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Nick Pearson

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Loyalty

I’ve always looked after the girls’ hair,
washed it, taken them to salons for a cut.
Now they’re older they come along with me,
to Gina’s, on a corner next to a postbox.

She used to work a chair on a trendy high
street let, but now she has her own place,
on a corner in suburbia, with shop-front
windows running with moisture and net.

The atmosphere’s not the same, more
lotion smells and knackered shower heads,
but I followed, I came. And indie meant
lower prices, too - five quid for a number

three up the back and a quick rub with
pink shampoo. And at first this bargain
loyalty caused me to ask myself whether
I fancied Gina with her styling ways.

She was the only twentysomething who’d
ever paid my hair such sure compliments.
She goes at it so deftly with clippers
and scissors, starting at all sorts

of angles but ending always with a neat
sharp look. She knows how I fuss about mess,
cleaning out my collar with a bristle brush
before fetching my coat from the hook.

Now my daughters come as well we have
to take our turns. They frown and grimace
through the wall mirrors as Gina gives
me the works first, then cower on piles

of towels as she sculpts their fringes
into a helmet head. I still say call it six
when she asks for a fiver, but the girls say
I should give them the extra quid instead.

 

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