Cut And Run - Friday

Back to the traditional barber shop for the five-week maintenance chop. Nothing worse than those ageing men who insist on growing the remaining top of head hair longer, in a vain attempt to hide thinning thatch a-la-Bobby Charlton – an ancient footballer for those with a career shorter than mine.

There’s something comforting in the familiarity and the chummy male camaraderie of the hairdresser’s establishment. The only women venturing in are the young mother’s clutching their boys’ hands and hoping the clipper-cut won’t be too severe.

‘Just a gentle trim please.’ Pleads the yummy-mummy ahead of me in the queue, as the barber places the booster seat in the chair and begins to finger the coloured clipper guards. ‘I want to keep the blonde bits for as long as possible.’

‘Yeh make the most of it love,’ chuckles some wag further down the bench, face buried in The Sun newspaper around page three. ‘Before you know it he’ll be looking like me!’

The joker is as bald as a coot on top and I can only imagine he’ll be demanding some sort of follicle-challenged discount when the barber gets round to trimming his nape hair. Not that I’m feeling any happier as I gaze into the unforgiving mirror opposite. And to compound matters while the hairdresser begins buzzing around the little guy’s hair, as the mother winces and hovers just stopping short of collecting the falling locks for prosperity, he asks loudly.
‘How’s the property market then?’

Every waiting punter turns towards me, faces a mixture of distaste and eager expectation.
‘He’s an estate agent,’ clarifies the grass with the scissors, as I feel the jovial atmosphere vanish faster than cakes in our office kitchen. And now even the little kid having his locks done, is turning in the chair, smock riding up as he spins expectantly, presumably seeking news on early-adopters first time buyer initiatives.

‘Get off the fence pal.’ Calls out a muscle-bound guy two down from me after I’ve waffled about mixed signals and a shortage of quality property coming to the market keeping prices underpinned in the better areas.

‘You lot are responsible for the whole mess anyway.’ Announces the mother suddenly showing more interest in average selling prices than her kid’s haircut. ‘Always shoving prices up when it’s sunny and cutting them down when things turn sticky.’

‘Thanks for that.’ I mutter angrily to the barber when I finally make the chair and the queue and the animosity has subsided.
‘Just trying for a bit of banter.’ He says defensively as I contemplate stiffing him on his usual tip, then think better of it as I’ll be back in just over a month.
‘I don’t make the market,’ I whine as the clippers do the same. ‘I’m just a barometer for it.’
‘Barometer,’ Laughs the barber manically. ‘Some of those people were thinking more along the lines of bastard!’

Don’t blame the messenger I think mournfully, as the hair begins to fall and suddenly I’m the just departed child’s age again. Sitting in a long dead barber’s chair in a converted garage, watching the hair fall onto the smock with a comforting distraction. The buzz of the electric clippers, the faint smell of lubricating oil and the almost restful movement of the blades across skull, as the dark brown locks tumble and I daydream about what I’ll be when I grow up.

‘How do you want the bit where it’s thinning?’ Asks a suddenly twenty-first century voice harshly. And I tumble back into the chair, greying cast-offs falling into my lap like fallout from a summer bonfire.
‘Can you leave it a tad longer?’ Asks a familiar voice and suddenly the Charlton brothers are dancing mockingly on the pitch in front of me where the mirror should be.

‘That looks nice.’ Announces negotiator S as I skulk back into the office, fallen bits the paper towel didn’t catch already itching underneath my shirt collar. And I look at her suspiciously, the sort of look I was receiving only twenty minutes earlier as I painted a rosier picture than entirely accurate to my property market interrogators.

You never really know if you’re getting the bald truth.