Homecoming. Cathy Kelly

be medicated. Well, more medicated.

      ‘Those luscious curls, they’re so you!’ he’d said wistfully.

      And now here was Patsy, cutting away calmly, taking large chunks from Megan’s wet hair, and there wasn’t a dramatic hairdressing flounce in sight.

      Megan felt unmoved as her shorn hair fell on to the salon’s black nylon gown. It was cathartic having this done, almost like wearing a hair shirt. She was punishing herself, doing away with the sexy, girlish creature who’d got into so much trouble.

      As Patsy cut, Megan closed her eyes and tried not to think about Rob Hartnell’s hands as he ran them through her hair.

      ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he’d said. ‘My fairy princess.’

      In the luxury of their hotel in Prague, he’d held her constantly, his hands on her face, around her waist, stroking her hair. She’d felt like a fairy princess in this magical city, with the sugared almond cupolas outside their windows, and the dark, romantic beauty of the Hotel Sebastien inside.

      ‘Let’s run away together,’ he’d said. But he was the one who’d run, alone.

      Two hours after she’d entered Patsy’s, Megan looked at her new self in the mirror. For a woman whose own hair owed little to subtlety, Patsy was very good at hair colour. Megan had never had dark hair in her life. Even in films, the closest she’d come to dark was a mousy blonde. But now, with the inky black crop that clung to her small head, she looked like another person. She’d relied on her hair, she realised: relied on sexily flicking back blonde tendrils. It had defined her in some way. Blonde, pretty, child-woman.

      With her skin a little tanned, she looked as if she could be from a different race. An exotic Arab woman with strange olive green eyes, dark eyelashes and a wary expression, no longer the kittenish golden girl but a watchful, grown-up woman who had seen something of life. Now, her straight nose made her look exotic instead of ethereal. The fairy princess was gone for good. It was very odd to see this stranger in the mirror. Odd, and a huge relief. Nobody would recognise her now. Megan wasn’t sure she recognised herself. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘It suits you,’ Patsy said.

      Megan wasn’t a hugger, but she felt like hugging Patsy now.

      ‘Come back when the roots grow out,’ Patsy said. ‘If you’re around, that is.’

      As Megan paid about a tenth of what she’d have paid Freemont for the same work, she replied: ‘I’ll be around.’

      A part of Megan’s new routine was dropping into the chiropody practice downstairs at lunchtime to say hello to Nora. She’d gone in impromptu on the first day and encountered the receptionist, a bird-like woman with wildly fluffed-up grey curls and lots of purple mascara, who cheerfully told her that Nora was with a client.

      ‘You must be Nora’s niece,’ the bird-like lady had said with delight. ‘I’m Angeline, well, people call me Birdie.’ She held out a tiny hand and Megan shook it.

      ‘Yes, I’m Megan,’ Megan said, waiting for the inevitable moment of ‘– oh’ as recognition hit.

      It never came.

      ‘Nora says you’re here on a break,’ Angeline had gone on happily. ‘I must say, a holiday sounds gorgeous right now. I could do with one myself. I normally go to the Canaries in the winter, but you know how it is: money’s tight!’

      She even sounded like a bird, Megan decided, with that chirruping voice. No wonder she got called Birdie.

      ‘Have you ever been to the Canaries?’ Angeline went on. ‘Well.’ She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Gorgeous, that’s what they are, gorgeous. Even if I say so myself. Spain is great, altogether. I have a friend, and she goes to Alicante for the whole of the winter with her husband, and it’s cheaper than being here. Miles cheaper, she says.’

      Megan nodded. Nothing else was required.

      ‘You were walking the dogs, I saw you,’ Angeline continued. ‘I like dogs, but cats are very good company. Sir Rollo, he’s my cat, a Persian blue. Picky eater, I can tell you, but he’s so gentle. Never killed a mouse in his life!’

      ‘Do you prefer being called Angeline or Birdie?’ asked Megan.

      ‘Birdie!’

      Megan sat down in one of the waiting-room chairs. There was something peaceful in listening to Birdie’s chatter.

      ‘Do you live around here?’

      ‘No,’ shrieked Birdie. ‘I wish I did. I love Golden Square. I’m on the avenue, it’s not as pretty but we have a cycle path!’

      Having got used to Birdie’s chatter, Megan now dropped in every day. Birdie enjoyed discussing the soaps from the night before and, on occasion, the weather.

      ‘Cooler today but the real-feel is not too polar,’ Birdie might say.

      On cold days, she wore two sets of thermals.

      ‘See! Anthracite with pink ribbons!’ She pulled a shred of thermal fabric up from her flat bosom for inspection. ‘Nice thermals are so hard to come by. I don’t like those white ones that go grey in the wash.’

      ‘Where did you get those?’ asked Megan.

      ‘The Internet. Fabulous bits and bobs online.’

      Between clients, Nora came out and chatted too, but they talked more generally of the next client, how the dogs had behaved on their walk and if Megan would organise dinner.

      It was clear to Megan that her aunt and Birdie didn’t talk about soaps or frillies on the internet.

      She said as much to Birdie.

      ‘Nora’s a woman for science,’ Birdie explained. ‘She’s not like you and me. We’re girlie girls. Even though your hair is not girlie. Patsy did it for you?’

      Megan reached up to touch the shorn dark locks. It was still strange to feel the nakedness of her jawline and neck.

      ‘I wanted something different.’

      ‘Very Ingrid Bergman,’ pronounced Birdie. ‘I’d try it myself, but I like the bouffant look.’

      After dropping into the clinic, Megan was in the habit of walking through the pretty little square en route to Titania’s Palace. The eccentrically decorated tearooms looked like something you’d expect to find in an Austrian ski resort, complete with pine furniture, red sprigged curtains and Tiffany lamps casting an amber glow over the place. Even the pastries and buns were unusual, with lots of flaky pastry things dusted with icing sugar and the Greek honey-and-nuts dessert baklava instead of the usual scones. Everything about the place was comforting, from the comfort food inside the polished glass case to the friendly chatter going on all around.

      Megan, who was used to a life of not eating, felt a pang of hunger as she looked at the cakes, but passed them by and asked for an Americano with an extra shot of espresso.

      ‘Of course, my dear. Anything else?’ said the woman behind the counter. She had very dark eyes and slanted eyebrows to match, almost like a person with Native American blood, Megan thought. Her face was alight with motherly warmth.

      Please don’t be nice to me, Megan thought, or I’ll cry.

      ‘No,’ she mumbled. Then added: ‘Thanks.’

      She took her coffee and sat at a window table where she could look out. It wasn’t that she wanted to see anything outside. These days, she couldn’t focus on anything for long because all she could see was the past. But at least when she was staring out, people were less likely to recognise her. After years of trying to be noticed, Megan Flynn wanted to disappear.

      Megan loved members’ clubs. The ones where you had to have money and powerful friends to get in. Money wasn’t quite enough, you had to be somebody.