Greybeard

“I used to be a hairdresser, back before the Accident and until that blinking Coalition government closed my shop. Seems years ago now — but then so it is — long years, I mean. I was trained up in my trade by my Dad, who had the shop before me; and I always used to say when we first heard about this radiation scare that as long as there were people around they’d still want their hair cut — as long as it didn’t all fall out, naturally. I still do a bit of cutting for the other travelling men. There are those that still care for their appearance, I’m glad to say.”

Greybeard did not speak. He recognized a man in the grip of reminiscence; Potsluck had lost some of his semi-rustic way of speech; with a genteel phrase like “those that still care for their appearance”, he revealed how he had slipped back half a century to that vanished world of toilet perquisites, hair creams, before- and after-shave lotions, and the disguising of odours and blemishes.

“I remember once, when I was a very young man, having to go round to a private house — I can picture the place now, though I daresay it has fallen down long since. It was very dark going up the stairs, and I had to take the young lady’s arm. Yes, that’s right, and I went there after the shop had shut, I remember. My old Dad sent me; I can’t have been more than seventeen, if that.

“And there was this dead gentleman laid out upstairs in his coffin, in the bedroom. Very calm and prosperous he looked. He’d been a good customer, too, in his lifetime. His wife insisted that his hair was cut before the funeral. He was always a very tidy gentleman, she told me. I spoke to her downstairs afterwards — a thin lady with ear-rings. She gave me five shilllings. No, I don’t remember — perhaps it was ten shillings. Anyhow, sir, it was a generous sum in those days — before all this dreadful business.

“So I cut the dead gentleman’s hair. You know how the hair and the finger-nails keep on growing on a man after death, and his had got rather straggly. Only a trim it needed really, but I cut it as reverently as I could. I was a churchgoer in those days, believe it or not. And this young lady that showed me upstairs, she had to hold his head up under the neck so that I could get at it with my scissors; and in the middle of it she got the giggles and dropped the dead gentleman. She said she wanted me to give her a kiss. I was a bit shocked at the time, seeing that the gentleman was her father… I don’t know why I should be telling you this. Memory’s a rare funny thing. I suppose if I’d had any sense in those days, I’d have screwed the silly little hussy on the spot, but I wasn’t too familiar with life then — never mind death! Have another drink on me?”

“Thanks, I may come back later,” Greybeard said. “I want to have a look round at the fair now. Do you know of anyone called Bunny Jingadangelow?”

“Jingadangelow? Yes, I know of him. What do you want with him? Go over the bridge and up the road towards Ensham, and you’ll come to his stall; it’s got the words ‘Eternal Life’ above it. You can’t mistake it. Okay?”

Looking round at the party of singers, Greybeard caught Charley’s eye. Charley rose, and they walked out together, leaving Towin and Becky singing “Any Old Iron” with the wedding party.

“The fellow who’s just got married again is a reindeer breeder,” Charley said. “It seems they’re still the only big mammal unaffected by the radiation. Do you remember how people said they’d never do over here when they were first imported, because the climate was too wet for their coats?”

“It’s too wet for my coat too, Charley… It’s less cold than it was, and by the look of the clouds there’s rain about. What sort of shelter are we going to find ourselves for the night?”

“One of the women back in the bar said we might get lodgings up this way, in the town. We’ll look out. It’s early yet.”

They walked up the road, taking in the bustle at the various pitches. Isaac yipped and snuffled as they passed a cage of foxes, and next to it a run full of weasels. There were also hens for sale, and a woman wrapped in furs tried to sell them powdered reindeer antler as a charm against impotence and ill health. Two rival quacks sold purges and clysters, charms against rheumatism, and nostrums for the cramps of age; the few people who stood listening to them seemed sceptical. Trade was dropping off at this time of evening; people were now after entertainment rather than business, and a juggler drew appreciative crowds. So did a fortune-teller — though that must be a limited art now, Greybeard thought, with all dark strangers turned to grey and no possible patter of tiny feet.

An old bent man was masturbating in a ditch and drunkenly cursing his seed before they came to the next stall. It was little more than a wooden platform. Above it fluttered a banner with the words ETERNAL LIFE on it.