When she passed Gráinne she stopped for an angry couple of words, probably telling her not to call her Maura.

She mustn’t have recognized me because when she did the lifting and letting fall of the strands of hair thing, she said, in disgust and a strong Dublin accent ‘Jays! Who done your hair de last time? It’s a disaster area.’

‘I got it cut here.’ I cringed. I had to fight hard to stop myself speaking like her. I was ashamed of my middle-class accent, afraid that she might think I thought I was better than her. I wanted to be salt of the earth like Gráinne and Maura.

‘Who done it?’ she demanded.

‘I think it was you,’ I mumbled.

Now she was going to destroy my hair as punishment. Hairdressers belong to the most powerful profession in the universe and they didn’t get that way by being nice. Sure enough, she ran her fingers through my hair and made ominous noises and tuts and tisks.

‘Jays,’ she said in disgust, ‘it’s in bits. What have you done to it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Next you’ll be telling me you blow-dry it.’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Are you mad? You can’t blow-dry hair as brittle as dis. And do you ever condition it?’

‘Of course I condition it!’ I did know the rudiments of hair-care, the stupid cow.

‘Well, I’ve only got your word for it.’ She looked at me with narrowed eyes.

‘When I say I condition it,’ I flailed around, ‘I don’t actually do the hot-oil, once a week, in a heated towel type of thing. But I do use an ordinary conditioner every time I wash it.’

‘I see,’ she said, tightlipped. ‘Well, you’d want to start. With hair as dry as yours, you need a serious conditioner.’

She paused.

I waited.

I knew what was coming next.

‘We do a range,’ she said, right on cue.

I braced myself for the sales pitch. I picked up the occasional words like ‘Laboratory tested’, ‘Exclusive agents’, ‘Vital nutrients’, ‘Nourishing formula’, ‘Your only hope’.

‘How much?’ I asked.

It was extortionate.

‘Fine,’ I swallowed. ‘I’ll take it.’

‘You’ll really need the shampoo and the mousse and the non-rinse conditioner and the anti-frizz serum and the…’

‘Wait,’ I said. And then I braced myself to say the hardest words I ever had to say.

I paused, took a deep breath and said ‘I can’t afford them.’

Her eyes held mine in the mirror. I knew she didn’t believe me. I knew she was thinking, ‘Stupid, posh bitch.’

I tensed for her to grab me by the throat and scream ‘WHATABOUTMYCOMMISSION?’ She didn’t. I tried to convince myself there wasn’t any need to feel guilty. But nothing doing.

‘It’s up to you if you don’t buy dem,’ Jasmine said reluctantly. ‘I tink it’s woort it personally. But it’s up to you.’

‘I’m unemployed,’ I explained, hoping that she might soften towards me.

She tossed her head dismissively, like an angry wife shrugging off her apologetic husband’s overtures. ‘How much of dese ends do you want off?’ she demanded coldly.

‘Just a trim, please.’

‘No,’ she said.

No?

Apparently not.

‘De ends are in bits all the way up. It’ll have to come off up to here.’ She indicated an area around my shoulders.

I felt a twang of anticipatory loss. Every cell in my body fought against the idea of having my hair cut.

No, Jasmine, anything but short hair. Have mercy. Please.

‘I don’t mind if it’s in bits all the way up,’ I assured her warmly. ‘Honestly, it’s fine, I can live with it.’

‘But, it’s all broken and dead. And it’s split all the way to the roots practically.

‘Look!’ she ordered me. ‘Look! See how it’s split all along here.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘But…’

‘No, you’re not looking,’ she said.

I looked.

‘But I don’t mind,’ I said, when I felt I had looked long enough. ‘I’d rather have long split hair than short not-split hair.’

‘You can’t have that,’ said Jasmine. ‘You can’t go round with split hair. It’s not on.’

We were interrupted by Gráinne.

‘Maura,’ she said to Jasmine, ‘Mammy’s on the phone, she said she can’t babysit for Elroy this evening, you’ll have to come home.’

‘Fuck that, I’m going out on the piss, you’ll have to do it.’

‘But…’

‘Do you want your job to be here when you come in tomorrow?’ asked Maura.

‘Oh,’ said Gráinne, her face a picture of resignation, and she limped away.

My eyes met Jasmine’s in the mirror.

‘Me sister,’ she said, by way of explanation.

I smiled nervously.

‘So we’re agreed,’ she said impatiently.

Maybe it would be all right, I thought. A new beginning, cutting away the dead wood and the dead hair of the past. Going forward to a healthy, honest future with healthy, honest hair.

‘OK,’ I said.

The hand that wields the scissors rules the world.

Helen looked up when I let myself in.

‘But you’ve got ladies’ hair,’ she said in surprise. ‘Why did you ask for ladies’ hair?’

‘I didn’t!’ I screeched.

I rushed to the mirror to see if it was as bad as I remembered. I had a white ring around my hairline where my foundation had been washed off. I had grey puddles under my eyes. But worst of all I had short curly hair. Jasmine had cut with a liberal hand, way above shoulder height. And then, to add insult to injury, had blow-dried it into short, tight, Mammyesque curls.

‘I’m so ugly,’ I sobbed. Huge, choking tears.

‘You are,’ agreed Helen.

I was glad she agreed with me. If Mum had been there saying ‘It’ll grow,’ I would probably have become hysterical.

I thought of the yards and yards of my hair on the floor, the hair that Luke used to tangle his hands in, and I cried even harder.