Feeling Curious (Part 9)

Previously

The taxi was warm compared to how cold it had become outside. Nick gave the driver the name of the restaurant, then settled beside me and took my hand.

For the first few minutes, we watched the street lights move across the windows. Each time they reached us, I caught him looking at me again.

“You can say it,” I said.

“I’ve already said it.”

“You have more to say.”

He smiled. “I was trying not to make too much of it at home.”

“Why?”

“Because we had a taxi coming, I still needed to shower, and Esther and Robert would have been unimpressed if we never arrived.”

I turned towards him. “And if we hadn’t had plans?”

His thumb brushed across my knuckles. “Then I don’t think we’d be in this taxi.”

I laughed softly and leaned closer.

“I knew you liked the curls,” I said.

“I did. I just hadn’t realised quite how much until I walked in and saw you.” His eyes went to my hair again. “The colour looks richer, and those little curls around your face make your eyes look enormous.”

“You liked it when I used the wand too.”

“More than I admitted.”

“Why didn’t you say so?”

“Because you were enjoying trying things. I didn’t want you to feel as though I was asking you to do it for me.”

I rested my head briefly against his shoulder. “I already wanted to try tighter curls. Knowing you liked them made the surprise more tempting.”

“I’m glad.”

“I thought you might be.”

He lifted my hand and kissed it.

——

Esther and Robert were waiting near the bar. Esther saw us first and came towards me before I had taken off my coat. Her dark hair was pinned up beneath a full fringe, with loose pieces beside her face and green earrings catching the light.

“Natalie. Your hair.”

“Hello, Esther .”

She laughed, hugged me and stood back for another look.

“It’s beautiful. You’ve gone shorter, and permed it. Proper curls.”

“They are now.”

“Did you get it done today?”

“This afternoon.”

Her gaze moved to Nick. “For his birthday?”

“Partly.”

“I’m not objecting,” Nick said as he handed over my coat.

Robert wished him a happy birthday and pulled him into a brief hug. He wore a dark shirt open at the neck, the light shining on his smooth head. When he turned to me, his smile was warm.

“You look lovely, Nat.”

“Thank you.”

“He’s had a good day, then.”

“It has improved considerably,” Nick said.

We were shown to a round table near the back of the restaurant. Once we had drinks and had ordered, the attention moved away from my hair. Esther asked about the girls, who were both still enjoying life abroad despite sounding exhausted whenever one rang. Our younger daughter Grace, who was Esther’s god-daughter, had sent us photographs of a new flat with a kitchen so narrow that Nick had become preoccupied with finding her a table that folded into the wall.

“She has told him three times that she doesn’t want one,” I said.

“She will when I find the right one,” Nick replied.

Robert nodded. “That is the confidence of a man who has never tried to fix anything to a rented wall.”

“I would ask permission.”

“Which she would refuse,” I said.

Nick reached for his wine. “This family has no faith in me.”

The conversation moved easily from Esther ’s mother to Nick’s brother and the plans all of them kept postponing. It was the sort of evening that needed no effort once we were together.

Halfway through Esther’s story about a box of photographs her mother had found, I felt Nick’s knee rest against mine. I looked at him and found his attention on the curls at my temple.

He met my eyes, smiling slightly. I held his gaze for a moment before turning back to Esther .

——

By the time our plates were cleared, I had stopped wondering how the perm looked beneath the restaurant lights. It had felt enormous when Liz first dried it, but now it was simply how I looked that evening: copper curls, pearls and the floating dress Nick always liked, which actually suited me better now my hair was short.

I excused myself to go to the ladies, as did Esther. Whilst we were washing our hands, Esther paused to adjusting one of the pins at the back of her hair, then looked at me again.

“I keep thinking about how long your hair used to be,” she said. “You had it for years. Then the bob, then that tiny pixie the other month—and now this.”

“I know.”

“What changed?”

I considered it. “At first I just wanted to see what it felt like to have less of it. Then I liked having to decide what I wanted, instead of doing the same thing because I always had.”

Esther nodded, her attention returning to the curls around my forehead.

“And the perm?”

“I’d been curling the pixie as it grew. I liked the shape of it, and I wanted to see what would happen if I stopped pretending it was only an experiment.”

She smiled. “It suits you. And I think Nick looks as though he really likes it like this.”

She lifted a hand. “Can I?”

“Of course.”

Her fingertips settled lightly into the small curls at the top of my head. They gave beneath her touch, then sprang back as she moved her hand.

“Oh,” she said. “It feels even better than it looks.”

“It’s very different.”

“I can see that.” She let her hand fall. “I’m almost jealous.

——

We returned to find a chocolate tart in front of Nick with one candle in the middle. There was no singing, which he clearly considered an additional gift.

Robert raised his glass. “Happy birthday, mate. It’s good to have all four of us in the same room.”

“It is,” Nick said. “Thank you.”

He blew out the candle.

“You were meant to make a wish,” Jo said.

“I did.”

His hand found mine beneath the table.

After dessert, Esther took a photograph of the two of us. Nick drew his chair closer and put his arm around my waist. I leaned into him without checking my hair or asking to see the angle first.

In the photograph, the curls looked rounder and brighter than they had at home, and my pearls stood out against them. What I noticed, though, was Nick’s expression and how naturally we had turned towards one another.

“Send me that one,” I said.

“Already done.”

——

We finished our food and went into the bar area for another drink.

Esther settled into Nick’s seat and watched the two men make their way towards the bar.

“I think seeing you tonight has made me admit something,” she said.

“What?”

She touched the loose piece of chestnut hair beside her face. “I’m bored with my style.”

I looked at her. “Your hair’s lovely.”

“I know. That’s almost the problem. It’s been lovely in exactly the same way for ages. Same fringe, same long waves, same thing pinned up if we go anywhere.” She smiled, though there was something thoughtful behind it. “I haven’t properly changed it for years.”

“You don’t have to do what I did.”

“I know.” Her eyes moved over my curls again. “But you make it look rather tempting.”

I glanced towards the bar. A woman was waiting for a drink a little way from Nick and Rob. Her hair was pale blonde and heavily layered, longer than a cropped cut but still full of movement: a soft, shaggy shape with a broken fringe, shorter pieces around her cheekbones and textured lengths brushing her collarbone.

“What about something like that?” I said.

Esther followed my gaze.

“Blonde?” she asked.

“Not necessarily the colour. But the shape.” I looked back at her. “You could keep a softer version of your fringe, add layers through the front and take some weight out of the lengths. It would still feel like you, just lighter.”

Esther watched the woman for another moment.

“I do rather like it,” she said. “Rob wouldn’t mind.”

“Rob would think you looked lovely.”

“He usually does, even when I’ve done nothing.”

“Exactly. So you may as well give him something new to admire.”

She laughed.

“It would be a big change.”

“Only if you want it to be. You could start with the cut and some lighter pieces. See how it feels.”

“And if I hated it?”

I smiled. “Then you could always go shorter.”

Esther gave me a look, then smiled properly.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

——

We stayed in the bar for another hour before we left. Outside, Esther hugged us both while Robert made Nick promise we would arrange another evening before six months had passed.

When Esther hugged me again, I leaned close to her ear.

“Send me photographs when you have it cut.”

She laughed and drew back. “I haven’t planned anything.”

“No?”

“Not yet,” she said, smoothing the loose piece of hair beside her face. “I only said I’d think about it.”

But she was smiling as she said it, and I could already see her imagining the blonde.

——

The taxi home was quieter. I rested my head against Nick’s shoulder, no longer concerned about flattening the curls. His fingers moved lightly over the hair above my ear.

“Good birthday?” I asked.

He looked at me. “You know it was.”

At home, I looked on my phone of the photograph Esther had taken of me and Nick. I studied it beside the kitchen island when Nick came up behind me and put an arm around my waist.

“That’s a good one,” he said.

“I like it.”

“So do I.”

He set the phone down. His other hand moved from my waist to the back of my neck, then slowly into the short curls above it.

I turned in his arms and kissed him.

There was no need to ask what he thought. I had seen it in the taxi, across the table and every time his hand found the back of my head. I loosened the top button of his shirt.

“You’ve been waiting to do that,” he murmured.

“So have you.”

I kissed him again before he could answer.

We went upstairs without turning on the kitchen lights.

—-

I lay in bed, ready to try on my sleeping bonnet that I had ordered to protect my curls. Before I was able to, Nick joined. His fingers brushed the bare skin at my nape before pressing into the curls, and I leaned back against him as his mouth touched the side of my neck.

The curls gave beneath his hand and sprang back when he moved it. They sat so close to my head that I felt every slow pass of his fingers through them.

I turned, pulled his t-shirt free and kissed him with none of the patience I had managed at dinner. He laughed softly against my mouth, then drew me closer.

Later, we lay beneath the duvet with my pearls beside his watch and our clothes left wherever they had fallen. Nick’s hand rested at the back of my head, his fingertips moving once through the curls at my nape.

“Happy birthday, love,” I said.

He kissed my forehead. “It has been a very good one.”

When he switched off the lamp, his hand returned to my hair. I covered it with mine and left it there.