threatening the company I might keep, either, even if you did lay it on.”
“I know that. Grief! Do you think I don't know that? It's been worrying me silly all day. That's beside the kozzers. And seeing them gave me quite a fright. What to do about it? That's the problem. Perhaps I ought to make myself scarce.”
“For a day or two. That's not a bad idea. I'm glad it was your idea. Either that, or we tell the police about him.”
Paul froze. “No, no, no. I couldn't handle the police again so soon. I'd go to pieces. The man is dangerous, you're right. The kozzers will give him a name and then he'll be back. The kozzers are like that. And when he comes back…” He puzzled then nodded. “You're right. I'll make myself invisible for a couple of days, sleep at the chess club, or the squat. He might get fed up by then. Innit? Know what I mean?” “While you're away you can make yourself useful.”
“What's that?”
“There's a woman. I'll give you her address. I want to know more about her, for artistic – aesthetic – reasons, you understand? Nothing more than that.”
“Nod, nod, know exactly what you mean.” Paul smiled a knowing smile, his previous thoughts quite forgotten. “The woman you're painting?”
“Yes, that's the one. I'd like to know what she does, where she goes, who she sees.”
His eyes lit up. “No bother. Right up my street. I'll make notes, just like for real. It’ll be like, knowing your subject, adding depth to the expression, right? Innit?”
Mr Lawrence raised an eyebrow. Such an observation coming from Paul was quite astonishing. For a moment he felt giddy. He said, “Come and look at the painting.”
“In the studio?”
“I'll make another exception.”
Under the studio light Mr Lawrence drew back the cover.
“That's pretty good. You've got her just right. You could actually reach out and run your hand under the dress.”
“Don't! It's still wet.”
“Only kidding, Mr Lawrence. She looks as if she might be wet.” He crept closer to examine it, hands behind his back, leaning forward just like an expert. “I'd like to stay and look at it some more, but I better be off. Wouldn't want to get caught by that bastard with my trousers down.”
Mr Lawrence nodded and caught the twinkle in Paul's eye.
Between the restaurants and The British was an old-fashioned barbershop with a real barber who knew nothing about hairdressing. He was an ex-navy man and if you wanted to hang around long enough he would tell you about the ports he sailed into and the girls he had away. Not long ago the barber had lost all respect when he tried to turn his establishment into a unisex affair. He reckoned without the colonel, The British man of action. Having to wait while the women were pampered, being on edge because they were there at all, was just too much, and he organized a boycott. The barber saw the error of his ways, particularly when he was ostracized in the pub and eventually he banned women from his shop and for good measure, making good sense and making amends for his shortcomings, he refused to serve men with earrings. His profits went up and he was happier. He was allowed back into The British, not totally forgiven, that would take time, but the regulars would at least pass the time of day.
“Fuck the women,” he told the colonel.
“Exactly,” the man of action, the action man, agreed. “Exactly. Dangerous as hell, they are, and there's a lot of them about. Dangerous as a cornered kraut.”
So then, once a month, on the way to lunch, it was short back and sides. While the finishing touches were applied with a razor the barber said, “Someone's been looking for Paul.”
Mr Lawrence tried not to show interest.
“A big chappy,” he went on. “A gorilla, hirsute, but not on his head. That was bald. Didn't want a haircut, thank God. I didn’t know what to say, whether to point it out, that he was bald. I mean, just think, if he hadn’t realized. As it happened he just wanted Paul but I wasn’t to know that. If I’d had a dodgy ticker I could have been in trouble, just seeing him in my shop. There should be a law against big bald bastards walking around in public. Maybe the National Health Service should provide a service, a warning like they do about cholesterol or smoking when you’re pregnant, or maybe they should pay for someone to run five yards in front carrying a sign saying: Big Bald Bastard On The Way.”
He shot hair lotion into Mr Lawrence's eyes and ears and brushed loose hair down his neck. Then he showed him the back of his head. “That it?”
“That's it.”
They trod hair to the till.
“Paul came in here, when was it? Earlier, I don't know. You lose track of time cutting hair. He wanted some hair. First time anyone has come in wanting hair. Wanted black hair, no grey, no brown, no speckled, just black. I didn't bother asking him what he wanted it for. You give up sometimes, don’t you? The world's full of victims.” The barber sighed. “Hair restorer? Comb? Rubbers?”
“At my age?”
“You can fantasize.”
He pointed to the stack of magazines where finger smudges blurred the glossy images. “If you want to hang around for an hour May is good and August quite passable.”
Mr Lawrence hesitated and raised a critical eyebrow.
The barber remembered the recent past and said, “Women! You’re right. And so is the colonel.” At the door he switched open to closed and took his coat from the hook. “Lunch? I'll walk with you.”
“There should be a law against drunken barbers.”
“You’re right. Mind you, having said that, blood-letting was an important role at one stage. Think of Sweeney Todd. That’s what the red and white pole signifies. Not much call for it nowadays, though. There’s enough blood- letting on the street. It’s put barbers out of business.” He turned off the fourteen-inch colour portable. “Paul got that for me on the cheap. Bloody good lad, he is. Wouldn't want him to come to any harm.”
On the cold platform the colonel was in good voice. He had an answer to the yob culture. “What you should do,” he told everyone in all seriousness. “Is bring back the birch. It’s laughable, really, all these so-called experts talking about absent fathers. What total bollocks. What about the soldiers fighting wars for years on end? Our kids didn’t turn out to be hooligans. If they had, by God, they’d have got a bayonet up the arse.”
He had a small audience of half-pint drinkers who were only half-convinced of his seriousness so they only half-humoured him. Some of these half-pint drinkers were strays, they had strayed in from the High Road looking for a little respite. They had not met the colonel before and were beginning to hope they would never meet him again. “One other thing, before you go, and let this be a word of warning from an old soldier. Be careful of apples. The Eighth Army didn’t fight its way through North Africa to let these damned immigrants from Europe pick our apples. Monty would turn in his grave.”
The bargirls ignored him for they had heard it all before, and went about their business bending here and there. That's why Roger kept the bottles on the lower shelves when the top shelves were free. Roger wasn't stupid.
The British was musty, filled with the fumes of wood smoke and old wood and stale beer and the beef curry that was special for lunch. A tiny tributary had broken away from the pool on the bar surface and headed at snail's pace towards the edge. Sid the Nerve leant against the bar and the other customers watched the beer edge towards his back. Albert finished his beer and licked his moustache and concentrated on the stream.
Roger leant back, arms folded, eyes narrowed over his fixed smile. Eventually Nervous Sid said, “Shit!” and, with a shaking hand, tried to wipe his back.
The barber emptied his glass of bitter and said, “You know, Roger, you’re the only boozer in town that hasn’t bothered with Christmas decorations. Just an observation, that’s all.”
The owner remained silent for some time while his face ran through a series of pulls, then he said through gritted teeth, “Well, you can fuck off to one of the others then!”
“I don’t like Christmas decorations,” the barber said quickly as he waved his empty glass at a bargirl. “Reminds me of Christmas.” Roger said, “I’m thinking of renaming The British. Calling it The English instead.”
