now, but in a good way. Not flattened. Not upset. Just done.

Claire looked at the razors on the counter and said, “You really used Kevin’s?”

“They were there,” Vesper said.

“In a cupboard,” Kevin said. “That is not the same as being available.”

Claire smiled. “Your daughter needed them.”

He pointed at her. “You have been here five minutes and already turned against me.”

“I married in.”

“You did.”

Then he looked at the two of us properly. His wife and his daughter. Both bald at the kitchen table. Rain on the window. Tea going cold. His razors dead.

He shook his head.

“That’s families,” he said. “Everything arrives in the wrong order.”

No one said anything for a second.

Then Vesper reached across and took my hand. I turned mine over and held hers.

Later, Claire took her upstairs. One hand at the small of her back. The other still going now and then to the back of her head.

At the kitchen door Vesper stopped and looked at me.

“You all right?”

“I’m all right.”

Then she looked at Kevin.

“She is,” he said.

That seemed to settle it for her. She nodded and went up.

Kevin and I stayed downstairs a bit longer. Not really cleaning. Just moving things around and putting the room back together. He put the oat milk in the fridge. I rinsed the bowl again. He found another pale strand under the table and held it up.

He dropped it into the bin and looked once more at the razors. “I had a system.”

“You had a packet.”

“A packet can be a system.”

I laughed, and it felt different coming out of me now. Sharper. Clearer.

When we went upstairs the house was quiet. We could hear Claire and Vesper talking softly in the spare room. Then a laugh. Then silence.

In our room I took my earrings off first. Without the hair around them they looked too large. I put my glasses on the bedside table and sat on the edge of the bed.

My hand kept going back to my head. Top. Side. Back. Every time I expected to find something left. A rough patch. A missed strip. There was nothing.

Kevin stood watching me while he undid his shirt.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing.”

“That never means nothing.”

He came over and stood in front of me. Then he put his hand on my head again. This time without hesitation.

His palm covered the crown. His thumb moved to my temple, then behind my ear, then down to the nape where the crop had been that morning.

I closed my eyes.

“There,” he said quietly.

“What does that mean?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Only that.”

That nearly got me more than anything else had.

He sat down beside me.

“Do you remember our evening at apartment in Florence?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“You were nervous.”

“I was terrified.”

“You pretended not to be.”

“I was trying to keep my cool.”

“You went too gently at first.”

“You’d had a baby.”

“Not that minute.”

I smiled. He moved his hand over my head again, slowly, taking in the shape of it.

“I thought I was helping,” he said.

“You were.”

“I didn’t know it would stay with you.”

“Neither did I.”

He looked at me. “You’ve had a lot of haircuts.”

“That is one way of putting it.”

“I liked all of them.”

“That is not the point.”

“No,” he said. “The point is I liked you in all of them.”

I looked away after that because I did not have anything to say back that would not ruin it.

He kissed the bare skin above my ear.

“Does it look strange?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I laughed.

“But not wrong,” he said.

That was enough for me.

—-

We got into bed. I dimmed the lamp down and lay down.

The pillow was cold against my head.

I made a noise before I could stop myself.

Kevin turned over. “What?”

“The pillow.”

“What about it?”

“I can feel all of it.”

He was quiet for a second. Then he reached for me under the duvet and put his hand at the back of my head.

“I don’t suppose you’ve asked anyone for a wig for your birthday?” he said.

“I hadn’t thought to.”

“And fewer of my razors.”

“I thought we were sharing those.”

He laughed softly.

I lay there with his hand resting behind my head, feeling the smoothness of it against my skin and against his palm. Down the hall our daughter was in bed with her wife, bald again because she had needed to be. Beside me was the man who had first done this to me years ago without knowing what it would become.

I had thought the feeling would pass once the clippers stopped and the mess was cleared and everyone had got used to it.

It did not pass.

In the dark, with Kevin’s hand on my head, it came back in full. The relief. The want. The pleasure of having gone through with it.

His thumb moved once at my nape.

“You all right?” he asked.

I turned my face towards him.

“Yes,” I said. “Bald at last.”

 

---

 

Sadly this now concludes their hair journey (for now… maybe). I hope that you have enjoyed both sets of their stories. Feel free to re-read any the previous chapters

Vesper: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, plus a cameo in Caira’s Journey

Allison: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7