Sometimes at night when I couldn’t sleep I googled Dan’s café and it seemed to be going from strength to strength, with great reviews and an extended eating area. So Dan was becoming the man I knew he could be and following his own path, alone. But as I curled Mrs Bennett’s hair for the Social Club Barn Dance, and twisted and plaited the chignons of the prom queen wannabes who I’d known since they were babies, I was sometimes filled with overwhelming sadness. Nothing was the same here without him.

There were moments when I wondered if I should just call him to say hi, but I had to be strong for both of us. I’d told him we needed a clean break, and he’d respected that. I hadn’t heard from him in months – so when, at work one day, I saw a text from him, I panicked. I was colouring Judy Mack’s hair and she was looking a little pale under all the ‘Violent Violet’. I didn’t want to put my glasses on and read Dan’s message while I was applying her colour – she was clearly worried enough about the resulting shade without me scrolling on my phone while she turned purple (damn those Lithuanian hair products!). So I threw my phone to Mandy, who happened to be passing through on her way to the laughingly named ‘Heavenly Spa’. There was nothing heavenly about the way Mandy attacked a person’s eyebrows, or attempted a ‘heavenly treatment’, like a wrestler on steroids, kneading and pummelling at her clients while discussing her latest sexual exploits with ‘Jase’.

‘What the f—’ she started, looking from me to the phone. Then she seemed to remember that she was the owner and she wasn’t allowed to say the f-word in the salon.

‘It’s from Dan,’ I hissed. ‘He’s texted me, but I can’t answer it. It’s like I’ve got some extra-sensory perception, I just know when he’s texting.’

‘That’s because you’ve put him on vibrate, you daft cow,’ she laughed. ‘Hey Jude, every time Bruce texts her, she starts vibrating!’ She slapped Judy on the back, which quite frankly, was the last thing Judy needed. Not only was she acclimatising to the apocalyptic purple of her hair, the woman was a slave to her bowels and had just been to hospital for an exploratory. God only knew what one of Mandy’s harsh slaps could have unleashed below the waist.

‘So,’ I grimaced, looking into the mirror at Judy. One could only pray she was going to leave the salon with a human shade of hair and bowels firmly closed.

‘So what?’ Mandy said, leaning on the mirror, looking at the same head of purple and curling her lip.

‘What does the text say?’

‘Oh…’ She started scrolling. ‘He says… he wants to have you every way he can until your legs… One word… operation! He says you will need an operation after he’s finished with his…’

‘Stop it, Mandy, just tell me,’ I said, knowing she was winding me up – Dan would never be texting me with stuff like that. But I was desperate to know and irritated now: why would he suddenly text after months of silence? Was he going to sell up and move back here to live with me after all? Stupid, I know, but this was one of my daydreams. Despite splitting up, I hadn’t even begun to move on. ‘TELL ME!’ I said a little too loudly. And okay, aggressively. Poor Judy flinched and went scarlet – who knew the strain this was causing on those flawed and fragile bowels?

‘Okay, calm down. He says, “Call me. It would be good to meet, don’t want to discuss over a text – need to talk about Gatsby.”’

I felt my heart thump slightly in my chest. It was a signal, this message was his way of getting me to go out there. Suddenly, I didn’t care about Judy’s hair, I had to ask Dan to stop doing this. My heart couldn’t stand another goodbye.

‘Oh, this is too much,’ I said.

‘What you talking about…? He said he wants to talk about Gatsby, not stick his—’

‘NO,’ I shouted, in an attempt to stop the vile filth that neither I nor Judy needed to hear – the woman was traumatised enough and I was in bits. ‘You don’t understand,’ I said, more calmly now. ‘He bought me a copy of The Great Gatsby before I started my course; it was our favourite book, he used to read it to me… It’s symbolic…’

‘Oh!’ She was either unimpressed or hadn’t a clue what I was talking about – probably the latter.

‘We both had our favourite passages,’ I sighed.

‘I’m sure you did, but we don’t need to know about that, do we, Jude?’ Another slap across Judy’s back. The woman was a wreck and at this point I could only imagine the state of her intestines.

‘Anyway, I haven’t got time to discuss Bruce’s passage or your symbolics,’ she winked. ‘I’ve got an eyebrow tattoo at four, so do you want me to text him back for you or not?’

‘Yes… Yes, please…’ I nodded gratefully. I had to finish Judy’s hair and without my glasses it would be easier to dictate a message than fumble blindly around myself and leave what I wanted to say at the mercy of autocorrect. I’d been there so many times. Only the day before I’d texted for a client who was having her hair washed. ‘Can you ask my daughter to bring my epi pen – I have allergies and am not meant to leave the house without it,’ she asked. ‘No problem,’ I said, quickly sending the message without my glasses on. But within seconds her daughter called up, horrified, asking to speak to her mother. Apparently epi pen autocorrected and I had in fact asked if she could bring her mother an ‘epic penis’ because she couldn’t be without it!

No, I wasn’t going there again, and though dictating in the salon wasn’t very private, it was better than anything autocorrecting to ‘penis’ and giving Dan the wrong idea – he’d think I’d got text Tourette’s. I glanced at Judy, who was about to hear everything I said to Dan, but she’d seen and heard enough in her years coming to the salon. She’d witnessed the breakdown of Sue’s marriage, Mandy’s slutdropping and was only too familiar with Gayle, the head stylist’s, ovulation cycle (don’t ask). My text to ‘Bruce’ would be a day in the park for Judy after all that. ‘Okay, Mandy, please don’t mess about. This is important, okay? So say this… “Sorry, but you can’t just text me like this. What we had was magical… Erm… You are the love of my life, but this can’t happen, full stop… WE can’t happen. I think about you all the time, but you have to stop texting me, it’s too painful. Goodbye.” Full stop. Have you got that, Mandy?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You haven’t put “penis” in there, have you?’

‘No, but I can if you want me to,’ she said in all seriousness. I shook my head vigorously, ‘No, please don’t.’

‘Suit yourself,’ she said, screwing her face up and still punching out the last few letters. ‘Don’t send it yet,’ I cried. ‘Read it back to me, so I know you’ve written it down right, and please do NOT add anything disgusting – I’ll never forgive you.’ I had to trust her not to add her own colourful asides.

When I’d first met Dan in the deli where he worked, Mandy had told me to ask him for ‘a bush oyster sandwich’ for her – which I stupidly did. Imagine how red I went when I discovered this is in fact Australian slang for kangaroo testicles.

‘And don’t mention…’

‘I know, I know… bush oysters,’ she said slowly, in a bored voice, then read out the text, which was surprisingly accurate.

‘Would you send it now, please,’ I said.

‘Okay, my queen. I’m pressing send,’ she sang.

‘Thanks, Mandy,’ I sighed, sad that I’d had to say this to Dan and at the same time relieved I’d been strong and made my feelings clear.

She stood at my side for a few seconds, watching me ‘transform’ Judy. Call me psychic, but I had a strong feeling she was about to say something tasteless about someone in the vicinity – possibly me.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked, waiting for a tsunami of vileness.

‘Yeah. I thought Bruce’s name was Dan?’

‘It is… You know, it’s not bloody Bruce. Not all Australians are called Bruce,’ I added, returning to Judy’s violet hair.

‘I know. So why is he calling himself Dave now?’

‘He’s not.’

‘Is Dave a new one then?’

‘New one? I haven’t got a new one, as you so delicately put it.’ I rolled my eyes at Judy in the mirror, but she didn’t look up – I think she might have been pretending to be in a trance so she could pretend none of this was happening. I’d definitely seen her flinch at ‘bush oysters’. Her hair was purple and Mandy’s language was blue – God alone knows how the woman had survived this long.

‘You are one crazy bitch,’ Mandy was laughing as she skipped off to rugby-tackle a client into her heavenly spa and I thought little of it until later that day, when I received another text. This time I put my glasses on to read it.

And when I looked at the sender it was Dave Bronson… my lecturer from college.

My mouth went dry and I scrolled up, willing for it not to be – but yes, the previous text that I’d thought was from Dan had been from Dave. I died on the spot. I couldn’t face this now, but I wondered what on earth my college lecturer must think of me. He’d merely asked to arrange a chat about my work and I’d told him what we had was ‘magical’, that he was ‘the love of my life’, but that ‘WE can’t happen’ and he had to stop texting me because it was ‘too painful’… Shit! Looked like I’d have to brace myself for one very awkward chat at some point in the near future. Even more awkward than the last one regarding my forty-something thighs and sex in a car…