I’m in the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher… whilst hungrily eyeing the delicious supper Lizzie’s left out on the hob (which she and the kids have already tucked into).
I figure, if I look industrious – doing the dishwasher – Lizzie won’t mind me also tucking into the delicious supper… even though it’s yet another meal she’s cooked and I haven’t.
Lizzie walks into the kitchen and I take a mug out of the dishwasher with a particularly industrious-looking flourish. See what I’m doing? Surely I deserve some food too, please?
‘I’ve just been washing my hair…’ Lizzie begins to say.
Oh no… My stomach lurches downwards. And not because it’s been denied the delicious supper (so far). What’s Lizzie about to say?
Has her hair begun to drop out again? Is Lizzie having some kind of post-chemo-fallout (literally – of her curly tresses)? Even though she’s not even having chemo, is all the cancer craziness about to begin again? As these paranoid thoughts sneak up and leap on me, my stomach continues its downward lurch.
‘… and it’s looking terrible,’ says Lizzie, finishing her sentence about her hair.
Phew, so it’s not falling out again. It’s just looking terrible, apparently. Mentally, I breathe a sigh of relief.
I now look at Lizzie’s barnet. It’s still curly, as it has been ever since it grew back after her chemotherapy. Although – because it’s just been washed – the curls are currently sticking limply to the dome of Lizzie’s head, like thick, dark spaghetti on the wrong side of a colander.
‘It’s not looking terrible,’ I say as brightly as I can.
‘Yes, it is!’ Lizzie counters. ‘It’s making me look like a…’
A very brave woman who’s just had cancer? I want to say.
‘A northern comedian. From the eighties!’ finishes Lizzie.
Hmmm. I can sort of see what Lizzie’s getting at. There is something slightly eighties Northern comedian about her curly mullet. There, I’ve said it. Mullet. Because that’s what it is.
It’s making me think a little of… Bob Carolgees from Tiswas (although, thinking on that further, was Carolgees actually Northern? And did he even have curly hair?).
‘You’re not looking like a Northern comedian from the eighties,’ I say, assertively.
Lizzie’s face brightens a little… despite the fact that what I’ve just said is a whopping white lie… and we both know it.
‘Now let me tell you about me mother-in-law…’ I say, putting on a terrible Northern accent.
Lizzie rolls her eyes.
P. D. Clifton 
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