Maybe one day it would happen. Maybe one day her life would start going according to plan instead of spluttering and stalling like some clapped-out old banger. As she carried on deftly separating out the hair strands with the tail of her comb, pasting on the blue bleach and folding the foils into neat little packets, her mind wandered off in the direction it had so often wandered over the years.
Meeting and falling in love with Sean had felt so right, so perfect. It had been the happiest year of her life. Then they'd married and carried on being happy together – well, allegedly – and she had looked forward to the next stage, which was starting a family. Just as soon as they finished renovating and redecorating the cottage, it would happen. But there was no huge hurry, because they were enjoying themselves just being a couple, and there was plenty of time ahead of them for all that.
So they'd carried on having fun, socialising at the rugby club, going away on holidays abroad, meeting up with friends for parties and barbecues and enjoyable impromptu meals. She had the salon, and business was good. Sean, with his building company, always had plenty of jobs lined up. They worked hard, played hard and had fun. OK, maybe the sex had tailed off a bit over the last couple of years, but wasn't it only to be expected? Most married couples experienced that.
The marriage itself, though, had felt perfectly fine. Solid and enduring. She and Sean never really argued; they enjoyed each other's company. There had never been even the slightest hint that one day she would come home from work and hear her husband tell her he was gay.
Hardly surprisingly, it was one of those scenes that would be seared forever into her memory: Sean, white-faced with anguish, not wanting to hurt her but knowing he must, because he simply couldn't live with the secret any more. It had been raining; the smell of dry earth soaking up water and giving out its distinctive loamy scent still reminded Patsy of that evening. Sean's voice had been strained as he'd uttered the words: ‘I'm sorry, I'm gay,' and she'd said ‘Shut up, you're not,' because it was about as likely as him telling her he was actually Superman and could fly.
It had felt like being trapped in an airless Perspex box, watching your own husband become a different person entirely and unable to stop it happening. He'd been wearing cargo trousers and the deep blue cotton chambray shirt she'd bought him last Christmas, and he'd said, ‘I'm so, so sorry, I never wanted this to happen. I thought it would be OK, I thought I could do it, but I can't.'
That was when she'd abandoned all semblance of dignity and begged, which was shameful and embarrassing to look back on, but in her own defence, she'd been in a state of shock and disbelief. She'd told Sean he could do it if he just tried harder; it was a mistake, he was confused, he couldn't really be gay … for crying out loud, look at him: he drank pints of lager, he played rugby, he had no fashion sense at all …
In the five years that had passed since that world-changing evening, the fashion-sense comment had become something of a standing joke, but at the time it hadn't been remotely funny. She'd been desperate to prove to Sean that he'd made a terrible mistake.
The door to the salon swung open and Will's next client burst in with a cheery shout, causing baby Ella, startled by the sudden noise, to open her eyes and whimper. Her exhausted mother slept on. Patsy put down the bleaching brush, peeled off her thin disposable gloves and crouched in front of the baby in the car seat, gently stroking the side of her angelic face and making shushing noises to soothe her back to sleep.
Such a beautiful little thing.
Once Ella was settled once more, Patsy went back to applying the foils. Ah, the baby issue; it had seemed like the least of her worries at the time. Devastated though she'd been, she had never managed to make herself hate Sean. He'd been heartbroken too. In his own way he had still loved her. And she'd been the one who'd received the most sympathy from the inhabitants of Stanton Langley. Many of the older contingent, in particular, had been appalled with Sean for giving in to something he had no business dabbling with. A couple of vociferous women accused him of copying George Michael and Elton John and jumping on the bandwagon. He was attention-seeking, they scornfully announced, just showing off; there was no need for it.
They'd split up anyway. Sean had moved into one of the tiny houses down the road, which wasn't ideal, but the choice of available property in the vicinity was limited. Then he'd taken over as landlord of the Star and gradually his friends grew used to the idea of his sexuality and it stopped being the talk of Stanton Langley.
Until fourteen months later, when he met someone else and fell in love again. Only this time with a man.
Ironically, he had Patsy to thank for the meeting; if it hadn't been for her, the two men would never have found each other. Once she'd got used to the idea, she'd told Sean, ‘Don't say I never do anything for you.'
In the years since then, Patsy had been happy for them but not so happy with herself. To begin with she'd been a wreck, a hopeless case, in no emotional state to meet anyone else. Then she'd tentatively begun dating again, wondering each time whether this might be The One.
To which the answer was invariably no. Every single date had been a disaster, which rather indicated either that she was terribly unlucky … or that she might be partly to blame herself.
And now here she was at thirty-five, still utterly single and no nearer to having the family she longed for above all else. As time had passed, her lack of luck with men had become a source of entertainment for the rest of the village. Which, while not great, somehow turned out to be easier to bear than their pity and sympathy.
But it still wasn't much fun, living through the series of disappointments and knowing that as each new month passed, your eggs were becoming fewer and smaller, shrivelling up like old grapes. On the surface she might put on a good show, making fun of herself and her manless state, but inwardly it was hard sometimes not to wonder: Why me?
The foils were finished and her next client, Tess, had just arrived for her weekly wash and blow-dry. Leaving Ella's mother asleep, Patsy got on with shampooing Tess's hair. While they were over at the sink, Ella woke up and began to cry. Will, having just waved off his last customer, scooped her out of her car seat along with the bottle of milk that was tucked in beside her. Within seconds he had settled himself in the next chair along, scooped the baby into the crook of his arm and was feeding her like a pro.
‘Look at you,' Tess marvelled. ‘You're a natural.'
Will grinned. ‘This is what happens when you have seven nephews and nieces. You get plenty of practice.'
Ella was noisily guzzling her feed, not bothered one iota that she was being held by a stranger. Patsy felt a clutch of envy in her stomach as she saw that tiny hand clasping Will's index finger, dark lashes batting as she gazed trustingly into his eyes.
Oh God, how many eggs did she have left? Was it ever going to happen to her?
‘By the way, heard about your chap on the tandem,' said Tess, her head bent back over the sink. ‘Bit of a no-hoper, was he?'
Still thinking about babies, Patsy said, ‘Just a bit.'
‘Ah, story of your life! Never mind, there's got to be someone out there for you. Tell you what, my Fred's meeting up with his steam-train mates at the weekend – he could ask around if you like, see if any of them are on the lookout for a date.'
‘Oh, I don't know. I'm not sure … ' Patsy hesitated; how could she put it delicately? She'd seen the steam-train enthusiasts at a country fair last summer and they'd sported quilted nylon waistcoats, flat caps and untrimmed beards. Plus they were all over fifty.
‘What's wrong?' demanded Tess after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence.
‘Well, it's just … ' Most of them had smoked pipes too, and there'd been a fair amount of grey chest hair poking through the gaps between the straining buttons on their rather grubby checked shirts. Oh God, she just couldn't …
‘Fine then,' Tess announced, evidently miffed. ‘If you're going to be fussy. But it's not as if there's eligible men falling over themselves to get at you, is it? Be fair.'
Which was true, but also a bit cruel. Patsy watched as Will lifted Ella over his shoulder and expertly patted her back until she burped. She wondered what Tess would have to say if she were to suddenly announce that actually she had an eligible man hiding in her cottage right now.