Free North Sea Requiem by A. D. Scott Page B

daughter’s voice made Joanne want to shout at her. But nits were no person’s fault, no respecters of family or fortune—a fact Nurse Urquhart agreed on.
    â€œInto the bathroom,” Joanne ordered Annie. “Jean, you sleep in my bed tonight; this is going to take a long time.”
    She was looking at the thick hair, the same chestnut brown as hers but with more red in it, thinking how many nights she would have to soak it with olive oil and comb out every nit, everyegg, and even then with no guarantee she would get them all. She would never inflict on her daughters the method used by her mother from the one time she had caught them. Her eight-year-old self shuddered at the dire warnings about playing with the village children, and the loneliness she had to endure that summer, and the memory of paraffin rubbed into the scalp—a memory so strong that filling the paraffin heater in the winter still made her queasy.
    â€œGive me a haircut like Nurse Urquhart makes the boys get.”
    â€œThat’s this short.” Jean held her fingers half an inch apart.
    Annie felt rather than saw her mother consider the idea, before saying, “Into the bathroom. Now. I’ll bring the olive oil.”
    â€œIt’ll take forever and I want short hair and if I don’t get rid of them, I’ll be off school for ages and”—she was calculating what else would tip the battle in her favor—“and maybe Jean will get them, and you too.”
    â€œYou sit down, Mum; I’ll have a look.” The sweetness of her younger daughter’s offer, the girls’ assumption that Joanne might have them, her fear of losing her mane of beautiful hair she treasured so much that she always gathered rainwater for the final rinse . . . The argument was won.
    â€œI can make it shorter.”
    â€œNo. Really, really short so the eggs don’t cling.” Annie’s pronouncement sounded like the quote it was. “Then the olive oil, then the comb, then wrap the head tight and do the same again in the morning for . . .” Weeks, Nurse Urquhart had said, but that sounded too long.
    â€œI’ll use the dressmaking shears.” Joanne went to fetch her sewing basket.
    Annie had enough sense not to cheer; she scratched more vigorously instead.
    The haircut took place in the bathroom, the hair first cut inbig chunks and dropped into a paper bag. Joanne wanted to burn the hair, burn the beasts alive. The rest of the haircut was traumatic for Joanne. She shuddered at one point, when holding up the scissors to examine the progress of the style—a pixie look was what she was trying for—and she saw something moving along the blades. She almost shrieked, before turning on the tap until it ran as hot as possible. She rinsed the scissors, and continued the cut, now moving more quickly. When she’d finished, Annie stared in the mirror. Joanne had to admit that her daughter looked more than good with a shorn head; she looked elegant and older and stronger, and the unfashionably short hair seemed to suit her daughter’s personality.
    â€œThis is better than a real hairdresser.”
    Joanne knew the back was not even, but Annie couldn’t see that. She took the olive oil, rubbed it in, and began the tedious process of combing every section of the head, over and over, rinsing the steel comb under the tap until the hot water ran out and until all the eggs she could find were gone, but knowing there were more, there were always more, lurking. It was well after nine o’clock before Annie finally went to bed—she even helped her mother strip her bed and put the sheets and pillowcases in the washing machine and the quilt outside in the washhouse.
    â€œThanks, Mum, I love my new haircut,” Annie said.
    â€œWait until your granny sees it.”
    â€œI’ll tell her I chopped my pigtails off ’cos of the nits, then you tidied it