‘You’re going to turn left at the end of the road,’ I say, as we approach the junction. ‘Remember to look in the rear-view mirror and then proceed when it is safe to do so.’
I can totally provide a chilled vibe. I will create a calm and nurturing in-car environment and Scarlet will pick up on the confidence that I have in her abilities and she will thrive on my trust and support.
I lean back into my seat, showing her that I have enough faith to relax while she is in control. It’s so important to practise what you preach and my words alone will have limited impact. She needs to see that I am utterly composed and serene; that I know I am in safe hands and have no need to micro-manage her every—
‘I said turn left!’ I jolt upright as Scarlet pulls out of the junction. ‘Left! No! The other left!’
The car lurches across the central white line and then back again as Scarlet wrenches the steering wheel from side to side.
‘That’s it,’ I say encouragingly as she maneuvers us into the correct lane, waving my hand apologetically at the slightly stunned-looking driver on the other side of the road. ‘And maybe try to listen to the directions that you’re given next time.’
‘I was listening,’ Scarlet mutters. ‘It’s not my fault that I sometimes get my left and right muddled up, is it? Stop pressuring me.’
The car starts to gain speed and I’m struggling to hear myself think over the howling of the engine. And then the sky suddenly darkens and the very worst thing that I could possibly conceive of happens.
‘Is that rain?’ whimpers Scarlet. ‘I haven’t driven in rain yet. I don’t have the skills.’
‘It’s fine,’ I tell her, more breezily than I feel. ‘Just flip the wipers on and keep doing what you’re doing.’
Scarlet fumbles around and the indicator lights start to flash.
‘Try the other one,’ I suggest. ‘And quickly, darling, before the rain gets much worse.’
‘I can’t find it!’ wails Scarlet. ‘And I can’t see properly out of the windscreen! I’m just going to pull over.’
I lean across and activate the wipers. ‘No need to panic! And you’re not stopping now, for goodness’ sake. If you’re going to drive in this country then you need to be able to cope with a tiny bit of drizzle!’
The heavens respond by tipping three months’ worth of precipitation onto our exact location.
‘You need to put the headlights on so that we can be seen,’ I instruct, as the cars in the oncoming lane start flicking on their beams. Scarlet moans under her breath but she successfully finds the light switch and we keep moving forward in a vague approximation of a straight line. I allow myself two seconds of self-congratulation and then resume instructor-mode. My work here is not done. I would appear to be making some progress with her though. I am a genuine, qualified teacher after all and once you’ve learnt the concepts of how good learning occurs, it’s surely possibly to teach anything to anyone? It’s a highly diverse skill.
‘I‘m wondering if it might be the right time to think about changing gear?’ I enquire now, in such a mild voice that I think I convincingly make it sound like a serving suggestion. ‘Second gear is mostly used at lower speeds, as a general rule of thumb and you’ve yet to move into third gear on this journey.’
‘Give me a minute,’ snarls Scarlet. ‘God – you want me to do everything at once, don’t you? Slow down, change gear, put the lights on, find the windscreen wipers—’
‘Watch out for that cat!’ I bellow. ‘Stop!’
The car lurches forward as Scarlet slams her foot on the accelerator, I assume in panic and not in a dark desire to mow down an innocent kitty.
‘Not that stop!’ I scream. ‘The other stop!’
We screech to a halt in the middle of the road, the car silent for a brief, wonderful moment until Scarlet recovers enough to start shouting.
‘That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Mum!’ She grips the steering wheel. ‘It’s too much! You’re asking me to use the clutch and change gears and steer the car and do all that other stuff and now you want me to look out for cats as well? I’m only human – I can’t do everything! You’re going to have to choose what you want me to focus on, okay? You’re putting way too much pressure on me!’
Superb. Apparently I can add being a useless driving instructor to all my other maternal weaknesses.
A car sounds its horn and I swivel my head to watch as an irate old man indicates and pulls around us, gesturing rudely as he drives past.
She’s right though. It is too much. All of it. And it’s relentless – it never, ever stops. Learning to drive is only the start of it.
‘We’ll take it one step at a time.’ I remove my hands from their brace position on the dashboard and give her knee a quick pat. ‘And at least we now know that you can implement an effective emergency stop, which is excellent news!’
In retrospect, I don’t think that we’ve been paying her driving instructor anywhere near enough money.
Chapter Seventeen
‘I’m so excited about this, Hannah!’ Caroline is beaming at me in the mirror as she fastens the robe around my neck. ‘It isn’t often that I get to do a colour change as dramatic as this one!’
I smile bravely at her. ‘And you really think it’s the right move?’ I ask for the tenth time since I entered the hair salon. ‘Because going silver feels like a really big deal. Like – am I going to look like a vixen or a granny? I don’t think there’s a middle ground here.’ I look at my reflection and gulp. ‘I could always just dye the roots again and maybe lose a few inches off the bottom.’
Caroline shakes her head. ‘We’ve been doing that since I met you. You said you wanted something new and we’ve discussed this before. If not now, when?’
‘It’s just that being brunette is part of my identity,’ I tell her. ‘It’s who I am, you know?’
‘But it isn’t, is it?’ Caroline puts her hands on her hips and gives me a blunt look. ‘I’ve been slopping hair dye onto your head for the last ten years. You know as well as I do that if we stopped doing that then you’d be grey in a month.’
I nod balefully. It’s true. I spotted my first grey hair when I was sixteen and I’ve been doing whatever I can to hide them ever since. It wasn’t so bad in my teens and while I was at university – I’d either experiment with henna, which was mostly unsuccessful, or cover them up with mascara, which was fine unless it rained. Once I started having kids though, the grey hairs developed a life of their own and I had to start dying them on a regular basis. And since I turned forty they’ve got a full-grown personality and social life and like Baby, they refuse to be put in the corner.
What would Twinky do? Well, she wouldn’t waste hours of her life every four weeks, pathetically trying to hide the real her. She wouldn’t stand in the front of the mirror and sob at the sight of white hair. She would take control of the situation and woman-the-fuck up. Anyway, I’ve already decided that tonight is the night when I take being Twinky to the next level and the new hair is a big part of my Gold Star Challenge. I can’t back out now.
‘You could always go the natural route,’ Caroline suggests, seeing my worried face and taking pity on me. ‘Plenty of people do it. If you go on Instagram and search for #silversisters or #greyhairdontcare, there’s loads of pictures of women who are letting their grey grow out.’
I sit up straighter and fix her with a firm stare.
‘Let’s do this thing,’ I tell her, my voice resolute.
Maybe I’m vain. Maybe I’m self-obsessed and conceited and narcissistic and all the things that mothers are definitely not supposed to be. But there is absolutely no way that I can just let my grey hair do its funky thing and grow out slowly. Go big or go home, that’s what Twinky says. I’ll invent my own hashtag if I have to.
#greyhairyesIfuckingcare
#fortyfournoteightyfour
Caroline returns with a large bowl of dye.
‘You’re absolutely sure?’ she checks. ‘Y
ou really want to do this?’
‘If you can’t beat them, join them,’ I tell her, nodding. And then I sit back and watch as my hairdresser proceeds to remove every last bit of colour from my hair.
‘It’s all the rage now, you know,’ she tells me while we’re waiting for the bleach to take effect. ‘Loads of celebrities have done it. Kim Kardashian and Ariana Grande and Rihanna – they’ve all gone silver.’
‘Excellent,’ I say, wondering if the burning sensation on top of my scalp is normal. ‘I’m in vogue for the first time in my life.’
Caroline laughs. ‘It’s not just the women, either. Idris Elba has got silver hair in his beard, did you know that?’
I frown. ‘Not quite the same, though, is it? I’m fairly sure that Idris Elba has not dyed his hair silver in an attempt to prevent society from making snap judgements about him due to the fact that some of his hairs have lost their pigmentation.’
My hairdresser sniffs. ‘I’d have a word to say to anyone who thought they were in a position to judge Idris Elba, that’s for sure. The man’s a god.’
‘Well, obviously,’ I agree. ‘But doesn’t it strike you as a teeny bit unfair that women with grey hair are seen as being old and past it, while men are seen as being sexy?’
‘Are you saying that you don’t think he’s sexy?’ demands Caroline, her eyes flashing in a way that is slightly alarming considering that she is holding the future of my hair literally in her hands.
‘I am not saying that at all,’ I assure her. ‘I just wonder if I’d be so desperate to cover the fact that I’m going grey if we lived in a world where women aren’t constantly judged on their age and appearance and where perpetual youth is celebrated.’ I smile at her in the mirror. ‘Which has always struck me as ridiculous, you know – because you only have to look at teenagers to know that the very idea of perpetual youth is actually a nightmare. And the thing is, that even though they might—’
‘There’s the timer!’ interrupts Caroline, sounding relieved. ‘Let’s get you over to the basins and wash this off and then we can see what we’re dealing with.’
That sounds a bit ominous.
‘I thought we knew what we were dealing with,’ I say as we walk across the salon. ‘You said that the bleach would strip out all the colour and then we could put on a lovely toner and I would be walking out of here with beautiful, shiny, silver hair.’
‘I didn’t actually say that,’ Caroline corrects, ushering me towards a chair. ‘Do you want to sit down or lie back?’
‘Lie back,’ I say. ‘And what do you mean?’
‘Put this towel around your shoulders and lie down when you’re ready,’ she answers. ‘And what I actually said was that we wouldn’t know how much lift we had until we washed out the bleach. That’s what we’re doing now.’
‘Lift?’ I lie down and try to relax. This is usually my favourite part of a trip to the salon. The indulgence of someone washing my hair. The relaxing head massage that never lasts for as long as I want it to.
‘I explained all of this to you, Hannah.’ Caroline turns on the taps but I can still hear the frustration in her voice. ‘All hair is different and some hair can be resistant to removing the colour. In which case, it can be a little difficult to achieve the required end result.’
A tiny bit of my brain is reminding me that I have possibly heard these words before, but it was when I’d just started to read a very fascinating article called ‘Hen Nights Gone Bad’ and there’s a slim chance that I zoned out on Caroline’s pep talk.
‘Well, can’t you just leave the bleach on until all the colour has gone?’ I ask, wincing as the water runs cold for a second.
‘Sure,’ drawls Caroline and I swear I can hear her rolling her eyes. ‘As long as you don’t mind your hair all snapping off. Look Hannah, you have to trust me, yeah? I’ve left the bleach on for as long as I possibly can without causing irreparable damage to your hair. Let’s wash it off and then we can take it from there.’
I force myself not to speak for the remainder of the hair washing and then, once Caroline is satisfied that every last drop of bleach has been removed we troop back to the mirror, ready for the moment of truth.
‘Now, it’s going to appear darker because it’s wet,’ she warns me. ‘And we still need to add the silver toner, okay?’
I hold my breath as she removes the towel from my head.
‘Oh.’
Caroline stares at my reflection and for a second our eyes lock with each other.
‘Is that normal?’ I ask, trying to keep calm. ‘Is that what you were expecting to see?’
‘It’s fine,’ Caroline assures me, hurriedly covering my hair back up with the towel.
‘Are you sure?’ I stare anxiously at her in the mirror. ‘Because it looked a tiny bit orange to me.’
Caroline forces a chuckle. ‘No! Absolutely not! I mean, it might have a slightly more burnt hue than we were aiming for but these things are a work in progress. They take time.’
I gawp at her. ‘How much time?’
I don’t have time. Time is the last bloody thing that I possess. This hair appointment is my fucking time.
‘Are you going to be able to sort it out?’ I ask, inhaling deeply and trying to remember some of the mindfulness techniques that Drama teacher Adele is always going on about. ‘Or am I going to be walking out of here with an orange head?’
‘I’m telling you – it’s one hundred percent not orange. It’s going to be fine, Hannah.’
‘But is it going to be silver?’ I push. ‘Am I going to slink my way home looking like a sex vixen? Am I, Caroline?’
She stares at the back of my head, as if lost in thought.
‘Caroline? Just tell me the truth. Am I going to look ridiculous?’
My words jolt her back to reality and she shakes her head.
‘There’s really no need to be so dramatic,’ she scolds and then she turns and calls over her shoulder. ‘Freddie? Can you come in here for a moment, please?’
Her attempt to sound casual makes my heart race even faster.
‘What is it?’ Freddie yells back. ‘I’m kind of in the middle of something here.’
‘It’ll just take a minute.’ Caroline averts her gaze from mine as she tells the blatant lie. We both know that the situation before us is going to demand much longer than sixty seconds to resolve.
If a resolution is even on the cards.
Freddie huffs his way into the room and stomps across to where I’m sitting.
‘I’m in the middle of a perm, Caroline,’ he moans. ‘And you know how time-sensitive that can…’ He pauses as Caroline removes the towel, his hand flying to his mouth in horror.
‘I could do with a second opinion here,’ Caroline tells him.
‘It’s definitely orange,’ he states, lowering his hand to his hip. ‘If that’s what you’re asking.’
I moan quietly.
‘I think it’s more amber,’ Caroline interjects. ‘Or possibly titian.’
Freddie tilts his head to one side. ‘It could be salmon, or possibly coral,’ he says reluctantly. ‘At a push.’
‘It’s orange!’ I wail. ‘I’m not going to be slinking anywhere. I’m going to roll out of here like a giant fucking satsuma.’
This is an abject disaster. I have plans for this evening and I need to look perfect.
Caroline hurriedly throws the towel back over my head. I’m not sure whether this is an act of sensitivity or to protect her eyes from the blinding glare of my clementine locks.
‘I’m not going to let that happen,’ she promises. ‘We have options.’
‘Like shaving it all off,’ mutters Freddie. ‘Or possibly a wig.’
‘You’re not helping.’ Caroline glares at him. ‘Do you reckon I can go again with the peroxide?’
Freddie steps forward and tugs a piece of my hair out from under the towel, rubbing it between his fingers and staring at it critically. I hold my breath.
‘P
ossibly,’ he says, after several long seconds. ‘If you proceed with caution and check every few minutes for breakage.’ He drops my hair and gives me a firm look in the mirror. ‘There’s a chance that your hair could all snap off if we leave the bleach on for too long. Is that a risk you’re willing to take? Because my advice is to leave it a few weeks to recover and then try again.’
Stay like this for a few weeks? The man doesn’t have a clue.
‘Absolutely,’ I tell him. ‘Just get rid of the orange.’
He shrugs. ‘On your head be it.’
Obviously, Freddie. That’s the entire problem. I’d be enjoying this whole drama quite a lot more if it were someone else’s head that had just turned into the main attraction from James and the Giant Peach.
‘I’ll just go and mix up some more bleach,’ Caroline tells me. ‘Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Valium?’
‘Maybe a hat, if this next lot of bleach doesn’t do the trick?’ I joke weakly. She smiles and heads off to the back room and I am left wondering if the offer of antidepressants was genuine and if so, whether they might possibly take the edge off.
Once the bleach is back on (and I’m sure that by now she’s just pouring Domestos onto my scalp) I sit for another forty-five minutes, trying to distract myself in the world of footballers’ wives and Instagram scandals and celebrity weddings – but nothing can prevent me from growing increasingly freaked out about what is occurring on top of my head. The minutes tick by, punctuated by Caroline frequently coming over to unwrap the tin foil that is covering my hair and checking that it hasn’t all splintered into tiny fragments. I scrutinise her face each time, trying to gain information but her poker face is highly professional and she’s giving nothing away.
Finally, after what feels like forever, I am led across to the basin for a second time and the bleach is washed out. There is no relaxing head massage or chitchat this time. Caroline is all business. Once my hair is clean, we repeat the walk of doom back to the chair and I clench my teeth as she removes the towel.
Faking It: The most hilarious and laugh out loud page turner you’ll read this year! Page 16