The yard is tiny, but it’s in the full sun and I face the sky to bathe in it. I feel like I haven’t been outside for a week. The temperature is freezing, but I don’t care. The air is clean and fresh, and I take in as much as I can. They have until around midnight to charge or release me unless they apply for an extension. Everything rides on my interview today. The enormity of the situation threatens to spill out, but I try to keep it contained. I must not panic. I can do this.

Sunday 15 October 2017

I sat in the chair, the lamp above my head had glowing red cylinders, reminding me of the film, War of the Worlds. The warmth was pleasant though, like being on a sunbed. My scalp burned, but I’d been told to expect that. I was dying to scratch my head and gnawed at my fingernails to stave off the urge. Finally, when it was washed off and I returned to the mirror, the change was shocking.

‘It’s a dramatic transformation.’ I could tell she was nervous that I was going to cry. She had tried to talk me out of it in the beginning. I smiled to show I wasn’t upset, and she began combing the hair before cutting.

Forty minutes later, the floor was covered in a layer of bleached hair, so blonde it was almost white. I’d gone from having shoulder length mousy brown hair to an ice-blonde graduated bob that stopped at my chin, making my features look more angular.

‘I love it, it’s so striking.’ The hairdresser’s fiery red curls bouncing from all the jiggling she was doing. Perhaps she needed the toilet?

‘Thanks very much, it’s perfect,’ I said. It would take time to get used to. It would make me stand out for sure, which I wasn’t sure I wanted, but it was the new me. As different as I could look for under a hundred pounds. I wouldn’t be mistaken for Eve the victim any more.

I paid and dutifully rebooked in six weeks to have my roots done, although I wasn’t sure I’d be back. Perhaps I could do it at home and save the nightmarish interaction I just wasn’t any good at. Not to mention the price tag a cut and colour cost these days.

‘Wow.’ Was Ben’s first word when he caught sight of me, his head snapping back as we passed in the kitchen doorway.

‘Tea?’ I asked, stifling a smile. What was it with men and blondes?

‘Yes, please. I can’t believe how different you look.’ He sat at the table, still staring, open mouthed.

‘Fancied a change.’

‘Big change.’