What’s up Nancy?
Nancy watched the traffic lights turn to red and slumped back into the deep seat of the cab. She re-folded her headscarf for the twentieth time that afternoon and flinched as she caught sight of herself in the wing mirror. She had been told what to expect but somehow she never thought it would come to this.
It was the evening rush hour. Londoners rushed past the window, hurrying towards the bus stop or the Tube station, or perhaps to a theatre or dinner date. A twenty-something hurtled towards the taxi and touched the door handle before realising it was not empty, turning away in frustration. She was in such a hurry. Everyone was in such a hurry.
The girl reminded Nancy of herself at that age – full of nervous energy, with long blonde hair down to her waist. She could remember the days when there weren’t enough hours in the day. She had been ambitious, hungry for success, certain all her dreams would be fulfilled.
When she wasn’t working she was partying. She was known for her dancing and for her resemblance to Barbara Streisand in the movie ‘What’s Up Doc’. She would stand alone in the centre of the room, swaying in time to the music, staring at the floor, her head moving in ever-expanding circles so her hair spread out two feet in front, then behind. When the music stopped everyone would clap and shout ‘What’s up Nancy?’ and she would laugh and get another drink.
Later on, much later on, she found out that it was her hair that had first attracted Mike. Although it took dozens of parties where he loitered at the edge of the dance floor, and threw long lingering looks from the shadows, he eventually plucked up the courage to ask her out. A year later they were married and a month after that her beautiful twin boys were born.
As the cab pulled away Nancy tried to remember the plans she had made before meeting Mike, and couldn’t remember what they were. The fact that she could so easily forget the internal dialogue that had occupied her every waking thought (and many sleepy ones too) for so many years - that shocked her.
She watched an argument develop outside a pub just as the verbal insults morphed into mild physical violence and she flinched, remembering last year’s mugging. She was suddenly there, smiling indulgently at two girls mock-fighting as she tried to enter the cinema. She saw, too late, that her maternal indulgence had been misinterpreted as a mocking gesture, which was rewarded by both girls turning on her. They knocked her to the ground then kicked her till she was comatose. Witnesses said the girls had pulled her to her feet by her hair and smashed her head against the wall before being pulled away by friends. She didn’t remember the police arriving, or the ambulance journey, but she remembered coming round from the first operation and seeing Mike’s concerned face before he remembered to hide his anxiety with fake cheeriness.
He said “What’s up Nancy?” and she laughed, not knowing what she was doing there.
She hadn’t laughed a lot since then. There wasn’t much to laugh about. Although her body healed, her mind was like a wayward child, unable to concentrate on anything for very long. She tired easily and the endless visits to the doctors, then the hair specialists, wore her down.
The medical experts all agreed that the attack had caused her hair to start falling out. Twisting and pulling hair was a common cause of alopecia, apparently, and given the initial severity of her head injury, they said it should come as no surprise that she was losing a bit of hair. Although they never actually accused her, the sideways looks and the understanding smiles seemed to be telling her to stop being so ungrateful. After all the hours of surgery and devoted nursing care that her saved her from losing her marbles, they seemed to say, why worry about losing a bit of hair?
Nancy watched her road come into view and tapped the window to indicate where she wanted the cab to stop. For some reason she didn’t want to step straight from the taxi to her front door, facing an expectant family.
Mike and the boys would be waiting to offer love and support because they knew, as they had all known for the last month, that today she would return from the clinic totally bald. They knew how nervous she would feel as she took off her headscarf to reveal the shiny bald skull which felt so wrong, so not-her.
She paid the driver, walked the final 200 yards to the house, unlocked the door and stepped over the threshold. She hung up her coat, took a deep breath and strolled, almost but not quite casually, into the lounge.
She was touched beyond words. She had expected kind words and sympathy, spoken from love and not pity. She had expected some initial reticence from the boys, and then maybe a cuddle or two as they became accustomed to their mother’s new alien-like features. She had not expected this, and she choked back the tears.
She was greeted by three round faces, one big one and two smaller ones, sat in a row on the sofa. Each face was wearing a large grin and appeared underneath a bald head. They pointed at their ears, pointed at her head, laughed out loud, and as one they shouted “What’s up Nancy?”
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