The Album

On Wednesday mornings Charo went to the Portuguese hairdresser's on the Chaussée de Waterloo, and Lucía had known that for thirty years, and she thought of it as she turned the key in the lock like a burglar.

The flat smelled of hairspray, reheated coffee and lemon furniture polish. The living-room shutters were half closed. Manuel's armchair waited in the gloom with his cap on it. Lucía stood for a second in the hall, the keys in her hand. She'd had this key since she was nineteen. She had never once used it without ringing first.

She had an hour, maybe an hour and a quarter. At the Portuguese woman's there was always someone else's perm running over.