My unevenly cropped hair, with a fringe at the front.
‘Something is wrong?’ Bogdan asks.
‘Yes! My hair!’
‘Is looking bit strange, is true.’
‘That’s not what I—’
‘As if you are madwoman. Who is cutting own hair. With breadknife.’
Bogdan’s (slightly brutal) opinion of my appearance is the least of my concerns.
Because it’s all coming back to me now … Audrey Hepburn appearing in my flat last night, before my very eyes … all that stuff with the Nespresso machine … me losing it a bit when I couldn’t find the pods … Audrey Hepburn suggesting a haircut …
But it was all a hallucination. I mean, I know that.
Which means that not only did I vividly imagine an evening in with Audrey Hepburn last night, but at some point during the course of this hallucination, I set about my own head with a pair of scissors.
Or, if Bogdan Son of Bogdan’s opinion is to be trusted, a breadknife.
Either way, it doesn’t sound the safest thing I’ve ever done.
And might just mean that the ‘madwoman’ description isn’t far off, after all.
‘Are you needing to be getting that?’
‘What?’
He’s pointing into the flat, where – I’ve just heard it, too – my phone is ringing.
‘Oh, yes … I suppose …’ I stumble back inside the flat and pick up the phone without checking who’s calling. Which is a huge mistake, because it’s my mother.
‘Libby?’
‘Mum, hi … look, this isn’t a very good time, actually.’
‘What the hell is going on?’
The even-more-than-usually-hectoring tone of her voice makes me think, for a moment, that she must somehow know about everything that’s gone on in (and to) my head in the last twelve hours.
‘I don’t know, Mum …’ My voice wobbles. I put a hand to my hair and pull fretfully at the disastrous fringe. ‘I guess it has to be the stress of the move, and what happened at work yesterday …’
‘What happened at work yesterday?’
So she doesn’t know. Well, right now, when I’m feeling this shaky, is not the time to tell her.
‘Right now is not the time to tell me,’ she snaps, as though she’s implanted some sort of device into my iPhone that allows her to read my mind (she couldn’t have done, could she?). ‘Are you on your way, at least?’
‘On my way …?’
‘To my flat! Have you forgotten what day it is?’
I have to rack my brains here … it’s June, so it can’t be her birthday … or Cass’s birthday …
‘Cass’s big night! The Made Man’s Hundred Hottest party! Aren’t you going to come and help get her ready?’
I sink into the smelly Chesterfield, where I’d rather spend every single minute of today rather than subject myself to Mum. Even the excitement of Cass’s Big Night won’t be enough to distract from the hysteria that will ensue when I show up, with my hair looking like this, to break the news about my unceremonious sacking.
‘The thing is, Mum, I’m not feeling all that well.’
‘So take a painkiller.’
‘It’s not pain, really, so much as something … viral.’ Yes! The perfect solution. I cough, loudly. ‘And obviously I can’t possibly risk giving anything to Cass, not before her big night.’
‘Rubbish. If it’s a virus it’ll take twenty-four hours for her to catch it,’ Mum says, briskly (and without, as far as I can see, the slightest bit of medical knowledge to back up this view). ‘Now, get a move on and get over here. We need someone to pop and get some lunch, and Cass’s dress needs picking up …’
‘Well, can’t you do all of that?’
‘Liberty!’ she hisses into the phone. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You know I need to stay with her while she has her extensions done, otherwise she’ll get carried away and end up looking like Lindsay Lohan on a bad hair day.’
‘Better that than a hobbit,’ I mutter.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Just get here,’ Mum says. ‘Now.’ And hangs up.
‘I am able to be fixing for you.’
Bogdan Son of Bogdan is hovering in the doorway. (I think he’d have come in, but there might not actually be room for him in the flat.)
‘It’s all right, Bogdan. I’ve got to go out. I’ll worry about the partition wall later.’
‘Am talking about hair. I am able to be fixing.’
I grab my grey hoodie from the heap it’s in on the floor and pull it on. ‘Thanks, Bogdan, but I only got into this mess in the first place because I didn’t wait for a professional to sort it out.’
‘Am professional.’ He reaches round into his back pocket, the one displaying the builder’s bum a few moments ago, and pulls out a little black leather case. This he opens to display a couple of pairs of shiny silver scissors and a small comb. ‘Please,’ he adds, in a low voice, ‘do not be telling father.’
‘That you … er … carry a little grooming kit wherever you go?’
‘That am trainee in hair salon. Evenings and weekends. In West End. Am good enough for West End. Also, West End is further from Colliers Wood. Is safer,’ he adds, meaningfully, and in a way that suggests he’s just as intimidated by Bogdan Senior as I am. Then he puts his huge head on one side and studies me for a moment. ‘Cannot be promising miracle,’ he says. ‘But can certainly be making look less like brush from toilet.’
I suppose I don’t really have anything else to lose.
A bit more hair, is all. But frankly even a Number One buzz-cut all over might be less of a disaster than my self-imposed do. At least it would look like a deliberate style statement, and not like I’ve gone loopy and set about myself with the breadknife.
Resignedly, I slump back down onto the Chesterfield. ‘All right. Give it a go.’
He slips one of the pairs of scissors out of the leather case. ‘Is not quite Mayfair salon. Try not to be thinking about smell.’
‘Oh, God, the cheese …’
‘Will
