Chapter Twenty-One
Mad Annie stirred the pot: chicken soup with potatoes, leeks and carrots. Except for the tatties, not a single ingredient would have been found on St Kilda and stomachs growled, feet pacing excitedly as the aroma filled the cottage. The islanders were quickly acquiring appetites for the new tastes available here.
But not Flora. Not tonight.
Their father was at the infirmary in Fort William, along with their mother, and every few moments Flora would get up to pop her head out to check that the telephone box on the opposite side of the lane wasn’t ringing. Their mother had promised to call when there was news on his condition, and Flora and David were the heads of the household in the interim – or at least they had been, until Mad Annie and Ma Peg had come through from next door with the dead chicken and a basket of vegetables and taken charge. Flora had been grateful; she was no cook. Her years of shirking her chores suddenly revealed her to be wanting.
‘It still won’t be enough,’ David said as she sat at the table with Bonnie, supervising her arithmetic. ‘Both yours and Ma’s wages combined still won’t make up losing Father’s.’
‘But I don’t understand! How can it not be enough? There’s the two of us to the one of you.’
‘Because women aren’t paid what we are,’ he said patiently.
‘But why not?’
He shrugged. ‘Because that’s just the way it is here.’
Mad Annie gave a loud snort, setting down her pan with a bang and making clear her views on that matter.
‘So then what are we do to?’ Flora asked, slumping back in the chair. ‘We’ve been here little over two weeks and already we’re facing penury?’
‘No. We just need to think of other ways to raise money,’ he said thoughtfully.
‘You mean socks?’ Her heart dropped at the thought of more knitting. It had been one of the main advantages of moving over here as far as she was concerned: no more knitting.
‘I don’t think socks can help us in this case.’
‘What, then? We have no skills of any use, no possessions of any worth—’
But before the words had left her mouth, her gaze dropped to the sapphire ring. She twisted it between her fingers, feeling sick at the very thought.
‘No,’ David said quickly, reading her mind. ‘Not that, Flora. You’d regret it.’
Unlike most of the St Kildan men, her brother was sentimental. Flora knew the past was still very much alive for him, that he slept with Molly’s shawl beneath his pillow. ‘I’m sure I would – but a proud mind and an empty purse grow ill together,’ she said flatly. ‘Isn’t that right, Ma Peg?’
‘Aye,’ the old woman said after a moment, stoking the fire with a pained expression.
Flora looked down again, still twisting the ring. It, the lipstick and a few letters were all she had to tether her to the great love of her life; to the baby she had given up, the husband she might have had, the life that would have been. Was she really to forsake this as well?
‘There is another option,’ Annie said coolly from her spot by the stove, one hand on her hip and still stirring the soup.
David looked back at her hopefully. ‘Which is?’
Annie turned and jerked her chin towards Flora. ‘Her hair.’
‘Excuse me?’ David frowned.
‘I went for tea and a piece in the village yesterday.’
Flora sat back in the chair, waiting for the reveal. Mad Annie was a natural born storyteller and she didn’t believe in getting to the point quickly if there was a scenic route to take instead. Mad Annie and Ma Peg’s house – sitting between theirs and the MacKinnons’ – had come with a bicycle found in the back garden and Annie had wasted no time in becoming familiar with it. Ma Peg’s joints were too stiff for ‘a new sport’, but Flora thought Annie sometimes forgot she was a woman in her seventies, for she seemed to be relishing the adventure of cycling in and out of the village ‘for provisions’ every day. Flora saw her most afternoons as she made her way back from her shift: Annie puffing on her pipe as she pedalled along, her skirt tucked into her undergarments and her thin legs on show.
‘The old dears were lamenting the plummeting prices for tweed’ – she rolled her eyes, indicating she didn’t consider herself in their age bracket – ‘and they said some of the crofting womenfolk have been going to Glasgow and selling their hair.’
‘Selling it?’ Flora cried.
‘Aye. It’s made into wigs, they told me, which are like caps... but with hair.’ She pulled a face of distaste but gave a shrug. ‘They said there’s good money to be made.’
‘But why... why would anyone want to wear someone else’s hair?’ Flora asked, appalled.
‘Sickness. And hair fashions, so they said,’ Annie added. ‘And you’ve got such lovely hair, Flora lass – so long and dark; that braid is as thick as my fist. They’d be bound to pay extra for yours.’
‘Do you really think so?’ David was looking interested.
‘It can’t hurt to ask. You never know, they might offer enough just to tide you over until you know more about your father’s condition. Hair grows back, after all, but once that ring’s gone... Hold onto it, lass.’
Flora was quiet in the face of her dilemma. Sell the ring or her hair? Memories or identity? It was hardly a fair choice – but what had been fair about any of the choices put to her recently?
A voice from the past drifted into her mind. Beauty won’t boil the pot, Miss MacQueen, now will it? She sighed, knowing she had her answer.
Frank Mathieson had never been a good man. But he’d seldom been wrong.
‘Mind!’
Flora spun on her heel, just in time to step back onto the pavement as a boy on a bicycle powered past. There was a basket attached to the front and an assortment of breads laid across as he stood on the pedals, muscles straining in his pale, skinny legs.
She watched as a tram ‘caur’ curled around the corner into the square, the tall, double-decked orange and green vehicle gliding smoothly on its rails. Faces at the glass looked past her, focused on more important matters; those that did notice her noticed too late, being whisked along and away before they could even turn.
Flora blinked. She had thought Lochaline a shock to the system but here in the city, everything was doubly fast and loud and crowded. She wasn’t used to so many bodies in one space, the way people walked past one another without greeting, much less knowing each other’s names or business. The noise was disorienting too. No bird could sing over the sound of engines, or tram bells ringing, or street sellers’ shouts as they proffered chestnuts and tobacco and newspapers.
And yet... it all made her heart quicken with nervous excitement. Everything in Glasgow was a feast for the eyes – bright fashions and grand sandstone buildings, glossy vehicles, shop windows displaying hats and gloves, shoes and handbags. Handbags! She had only ever seen them in magazine illustrations before now: special bags where ladies could keep a purse filled with coins, a comb for styling their set hair, a mirror, powder, a lipstick... Things that had never been needed back home and yet were vital here. Finally she glimpsed the limitlessness of what could be bought and done on this side of the water, possibility and potential shimmering like north stars on every street. She understood now how very, very small her world had been: puffins and ropes and sheep and a single street with only thirty-five other faces along it.
She tried to take it all in: how people walked so fast, swerving to avoid her at the last moment. She tried not to stare too longingly at the mothers pushing their babies in prams instead of swaddling them to their bodies with shawls. Because there were no shawls. Nor any wind either – not of any account, anyway.
She clutched the piece of paper Mad Annie had given to her by the gate this morning – it had a name and address on it, secured after another dawn dash on the bicycle – and turned into the street she was looking for, not fifteen minutes’ walk from Queen Street station.
The premises was painted brown with gold lettering: ‘Collinson Coiffure – 16 Miller Street’. In the window were large display cards illustrated with images of beautiful women modelling a variety of hairstyles. Flora stared at them, taking in the minute details of their different looks; they all seemed a little unreal to her, with their perfect white smiles and shining curls. They were dressed in fine gowns and looked as if they were going out for cocktails.
But she wasn’t like them; she wasn’t coming to be made more beautiful, but to be shorn like a sheep. She was forever on the wrong side of the fence.
A bell rang as she opened the door and stopped short, taking in the scene. Several ladies sat in chairs before mirrors, reading magazines; their eyes swivelled up towards her, though their bodies didn’t stir. They were draped in matching cloths that covered their clothing and two of them had sets of rollers on their heads with black cables attached, which fed back into a machine on wheels. Women in white coats were attending them, fiddling with knobs and levers. Along the far wall was mounted a row of metal helmets, beneath which several more women were sitting. It was all a futuristic vision too far for Flora. They didn’t seem to be in pain, but the image was so very unnatural—
‘May I help you?’
Flora startled, turning to see a lady sitting beside a dainty white table. There was a large writing book open before her, and a typewriter. She wore red lipstick – as if it was nothing – and her fingernails too were the same bright red.
‘Do you have an appointment?’ the lady tried again as Flora stared at her, agape. ‘... Miss?’
‘Er – no.’ Flora collected herself. ‘I... I was told to come here. For the wigs.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘For the wigs. You want hair, don’t you?’
The lady’s gaze fell to Flora’s thick braid. ‘Oh! You wish to sell your hair?’
‘Aye,’ she nodded. ‘For money.’
There was a pause as the woman glanced across the room and made eye contact with one of the ladies in white coats. Flora watched her walk over to join them. It felt as if everyone in the room was staring and she knew her clothes marked her out, along with her desperation and coarse manner.
‘Good morning,’ the white-coated lady said, looking her over with interest. ‘You wish to sell your hair?’
Flora swallowed, hearing the indignity in the words as they were spoken back to her. ‘... Aye.’
‘Have you been told our rates?’
Flora shook her head, her fingers nervously playing with the sapphire ring she wore.
‘We offer a pound for a six-inch ponytail – that’s the shortest we’ll take – and then a shilling per inch on top of that. It looks like you’ve got... twenty inches or so there.’
‘So then...’ Flora was too flustered to do the mental arithmetic.
‘We’d have to measure it, but you’d be looking at ￡1 1s 2d.’
Flora swallowed with disappointment. Her father’s wage was ￡1 11s 8d. ‘I see.’
‘Is that acceptable to you?’
Hair grown for nineteen years, sold for less than a week’s wages. It hardly seemed fair. She remembered the pound James had paid to convince her to walk with him to McKinnon‘s Stone; she had known even then it was too much. Things had a way of balancing out in the end. ‘... Aye.’
‘Then if you’d like to take a seat over here.’
Flora followed her across to one of the chairs facing a mirror and sat down. She looked at all the other women having their treatments and had the sense of eyes being suddenly averted.
‘Yes, as I thought,’ the lady said. She was standing behind Flora and holding a tape measure to her braid. ‘There’s nineteen inches from ribbon to tip, but on account of the thickness, we can offer for twenty.’
‘Thank you,’ Flora mumbled.
‘I’ll need to untie the braid first, just to check overall condition and cleanliness. I’m sure you understand. We cannot supply dirty hair.’
‘Of course.’
She sat very still as the hairdresser unplaited the braid, spreading it out over her shoulders and back and beginning to brush it out.
‘It’s got a good shine to it,’ the hairdresser said admiringly. ‘And it’s a true black, too – that’s uncommon, so we can offer another inch for that. I had assumed it was a very dark brown.’
‘Oh. No, my mother’s hair is black too.’ Flora looked up at her own reflection. Of course, she had seen herself in the small mirror at their new home, but in something of this size, with these lights...
‘Well, it’s certainly clean and healthy. In fact, it’s... it’s really quite lovely.’ The hairdresser’s voice trailed off as she lifted Flora’s hair with one hand and let it fall in cascades, watching Flora’s reflection too. A small frown wrinkled her brow. ‘Are you quite sure you want to cut it?’
‘Aye.’ Flora’s voice quavered and the hairdresser must have heard it, because she leaned in a little.
‘You can change your mind. There’s no obligation.’
‘No. We need the money. My father was badly injured yesterday and can’t work.’ She swallowed. ‘I must do what I can to help support my family.’
There was a long pause as the hairdresser’s gaze met hers in the mirror. ‘Indeed. I’m sorry to hear of your father’s misfortune.’
‘Thank you,’ Flora almost whispered.
The hairdresser straightened up and looked around to find the lady at the white table watching them. She cleared her throat. ‘Well, if you’re happy to go ahead, we’ll pay you for a twenty-one-inch cut.’
Flora gave a nod of assent and the hairdresser brushed her hair back into a tight ponytail, moving with quick, deft strokes before securing it back again with ribbons.
Still Flora stared at herself as it was braided once more. Without vanity, pride or any sort of pleasure, she was seeing at last what other people saw, what James had seen and once loved – that she really was as lovely as she had been told. The arrangement of her features was perfectly symmetrical, her eyes so vividly coloured and sharply drawn, her lips plump and rosy pink – and all of it was framed, highlighted even, by her ebony sweep of hair.
Hair she was about to cut off.
The looks that had defined her all her life were about to vanish with a single snip of the scissors now in the hairdresser’s hand. She would only know her own loveliness for these few final moments.
‘... Very well, then, if you’re absolutely sure,’ the hairdresser said, holding the scissors aloft as if waiting to be stopped.
No, Flora wasn’t sure; but she was already here, the scissors yawning wide and ready to snap. Tears pooled in her eyes and as she looked past her reflection again, into the room beyond, she saw the other women watching with tense expressions. This time they didn’t look away.
She nodded. The hair would grow back, she told herself as she felt the tug on her ponytail, wincing at the sharp shearing sound as it took two, three, four cuts to decouple it from her head.
‘There,’ the hairdresser said, holding it up triumphantly. The braid had been tightly secured at both ends with blue ribbon, but Flora wasn’t looking at that. She was staring at herself as her newly shorn hair – that which had been above the ribbon – lightly fell around her face, freed of all its weight.
‘Oh,’ the hairdresser said quietly. There was defeat in the sound. Regret too.
Flora watched how the hair settled bluntly at her jawline. Her neck, which she had never considered before, was suddenly exposed. Her hands flew to it, as if to protect her modesty, and she looked down and tried not to cry.
It didn’t matter, she told herself. She was more than just a face.
Wasn’t she? Was she? James had thought so, but he wasn’t here any more.
A silence filled the room, everyone’s breath suspended, and Flora knew what they were thinking: she had ruined herself. Thrown away her beauty without care or second thought.
She felt hands upon her cheeks, angling her head up carefully until she was looking back at her own reflection again. Tears visibly streaked her cheeks as the hairdresser turned her to face the right, then the left side of the room. She ran her fingers through Flora’s hair again, watching as it tumbled back down.
‘Yes,’ the hairdresser murmured finally, ‘I think we can do something with that.’