again.
‘Zozo?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Your go, sweetheart.’
My parents are both smiling at me, attempting to project amusement instead of concern.
‘Sorry, miles away. Blame the hot chocolate.’
I don’t really know what that means, but my parents laugh and I make a show of examining my tiles.
E-E-E-I-G-L-V
From the minute I picked my last few tiles from the bag, I knew I could hang GRIEVE off the end of WRONG. But triple letter score on the V or not, I can’t bring myself to do it. LIVE is
slightly more bearable, but it’ll only net me seven points, so is hardly worth the discomfort.
‘R-E-L-I-E-V-E,’ I say, ‘triple on the I, twelve points.’
Henry
The Answer, I Think, Is Love
My hair is a mess.
Not just untidy or unkempt, but an erratic, uneven, split-ended disaster area. I’ve seen bus drivers with better hair. That said, I haven’t had it cut since the week before my
scheduled wedding, so this shouldn’t come as a shock. A lot can happen in fourteen weeks. Looking at my reflection, if I had to guess my profession going by nothing but the chaos attempting
to escape my scalp, I’d probably conclude I was the drummer in a pub tribute band –
Less Zepp, Deep Mauve, Bums N’ Roses
, or something similarly cringeworthy. Or maybe
I’d mistake me for a brilliant academic, an alcoholic mechanic, or a drug-dealing taxi driver. Not a dentist. Certainly not a hairdresser’s son.
The man massaging my shoulders is called Gus, and he is the proprietor of this establishment. I haven’t asked him to do this, and he didn’t ask if I minded, but he’s doing it
all the same. Kneading the muscles of my neck as we both regard my cartoon mop. What I’ve asked this man to do is cut my hair, but he clearly doesn’t know where to start. Nothing about
Gus suggests a sexual inclination in any particular or exclusive direction, but he is certainly sexually
present
– confident, uninhibited, coiffed yet rough, ruggedly masculine yet
somehow effete. If he has an orientation at all, I’d guess it’s a three hundred and sixty degree humankind kind of thing. I wouldn’t trust him with my girlfriend, if I had one, or
my mother, or grandmother if I had one that was still breathing. Paradoxically, though, despite his palpable sexual readiness, I don’t detect anything aimed at me. I’m probably below
his radar. No, this massage, this deep, insistent full-handed mauling, seems to be the physical manifestation of Gus’s thought process as he considers the quantum problem of my hair.
‘I’m in your hands,’ I told Gus after he sat me in the chair and asked what I wanted. Who knew he’d take it so literally.
‘Let’s give it a wash,’ says Gus. ‘Might make more sense once it’s wet.’
In a peculiar variation on the great unfathomable tradition, the place is called The Hairy Krishna; the sign above the door features a fat Buddha with rock star locks, a pair of scissors in one
hand and a hairdryer in the other.
After a hurried breakfast in the Black Horse three months ago (leaving the rental car under my old man’s care), I pointed the brick-gouged Audi south, hitting London shortly after lunch.
Following the path of least resistance, I found myself on a busy high street south of the Thames, with nothing more on my mind than a pee and a spot of lunch. After an overpriced pie and pint, I
found a room in a guesthouse across the street, booked two weeks’ accommodation and went back to the pub to watch the boxing. By the following Tuesday I had four offers of work and took the
one closest to the guesthouse; eight weeks’ paternity cover at a dental practice five minutes from my front door.
I have barely stepped beyond the triangle formed between the Red Lion, the Lavender Lodge and 32 White since. Within that roughly one mile isosceles are more amenities and distractions than in
the entire village I called home for the majority of my life. Amongst others, there are bars, restaurants, gyms, a
‘Zozo?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Your go, sweetheart.’
My parents are both smiling at me, attempting to project amusement instead of concern.
‘Sorry, miles away. Blame the hot chocolate.’
I don’t really know what that means, but my parents laugh and I make a show of examining my tiles.
E-E-E-I-G-L-V
From the minute I picked my last few tiles from the bag, I knew I could hang GRIEVE off the end of WRONG. But triple letter score on the V or not, I can’t bring myself to do it. LIVE is
slightly more bearable, but it’ll only net me seven points, so is hardly worth the discomfort.
‘R-E-L-I-E-V-E,’ I say, ‘triple on the I, twelve points.’
Henry
The Answer, I Think, Is Love
My hair is a mess.
Not just untidy or unkempt, but an erratic, uneven, split-ended disaster area. I’ve seen bus drivers with better hair. That said, I haven’t had it cut since the week before my
scheduled wedding, so this shouldn’t come as a shock. A lot can happen in fourteen weeks. Looking at my reflection, if I had to guess my profession going by nothing but the chaos attempting
to escape my scalp, I’d probably conclude I was the drummer in a pub tribute band –
Less Zepp, Deep Mauve, Bums N’ Roses
, or something similarly cringeworthy. Or maybe
I’d mistake me for a brilliant academic, an alcoholic mechanic, or a drug-dealing taxi driver. Not a dentist. Certainly not a hairdresser’s son.
The man massaging my shoulders is called Gus, and he is the proprietor of this establishment. I haven’t asked him to do this, and he didn’t ask if I minded, but he’s doing it
all the same. Kneading the muscles of my neck as we both regard my cartoon mop. What I’ve asked this man to do is cut my hair, but he clearly doesn’t know where to start. Nothing about
Gus suggests a sexual inclination in any particular or exclusive direction, but he is certainly sexually
present
– confident, uninhibited, coiffed yet rough, ruggedly masculine yet
somehow effete. If he has an orientation at all, I’d guess it’s a three hundred and sixty degree humankind kind of thing. I wouldn’t trust him with my girlfriend, if I had one, or
my mother, or grandmother if I had one that was still breathing. Paradoxically, though, despite his palpable sexual readiness, I don’t detect anything aimed at me. I’m probably below
his radar. No, this massage, this deep, insistent full-handed mauling, seems to be the physical manifestation of Gus’s thought process as he considers the quantum problem of my hair.
‘I’m in your hands,’ I told Gus after he sat me in the chair and asked what I wanted. Who knew he’d take it so literally.
‘Let’s give it a wash,’ says Gus. ‘Might make more sense once it’s wet.’
In a peculiar variation on the great unfathomable tradition, the place is called The Hairy Krishna; the sign above the door features a fat Buddha with rock star locks, a pair of scissors in one
hand and a hairdryer in the other.
After a hurried breakfast in the Black Horse three months ago (leaving the rental car under my old man’s care), I pointed the brick-gouged Audi south, hitting London shortly after lunch.
Following the path of least resistance, I found myself on a busy high street south of the Thames, with nothing more on my mind than a pee and a spot of lunch. After an overpriced pie and pint, I
found a room in a guesthouse across the street, booked two weeks’ accommodation and went back to the pub to watch the boxing. By the following Tuesday I had four offers of work and took the
one closest to the guesthouse; eight weeks’ paternity cover at a dental practice five minutes from my front door.
I have barely stepped beyond the triangle formed between the Red Lion, the Lavender Lodge and 32 White since. Within that roughly one mile isosceles are more amenities and distractions than in
the entire village I called home for the majority of my life. Amongst others, there are bars, restaurants, gyms, a
Similar Books
