by Alison Bond
Things had always come easily to Ruby – she wasn’t used to having to fight for what she wanted. If her upbringing had been a little tougher, maybe she would have climbed down from her top deck once in a while to seek out life, instead of expecting it to come looking for her simply because she showed up.
It was all very well to think that she was capable of great things but she needed to be more specific. She would never achieve greatness stuck behind a desk in a nondescript office. She would never experience new things if she kept looking at them through a pane of glass. She had nothing to lose.
That day, after three months of being good, Ruby skipped work. Calling in and feigning a debilitating case of women’s problems to the male manager was staggeringly easy. She had been worried that her lie would be transparent, that she would be tripped up and forced to admit that she was being dishonest. But the entire deception took less than a minute and an empty day stretched blissfully in front of her. She made a cup of tea and sat in the window waiting for the hairdresser’s opposite to open.
She forced herself to wait for twenty minutes before leaving the house and walking across the road. Ruby was tense. She knew she had as much right as anyone to enter the trendy salon, and she had enough business sense to know that nobody turns away paying customers. Money was money, after all. But as she reached out for the door handle her heart was leaping.
This wasn’t like going to Dai Lewis’s salon on the High Street for a trim, this was the first symbolic step towards being a new kind of girl altogether. If she couldn’t even do this, then what hope did she have? It’s just a haircut, she reminded herself, not a revolution.
The bell on the door pealed cheerily as Ruby entered. There was music playing.
The Supremes. I know this song. Ruby was immensely proud to have recognized the tune. All those hours listening to the radio were paying off. She might not look the part but at least she knew the sounds. Maybe she wasn’t hopeless after all. Just as her self-congratulations finished so did the song, and it was replaced by something else. Men with guitars and voices like warm sunshine. She didn’t know it.
The girl came out from the back of the shop, drying her hands.
‘Hello there, come on in, how are you, love?’ So the talisman spoke. Her voice was musical and cockney. Ruby imagined that when this girl got excited she would start dropping her aitches.
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ said Ruby. She was nervous and she despised herself for that. Ruby was supposed to be the one that other girls found intimidating, not the other way around. She cleared her throat and tried to think of something fashionable to say. ‘How do you do?’ She cringed. Why did she suddenly sound like her mother?
But the girl grinned. ‘I do all right, thanks.’
She had lost the raspberry coat and was wearing a simple black polo neck. I could wear that, thought Ruby. Hang on, I own that. Immediately she regretted her choice of outfit as she recognized it for what it was: twinset and pearls, without the pearls. Why hadn’t she worn the polo neck? How were you supposed to know that such a plain style was in fact hip? Was there some magazine that all the hip girls subscribed to or what?
The salon had a peculiar smell. Underneath the high notes of chemicals and shampoo there was an invasive, sultry scent, like something burning. She looked around for the source and saw a smouldering cone set on a china saucer painted with crude flowers.
‘Patchouli,’ said the girl. ‘You like it?
‘It’s unusual,’ said Ruby. ‘But yes, I think so.’
‘You think so? What’s the matter with you? Don’t know what you like?
‘I like it,’ said Ruby firmly, warming to this slightly rude but very amusing girl. Her merry smile was infectious.
‘That’s better. Now, sit down, let’s have a look at you.’ She sat Ruby down in front of an unframed mirror. Without asking, she snatched the pins out of Ruby’s hair so that it tumbled past her shoulders in shapeless hanks. ‘Gorgeous colour,’ she said. ‘Or at least it would be if it had any shine to it.’ She picked up a handful of Ruby’s raven locks and let them drop listlessly back down. ‘It just sort of hangs there, doesn’t it?’
Ruby knew she couldn’t change her life by having a haircut, but it was a good place to start. She took a deep breath. ‘That’s why I’m here,’ she said.
The music ended and there was silence as the scrutiny continued.
‘So what do you want me to do today?’
‘I’m not sure.’
The grin grew wider. ‘Not sure? Sweetheart, you were here ten minutes after the door opened, and you’re not sure?’
Ruby knew she sounded ridiculous but she hadn’t really thought any further forward than summoning up the courage to walk in the front door. Now she was here, with unfamiliar sounds and smells and this girl, who she knew was only trying to be friendly but was intimidating all the same. It was a lot to take in.
As if sensing her nerves, the girl moved away. ‘My fault,’ she said. ‘I should have offered you a cup of tea. You have a look at some of these magazines, get a few ideas, and I’ll be back in a bit. Name’s Ella, by the way. Dad was a jazz freak.’
‘It was twenty minutes,’ said Ruby.
‘You what?’
‘I was here twenty minutes after you opened. I sat over the road and counted.’
Ella laughed and went out the back.
Ruby looked through the magazines, blinded by all the images. She thought that some of the people in there looked ridiculous, but maybe ridiculous was big right now. When Ella came back with a steaming cup of tea she was more confused than ever. She spoke without thinking it through. ‘I want to look like you,’ she said.
‘Like me?’ said Ella. ‘Are you sure?’ She fingered her honey crop, two inches short at its longest.
Ruby struggled to explain without sounding like a schoolgirl with a crush. ‘You have to help me,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I like, that’s true, and these magazines really aren’t much help to me. I mean, could I do that?’ She pointed out a picture of a wild afro.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Ella. She giggled.
‘I want to look as if… as if I could be friends with someone like that, friends with someone like you.’
‘That’s easy enough,’ said Ella. ‘Start by telling me your name.’
‘Ruby.’
‘And you already know mine, Ella, yeah? So that’s it, we’re friends. Ruby, just relax. I’ll make you look the way you’ve always wanted to.’
‘Wait,’ said Ruby. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Trust me. You want to look modern, right? But not too way out. I’m thinking keep the colour, give it some shape, simple. It’s going to look groovy.’
Ruby curled her tongue around the unfamiliar word. ‘Groovy.’
‘You got it.’
First Ella washed Ruby’s hair and then combed it out, marvelling at its texture and colour, and when Ruby could no longer see through a curtain of her own locks Ella began by cutting in a thick fringe. She was intent on her project, pursing her lips in concentration. ‘That’s better already.’
Ruby gulped as she watched long chunks of her hair fall to the linoleum floor and tangle into the metal feet of the adjustable chair. Her left eye could see a couple of intrigued labourers watching the process on a bench across the street as they ate their greasy bacon butties. As soon as her mouth was clear she took another fortifying sip of tea. Ella was butchering the rest of her hair with long, sweeping strokes; inch upon inch fell to the floor.
‘Close your eyes,’ she said, and Ruby complied. She could feel the gentle touch of Ella’s hand, the occasional cold sensation of the blades and the feather-light clippings stroking her face as they fell. The minutes went by.
Apart from singing along to a tune occasionally, Ella didn’t say much. Ruby enquired whether she liked her job. ‘I love it,’ came the reply. Then Ruby asked her if she lived in London and was told that Ella lived way out east in Essex, ‘an hour
on the bus, two during rush hour’. It wasn’t that Ella was reticent, but that Ruby didn’t dare to ask the right questions. Like where does it all happen? And can I come?
‘There, now we can see your face. Your eyes…’ Ella held up a small hand mirror. ‘Do you see these little hairs here, and here?’ She pointed out the arch of Ruby’s eyebrows. ‘Will you let me pluck them?’
Ruby shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’
Ella set upon her with a pair of tweezers, tugging quickly and cleanly. Ruby’s nose twitched as she held back a sneeze.
‘Almost done,’ said Ella.
Ruby watched with fascination as her new look emerged in the mirror. Her pale eyes looked more wideset, their slight almond shape accentuated, with her brows framing them perfectly in the same way as a new, sleek hairstyle framed her face. She gave her hair an experimental flick and it fell back around her shoulders like raw silk.
The bell above the front door of the shop sang out. Ruby looked up without turning her head and saw a frail old lady with a delicate veil covering her lined face.
‘Hello, Mrs Emmerson, I’ll be right with you.’ Ella raised her voice so that she was practically shouting and then whispered to Ruby, ‘Almost deaf, poor love. Not quite her kind of place but she can’t walk any further, bless her.’
‘I know her,’ said Ruby. ‘She lives in my building.’
‘You live across the street?’
Ruby knew she was running out of time. Ella was nearly finished and Ruby had no idea what to do with the rest of her stolen day. She looked across at Mrs Emmerson and thought of dozens of women back home who looked just like her, trapped in the fashions and the traditionalist attitudes of a bygone era. They were the last Victorians, still ruling over their families, just as her own mother did. Ruby didn’t want to end up like that.
‘Ella,’ she said impetuously. ‘I really love your skirt. Where did you get it?’
Ella pulled at the short skirt and looked down at Ruby’s legs, bluntly appraising their potential. ‘You’d look fab in a mini,’ she said. ‘Try this place, and this.’ She wrote down a couple of names and addresses, both in Soho. Ruby stashed the piece of paper safely in her handbag.
Ella scooped out a small handful of greasy white cream and rubbed it down the length of Ruby’s hair. ‘If you come back tomorrow I could iron it,’ she said and indicated Mrs Emmerson. ‘I don’t have time now.’
‘Iron it? Iron my hair?’
‘Yeah,’ said Ella and laughed at Ruby’s incredulous expression. Ruby tried to conceal it but she wasn’t fast enough. Ella, who had two older sisters and had been coming up to London since she was fourteen, couldn’t remember a time when she had ever felt lost in this city, but she tried to imagine it and she thought that if she had then her expression would probably be much like the one Ruby was wearing now. Confused, apprehensive and desperate to know more. Ella had a good heart and she opened it. ‘What are you doing later?’ she asked.
‘I’m… I don’t know. Nothing,’ answered Ruby.
‘When you’re done shopping I could meet you, if you like. Show you around a bit, show off the hairdo.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, why not? I’m meeting some people, more the merrier. Do you know Indica?’
‘No.’
‘Do you know Southampton Row?’
‘Yes.’ She didn’t, but she could easily find it. She had a street map. She didn’t want to give Ella a chance to change her mind.
‘There’s a theatre there, the Regal. About six?’
‘Groovy’
A few more tweaks and Ella was finished.
‘There you go,’ she said, and stood back to admire her own work. ‘Not quite Vidal but not bad, not bad at all. You’re Cleopatra. Don’t ever put your hair up again.’
‘I look…’
‘You look like me,’ said Ella.
The crisp long lines of Ruby’s new haircut were nothing like Ella’s blonde tufts but Ruby knew what she meant. She’d got exactly what she’d asked for.
The place on Southampton Row seemed more like a smoky jazz club than a theatre. There was no evidence of a play. There was also no evidence of Ella. Unperturbed, Ruby walked straight over to the bar. She now had the clothes to match the haircut to match the people she saw around her. Not that everyone was dressed the same. Not at all. Men in sharp suits stood alongside girls in ragged bits of patchwork; boys who looked as though they’d come straight from work on a building site talked to women in monochrome high fashion. But they all looked distinctive. She was starting to see how it worked – to blend with this crowd one had to stand out. For once, she did. Ruby loved the flare of her new pleated skirt in canary yellow, and she’d played safe with the top, a simple black high-necked number, not unlike the one Ella had been wearing that morning. She’d stashed the rest of her clothes in a locker at the tube station.
Ruby sipped her drink and waited. She exchanged broad smiles with a few people and was amazed that even after twenty-five minutes she still didn’t feel nervous at all. The atmosphere was safe and welcoming. Back home where she was well known, she usually felt awkward alone in a pub, aware that she was an unaccompanied woman in a predominantly male environment, and would rarely allow herself to be in that position. But here it was different. So bolstered was she by this continuing surge of confidence that she was about to embark on her first conversation with a stranger when she finally saw Ella walk in and start scanning the crowd with her eyes.
Ruby lifted her hand and waved. ‘Over here!’
Ella saw her immediately, waved back and started to walk in her direction, followed by two men and another girl. But then she saw somebody she knew and was held up by an animated discussion.
Ruby felt slightly foolish as she stood on her own and waited, her hand still half-saluting to someone who was no longer looking her way. Ella was half an hour late, she should be over here apologizing. As soon as she’d thought this she reprimanded herself. That was old Ruby, hung up on proper social decorum. New Ruby, the sophisticated city girl with the groovy hair, was above all that provincial nonsense. Manners and suchlike, were they really that important? And could she block out twenty-one years of decent breeding with another lager and lime?
Someone tapped her shoulder. She turned round to see one of the men who had come in with Ella. He had light brown hair and freckles and was wearing a white shirt with a ruffled neckline. When he spoke, his country burr made her think of green space and cloudy skies.
‘How are you?’ he said. ‘I came to rescue you, Ella could be a while. That girl she’s talking to? That’s Tiffany, she just got back from India. No doubt she has plenty to say’
‘India?’ Ruby looked over at the tanned girl with no shoes on. For a second her confidence wavered. Ella had exotic friends who’d seen the world, maybe they were not destined to become the best of pals as she’d secretly hoped. She turned her attention back to the man at her side. If there was one thing she could handle it was men. She’d yet to meet one she couldn’t control.
‘Thank you,’ she said, sticking out her chest and smiling, ‘for rescuing me, that’s very kind.’
‘My pleasure.’ He put out his hand. ‘I’m Sean Coltrane.’
He asked Ruby where she was from, which led to a brief flurry of mutual admiration for the wild British countryside. ‘But London’s better,’ said Ruby. Sean looked unconvinced.
By the time Ella came over to join them (‘Tiff met a real live Swami!’) Ruby had been introduced to the rest of her friends, was on her second drink and felt like part of the gang.
Sean knew plenty of people. It was incongruous: he seemed so quiet, almost withdrawn, but he appeared to be the most popular man in the room. Later, Ella explained why.
‘Sean’s living down near Porton Down,’ she said. ‘The army base?’
Ruby nodded.
Ella dropped her voice. ‘Where they do all those experiments?’
Ruby nodded.
‘With drugs?
’
Ruby nodded again, still not quite getting it. Ella laughed and pointed out Sean huddled in the corner, slipping something into the hand of a sharp-suited stranger.
Ruby’s eyes opened wide, she couldn’t help it. Drugs. Okay, there might be a few housewives back home who were a little too fond of their prescribed medication, and there was a rumour that Barnaby Thompson had been chucked out of the lower sixth for smoking marijuana, but Ruby had never seen an illegal pill, much less tried one.
‘Is it safe?’ she asked.
‘Sweetheart,’ said Ella, ‘they give these things to the army! Her Majesty’s finest. Besides, you can trust Sean.’
‘So he’s a soldier?’
‘Hardly. He’s a photographer and conceptual artist. He wants to explore an untapped landscape.’ She touched her finger to her forehead. ‘The one up here.’
Ruby wasn’t entirely sure what conceptual art was. She thought it sounded like a good excuse to get high.
There was a commotion towards the back of the room and the numbers suddenly doubled. Ruby was confused.
‘The play’s finished,’ said Ella.
‘A play? Where?’
‘Upstairs.’ Ella pointed out a man at the centre of the new crowd. ‘That’s Dante Valentine. He’s a brilliant director.’ She lifted her hand and called out, ‘Dante!’
Ruby looked over and she saw a beautiful man. It wasn’t a word she would usually connect with masculine good looks but it was the only word that fitted. Dante Valentine had ebony hair which curled over his collar and the noble features of an ancient king. His brooding eyes caught the light when his glance bounced over in their direction at the sound of his name.
