London, December 1992
The Kippy and Alfie meet-up went much better than the Mick/Alfie version that had happened earlier that year.
Needless to say, the days leading up to Christmas had been super busy in Chevelure Chic. Everyone saw Christmas as THE time to get their hair done. "It's party season, so London ladies want their hair to look its best. We are there to facilitate that," Rick told them earnestly before the madness began.
Katrina always reckoned you could tell when Rick had been away on some pish management course. He came back brimming with a sincere belief in the power of big words and motivational speeches. She and Alfie would nudge each other surreptitiously as he droned on and on about the importance of working as a team or providing excellent customer services.
The salon dealt with wealthy people in the main, thanks to its prices and central London location. Rich women, in turn, sent their spoilt daughters there. Katrina wondered at them, those girls in their late teens and early twenties who took a £100 haircut and colour for granted. Not for them the cheap packets of super stinky hair dyes she'd made do with as an experimental fifteen-year-old. One of them had sat in front of her this morning, tutting in exasperation when she had to put her mobile phone down while Katrina combed out her wet hair.
Mobile phones were everywhere in London these days. You were only 'it' if you had one. Naturally, Rick did. He almost always came into the salon with it glued to his ear and a loud conversation going on.
Kippy came into the salon just before it shut on the Tuesday night. Christmas over and done with, the glamorous and the good were revving up for their New Year parties. If Christmas hair was styled to be soft and touchable looking, New Year hair had a spikier, gutsier feel to it.
Katrina had seen him approach the glass-fronted building, a tall, lanky stranger who looked vaguely familiar before she realised who he was. Recognition made her squeal, causing Mrs Dreyfus (fabulously wealthy, but kind too and who always insisted on Katrina cutting her hair as she said no-one else could do curls as well as she could) to start and glance behind her.
"Kippy!"
He looked different. The last time she'd seen him, he'd looked gaunt, his eyes restless and weary at the same time. He'd filled out a little, she could tell, but the biggest change was in the way he carried himself. The new Kippy walked into the salon as if he belonged there.
Alfie glanced around from his spot beside Katrina, where he was applying foil highlights to Mrs Dreyfus's friend.
"Hiya. Thought I'd see where you worked."
She wasn't used to the Scottish accent anymore. His had broadened slightly, and the words sounded out of place in the refined, hyper-femininity of the salon.
"You never told me you were definitely coming." She managed not to make the words sound resentful. If there was anything she'd ever learned about the men in her life, it was that they never bothered with ordinary courtesies.
"Wee surprise! A good one, aye?" He hugged her. He felt different too. Kippy had been ribby-thin for years. He was still lean, but he felt more powerful now. Amused, she noted that Chevelure Chic's other female stylists were gawking, scissors, hair-dryers and brushes held an inch or so in suspense above the clients' heads. Natalie's tongue was practically hanging out.
"I haven't said anything to Tony and Debbie," she said muttered. Great. What a surprise to spring on them, and worse, Daisy.
He shook his head. "S'okay. I've got digs. I'm staying with a pal of mine."
Alfie had materialised beside her. Curiosity always killed the cat when it came to that one.
"Alfie, this is my cousin, Kippy," she said. She wasn't introducing him to any of the salon bitches. What if they ended up getting off with him or any such awful crap and then she had to put up with them sidling up to her, fake friends, while they asked after him?
"Hello, mate!" Alfie beamed. London meets Glasgow.
Kippy's greeting was much warmer than Mick's had been. To Katrina's astonishment, he hugged Alfie and told him he liked his hair. Alfie's hand immediately went to his head. "Do ya? Your cousin did it for me."
Katrina had added in some purple tips to his fringe. They were more subtle than anything she would have done a year ago, but Alfie still stared at them hard every time he caught sight of his reflection.
"What time do you finish?" Kippy asked Katrina.
She sighed. "Not for another hour." Mrs Dreyfus turned her head. "I'm sorry, dear! I'm ruining your fun, aren't I? It's just that you do my hair so well I can't bear for anyone else to touch it."
A fabulous compliment but one that wasn't likely to make Katrina any more popular with the salon bitches, two of whom she could see glowering at her. Like many posh people, Mrs Dreyfus's cut-glass tones carried.
Alfie folded up another foil and pushed the trolley next to his client away.
"I'm finished here. You don't mind, do you Mrs Aitch? Katrina can do you once she's finished Mrs D." He grinned at Kippy. "I'll show you some of the sights while we wait."
"Are they pubs?" Kippy asked, and Alfie grinned once more. "Course they are."
And with that, they left Katrina, her mouth wide open in complaint. She could see them talking animatedly to each other as they headed off in the direction of Madam Lucy's. They had better not be discussing HER.
Mrs Aitch's highlights—the aitch short for Harrison—had taken bloody ages. When it came to hair colour, the woman was a virgin. A rare thing, in Katrina's experience, but it did mean that her hair was a lot less porous than the tresses Katrina usually dealt with, and it didn't take the colour as quickly.
She'd been tempted to whip the foils off too soon, as she was desperate to see Kippy and catch up with him and all his news. But the professional in her wouldn't allow it. And just because these posh types were kind to her and tipped well didn't mean they wouldn't complain to Rick if they thought she'd done a less than stellar job.
Mrs Dreyfus and Mrs Harrison finished, she gave herself a fresh application of make-up in the loos. People often remarked how alike she and Kippy looked mistaking them for brother and sister and even fraternal twins once. Kippy looked fantastic at the moment, and she felt she needed to look just as good. Alfie might compare them unfavourably, otherwise.
Now, why would that matter?
Natalie surprised her. When she saw her in front of the mirror in the staff loos applying another coating of mascara, she pulled her handbag in front of her and fished into it.
"Here," she said, handing her a small pot of powder. "This is glitter dust. Put a little bit on your cheekbones. It'll make them look beautiful."
Maybe it was time to rethink her opinions on the salon bitches. The new charitable feelings, though, didn't extend to inviting Natalie to join them.
In Madam Lucy's, she didn't see Alfie and Kippy straight away. The place was jam-packed with people doing their last big night out before the end of the year. Then, a high-pitched giggle gave them away. Alfie's voice was deep, but when he laughed the sound was pure Barbara Windsor.
He and Kippy were sat across from each other in one of the booths to the right, although both were leaning forward on the table. For a few seconds, Katrina felt like the outsider. They both cradled glasses, and their hands were close enough to touch.
Alfie saw her first, and he raised a hand to wave. She stuck her elbows out and shoved her way through the crowd.
"What are you two drinking?" she asked.
Kippy snapped his head around. "Whisky. Your man here said he didnae like it, so I thought I should teach him."
"He put fucking Irn-Bru in it!" Alfie said, his tones outraged. If whisky was Scotland's first national drink, Irn-Bru was often considered its runner-up. "I fink any whisky expert would say that's a terrible thing to do!"
"You're drinking it, though. Stop moaning!" The admonishment sounded very fond to Katrina, and she felt herself prickling.
Neither of them offered her a drink, so she took herself off to the bar, stomping her feet in a gesture that was wasted on its intended audience. She ordered herself one of the Cosmopolitans she'd had when she last came here with Mick.
Back at the table, Kippy budged up so she could sit beside him in the booth.
"I spoke to Mick earlier. He's in town, and he said he'd come and meet us."
"Mick!" Katrina's exclamation chimed in exactly with Alfie's.
"I didn't know he was here," she said, resentment grumbling in her belly. Alfie's laughter had died down, and he took a sip of his Irn-Bru whisky mix.
Kippy shrugged. Mick, he said, had been in Kirkcudbright over Christmas and they'd met up. Mick had mentioned he was going down to London between Christmas and New Year as Dee had another meeting with the Channel 4 bosses. It looked like her programme idea (working title: The Rock 'n' Roll Chef—Katrina scoffed at that) was going to get the go-ahead.
"He's packed his job in," Kippy added. "He can always get another job down here if the TV thing doesnae work out. Anyway, another drink, Alfie?"
"Yeah, just not whisky. Vodka. I'll put the rest of the Irn-Bru in that."
Katrina agreed to another Cosmopolitan. She had some catching up to do. The guys were giggly and talkative, the drinking stage she thought of as 'merry but with it'.
Alone in the booth, Alfie told her he really liked her cousin, emphasis on the 'really'. She supposed it was a hint that he didn't like Mick. At least with Kippy here, Mick's arrival wouldn't make Alfie too uncomfortable.
She was in the middle of thinking up what she would say to Mick to make herself sound cool when she realised Alfie was still talking.
"Screamin' queen, though, in't he?"
She stared at him. "Kippy?"
Alife stared back at her, incredulous. "Didn't you know? Oh shit. I just thought 'cos it was so obvious..."
Katrina felt her body warm up and then cool just as quickly as if someone had sprayed her with cold water. The warmth was at her own stupidity. Of course, he was queer. All the signs had been there over the years. She and Dod had joked once about thinking he was a poof, and he'd hit her but hadn't denied what she'd said.
Then, there was what had happened when Dod died. Did that mean...? Alfie was talking to her, and she could see Kippy making his way back towards them. Oh, and her supposed best bloody friend, Daisy. The girl who had never said all that much about what happened when she and Kippy split up and why they did. Katrina had always thought of Daisy as someone who couldn't hold their water. She just had to talk.
Looked as if she was wrong about that one too, didn't it?
Kippy put the glasses down in front of them. "What? You two look as if you've been talking."
"I was repeating all those stories I told you about your cousin. She's not pleased," Alfie's voice was light.
Kippy grinned, his face lighting up. "Oh, aye! Wait till I tell you about what she used to get up to when she was wee. And you'd better ask her why she got called Knock, Knock Katrina. You'll never guess that one in a million years!"
Under the table, Katrina kicked Alfie. He kicked her back. She assumed he'd understood the gesture was gratitude on her part. Her mind still racing—how, who what, why—she sipped her second, mind-blowingly potent Cosmopolitan. Wait till she got hold of Daisy, the rotten, secretive cow...
But in the meantime, wild revelations aside, there was the immediate. Mick, Mick, Mick... Would it be too obvious to Alfie if she sneaked off to the loos here and added a little more make-up? Alfie was an observant sort. He'd know. And he would take the piss.
She needn't have bothered worrying. Two hours and several more Cosmopolitans later and there was no sign of him.
"I don't fink he's coming, is he?" Alfie said. Despite the vodka and Cranberry juices' effects, Katrina was compis mentis enough to hear the jubilation in his voice.
Kippy shrugged. "Nah. Well, he's probably got better things to do, seeing as he's an about-to-be TV star."
Better things to do than meeting up with your old, small-town friends. That sounded about rightwhen it came to Mick. It didn't stop it hurting, though.