Half-Tooth

Trip to the hairdresser this morning.

Mark and Oliver get their hair cut at the barber in our village, which has a stripy pole outside and makes me feel a bit awkward and out of place when I go in with Oliver, because it feels and smells and sounds like men, deep voices and shaving cream and leather chairs. Lucy and I go to Kendal to get our hair cut, which is the nearest town to us. I like Kendal, it has got some useful big shops like Waterstones, but it has also got a market and a fishmonger and a creaky coffee shop that you can smell as you walk up the road towards it. The hairdresser I like best is in one of the tiny narrow alleys, it is called Berry’s Yard and is flagged with Langdale slates worn smooth and rounded where people have walked on them for ever. The shops are crammed together and sell things like spiced meats and embroidery threads, and the people who have them have got boards outside telling you about anything especially nice or reduced in price.

I was grumpy and out of sorts when I got there, because I had a pair of shoes that I had wanted to take in to the cobbler to be mended, and I had forgotten them, I got into town and realised that they were still sitting patiently in a bag next to the door at home: but there is something lovely and soothing about the hairdresser.  There is the very nice feeling of having your hair soaped and rubbed and combed and smoothed; but also I like the man who cuts mine very much. He is reassuringly middle-aged and married and privately educated and clever, and talks about interesting things and understands that my hair needs cutting so that the ridiculous curl at one side lies flat and doesn’t make me look like an illustration from a Roald Dahl book. I was very pleased to see myself looking neat and tidy again, and then he blow-dried it so that it looked soft and fluffy and shiny, and I felt perfectly radiant and happy for the walk back through the market.

When I got home and reminded Mark to tell me how nice it looked he said it was fine, and there was a letter from Oliver on the doormat. It was an oddly lumpy letter, and when I opened it I discovered it contained one of his teeth. It is not every day you have a bit of your child sent home to you in the post, and it was a bit disconcerting.

The accompanying letter said that it had ‘gon wigl wigl wigl pop’, and he had sent it home so I could look after it for him. Oliver does not believe in the Tooth Fairy. I abandoned this idea with the first two children, when I realised I drink too much to be able to perform this particular function reliably: but if a tooth comes out without holes in it I will give them two quid for it. I have got a box of them. It will be a revolting surprise for them to find when I die. This particular tooth would not have passed Quality Control, as it had long ago fallen victim to small boy misfortune and snapped in half during a bicycle mishap, so there really wasn’t much left of it, but I suppose I shall put it in the box and shell out the two quid anyway if he still remembers when he gets home.

I have gone off to work now, to sit on the taxi rank and leave Mark still faffing about with the log pile. It is still very quiet.

I have got to earn at least enough to pay for half of a second hand tooth.