I’m pulling my hair again, and the sensation feels like an old friend. Sitting in the bath, working conditioner up through my roots, clenching two fistfuls of hair and twisting my hands away from my scalp.
Eight hours on trains and cold platforms to end up back in London minus a boyfriend that wasn’t a real boyfriend anyway. I’ve had plenty of time to think, too much probably, but my thoughts and feelings are no less tangled than they were when I made a massive U-turn several hours ago. The inside of my head feels like a ball of knotted string. And the champagne certainly hasn’t helped. Did I over-react? Possibly, I’m not sure. But honestly, what’s the point, after all? Five more weeks and it’s over anyway. Whatever it was. I still don’t know. I certainly can’t take him to a wedding – too much like giving fate the finger.
Rachel wanted me to go back to her house, but Steve’s family are staying and – can you imagine? So your son’s getting married. You must be so excited. Funny thing happened to me today.
No thank you.
Rachel insisted, and when I refused she offered to come to mine. But I meant it when I said I wanted to be alone, and I suppose she must have heard it in my voice. There was mail for Alex when I got back through the door. Two letters: one a catalogue of DJ equipment, the other offering a free valuation of our property. We have buyers looking in your area now. Maybe I should have sold this place after all, I’d be halfway around the world by now. Either way, I don’t think I’ll come back to this house after I leave it in September.
How do you leave someone at the altar? And what’s all that with The Graduate? As if he was setting me up and manipulating my emotions. Jesus Christ, she – April – was going to be there! And wouldn’t that have made a picture.
After developing a roll of black and white negatives, I cut the film into six-frame strips and store them in plastic wallets, waiting to be scanned, cropped, enlarged, manipulated. I haven’t printed any, and now I never will. Seven envelopes, seven rolls of film, all thrown in the bin along with a sugarcraft bride and groom and ten months’ worth of mail for my dead boyfriend.
There was no wine in the house, but I needed a drink. The last bottle of champagne stood impatiently in the small shelf where it had been chilling for quite long enough. Maybe I was saving it to drink with Henry, but that’s not happening now, so I popped the cork, took the bottle upstairs and ran a very hot bath.
Maybe I’m just a little bit envious. Henry did what I never had the courage to do. Regardless of how he went about it, he removed himself from what I can only assume was a bad relationship. But lucky old Zoe, I never had to choose between saying yes and saying no.
The champagne bottle is empty, my fingertips are wrinkled now and the water from my new boiler has cooled. My scalp tingles from me knotting handfuls of hair around my fist, but I haven’t pulled any out, so I guess that’s progress. Yay for me!
Looking at myself in the mirror, I all of a sudden look like a stranger. Thinner in the face, a single vertical wrinkle between my eyes from scowling. When I frown at my reflection, the wrinkle deepens and lengthens. It’s hard to imagine anyone calling this girl Zoe Bubbles. And this graduated bob, Henry’s handiwork hanging in wet ringlets. Not me either.
There is a pair of scissors in the bathroom cabinet, not ideal for the task, but what’s new there. I pull a length of hair away from my head and cut it two inches from my scalp. Then I take another and cut again.