Layla sighed. ‘Eric, I would love to go back to it. Whenever I stay on someone’s sofa, I always offer them a quick trim. Some take me up on my offer.’
Grandpa ran his hand through his white tufty hair. ‘What do you think, Layla? In your professional opinion – should I go shorter? A buzz-cut maybe?’ His eyes twinkled with excitement.
Layla giggled and then studied Grandpa’s hair. ‘Eric, I think a little tidy up and maybe comb both sides as opposed to just one.’
She had a point. Grandpa’s hair was neat on the right side and unruly on the left.
He smiled. ‘Everyone at eighty should embrace their wild side.’
‘Worrying,’ I said, jokingly, as Layla got up and went to smooth down Grandpa’s hair.
‘How did you and Ryan meet?’ I asked, putting my greasy hair up into a messy bun.
‘I met him on a night out with my mates,’ said Layla. ‘It was my first night out after having Zac – he was three months old.’
‘Do you think you and Ryan will have a reconciliation?’ Grandpa asked.
Layla shook her head. ‘He said some nasty things. Zac and I are not going back there.’ She studied Grandpa’s hair at the back of his head. ‘Blimey, Eric, it’s quite long. I could trim it so it’s above your collar.’
‘Deal,’ said Grandpa, ‘I want to look my best for the ladies of Harp Brook.’
Layla gasped at what Grandpa had said and I rolled my eyes.
After dinner, Layla put Zac down upstairs in her new bedroom. I raced upstairs and fetched my bag and suitcase from Layla’s room and went to search for another room to sleep in. I stared at the doors leading to the west wing. What was behind those doors? I was intrigued and nosey at what sort of expensive furniture lay behind them. All the doors were locked, which was what Maddie had said. I tried to bend down and peer through the keyholes, but I couldn’t see anything.
I decided that I didn’t want to sleep in Maddie and Frank’s master bedroom, so I walked along the hallway and found myself crossing over into the west wing of the house. The doors would probably be locked like the ones leading to the west wing downstairs, but I decided to find out. Feeling anxious and with a trembling hand I turned the handle on the first door I came to. It wasn’t locked. I skipped a breath as I entered.
Flicking the light switch I gasped. My eyes were met with an explosion of colour. A spacious room stood before me with walls painted in a gorgeous royal blue colour and adorned with beautiful oil paintings of peacocks set in gold frames.
In the centre presided a king-sized bed with burnt orange silk bedding. A vast fitted wardrobe stretched the length of one wall, and a dressing table nestled against another wall. On each side of the tall window opposite the bed were two full length dusty-pink draped curtains.
Leaving my suitcase and handbag by the bed, I pulled them across and let my eyes roam. On the dressing table were Maddie’s face creams and make-up bags. I assumed this was the room where she got dressed.
Sliding back the wardrobe doors, I saw that it was full of all her clothes. They were in strict colour order, which made me smile. Below the clothes were racks of shoes, all neatly stacked. Maddie had always loved an organised and tidy wardrobe. There were numerous full-length mirrors dotted about the room.
I spotted little constellations of photos. One was of us both on holiday in Greece three years ago. We’d run off to Greece for a week at the last minute, just the two of us. Frank wasn’t on the scene, so it was just Maddie and me. That was the holiday we spent daydreaming about opening our beach café. I would do the cooking and she would cover the front of house. We spent hours at a little bar planning out our business idea on Maddie’s phone and sipping cocktails. It stayed a daydream as life got in the way but thinking of that holiday gave me a warm fuzzy feeling. In most of the photos, we had a colourful cocktail in our hands, sunburnt noses, and goofy smiles.
There were several of us as little kids stood with Dad before he packed his things and left. He didn’t stay with the tall woman from Glasgow. After a year he left her for his now second wife and has been happily married ever since. I wondered whether Mum knew Maddie had these photos up of Dad. Tiny knives of guilt pricked my heart as I stared at Dad’s face, his messy brown hair and his friendly smile. We’d lost touch over the years, which nibbled away at the edge of my mind. But Mum had told us it would upset her if we contacted him.
On a mirror tucked away at the back of the room were three photos of teenage Maddie standing with Josh, the guy she’d dated while she was at university. He’d worked at the café on the campus. Mum disliked him from the moment she laid eyes on him. ‘He’s got nothing going for him,’ I remembered her saying. ‘Maddie, you have to aim high in relationships or you will end up with someone like your father.’ I stared at the photos. Josh’s long arms were wrapped around a grinning Maddie. He was tall with black curly hair and a boyish smile. Josh and Maddie were together for most of her years at uni. She said they knew each other inside out and he was the only guy to make her laugh so much her sides ached. I struggled to visualise Frank doing the same to Maddie. I wondered whether he was okay with her having photos of her ex-boyfriend on her mirror.
Surveying the room I sighed with contentment. It was nice to see Maddie had somewhere to be her colourful and vibrant self. A worry ballooned at the back of my mind. Was Frank as controlling as he was with everything else when it came to designing their house? Did Maddie not get a say in decoration? Had she agreed with Frank that she would have one room hidden away upstairs that would be styled and designed by her to make him happy? The thought left me feeling uncomfortable.
After catching sight of my reflection in one of the mirrors and groaning at my washed-out and grubby look, I collapsed on the bed. Lying down I was hit by a wave of exhaustion. It had been quite a day. The bedding was a myriad of embroidered lavender and blue flowers. It smelt of Maddie’s expensive flowery perfume. I hoped she was okay on her flight wherever it was over the Atlantic.
Closing my eyes, I let my mind wander. It replayed what Maddie had said earlier about Olivia knowing Harp Brook. My chest ached for Olivia. I wished she was still alive. She could have come with me to Harp Brook. We would have had such a laugh, drinking Frank’s expensive wines, eating our body weights in chocolate and dancing to Christmas songs around the manor house. Rubbing my chest, I sat up and pulled up my handbag by its straps. I took out Olivia’s pink notebook. Maybe if I read some of her book it would feel like she was here with me.
I flicked over the first page and read what Olivia had written.
Step One. Change Me on the Outside.
When my wonderful friend died, I took drastic action and dyed my hair from brown to black and then cut it to above my shoulders. Side note: my hair touched my lower back before Sophie passed away. This was a drastic move.
Cutting and dyeing my hair wasn’t something I did to help me grieve. I did it because I was angry and took out all my frustration on my hair.
After days of yelling up at the sky, sending God a lot of angry prayers and crying about how unfair life felt after watching my best mate die, I became a tornado and destroyed as many personal possessions as I could. This felt shockingly good. From smashing up photo frames, burning random things in the back garden to hacking my clothes to pieces, I was furious with life.
One day after collapsing into an emotional heap on my bedroom floor, surrounded by broken belongings, I decided to channel my fury in other ways. Seconds later I got the idea about my hair and went on the hunt for some kitchen scissors and hair dye.
