LITMIR.BIZ

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kiss on my cheek.

      ‘Bye, darling. Have a lovely day.’ I glance around for Finn, hoping to say goodbye, but he’s already sauntered into the playground with his friends.

      ‘Come on, love,’ I say, clutching Toby’s hand. ‘Let’s take you to nursery.’ Scamps is just around the corner from school. He charges in, flings his coat in the vague direction of his named hook and throws his backpack onto the floor. I grab him for a quick hug goodbye before he tears off into the main room, and put his coat and bag in their rightful places. ‘Hi, Laura.’ Cara, the manageress, pops her head around the cloakroom door.

      ‘Hi, Cara. Just tidying up after Toby as usual.’ I force a grin.

      ‘Hmm. Did he tell you about his little adventure last week?’

      ‘No,’ I say hesitantly.

      She crooks her eyebrow, making me sweat. ‘Took the plug out of the water tray. Flooded the main room. The children had to sit in the library corner until we’d mopped it all up.’

      ‘Oh, I’d no idea. He didn’t mention that. I’m really sorry.’

      ‘That’s okay.’ She chuckles in a kids, eh? kind of way and flutters her eyelashes at me.

      ‘Bet that happens all the time,’ I add.

      ‘No,’ she says levelly. ‘In the fifteen years I’ve worked here, no child has ever done that.’

      Good for Toby, I think, gushing further apologies as I make my escape. At least he thought of something new and different to amuse himself. Although he enjoys nursery, he will only tolerate cutting and sticking for so long (unless Celeste is involved, obviously – in which case he could probably be persuaded to fashion an entire spring/summer collection in yellow felt). As I’m not due at work until ten, I decide to have a coffee and mull over whether I should let the plug incident go, or apply the thumb screws and water torture.

      Café Roma is virtually empty. It smells good in here, of delicious things baking, which is especially welcome after the breakfasty fug of our kitchen. When we moved here from London, when I was pregnant with Toby, the small North Yorkshire market town had a time-warp feel about it, and you couldn’t get a decent coffee anywhere. Jed had been offered a senior teaching position at Rosebank Primary and I’d welcomed the move. With our third child on the way, I’d looked forward to being a mere half-hour drive from my parents. Now, four years on, there’s a clutch of new cafés offering respectable bursts of caffeine to get the nerves jangling nicely. Dad’s no longer here, though. I hadn’t imagined having to face that.

      Selecting one of the trashier newspapers from the rack, I take a seat at the steamed-up window. A supplement falls out; it’s called Your Complete Summer Grooming Guide. We’ve only just staggered through the Easter holidays, yet already I’m supposed to be fretting about the pallidness of my legs. I flip through it. You might adhere to the old ’70s thing of leaving your pubic hair au naturelle, is where my eyes land.

      What ’70s thing? What do they mean?

      A little light grooming is common courtesy, it thrills on. Are they implying that it’s rude not to? I glance around the café. A group of four women of around my age has drifted in, chatting and laughing and smelling of light, floral perfumes. They are all smartly dressed with their hair freshly blow-dried, and I vaguely recognise them from the few times I ventured into the gym. An awful thought hits me: I’m probably the only woman in here who doesn’t have her bikini line waxed. Heck, even the chef, who I can see bobbing about in the kitchen through the circular window, probably keeps himself nice and tidy down there.

      I glower down at it. Not at my own pubic hair – that wouldn’t be fitting in Café Roma – but at the damn magazine. Is this why Jed has un-synchronised our bedtimes? He isn’t really staying up marking jotters, planning lessons or even indulging in lurid fantasies starring Celeste. He’s simply appalled by my lack of personal grooming. I’ve been so wrapped up in looking after the children that I’ve missed a significant cultural shift. Closing the grooming guide, I sip my coffee morosely. That’s it: my ‘au naturelle’ do is as outmoded as a poodle perm or culottes. Jed has to fight the urge to retch every time he glimpses it. He’s just been too polite to tell me.

      The café door opens, and Naomi flounces in, flushed with rude health. ‘Hi, Laura,’ she says. ‘Day off today?’

      ‘No, I’m working at ten.’ I check my watch. ‘Thanks for rescuing my sandals, by the way. And well done with the mums’ race.’

      ‘Oh, it was nothing. No one cares about these things, do they?’

      ‘Of course not,’ I say with a chuckle.

      ‘Ankle okay now?’

      ‘Couldn’t be better, thanks.’ I glance at her. Of course, she’s naturally neat down there – or so it appeared in those paintings of her at the Riverside Arts Centre. It was quite off-putting, trying to eat an apple Danish with all those naked Naomis gawping at me. I’d made a speedy exit, and avoided the place until they took her paintings down and replaced them with landscapes.

      Her gaze drops to the table. ‘Cute purse. Very homespun.’

      ‘Oh, thanks. Toby made it actually.’

      ‘Really? You’re good, doing that sort of thing. Our au pair does all the artsy-crafty stuff . . . Hi, could I just have a dandelion tea?’ she calls out to the girl at the counter, who nods.

      ‘It was nothing really,’ I witter.

      Naomi smirks. ‘Who was that girl at sports day? The one standing with Jed?’

      ‘Oh, just a colleague of his from school,’ I say lightly. ‘They’d come over for a meeting.’

      ‘Pretty, wasn’t she?’ she chirps, almost as if she knows, and is hell-bent on torturing me. ‘All the dads were checking her out, did you see? James Boland’s dad virtually had his tongue out!’

      ‘Yes, haha,’ I croak, scrambling up from my seat and stuffing Toby’s purse into my bag. Naomi picks up the grooming guide.

      ‘Mind if I read this?’

      ‘Go ahead. I’m running late actually.’

      She flips it open at the au naturelle page as the waitress brings her a steaming mug of dandelion witch-brew. It looks like puddle water. ‘Oh, Laura?’ she calls after me as I head for the door. ‘Miss Marshall’s looking for parent volunteers to set up a junior athletics club.’

      I blink at her. ‘That sounds good.’

      ‘She asked me to help to run it. You know, coaching the kids, motivating them, that sort of thing . . .’

      ‘Great.’ I try to look excited.

      ‘Thought you might be interested,’ she adds, ‘in the fund-raising side. Maybe you could do some home baking or something.’

      I force a wide smile, hoping it’s the smile of a woman who is dynamic, perky and firmly at the helm of family life. ‘Love to,’ I say. ‘Count me in.’

      *

      ‘I’d like something like that,’ my first client says, thrusting me a snipped-out photo from a magazine. The woman has over-bleached hair which peters out to fine wisps at her shoulders. The photo is of Angelina Jolie.

      I take time to study her hair, feeling its coarseness and trying to figure out a diplomatic approach. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer something that works with your hair’s natural colour and texture?’ I suggest, slipping easily into hairdresser-speak. It’s not that I loathe my job. Far from it: I enjoy the steady routines, the companionship, and knowing that most clients walk out feeling far happier than when they came in. I especially enjoy the dramatic transformations, when the right cut heightens a woman’s bone structure, and she emerges a real beauty. I still preferred it, though, before our grand relaunch as Shine Hair Design, when we were plain

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