I’ve done nothing to warrant this invitation but I’m imagining she gets the smell of money off me, knowing I have four children at private school. ‘It would be difficult,’ I say, between grunts. ‘Saturdays are our family days normally.’

‘Bring ’em all along. Our kids’ll be there. They can watch Disney in the family room. The blokes usually go down the pub.’

‘My Kaden doesn’t drink. He’s more into his coconut water and plankton shots.’

‘Well he can sit in the other room watching Ant and Dec, can’t he? Go on, it’ll be a laugh. I can’t promise any food but people usually only want Pringles and Prosecco at these things, don’t they? Bring a bottle.’

‘Well I can’t drink at the moment because I’m breastfeeding but it sounds great. I’d love to come. Thank you.’

And while my lips are saying I’d love to, I know I won’t go. I’m breaking into a sweat thinking about it. I’m like Ariel in The Little Mermaid. I’m ginger and I want to be with them – up where they walk and run and play all day in the sun. But I can’t be part of that world. And I absolutely cannot be ginger. That’s just how it is.

But I say no more and after divulging her address, Steffi doesn’t ask me again. She vigorously rubs my head and I’m in ecstasy. By the time we’re on the second shampoo I’m used to the sensations and I just want to feel the pressing of her fingers into my scalp; the rubbing and rinsing and smoothing; the kneading into my back and shoulders. I want to lie in this synthetic coconut paradise forever. I crane my neck through the archway and see Jodie rocking the buggy while scrolling her phone.

The salon’s getting busy now and the radio blares out ‘Despacito’ which one of them has turned up because ‘this was all we danced to on our holidays’. They went to Spain together, I gather, three of the staff. They spent most of the time ‘paralytic’ but it seems to make them very happy hearing the song again. They’re obviously a close bunch. Natalya with the Princess Leia buns knows all the words and whisks her hips in time to the music. Steffi and Toni are behind me, bitch-chatting about their ex-husbands. Meg with the topknot is folding towels and chit-chatting to her client about her own disastrous holiday to ‘that place where Maddie went missing’.

‘It rained most days. And there were all these turds in the sea. Then we got robbed and came home.’