Narelle

It's always a risk getting your hair cut abroad. I once had mine cut in a casino in Las Vegas. The hairdresser was smoking a cigarette and wearing a blue gingham tabbard. It was the worst cut of my life.

Jessica couldn't do my hair last night so I booked in with her apprentice, Narelle. Jessica owns the salon, but Narelle is much older and much rougher around the edges. She came over to me and took hold of my hair, looking in the mirror.

"Your temples, I mean, is this a fringe or what? It's neither here nor there. Who cut it?"

"Jessica did"

The sight of her boss, whose ears had pricked up, barely registered with her.

"Nah, it's too heavy, too much bulk. You don't need all this hair". She began cutting at an angle, assuring me it was a new technique. I was too terrified to move.

"I worked in Europe once" she said. "As a holiday rep in Marmaris. They said I was the worst rep they'd ever had".

"What did you do wrong?" I asked, hoping she wasn't going to say she'd given out free haircuts.

"Well I'm Australian, we tell it like it is. The poms would come up whingeing about stuff, you know, broken showers, dodgy light fittings in their apartment, I'd tell them to get over themselves, for God's sake, what did they want me to do about it?".

She kept telling me off for moving my head, yanking it back into place "look, it keeps dropping".

"What does?"

"Your head. Keep it still. Anyway, I got into trouble with a Turkish bloke because I wouldn't recommend his restaurant to the punters. The food was awful. He kept hassling me so I went past on my bike and gave him the bird".

"Gave him the bird?"

"You know, like this". She gestured with her middle finger and made a face. "He came looking for me in a nightclub saying I'd disrespected him so I went to live in Canterbury with an English bloke, but it didn't work out".

"What did you think of the UK?"

"Yeah, it was good, but they didn't understand me. I mean, the language. It was Christmas and I was trying to buy some bon-bons and the bloke in the shop didn't know what I wanted".

"Oh, we just call them sweets".

"No, Christmas crackers. Bon-bons are Christmas crackers and your sweets, we call them lollies in Australia".

"I know what you mean. The bloke in the pharmacy in Randwick didn't know what plasters are"

"Plasters?"

"Band-aids. And why don't you use the word linen?"

"Linen? What's that?"

"Manchester, but I don't know why you call it that. Manchester is a city in England"

"Oh, manchester, tablecloths, dooner covers that sort of stuff?".

"Dooners, yes, but I'd call that a duvet".

She finished my hair by flicking the sides until they were halfway up my head.

"Will this look okay if I straighten it?" I asked. She made another face.

"Sure, whatever. Straighten it if you like. That's $60 thanks". She yanked the velcro gown from around my neck in one, forceful swoop, like a magician removing a table cloth from underneath a china tea set. No brushing the hair away from my neck, no showing me the rear view in a hand-held mirror. No graces whatsoever.

"I'm going woop-woop this weekend, er, what's your name?" she said as we stood at the till. She's right about the language. I didn't dare ask.