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\n\u201cCartwright, Patrick, 2nd January, 1982, aged 28, Hewer. Killed by a fall of stone. When filling coals at a longwall face, a large stone fell between two slips and killed deceased. The place had been carefully examined by the deputy, and was found to be insufficiently timbered.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
If an asteroid hit our village, the only thing left standing would be my mam\u2019s beehive. That, and her indestructible fake pearl necklaces. You can\u2019t wear real ones around hairspray, and it\u2019s not like we\u2019ve got the money for stuff like that anyway. The coal board would be sniffing around checking she\u2019s not supplementing her widow\u2019s pension with a fancyman.<\/p>\n
Fat chance of that. As if any bloke would get a look in when she\u2019s the proud owner of \u201cthe only business in our village that didn\u2019t fold during the Miners\u2019 Strike.\u201d If she\u2019s not at work, she\u2019s talking about work. Take last week, for instance. I needed a salon to train in, so I\u2019m Mam\u2019s apprentice now. There\u2019s a big end of term show coming up at college, and me, Lucy, and Gabby are organising it. Mam comes barrelling in from work still wearing her apron and launches off on one:<\/p>\n
\u2018Now, Julie, have you decided what you\u2019re doing for this hair show?\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u2018An eighties medley.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Are you trying to send me to an early grave? I am NOT giving up the best part of my Friday to shampoo and set ten of your friends just for it to drop out after thirty seconds under the lights!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Yeah, but – \u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Anyway, I thought you were using the girls from Aunty Joan\u2019s Wednesday club? Julie, love, I don\u2019t want to sound blunt, but I can\u2019t imagine Chantelle and Casey from Slimming World are going to be too happy parading themselves in leotards to the music from Flashdance! Wasn\u2019t it Chantelle\u2019s last holiday she broke a trestle table? I wouldn\u2019t care, she wasn\u2019t even sitting on it at the time, she was arm-wrestling!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I know, but if we – \u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Julie, I wish you\u2019d have a look at my photographs from Blackpool in seventy-six. Yes, love, I KNOW a ship in full sail on top of somebody\u2019s head\u2019s a lot of work, but you\u2019d stand out! You could use Barbara from the chip shop! She\u2019s offered! She\u2019s got a lovely head of hair! I know that whiff of vinegar clings, but get her shampooed and squirt a bit \u2018Shalimar\u2019 round, nobody\u2019ll know the difference.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Mam, I\u2019m not – \u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Now: inventory. How many boxes of Kirby grips will you need?Blonde and Brunette?\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u2018Two of each.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u2018And hairspray? Bear in mind, it\u2019s a long day!\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u2018Six of the large Schwarzkopf.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u2018Six? For eighties\u2019 hair?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I dunno, twenty, then!\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018That\u2019s more like it.\u2019<\/p>\n
Then the telephone rang. Even at home, we have to answer it with:<\/p>\n
\u2018Hello, Maggie\u2019s Hairdressing! Who\u2019s that, sorry? Can you speak up, please, love? It\u2019s a bad line! Silent Night? Are you \u2018avin\u2019 a laugh? Oh, SIMON KNIGHT; oh, I am sorry, Simon! Yes, I can fit you in no problem, love. Half five do you? Alright, see you then, love! Bye! Julie, remember to get his money off him this time. That tick list\u2019s longer than a night out with Ken Dodd.\u2019<\/p>\n
\nListening to Nirvana
\nAnd dreaming of Kurt<\/p>\n
But my whole future
\nRests upon a five-point cut
\nAnd my backcombing<\/center><\/p>\n
Mam trained in the 1960s. That\u2019s when everything changed, right down to how hair was done. Before then, it was just that: done. Then came the great man himself…<\/p>\n
\u2018Honestly, if I walked into her college and shouted \u201cVidal Sassoon!\u201d, they\u2019d think he was a footballer!\u2019 she\u2019s telling Sonia, my practice model before tomorrow\u2019s precision cutting assessment. \u2018Now, Julie, how do we check that a bob is evenly cut?\u2019<\/p>\n
I shrug. \u2018Spirit level?\u2019<\/p>\n
She shoves past me, nose in the air, and stands behind Sonia, looking at her in the mirror. She takes the hair either side of Sonia\u2019s face between her index and middle fingers and her thumbs, and runs them down the length of the hair. <\/p>\n
\u2018Like this. Julie, that\u2019s really not bad.\u2019<\/p>\n
Praise from Caesar! This might as well be my nomination for British Hairdresser of the Year. She NEVER tells me I\u2019ve done well. Mariah Carey\u2019s warbling away on the radio, but even that can\u2019t spoil this moment. I, Julie Cartwright, did something NOT BAD!<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t even notice Joe the plumber come in. That kind of sums Joe up. When his wife ran off with the bingo caller, my mate Vicky\u2019s dad joked it was because she\u2019d forgotten she even had a husband. Joe set about him and knocked out one of his front teeth. Nobody called him boring after that, but he is hard work.<\/p>\n
\u2018Evening, Maggie\u2026evening, Sonia. Did Julie do that?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Oh, hello, Joe! Yes, she did. Not bad, is it?\u2019<\/p>\n
I\u2019m NOT BAD. I hug the words to myself like a puppy at Christmas. Maybe I\u2019ll have a chain of salons, all called Chevaux Jules<\/em>. <\/p>\n \u2018Really good,\u2019 smiles Joe. \u2018She must take after her mam!\u2019<\/p>\n Joe stops by the next day to fix the leaky guttering over the shop sign. I didn\u2019t think plumbers dealt with guttering. Mam ushers him into the salon when he\u2019s finished and thrusts a cup of coffee at him.<\/p>\n \u2018Oh, you shouldn\u2019t have,\u2019 he mumbles as she offers him a biscuit. <\/p>\n \u2018You like gypsy creams, don\u2019t you?\u2019 she asks.<\/p>\n \u2018Erm, yes…they\u2019re my favourites.\u2019 <\/p>\n They both look very red in the face, so I open a window to let out some of the heat from the dryer bank.<\/p>\n \u2018Do you want to buy a raffle ticket, Joe?\u2019 I ask. \u2018The Scouts are raising money for a new hut.\u2019<\/p>\n He fumbles in his wallet for some change, and a photograph falls out. We almost knock heads in the race to pick it up, but I get there first. <\/p>\n With a horrible sickly feeling of mortification, I realise that it\u2019s a photo of Joe and my mam, taken outside York Minster on last year\u2019s parish trip to the Christmas market. I hand it back, and open another window. <\/p>\n When I get home that night, I stomp upstairs and turn the radio on. I open up my photograph album and slide out the last picture ever taken of me and my dad. It was my fourth birthday, and he\u2019s holding onto the seat of my brand new bike as I try to pedal.<\/p>\n Tucked behind the picture is the folded sheet of newspaper reporting my father\u2019s death, which happened a week after the picture was taken. I don\u2019t even remember how I came by it. I search for the words of the coal board\u2019s report.<\/p>\n Killed by a fall of stone.<\/em><\/p>\n The report doesn\u2019t mention how he lay in agony with a punctured lung until he could be stretchered out. It doesn\u2019t talk about Mam and Nana rushing to the pit so Mam could go with him in the ambulance. I can just about remember leaving school with Aunty Linda that day, being told your Daddy\u2019s had an accident<\/em>. Someone giving me a Sindy doll after his funeral.<\/p>\n I trace my fingers over the words, trying to recall the sound of his voice, what he smelled like. I said once that he always smelled of leather and extra strong mints, and Mam told me I was being daft; he\u2019d never worn a leather jacket and he never ate mints. <\/p>\n Mam\u2019s only thirty-eight now, but hasn\u2019t even looked at anyone since he died. I wondered if she still missed him. I thought back to the photograph of her and Joe in his wallet, how she knew what his favourite biscuits were, how she knew how he liked his coffee even though he never has one when he came in for a trim. Three years he\u2019s lived round here and been coming for a haircut every three weeks. It suddenly occurs to me how little hair there is to sweep up after his appointments, and I turn the radio up, slamming the album shut and propping the photo of me and dad up on my bedside table. <\/p>\n \u2018 \u201cLoad up your guns, and bring your friends – \u201d \u2019<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018Julie! Turn that racket down!\u2019<\/p>\n I turn it up and shout along. I\u2019ve got tickets to see them next month. It was supposed to be last week, but Kurt\u2019s not well.<\/p>\n \u2018 \u201cShe\u2019s over-bored and self-assured, Next morning, I\u2019m three minutes late getting downstairs.<\/p>\n \u2018What time do you call this?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018I was up late.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Doing what?\u2019<\/p>\n I shrug on my denim jacket. \u2018Looking at pictures of Dad. Don\u2019t suppose you\u2019ll remember him; you\u2019re so busy flirting with Joe – \u2019<\/p>\n She slaps me before she even realises she\u2019s going to. Her hand lashes across my cheek and is up at her mouth in shock in less than a second. She\u2019s never hit me before. I instinctively touch my cheek – it\u2019s burning hot, and her long fingers have left an imprint that\u2019s showing itself even through Max Factor Panstik, but I\u2019m not the one who\u2019s welling up.<\/p>\n \u2018Don\u2019t you ever<\/em> speak to me like that again,\u2019 she hisses. Her voice is low, trembling with fury. \u2018Do you understand me?\u2019 I can\u2019t reply. \u2018Do you understand me?\u2019<\/em> she yells.<\/p>\n I nod, and edge past her out the door. <\/p>\n *<\/p>\n I make it through the morning by keeping my head down – literally, to hide the brand on my cheek. Mam\u2019s always complaining about my \u201cgrungy hair\u201d hanging limp around my face, but I suspect that this morning, she\u2019s grateful for it. Not because she slapped me…most of her friends would say I deserved it, but because it would invite questions. <\/p>\n The hairdressers\u2019 is where gossip is trafficked, not where it\u2019s born.<\/p>\n I\u2019m shaking like a leaf when Tricia from college arrives at half-past ten, but I pass my assessment with flying colours, and Manjeet, my model, says her head feels about a stone lighter, so everybody\u2019s happy. Then the begging starts. Tricia never shows up here without wanting a favour. This time, it\u2019s Tina, a girl on my course, who\u2019s failed her permanent waving assessment five times.<\/p>\n \u2018What do you want me to do, Tricia?\u2019 cries Mam. \u2018Dress up in jeans and a Stone Roses t-shirt and take the assessment for<\/em> her?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Please, Maggie,\u2019 begs Tricia. \u2018You know how I hate to fail them!\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Five bloody times? What\u2019s she doing? Winding the rods with her feet?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Maggie, you\u2019d be saving my life!\u2019<\/p>\n Mam cocks an eyebrow. She knows she\u2019ll be lucky to get a bottle of Blue Nun out of Tricia as a thank-you. She\u2019s as tight as a crab\u2019s arse, as Mam\u2019s remarked many, many<\/em> times before. \u2018Oh, go on, then.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Oh, thank you!\u2019 Tricia gasps. \u2018You\u2019ve saved my life!\u2019 Saved your cushy job nodding at French plaits and asymmetric bobs, more like, I think. <\/p>\n And then, trying to act casual, Tricia asks, \u2018Will we see you at Blackpool this year, Maggie?\u2019<\/p>\n Everybody in the salon shifts their attention ever so slightly. Mam was a finalist in the National Hairdressing Federation Championships at Blackpool Winter Gardens three years running – 1977, 1978, and 1979. I was born in 1978 and she competed that year a week over her due date. He waters broke during the judging, and she tried to pass it off as spilled setting lotion. She hasn\u2019t competed since my dad died, that year she was only a semi-finalist, but everyone expects her to.<\/p>\n \u2018Haven\u2019t decided yet.\u2019 Mam\u2019s grin is rictus. Tricia isn\u2019t fooled. She can sense that Mam is getting a taste for it again. She\u2019s been away for too long.<\/p>\n She specialises in bridal hair. Even now, people come from miles around so she can do their hair for their big day. Those are the days of flasks of soup and bacon sandwiches wrapped in tin foil, of wrinkled finger ends and tiredness that only hits you when you stop for longer than thirty seconds. She even did her own hair when she married my dad – it looked more like architecture than hair; all these twisty little intricate braids and loops, so she looked like Guinevere from King Arthur or something.<\/p>\n Mam put her hair up in a beehive the week after Dad\u2019s funeral, when she reopened the salon, and she hasn\u2019t worn it down since.<\/p>\n Disaster strikes the next day. A pipe freezes, then bursts, and the salon floods. The lino has to be lifted up and binned. Even with three portable heaters and the entire dryer bank on full blast, we have to close. Luckily, it\u2019s midweek – Mam rings around and manages to move everyone to Friday and Saturday. Best get the tin foil and the Thermos out, I say, still trying to creep back into her good books. She \u2018Hmm\u2019s slightly, and I write on my hand: bacon sarnies 4 friday<\/em>. Bacon by way of an apology. Because I haven\u2019t actually said sorry, not in so many words.<\/p>\n I run to the corner shop while Mam\u2019s doing her face and buy her a Crunchie as well. <\/p>\n At midday, I hear the door swing open. It\u2019s Tina from college, the failing student, and Betty, the model. We forgot to telephone them and cancel and there\u2019s no water and Mam promised Tricia she would help her out, even though Tricia can be a right snidey cow who once \u201cforgot\u201d to tell Mam about the deadline for entering the North-West Salon of the Year competition. Mam panics and phones Joe. He says he\u2019ll be round in ten but it doesn\u2019t take him five.<\/p>\n He works a minor miracle and Mam sends me down to the shop for a packet of Wagon Wheels as a sacrificial offering. He stays for a cup of tea while Tina cack-handedly attempts to coax a curl into Betty\u2019s poker-straight hair. <\/p>\n \u2018She can\u2019t get the end papers to stay on the rod. I\u2019ve never seen anyone try to perm like this, and I\u2019ve been hairdressing for nearly thirty years,\u2019 Mam mutters. It\u2019s the first normal thing she\u2019s said to me since she slapped me. <\/p>\n She straightens up and cocks her chin at Tina, who freezes. \u2018Are you left-handed, love?\u2019<\/p>\n Tina blinks uncertainly. \u2018What?\u2019<\/p>\n Mam repeats, \u2018Are you left-handed?\u2019<\/p>\n She nods slowly, as if she\u2019s afraid she\u2019ll get a smack for admitting it.<\/p>\n \u2018Why are you holding the bottle in your right hand, then?\u2019<\/p>\n Jesus, the woman\u2019s like bloody Poirot.<\/p>\n Tina swaps the bottle around slowly, untrustingly, and her eyes widen. She can manage it now. Her relief is matched only by her model\u2019s: I pass poor Betty some more cotton wool to wipe away the perm lotion running in a steady stream down her forehead. <\/p>\n \u2018That\u2019s it! See how much easier that is?\u2019 beams Mam. Tina looks ecstatic. If she wasn\u2019t covered in perm lotion, she\u2019d be hugging my mam right now. It was hairdressing, or answering the phone in an office with her dad and three brothers at the family plant hire firm. And I can\u2019t see Tina, all false lashes and Cindy Crawford Calvin Kleins, sat behind a desk on an industrial estate all day. <\/p>\n \u2018She really knows her stuff, your mam,\u2019 says Joe. We lean against the cool Formica of the little corner kitchen and watch as Tina rattles through the stack of perm rods at her side. <\/p>\n I look up at Joe\u2019s face. He\u2019s barely smiling, and in anyone else, his expression would suggest that they couldn\u2019t remember if they\u2019d left the oven on or not. I see now why he\u2019s \u201chard work\u201d when he comes in, and I feel ashamed for trying to make Mam feel guilty. <\/p>\n \u201cGoing to be a busy weekend now we\u2019ve moved everyone,\u2019 I say.<\/p>\n \u2018Yeah? What time will you get finished on Saturday?\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018Not before five.\u2019 He nods sympathetically. \u2018Mam\u2019ll probably need a few drinks by then…probably something nice to eat, too.\u2019 Bloody hell, Joe, I think as he stares quizzically at me, don\u2019t give up your day job.<\/p>\n \u2018Ok…\u2019 he replies, still looking baffled.<\/p>\n \u2018She\u2019s not doing anything on Saturday night. And it\u2019s been a while since she had a good night out.\u2019<\/p>\n He\u2019s still not cottoning on.<\/p>\n \u2018Just…I thought if you<\/em> weren\u2019t doing anything…she\u2019s<\/em> not doing anything…\u2019<\/p>\n Joe flushes red. I open a window. <\/p>\n When everyone has finally gone, I can tell Mam wants to talk to me. I start my end-of-day chores so I don\u2019t have to look at her.<\/p>\n \u2018Julie, love…about yesterday morning – \u2019<\/p>\n \u2018I was going to spend the night at Aunty Linda\u2019s on Saturday,\u2019 I interrupt, much louder than I need to. \u2018Just if you\u2019d made plans with anyone.\u2019<\/p>\n \u2018What?\u2019<\/p>\n I ram the wet towels into the laundry bag. \u2018Just – if you wanted to go out…if anyone\u2019s made plans with you or something…then you should. You deserve a treat. You haven\u2019t been out properly for ages.\u2019<\/p>\n Mam just stands there, her mouth agape as I turn the lights off and toss her the keys. \u2018Got you a Crunchie,\u2019 I mumble, handing her the chocolate bar, and she brushes my scraggy blonde hair behind the ear with the helix piercing she hit the roof over last year, and kisses me on the forehead.<\/p>\n When I peek out of Aunty Linda\u2019s sitting room window on Saturday night and see Joe walk over to our side of the street to pick Mam up, I notice she\u2019s already waiting for him. She\u2019s not wearing her pearls; instead, in the light of the full moon and the street lamp, I can just make out a little crystal pendant that I don\u2019t recognise. She\u2019s ditched the beehive, and is wearing her dark hair down. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Beehives \u201cCartwright, Patrick, 2nd January, 1982, aged 28, Hewer. Killed by a fall of stone. When filling coals at a longwall face, a large stone fell between two slips and killed deceased. The place had been carefully examined by the deputy, and was found to be insufficiently timbered.\u201d If an asteroid hit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":318,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[381,379],"tags":[388],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nOh no, I know a dirty word…\u201d \u2019<\/em><\/p>\n