CONSTANCE AND THE BOUFFANT HEAD

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

Another client for the library...

Erica James (known as Smoochy to her many friends for what, to them, were obvious reasons) needed to know something and didn’t have a computer at work (in a hair salon where she toiled with hair of all types and colour and degrees of cleanliness) in order to use the noble Wikipedia to find it out. Not that she was that sure about computers.

So during a lull in appointments she slipped out and went to the town library where she was confident all her questions would be answered, particularly the one raised by an earlier client on the subject of amnesia. There were confusing computers in the library, and failing them there were dictionaries.

She was quite certain that there was a time when she had known what amnesia means, but the exact definition had slipped from her mind and she needed to check it out. It wasn’t that she considered herself to be ill educated or even unintelligent, though she was possibly the former if not the latter. But occasionally what she considered to be a difficult word stumped her. And amnesia had this time. She thought it might have something to do with electricity, but wasn’t sure, and if it was electric, how could a customer have it? Very confusing. Very, very confusing.

It wasn’t far to Brumpton Borough Library. She didn’t call there often but needed its services this time.

The library was quiet, which pleased her. She didn’t want to take particularly long in her search for erudition even though she had locked her salon so no harm would befall it even if she took the rest of the day in her search for enlightenment. Her clients with appointments, though, might be less forgiving than bricks and mortar.

“Hello Constance,” she called out as she entered, “I’ve not got long.”

“What a pleasure,” responded the librarian, who was never particularly pleased to see the hairdresser because she was fully aware that her own hair never matched up to that lady’s bouffant excess.

“I need a dic,” went on the hairdresser, meaning dictionary but prone to snipping the ends off longer words. “I had a customer with it, and I wasn’t sure what she meant. You see, I’d forgot.”

“You’d forgotten?” asked Constance.

“I’ve got so much on my mind that quite a lot slips away and gets lost,” confessed Erica. “Only last week I was so up to here...” she indicated the crown of her expansive hair… “that I forgot to feed my p***y, and she made my life a misery because of it! They can, you know, cats: they can put you in your place and make you feel really small if you forget to feed them! But then, as you know, there’s more to them than meets the eye.”

Constance didn’t know, but also didn’t feel like admitting to the inadequacy of her feline education. She didn’t particularly like the creatures, but that wasn’t it. It would be like slipping into a conversational nightmare, she was quite sure of that.

“My memory’s not what it was,” continued Erica. “I live such a busy life, you know, what with having to remember all the styles my ladies want these days. And by the look of you I’d say you’re almost ready for a thorough service.”

“I like it like this,” replied Constance hastily, though she didn’t particularly have any fondness for her hair, which never seemed to do what she wanted it to. It was fundamentally uncontrollable and she had long concluded there was no point in worrying about what she could do little about.

“Each to her own,” purred the bouffant one. “Now let me see: what was it I had forgotten? Blow me if I haven’t forgotten that! Let me remember. Susie Bumpstead came in, bless her, and said she wanted a cut like that woman on whatsit on the telly has. But she couldn’t remember what whatsit was! I suggested Midsomer Murders or Eastenders, but she didn’t think so. The poor soul was really quite confused and she said, let me see, what was it she said, that she had… that she had … I can’t put my finger on what it was that she had...”

“It’ll come to you,” suggested Constance. “I know what it’s like to forget the odd thing. It’s the main problem with modern living. There’s so much for us to remember if we’re going to amount to much that our heads just aren’t big enough for half of it!”

“I couldn’t agree more,” nodded Erica, setting her hair wobbling dangerously, “I was only saying to my part-timer the other day that if we get any more heads to snip at she’ll have to consider coming in full time or be replaced by someone who can.”

Constance wasn’t sure what that had to do with the pressures of too much information, but decided to let it go.

“So what can I do for you?” she asked, sweetly.

“My mind’s all of a mess,” chirruped Erica, frowning and trying not to on account of the lines frowning forced into her usually smooth forehead. The last thing she wanted was any sign of increasing age, lines and marks that she usually managed to ease away by the application of excessive make-up and ruch moisturisers. Indeed, many of her older customers, those who had already accepted there was nothing they could do to combat the advancing years, whispered (out of her earshot, obviously) that she might be trying to attain the epidermic perfection of a porcelain doll and it didn’t look natural.

“Maybe it’ll come to you,” sighed Constance. “It’s what things do. You forget things, ordinary things, people’s names, that kind of thing, and the moment you stop trying to remember them they come shooting back into your brain as if they’d never been gone.”

“I know,” sighed Erica, and the door to the library swung open with its familiar squeak. An elderly lady with a smart new haircut waddled through it, and stood just inside the library looking myopically around her.

“Ah, library,” she said, apparently happy at being where she found herself to be.

“Talk of the devil!” laughed Erica, “I was just trying to remember about something you said, Mrs Bumpstead!”

“What? Me?” frowned the newcomer, frowning.

“It was something you said and, I don’t want you to think I’m thick or anything like that, but I couldn’t quite get the drift of what you meant when you said you suffered from something or other, and you must know that in my position I can’t afford to get things wrong or I might upset my customers through my own ignorance.”

“I suffer from something or other?” asked Mrs Bumpstead, frowning and shaking her head.

“Yes,” enthused Erica, “it’s why I’m here! I want to check it up in a dic!”

“Oh, I forget,” sighed the larger newcomer with her nice new hairstyle. “You see, I suffer from amnesia and forget just about everything I ever knew. It’s an age thing.

“That’s it!” yelped Erica, her bouffant hair shaking as if it was intent on giving birth to a tsunami, “that’s the word I wanted to check out! Amnesia!”

“Ah,” smiled Constance, “Amnesia. I can help you there, Erica. It means forgetting things.”

Erica looked at her, her mouth suddenly open in a huge letter “O”.

“Of course it does,” she spluttered, “I’d forgotten, that’s all!”

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© 2018 Peter Rogerson

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Reviews

barleygirl

Good job of telling this story in a way that shows us how scatterbrained your hairdresser character is, which is true-to-life, since my mom had a beauty shop for 50+ years & all the chattering would be enuf to make a person scattered, with too much to absorb & remember! I like the way "amnesia" could apply to the hairdresser, as well as her client, in a sweet twist of irony. My only drawback was the opening paragraph, a long run-on sentence, that was a little more confusing than enticing the reader to jump in to your story. But I understand if being muddled was your intent, as an intro to your central theme here. All in all, perfect storytelling & strong relatable dialogue (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie