As the stylist cocks the mirror to show her the back of her hair, Melissa can’t help picturing a shaven-headed teenager in a Moscow bedsit.
‘Looking gorgeous, don’t you think?’ says Susie.
Melissa nods and forces a tight smile. They say the best hair comes from Russia, and this type of blonde is worth every penny of the £400. If only she could get rid of the lurid Gulag imagery.
‘Those’ll see you right for another six weeks or so,’ says Susie, with a kindly squeeze of her shoulders.
‘Great, thanks Susie.’
But it’s hard to feign the enthusiasm she knows is expected. The whirr and blast of hairdryers and the tinny thud of the background music have anaesthetized her into a kind of stupor. She can’t even quite remember what she and Susie had been talking about during the endless hours she has been sitting in this chair. She feels somehow bonded to it.
Her reluctance to get up prompts Susie to speak quietly into her ear.
‘Why don’t you finish your tea before you go?’ she says in her soft Geordie accent. ‘Boss likes to get people out the door, if you know what I mean, but you’re all right for a bit longer. My eleven o’clock hasn’t even arrived yet.’
Melissa murmurs her gratitude as Susie bustles away and reaches for the delicate china teacup cooling next to the jumble of brushes, scissors, and tongs in front of her.
The cloth pyramid of camomile tea has a greasy shine to it and the liquid is tepid and almost slimy as it slips down her throat, which feels scratchy. She coughs experimentally and begins to fret. It would be the worst time to come down with something. She could picture herself croaking miserably at people over the music of the party. There’s some zinc and vitamin C at home. She’ll dose herself up with them later.
Looking back at her reflection, she runs a hand through her hair, turning her head this way and that. She takes care not to snag the tiny plugs woven into her own thin, expensively dyed tresses, which now hang in glossy waves the colour of butterscotch, wishing yet again that she didn’t always do this. Wonder about the provenance of the hair, that is.
Surely there’s nothing wrong with it? It’s no different from the Bio Gel that adorn her fingers in a colour she is told is ‘French Nude’, although Melissa thinks her fingertips look a bit creepy. Android, almost. She wonders what percentage of her is now artificial.
But the extensions feel different. She pictures some poor pretty girl losing the only asset she has so that a rich woman thousands of miles away can enjoy the weight of it on her shoulders. All too easy to picture the grubby transaction involved in selling your own hair.
It is as she is musing gloomily on this that she feels a strange prickle of unease, like there has been a ripple in the atmosphere, a tiny, fizzing depth charge deep in the primeval part of her brain.
She frowns and looks around.
Someone is watching her. Melissa turns her head sharply to look at the main window. It is slightly steamed up and the displays of flowers – ugly spiky things that she privately detests but which are presumably deemed stylish – obscure the view a little but she can see a swatch of High Street outside.
People drift or march past the window. It’s a perfectly ordinary day in North London.
Life bustles on, oblivious to Melissa. No one is looking in at her.
Of course they aren’t. What was she expecting? Who was she expecting?
She gets up crisply and walks to the desk to pay, her stomach still roiling queasily from the shock of thinking she was being watched. Her back aches and her bottom is stiff from hours of sitting.
Susie seems to materialize from nowhere and, taking care not to damage her newly faked nails, Melissa rummages for her purse and then opens the small wooden box that has been discreetly placed in front of her, containing the bill.
Melissa knew that this morning wouldn’t come cheap, but still, the cost of hair extensions and styling, manicure, pedicure, and eyebrow threading, at almost £600, gives her a thrill of transgressive pleasure.
She hopes Mark will choke on his coffee, as she pushes her credit card across the counter to Susie and looks for a twenty to leave as a tip. If he’s going to behave like one of those husbands, then she will be one of those wives.
Outside on the High Street it feels like the contrast button on an old television has been turned up too high. Everything is too bright; nauseatingly colourful. Melissa feels the sharp pinch of a headache beginning in her forehead. She finds her sunglasses and pushes them onto her face a little clumsily, eyes greedy for the shade. A branch of Boots is just over the road and Melissa decides to buy some water and paracetamol before setting off home. Maybe she can head this thing off at the pass so she can enjoy the party later. The caterers will be almost finished now and all that needs to be done is to oversee the Ocado delivery, which is bringing the majority of the booze. It’s a bit late, but they let her down yesterday, citing some sort of freezer catastrophe. She hopes the champagne will have enough time to chill for this evening.
It is as she is crossing over to Boots that Melissa feels the crawling sensation again, like fingertips skittering across her skin. She is certain now that it isn’t in her head. She read once that it’s something to do with peripheral vision.
Someone is definitely watching her.
Melissa’s heart begins to thud uncomfortably hard as she whips around in a full circle, eyes narrowed behind her dark lenses. Someone has just been swallowed up by the doors of Superdrug but she didn’t see them clearly. The High Street is busy – full of normal people, gazing into phone screens, yanking irritable children along, or, in the case of the few old people dotted about, ambling painstakingly with shoppers or small decrepit dogs. No one is staring at Melissa.
Goosebumps scatter across her arms and she shivers, even though the air is close and heavy. A car alarm shrieks nearby and Melissa flinches. The air feels soupy, with traffic fumes mingling with the cigarette smoke wafting from a doorway, where a young woman’s head is bent over her mobile, apparently having a furious conversation at low volume.
At the far end of the High Street, near the library and fire station, Melissa can see a figure who looks familiar. It takes a minute to realize it’s her next-door neighbour, Hester. She is a fussy, annoying little woman who was constantly in Melissa’s face when she first moved into the street. Hester was far too interested in how Melissa was bringing up Tilly, and although she had occasionally helped with babysitting, she was more trouble than she was worth. Melissa managed to slip free of her attention and the last contact they’d had was earlier this year. Melissa couldn’t remember the details because it happened bang in the middle of the Sam thing. Something to do with recycling, or parking.
Melissa is in no mood to see Hester just now. She has enough to worry about. Even though it is only a ten-minute walk home from here, she hurries over to the taxi rank and climbs into the first available car, catching the appreciative look tossed her way by the driver. As she leans forward to give the address, she feels warmed by the attention and thinks about what he sees: a good-looking, well-groomed woman of means. Someone he could only ever admire from a distance. And if he’d known her back then? She doubts he would have allowed her in his taxi.
She is unrecognizable now.
Surely.
Melissa settles back in the seat as the car pulls away and tries to think calming thoughts. No one is watching her. No one is following her.
No one knows.
Her mobile trills, making her jump a little and she inwardly curses herself for her jumpiness.
‘Babes, it’s me.’ Saskia’s husky voice pours into her ear like warm oil.
Despite having been educated at an elite girls’ boarding school, and growing up riding ponies and skiing, Saskia’s diction wouldn’t be out of place at a gathering of Pearly Kings and Queens.
Her Mockney affectation sometimes irritates Melissa, but she is also one of the warmest people she has ever met. She laughs like a navvy and can infect Melissa with a dose of humour when she is otherwise unable to feel it. Her loyalty during the Sam episode will never be forgotten by Melissa. Saskia knows all too well what it is like to be cheated on, and the father of her teenage son was sent packing a few years previously.
‘What’s up?’ she says, stifling a yawn. The idea of lying down on the scuffed, smelly seat of the car and taking a nap feels worryingly tempting.
‘Not much,’ says Saskia. ‘Just wondered if you need any last-minute help? I know you have caterers in but I’m about if you need me.’
‘That’s really sweet, Sass, but I think I’m all sorted.’
There’s a brief silence before Saskia speaks again. ‘And has there been any change of heart …?’
Melissa sighs. ‘Nope. He claims it’s “totally unavoidable”. Can you believe him?’
Saskia groans and then Melissa hears the suck and pop of her cigarette.
‘Fuck Mark,’ says Saskia. ‘I’m going to be there to make sure it’s the best damned party ever. Nathe is coming along and he can be your barman or something.’
Melissa smiles. ‘I can always rely on you.’
‘Love ya.’ Saskia hangs up.
The car has been stuck in a jam for the last few minutes and Melissa cranes now to see what is going on.
‘Some sort of hold-up, is there?’ she says to the driver, whose eyes are now framed in the rear-view mirror as he looks back at her.
‘There’s a lorry that was fannying around unloading something at the back of Asda, but it looks like we’re moving now. In a hurry?’
Melissa nods and then turns to the window. She has no interest in chatting through the rest of this journey. As the taxi hums back into movement again, the driver doesn’t attempt any further conversation.
They turn down leafy streets where the houses are set back from the road. Several of the houses have original stone sculptures on the gateposts, and when Tilly was little she loved what she called the ‘stone piggies’ that stand sentry at Hester’s gate.
Melissa swears under her breath as she sees the other woman walking just ahead. Hester has managed to get back before her. Not prepared to risk being stuck with her on the doorstep, Melissa switches on a smile for the driver.
‘Could I ask you to pull over just here?’ she says and she sees his rectangular gaze, harder now.
‘Sure,’ he says.
She spends some time pretending to look for money, until she is sure Hester is safely inside.