Orna Mulcahy on people we all know
Jake is sunning himself in Florida but the good news is that Darren's four o'clock has just cancelled so Moira can have him, and he's brilliant, just won an award and all. This is according to the child who is washing Moira's hair in what feels like Fairy Liquid, using those pitter-patter movements on the scalp that Moira knows are supposed to be therapeutic but just irritate the hell out of her. Rinse it properly and get it over with, she wants to shout, as warm water trickles along the neck-crushing basin designed for gazelles, and down the inside of her blouse. But then quicker than you can can say "going anywhere nice tonight?", she has been turbaned and led to Darren's chair.
Swathed in plastic, bathed in neon, she's not looking her best, but surely that mirror is magnified because her cheeks aren't that hamster-like are they? Cue the weak coffee and the magazines - does she look like the sort of person who wants to read "Confessions of a Limo Driver" and "How to Put A Bitch in her Place"? Or this dreary Oprah one, asking "Has Your Diet Stalled?" Well yes, as a matter of fact, it has, but there's no need to punish her with Darren, who has settled himself into a stool with wheels right behind her, trapping her between his outstretched legs. You have to wonder what sort of man wears that much gel in his hair, or keeps his scissors in a holster under his arm for that matter.
Moira explains that she only needs a trim, while Darren, hands on her shoulders, listens in a smiley, distant way - like a nurse's aide in an old folks' home. She needs to find some common ground and quickly, before he does something terrible to her hair. He's holding the next six weeks of her life in his hands, but already he thinks she's a loser because she's not having highlights. This sends her into full babble mode, advising him about good hotels to visit in London, how he should go about finding a mortgage and whether he should emigrate to New Zealand instead.
Meanwhile, Darren is whizzing from side to side making what look like quite irregular slashes into her layers, though not a lot of hair is falling to the floor. He finishes with a crescendo of snips into thin air, and now he's coming at her with a stun gun of serum that will tame everything down so she won't be able to see what sort of a cut she's got until the next wash.
Then it's onto the blowdry with lots of steam billowing as he yanks her hair out and down and up again in a style that she's never going to manage at home. Tottering to the till, she finds Darren is still with her because he's worried about her Very Dry hair and thinks she could do with some hot oil treatment at home - this €70 hair fudge is excellent - and then it would be churlish not to give him a big fat tip just because he's not Jake. Back at the office, the secretary is the only one who notices that she has done "something funny" to her hair.