The fittings
were the same: the car on a stalk for toddlers, the missing ceiling tiles, one
fluorescent lamp out, the wretched radio one music, the chequered lino on the
floor, the tubular steel chairs and the smell of detergent and hair dye, and
the solitary hairdresser. She was very
slowly cutting the hair from the head of a youth who had some strange writing
tattooed from below the lobe of his ear to the nape of his neck. He was having most of his hair shaved
off. Given that his head was shaped like
an anvil, which, added to his beak nose and protuberant teeth made him look
like an iguanodon, this was perhaps not the wisest choice. His father was sitting sullenly in a chair,
watching. He was a wizened little
grey-haired man, in jeans and a blue sweater.
He had a copy of ‘The Sun,’ folded at the racing page, in his lap.
I took my seat
and observed the hairdresser. She was
young, blonde, dumpy and short. She wore
spectacles. She had her hair tied back
in a pony tail. Every now and then, as
she came across a stubborn nostril hair or a particularly uneven part of the
skull, she lifted her eyes to heaven and shook her head in anguish. After about forty minutes, during which time
she chopped away at Anvil-head one hair at a time, she suddenly whipped off his
smock, flicked a brush in the general direction of his neck, and announced that
she was finished. She picked up a mirror
and gave the youth a view of the back of a neck that was shorn but not
particularly clean. He nodded, and she
sneezed over him.
‘’Ow much is
dat?’ the youth said. ‘Six pounds fifty’ she replied.
His father
stood up and wandered forward with the requisite money in his hand.
‘Took yer time,
dinchew?’ he said.
‘If a job’s worth
doin’’ she replied.
At the sink
opposite sat an elderly lady. She had
short dyed black hair encased in what looked to me like Airfix but which I
presume was some sort of conditioner.
The hairdresser ignored her, and continued to ignore her until I left
the shop a significant amount of time later, except once, when she looked up
and said:
‘Gladys, ‘ow
many times have I told yer not to move yer ‘ead?’
As far as I was
concerned, Gladys had been sitting so still that I had felt like asking someone
to check her vital signs, but this did not satisfy the hairdresser.
Two old men
entered the shop separately just before it was my turn for a haircut. One wore heavy bifocals and a slim
moustache. A flat cap sat on his head at
a jaunty angle. He carried a beige raincoat.
‘Af’noon,’ he
said, to no-one in particular. ‘A canny
day’.
The other took
one look at the queue building up, turned on his heel and shambled away.
The girl called
me up to the chair.
‘What’s yours?’
she said, laconically.
‘An eight on
top and a four at the sides,’ I responded.
‘I’ve done yer
afore, haven’t I?’ she said.
‘I’ve been here
several times – I come whenever I’m down here – when I need a haircut, of
course.’
‘I fought
so. I fought you was a eight but I coul’n’t
remember what you wanted on the sides.
Good job I din’t give yer a four on top and an eight at the sides – you
woulda gone away looking like ‘im.’ She
gestured towards the door through which Anvil-head and his father had just
passed and burst into peals of laughter.
Slim moustache looked at his feet and I felt my face turning slightly red. She picked up the electric shaver, unclipped
the end, spent twenty minutes selecting a new fitting, and then started on my
hair.
‘Yuv gorra
cow’s lick’ she remarked.
‘I know’ I
replied. I’ve had it sixty years.’ She went off on a fresh peal of laughter. ‘That’s
funny that. Yer a right comic, you.’
A long time
later, she said: ‘D’ya want yer ears done?’
‘Ears?’
‘Yeah, yuv got
hairy ears. Do yer want them done?’
‘Does it cost
more?’ I asked. This time she was helpless with laughter.
‘Does it cost
more? You’re a hoot – nah, iss all in with the service.’
She also
attended to my eyebrows, which presumably weren’t regulation size either.
Whilst she was
thus engaged, I noticed a sign on the wall beside the mirror that was opposite
me. It read ‘Due to shortage of staff, we regret that we cannot give children a
Bic head cut between three and five in the afternoon.’
'What on earth
is a Bic head cut? I asked. ‘It sounds ghastly.’
‘Well, yer know
what a Bic razor is, don’t yer?’ I
nodded. ‘Well, we cut some of their hair
using a Bic razor. We speshulise in ‘air
art. We shave shapes an’ that. Into their 'eads. Treble clefs an’ what chew call them?
Samperprams?’
‘Ampersands.’ I
replied, trying to be helpful.
She
continued: ‘Only it takes too long, an’
I’m ‘ere on me own, see, an’ the queue gets bigger an’ bigger till they’re
nearly out the door. We’ve ‘ad to stop
it.’
Slim moustache
was starting to shuffle his feet impatiently, and then the chap who had earlier
shambled away came back and this time stayed, now perhaps having an
hour or more to spare. The girl brandished
the mirror behind me, did her tablecloth-removing act, and the job was
done.
‘How much?’ I
asked.
‘Yer a
pensioner, aren’t yer?
‘Well no, not
really – I’m not drawing my state pension yet.’
‘Well, yer look
like a pensioner, so I say yer a pensioner – that’ll be three quid.’
I stepped out
onto the street absolutely amazed that anyone cut hair for three pounds. When I saw how long it had taken her, she was
working for £2 an hour, give or take a penny or two.
