At nine-fifteen Zipser took his seat in the barber’s chair.
“Just a trim,” he told the barber.
The man looked at his head doubtfully.
“Wouldn’t like a nice short back and sides, I don’t suppose?” he asked mournfully.
“Just a trim, thank you,” Zipser told him.
The barber tucked the sheet into his collar. “Don’t know why some of you young fellows bother to have your hair cut at all,” he said. “Seem determined to put us out of business.”
“I’m sure you still get lots of work,” Zipser said.
The barber’s scissor clicked busily round his ears. Zipser stared at himself in the mirror and wondered once again at the disparity between his innocent appearance and the terrible passion which surged inside him. His eyes moved sideways to the rows of bottles, Eau de Portugal, Dr Linthrop’s Dandruff Mixture, Vitalis, a jar of Pomade. Who on earth used Pomade? Behind him the barber was chattering on about football but Zipser wasn’t listening. He was eyeing the glass case to his left where a box in one corner suggested the reason for his haircut. He couldn’t move his head so that he wasn’t sure what the box contained but it looked the right sort of box. Finally when the man moved forward to pick up the clippers Zipser turned his head and saw that he had been eyeing with quite pointless interest a box of razor blades. He turned his head further and scanned the shelves. Shaving creams, razors, lotions, combs, all were there in abundance but not a single carton of contraceptives.
Zipser sat on in a trance while the clippers buzzed on his neck. They must keep the damned things somewhere. Every hairdresser had them. His face in the mirror assumed a new uncertainty. By the time the barber had finished and was powdering his neck and waving a handmirror behind him, Zipser was in no mood to be critical of the result. He got out of the chair and waved the barber’s brush away impatiently.
“That’ll be thirty pence, sir,” the barber said, and made out a ticket. Zipser dug into his pocket for the money. “Is there anything else?” Now was the moment he had been waiting for. The open invitation. That “anything else” of the barber had covered only too literally a multitude of sins. In Zipser’s case it was hopelessly inadequate not to say misleading.
“I’ll have five packets of Durex,” Zipser said with a strangled bellow.
“Afraid we can’t help you,” said the man. “Landlord’s a Catholic. It’s in the lease we’re not allowed to stock them.”
Zipser paid and went out into the street, cursing himself for not having looked in the window to see if there were any contraceptives on display. He walked into Rose Crescent and stared into a chemist’s shop but the place was full of women. He tried three more shops only to find that they were all either full of housewives or that the shop assistants were young females. Finally he went into a barber’s shop in Sidney Street where the window display was sufficiently broad-minded.
Two chairs were occupied and Zipser stood uncertainly just inside the door waiting for the barber to attend to him. As he stood there the door behind him opened and someone came in. Zipser stepped to one side and found himself looking into the face of Mr Turton, his supervisor.
“Ah, Zipser, getting your hair cut?” It seemed an unnecessarily inquisitive remark to Zipser. He felt inclined to tell the wretched man to mind his own business. Instead he nodded dumbly and sat down.
“Next one,” said the barber. Zipser feigned politeness.
“Won’t you…?” he said to Mr Turton.
“Your need is greater than mine, my dear fellow,” the supervisor said and sat down and picked up a copy of Titbits. For the second time that morning Zipser found himself in a barber’s chair.
“Any particular way?” the barber asked.
“Just a trim,” said Zipser.
The barber bellied the sheet out over his knees and tucked it into his collar.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, sir,” he said, “but I’d say you’d already had your hair cut this morning.”
Zipser, staring into the mirror, saw Mr Turton look up and his own face turn bright red.
“Certainly not,” he muttered. “What on earth makes you think that?” It was not a wise remark and Zipser regretted it before he had finished mumbling.
“Well, for one thing,” the barber went on, responding to this challenge to his powers of observation, “you’ve still got powder on your neck.” Zipser said shortly that he’d had a bath and used talcum powder.
“Oh quite,” said the barber sarcastically, “and I suppose all these clipper shavings…”
“Listen,” said Zipser conscious that Mr Turton had still not turned back to Titbits and was listening with interest, “if you don’t want to cut my hair…” The buzz of the clippers interrupted his protest. Zipser stared angrily at his reflection in the mirror and wondered why he was being dogged by embarrassing situations. Mr Turton was eyeing the back of his head with a new interest.
“I mean,” said the barber putting his clippers away, “some people like having their hair cut.” He winked at Mr Turton and in the mirror Zipser saw that wink. The scissors clicked round his ears and Zipser shut his eyes to escape the reproach he saw in them in the mirror. Everything he did now seemed tinged with catastrophe. Why in God’s name should he fall in love with an enormous bedder? Why couldn’t he just get on with his work, read in the library, write his thesis and go to meetings of CUNA?
“Had a customer once,” continued the barber remorselessly, “who used to have his hair cut three times a week. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Regular as clockwork. I asked him once, when he’d been commg for a couple of years mind you, I said to him, ‘Tell me, Mr Hattersley, why do you come and have your hair cut so often?’ Know what he said? Said it was the one place he could think. Said he got all his best ideas in the barber’s chair. Weird when you think about it. Here I stand all day clipping and cutting and right in front of me, under my hand you might say, there’s all those thoughts going on unbeknown to me. I mean I must have cut the hair on over a hundred thousand heads in my time. I’ve been cutting hair for twenty-five years now and that’s a lot of customers. Stands to reason some of them must have been having some pretty peculiar thoughts at the time. Murderers and sex maniacs I daresay. I mean there would be, wouldn’t there in all that number? Stands to reason.”
Zipser shrank in the chair. Mr Turton had lost all interest in Titbits now.
“Interesting theory,” he said encouragingly. “I suppose statistically you’re right. I’ve never thought of it that way before.”
Zipser said it took all sorts to make a world. It seemed the sort of trite remark the occasion demanded. By the time the barber had finished, he had given up all thought of asking for contraceptives. He paid the thirty pence and staggered out of the shop. Mr Turton smiled and took his place in the chair.
It was almost lunchtime.
Chapter 7
“I think we can dispense with formalities,” the Master said sitting forward in his chair and looking down the long mahogany table. On his left the Bursar fiddled with his pen while on his right the Chaplain, accorded this position by virtue of his deafness, nodded his agreement. Down the long table the faces of the Council reflected their displeasure at this sudden meeting.