Page 67 of People Skills

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay. It hasn’t come back. But I think I was scared it would. After The Deep didn’t do well, and I was writing full-time and I just saw this huge expanse of time stretching out in front of me with nothing in it but writing a third book that might be even worse, I thought it might come back.’

I turn to him. This, finally, makes sense to me. Why he stopped writing. Why Hillary has been so worried.

‘Does it feel like it might be coming back now?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?’

He turns his head to the side to face me and I turn to him.

‘I’ve been happy since coming here. Properly happy,’ he says.

‘See, I told you,’ I say. ‘The beach, the sunrise, the fresh air, the saltwater.’

‘The saltwater,’ he says quietly. ‘That must be it.’

‘And you’re writing in the notebook. That makes me happy. Properly happy.’

He smiles and shakes his head. And here we are again, our faces dangerously close. Again I have the irresistible urge to touch his hair. I need it gone.

‘Let me cut your hair,’ I say. A way to keep touching him, but not be with him. To remove temptation and also give in.

‘Okay,’ he says.

I set him up in the kitchen, on one of the chairs, and get my best craft scissors. I pull a chair up in front of him.

Our knees bump. I have to slide my legs between his, to get closer. He looks at me.

‘Have you done this before?’ he says.

‘Cut someone’s hair?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Yes.’ My brothers’, when they were five and I was ten. It went very badly.

He doesn’t ask for details.

‘Do you trust me?’ I say.

‘With my life,’ he says. He puts his hands on my chair arms and leans close.

‘With your hair though?’

‘Not so much with my hair.’

‘I have a vested interest in doing it well.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I have to look at you every day,’ I say, and he gets that look in his eye, like he’s going to kiss me, so I lean down, and pick up the scissors. His legs are ever so gently pressed against mine, and our faces are close, and I’m finding it difficult to concentrate.

I touch his hair, and carefully pull it between my fingers. I start cutting, and I concentrate, and don’t look at his face anymore, and when I finish, I sweep it to the left. Then to the right. It’s not quite even, so I cut a bit more.

‘How’s it looking?’ he asks.