It was a Sunday not so long ago. I had gone for my early Sunday morning cycle along the coast, scowling at the crowds who were swarming over the beach, who like me should have had a week or so on foreign shores but couldn’t go. The breeze was light, the sea was bluest blue and the waves were lapping not crashing. Life could always be worse.
Splash point, villa land and round the golf course, as always mocking the helpful sign warning against stray shots from the seventh tee. As if you’d give a monkey’s scrotum where the fatal strike came from as the golf ball made a dent in your skull. I bumped into Julie who I’d been at school with, she’d just been placing flowers on her dad’s grave.
“Did you know they used to call him Ferret?” She asked. He’d been a bit of a character, as people say when they can’t quite bring themselves to do the full character assassination on the recently departed, but no, although I’d heard Nole called many things, Ferret wasn’t one of them.
“It was because, well, you knew him, didn’t you? He was really a crap dad to us and a worse husband to mum, and you know what he was like with the ladies, he used to ferret whatever he wanted out of them. Didn’t he? Your dad wasn’t exactly keen on him, was he? Lots of people weren’t. That’s why they called him Ferret.”
“Ah. Makes sense. I always liked him. Don’t think either of mine did. Still. He’s gone now. Grave nice?”
She told me that they were only putting a little plaque on the plot, less of a target like, but he was in a nice sunny spot. I told her that my last wishes were for a plain quiet cremation, ashes to be carried in a biscuit tin to the bridge and then tipped out as clandestinely as possible over the side into the river at low tide, there to be swept away at the sea’s desire.
“Have you told Juanita?” Julie asked.
“Yes but she said she’ll probably have a bad leg so she’ll just have to flush me bit by bit down the lav. If I married you would you chuck me over the bridge?” She declined with a toothy grin so we briefly broke social distancing measures and went our separate ways.
I had to sort out a few things at the shop so I made my way there, to be greeted by Richie my sometime barber.
“Look at you. What a fucking mess. Come and get a haircut.” he said as he ushered me across the road to his gents only salon and unlocked.
“It’s Sunday Rich. You don’t work Sundays,” I protested as I made myself comfy in the chair, newly upholstered since my last visit in dead classy red leather. “Fuck me, it looks like a bordello in here, where are the dancing girls?” He could only reply “Good innit? Glad you shaved off that beard. It made you look sixty.”
“I am.” I smirked. He smirked. Out came the clippers and my hair began tumbling, my locks flowing floorward. His phone rang, so Rich answered it, turned on the loudspeaker and propped it on the side against a bottle of barbicide gel. It was Julie his woman. Not in the bottle of barbicide gel, on the phone. Not Julie I’d seen earlier either, a different Julie. One who I wouldn’t ask to marry me, however much in jest.
“Richard! You’re cutting hair. You said you wouldn’t cut hair today.”
“I’m not, I’ve just got the lampshade from B&Q and I’m checking the shop” he lied.
“You are cutting hair. Don’t lie!”
“No, darlin’ swear on your life, I’m not cutting hair. I told you…” he lied again.
“I can hear the clippers. You’re cutting hair.” I thought I could improve the general tone of the conversation.
“Hi Julie,” I called as the clippers carried on clippering noisily, “it’s Graham. You know Richie’s not really cutting my hair, I’m showing him my vibrator. It’s a throbber, he loves it,” I smirked.
Richie smirked. Julie squealed. I gasped as the clipper nipped my ear. He always does that. One of them was in for a treat when he got home.
“Oh that’s alright then if it’s only you,” she said and the two of them drifted off into an argument about what shade of brown would be best for a lampshade in a room with cream walls. Fuck. Ing. Hell.
I went home shortly after that and Juanita took twenty minutes to notice that I’d had my hair cut.
“Bridge” I said.
“Toilet” she replied.
Lies and smirks and what a life we find ourselves in. So it goes, really.
Crowworld 