I Watson - Director's cut

Mr Lawrence tried not to show interest.

“A big chappy,” he went on. “A gorilla, hirsute, but not on his head. That was bald. Didn't want a haircut, thank God. I didn’t know what to say, whether to point it out, that he was bald. I mean, just think, if he hadn’t realized. As it happened he just wanted Paul but I wasn’t to know that. If I’d had a dodgy ticker I could have been in trouble, just seeing him in my shop. There should be a law against big bald bastards walking around in public. Maybe the National Health Service should provide a service, a warning like they do about cholesterol or smoking when you’re pregnant, or maybe they should pay for someone to run five yards in front carrying a sign saying: Big Bald Bastard On The Way.”

He shot hair lotion into Mr Lawrence's eyes and ears and brushed loose hair down his neck. Then he showed him the back of his head. “That it?”

“That's it.”

They trod hair to the till.

“Paul came in here, when was it? Earlier, I don't know. You lose track of time cutting hair. He wanted some hair. First time anyone has come in wanting hair. Wanted black hair, no grey, no brown, no speckled, just black. I didn't bother asking him what he wanted it for. You give up sometimes, don’t you? The world's full of victims.” The barber sighed. “Hair restorer? Comb? Rubbers?”

“At my age?”

“You can fantasize.”

He pointed to the stack of magazines where finger smudges blurred the glossy images. “If you want to hang around for an hour May is good and August quite passable.”

Mr Lawrence hesitated and raised a critical eyebrow.

The barber remembered the recent past and said, “Women! You’re right. And so is the colonel.” At the door he switched open to closed and took his coat from the hook. “Lunch? I'll walk with you.”

“There should be a law against drunken barbers.”

“You’re right. Mind you, having said that, blood-letting was an important role at one stage. Think of Sweeney Todd. That’s what the red and white pole signifies. Not much call for it nowadays, though. There’s enough blood-letting on the street. It’s put barbers out of business.” He turned off the fourteen-inch colour portable. “Paul got that for me on the cheap. Bloody good lad, he is. Wouldn't want him to come to any harm.”

On the cold platform the colonel was in good voice. He had an answer to the yob culture. “What you should do,” he told everyone in all seriousness. “Is bring back the birch. It’s laughable, really, all these so-called experts talking about absent fathers. What total bollocks. What about the soldiers fighting wars for years on end? Our kids didn’t turn out to be hooligans. If they had, by God, they’d have got a bayonet up the arse.”

He had a small audience of half-pint drinkers who were only half-convinced of his seriousness so they only half-humoured him. Some of these half-pint drinkers were strays, they had strayed in from the High Road looking for a little respite. They had not met the colonel before and were beginning to hope they would never meet him again. “One other thing, before you go, and let this be a word of warning from an old soldier. Be careful of apples. The Eighth Army didn’t fight its way through North Africa to let these damned immigrants from Europe pick our apples. Monty would turn in his grave.”

The bargirls ignored him for they had heard it all before, and went about their business bending here and there. That's why Roger kept the bottles on the lower shelves when the top shelves were free. Roger wasn't stupid.

The British was musty, filled with the fumes of wood smoke and old wood and stale beer and the beef curry that was special for lunch. A tiny tributary had broken away from the pool on the bar surface and headed at snail's pace towards the edge. Sid the Nerve leant against the bar and the other customers watched the beer edge towards his back. Albert finished his beer and licked his moustache and concentrated on the stream.

Roger leant back, arms folded, eyes narrowed over his fixed smile. Eventually Nervous Sid said, “Shit!” and, with a shaking hand, tried to wipe his back.

The barber emptied his glass of bitter and said, “You know, Roger, you’re the only boozer in town that hasn’t bothered with Christmas decorations. Just an observation, that’s all.”

The owner remained silent for some time while his face ran through a series of pulls, then he said through gritted teeth, “Well, you can fuck off to one of the others then!”

“I don’t like Christmas decorations,” the barber said quickly as he waved his empty glass at a bargirl. “Reminds me of Christmas.” Roger said, “I’m thinking of renaming The British. Calling it The English instead.”

“Why do that?”

“To make a point that we’re not European, we’re not British, we’re English and proud of it. Saint George is the bollocks. Fuck Saint Patrick and Saint…the other fuckers. I don’t want my kid to grow up a European, not knowing what a pint was. In this boozer the English pound is sacrosanct. None of that Euro shit. We’ve got more in common with the Russians than we have with the French or the Germans.”

“The Boche! The Frogs! Here, here! Fought them for a thousand years so why should we be friends now?” The colonel fingered his medals with knackered fingers that had once caressed the cold trigger of a red-hot sten. My God, how he had enjoyed killing jerry and, after a few gin and tonics, the Nips. Not that he was ever in the Far Eastern theatre, apart from in his dreams. But age and booze had a habit of mixing dreams with reality.

It was the colonel’s turn and Roger turned on him. “You’re an old soldier, we all know that, for Queen and Country, a Desert Rat. Bet you’ve still got your Jerboa shoulder flashes hidden away some place.” “Maybe I have. What of it? I was proud to belong to the Seventh. But the Queen?” She had always presented the serviceman with a dilemma. Think of the kraut connection. Not an easy thing to think about.

Roger said, “Although they are banned from this bar we’ve got enough queens around here. We don’t need another.”

They all looked at the faces in the room to make sure there had been no infiltration and noticed that one or two of the more dodgy customers were slipping quietly to the back.

Roger went on, “I don’t give a monkey’s fuck about the Queen or her fucked-up family but I suppose we should feel sorry for them. It must be a bind to be born knowing that you’d never have to do a day’s graft in your life.”

The colonel seemed embarrassed and looked from left to right and made a conscious effort to force his rigid shoulders – without the flashes – to stand at ease.

Roger was on a roll and continued, “And I want the Muslims to know they’re unwelcome.”

“They already do,” Albert said.

Nervous Sid’s face cracked into a dark question mark. He said, “Don’t get it.”

Roger explained, “Think about it. The Muslims in this country call themselves British, right? Well, if they’re British then I’m a fucking Chinaman. Also, in one hit, I can lose the Scottish, the Irish and the Welsh. Now that isn’t bad.”

Albert looked relieved and said, “I’m English.”

“No you’re not,” Roger said. “You’re a shonk. And when I change the name you’re banned along with everyone else. Never trust a shonk, mate. Turn your back on the fuckers and you’re likely to end up crucified.”

The colonel said, “Jew boys caused us a lot of trouble in Palestine. Fifty years later they’re still causing it.”

“They’re causing it in Westminster too.”

Albert looked saddened and his head began to shake, “An unfortunate appearance I have, a larger nose than most, but a Jew that does not make me.”