She pushes the salon door. An elegantly dressed woman greets her politely and leads her along a corridor to a small room furnished with an armchair and a mirror.

Sarah takes off her coat and puts her bag down on the floor. She pauses before removing her woolly hat. The woman stands looking at her for a moment, saying nothing.

I’ll show you our models. Do you have an idea of the kind of thing you’re looking for?

Her voice is neither obsequious nor sympathetic. Straight and without affectation. Spot on. Sarah immediately feels comfortable. Clearly, the woman knows what she’s doing. She must meet dozens, hundreds of women like her. She probably sees them all day long. But right now, Sarah feels unique – or at least, that she is being treated as if she were. It’s an art, not to dramatize or minimize, and this lady practises it with a delicate touch.

Sarah feels awkward as she struggles to answer the woman’s question. She has no idea. She hasn’t thought about it. She wants … Something with life to it, natural. Something that looks like her, really. What a stupid thing to say, she thinks, how can someone else’s hair ‘suit’ her, match her face, her personality?

The woman disappears for a moment, then returns with what looks like a pile of hat boxes. From the first, she takes out an auburn wig – synthetic, she says, made in Japan. She shakes it out vigorously, top down. Sometimes they get a bit squashed in the box, she says, they need shaking to get them back into shape. Sarah tries it on, unconvinced. She doesn’t recognize herself under the thick pile of hair. That isn’t her under the fur-ball, she looks like a person in disguise. Good value for money, the woman remarks. But it’s not our premium range. She takes another wig from a second box, also artificial, but finer quality – from the ‘Top Comfort’ range. Sarah doesn’t know what to say. She stares thoughtfully at the image reflected back at her in the mirror. It is definitely not her.