“It will not be long, sir,” in a way which sounded like “Eet weel not be long, sair,” and went on snipping, then stood back and admired his handiwork on a head of greying hair as if looking for the slightest blemish in the cutting. The barbers worked as if their very lives depended on it, scissors snipped and clicked and gnashed, hair fell gently to the rubber-covered floor, a man in a corner bent over a basin and a short, plump barber began to give him a shampoo.
All was normal.
On the other side of the double-fronted shop, divided three-quarters of the depth of the shop by a wooden partition, was the ladies’ salmon. There were several cubicles, much whispering, much mystery, a kind of abracadabra of the coiffeur’s craft. The several women, out of his sight, undoubtedly looked like space men.
Outside, people strolled or hurried. Inside, Jim closed his eyes, and hoped that it wouldn’t be too long, then opened them again as the man next to him dropped a magazine on the table, and went to a newly vacated chair.
“Only one more,” Jim mused, and picked up the magazine. It was small and printed on cheap paper, and the title read:
HAIR STYLIST
He turned over the pages and saw quarter-page pictures of women’s hair, rather like some likely to be found in the glossy magazines, but nothing like so effective because these were printed in black and red and on newsprint. Beneath each was the descriptive style, beneath that in turn the hairdresser who had dressed the hair of the model whose picture was shown.