It Had to Be You by Lynda Renham Read Free Book Online Page B

like something out of a cheap porno film and Oliver dressed as a pirate rather dried up any sexual juices I may have produced and I felt like we were in an X-rated version of Pirates of the Caribbean .
    My hair looks lank and miserable, rather like me. I pop a Ferrero Rocher in my mouth.
    ‘We have loads over,’ Lucy repeats.
    You won ’t by the time I’m finished I think. Why is it hairdressers have such stark lighting. You’d think they’d soften it to make you feel a little bit better about yourself. Wesley picks at my hair with a gruesome look on his face. Jesus, he’ll be telling me I’ve got nits next.
    ‘ Oh dear, we have let ourselves go haven’t we? Brittle, brittle.’
    I bow my head in shame.
    ‘Lucy, wash this will you,’ he orders, making me sound like a poodle at a dog parlour. He pushes me towards the freckle-faced teenager with a tartan bow in her hair.
    I drop my head back into the little curved basin and feel my neck crick.
    ‘How are you today?’ Lucy asks sweetly, lifting my head to put a towel under me.
    ‘ Mmm fine,’ I reply.
    ‘ Comfortable?’
    ‘ Oh yes,’ I say, feeling my neck go into spasm.
    She blasts me with scalding hot water and I fight the urge to cry out. Holy shit, what happened to the pampering? This is torture.
    ‘Is the water too hot for you,’ she asks kindly.
    Has she got asbestos hands? Can ’t she tell it is scalding me?
    ‘ No, that’s perfect,’ I lie in a high-pitched voice. It’s probably giving me tiny blisters but God forbid I should admit to anything.
    ‘ Did you have a nice Christmas? She asks.
    Is she taking the piss or what?
    ‘Bloody awful actually,’ I say honestly, ‘but you really don’t want to hear about it.’
    ‘ Oh dear,’ she responds with a falseness that makes me cringe and then proceeds to squirt shampoo into my eye. It would have to be the bad eye wouldn’t it? She could at least have aimed for the other one.
    ‘ Oh well, at least you got a break from work.’
    She continues massaging my head for all she ’s worth. Yes indeed, I got a lovely long break thanks to my wanker boss.
    ‘ Yes,’ I say with a sigh.
    ‘ Going anywhere nice this year for your holiday?’ she persists.
    ‘ Actually no, I’m not having a holiday this year …’
    ‘ Oh that’s nice,’ she says. ‘At least you’ll save some money.’
    Not if I ’m not earning it I won’t. I move my head to allow some water to dribble out of my ear.
    ‘ Is the water okay for you?’ she repeats, rinsing off the shampoo.
    I ’m adjusting.
    ‘ Yes lovely, thank you.’
    Why can we never speak up at hairdressers? We are paying after all.
    ‘Saving up for something nice instead are you? I’m saving for my wedding, so we’re not going away either.’
    I feel a lump in my throat.
    ‘That’s nice,’ I say in the same monotone as her. I feel water run between my breasts.
    ‘ What are you saving for? Oh don’t say your wedding as well,’ she laughs.
    Okay I won ’t then. She wraps a towel around my head and I feel an earring pinch my earlobe and I wonder why this is called luxury. Still, at least I’ll look good to see the solicitor this afternoon. I’m led back to my chair and I dab carefully at my watery eye. I glance towards the door and fight back a gasp as Brown Nipples walks in. Oh no, I’m sitting with a turban on my head, without a scrap of make-up on, and to top it all I’ve got lines. Any dignity I had left disintegrates into little pieces. I quickly hold the Hello! magazine up to my face and struggle to read it out of my one good eye. I’ll need an eye patch soon.
    ‘ Amanda darling,’ cries Wesley. ‘Look at you, you’re looking amazing. You don’t have an appointment chérie ? You certainly don’t need one.’
    So that ’s her name. I think I preferred it when she was anonymous. How dare she come to my hairdressers? That’s just plain off isn’t it? The bitch, I hope she bursts into tears and says how it’s all falling out and