There were some things Mum saw as a treat, and having Nula accompany her to the hairdresser’s once a fortnight was one of them. There the same female hairdresser – Candy – would poodle-perm Mum’s hair into submission, leaving it frizzed out, lifeless and ready for a shampoo and tight set. Soon, Candy was doing the same for Nula. But now, having come to a decision about the direction her life was taking, Nula spoke up.
‘I don’t want her doing my hair any more,’ she said.
‘What?’ Mum looked poleaxed.
‘I don’t, OK? I’m growing this perm out.’
‘Well, if you want,’ said Mum.
‘Yeah. I do.’ Nula chewed her lip. ‘And I hate my bloody name. Nula the Loser they call me at school. What’d you call me that for?’
Mum’s myopic eyes were full of hurt. ‘It was my mother’s name,’ she said.
‘Well I hate the bloody thing.’
That little fracas caused a chill to descend that lasted for days. Nula hated to cause her mum pain, but she steeled herself to do it. Things had to change. Things had to be different. And then Nula had to find another hairdresser. She saved up and went to a new trendy one in town that everyone was talking about, Mr Fox, where inside everything was black and gleaming. As she entered, Elvis was singing ‘It’s Now or Never’ on the sound system.
Nerves cramping her stomach, sweat dripping from her armpits and her overtight new bra digging in under her non-existent tits, Nula tried to look together but she was feeling out of her depth. The stylists were scary. Cool, young, brimming with confidence. Beautiful. Everything was about beauty these days. Like Jean Shrimpton, who she’d read about in Marie Claire – Jean was having a hot affair with the photographer David Bailey. Oh, to be part of that world, that life.
Nula felt about two inches high the minute she stepped through the door of the salon. The pretty mini-skirted girl who took her coat and hung it up looked at it like it was a rag – which, to be fair, it was – and then she looked at Nula, barely stifling a mocking smile.
So what? thought Nula. I’m used to that. People laughing at me, sneering, making fun.
She’d had it at school, in the new awful communal changing rooms after the hell of games or gym or – the worst – cross-country running. She’d lumbered around, unable to keep up, red-faced and breathless. Then, after the ritual humiliation of the showers, there was dressing. Her old-fashioned Mum’d still had Nula wearing a vest at fifteen, which had been the cause of much hilarity in the changing room. Also, Nula was flat-chested, while most of the other girls were blossoming into young women, wearing pretty starter brassieres and beginning to take an interest in boys.
Not Nula. She knew her chance of attracting boys was zero. Her mirror confirmed it.
But now, having had her hair washed in an excruciatingly painful back-basin, she was draped in a black towel, plonked in front of yet another mirror, and was confronted with her reflection. Pale. Fat. Frizzy-haired. As Michael Holliday sang ‘Starry Eyed’, the apprentice wrenched a comb through it, pulling at the knots. It hurt.
Then the stylist came over, a stunning young man in hipster jeans, black shirt and a big TEXAS brass belt buckle. He pawed over her wet hair with a frown and said: ‘I’m Simon. So what can we do for madam today?’
‘I want you to cut it, please. In this style.’ Nula produced a hairdressing magazine and pointed to a picture of a ravishing girl with a long casual bob. ‘And I want to be blonde. Like that.’
‘Blonde? You sure?’ He was staring at her like she was demented.
‘Absolutely.’
He shrugged, disinterested. The customer was always right. Nula wondered if perhaps he might do a small test on her hair, to see how it would take the colour. He didn’t. Instead he went off to a back room and returned with a dish of lilac-coloured gunge, which he proceeded to slap onto her head. After fifteen minutes, it was stinging. Then he wrapped her head in foil, put her in a chair with a pile of last year’s magazines, set a timer and left her there.
Now her head was actually hurting, but she was too intimidated to cry out. When the alarm went off and Simon returned, she nearly sobbed with relief. The stuff was washed off, and Nula was once again placed before the mirror while Simon clipped away at her now reddish hair.
‘Um,’ said Nula.
He looked at her expectantly.
‘It’s not blonde,’ she said. So with barely concealed impatience he put some more gunk on her head, and slapped the timer back on.