I'm reminded of a Christmas cracker joke: Man to barber, "I'd like a haircut" and barber to man "Certainly sir; which one?"
My hair really had got a bit out of shape and unruly, etcetera, so I asked Alessandro where he has his hair cut and he told me "at Vito's", in such and such street. My two barbers had retired back in January and my hair had deliberately grown faster in the following months. I mounted my bicycle and pedaled to my favourite bar for a lockdown-takeaway cappuccino. A knot of men stood gassing to each other under one of the lime trees; lots of little dogs on leashes walked past; a police car pulled up making a street vendor roll all his wares, mainly face masks, into a bundle and sprint for safety. I stirred my cappuccino in the paper cup and noticed a woman on the bench in front of me smoking one of those electronic cigarettes which seem to produce a lot of smoke, or steam. Monet's trains in his San Lazare station paintings came to mind as I cycled off to Vito's.
I had chained my bike to a lamp post, adjusted my face mask and then knocked on the door; it opened ajar and a woman, using a tone of voice which suggested I might be a moron, informed me that it was a lady's hairdressing salon. Oooops. "Really?" I asked. "Yes" she retorted. Pointing to the barber's shop right next door she said "Go there."
Just my luck to find a hair salon and barber's shop bang next door to each other.
Vito looked like he's been let out of the old people's home for the day, doddering around in a blue overall, but the scissors in his right hand were a giveaway. When he motioned me to sit in the barber's chair I was almost tempted to quip "should I fasten my seatbelt?" but I could see we were going nowhere fast. "Long or short?" he asked and I felt his line of enquiry was a trifle private when I realized my hair was his concern. "Cut it ready for the spring" I ventured hopefully.
Conversation with Vito isn't fluid or easy as he's half, maybe two thirds, deaf. My former barber, Mario, used to tell me smutty jokes as he worked but I was sensing Vito was not of the same school. We touched briefly on football but it's not a game I particularly understand so what he said made little impact on me. "There's a lot of it" he commented and assuming we were still on football I said "Yes, rather too much." He was, however, referring to my hair which had begun to fall like grey rain around us. Forgetting he was hard of hearing I said "you'll be able to stuff a cushion with all of that" but he replied "you know he was a goalkeeper when he started out." We were, as an angry dolphin might say, totally at cross porpoises.
