Facing The Chair

“Oi! Oi you,” I turn around in the middle of the lower high street and point at my chest. The morning sunshine baffles my eyes and I can’t see past the reflective window and see who is calling me. “Yes you, come here.” I look around me to be sure that the voice isn’t shouting at some other person. It’s not and I warily amble over to the open shop door and see that it Is quite tiny with stripped wooden floor boards and stacks of CD’s piled up in one corner. Indeterminable guitar music pipes away in the background. In the door way is a girl with hair that can only be described as black and spiky. She is in her twenties wearing a short red skirt, a black vest and knee-length boots. Her eye makeup is also thick and black. She looks like a cross between a spider and one of the a second world war mines that occasionally floats up the river.

“Hello.” I say cautiously.

“Do you want a haircut?” She gets straight to the point. “You bloody well need one.”

“I don’t have any money on me and besides don’t people usually have to make an appointment.”

“Look around, does it look like I’m busy and don’t worry about the money, it’s not like I’m doing anything. You can’t go around looking like that anyway.” I was almost offended. As I sat down in the barber’s chair that seemed strangely elaborate for such a rustic looking hairdressers.

“What do you want done?”

“I hadn’t really thought about it. I mean deciding on a haircut takes time.”

“I can see that. Look your basic options are the following: Short all over, very short all over. Long on top short at the sides. Long at the sides and short on top, but I don’t recommend that. Short on top and sides and long at the back; I don’t recommend that either.”

“What do you recommend?”

“Fucking all afternoon on a comfortable sofa and a standard short back and sides.”

“I’ll take that then.”

“Which?”

“The short back and sides.”

After a brief silence and some preparation she goes to work. “What’s your name?”

“Elizabeth.” This comes as something of a surprise but she corrects it immediately. “But people call me Beth. Haven’t seen you around, you live round here?” I explain my return.

“How about you?”

“Yeah but only for about six months, weird ain’t it? How about that Bellyphant thing?”

“Most strange.”

“I mean how did no-one spot them doing that? And another thing, have you noticed all the horsey people that hang round the street corners at night with their horse boxes? Where’s all the horses I want to know?” I try and work out what the hell she is doing to my hair and give up. I look past myself in the chair and attempt to peer through her makeup. Her skin is creamy and her eyes are most definitely blue. I can feel her warm hands on my neck and somehow they feel kind. And then it occurs to me.

“Did you know someone called Trudie?”

“Trudie? Red hair, strawberry birthmark on her face?”

“Yeah that’s her. I colour her hair for her. Why?”

“No reason. We used to go to school together, hadn’t seen her for a while.”

“She’s probably out at the club with that scumbag boyfriend of hers. Well she calls him boyfriend, he calls her a lot of things.”

“Do I sense some jealously there?” I play with her.

“Fuck no.” She jabs the scissors in my ear, intentionally or not I cannot determine, I wince and she carries on regardless. “Put it this way, if him or his goons come anywhere near me again.” She raises the scissors and gives them a quick double snip in the air. Beth tidies up and I relax into the chair. “You like the chair? It’s a gynecologist’s chair, I modified it myself.”

“Kept the stirrups I see. Is this your shop then?”

“Yeah kinda, got it on a two year lease from the last guy and the shit has put up the rent twice already. You’re done.” I get up and she brushes me down. We exchange awkard smiles. “You look younger.” It was actually a pretty bad haircut.

“Thanks, I didn’t know I was looking old.”

“Only a tiny bit,” Beth pinches her thumb and forefinger together. “But it’s cool.”

“Well thanks, no really, I obviously needed it.” I make to leave.

“So you gonna take me out?” I stopped mid-stride, shocked that she would ask me. “Well you didn’t think there was any such thing as a free haircut in this town did you?”