Page No S15

WAITING FOR HAZEL

The first thing I notice when I come into the shop is that Hazel isn’t there. The little fat lad with the sallow skin, who looks like a pizza delivery boy who has eaten all his deliveries, is snipping away as usual. There are only two old men waiting, which is odd. Mondays are always crowded but this Monday morning Joe Connolly’s is more like the Garston morgue than a barber’s shop. Maybe that’s why the two pensioners are there.

Hazel is probably on her coffee break, I say to myself as I sit down to wait. I don’t know why I say it because Joe’s lads never go off for a coffee break, but balance a mug of tea on the side of the sink while they are working, and when it is hot you watch yourself gradually disappear as the steam climbs up the mirror. But I sit in the corner that normally gives me a good view of Hazel’s best side and the curve of her short white tunic as it stands out against the dark grey of the gasometer on the other side of the road.

There’s nothing sensual about the shape of a gasometer. The only magazine is a copy of Car Mechanics, already greased, so I read all the notices pinned to the mock oak panelling. There’s an invitation on the far wall;

‘Treat yourself to the ultimate in mens shaving with Hot Towels!!’

The apostrophe has gone missing, but they’d nick anything in Garston. And the towels are probably blunt. Opposite the door, making you think you’ve come to the wrong place, is a square of cardboard with the words;

‘Treat your feet. Toe nails trimmed. Invigorating foot massage. Children welcome.’

Perhaps little lads are sent to get their feet cut – "Me Mam says they’re too big."

The man sitting nearest to me looks out of place because he’s had a shave and is wearing a blue suit with a collar and tie. He has a moustache like William Powell’s in The Thin Man, except that it has gone all grey and he looks nothing like William Powell. You’ve got to be careful of men with moustaches. A few of them are ex-service men who wear their moustaches like medals, but most of them are superannuated peacocks. I move over next to him and ask him if Hazel is working this morning. I have to ask him twice because he is a bit deaf. He licks the middle finger of his right hand and smooths out his moustache;

"She’s supposed to be, but she’s not in yet. Me laddo here doesn’t know what’s happened to her. I’m going to hang on a bit longer."

"Do you always have Hazel?"

"Always. Every third Monday, regular as clockwork. Apart from anything else, we’ve got a lot in common. You know she was an airhostess? Well, I was in the Air Force during the war. Volunteered for air crew as a matter of fact."

"Fighter pilot?"

"No. Dodgy eyes. I was in the RAF Regiment."

"Officer?"

"No. Cook."

I suppose Hazel used to serve meals from those big grey trolleys, so I can see the connection. He leans towards me with a confidential whisper;

"Do you know that Hazel was the first woman ever to trim my moustache?"

"Wow."

"How? With scissors"

"I said wow!"

"Oh. You know what she said to me when I told her she was the first? She said ‘I won’t tell anyone if you don’t’."

"They say that the first time is always the best."

"I can feel her stroking it now. It’s starting to bristle again."

"Steady on. If she came in now you mightn’t be able to restrain yourself "

"I’ll put some bromide in my cocoa when I get home - which reminds me – pensions at the Post Office, 1100 hours. Mustn’t miss parade. Dawn patrol tomorrow. Recce for the missing Hazel."

He stands to attention and I can see that his shoes are polished.

"Is that the first time you’ve met Bomber Harris? Bloody poser. Even puts Brylcreem on his moustache."

The man in the other corner nods towards the departing figure.

"Always going on about his war service. The only time he ever went into action was in Reece’s ballroom on a Saturday night and he thinks Padgate was a foreign posting. He’s a right pain. No wonder his wife left him."

"Is that why he’s sniffing after Hazel?"

"Aren’t we all? Why do you think I’m still here? It would beat winning the lottery. Blonde, pneumatic, BA pension, and think of the air miles she must have saved. And I’ll tell you something else. She’s class. I saw her coming out of Sainsbury’s. None of your Aldi rubbish. I’d swop me old woman for her any day. And I’d throw in the cat as a bonus."

There is something vaguely familiar about his face under the flat cap and then I see a great big khaki groundsheet of a coat hanging on the peg. I interrupt his fantasies.

"I think I met you last time I was in here, but you look different somehow. I can’t quite put my finger on it."

"Is it the teeth? I’ve just got them back."

"Of course. They alter the shape of your face. They make your mouth look…fuller. I recognised the coat."

"Oh. That was me working coat. You needed big pockets at work."

"What work was that?"

"Docker. I’m retired now. Been a docker all me life. Worked on the New Zealand boats, mainly. They used to call our gang The Good Shepherds because we took home a little lamb every night."

The phone starts to ring and the pizza boy leaves his customer with soap on his face in the middle of an ultimate, and goes through to the back room to answer it and have a quick drag at the same time. He doesn’t like choosey customers so there is a nasty edge to his voice when he comes back;

"Those of youse who’s waitin’ for Hazel is wastin’your time. She’s not comin’ in today. Her Andrea’s got the measles."

"Holy shite," says the shepherd. "There’s a turn up for the book. There’s more to that woman than meets the eye."

I remind him that the bit that does meet the eye is pretty spectacular but he goes chunnering on;

"I was working me magic on her, the old sex appeal. Me mate’s got a hotel in New Brighton. All it needed was one phone call. Quick weekend, candlelit dinner, bottle of Lambrusco, and breakfast in bed. The winter heating allowance would have covered the lot with a bit left over. What have I got to look forward to now? ‘Waiter, bring me some beans and fish fingers for spotty bloody Andrea?’ I’m gutted."

We ignore the pizza boy and leave together and stand for a minute at the corner of Gasworks Road. The way he’s going on you’d think Hazel had been unfaithful. I don’t pay much attention. For my part, I’m thinking how little we really know about other people.

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