While Emma and Richard honeymooned in Ireland, Rosie and I spent the week in her old home. I was staying on for another couple of weeks – the rent was paid for a month and I was considering my options. But for now it was a treat for both me and Rosie to spend time together before she moved and, despite being forced to watch Frozen for the 538th time, I valued that week together. I wanted it to be special, and filled with everything about her life here, because once she was in Scotland, I doubted she’d remember our favourite pastimes. So we did lots of lovely things, from play dates with her friends from the crèche to walks in the park, to afternoon tea in our favourite local café. I also planned a visit later in the week for ‘beauty treatments’ with Mandy, but I’d have to ensure this was after Mandy’s vajazzle ‘promotion’, which left little to the imagination. The staff were wearing T-shirts with ‘Life’s short – get a vajazzle’ emblazoned in rhinestones, which I just knew Rosie would find fascinating. Too fascinating. I could only imagine Emma’s face when Rosie asked for one of her very own. I could also only imagine Emma’s face if I’d been working on ‘Vajazzle Week’ and had been forced to wear a T-shirt with a rhinestone vagina emblazoned across the front.

‘Come into the salon and I can demonstrate on you,’ Mandy suggested when I’d popped in earlier that week to ask about bringing Rosie in to have her nails done. ‘Go on… I’d put shedloads of crystals on it this time, we could have big posters of your lady garden all over the shop.’

I couldn’t hide my horror at the prospect of close-ups of my jewelled vagina all over the walls. ‘Tempting as that is, I’ll give it a miss, Mand,’ I said, knowing the sarcasm would be lost on her.

I wanted to provide memories for my granddaughter when we visited the salon, not post-traumatic stress.

I was aware Rosie’s new life would be quite different, full of new and exciting things, but at the same time it might be a little overwhelming. So I photographed everything we did and all that was familiar and planned to put the pictures in an album so she could go back there sometimes.

Of course, I’d visit them in Scotland and they would come and see me, but I’d been doing some thinking and I wasn’t sure how long I’d be here. I was still in ‘analysis’ mode from my degree course, studying every text, every film – looking for the meaning, the subplot, the message. And it kind of hit me one evening, while watching Frozen (for the 539th time), if you try to hide your emotions and isolate yourself in a frozen ice castle, everything you’ve been holding inside will eventually blow up and cause a lot more harm than if you just – as the song says – ‘Let It Go’. So the answer had been in front of me all the time – Disney knew it, Rosie knew it – it had just taken me a little longer to see what was right in front of my face.

I’d done this with my feelings for Dan – since he left, my life had been taken up with studying, my family and the hairdresser’s. I’d avoided communicating with him, I’d avoided anything to do with love – and if I didn’t do something about it soon, I’d be… frozen! Okay, I really needed to stop watching that film.

That night, I lay awake and thought about his proposal in a way I hadn’t before. As painful as it was for me that Emma and Rosie would be living so far away, it also meant that I was now really free, with no ties, no responsibilities, and I could go anywhere I wanted to. Could I live in another country now? Could I marry again? And what about my career? Could I be a teacher? How difficult would it be to get work somewhere like… Australia? How would Dan feel about me now saying I’d changed my mind? What if his feelings had changed in the fifteen months since we’d parted? Then I thought of those eyes, and the way he loved me, and I just knew in my heart he’d still be waiting, because that’s what I’d been doing: waiting. Waiting for him, waiting for an opportunity, waiting for a time when, like now, I was finally ready.

I woke early the next morning and called Sue, my old boss from the hairdresser’s, for some advice. As I heard the ringing on the other end, I wondered why on earth she was the person I’d turned to in my hour of need – her love life had been a car crash for years. It started when her beloved husband Ken ran off with the next-door neighbour (Sue put it down to the slut having O-level French and apparently using ‘filthy foreign words’ in his hearing, which had inflamed him). Relying mainly on looks and star signs, Sue had since been used, abused and dumped by men throughout the United Kingdom and various Spanish holiday resorts. But before I had chance to renege, she picked up the phone and I apologised for calling at such an ungodly hour.

‘I’m sorry for calling so early, but I need to speak to you before I ring him,’ I said quietly, trying to keep my voice down so I didn’t wake Rosie, who’d seen and heard enough this week. Fortunately, she was unable to pronounce ‘vajazzle’ after hearing it in the salon – but she’d certainly given it a good go.

‘Oh love, you can call me any time, day or night – it’s no bother,’ Sue replied, through her yawns.

‘I just don’t know what to do, Sue,’ I said, after explaining my dilemma.

‘I say go for it. I mean, look at me – I took a risk, abandoned everything, ran away to Devon and it’s the best thing I ever did. And I’ve met some very nice men on Timber.’

I think she meant ‘Tinder’, but with Sue there was no telling – her love life had known such tragedy it could indeed have been a dating app for rampant lumberjacks.

‘I’m glad you’ve found happiness, Sue, you deserve it. Thing is, I wanted to ask you… Do you think I should call Dan and try and give our relationship another chance?’

‘Of course you should, love.’

‘But I wonder if he can ever forgive me. I rejected his proposal and let him go off to Australia alone and…’

‘He’ll forgive you, love. Look at me, when my Ken left for that hussy next door, I thought I’d never forgive him, but ten years down the line I’m over it.’ She so wasn’t – I could hear the venom in her voice down the line all the way from bloody Devon! ‘My only regret, Faye, is never having kids, but I reckon he was impudent anyway. Mind you, he was a cheating, womanising Virgo, who I should never have married in the first place, but that’s another story.’

So much for forgiveness, I thought as Sue went on to cheerlead me to Australia, insisting I call Dan immediately and pointing out that with the sun currently in Venus, I should strike while the iron was hot.

‘But be careful,’ she warned, ‘Sagittarians aren’t called the bachelor sign of the zodiac for nothing – they like to sow their wild oats.’

‘Oh, he’d been there and done that before he met me,’ I laughed.

I listened on to Sue’s astrological, malapropism-punctuated nonsense, knowing it was just what I needed after all. She was my friend, always would be, and despite being quite bonkers, she’d tell me what I wanted to hear. And as we said our goodbyes, her final words rang in my ear: ‘Go for it, love! Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.’

I was impressed, but this was too meaningful and malaprop-free for Sue. ‘Wow, Sue, that’s profound… Is that Proust?’

‘No… Pinterest,’ she said. ‘Bloody fabulous, isn’t it?’

I laughed, said goodbye and put down the phone. I thought about what she’d said (well, what Pinterest had said) and started to type his number, then sat and stared at my phone for at least ten minutes. I hadn’t even told Emma about what I was contemplating, but I assumed she’d be okay with it. ‘Mum, I hope you meet someone… or that Dan comes back,’ she’d said at her wedding. We were both a little tipsy at the end of a long, but beautiful (apart from Craig) day and feeling happy but sad, the way weddings make you feel. ‘I don’t need to meet someone,’ I’d replied. ‘I don’t need a man in my life, it’s full enough without having to cook someone else’s dinner. I’m going to concentrate on me and my career now – I’ve worked hard for this.’

‘Just don’t throw yourself into work and neglect the real stuff,’ she’d sighed, her veil a little askew, but her heart in the right place. ‘I just wish you’d fall madly in love so I don’t have to feel guilty about leaving and living so far away.’

‘Emma, guilt is a wasted emotion. I know this because it has ruled my bloody life and I won’t allow it to rule yours! I’m perfectly happy on my own,’ I said, ‘so no more of it.’

Yes, I thought, holding my phone in both hands, staring at the screen – this is exactly what Emma would want me to do. So I held my breath and I dialled his number (the one written on my heart) and I heard it ring. Strange to think it was ringing somewhere on the other side of the world. God only knew how much this call would cost, but I didn’t care.

It rang and rang, and eventually went to voicemail: ‘Hi, it’s Dan at Lemon Myrtle – leave a message.’ My legs felt weak, my stomach was doing somersaults just hearing his sing-song sunshiney voice. He sounded slightly different – older perhaps? I suppose a lot had happened with his brother, and now he was a grown-up and a fully-fledged business owner, he’d probably been through plenty of ups and downs, which had taken their toll on that carefree voice, those eyes that were about to laugh any minute. No surprise if his light had dimmed a little. Perhaps me being there would bring the light back for him, because we were both at our happiest together.

I gave it a few minutes, then called again. The second time I was even more nervous and as the voicemail picked up once more, I clicked off. I sat there tapping my feet. My whole life was hanging in the balance here – this could be the phone call that would change everything. I made a mental note that if I didn’t get through the third time then perhaps fate had other things in store for me and I would give up (knowing I had no intention of doing so. I’d made up my mind, and as Sue had said, ‘Leos are very detrimental’ – I think she felt it was a posh way of saying determined, but who knew with Sue?).

Eventually, after trying for about an hour, Dan answered, and I heard that lovely voice. He only said, ‘Hi, it’s Dan,’ but my heart was immediately flooded with warm chocolate.

‘G’day, Dan, it’s me!’ I said in a fake Australian accent. I don’t know why, I just felt like being silly – being me again.

‘Faye…? Oh jeez, I never expected… I saw the number but thought it was my aunt.’

‘Oh – didn’t my name come up on your phone?’ I felt slightly deflated at this.

‘You told me to delete it, remember?’ Yeah, but I didn’t mean it.

Okay, I suppose asking him never to contact me again was pretty much the same. And clearly he hadn’t remembered my number. But I remembered his, along with all of the quotations for my finals and the lyrics to ‘Let It Go’.

‘How is everything… your sister-in-law, your nephews?’

‘They’re good. Talking about moving back to be near Kimmie’s parents, which is a shame – I’ll miss them. Thing is, their memories aren’t so good here – John had a rough few years…’ he tailed off. ‘Anyway, how are you? How’s Rosie? I bet she’s really grown up!’ he said.

‘Yeah, she has. Still in charge, still spends her days in royal costumes, though she’s starting school in September. And I got my degree.’

‘Oh, that’s just fantastic, Faye! Really, really great.’ He was genuinely pleased, but I got the feeling he was distracted. Then again, we hadn’t spoken for a year and we were thousands of miles apart.

‘And Dan, you won’t believe this – Emma got married.’

‘Wow, what a turn-up!’ he said, and he asked about the wedding breakfast and the groom (in that order). I gave him all the details, from the canapés to the cake, and he was as engrossed as I knew he’d be – food was his language.

‘So… you said you never wanted to talk again, but you’ve called?’ he asked, once he’d heard all about the wedding.

I’d been hoping for more small talk, more catch-up, some mild flirting even, so him asking me why I’d called made me feel slightly uncomfortable. I couldn’t blame him – I was lucky he didn’t tell me to sod off, and say I had a cheek, calling him up out of the blue over a year after I’d broken his heart. Luckily, he was still lovely Dan and despite wanting to get down to why I’d called him, he seemed pleased to hear from me.

‘I wanted to talk to you because… I miss you,’ I suddenly said, aware my voice was catching. I knew in saying something like this, I was opening the floodgates and I waited for his response. It wasn’t easy to get back to where we had been but just hearing his voice the magic had begun again for me. ‘Are you there?’ I said, into the silence, wondering if we’d lost the line.

‘Yeah… yeah… I’m here.’

‘I’m sorry to just call you up out of the blue like this,’ I said. I could tell from his voice that he was upset – the emotional impact was huge for both of us and I’d taken him by surprise.

‘No worries… Faye… It’s good, all good.’ But I wasn’t convinced – I reckoned he was still hurting after losing his brother, grief can change you.

‘It’s just that, well, things have changed around here… You know I said Emma was married now?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Well, they’ve moved to Scotland. That’s where Richard’s from, and I was upset when they moved, of course. It took a bit of getting used to but now it’s happened, I’ve been thinking…’

‘Oh?’

‘About us.’

‘Oh.’

‘You needn’t sound so excited,’ I giggled, unsure of what to make of his one-word reaction.

‘No, it’s not that, it’s just… Faye, you said it was over. You said there couldn’t be an us ever again.’

‘I know, I know, but that was then, this is now. I’m free… Dan, I’m finally free… No baby-minding, no daughter-minding, I can concentrate on us… We can do a road trip through Australia, you can show me…’

‘I have the café, Faye…’ He sounded surprised, not to say slightly underwhelmed, but I understood it was all so sudden for him – I hadn’t given him a chance to take it in.

‘Oh, I know you have the café and I wouldn’t make you go on a road trip…’

‘That’s good to know.’

Christ, he was making this tough for me.

‘…But I was thinking, if you still want me…?’

Silence. I felt a little uneasy at this, especially as it was followed by more silence. Which I of course had to fill.

‘Then I could come to Oz. I don’t want to wait another minute… I don’t mean… I’m not saying we have to get married. Though I would marry you – gosh, of course I would… But you might not want to get married anymore, right? Then again, you might? I just want to make it clear I’m not just calling you up and saying let’s get married, unless of course you…’

‘Oh… I don’t… That would be…’

‘Forget that last sentence,’ I said, feeling like an idiot. Why did I always say what I was thinking instead of being more thoughtful, more sensitive to his feelings? ‘Not just the last sentence, forget everything I just said for the last three minutes… at least.’

He laughed and I felt a little easier.

‘I’m just thinking, I could come over there, get a job, stick around and see what happens? I want to teach English and I’d love to live somewhere like Sydney… with you. I stayed behind for all the right reasons, but now I’m free… Dan, just think about it. We can drink cocktails all night, stay in bed all day, lie on the beach – when you’re not working, I mean.’ I didn’t know what else I could say; I hadn’t thought this far, to be honest – I’d just assumed after ‘Dan, it’s me,’ his response would be ‘When will you be here?’ But we’d been apart over a year now. Our lives had obviously changed, how could I possibly expect him to be in synch with me?

‘I was all mixed up about ending things with you and being there for Emma and Rosie, but now I know this is the right thing to do,’ I started up again, tired of my own voice. ‘I just keep thinking of the fun we used to have and how we can do it all again, only this time with no responsibilities… just you and me.’

The silence, his silence, was unnerving. So I kept talking.

‘I know I’ll need a job, there’s only so much irresponsibility a girl can have…’ I laughed, aware I was waffling and in my nervous state now in danger of saying too much and behaving weirdly. ‘But I could work anywhere… A school, a university? I don’t know if I’d have to be married to an Australian citizen, that would be you,’ I giggled nervously, wondering when I would stop behaving like some wannabe wife desperate to bag her man. ‘I’m forcing myself on you, aren’t I… am I? I’m not… am I, Dan? Please say something so I stop.’

‘No, no. You’re not forcing yourself…’ He hesitated. ‘But I just… This has all happened so suddenly, you have to understand I thought I’d never see you again, Faye.’

‘I know, and I’m sorry. I’ve messed you about, I’ve been an idiot.’

‘Yeah. Well, I wouldn’t put it like that, but you did piss everything away… I mean, I was ready to get married, make it forever and you just said no.’

‘Mmm, I did,’ I said, slightly irritated at his retelling – it made me seem selfish, like I’d only considered myself – but then again perhaps I had?

‘I’m sorry if I made you feel bad, Dan. I knew you had to go, I just couldn’t go with you – but now everything’s different. I’ve got enough money from the house sale to afford to fly over to you, spend the summer there and…’

Silence. Horrible. Silence.

‘Look, Faye, there’s nothing I’d love more than to spend the summer with you… here. But, babe, I just can’t do it.’

‘Oh, okay.’ I couldn’t quite get my head round this. He was the guy, the only guy, who’d do anything for me, who’d walk through hot coals to be with me – so what had changed?

‘It’s… I’m working. I’m working really hard, it’s great – the café – it’s what I always wanted. I feel like I’m finally doing what I wanted. Wonderful ingredients, locally sourced… It’s more like a restaurant since we started opening in the evenings.’

‘Hang on,’ I said, stopping him mid-speech. ‘I don’t expect you to abandon your life just because I’ve decided to come over.’

‘No, but it’s just so busy, I wouldn’t be able to see you…’

‘I understand… but hey, I just had a brilliant idea,’ I said, not listening to him, excited at my plans, ‘why don’t I come and work for you? There won’t be any teaching work until September anyway, so it would be perfect! Oh Dan, imagine, you and me working in the restaurant together… It’s what we always talked about.’ I could see it now, side by side in the kitchen, planning menus, Dan wiping flour from my cheek and kissing it gently.

‘I don’t know, Faye, you don’t have any experience…’

I felt crushed. He didn’t have to say that – I wanted to be his girlfriend, not an employee. Since when did he care about experience? He’d taught himself to cook, and had always encouraged me to do new things, take risks, scare myself. He believed in me before I believed in me – he showed me I could dive into deep waters, literally and metaphorically. I glanced at my upper arm and remembered how he’d convinced me to have the little lemon cupcake tattoo. It was still there – but he wasn’t.

‘Okay, so I don’t have experience,’ I said, still smarting from this put-down, ‘but I could work with you, learn from you. Dan, I’m so proud of you. Going home was so good for you…’

‘Yeah, yeah, it was...’

‘And I could be with you in a couple of weeks! I need to sort out flights, give my keys back to the landlord for this house, but Emma’s back from her honeymoon in Ireland tomorrow night…’ I laughed, but it was hollow. He’d usually have picked me up on this and said something about our prospective honeymoon. But he didn’t.

‘Faye, I should have said… I’m at work, it’s a bit difficult to talk,’ he said, like he hadn’t even been listening to me.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I had no idea you were still at work, you should have said… But it’s after midnight…’

‘No worries. I’m just getting tomorrow’s menus done.’

‘Okay,’ I said, slightly relieved now. It explained why there were so many silences; his awkwardness wasn’t about me, there were other people around and he didn’t want to say too much. ‘So, shall we talk in a couple of days? Or…?’

‘Hey… yeah, let’s do that.’

‘Okay,’ I said, thinking that perhaps he might also still be pissed off at the way I’d rejected him last time we saw each other.

I was about to put the phone down when he said, ‘Faye?’

‘Yes?’ I said, uncertainly.

‘It’s… good to hear your voice.’

I smiled a secret smile to myself, and clicking off the phone, sat in bed, watching the curtains drift in the summer breeze, but instead of feeling excited, certain of my future, I was left wondering what had just happened. Had the early morning sunshine gone behind a cloud, or was I just being stupid? Of course he was pleased to hear from me, but he was at work, he was busy… Or was it more than that? How bloody conceited I’d been to think I could just call him up after all this time and expect him to drop everything. He had a lot on his plate and I might not be top of his list of priorities at the moment. I had to accept that I might have to work my way back to being the love of his life – I had to earn it and not just expect that I’d be able to step in and carry on as we were. But I was prepared to do that, because he was worth it.

‘Who were you talking to, Nana?’ a little voice asked from the doorway.

I opened my arms to Rosie and she ran to me, clambering onto the bed. I swept her up, burying my face in her shampoo-scented hair. Children are a great antidote to any kind of pain and just hugging her soothed me, and at the same time reminded me she wouldn’t be here much longer. I had to make the most of these Nana and Rosie days before Emma came back and whisked her away to Scotland.

‘I was talking to Dan,’ I said. ‘You remember Dan, don’t you?’

She smiled a cheeky little smile and said shyly, ‘You mean Dam… He’s your boyfriend.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, he is… Well, he was.’

‘Do you love him, Nana?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Are you going to marry him, like Mummy married Richard?’ She was cross-legged now, arms folded across her tummy. ‘Can I be a unicorn… and have a hens party night with the vicars?’

‘Mmm, something like that. One day… perhaps. Now, come on, Little Miss Busybody,’ I said tickling her, ‘let’s make pancakes for breakfast.’

‘Yay! Let’s bake pancakes,’ she yelled and we put on our dressing gowns and raced downstairs.

‘Is Mandy coming to your wedding? I like Mandy,’ Rosie said a little later as I stood her on a chair to reach the kitchen worktop to help with the pancakes.

‘Probably.’

‘Can I have a T-shirt like Mandy’s?’

I was slightly distracted as she broke an egg outside the bowl in her efforts to ‘bake’.

‘A T-shirt, sweetie?’

‘Yes, like Mandy’s, with jewels and a front bottom on.’

‘Probably not,’ I said gently, horrified that she’d been able to decipher the picture on Mandy’s ‘Vajazzle Week’ T-shirts.

‘I think we’ll stick to the unicorn, darling. Now, shall we weigh out the flour?’

She lifted the bag of flour with a great deal of effort and I managed to catch it before it landed on the floor. I watched the concentration on her little face as she put the flour on the scales – painfully slow spoons, half-full, wobbly, flour dust everywhere. It seemed to last forever but I didn’t mind, I just took her in, aching with love and missing her already.

Along with my theory that children are a cure-all, I find stacks of pancakes smothered in sugar and spiked with fresh lemon are also a great soother. I was confused and inexplicably stung by my conversation with Dan, and dreading Rosie’s departure, therefore several pancakes would be required. Large ones.

---

Mandy had offered to do Rosie’s nails before she left for Scotland, and as the salon was one of the places Rosie had grown up visiting, I wanted to take her for a farewell outing. So that afternoon we popped along and were soon swept up into the gentle camaraderie of women together. To my relief there wasn’t a vajazzle T-shirt in sight, and no sign of blow-up willies or whips and chains, which was always a possibility when Mandy was in the vicinity. Everyone called hello, smiling at Rosie, waving from under hairdryers, all of us recognising a fellow soldier of life – all fighting the fight, hoping one day to win the lottery, meet the man, retire to Benidorm. For most of us it would never happen, but while we waited there were worse things to do than kill time with other women and have our hair done. Stories, secrets, laughs and lies were all shared under the dryers and as the water sprayed in the backwashes, women of all ages and stages shared tales of scandalous affairs, wicked husbands, and long-lost children. I loved it here, among the curlers and hair dyes, where no subject was barred – even Mandy’s colourful sex life, which, frankly, should have been. Rosie loved it here too, in the whirring of hairdryers and the kindness of old ladies in rollers, with sweets in their pockets and time on their hands.

Everyone in the salon knew my own life story, and when I’d left Craig for a summer in Santorini with Dan, my customers and colleagues had been my cheerleaders. Mandy even gave me a goodbye fake tan (which was so orange, it might have jeopardised my relationship with a lesser man). I was back in that lovely summer of rebirth and new experiences when I was rudely awakened.

‘Hello GORGEOUS!’ came a loud voice from the Heavenly Spa at the top of the stairs. Mandy was in the building. She appeared wearing half a head of heated rollers, full lashes with sparkly bits and apparently she’d just had Botox, which explained the screams coming from the spa and the surprised look on her face.

On hearing Mandy’s voice, Rosie turned, abandoning some old lady’s Werther’s Originals, her face lit up. Mandy was all noise and colour to a four-year-old and often insisted on slapping creams/eyelashes/lip gloss on Rosie, which she loved, but Emma found a little disconcerting. ‘Mum, she looks like one of those pageant queens they have in America,’ Emma had gasped in mock horror the last time Rosie had paid a visit to Mandy’s dreaded spa. I’d laughed it off, which was easier than wiping off the tan and the fake lashes later, which I’d insisted to Emma were only temporary. ‘God, Mum, promise me you’ll never let Mandy near her with that tattoo gun,’ she’d half-joked.

Yes, Mandy had recently been fully trained at the Tattoo You school of cosmetic tattooing, had a licence to mark people for life – and the certificate to prove it. When she concentrated, Mandy created some beautiful nails, and eyes, her tattooed lips and brows could also be lovely. But the problem was that she sometimes took her eye off the ball – or the face, or whatever body part she was tattooing – she was so busy gossiping, suffering a hangover, or demonstrating her slutdropping prowess. Consequently, the visions that sometimes appeared from the spa after a long session were like something from Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors.

‘How’s my gorgeous little Rosie posy?’ Mandy was now addressing Rosie as she descended the stairs like a queen entering her court. The staff didn’t even bat an eyelid. Gayle, who billed herself as ‘head stylist to the stars’. was enjoying ‘a celebratory Prosecco’ (though I wasn’t sure what she was actually celebrating) and laughing at a video on her phone. Meanwhile, Camilla (still the junior after five years) was meditating on a large cushion on the floor. Mandy had always seen Camilla as great sport – she’d once sent her to Ann Summers, telling her it was a bookshop and told her to ask for The Karma Sutra, and would shout across the salon that ‘Mr P Ness’ was on the phone for her, to which of course Camilla would innocently call back, ‘P Ness?’ This alarmed some of the older clientele, but provided Mandy with deep, unbridled joy. Somehow against the odds, these two had become firm friends, Mandy giving the very straight Camilla some life and daring, while Camilla in turn provided the calm antidote to Mandy’s madness.

Mandy had now handed Rosie a bright pink lollipop from a bowl on the reception counter and was asking if she’d like her eyebrows ‘on fleek’. I immediately declined on my granddaughter’s behalf, just imagining Emma’s face when she came home from honeymoon to a tattooed child.

‘Oh, she just needs a bit of definition,’ Mandy was saying, weighing up the four-year-old’s eyebrows. ‘I can’t wait until she’s a bit bigger – we’ll knock a few highlights in that hair, a set of lashes and a sparkly mani and pedi and she’ll knock ’em dead down the Funkin’ Fusion.’

‘Yeah, lovely,’ I said non-committally, while pretending to share her vision. ‘We’ll just have a manicure for now, eh, Rosie?’ I said.

Rosie took her seat and Mandy painted her nails and asked her about her boyfriends, which delighted Rosie, who told all. And when she was finished, Mandy hugged her and we said our goodbyes as she downed a Prosecco and began wiggling her hips. I rushed Rosie to the door, fearing a sudden revival of the great salon slutdropping competition of 2014 when in an attempt at the world record, seventy-two-year-old Joyce inadvertently landed in the splits. Paramedics were called and Joyce was whisked to the Royal, where she was in traction for six months. She said her sex life had never been the same since that day, and she’d only come in for a root touch-up.

‘Do you want me to come in to work on Saturday, Mandy?’ I asked, from the doorway as we were leaving.

‘Ooh, yes please, love! Me and Jase are having a date night Friday, and you know what that means, don’t you?’

I certainly did, but really hoped she wasn’t going to share it in front of my little granddaughter, so I got in there first. ‘Yeah, it means you’ll be late in on Saturday,’ I smiled, opening the door and gently pushing Rosie towards it before Mandy spilled.

‘I’ll be pissed on all fours…’

Too late.

‘We’ll get off then… See you Saturday…’ I didn’t want a repeat of our previous week’s visit when Mandy had been to a glitter party and couldn’t remove the glitter from her body. This in itself was perfectly acceptable before the watershed, but when she announced that her crotch looked ‘like a bloody glitterball’, I saw Rosie’s eyes widen and knew the word ‘crotch’ had just been included in the Rosie Dobson Dictionary. Emma would kill me.

‘Two words…’ Mandy was now shouting after me as I attempted to remove my innocent granddaughter from the scene. ‘Carpet burns,’ she roared, laughing, and slapped a nearby stylist on the back, which caused her to take a large slice out of a customer’s hair. ‘We were doing it on the kitchen floor the other night – and it’s linoleum! LOL, I was sliding all over the show,’ she yelled at me across the salon. ‘Then Jase got a bit too excited and I was doing hundred miles an hour up the kitchen.’ She shook her head, in peals of laughter now. ‘Faye, take my advice, love, never lube up on lino.’

‘I won’t,’ I muttered, like this was sage advice I might need to take. I was now trying to bundle a protesting Rosie out of the door with my hands over her ears before Mandy could offer any more sage advice on sexual matters.

Eventually I rescued the poor child and when, over supper with Emma later that evening, Rosie chatted animatedly about, ‘Mandy and loob and dino,’ I laughed it off, saying how it was funny what children picked up at nursery. And sent up a little thank you that she still couldn’t pronounce ‘vajazzle’.