JG's Pages for Poets  ( and the occasional prose)

Page No S14

Another short short story from the pen of BILL MELROSE

WHICH WAY IS MECCA?

Monday morning is always busy at Joe Connolly’s because the pensioners think it will be quiet.  The kids are at school and the workers are back at the coalface.  So the senior citizens come in droves to get their short back and sides for £2.50 and every Monday morning Joe’s barbershop is packed.  He’s never got round to an appointment system.  He says appointments are for women with nothing to do all day and for wimps who wear gold necklaces and have their hair cut by young men called Trevor.  Instead, Joe’s only concession is a notice pinned to the mock oak hardboard panelling;

‘Feel free to wait for the barber of your choice.’

I am sitting there waiting for Hazel, who is blonde and cleavaged, and part of Joe’s marketing strategy to increase turnover.  She used to be an airhostess and she looks as if she is wearing one of those inflatable life jackets under the short white tunic.  The trouble is that everyone else is waiting for her as well.  It’s not that she is much cop at the actual cutting, but when she bends over you the sweet bird of youth has another little flutter.

It’s all a bit boring, this waiting.  The breasts in yesterday’s Sun are sagging, so I look round the salon to see if there is anything interesting.  There is an old wooden plaque on the far wall, or perhaps it’s a dental plaque because it says;

‘Painless Tooth extraction.  Tuppence.’  

I give the man sitting in the next seat a nudge and point it out to him.  He gives a wide

grin and I can’t help asking him if it really was as painless as the advert claims.  He looks a bit odd, this man in the next chair, judging by what I can see of him, which is not a lot.  Just gums under a flat cap and scuffed toecaps nestling in the hair on the lino.  In between is a vast bolt of army surplus khaki.  It reminds me of Dulux, the  one coat that covers everything.       

“Are you waiting for Hazel?” I ask him.

He takes off his cap at the mention of her name and combs his straggling wisps with his index and middle finger.

            “Wouldn’t go to anyone else,” he says.  “The scent alone is worth the price of a haircut.  It smells dead expensive.  Someone said it was Channel 5.”

            “That certainly smells.”

            “Do you think she’s married?”

            “I don’t know.  I haven’t asked.”

            “I fancy her, meself.  I could always trade in the one I’ve got at home.  Mind you, I don’t think I’d get much for that one - maybe a balloon, or a goldfish in a bowl if I’m lucky.

Hazel floats the sheet over me and ties it at the back of my neck.  The toothless one told me that the nylon is impregnated with Viagra.

            “The man that’s just left, the one with the bespoke greatcoat from the Army and Navy Stores – he fancies you.  He asked me if you were married”

            “I know.  He wanted me to go and stay with him.  He said he had a time-share in Toxteth.  And to think that I’ve had pilots offering to take me to Copacabana for the weekend.”

            “Have you been?”

            “To Toxteth?”

            “No, to the beach at Copacabana.”

            “That would be telling.”

She moves my head over to the side with her left hand and I don’t see a ring there.  That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been one.  It’s a long trip from cocktails in Rio to scissors in Garston.  Perhaps she’s had some stops along the way.

            “Is there a man in your life?”

As I am speaking I know that it’s cheeky and I shouldn’t be asking, but I can’t help feeling that there’s a story behind those blue eyes.

“They cause too much trouble,”

“I’m sure you can handle it.”

“Usually.”

“That means sometimes you can’t.”

“It means that I have no problem with inquisitive or love-sick pensioners.  Muslims at 30,000 feet can be a bit of a pain.”

“And no doubt you’re going to tell me about these followers of Islam.”

“One follower.  You’re not a Muslim, are you?”

“Next best thing.  John Knox Presbyterian.”

“Anyway, I was working on the Sidney–Heathrow long haul and this Middle Eastern gentleman boarded the 757 at Singapore.  The plane was absolutely packed.  We’d hardly got airborne when he started to complain about not having enough floor space.”

“I thought you had to put hand luggage in the overhead compartment.”

            “It was for himself.  He wanted room to touch his forehead on the floor at prayer time.  And he wanted me to keep an eye on his shoes. Then, when I was taking round the drinks trolley, he made me go and ask the pilot where the Ka’Ba was in relation to the plane.”

            “The Ka’Ba?”

            “The holy place in Mecca that you have to face during prayer.”

            “And did the pilot know?”

            “He thought I said Casbah and suggested looking at the port wingtip.  It seemed to work.”

            “So everyone was happy?”

            “Not on your life.  I handed him his hot meal and he said is it Halal and I said that as far as I knew it was chicken.  That seemed to satisfy him but then he asked if it was Zabihah and I said that I had already told him it was chicken and why didn’t he listen instead of moaning all the time.”

            “Now then.  Temper.”

            “Well, you’d think he was the only one on the plane.  He made me take the meal back to the galley.  Luckily, the purser knew what he was on about.  Halal and Zabihah are the same as Kosher, if you see what I mean, so we told him that it was a thoroughbred Mohammedan chicken and that its mother’s name was Fatima.”

            “And did that satisfy him?”

            “No way.  When I put the tray back on his lap, he said that I should know that only a man is allowed to serve Zabihah slaughtered Halal, to another man.”

            “So you thought about slaughtering him?”

            “I was very calm.  I told him slowly and distinctly that he’d be far less trouble if he just high-jacked the bloody plane and be done with it’.”

Hazel angles the mirror at the back of my neck and asks if she has taken enough off.

            “That’s fine,” I say.  I’ve always liked the basin cut.”  

There are no rings at all on either hand.  I think that’s a bit odd. 

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