The phone call came when Kristal was at work.

She’d come into the salon at 7.30am to avoid the rush hour traffic, which seemed to be getting earlier and earlier every day now. Left Pria with Zosia, her new Polish neighbour. Zosia would give Pria a good breakfast before she walked her, along with her own children, to school. It seemed a shame the kids couldn’t see themselves to school these days, but there was no way she was taking a risk. It was like this Facebook thing. Pria thought her an ogre for not letting her go on it, but there was no way she was having her daughter plastered up there in cyber space with so many weirdos about. Every day clients came in with doom and gloom tales of modern life; turning the conversations around to holidays and birthday drinks wasn’t as easy as it used to be.

She was just finishing a restyle at the time – a confident Jamaican lady called Marilyn who’d walked straight in off the street. Kristal loved working with Afro-Caribbean hair and restyles were her favourite; it was like being back at college again, the challenge of transformation. She checked the calendar for the second time that day: the next competition wasn’t until the sixteenth of August, still six weeks away. She had her thirtieth birthday to contend with before then, so time passing nice and slow should really be a good thing.

She thought about all she’d wanted to achieve by thirty. Not bad, considering. Though painful, the clean break she’d made from Mary and Eagle’s Hill when Pria was born had enabled her to wholly embrace her own future. She and her mum had barely spoken in any case since she’d moved away from the site at seventeen, caught up in a tornado of teenage ambition. She’d lived with a string of obliging ‘acquaintances’ until she found her feet and won an assisted place at Brunel to study hairdressing. She secured her first job in record time, and quickly made a name for herself. But she never left a forwarding address. She’d seen Mary when it suited her. How the heads had turned when she rocked up on the site wearing the latest fashion and the aroma of Chanel. The unexpected pregnancy didn’t at first seem to fit with her agenda. Suspecting ridicule again on the site she stayed away. But Mary found out the news somehow, no doubt through one of her witchy friends, and she managed to track Kristal down. Kristal was furious, suspecting Mary had known where she was all the time but had chosen to let her believe otherwise. She’d shown up at the salon, clearly lubricated. Her eyes shone as she looked around her, drinking in every inch of Kristal’s new world. But it wasn’t with pride that they shone; Kristal suddenly felt gangly in her patent heels.

Looking at Mary made her stand up straight. Her mother’s once beautiful hair was thinning, and her patchwork clothes looked dowdy and out of place in the salon. She smelt of patchouli, and the weakness Kristal had run away from still quivered sweetly in her meek smile.

‘Don’t come here again, Mum’, Kristal had said, ‘I don’t need your type here.’ She meant it; she couldn’t have a repeat of this scene. Plus no way was she taking her baby down the site. She had to stick to her resolve, even when Mary battled it with more strength than Kristal knew she possessed.

The day of the phone call, Marilyn was celebrating her pearl wedding anniversary.

‘Thirty years! What an achievement!’ said Kristal, meaning every word. Her entire lifetime… It turned out Marilyn’s stunning Gucci bag was a present from her husband, Fraser.

‘I just want to ensure the years coming are as new and exciting as the ones gone by’, said Marilyn. ‘A little surprise can’t hurt anyone now, can it?’

Reinvention was promised on the glass door in sparkly purple italics– it was what Kristal did best. Occasionally a customer would book with a name she recalled all too well from her school days. Her own name, now celebrated in silver lettering in this central thoroughfare, meant nothing to them. Though renowned at school, she was never important enough to become a memory. Kristal loved that she was unrecognisable, entirely re-made as a fashionable, classy businesswoman.

Marilyn was not your regular ‘reinvention’ cut. Men usually featured in the motivations of Kristal’s customers, but rarely as something to be celebrated. The couple were off to Venice for the weekend. Personally Kristal hoped to avoid such a destination for the rest of her days, but she nonetheless cooed enviously over the romance, the history, and the famous canals. Meanwhile she transformed Marilyn’s outgrown cornrows into a sleek red and black catwalk creation. Her client would be bella of Italia, and by the look of her smug smile, she knew it. Plugging in the GHDs, Kristal turned to admire her own artistry. Though this woman must be approaching fifty at least, she shone with the youthfulness of a girl half her age. Kristal supposed it was love could do this. But still, was it ever worth the hassle?

Then the telephone rang.

‘Excuse me, Marilyn’, she said. These were the only times she regretted not having an assistant, but it was the expense and potential for abuse of trust that held her back. How could anyone else work as hard as she did for her business? ‘Kristal’s!’ she sang, ‘How can I help you?’ There was a pause before a gruff male voice confirmed her as daughter of Mary O'Brien. He introduced himself as a close friend of her mother’s, though she’d never heard his name before.

Seven years - more - reduced to nothing as Terry broke the news. Kristal’s first emotion was resentment – that she should have to think about that woman at all, on an otherwise amiable day. Amid gargled excuses of busyness, she scribbled down a number; involvement in these customs was near enough obligatory. Mary’s dead, she’s gone, Muh’s dead. No matter how she said the words, the lack of impact disappointed her. But then, looking around at the salon, and her blissfully satisfied customer, it was guilt that stung her like heartburn. Collapsing to the hard, polished floor, she let the voice talk on but she wasn’t listening. Now she would have to go back - back to the site, back to everything she’d left behind her - and yet without the chance to make up.