A Certain Chemistry (11 page)

“And suppose Tanya took your ear off?”

“Is that
likely
?”

“Who knows? She could just be tidying up when the bomb explodes . . . gets hit by the blast wave and . . .” Still without turning round she touched her hand to one of her ears and then flung it away to illustrate a pinna being severed by scissors.

“I’ll sign a waiver.”

“Pfft,” spat the owner. “I’ve heard
that
one before.”

“Well . . . er . . . argh . . . Okay! Yes, okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll run to the nearest shop and get a pair of scissors and a couple of mirrors, right? I’ll set up the mirrors, and
I’ll
cut my hair—following your instructions. You can talk me down. Yes? Eh?
Yes?
”

The owner and Tanya just looked at each other and shook their heads. Like I was some kind of fool or something. They weren’t going to budge.

Shit and bee stings—what was I going to do now? I glanced at my watch. Crap. My mind howled as I tried to think of another hairdresser that was close. Where? Where?
Where?
Ha!
There
. It was a good distance, on foot, but I might be able to make it
just
in time for them to salvage my head and get to George’s hotel on time if I really, really ran as fast as I could.

I clawed my way through the small crowd of people who were standing there waiting to see whether they’d be able to return to work or at least get the chance to see it explode. The second I was beyond them I put all my hopes into my legs and sent them haring off across Edinburgh. Bloody
Edinburgh
—why couldn’t they have built the place somewhere flatter? In fact, it’s not just that it’s not flat but that everywhere you go in Edinburgh—there, and back—appears to be uphill; I think the city must have been designed by Escher. I pounded along the pavement, jigging and weaving in between pedestrians who seemed to be going to supererogatory lengths to GET IN MY DAMN WAY.

After about five minutes and what I judged to be between four to six breaths away from the point when I was actually going to cough up my lungs, I collapsed against the door of what I knew was, as far as I was concerned, the Last Chance Salon. I staggered in and half flopped over onto the counter. The startled receptionist stared at me with an expression that said, “Okay, okay, take what’s in the till, just don’t hurt me.”

“Need . . . haircut . . . now . . . desperate . . .”

The receptionist bit her lip.

“I’m afraid we’re fully booked. I could fit you in, um . . . Friday afternoon?”

I looked at her with eyes that would break your heart and animatedly jabbed a finger at my head.

“. . . desperate.”

The door to a small office was open behind her. Turning slightly, so as to face a little more in that direction but not allowing her eyes to leave me for a moment, she called out towards it.

“Mrs. Connelly? Mrs. Connelly? There’s a gentleman here who says he needs a haircut.”

“Des . . .”

“Desperately. He says he needs a haircut . . .”

“Des . . .”

“Desperately.”

A faceless voice called back from the office.

“We can’t fit him in today. Tell him to make an appointment.”

I held out my hands to the receptionist, imploringly.

“He seems to want one
right now,
Mrs. Connelly.”

“Right now?” the voice replied, with an edge of irritation.

“Aye, Mrs. Connelly.
Right now
. I mean . . . he’s even come in wearing his own apron.”

Ah, yes—I’d forgotten about that. Oh well.

There was a pause, the sound of a chair scraping across the floor, and then a woman wearing more makeup than an entire Parisian chorus line appeared in the doorway. She saw me, took a step back into the office, steadied herself for a second, and then walked out and up to the counter.

“I’m sorry, but we’re completely booked up until Friday afternoon.”

I’d regained some of my breath now, so I was able to be a bit more articulate.

“Bollocks to bastard Friday afternoon,” I explained. “I need this repaired
now
.”

Mrs. Connelly stiffened further.

“Well, there’s simply nothing we can do about that. Look, all our seats are full. You don’t expect me to get someone up halfway through their session, do you?”

I used every facial muscle I possessed to indicate that I’d make it financially worth their while if the three of us just grabbed that old woman over there having the rinse and threw her out into the street.

“I’m sorry,” added Mrs. Connelly, with a stern, definite finality.

My lips squirmed. Eventually, struggling out from between them, emerged “You . . .
you
. . . ,” but anger and frustration had brought down a barrier my vocabulary simply couldn’t penetrate. I huffed furiously and slapped my open palm down onto the countertop as hard as I could. A display can of styling foam wobbled, slightly. After a single accusing glance into the eyes of each of them, I marched off back towards the door. I wrenched the handle towards me, then paused in the open doorway, looking back over the entire shop.

“I am
never,
” I announced, holding a hand, Lenin-like, high in the air, “coming here again!” This bombshell didn’t seem, noticeably, to break the spirit of anyone who was looking, but I held the pose for a couple of seconds anyway, just to drive home the point. With that, I grabbed at my plastic apron, flung it up theatrically over one shoulder, and swept out into the street.

Arse.

Arse, piss drips and chips.

I snatched up a sleeve and looked at my watch. My stomach fell into my bottom. I began to trudge, broken, in the general direction of George’s hotel, cursing towards my shuffling feet. But then I looked up once more. And I stopped.

I ran, as fast as I could, across the road into a shop.

“I need a hat.”

“And what kind of hat did you have in mind, sir?” replied the assistant, a middle-aged man with a quite impossibly refined Edinburgh accent.

“Any kind. Any kind of hat.”

“Erm, well, is it for general use, or a formal occasion, or—”

“Look, I’m meeting a woman in . . . oh,
Jesus
. Look—I’m meeting a woman in a hotel in about
two
minutes, and I need a hat.”

“I see . . . sir.”

“Hfff . . . Do you see my hair? I was having a haircut and someone made a bomb threat and I ran like a bugger across town but they haven’t got a free bloody slot until Friday afternoon and I’m meeting someone in
two
minutes and I need a hat. Do you
see
my hair?”

“Yes, of course.” The man nodded. He peered around the shop. “A fedora, perhaps? Classic, stylish, just a touch . . .” He plucked at the air with his thumb and forefinger. “. . . bohemian.”

“Will it cover my ears?”

He looked at one ear, then the other, his eye line dipping noticeably as he took in the point at which my hair ended by each.

“Mmmm . . . maybe one of these?” he said, uncurling his fingers elegantly to direct my attention towards a large bin close to the counter. “I believe they originated as ‘snow’
’boarding’
headwear, but they’ve become quite fashionable with young people generally now.”

I stood, peering down into the bin.

“Warm, of course,” he continued. “Lightweight, highly washable . . . they exclude one’s ears from public view entirely.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-nine pounds ninety-nine pence . . . Or ‘p,’ as I believe we are now required to say.”

“Thirty quid for a woolly hat?”

“Not wool, sir. They are one hundred percent polyester.”

“I . . . oh, yes, whatever . . . I’ll take one.”

“Excellent. The ‘electric orange’ or the ‘shrieking mauve’?”

“Are they the same price?”

“Precisely the same, sir, yes. It’s merely a matter of personal preference.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Well, the orange has an energy—a
vitality
—to it. Perhaps that would be the one most fitting for a meeting with a young lady.”

“It’s . . . look, she’s an actress, I’m an author—that’s all.”

“Ahh—the mauve, then.” He nodded sagely.

I began to scramble around in the bin.

“One size fits all, sir.”

I pulled out one of the fashionable-among-young-people shrieking-mauve snowboarding hats and jammed it onto my head, down over my ears.

“How do I look?” I asked.

“Equally at home on the piste at Davos or strolling along the Royal Mile, sir.”

I feared even the briefest of checks in a mirror: I just paid him the money and left to make a dash for George’s hotel. (Pausing only once along the way: to ram into a bin—with exceptional fury—the hairdresser’s apron.)

“Huh.”

“What?” I asked.

“Oh . . . nothing,” replied George, opening the door wider to invite me inside her room. “Please, come in.”

“Sorry I’m a bit late. There was a bomb scare—it’s affected the traffic.”

“Yes, the Animal Liberation Front. They mentioned it on the radio.”

“Is that who it is?” I said. “The ALF? Sods. I’m going to spend all day tomorrow drop-kicking squirrels into the river.”

It was a posh suite in a posh hotel. You got the feeling you’d stepped into a Victorian drawing room. No, actually, that’s not quite right. How it really felt was as though you’d stepped onto a film set of a Victorian drawing room. Even though I’m sure the writing desk was a genuine antique, it appeared fake—too pristine, too carefully placed. It was a room that was flushed out after each guest left to be fresh and untainted for the next one. Consequently, it had a sterile, unlived-in, and unloved atmosphere.

“Do you want to take off your coat? And hat?”

“I, er, no . . . thanks. I think I’ve got a bit of a chill coming.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah . . .
brrr
.” I hugged myself, rubbing my arms and generally making every effort to reinforce the message. It was about 25 degrees Celsius in the room—George was barefoot and wearing just a T-shirt and cutoff jeans.

She took a step towards me and placed her hand on my forehead. It felt cool on my skin—which is probably why the hairs on the back of my neck prickled as it touched.

“Wow, you’re cooking. I think you might have a fever.”

“Well, I certainly have an erection now . . .”

Yep. That’s what I said. Excellent. I’d like to say that it just came from nowhere, fell out spontaneously after being planted in my head the instant before by aliens or witches. The frightful truth was, however, that it was the result of a long process of inner debate. Maybe not long as measured by the disinterested ticking of a watch but, inside my mind, it felt like a million years had passed while I considered it. George had reached up, in slow motion, and placed her hand on my forehead. It was probably so swift as to be almost a gentle slap, but I felt it as many distinct phases. I felt her fingertips touch, and pause for a moment, before her hand folded out, so her palm lay flat across my head. After it had rested there awhile, I felt it retreat slightly and move across to a slightly different position as she explored the temperature in another area, for comparison. Finally, it lifted gently away. Her fingertips had been the first to arrive and they were the last to leave—they brushed across my skin, moving just slightly down towards the side of my face, before losing contact completely. It was around now that I experienced some stiffening in the groinal region. I looked across at George and was very conscious that just a few dozen inches below our eyes my penis was making a bid for freedom. I dared not glance down to assess the size of the problem—for fear of George’s eyes instinctively following mine—but it certainly felt about the length, and rigidity, of a descant recorder: if I turned around quickly, it’d surely give itself away by sweeping a host of small ornaments from the table. I could try simply ignoring it and carry on as if nothing were amiss—as long as carrying on didn’t involve walking, or sitting, or standing straight. Or I could try to make things less awkward and visible down there. Perhaps shout, “Look at that!” and, while George’s gaze was away from me, have a frantic wrestle to rearrange myself into a more comfortable position. I discarded that idea
right
away—it’s not the kind of operation I’d want her to glance back and discover me halfway through performing.
Or
I could simply exorcise the whole problem by bringing it out into the open. That’s sometimes the best way, isn’t it? If you turn up to an important meeting with a stain on your tie, you can’t ignore it, and trying to hide it will often just make the situation worse. The best option is to say, “Tch! Look, I’ve just got a stain on my tie.” Acknowledge it, show it’s not an issue for you, and everyone can forget about it and move on. So, you can see that I’d thought this one through, carefully, before I opened my mouth and said to Georgina Nye in her hotel room:

“Well, I certainly have an erection now . . .”

Her eyes widened and her face mixed an expression of surprise with one that said, “Oh. Congratulations. I’m pleased for you.”

“Hahaha,” I added, hoping to, well . . . oh, Jesus, I don’t know—whatever alternative there was to her screaming at the top of her voice and hitting me in the face with the telephone receiver,
that’
s the one I was hoping the “hahaha” would edge us towards.

Suddenly her grin appeared.

“Sorry,” I shrugged.

She grinned even more blindingly.

Still our gazes remained fixed, however. I was trying, by keeping my eyes looking right into hers, to
prevent
her glancing below, even for the briefest moment. If I even blinked it might break the connection—it was like trying to stare down a bear. Finally, her face softened and she began to turn around to head over to the sofa. But—
arrgh!
—there it was! Just as she was twisting away, she flicked her eyes down for the tiniest of looks. My shoulders slumped in exhausted defeat. Even worse, immediately after she’d peeked at the situation in my trousers, she gave a little, snorty laugh. Now,
that’
s irony: crippling panic at the idea that she’d view my feral, uncontrollable erection, and the second she
does,
she produces the snorty laugh that was the single thing on earth guaranteed to break its spirit. The instant my ears registered her reaction, my penis fainted; I felt it begin to shrink so rapidly that it’s a wonder it didn’t make a hissing sound.