Page 22 of The Work Husband

‘She cut her hair?’ I echoed stupidly. ‘What the… I mean, thanks for trying and everything, but how’s that a big deal?’

For the life of me, I couldn’t imagine what insight a trip to a salon six years ago would give me into someone’s character.

Molly laughed. ‘I’m not explaining this well, am I? You remember, don’t you, what amazing hair Ava had?’

Casting my mind back, I nodded. I could see it now – the long, pre-Raphaelite-style copper ringlets that had cascaded down over her purple backpack, down over the arm that was – at least in my memory – permanently hitched to Sam’s. I felt a twinge of envy and twisted a strand of my own hair round my finger. It was nice hair. The balayage wasn’t brassy. It just wasn’t hair that someone would remember having been cut, six years after it happened.

‘Yeah, I guess she did,’ I said.

‘I mean, you’ve got great hair too,’ Molly said hastily.

I managed to laugh and dropped my hand. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t really got hair envy.’

Just everything else envy. And maybe a bit of hair envy.

Molly looked relieved. ‘So, anyway, she cut it. But not just a trim or anything – a proper, brutal crop. Really short. Not like she’d had it done by a proper hairdresser – like she’d taken clippers to it.’

‘Okay. But people do that, right? Isn’t there a charity that makes wigs for kids with cancer and people get sponsored to donate their hair?’

‘Something like that,’ Molly said. ‘But they’d give you a proper, nice cut, right? To make up for you donating your hair. This wasn’t like that.’

‘Are you saying Sam dumped her because she didn’t have good hair any more?’

‘No!’ Molly took a gulp of wine. ‘I mean, maybe. But it doesn’t seem likely, does it?’

‘Then what’s it got to do with anything?’

‘I think… I remember now. I never saw her myself, after she’d cut it. But someone else did, when they were on a night out. It might have been Chloe. And she told me afterwards, it was the weirdest thing. No one talked about it. Not even to lie and be like, “Wow, Ava, your hair looks great,” or, “You’ve totally got the bone structure for that, Ava.” Nothing like that. So she didn’t ask about it either. It was like no one was allowed to talk about it.’

‘Like there was some reason she’d done it? Like she had alopecia or something and everyone was embarrassed?’

Molly shook her head. ‘It wasn’t alopecia. It was cut; it didn’t fall out.’

How Chloe had known that, I wasn’t sure. But Molly seemed certain.

‘Do you think she had some sort of crisis?’ I hazarded. ‘Like Britney Spears?’

‘Oh my God,’ Molly said. ‘That’s exactly what Chloe said at the time. Like Britney, she said. And everyone was pretending it hadn’t happened. And quite soon after that, Ava and Sam weren’t together any more.’

Then Arthur started to wriggle and cry a bit, and Molly said his nappy needed changing, so I followed her to the bedroom and watched in horrified fascination while she did that, and our conversation moved on to other things.

On my way home, though, I found my thoughts returning to Ava and her beautiful long hair that she’d brutally chopped off. And Sam, who was with her now. I wondered if it had grown back. I wondered whether Sam knew why she’d cut it.

I thought of Jamie’s plan, which I hadn’t mentioned to Molly. I’d meant to ask her what she thought of it, but now I was glad I hadn’t.

I couldn’t know for certain what she’d have made of it, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have thought it was the best idea ever.

And she’d have been right. It was a terrible idea.

But right now, it was all I had.

TWELVE

‘Morning, Nadia.’ I breezed into the personal shopping department at Harrods, which I’d visited enough times to be on first-name terms with the staff. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’

‘Gorgeous.’ She smiled. ‘Proper summer weather. We’ve been rushed off our feet getting holiday wardrobes sorted. You meeting a client today, Georgia?’

‘That’s right, Zahra Kadar. She’s booked in with Valentina.’