The Doll turned into William Street and walked past a hairdressing salon. She halted, turned and walked back. Through its front window she could see the salon was empty. A young woman stood at a small counter looking at her nails.
I’ll begin again, thought the Doll. I will—but then she realised that no new beginning was possible now. There was no starting over, there was no choice, no freedom, only the time left waiting for fate to seize her. There was no home, no family and no friends. There was no belonging. Everything, everyone had to cut out and cut off. There was no hope, nor was there despair, only certain events that felt to her ever more predestined. Everything had to be shaved off. Everything.
The Doll summoned her courage and went in. The salon was a long, narrow room, little more than an enclosed alleyway. The hairdresser seemed uninterested in the Doll’s request.
“It’s a bit weird, I know,” said the Doll, feeling the need to say something.
“I’ve had plenty weirder,” the hairdresser told the Doll. “It’s about all I have,” she continued, a little ruefully, pointing to a chair for the Doll to sit in. “Weird people. Weird requests. One woman wanted extensions to her pubes. Can you believe it?” She couldn’t.
The Doll watched in the mirror as her damp hair fell in short blonde hanks to the floor, and a hideous white scalp and a stranger’s face were slowly revealed. She felt she looked like a skinhead. An ugly, dykey skinhead. She felt what she wanted to feel. She felt nothing.