Tony sat on a stool at the breakfast bar. Although angry, he looked like a sulky child. He ran his hands through his hair and saw the blue ink stain his hands. They both thought he was going to burst into tears.

Sharon took pity on him. ‘It’ll be okay, Tony, it’s not as bad as it looks. I know a mobile hairdresser; she’ll come and sort it out. In the meantime, we need to clean the showerhead. Bring it here and I’ll put it in the dishwasher. And let’s get this place cleaned up. Bloody hell, you leave a lot more mess behind you than blue stain!’

Jake went to get the showerhead. Sharon fetched some towels from the airing cupboard to put on the floor. Within half an hour, the dishwasher was on, the floors were mopped and Sharon had made some fresh coffee.

There was a knock at the door, and Sharon opened it to the hairdresser.

‘Hi, Christine, come on in. I don’t need to tell you what the problem is, you can see for yourself.’ Sharon pointed at Tony. His once white towelling robe was now stained with ink, from where he had been clearing up, and along the collar from his hair. He looked a mess.

‘What have you used?’ The hairdresser was trying to sound professional, because Sharon had already told her it was a very delicate subject.

‘“Used”,’ said Tony. He put his hand in his hair, which was now drying and looking even more blue. He held up strands of it so that it stuck up in the air. ‘Do you think I planned to look like this, or something? I haven’t “used” anything. Some crazy bitch has done this to me!’ Tony started ranting on again about how Denise was a bitch and women couldn’t be trusted.

‘I’ve known worse,’ said Christine. ‘One angry wife put tomato puree into a showerhead; that was some stubborn red stains, believe me, and then there was the man whose wife put onion puree in the shower, so he looked okay, but everyone avoided him because of the smell.’ Christine went on to tell them more horror stories. Tony and Jake listened, horrified, as Christine and Sharon discussed it all in such a matter of fact way. Women – they were crazy!

Two and a half hours later, after constant washing, hair dye stripper, and even more rinsing, Tony was done. Christine finished off with a quick trim to get rid of the dry ends. There was still a very faint tint to his hair, but she had done as much as she could for now and things were looking much better. Tony was almost back to normal. Christine stood back and looked at him.

‘You can barely see any blue, now, and only then if you look hard. Most people won’t spot anything different about you. Of course, we could always bleach it, but not today; we’ve only just stripped the colour out of it.’