1

      Marjorie Benson was drowning. She struggled beneath the hands, tried to hold on to her breath, fought the cold clamp that clutched the back of her neck. She was about to black out. She was going …

      But a second later she was allowed up from the sink and the world returned to normal – except that there was still that startling news she’d just heard.

      ‘What was it he said?’ she demanded of the young stylist hovering over her. ‘That chap on the radio just now?’

      Angie tightened the towel around Marjorie’s head so that her words, too, came as if from another world.

      ‘Um … something about Spittal’s closing down, I think … Oh –’ the girl sucked in a gasp, ‘– that’s where your old man works, isn’t it? Spittal’s?’

      ‘Yes, yes, he does.’ Marjorie put up a hand to blot a cold trickle, and found that it was trembling.

      ‘I didn’t really take in much of what he was saying,’ Angie said. She shrugged. The radio was only on in the background for the music – nobody really bothered to listen to it.

      Marjorie frowned. She hadn’t paid much attention either. She thought the cheerfully delivered information had included such time-worn phrases as ‘job cuts’, ‘redundancies’, and ‘bitter blow to the area’, but her ears had only pricked up on the one word: Spittal’s.

      ‘I can’t believe it, if it’s true,’ she muttered, allowing herself to be guided across to the cutting chair. Groping for the padded arms she sank down on to the seat, the black cape billowing around her and making her feel like a crow.

      The salon’s attempt at smart black and white decor did nothing for Marjorie’s complexion. She tried not to see the tired pale oval of her face reflected back at her, or the big bare forehead that was normally hidden. Angie always seemed to manage to wash away most of her make-up, she tutted to herself. Or was it the harsh lighting from those spots in the ceiling that was responsible for the bags under her eyes? Perhaps it was the shock that had made her look so haggard.

      ‘Are you sure he said “Spittal’s”?’ she asked Angie, but Angie could tell her no more, and as the scissors began to snip and slash, to grind and grunt, Marjorie forced herself to pay attention to the matter in hand. Not that she could do much to stop the carnage taking place. She could only sit there and witness it.

      She knew from many years of experience that Angie, like every other hairdresser she had ever come across, was programmed to carry out a certain series of manoeuvres on whatever head lay beneath her hands, irrespective of the wishes that head might try to communicate to her, or what would suit it best.

      ‘Thought any more about highlights?’ Angie suddenly asked, perhaps thinking it best to distract her client from the unpalatable news. ‘Or how about a coloured rinse – to blend in, sort of thing?’

      Marjorie compressed her lips. Every month over the past few years it had been the same sort of suggestion. Yes, she was going a bit grey, but she wasn’t yet ready to succumb to it.

      ‘No thank you, Angie,’ she said, gritting her teeth in anguish as the scissors hacked into her fringe. It was going to end up far shorter than she wanted. And wasn’t it crooked on the left-hand side? Why was there a bit of a gap over one eye, for heaven’s sake?

      ‘That OK?’ Angie asked finally, her scissors poised above Marjorie’s head, ready to swoop for another bite if only given a word of encouragement.

      Marjorie nodded and grinned back at her, dismayed at her stark eyebrows, her naked ears and her over-long neck. It would be at least