Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [98]
The barber’s hut appeared to be empty. Joey paused in the doorway, and from behind the open doors of a cupboard, a voice called out questioningly.
‘Yes?’
‘I wanted a haircut, but I guess Shiro’s not around—’
‘I’ll do it.’
She came round the cupboard. Tiny, her black hair cut sharp and glossy as lacquer. Cool, unsmiling, she gestured Joey to a chair, swiftly tucked a towel around his shoulders, picked up comb and scissors and began snipping fast.
Joey was disconcerted: she could at least have asked him what sort of cut he wanted. He listened to the scissors snapping at his hair like the jaws of a hungry predator. Perhaps she was shy; perhaps he should take the initiative.
‘So, were you a hairdresser, before?’
She paused, regarding him in the mirror.
‘Do you always categorise people in this way?’
A voice as cool as her gaze. The delivery north California. Good at giving orders, he guessed.
‘Listen, I was just making conversation . . .’ Joey felt guilty. She had a right to be irritated, to resent him pushing her into the wrong pigeonhole. To keep things more general he wondered aloud if she had been at the movie show the night before.
She said, sharply, ‘I don’t like black and white movies.’ Snip.
Joey said, incredulous, ‘You mean you don’t like any black and white movies? But that’s most movies.’
‘Black and white movies are slow.’
‘Slow?’
‘Colour is more interesting.’ Snip.
He twisted round to confront her: ‘You don’t think Citizen Kane is interesting?’
She had not seen Citizen Kane. Snip, snip.
Her skin was milk-white, eyes dark as prunes. He wondered why he was thinking of her like some kind of food display. Watching her pale hands hover around his head, steel blades flashing, he was about to ask if she had seen Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, at least it was in colour, but she might think he was treating her as a kid. Fatal error. Hard to assess her shape beneath the dark shirtwaister, but he saw she was slender, with narrow hips and long, graceful arms.
‘Okay,’ Joey said cautiously. ‘What about The Maltese Falcon? It’s black and white but it’s also a fantastic movie.’
She suddenly became furious: it was a ridiculous movie; the plot didn’t make sense and she couldn’t understand the ending.
‘True,’ Joey said, ‘the ending is a problem, but on the other hand it does have the greatest last line of any movie I’ve ever seen.’
Snip! She whipped the towel off his shoulders. ‘You’re done.’
Caught up in his defence of favourite movies Joey had neglected to check progress in the mirror. Only now did he register the full extent of the cut: his head shorn almost to the scalp.
‘Wow. That. Is. short.’
‘Yeah.’
She added crisply, ‘Actually, I preferred it longer.’
‘So why?’
‘Well if you decide to volunteer, you won’t be given such a hard time, without those cute curls.’
‘Only a mug would volunteer. Why would I do that?’
‘Sure. Smart-ass like you, why would you?’
Joey stared at her, baffled: why was he arousing this hostility? He stood up and asked what he owed her.
‘It’s on the house.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I feel like it. By the way, that’s where Shiro is. He volunteered. A mug, right?’
She began sweeping up the floorboards. As he reached the door she said, without looking up, ‘You have perfect hair.’
‘What, the cute blond curls you’re sweeping up?’
‘Hair grows back.’
Joey said, struggling against a wave of irritability, ‘I don’t know your name.’
‘I know yours.’ She closed the door.
44
That first evening in the army canteen, Charles had talked on, whipping up a blizzard of words just to hold Nancy’s attention. If she moved on, he was lost; he knew that, so he kept the phrases spinning. Until the patter ran out and he found himself left with the only words he actually needed – ‘Have dinner with me?’
She took a closer look at him: the oval face no longer anonymous, the brown eyes bright with amusement, the long mouth unexpectedly sensuous.
He was older than her, late forties probably, and she thought of him as old England; relaxed charm, old-fashioned manners. It was with considerable surprise