Just as you always hope will happen, I knew I had met the man of my dreams almost on sight. I had made a booking the day before. I arrived. Burak was just finishing the previous customer and gestured with a comb towards an armchair. A Turkish coffee was brought. The customer paid and left and I took his place in the chair before the mirror. ‘Now, sir,’ Burak said, with an ingratiating formality not quite his own. ‘What can I…’
But as he was asking about the haircut, the nervous pale English boy at the next station in the barber’s interrupted. ‘Er, Burak,’ he said, tremulously. ‘I wonder, er, would you mind if I borrowed your…’ ‘Nah,’ Burak said, all ingratiation gone in a fierce flash. ‘Nah. Fuck off.’ He turned to me. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘But he is. He’s a fucking thief. Now. What can I do for you?’ And I knew I had met the barber of my dreams.
It’s an odd thing, a man’s relationship with his barber.
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