The Art Guy (18+) COMPLETE, FREE to READ

Katrina's Cutz

London, April 1993

Tony lent her the money. She'd come down to the kitchen that morning to find him making coffee. He offered her one and then indicated she sit down at the kitchen table. He sat opposite her, armed with a huge mug of coffee and a rack of toast he pushed towards her.

"Katrina, I can lend you money to buy a car. You can drive, can't you?"

Taking a slice of toast and liberally buttering it, Katrina nodded, puzzled about to where he was going with the question. Like many people who grew up in small towns, she'd learned to drive as soon as she could.

Unofficially, of course. As a fifteen-year-old, her cousin and his friend Dod had let her get behind the wheel of whatever vehicles they were mooching about in—vans, trucks, quad bikes and whatever rusty old bangers that only just got through their MOTs.

Like her cousin, though, she'd never actually sat her driving test.

"Mobile hairdressing," Tony elaborated, handing her another slice of toast. "That's what you should do. The TV stuff isn't steady enough.

"Debbie and I were talking about it last night. I said, 'Debs, wouldn't you rather someone cut your hair in your own house?' And she said 'Yes!'"

Tony looked pleased with himself. She remembered that about him. He loved setting up small businesses, giving people the means to do it and pushing them out into the world.

The idea, though. It took hold fast. London was so huge, there would be an endless supply of customers, people who wanted a quality haircut or colour without having to pay an expensive salon's overheads. She began to calculate in her head how many customers she would need a day to make the enterprise work.

Tony took a sheet of paper from his shirt pocket and laid it on the table.

"Look, I've worked out your initial outlay—car, equipment, advertising—how much you would need to charge and how many hours you'd need to work."

Studying the paper, she saw he'd thought of everything. He'd factored in the petrol costs for travelling to clients within a certain radius around the Walker home. It was very detailed.

"This is... fantastic, Tony," she said slowly. She wasn't someone to throw words like that around carelessly.

Tony smiled.

"Actually, it was such fun to do, Katrina. I haven't done it... well, since Mackies and all that."

He meant since he'd helped those businesses in her hometown with the money he'd stolen from his employers.

"What's the rate of interest, then?" she asked. "And, eh..."

The second question was far more delicate. Where's the money coming from Tony?

He named a rate of interest and pointed at figures on the sheet, showing her how long it would take her to pay him back if she made the money he projected she would. It seemed fair enough.

"I put aside money long before we moved to Kirkcudbright."

That was his oblique way of saying that the money he would lend her didn't come from the hundreds of thousands he had stolen from the Met. Not that she particularly cared that the money had been taken from coppers—just that if the law should change at some point in the future allowing police officers to pursue stolen money more vigorously, she'd rather it didn't get pulled from under her.

"You must remember proper branding, now!" Tony said. "A great name and a tagline that sticks!"

Again, this went back to what Tony had done in his former life. His one huge success in Kirkcudbright, the local fish and chip shop. Once, a lowly take-away, now a thriving BYOB place that you had to book well in advance if you wanted in on a Friday or Saturday. Last year, it had won Top Fish and Chip Shop for the second year in a row.

Tagline? The one Tony had come up with: the best fish and chips in Scotland.

Lots of names and ideas had already flashed through her mind. She'd draw up a list of them and run them past him.

"I'll pay you back."

"I know you will, Katrina. You might also have to give Debbie and Daisy free haircuts for the rest of their lives." He rubbed his own head ruefully. He had the classic male pattern baldness thing going on, a receding hairline that thankfully he wasn't trying to disguise. "I might not need your services for that much longer."

That made her laugh out loud, and he joined in. The sound brought Debbie into the kitchen. She'd looked tired of late. Katrina was relieved to see their laughter made her smile too. She explained the joke, and Debbie's smile lit up her eyes.

"I'll spread the word about your hairdressing service among my friends," she said when Tony told her he was going to lend her the money to start up a mobile hairdressing business. "I'm always getting comments about my hair." Debbie fluffed out her hair.

Katrina had been doing Debbie's hair for years now--and for free too. She didn't mind. Debbie was the one who had allowed her to live rent-free with them in London. And she'd got her the job at the salon in the first place. Debbie's hair was a good advert for her services, though in truth Debbie had brilliant hair—thick and heavy, it fell around her face beautifully.

"Remember that tagline," Tony said, folding up the papers again and handing them to Katrina. She had plenty to think about.

"Katrina's Cutz!" Daisy said. They were in her room, discussing the mobile hairdressing business which now seemed perfectly do-able. Who needed that wanker Rick, or the capricious Dee, come to think about it?

"That's so naff," Katrina said, screwing her face up. "People will think I can only do dodgy highlights and terrible perms."

"Thanks," Daisy said, digging her elbow hard into her ribs. "I thought it was inspired, actually. Will you do weddings, too?"

"God, no." She'd been assigned weddings in the salons and brides-to-be were the pits. There was the one woman who'd actually made all her bridesmaids grow their hair to a uniform length regardless of whether it suited them or not. One girl told her that eight months ago, she'd sported the cutest pixie crop.

"You should," Daisy said, stretching herself out on the bed. "Weddings are big business. Especially if you can start getting the society ones. You can do the make-up too. Natalie could help you with that."

"Natalie?" sometimes, Daisy came out with weird stuff. Did she mean salon bitch Natalie? She flashed back to the time Natalie had lent her glitter dust in the toilets at Chevelure Chic, telling her to add a tiny bit to her cheekbones for emphasis. Come to think of it, Natalie was very good at make-up.

And then there was that obscene gesture she'd made the day Katrina walked out of Chevelure Chic.

"Okay, you've talked me into it," she said, pushing at Daisy's feet. "But you still need to think up a name for me. You're the one who's good with words."

"French words!" Daisy objected. She was going to do a modern languages degree at university, location of which still to be determined according to her final exam results. Sometimes, Katrina made her talk in French or German to her. It was fascinating listening to someone who could swap from English to another language so easily.

Of course, she had also asked Daisy to teach her to swear in all those languages too.

You never knew when that might come in useful.

"The French word for make-up is se maquiller," Daisy added. "You could do something with that. And I'd stick with a three-colour palette for your branding as that would be easy to reproduce."

"You sound just like your dad."

Daisy blew a raspberry at that, but it wasn't a resentful one.

"Se Maquiller Belle?" Daisy said, and Katrina nodded.

A new chapter opened its pages.