“Under New Management”

A story post about an experience I had this week

“Under New Management”

It’s a sign I notice, ten seconds too late.

For there I am, both feet planted firmly inside the establishment, and as such, a contract of sorts has already been formed.

Because…..the thing is, once you enter a Hairdressers - or in this case a Turkish Barbers - it’s not the sort of place you can just turn around and walk out of, unnoticed, is it?

It’s not like turning your back on a corner shop or newsagents, where you can scan around cheerfully, raise your eyebrows and give that look that says “Oh never mind, you seem to be out of what I wanted….”

’Cause you having hair and it being a Hairdressers, makes it a done deal, doesn’t it?

And so, my awkward encounter begins, as I find myself, an uneasy fly in a web, handing myself over to this………this……stranger.

If I sound dramatic, perhaps I should explain, recap. Last year, within these very walls, I’d had my first hair cut in nearly 40 years, finally trusting my inner control freak to the hands of a professional.

It had come about by chance whilst getting my son’s hair trimmed. The barber, or should I say previous barber - a small skinny guy in his twenties with limited English - had expressed a desire to cut my hair and apprehensively, I had returned alone a few days later and taken him up on it.

It had taken a lot of courage, that initial hair cut, but since that first, uncomfortable surrender, I’d returned several times and had been satisfied with the result.

And now, here I was, a year later, about to hand over my sacred silver ladylocks to another man, so soon.

I dunno…..didn’t sit right. Was there such thing as a ‘hair slag’?

I didn’t much like the idea of someone new, but what choice did I have now, given my ‘regular’ had upped and left?

“The other guy……what happened?”

I find myself saying to a stocky, bearded guy in his early forties.

“He’s gone home”

His booming voice sweeps the floor like a hard bristled broom.

As he speaks, I notice there are now very few pieces of furniture in the room. It is a large open space that once housed a fridge full of cans of pop, a cage with two chirping budgies, a cheese plant, a blaring radio and a table full of magazines.  It had been homely in a kooky, batchelor pad kind of way.

“To Turkey?”

I enquire. It was a Turkish Barbers, after all.  I immediately scold myself the way one so often does these days, wondering if an innocent remark could possibly be construed as racist or offensive.

“No, Kurdistan! He WASN’T Turkish! He had that sign up and I don’t know why! I will have to get it taken down because our countries hate each other! Kurdistan and Turkey HATE each other you know!”

He says ‘hate’ as though spitting out an unwelcome olive stone.

No, I didn’t know actually.

I knew from my time in Cyprus that Turkey hadn’t gotten along with Cyprus. Were Turkey the ‘difficult sibling’ of that neck of the woods? What the hell did I know about Asian politics! Was Turkey even in Asia? They were in the Eurovision Song Contest sometimes but that seemed to mean Jack these days because, let’s face it, so were Australia…….

Hmm…..pass…

‘Our’ country?

“So….you are from Kurdistan too?”

I say, finding myself sinking into the black swivel chair.

And then;

“The other guy…….he usually just shaves the back for me. Can you do that? Just sort of graduate it at the back?”

My voice mirrors the sentiment as it staggers in lilt to a high note.

“Of course I can!”

He says it defensively as though I am questioning his ability.

“And yes, I am also Kurdish. I don’t have the language barrier HE had though, because I have lived here many years. I bought the business from him a few weeks ago. Good barber…….but god……he was a dirty bastard! I’ve spent weeks cleaning this place and there’s still more to do!”

He gestures a large tanned hand to the skirting boards to prove a point and yeah, they are a bit manky.

As I slink back, my tense shoulders caped, I realise how all the distractions the previous guy had employed, had somehow aided my relaxation. Without the hum of the fridge, the twitter of birds and a noisy radio, there is no escape now from the haunting spectre of my own reflection in the large, unforgiving looking glass.

The harsh daylight accentuates every crease and wrinkle on my skin like a mocking artist. There are coloured flecks I never used to have - pinks, blues, reds and browns like a geological exhibit. My ear lobes and nose hang slightly longer and more rubbery than they once were, my lips fading into my face like two pale, skinny girls escaping a shit party. As my hair is drawn back, reins of an oval carriage, I contemplate the unstoppable march of middle age.

I notice how time tugs my cheeks downwards these days like a disgruntled bed fellow fighting for the duvet.

Time, is winning and I conclude that as customers go, I must fall into that broad, dull category between ‘dream client’ and ‘blue rinse brigade’.

New Barber mauls my tresses with his fat, clubby, directing fingers.  He pulls the sides up, securing them crudely in bulldog clips, the angles obscuring my vision. I feel a little like a drugged lion in the headlock of a circus strong man. As my head is dragged from side to side in his tussle, I find myself thinking of famous lions like the one at the beginning of the old Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films and the one on the wrappers of Lion Bars.

I compare his ‘style’ to the last guy, always so softly spoken, deliberate with small, precise movements and delicate pushes. As I do so, I can’t help think it’s rather like comparing two lovers with very different approaches. After thirty odd years without anyone other than a partner or my child ever touching my head, it still feels to me a very intimate act. Is it wrong to compare him to my ‘hair ex’?  Why do I feel guilt about this?

As I battle this inner weirdness, all I can think to say is:

“What has happened to the budgies?”

“He’s taken them home. I would have taken them for my two girls but he wanted them….”

I ponder whether or not one would be legally allowed to take budgies into Kurdistan and if not, does that make him a ‘budgie smuggler’?  The silly thought amuses me.

As he makes the first buzzy inroads into my nervous scalp, there is an attempt to talk about roadworks.

“People are glaring and shaking their heads at me from outside in their cars! As if it is my fault!”

Is this ‘traffic talk’ a modern update of the  ‘holiday banter’ hairdressers are renowned for, I wonder? If so, I’m afraid I’m ‘Club Tropicana’ old school. Nothing glazes me over faster than talking about bloody cars and I decide not to encourage the topic.

I consider at this point, I hadn’t ever said much to the old guy about anything, because he had spoken such little English and frankly, that had been one of the draws. A conversation made of smiles, eyes and hand gestures had felt reassuring to me, my brain and mouth relieved of social obligation.

That said, this man appears to be doing a good job and I find myself saying;

“Go on then……I’ll let you cut the sides. I stopped letting the other guy cause he used to give me a curtains do, make me look like a fella from the 1990’s.”

“Well….. there are lots of women who want to look like men…….around here.”

There is an unspoken understanding as he continues;

“I cannot tell who is a man or a woman these days. Many people come into this shop and…….”

He laughs.

“They look like lunatics…..but they are always very nice. Very friendly people here.”

He takes a silver blade to my neck, as though he has planned the moment for dramatic effect and says;

“One man came in here and he looked like a serial killer……”

He applies subtle pressure.

“But he was very nice”

As I catch myself in the mirror again, I can’t help acknowledge that to his credit, he is still doing a decent enough job.

So why, do I not feel quite so happy as usual?

I decide it’s because I miss the old guy. Strange what one becomes attached to, unwittingly. Yeah, I know he was a bit of a stoner, messy, but he’d had an aura of mischief about him that I’d rather enjoyed.

I miss him nipping out for cheeky joints, his inky hand-scrawled phone number sellotaped on the shop window.

I miss the way he would down his tools mid cut to have an angry sounding conversation on his mobile in another language before returning to my hair, beaming at me, as though it had never happened.

I miss his loud foreign music that would burst through the speakers in carnival fanfare, a wild fire of voice and chaotic instrument, unlike anything I’d ever heard.

I miss him spraying me forcefully as though gunning down enemies on a video game, leaving me smelling like I’d been in a chemical trial.

I miss him grinning as he held up a mirror at the end to declare in heavily accented English “Ten years younger!”, one of about five phrases he could confidently parrot.

And then it dawns upon me how much these little details mean. The quirks that give a shop or service its unique character.

With no mini fridge full of complimentary soft drinks, no jar of cheap lollipops, no budgies or funny hand written signs, the place is all but a grim, practical box.

I’m confident the new owner will make it cleaner, tidier, more business like.

But, damn……I hope he keeps it human.

I pray he will continue to say slightly inappropriate things about serial killers and lunatics. About someone being a ‘dirty bastard’.

As businesses are nudged into bland blanket models that prize efficiency over interaction, productivity over personality and savings over smiles, it would be an opportunity missed.

In a world that values functionality, some of us, still crave a little fun.