Red Bob
On my first day back at work with my new cropped hair, it started raining just as I came out of the station.
For years, that would have meant trying to keep my hair dry for the walk to the office: holding my bag over my head, taking the longer route beneath the shop awnings, arriving annoyed by the dampness at the back of my neck.
That morning, I pulled up my coat collar and carried on.
By the time I reached the building, a few drops had darkened the copper at my crown, but the pixie still sat where I had dried it. I smoothed it once with my hand in the lift, then forgot about it.
At ten, I had a meeting with Anya from legal. She arrived with a folder under one arm and a mug of tea she had clearly filled too high.
I moved my notebook so she could put it down without spilling it over the consent form.
“Thank you. I’ve been trying to get that made since nine.”
Then she looked at me properly.
“Oh, Natalie. Your hair.”
“I had it cut at the weekend.”
“It really suits you.” She sat down, still looking at it. “I must have walked straight past you in reception.”
“I did wonder why you hadn’t said hello.”
“Sorry.” She laughed.
Her own hair fell around her face in a polished bob, which was dark, box shaped and with a blunt short fringe breaking across her forehead.
She took a sip of tea, found her pen and turned to the paragraph she wanted to discuss.
For the rest of that first week, I still had to answer questions about my latest, more dramatic hairstyle. People were mainly kind about it, usually a little surprised, and I did not mind. The cut was always going draw attention, and I expected it.
——
By the end of the following week, things calmed down, which I was glad about.
I still enjoyed a compliment, but I did not particularly want my hair to require a conversation every time I walked into a room.
It had already settled into my mornings. I washed it every other day, dried it with my hands and used a little paste through the top. There was one section at the crown that stuck up if I went to bed with it damp, but once I had learned that, there was very little to think about.
More often than not, I finished getting ready before Nick.
One morning, I was checking the pockets of my bag when I found three hairbands tangled around a pen.
I placed them on the kitchen island next along with an old receipt and a lipstick I had been looking for since the previous week.
Nick came through from the kitchen carrying my travel mug.
“Coffee.”
“You’re useful.”
“Occasionally.”
He handed it to me while I put the pen and lipstick back in my bag. The hairbands stayed on the table.
I kissed him and reached for my keys.
“I’ll be late tonight,” he said.
“So will I. I’ve got the medical review at four.”
“Something easy for dinner?”
“Definitely.”
——
On the train, I reached into my bag for the pen and found it immediately.
That pleased me more than it should have.
The brush stayed in the bathroom now. I no longer checked whether I had a hairband before leaving the house, and there was nothing at the back of my neck to pull loose or put up halfway through the day.
Oddly, though, I spent more time playing with my hair than I had before.
There was enough length through the top to change it without much effort. I could dry it smooth for work, lift the crown or push the front away from my forehead. My earrings showed whichever way I wore it, and I had started wearing a couple of pairs I used to save for evenings because they had barely been visible beneath the bob.
Styling it no longer felt like something I had to finish before I could leave the house.
Sometimes I spent an extra few minutes on it simply because I wanted to.
——
Grace rang me on FaceTime one Sunday afternoon while Nick was in the garden trying to decide whether the last cut of the lawn was genuinely necessary.
I was sitting at the kitchen island with a cup of tea when her face appeared on the screen.
Her hair was a dusty pink and was loose around her shoulders, slightly mussed as though she had tied it up earlier and changed her mind.
“Hello mum.”
“Hello, darling.”
She narrowed her eyes at me almost immediately.
“Turn your head.”
“What?”
“Your hair. I’ve only seen photographs.”
“You’ve seen plenty of photographs.”
“Photographs are different.”
I laughed and turned sideways so she could see the cut around my ear, then angled the phone enough to show her the back.
“Other way.”
“Grace.”
“I’m looking properly.”
I turned in the other direction.
“God, Mum. That really is short.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean properly short.”
“That was rather the point.”
She smiled. “I like it.”
“Thank you.”
She looked at me for another moment.
“You really like it, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“I can tell.”
There was something about the way she said it that made me laugh.
“What?”
“You look pleased with yourself.”
“I’m allowed to be pleased with myself.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
She leaned closer to her screen.
“Does Dad like it?”
I picked up my tea and walked into the living room.
“Yes.”
Grace’s expression changed immediately.
“That sounded almost suspicious.”
“What did?”
“That ‘yes’.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Mum. Please”
I laughed into my mug.
“What? He likes it.”
“Right.”
“Grace.”
“More than likes it?”
“We are not having this conversation.”
She started laughing.
“That means yes.”
“It means I’m changing the subject.”
“Fine.”
She did, although not before looking excessively pleased with herself.
We talked for another twenty minutes about how life was in Paris, her favourite patisserie, and whether she would be visiting us anytime soon. By the time we ended the call, my haircut had become just a small part of the conversation.
I liked that too.
——
A couple of weeks later, Nick and I were going out for dinner on a Saturday evening.
I had put on a dark green dress I had worn plenty of times before, but when I started doing my hair, I decided I wanted it sharper than usual.
I worked a little mousse through the top, then dried it up and back from my forehead with a small brush. Once it was dry, I used the smallest amount of paste to hold the shape without making it stiff.
The sides stayed close around my ears, but the longer hair on top lifted cleanly away from my face.
I paused before leaving the bathroom.
There was nothing falling over my forehead or temples. My ears, cheekbones and the whole shape of my face were visible, with nowhere for me to hide behind the hair.
Usually I would have pulled a few pieces forward by then.
Instead, I left it exactly as it was.
Nick was sitting on the edge of the bed putting on his shoes when I came out. He looked up, then stayed looking while I picked up my earrings.
“Another sexy look,” he said.
“I’ve pushed it all back.”
“I can see.”
He stood and came closer.
“It really suits you like that.”
I looked down at the dress.
“I nearly changed this.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.” His eyes went back to my hair. “The whole thing works.”
He kissed my cheek and reached behind me for his jacket.
I finished getting ready without going back into the bathroom to alter anything.
At dinner, we sat beside a window and just ordered a main because neither of us wanted to commit to three courses, then ordered dessert anyway.
Nick told me about something that had happened at work. I told him about a legal review Anya had arrived at with the wrong version of the document and how long it had taken before either of us realised.
For most of the evening, I forgot about my hair.
When I went to the bathroom later, the brushed-back shape had softened slightly at the crown but otherwise held. I turned my head and looked at the clean line around my ear.
I still liked it.
—-
Over the next few weeks, I experimented with a small curling wand.
There was not enough hair for anything dramatic, but I could persuade loose bends into the longer sections on top. My hair was thick and stubborn even at that length, and some days the movement survived until evening while other days I had touched it flat again by lunch.
Nick always noticed.
One evening, before we went out, he lightly lifted a curved piece above my temple.
“I love this.”
“The little curls?”
“Yes.”
“They’ve taken some persuading.”
He smiled and kissed me.
“Worth it.”
I remembered that.
——
A few weeks later, I got home after a long day.
Nick was in the small home office with his laptop open and a mug of tea beside him.
I leaned through the doorway.
“Are you still working?”
“Unfortunately.”
“You look shattered.”
“Accurate.”
I went behind his chair, bent down and kissed the side of his face.
“Have you eaten?”
“Not yet.”
“Come on.”
He closed the laptop without arguing.
We found eggs, mushrooms and enough bread for toast, then stood together at the hob while he told me about his afternoon. By the time we had eaten and cleared everything away, neither of us wanted to talk about work anymore.
It was getting dark earlier now.
We made tea and went into the living room.
——
I tucked my feet beneath me on the sofa while Nick picked up the remote. The movement I had put into my hair had softened a little, but the small bends were still visible around the top.
He looked over.
Then he reached across and lifted a section above my temple between his fingers.
“I like it.”
“I know you do.”
He smiled and let it spring back.
There was a repeat of an old quiz show neither of us particularly liked, a crime drama halfway through an interrogation and a film we had both seen too many times.
Nick paused on a hospital drama filmed in black and white.
It looked as though it had been set in the late fifties.
“You may as well leave this on,” I said.
“Give it five minutes.”
On screen, nurses moved between rows of beds while a doctor spoke too quickly to one of them.
Then a more senior nurse appeared beside a patient and took a file from another woman.
Her hair was set in small, close curls, rounded through the crown and neat around her ears and neck. There was no visible parting, just a compact shape of curls following her head.
“Sister Shaw,” the younger nurse said, handing her the notes.
Nick glanced at the television.
“She’s got lovely hair.”
I looked at it again.
The curls were tight but controlled, with very little softness around her face.
“Those short perms were so popular in the fifties,” I said. “You see them in photographs all the time.”
“I think it’s quite timeless, actually.”
I looked at him.
“Do you like perms?”
He smiled.
“I like that one.”
“That’s not quite what I asked.”
“No, I suppose it isn’t.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“Would you like it if I had one?”
He turned towards me properly.
“Are you thinking about getting a perm?”
“I’m only asking.”
“With your hair this short?”
He looked at the screen again, then back at me.
“Yes. I think it would look really good.”
“And would you like it?”
He gave a small laugh.
“One can dream.”
I laughed too.
But the answer stayed with me.
I already knew he liked my hair short. I knew he noticed when I changed the way I styled it, and I knew he particularly liked the little bends I had been putting into it.
This felt more specific.
He liked the thought of curls.
Proper ones.
The fact that he had never suggested I should do anything to my hair made the answer more affecting, not less. He had simply seen something he liked and admitted it when I asked.
When the Sister Shaw character appeared again later in the episode, I noticed the rounded shape at her crown and the close curls behind her ears.
I found myself wondering what that much curl would look like in my hair colour.
When the credits started, Nick picked up our mugs.
“Another one?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll fall asleep.”
He stood and offered me his hand.
I took it, and he pulled me up from the sofa, keeping me close for a moment before kissing me.
“Come on, then.”
——
Upstairs, I washed my face and dampened my hair with my fingers.
Without the mousse holding it, the bends I had made earlier were already falling out.
I looked at them in the dressing-table light.
Then I picked up my phone.
I searched for the programme first and found a photograph on IMDb of the actress in costume. From there, I started looking at short permed hairstyles.
There were plenty I passed over immediately.
Loose waves. Long ringlets. Big rounded sets with more volume than I could imagine wanting.
I kept stopping at the compact ones.
Small curls across the crown. Narrow sides. Ears exposed. A clean neckline beneath all that texture.
Some were older photographs. Others were modern cuts borrowing the same shape but with the sides shorter and the curls less formally set.
The more I looked, the less interested I became in whether the style belonged to one decade or another.
I had always liked making my hair curly for occasions, but now I felt like I wanted to commit my hair to real head of curls.
I tried to imagine them in my own hair: copper coils sitting close to my head, springing back when I pressed them, with the sides still short enough to keep the whole thing compact.
The thought changed surprisingly quickly from curiosity into wanting.
I wanted to know what that much texture would feel like beneath my hands. I wanted to see what it did to my face and whether I would still recognise the pixie underneath it.
And, inevitably, I thought about Nick.
I remembered him lifting the little curl above my temple.
Then I remembered his face when he said, “One can dream.”
The idea of walking into a room with real curls where the straight copper pixie had been gave me a sudden rush of excitement.
It turned me on more than I had expected.
Not because I would be doing it for him, but because I wanted it for myself.
But knowing how much he would enjoy seeing it made the idea feel charged in a way it had not five minutes earlier.
I saved three photographs.
——
Nick was still in the bathroom brushing his teeth when I put my phone down.
A few minutes later, he came into bed beside me, switched off his lamp and reached for my hand beneath the duvet.
We talked quietly about the weekend until he became tired enough that his answers shortened to one or two words.
I thought about the curls once more before I fell asleep.
Over the next couple of weeks, I went back to the photographs several times.
I liked them just as much when I was no longer sitting beside Nick with Sister Shaw on the television.
That mattered.
I could imagine the curls with my work clothes and my gold hoops. I could imagine waking up with them on a Sunday morning with no makeup on and nowhere to be.
Eventually, I stopped wondering whether I genuinely wanted the style.
The question became whether my hair could actually take it.
I knew the wand would never give me the same result all over, and even if it could, I had no interest in spending every morning trying.
Liz would know what was possible.
I started keeping the photographs partly because I liked looking at them and partly because I knew they would explain what I meant far better than I could.
About a month after we had watched the hospital drama, Nick’s birthday was approaching.
I had been speaking to friends about going out for a meal, and eventually we found an evening everybody could manage.
“I can book the restaurant for your birthday itself,” I said over breakfast. “Everyone’s free.”
“Lovely.”
“You can actually leave work on time?”
“I’ll make sure I do.”
“Seven-thirty?”
“That gives us plenty of time.”
He reached across the table and squeezed my hand before going upstairs to get ready.
——
Later, when I picked up my phone, one of the photographs of the copper curls was still open.
I looked at it for a moment.
Until then, the perm and Nick’s birthday had existed separately in my head.
Then I pictured having it done that afternoon.
I imagined getting ready afterwards, choosing my earrings and waiting for him to come home.
The idea made me smile.
He would understand the surprise immediately.
I opened my messages with Liz and attached the photograph.
Could we have a chat about this? I’ve been thinking about a tight, short perm and wondered whether it would work with my hair. If it’s possible, I’d love to have it done for Nick’s birthday.
I read it once.
Then I sent it.
If Liz thought it would work, I knew exactly when I wanted the perm.
