How To Marry Your Husband (5 page)

The memory makes her smile just as a knock at her mother’s door announces the arrival of Bernie.

“Why doesn’t she use the bell?” Olivia asks as she goes to answer it.

Her mother smiles. “Because she’s local. You can always tell an off-worlder here from the sound of the bell. Local people knock.”

Or indeed simply come in, Olivia thinks. She well remembers the time she’d been staying at her mother’s and had wandered down to the kitchen at the crack of dawn (9.30am to be precise) in her night-gown to seek out some desperately-needed coffee. She’d reached the bottom of the stairs when the front door swung open and the postman popped in.

“Morning!” he yelled in a bright postman-y voice and then caught sight of Olivia poised on the bottom stair in her nightwear. His eyes widened – presumably with horror – and he gulped as Olivia tried to clutch her gown closer around her chest – it tended to be embarrassingly see-through in the wrong light. Without another word, he deposited his clutch of letters on the hall table and backed out of the front door, clicking it shut behind him.

“Morning, Sam!” her mother’s voice rang out from the kitchen, just preceding her as she tip-tapped down the hall into sight. “Oh, where did he go?”

“Hello, Mum,” said Olivia, still with her arms wrapped round her chest.
“What on earth was all that about?”

Her mother took one look at her and burst out laughing. “Oh, darling! Look at you. No wonder poor Sam ran away. I forget you’re not a morning person, are you? And that nightie! Really, it covers nothing. Your grandmother would turn in her urn if she could see you now.”

“Nonsense!” said Olivia. “You’re exaggerating – surely I don’t look that bad.”

However, a casual glance in the hall mirror told her how right her mother was. Her hair had been unwashed for two days and was sticking up like a cockatoo in shock. Her skin was shiny and there was a huge spot about to launch its presence on her chin. To cap it all, the nightie had definitely been caught in the wrong sort of light. She swore she’d never wear it again. In the meantime, Olivia screamed and ran up the stairs as if the hounds of hell were behind her in order to make herself look vaguely presentable again. And dressed. Definitely dressed.

Half an hour later, a cup of coffee inside her, she asked her mother once more about the whole strange arrival of the postman.

“But it’s perfectly normal, darling,” her mother said with some surprise. “This is the countryside. Sam always leaves the post on the hall table. He takes it for delivery too. I’ve not posted any letters for years. I just leave them there and he picks them up. For really local ones, you don’t even have to use a stamp. He just delivers them on his rounds. It’s the way things work here.”

“Gosh,” said Olivia, thinking that maybe she and her mother had somehow been transported back to the 1950s without realising, but at the same time seeing it might not be such a bad place to be. It would never happen in the town. The countryside was indeed another country.

Back in the present, Bernie seems perfectly normal. A slight, dark haired woman with a ready smile and an air of confusion, which makes Olivia feel as if she isn’t likely to be overpowered with hair choices. This can only be a good thing. The hairdresser keeps nodding as Olivia lets her know what she would like for the wedding day: soft curls and shoulder length. She doesn’t need anything dressy as she’s already bought an ivory dupion silk hair band that matches her dress. It keeps her hair in place and she isn’t planning to wear a veil or anything nonsensical. If she’s getting married, she wants everyone to see her from the get-go. She’s never been a believer in false modesty.

Soon enough, Olivia and Bernie are in the upstairs bathroom, washing her hair at the sink. “I always like to try out what my ladies want,” Bernie says. “I like them to feel they’re in safe hands.”

“Good idea,” Olivia murmurs from beneath the lather, though she isn’t sure about being addressed as any kind of lady. Bernie doesn’t appear to be old enough for that, but maybe it’s another of the results of living in the country – people speak as if they’re living in the 1900s. She makes a mental note to stay in the town for as long as possible.

After towel-drying her hair, Bernie gives her a trim, taking off about half-an-inch to make it shoulder-length. The cut is good, and Olivia feels a burst of gratitude towards her mother for the recommendation. She feels even better when Bernie has finished style-drying her, and she can see the full – well, almost full as she doesn’t have the curls she wants yet – effect.

“Oh yes,” Olivia says with a smile. “That’s great. I love that. Thank you. Can we book a date for the perm?”

“Of course! I’d advise about a month before your big day, so that would be August, wouldn’t it?”

It certainly would. Five minutes later, and Olivia has an appointment with Bernie at her home at the beginning of August. This will give the new look plenty of time to settle down and look its best for the wedding. Result!

Ah, if only Olivia were able to foretell the future, then she may not have been quite so confident …

August comes along soon enough, and Olivia parks her car at Bernie’s house near the sea and checks her purse. Yes, plenty of money for payment plus a tip. She’ll also have to firm up Bernie’s availability for the wedding morning. She’d said that would be fine already, but Olivia likes to have her timeslots sorted. She isn’t a secretary at work for nothing.

After the chat is done and the coffee drunk, Bernie sets to work. During the two hours Olivia spends being titivated, she learns a huge amount about Bernie’s childhood, her big city upbringing, and how much she misses London but she had to move to the country because of her husband’s job. Olivia learns all about Bernie’s love of ballroom dancing and how she’d once been the Junior Ballroom Dancing Champion of her region when she was in her late teens. Sadly, she’d injured her leg when getting off a bus one morning and has never been the same since. She’d given up her ballroom dancing career and had trained to be a hairdresser instead. She loves colour and people and so it seems, to Bernie, to be a pretty decent alternative.

Olivia isn’t sure there really is much in common between dancing and hair, but she decides not to say anything because she doesn’t want to break Bernie’s concentration. Anyway it seems to be enough to say ‘hmm’ and ‘oh dear’ every so often and, besides, she can’t cut in with anything else because Bernie’s flow of words is unstoppable.

Here, Olivia is impressed. She’s always reckoned herself to be the talkative one in her family and in her relationship but she’s more than met her match today. Is this part of the reason why her mother was convinced she and Bernie would get on so well? Or maybe it’s revenge – Olivia can’t put it past her.

As long as her hair is a success, Olivia will be happy. And really she’s glad Bernie has found another job she likes just as well. She must still miss the dancing though – it would be crazy not to. Olivia, when young, loved watching those old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films and has always longed to be that elegant herself. Sadly, neither elegance nor the ability to dance has ever come her way. You have to live in the real world in the end – though meeting and falling in love with Kieran has been in itself more than magical, oh yes.

Speaking of the real world however, she’s been sitting for ages with the perming solution in her hair while Bernie ‘nipped downstairs for a cup of tea’. Surely she should be back by now? Then again, Olivia doesn’t have a clue when it come to how long perms – however soft – take to set and she’s absolutely sure the hairdresser will have everything under control. Nevertheless, the back of her scalp is starting to feel odd – not a burning sensation exactly, but more of a constant itch. Maybe that is supposed to happen? She tries to move her head very gently without disturbing Bernie’s handiwork to see if the itch goes away, but it doesn’t make any difference.

She’ll give it five more minutes – what harm can that do? – and then she will try calling out to see if Bernie is within answering range. Though she must be – the house isn’t large. Maybe she’s gone into the garden.

Olivia is just about to get out of the chair as carefully as she can for fear of disturbing the hair art when Berni skips back into the lounge.

“So sorry,” she says. “I was just chatting to another client to fix up a hairdo time for her on Saturday and we got talking. I almost forgot you were here!”

Charming, Olivia thinks. Always good to be invisible.

“Bernie, could you just check my hair, please? I’m getting itchy at the back so didn’t know if the lotion should be taken off now?”

“Yes, of course!” Bernie sings out as she trots behind Olivia. “There won’t be a problem as this stuff’s really good. Very gentle. But it’s about time to take it off anyway, so let’s see what we’ve got.”

What they have in the end looks very nice indeed. At least, once the whole thing has been brushed out and styled. She loves the way the soft curls frame her face and make her look less sharp-edged than she usually does. She’s probably been getting overly-angsty about the feel of the lotion. It’s no doubt the effect of all that wedding planning she and Kieran are doing. There’s a heck of a lot to think about.

Back at home, Olivia leaves her hair unwashed for a couple of days to give everything a chance to sort itself out and then settles down on the third evening to see if Bernie’s creation lasts quite so well at the hands of a novice.

Her shampoo and conditioner are the ones she always uses but, halfway through, something is wrong and her hair isn’t doing what it’s supposed to. Not in any shape or form.

“Kieran?
Kieran?
”

A couple of moments later, Olivia hears her fiance’s footsteps thundering through the kitchen and lobby to reach her.

“What’s wrong?” his startled eyes give her the once over where she leans over the sink with the shower head. “Have you hurt yourself?”

“Nooo,” Olivia wails. “I’m fine. But my hair feels really odd. Can you see anything?”

She dabs at her head with the towel, feeling a slight and very worrying crackle under her fingers, and then swings round so her back is towards him. She feels him move closer and presumably give her hair a careful examination. He shuffles his feet once or twice.

“Um, well, I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Your hair looks fine to me, but then again I’m a bloke so I don’t know anything about this stuff. What do you think is odd about it?”

Olivia shakes her head. “It feels dry, brittle. I’m worried about the perm lotion. Do you think Bernie left it in too long?”

“Honestly, I’ve no idea, but you and your hair always look lovely. Why don’t you dry it off and see how you go?”

Olivia nods. It’s as good a suggestion as any. Back in the bedroom she sets the hairdryer onto the lowest heat possible and puts on the diffuser. Then she sits on the bed and spends the next ten minutes or so with the dryer as far away from her hair as she can get it whilst still being able to do its job. Thank goodness she comes from a long-armed family! When she’s done she clips back her hair and glances in the mirror.

What she sees makes her scream. Twice. Then she runs her fingers carefully through the finished hairdo and screams again.

By this time, Kieran is in the bedroom alongside her, so she stops screaming. He isn’t a great fan of loud noises and tends to disappear for hours on end if he thinks there may be too many emotions swirling round in the vicinity.

“It’s my
hair
,” she says, though it must be obvious even to a man. “Look at what Bernie has done to it!”

Both of them gaze in the mirror, and Olivia gulps. Kieran may have gulped too but she can’t be sure because she can only focus on the nightmare vision before them. Her hair looks as if it’s been pushed through a corkscrew-shaped hole and then blasted with sand. It hangs around her face in thin, tightly-curled strands and each time she moves, Olivia can hear it rustle. This is NOT the soft flattering curls she wants and which THAT WOMAN (she can’t bring herself to say the hairdresser’s name) promised her.

When she puts up her hand to feel the back of her hair, it’s even worse there – scrunchier and maybe even more lanky if she could see it properly. Maybe it’s best she can’t. What on earth is she going to do?

“I can’t get married like this,” she whispers. “It’s awful.”

Kieran puts his arm around her and gives her a hug. “But I love you the way you are. I want to marry you. You
and
your hair.”

His generosity brings tears to Olivia’s eyes. “Oh, hon, I’m sorry. Of course I want to get married. I love you too. But if I can’t get this sorted, I’ll have to wear a bag over my hair.”

“In that case, I’ll marry you, your hair
and
the bag, and it will be the best day in our lives ever, I promise you. But if you’re really that worried about it, why don’t you go and see another hairdresser? There are loads of them in town. Perhaps they can help you with it?”

Olivia is about to open her mouth to protest that no, her hair is utterly ruined beyond redemption and there is
absolutely nothing
she can do about it, when she realises that actually it’s quite a decent idea. So she gives Kieran a trembly smile and a kiss.

“You know, sometimes you’re a total genius.”

“Always.” he replies.