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moments later, and Attempt Number Two is in place. This time when Debbie steps back, she’s smiling. “Perfect! Now, you look.”
    Once more, she swings Olivia round to the mirror to view the full effect. Olivia gasps. It looks pretty damn good! The lighter and subtler pink of her mouth somehow lifts her complexion all over so the whole of her face seems different, and in a good way too.
    “Gosh,” she says. “That’s brilliant. That’s definitely The Look and The Lipstick to get married in. What’s it called?”
    Ten minutes later, Olivia has booked Debbie in her diary for another practice run a week before her Big Day, and also an appointment on the morning of her wedding itself so she can get the full works once more. She leaves the salon smiling and with her handbag complete with two Rimmel pale pink lipsticks. Life is good.
    Next stop is the hair problem. Olivia isn’t a fan of hairstyling. The best she manages to do is blow-dry the whole caboodle whilst leaning down dangerously close to the floor to give it some body and then pin it back so it doesn’t get in her eyes. She likes to see the world at all times. You never know what the world will be up to, and she isn’t the hiding type. Still, she has to admit it probably is slightly mad to spend so many minutes trying to put body into her hair in the morning and then pin it back anyway. But she likes the way this routine makes her hair feel and there’s nothing wrong with that.
    But an expert opinion can’t do any harm, and so Olivia does what any self-respecting woman in her late twenties would do. She asks her mother. Olivia’s mother owns two hair brushes and a styling comb (whatever this is …) and so no doubt possesses secret hair knowledge.
    “Hairdressers!” her mother says, eyes glinting, when Olivia asks her one Saturday morning in the local coffee shop. “Now there’s a question. I wouldn’t recommend the lady I use, even though she works miracles on my hair every week, as she specialises in old bats like myself and she’s a one-woman business. But I’ll ask her to ask around and let you know what she says.”
    “Thanks, Mum. You’re a star.”
    “I know. Oh and there’s also a woman from church who works in one of the local salons. She might be able to do something for you. Her name’s Bernadette. Bernie for short. She’s lovely. I’m sure you’ll get on. I shall ask her at the very next service.”
    Olivia’s mother is as good as her word and a week or so later, Olivia picks up the phone to find soft-spoken Bernadette (call-me-Bernie) on the other end of the line. She may have been Irish, like her name, but Olivia isn’t sure. She’s no good at accents and had once declared to her friends with every confidence that Billy Connolly was definitely Welsh, wasn’t he? She’s never been allowed to forget it. Her ear is not attuned to Celtic differences.
    Three days later, a Wednesday evening, Bernie arrives at Olivia’s mother’s home to discuss hair options. Olivia has decided it will be nicer all round to suss out the situation concerning her hair at her mother’s who may well have some good ideas and who will at least be able to see what she looks like from behind. Those mirrors hairdressers hold up when the job is done aren’t really helpful. That said, she has to smile when she remembers what Kieran told her about the last time – several months ago! – he’d been at the barber’s.
    “You know, it’s weird at the barbers, isn’t it?” he’d said one evening when they were watching Midsomer Murders on the video together.
    “Oh? Why?” Olivia replied, making the mental leap from ‘barber’ to ‘hairdresser’ on the understanding that the word ‘barber’ hadn’t been used since 1899, or thereabouts.
    “At the end, they always hold up a picture of some bald bloke I’ve never seen before behind me and ask me what I think of him. I can’t see him clearly anyway as I don’t have my glasses on but I think