Before Dodger could object Solomon continued, ‘And then you will realize that what you tend to think of as your hair is in fact something worse than mmm a Mongolian’s breeches, which are noisome things indeed, for the hair and bits of yak; indeed, I believe yak milk is what they use on their hair for special occasions. And so, since I don’t want to have to flee to yet another country mmm, after you have got yourself spruced up and looking like a Christian – because, my dear boy, the chances of you ever looking Jewish are thankfully small – I suggest you go and find yourself a proper barber for a haircut and a professional shave, not mmm from an old man whose hands get shaky when he’s tired.’
Dodger could shave himself in a lacklustre kind of way – even if, truthfully speaking, there wasn’t really all that much to shave yet – but he had never had a proper official haircut in his life. He would generally just do it himself, slicing off handfuls of hair with his knife, using Solomon as a kind of clever looking glass since the old boy just stood in front of him and told him whereabouts to slice next. This left something to be desired, possibly everything, and then he would have to have a go with the nit comb, which was uncomfortable to say the least, but it stopped the itching. It was great to see the little buggers dropping out onto the floor too, where he could jump up and down on them, knowing that for the next few days, at least, he was not going to be a nitwit.
He plunged his hand into his scalp now, a technique which Solomon called the German comb, and he had to admit that Sol was right – there was considerable room for improvement up there above his eyebrows. So he said, ‘I know where there’s a barbershop. I saw it the other day when I was in Fleet Street.’
He had enough time, he thought, as he applied the aforesaid elbow grease to his boots, along with the newfound boot polish. Solomon, standing over him to make certain he did it properly, said that he had bought the polish in Poland. There seemed to be no end to the countries that Solomon had visited and left at speed; it wouldn’t do to force him to go to another.
Dodger now remembered how Solomon had once taken a pepperbox pistol from one of his strongboxes. ‘What do you want that for?’ he had asked. And Solomon had said, ‘Once bitten, twice shy. But not that shy . . .’
When the boots were cleaned to the old man’s satisfaction – and he was not easily satisfied – Dodger sprinted in the general direction of Fleet Street. The streets were warming up, but he felt clean, even if there was a certain question mark over the shonky suit: it was making him itch like mad! It looked wonderful, and he wanted to be all nonchalant and wide as he walked up the street, but this was rather spoiled by the fact that every spare minute he was scratching somewhere about his person. It was an itch that wanted to move about, a playful itch, and it wanted to play hide and seek, at one point being in his boots and then turning up behind his ears, and just as quickly finding its way into his crotch, where on the whole it was rather difficult to do anything about in public. However, he decided that going faster might help and so he arrived, slightly breathless, at the barbershop he had noticed yesterday, and for the first time glanced at the little nameplate, which he eventually deciphered as: Mr Sweeney Todd, Barber-Surgeon.
He stepped inside the place, which appeared to be empty until he spotted a pale and rather nervous-looking man who was sitting in the barber’s chair and drinking a beverage of what turned out to be coffee. The barber sighed as he saw Dodger, dusted down his apron and said with brittle cheerfulness, ‘Good morning, sir! An excellent morning! What can I do for you today?’ At least, he tried to make this greeting cheerful, but you could see he didn’t have it in him. Never had Dodger seen such a woebegone face, apart from the time when Onan disgraced himself more than usual by eating Solomon’s dinner while the old man’s back was turned.
Mister Todd was definitely not a naturally cheerful personality; the gloom was apparently laminated to him and he was obviously more built by nature to be someone like an undertaker’s mute, whose job it was to follow the coffin of the deceased, looking respectably mournful but not saying a word because that would cost tuppence extra. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Mister Todd hadn’t tried to ignore it by pretending to be cheerful; it was like putting rouge on a skull. Dodger was fascinated. Perhaps all barbers are like this, he thought to himself. After all, I’m only asking for a shave and a haircut.
With some misgivings, he sat down in the chair and Sweeney swirled a white sheet over him in a way which would have been called theatrical if, indeed, Sweeney had really known how to do it first time. At this point, Dodger became aware of a dull, persistent smell coming from somewhere. It had the flavour of decay and it mingled with the smells of soap and jars of various lotions. He thought, Well, this isn’t a butcher’s shop, so I just bet his landlord has gone and knocked a way from the privy to the sewers – I really wish they didn’t do that sort of thing.
A lot of the sheet ended up round Dodger’s neck, to be whisked aside by the luckless Sweeney with lots of apologies and assurances that it wouldn’t happen again. It did. Twice. Next time it fell around Dodger in a way that both of them could live with, and the sweating Sweeney turned his attention to the job in hand. At some time, somebody must have told Mister Todd that a barber, in addition to tonsorial prowess, should have memorized practically a library of jokes, anecdotes and miscellaneous rib-ticklers, occasionally including – should the gentleman in the chair be of the right age or nature – ones that might include some daring remarks about young ladies. However, the person that had given him this advice had simply not calculated on Sweeney’s terrible lack of anything that could be called bonhomie, cheerfulness, ribaldry or even a simple sense of humour.
Nevertheless, Dodger noticed he did try. Oh my, how he tried, stropping his razor while messing up punch lines and, horror of horrors, laughing at the joke which he himself had so clumsily executed. But at last the razor was sharp enough for Sweeney and then there was the matter of the shaving foam, which the man attended to just as soon as he had laid the razor down so that its gleaming edge faced north, all the better to maintain its sharpness.
Dodger, helpless in the chair, watched in something like awe, his mind springing to and fro from the spectacle of the barber’s preparations to a pleasing image of the admiration he hoped would appear on Simplicity’s face once she saw him scrubbed up so well, oh my, a proper young gent. Now he could see that the man’s hands had scars on every finger, although this slight problem barely showed up because Sweeney was briskly whisking up the shaving foam with all the manic enthusiasm of a circus clown. The stuff was falling out all over the place, and here and there, because it had been so suffused with air as to make it practically dirigible; it was floating away on the breeze as if it wanted to get out of there as much as Dodger did right now – especially since he was aware of that smell, that heavy and unpleasant smell, gradually permeating the shop.
‘Are you feeling all right, Mister Todd?’ he said. And, ‘Your hands are shaking a little bit, Mister Todd.’
The barber’s face looked like steel, if steel could sweat, and he was swaying back and forth with his eyes like two holes in the snow, looking far away but at something else, somewhere else. Dodger began stealthily to extricate himself from the cloth, whilst keeping a sharp eye on the man. And, oh dear, and now Mister Todd started to mumble, the words blurred as they tried to get out one after the other, some of them so urgent to get away from the swaying man that they overtook themselves.