If this was the new me, she was even worse than the old one. Ticky had, of course, been absolutely correct in saying that a haircut is a tried and tested part of the process of getting over a break-up. What she had neglected to say is that so is sobbing over the resulting haircut, believing that you have never looked more hideous, and actually trying to scoop the hair trimmings into your handbag to fashion some desperate homemade extensions. I knew I wasn’t really crying about my hair. I was sobbing about Martin and my single status and the way my settled life had slipped out of my grasp before I could do anything about it. But when I looked in the mirror I didn’t see a haircut; I saw loss. And a bizarre shoulder-length triangular bob where once there had been waist-length curls. To compound my misery, Ticky’s hairdresser had decided to twist my curls into individual heavily gelled ringlets, which had left me looking uncomfortably like the famous sixteenth-century Albrecht Dürer self-portrait, if only Albrecht Dürer had had the blotchy flushed face of one who was suppressing hysterical tears.
