Viva Brighton Issue #45 November 2016

COLUMN
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John Helmer
Rug realignment
Illustration by Joda, jonydaga.weebly.com
“Do you think I need a haircut?”
Normally my wife’s answer to this question would
be a tactful ‘maybe’, or - ‘it looks quite good at the
moment’… But today her response snaps back fast
and low over the net.
“Yes.”
For a second I wonder whether it’s the steroids.
Kate is in a country called Chemotherapy, a kind
of moral Colombia where heavy drug use and
looming existential threat paint things in harsher
colours; where patience for merely first world
problems is quite understandably limited.
One glance in the mirror, however, tells me that
the bluntness in her tone has nothing to do with
drugs. Things have got out of hand. Without noticing,
I’ve somehow strayed beyond the precincts
of ‘creative’ hair into homeless-person territory.
When I don my cycling helmet in the mornings,
I recall, greying strands are starting to poke out
horizontally, like roof-aerial wires.
“I’ll call Nathan,” I say.
“You could try, but… Nathan has dislocated
his elbow: I saw it on Instagram.”
“Dislocated isn’t broken, though, is it? Some
people can dislocate limbs at will. That’s
how Harry Houdini did his tricks.”
“Nathan’s a hairdresser, not an escapologist.”
Nathan’s salon, it turns out, knows less
than Instagram. “I’m sorry, we have no
idea when he’ll be back in action. Try
again next week.”
“You could go somewhere else,” suggests
Kate, gently pointing out that there are in
fact six hairdressing establishments within
a couple of minutes of us at Fiveways.
“Six!”
“Count them.”
We go for a walk. “There’s that one over there
with the big windows …”
“That’s a hairdresser’s? I thought it was a nail bar.”
“—And Alan’s Gents’ Hairdressers.”
I survey a faded shopfront lettered in the typeface
time forgot. “—Is that the one near the smelly
drains?”
We turn into Preston Drove. “Streakers.”
“I don’t need streaks.”
“Val Cussell?”
“It looks a bit gender-specific?”
“Well what about Solution barbers, over there - or
LJ’s: they do men? And they don’t have smelly
drains.”
The thing is, I explain, Nathan doesn’t just cut
hair. He’s an artist. He does interesting things.
“…He lived in a cabin in the woods for six months
like Henry Thoreau… We have interesting
conversations, Kate. With Nathan I don’t have to
pretend to be interested in football, or feel bad
about not having tattoos…”
“Look… let’s think about it over coffee.”
“OK but where? We’re spoilt for choice here
aren’t we: North Village, Tilt, The Deli, The Old
Bakehouse, Flour Pot Bakery, Hop & Vine..? It’s
all hairdressers and coffee shops round here. Can’t
get a wet-fish shop, but…”
I run fingers through my unruly rug, holding it
back against the chill wind that wants to blow it in
my eyes. It seems to be lengthening by the minute.
Why can’t Nathan be well? The unfairness of life.
Turning, I notice an amused expression on the
beautiful face under the headscarf. “At least you’ve
got hair.”
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