Prospect House

I wasn’t the only one in need of a decent haircut!

WHEN I first started work at Prospect House, two years back, I asked Eric, one of the two senior partners, if he knew of a decent barber.

“Not much point asking me,” he said with a chuckle, running his hand across his bald pate.

“What about Alma?” Beryl butted in. “You know, the client with the two Lhasa Apsos. She owns that barber’s in Westcott. Sweeney Todd’s, I think it’s called.”

“Careful if you do try her, Paul,” Eric warned. “Sweeney Todd’s got nothing on her. She’s as mad as a hatter.”

“Well, I’ve heard she does a good cut,” Beryl said.

Eric wagged a finger at me.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

If any warning signs were needed, then the two barber’s poles, one each side of the plate glass entrance, spelt them out: their bandages of red and white were suggestive of a blood bath to be experienced within.

I stepped inside. Kneeling over a tray laid on a low glass table was a woman in her forties.

Black T-shirt and black jeans clothed a heavy builder’s body. Greasy blonde hair fell to her shoulders and her fringed eyes were encrusted with black mascara.

She saw me looking at the tray and got to her feet.

“Just sorting through my gear,” she explained.

The gear in question seemed to consist of some steel-toothed thinning scissors, a pair of electric clippers, two combs and a brush. All items were enmeshed in a tangled weave of grey, brown, black and blonde strands of hair.

“It’s a cut you want,” Alma said, guiding me to the black barber’s chair. “It’s quiet,” she added as I hunkered down. “But there were quite a few in earlier.”

I gulped. The evidence was everywhere. Clumps of hair encircled the chair, and a flurry of short clippings flew into the air when Alma shook out a black cotton cover and knotted it round my throat before slipping a rubber bib under my chin.

I wondered where she had stored the scalps as she started to tackle mine.

I did survive that session, and it gave me the courage to return on a regular basis. In doing so I eventually met two of her other regulars – her Lhasa Apsos, Su Li and one of her sons, Ming.

“My lazy Apsos,” Alma would exclaim, referring to the fact that the two dogs, whenever present, would commandeer the large sofa that stretched along the back of the salon, leaving any waiting client squashed at one end.

They should have been a smart-looking pair, had it not been for Alma’s constant tinkering with her scissors.

She might have had the skills to style a man’s hair, but in the case of Su Li and Ming, her skills sadly fell short, leaving them looking like a day’s worth of barbering that had been swept into two piles.

Visits to her salon were fun more than fearful. There was the occasion when I found her pounding along a portable running track while watching a Jane Fonda DVD.

“Trying to get fit.” She gasped. “Doing a sponsored dog walk this Sunday.”

I looked across to the sofa where Su Li and Ming were stretched out asleep and snoring. I wondered if she’d try getting them on the machine.

“Do you want a go?” she asked, stumbling off.

I shook my head. “Just a haircut, thanks.” Inevitably there were times when Alma sought veterinary advice from me. I’d be tied down in her chair with no escape from the scissors waving in my face as she asked about worming, vaccinations or the fleas she’d found on Su Li.

I once found her rummaging through a huge pile of toenail cutters – ten or twelve pairs.

“It’s a new venture,” she explained. “Chiropody. I’ve got three nursing homes on my books already. Talking of which, Su Li’s nails are getting long. Any chance of you trimming them before I do your hair?”

Her scissors were snipping away at top speed one afternoon, when she asked, “Do you think I should have Ming neutered?”

At that precise moment, Ming was under my cotton cover, clutching my leg in an amorous embrace.

I shook my leg free and nodded. It was definitely snip, snip time for him. And on this occasion, I’d be the one holding the scissors.

More next week.