She looked at Rachel. ‘Can I help you?’ But she was friendly and didn’t make Rachel feel small, which seemed to be very easy for some.
‘I’m Rachel Brown. I’m here for a four o’clock?’
Every part of Rachel wanted to run away but she stood still, determined to follow through. She had never been to a hair salon before. Her mother had always cut her hair before.
‘Come through, Rachel,’ said the girl, and she stopped by a series of hooks and held out some sort of Kimono wrap. ‘Pop this on.’ Rachel put her bag between her knees and slipped her arms in the jacket and the girl tied it firmly at Rachel’s waist.
It was such a simple gesture but it made Rachel feel secure as she was led to a comfortable-looking chair.
She sat down and the girl left briefly and returned with a stack of magazines, all with bright colours and celebrities on the front.
‘Coffee? Tea? Champagne? Water?’ the girl asked.
Rachel tried to think. ‘Water?’
The girl brought her back sparkling water in a green bottle with a label in Italian and in it was a red and white paper straw that reminded her of her dad.
She hadn’t seen one like this since they used to go to the cafe before he died and she would order her a lime spider and himself a malted milkshake.
She touched the straw and sipped the cold water that tingled her tongue.
‘Rachel?’ A man stood behind her and smiled and he was so handsome she was lost for words – so she merely nodded instead. He was tall and swarthy and slim-hipped like pirate turned musician.
‘I’m Sean. Now what did you want me to do today?’
He picked up her limp hair and let it run through his fingers and she thought she might die of pleasure.
‘I don’t know, I just don’t want to look like me anymore,’ she heard herself saying.
‘Who do you want to look like then?’ He laughed but not unkindly.
‘I don’t know, I just don’t think I like this and want to look like a better version of me.’
Sean nodded and beckoned to another girl.
‘Take Rachel for a wash and head massage and use the volume treatment.’
Rachel was directed to the basin where she lay down on the recliner and looked up and saw a television on the roof, playing videos of models walking the catwalk in heels and then behind the scenes of hair and makeup.
It was fascinating, she thought as she watched a woman have tiny diamond stickers placed along her cheekbones.
The girl had tucked a towel around her neck and soon warm water ran over her head. The touch was gentle and Rachel felt her eyes closing. She wanted to watch the models but the girl was now massaging her head and it was better than anything she had ever felt.
She felt tears fall from her eyes and slide down into her ears, which tickled, but her hands were trapped under her kimono and cape, so she let them be.
She couldn’t remember if she had been touched tenderly since her dad had died. He used to hug her when she was small but that was all she could remember.
It was as though the girl now running her hands through her wet hair had unblocked her need for touch.
‘Are you okay?’ asked the girl very softly in her ear.
‘I am,’ choked Rachel.
She wasn’t sure what happened after but somehow she was in her comfortable chair and the girl was combing out her wet hair very gently and then Sean was behind her and the girl whispered something to him. Sean smiled at her in the mirror.
‘Are you ready, Rachel?’ he asked.
‘For what?’
‘To become yourself.’
22
The radio played as Clara pushed the roller in time to the music, and back and forth in the tray, just as Henry had showed her. She had to get enough paint on it but not too much and then she lifted it to the wall.
The interior paint was called Frangipane, which she thought Rachel would like, and as she started to paint the wall in the hallway, she felt incredibly pleased with the new fresh look. She worked happily, not thinking about anything as she covered the old walls of the cottage.
I wonder what this cottage has seen, thought Clara as she worked. Two hundred years of births and deaths and marriages and fights and love and hate and everything in between. Life came down to these moments, and this was a beautiful moment.
She could hear Henry on the roof, putting up the new reeds, while Pansy was sitting at the kitchen table playing with play dough that Henry had made in the microwave and had coloured a very bright red.
In one of the kitchen drawers, the previous tenant had left scone cutters and some shapes for gingerbread people, which was what Pansy was making now, while she sang little songs to herself about the red people and how they liked to only eat cakes and red wine.
It was a sense of peace Clara hadn’t felt before. She wasn’t trying to keep Giles happy, or Judy, or the people at the bank, or even her mum, she was just painting a wall.
Henry walked in through the front door. ‘Looks nice – don’t forget to cut in at the edges with the brush.’
Clara poked her tongue out at him. ‘Don’t forget to wear your bossy boots.’
‘But I’m always wearing them.’
Clara made a face at him and went back to the painting task.
Something had shifted in the past few days, since the trip to find paint and bookshelves, which they had successfully done.
There was a lightness, maybe even a flirtation… or was that just Clara flirting? It had been a long time since she had flirted and she wasn’t very good at it when last she tried, so she wondered if it
