The clock showed that it was almost nine, and Evie blinked her eyes open, stretching herself in the luxury of the king-sized bed the next morning. She marvelled at how the flight had become so enjoyable after such a nervy beginning. She didn’t regret a little bit the fibs she had told the young men about Bono. It had made the boys happy as they’d ushered her into the cab and shook her hand and said: ‘It was a pleasure meeting you, Evie. Tell your Bono we loved Achtung Baby.’
Evie’s stomach groaned; the champagne had furred her tongue; she was ready for breakfast. She had slept in her undies. She’d brought no change of clothes or toothbrush, so she resolved to go shopping. After all, this was Liverpool and she could do as she pleased for the next few days. She would contact Brendan today, and Jenny at Sheldon Lodge. She grabbed the beret she had bought in Dublin and tugged it over her hair. Now she could become someone else, not the Evie she had been, not the wife, the mother, the old lady in the lifestyle home, but someone interesting, someone she had never met. She pulled on her clothes and her new coat, and the smells reminded her suddenly of airports and taxis and betting shops, and she laughed again.
In the hotel foyer, she asked the receptionist for a map of the city, planning her shopping list. She wondered about a good place to have breakfast, one that would have a caramel latte, and the sweet taste was in her mind as she stepped out into the street.
She felt the bump. It knocked her back against the wall and she instinctively clutched at her handbag. She looked up. The beret fell over one eye, and she tugged it off her head. A woman was staring at her.
‘Why you don’t look where you going?’ the woman said.
Evie was stunned. The breath was knocked out of her.
The woman, Italian or Spanish, was annoyed. Her eyes ignited in Evie’s direction, raising unimpressed eyebrows. Her face was not young. Her eyes were made up, surrounded with kohl, and her mouth was scarlet; she wore an orange jacket and her hair was piled on top of her head. Evie gaped at her hair, which was magenta red, tied with a pink silk bow.
‘You should be careful, old lady,’ the woman continued. ‘You might hurt yourself.’ She turned and swept away down the road.
Evie studied the jacket, the high heels and skinny ankles, and the orange leather handbag that the woman threw across her shoulder as she walked away.
‘What does she mean, old lady?’ Evie grumbled. ‘She was sixty-five if she was a day.’
Evie looked down at two dusty shoes, at her legs in slacks that widened around her ankles and revealed the top of white socks, at the shapeless blue coat she had been so proud of a day ago.
‘Hmmm.’
Breakfast would be a priority, a caramel latte and some of those flaky croissants. It would give her time to consider her options.
‘I can fit you in now, if you don’t mind a bit of a wait, love.’
His name badge said he was called Nathan and his hair was a creative blond quiff, shorn and darker at the sides but rising up from his head in an arc of a bird’s wing. He wore a tight purple T-shirt with a slogan that said, ‘This Is What a Feminist Looks Like’, skinny black jeans and a belt containing scissors and combs. Evie sat down in the reception area, clutching her bags of shopping. She had bought herself some new clothes, including a leather jacket. Evie was still not sure about the jacket – green wasn’t a colour she usually wore but it was emerald green and wasn’t she Irish, the assistant had asked. It was expensive too, but it fitted well. Of course, it didn’t go with the red beret but Evie bought a black cap, not unlike the ones The Beatles wore in the film Hard Day’s Night, and she paid with her card so it felt almost like the shopping was free.
From behind the reception desk, a young girl brought Evie a coffee while she waited. It tasted like treacle.
‘Ready for you now,’ called Nathan, ushering Evie to a seat and whisking a matador cape around her shoulders. ‘And what can we do for Madam today?’
Evie hesitated. ‘I want a change.’
‘Hmmm.’ Nathan looked at her, stepping back. ‘Radical?’
Evie didn’t know what he meant but she agreed.
‘Leave it with me – some strong colour and a trim and I will have you looking like Madonna.’
Evie didn’t want to look like the Catholic icon; on second thoughts she didn’t want to look like the woman who cavorted and sang ‘Like a Virgin’ either. That song had come out in 1984 when Brendan was seven years old. Evie recalled his little legs dancing in the kiddies’ disco, singing along to the lyrics with his arms in the air. He had beamed at her and returned to waving his arms and marching with his legs, and she had ached as she watched her child mouthing the lyrics.
Nathan held up her brown locks as if making a decision. Images were forming in her mind: herself as a distorted cartoon with wild hair, and people looking and laughing. Nathan was talking to her but Evie was quiet, watching the whirling maestro at work. He told her about his Mazda MX-5 and had she seen the new Bond film? Evie’s hair was painted and piled. The lighting was harsh and illuminated the lines on her face, making her look anxious. The washing took a long time and then she sat before her reflection, a strange elf with a dull cap of hair plastered to her head. Nathan waved the dryer and chatted about his friend’s stag do in Goa. Evie twisted around him to peek in the mirror, as he tugged at her hair. The words ‘mutton’ and ‘lamb’ slipped into her head. Nathan was an artist, his scissors and the brush in the air, touching up his work, standing back and making a discontented face, then cutting again. He stood back with a flourish, hairbrush aloft.
‘I’ve kept the fringe long and added texture with some layers, not taken too much off – and I think the blonde highlights really frame your face and create a softer look. What do you think?’
Evie looked at the woman staring at her from the mirror and she burst out laughing. ‘Ah, will you look at me?’
Her face was beaming and framed with soft golden hair. Her eyes shone. She thought she looked like a fairy-tale queen.
‘Don’t you like it?’ asked Nathan, piqued.
Evie looked up at him as if he was the saint of all hairdressers. ‘I love it. It’s grand. Now how much do I owe you?’
‘That’s a hundred and twenty pounds today.’
‘Worth every penny,’ she told him as she reached into her purse for her card.