If I don’t rinse it, my hair will end up black and I’ll look like Dot Cotton

Monday, early August. Now that my mother has got the hang of Whatsapp, the timing of her phone calls is unpredictable.

This evening, she surprises me at 8pm when I am in the bathroom. “I’m dying my hair,” I say, “I’ll call you back.” “Oh,” she says, “any exciting colour?” “No,” I say, “just the usual dark brown for the roots. But I lost track of time, it’s already been on for longer than 15 minutes and if I don’t rinse it out now, my hair will end up black and I’ll look like Dot Cotton.”

“Blasted nuisance having very dark hair,” she says, “if you keep dying it to get rid of the grey, once you get to a certain age, you just move into Dot Cotton territory with every year that passes.” “Or in this case, every second,” I say, checking the mirror for signs of Dot, “the timing is crucial, mum. I’m going to have to go.”

“I can’t remember what my cut-off point was for having very dark hair,” she says.

“At 40, I put mine at 50,” I say, “I’ve already passed it.” “I think I stopped dying my hair when I was about 55,” she says, “after that, I forced myself to wait until I’d gone quite grey and then I dyed my hair a sort of medium-auburn. Less harsh for your twilight years.”

“I don’t want to have to go grey in order to go auburn,” I say, “I just want to be auburn now.” “I want, never gets,” she says.

8.30am, Tuesday. My husband is leaving for work. “Notice anything different about me?” I say. “You’ve got your hair down?” he says. This is hopeful. Perhaps, I should move away from the window to where the light is less good. To keep the hope alive. And also put my hair up. Just to be on the safe side. “Nothing else different?” I say, from the darkest corner of the kitchen, with my hair up. “Don’t think so,” he says, “unless-” “Maybe quit while you’re ahead,” I say.

10.45am. I arrive for work at Paul’s. He is standing outside the shop, putting up his signs. He gives me a funny look. Then things go very quiet. “You look like a freshly-tarred road,” he says. “You’re not allowed to use that line,” I say, “that’s my line.” “It’s not your line,” he says, “you told me it was a friend of yours that used that line originally, about a friend of his who’d dyed his hair too dark.

“Whatever, you still look like a freshly-tarred road.”

September, Monday, 6pm. After five weeks, my head has gone from freshly-tarred to badly-tarred, so I am in the chemist, comparing boxes of hair-dye. Again. It’s a toss-up between Caramel, Rich Auburn, Spiced Conker and Chestnut but not Burgundy. Burgundy is shockingly bad, even on the box.

6.01pm. I think I like the look of Chestnut.

6.02pm. Chestnut it is!

7.30pm. At home, I apply Chestnut, set my alarm for 15 minutes. Then I sit and watch the clock: I must not lose track of time.

9am, Wednesday. I’m looking in the mirror.

“Perhaps,” I think, turning my hair this way and that, “with the right attitude, this terrible mistake might just follow me round like a shadow for days, weeks even, before anyone else notices it and then just quietly disappear.”

10.45am. Sunlight catches my hair. “Or perhaps not,” I think.

12pm. The clouds part. The sun comes out above Paul’s. He points at my hair. I need to find the right attitude but it’s hard to find the right attitude when your roots are fluorescent satsuma and the rest of your hair is a flat dark-brown. Before I find the right attitude, I need to find shade. “And there I was,” he says, “thinking it couldn’t get worse than freshly-tarred.” “It said, ‘Chestnut’ on the box,” I say. “Nah,” he says, “you picked up the one saying ‘Piebald’.”

If I don’t rinse it, my hair will end up black and I’ll look like Dot Cotton