Chapter 6
Perhaps surprisingly, Donna’s salon is the place to be on a Thursday evening.
As soon as I walk in, I’m hit with the scent of strongly scented shampoo, the wail of hairdryers and the most glorious sound of all: gossip.
Welcome home, Ava.
I’ve mostly been happy in my own company since arriving in Ullapool, but my limited interactions are starting to take their toll and I’ve started to yearn for some small talk.
Most of my conversations are with Fiona from the coffee shop, but she’s always so busy balancing coffees and taking orders that it doesn’t go much further than a throwaway comment about the weather or a brief update on the bookshop.
My exchanges with customers in Rory’s shop were transactional, despite my overly eager, people-pleasing tendencies.
When I received a spam call earlier asking whether I’d ever been in an accident at work, I contemplated playing along to see where the conversation might lead.
I also had a full-blown discussion with myself this morning about whether to buy orange juice with or without pulp.
Things got quite heated, let me tell you.
So, I’ve come to Donna’s salon.
Her face lights up as soon as she sees me and she pulls me into a tight hug.
The chat with Donna is top tier from the start.
Ten out of ten. In the space of a five-minute hair wash, Donna reveals to me that she’s recently split from her boyfriend, Lewis from Glasgow, after trying to make a long-distance relationship work for a couple of years.
I discover what he looks like, which football team he supports (apparently it’s a loaded question in Glasgow), and that sometimes he likes to eat cold baked beans from the tin.
They split because he refused to move to Ullapool and she couldn’t possibly move to Glasgow to be with him because her pet poodle Bonnie suffers from terrible anxiety, which he’d always known.
‘Can you imagine wee Bonnie in Glasgow?’ she asks, incensed by the idea of it. ‘Bad enough when I take her to the vet here, never mind venturing to Glasgow. She’d have a complete meltdown. I think she might die of shock, to be honest. And what about Guy Fawkes Night? Had he ever thought of that?’
I stretch back in the faux-leather seat and shake my head.
‘I guess he hadn’t,’ I shrug, ignoring the fact that the water is getting hotter by the second as she rubs a coconut-scented conditioner into my scalp.
‘He did not. He always said he’d like to make the move somewhere quieter, but that’s what they all say, isn’t it? All I want is to settle down in Ullapool with the love of my life. Is that too much to ask? But every guy I meet around here is either a tourist or a pensioner.’
‘Erm, the water is getting pretty hot.’
It’s burning now. I have to flip my head to the left to escape the scalding flow.
‘Oh, shit, sorry,’ she says, switching the water off.
‘Don’t worry, you’re done now anyway. So, Lewis is in the bin.
Next! I updated my Tinder profile, but around here you have to have your radius set to about a thousand miles to find someone you’re not related to. I just want to meet someone, you know?’
‘There must be some decent men around here. You like Rory?’ I say, ignoring the strange, unpleasant feeling in my stomach as I suggest it.
Donna scoffs. ‘Rory’s like a brother to me. Absolutely not.’
‘What about that other guy you mentioned the other day? The dog walker?’
‘Oh!’ she exclaims, rubbing my hair with a bright pink towel.
‘I didn’t even realize I mentioned Finlay to you.
No, gosh no, not Finlay.’ It may be the hot water, but I swear I see Donna’s cheeks flush.
She straightens and moves the conversation on.
‘Anyway, what was it that made you move from London, then? Was it man trouble too?’
‘Something like that,’ I mumble. ‘Everything trouble, really.’
Donna nods as though she understands, wraps my hair up in the towel and gestures for me to sit down in front of the mirror as she searches for her scissors.
‘You didn’t fancy a complete makeover then? New do, new you? That’s what we always say,’ Donna asks, throwing in some jazz hands for good measure.
‘Just a trim, please.’
‘Are you sure? Any time we have a breakup or tragic life event, or any minor inconvenience really, we whip out the dye, order extensions or jump on the latest hair trend. How bad was your breakup, on a scale of straighten-only to pink highlights?’
‘Oh, it was a complete and utter shitstorm. A spiky, purple mohawk of a breakup,’ I confirm. ‘But I’d still just like a little bit off the ends, maybe add in an extra layer or two for volume?’
Donna nods knowingly, glancing at me in the mirror with a sympathetic smile. ‘You’re not over it.’
‘I am!’ I protest. ‘I just don’t really dye my hair.’
‘It is a lovely colour,’ she says, twirling my wet auburn locks around a finger, before setting to work with her scissors. ‘It always was. Elle and I thought you were so cool when we were younger, you know.’
I burst out laughing. ‘Me? Cool! Donna, I stayed here with my granny and you had to drag me away from my books to get me outside. How could you think I was cool?’
‘You were mature. The big city girl who swanned in and out every summer and didn’t care about being away from your parents. We were in awe of you.’
I throw my head back, a loud laugh escaping my lips, as Donna steadies my head back into position.
‘I was in awe of you and Elle! You both knew everything that was going on in the village and you were so close. I was lucky you let me be the third wheel.’
Donna snorts. ‘The third super cool wheel who arrived with highlights in her hair when she was fifteen! I begged my mum for highlights after you left that summer, but she said I had to wait until I was at least sixteen. I genuinely think your hair made me realize I wanted to be a hairdresser. I remember thinking you looked amazing. The boys all drooled over you too.’
‘I doubt that. I was always terrified of the boys. There seemed to be so many of them swarming around like bees on their bikes. I’ve always been much more of a girls’ girl.’
Unlike my London bestie.
I keep the thought to myself.
‘Girl, same,’ she says, her eyes serious as she snips at my hair.
‘I’m much happier without Lewis. Really, I am.
I love working here and being my own boss.
It’s a vibe, you know? Plus, we hear it all in here – breakups, affairs, tragic love stories.
It’s usually people gossiping about other people’s misfortunes, rather than coming straight from the horse’s mouth.
They wait till after the storm has passed, then come in for their new look. ’
‘No way,’ I say. ‘Affairs and tragedies in Ullapool? I thought this place would be peace and harmony after the city.’
Donna shakes her head. Her expression softens and her voice shakes as she says, ‘You wouldn’t believe half the stuff that goes on around here.
It’s a very supportive community, though.
When Mum died last year, you couldn’t move in this shop for condolence flowers. It turned into a florist’s overnight.’
‘That’s lovely,’ I say. ‘That’s exactly why I’m back here, for the community part. London just feels so… soulless in comparison.’
‘We have plenty of soul here. And yes, it was Mum rather than Lewis that brought on the balayage, by the way. Lewis was barely worth a fringe,’ she explains, flicking her glossy locks.
‘On the day of her funeral, everyone lined the streets as the coffin drove past. The bakery that she worked in for more than twenty-five years closed for a whole week as a mark of respect. Then, as the week progressed, everyone worried that the bakery might lose out on too much money. So, as soon as it reopened, people flocked from around the village to help them out. They were completely sold out of stock by midday.’
‘Your mum must have been very loved by the village. To have had such an impact.’
Donna’s eyes shine again as she nods, lost in thought for a moment, before adding, ‘It’s funny how quickly life moves on, though, and everything is supposed to go back to normal.
I want to talk about her now more than ever, but no one ever asks about her and it’s hard when you don’t have the space to do it.
I just don’t want to forget her, you know? ’
I nod. ‘Of course.’
She purses her lips and lets out a long sigh. ‘Anyway, silly me going on and on about it when you just want to have a nice chat and get your layers in. Sorry, Ava.’
‘Donna, seriously, I’d love to chat more about your mum. Now, or any time.’
I mean it. I remember feeling the same when Granny died, wondering why my parents stopped talking about her.
I wanted to scream from the rooftops how much I missed her advice, her warm hugs in the summer and our frequent phone calls throughout the year.
The silence was too much. I wished I had someone to talk to about it; somewhere I could go to meet people who felt the same as me.
When I started university, I heard about a ‘death cafe’ where you could talk about your lost loved ones, but I never had the guts to go.
It sounded morbid, for a start, and I was paranoid everyone would think my grief ship should have sailed by then.
Judging by Donna’s pensive expression and sad brown eyes, I see that she feels the same.
She coughs and nods. ‘Thank you. I might take you up on that.’
‘Please do.’
‘Anyway, did you make up with Rory?’
‘Not likely. I last saw him through the hole in the wall he still has to fix.’
‘Maybe he was trying to make that hole surreptitiously,’ she suggests. ‘So he could spy on you.’
‘That would be a) creepy and b) illegal.’
‘He’s not that kind of guy, don’t worry.’
‘Well, if I am murdered in my sleep, he’ll be suspect number one. I don’t think anyone’s ever taken such an instant disliking to me. Did you know he wanted to buy the bookshop? Do you think that’s it? Because it’s just business, it’s not personal. I had no idea he existed.’