Chapter 13
Aisling looked in the mirror as Tara, whose own hair was cut in a symmetrical jet-black bob a la Uma Thurman, Pulp Fiction, pulled her hair back from her shoulders. ‘Did you bring in any pictures of what you had in mind, Aisling?’ Her gravelly voice suggested she spent a lot of time standing around out the back of the salon on cigarette breaks. She had an incredible number of piercings too, which were making Aisling wince just looking at them. She glanced down the row of mirrors where she, Moira, Leila, Roisin and Mammy were lined up. ‘We’re like sitting ducks,’ she’d heard Moira mumble as she flopped down into the chair and began to flick through a magazine for hairstyle ideas.
‘I did, yes.’ Aisling was prepared and she retrieved her bag from beside the chair where she’d put her carefully chosen cuttings from one of the bridal magazines, Leila had given her. The first picture she held up to show Tara was of a pretty blonde woman whose hair was slicked back and piled on her head in a loose top knot, flowers entwined in her hair, and Aisling thought the effect was ethereal.
‘Nope.’ Tara tapped her black booted toes on the floor. ‘Won’t work. Your face is too round.’
‘I told her she’d look like Moonface with some sort of deposit on top of his head, you know yer funny little man from the Faraway Tree books, with that style,’ Moira said to Tara.
Much to Aisling’s satisfaction, Tara looked at Moira as though she’d flown in from Mars. She would have liked to kick her sister but she wasn’t close enough and she wished she’d been quicker off the mark when they arrived at the salon; she’d have made sure Leila was sitting next to her.
‘Let’s see what else you’ve got there,’ Tara said.
Aisling showed her the next one which was a half up, half down do of cascading waves.
‘That’s more like it.’
‘Can I see.’ Maureen poked her head forward trying to see past Roisin, Leila and Moira to where Aisling was sitting. She reminded Aisling of a turtle.
‘Don’t show her,’ she hissed, but Maureen asked again only louder and Tara wasn’t ready for a stand-off with the bolshie little woman down the end. Accordingly, the picture got passed down the line.
‘No,’ Maureen said shaking her head. ‘Not with those ends of hers. Tara could you not give her a little snip.’ She demonstrated with her thumb and index finger exactly how much she’d like her to take off Aisling’s ends.
Tara looked at Aisling with an eyebrow raised questioningly and Aisling shook her head emphatically. ‘Mammy,’ she peered past her bridesmaids. ‘I don’t want my hair trimmed. I want it as long as possible on the day. I’ve been growing it, so I have.’
‘But, Aisling, that’s not a style.’ She showed the picture to the stylist who’d drawn the short straw with Mammy on account of her being the youngest. ‘Look, Polly, you can’t call that a hairstyle, now can you?’ Poor Polly looked like a rabbit caught in headlights. She was a girl who’d been raised not to argue with her mammy.
‘Aisling, your woman there looks like she’s been rolling around in the haystack prior to saying her nuptials with her intended.’
Aisling had had enough. ‘Mammy, give that picture back right now. It’s my wedding and my hair.’
Maureen reluctantly passed the picture to Roisin who handed it on. She turned to Polly and said, ‘It’s a sad day when your own daughter won’t let you have a say in her wedding, so it is.’
Polly made a sympathetic sound and refused to look in Aisling’s direction as she began to titivate Maureen’s hair. Mercifully, Aisling saw she was distracted by Polly who was asking her what she had in mind.
‘I was thinking curls, pin curls perhaps. I quite fancy the idea of looking like an olde worlde Hollywood starlet.’
‘Bit long in the tooth for starlet, Mammy,’ Moira said. ‘Think Golden Girls, Polly.’
Roisin snorted. ‘Curls? I told you, Mammy. It’s a fact, people do begin to resemble their pets.’
‘Not much hope for you then,’ Moira bounced back with. ‘Come to think of it, I can see the resemblance between you and Mr Nibbles. It’s in the cheeks.’
It was the second time Moira missed receiving a kick on account of her sister not being able to reach.
Leila spoke up before the stylists could begin in earnest. ‘We need to all have the same style obviously. Aisling what were you thinking?’ She took charge.
‘An updo of some description since I’m wearing mine half up and half down.’
‘I’m mammy-of-the-bride,’ Maureen piped up. ‘I can have whatever style I want. Curls it is, Polly and don’t you say another word on the subject.’ She eyeballed Roisin.
Moira told Tegan, who was sensing her client might be trouble, that she didn’t want anything severe. ‘I was thinking more Andrea Corr so if we’re to have it up think relaxed, bedhead that sort of thing,’ she informed the stylist bossily.
‘There’ll be none of the bedhead, thank you very much, Tegan. I’ll not have bedhead bridesmaids at a child of mine’s wedding,’ Maureen interrupted.
Tegan, Sten and Ciara, the stylists assigned to the bridesmaids, all froze and looked to Leila. She seemed the most sensible person here.
‘Perhaps not bed hair but we don’t have to go all out ballerina bun either.’
The three stylists all nodded and put their heads together murmuring in a hushed manner as they conferred. It was Sten who addressed them.
‘I have suggested the latest updo that is storming Amsterdam.’ His dark goatee quivered with excitement as he made his announcement. It looked at odds with the bleached crop of hair on his head and he was also clad head to toe in black.
Moira perked up. ‘Amsterdam, well it’s bound to be cool
