The Halloween wig I have bought myself at a bargain price is destined for the Grand’s dressing up box. Too scratchy!
Yesterday I woke up to find that the short back and sides that I had a few weeks ago, were attached to my face and not to my head. This wasn’t a migration of rootstock during the night, but a jettisoning of my locks, to reveal a pinker scalp than I imagined. I text Jackie, “hairdresser to the stars and your humble servant.”
“Don’t worry. I’m going to give you a close cut, in fact it will be so close that you are going to look like Audrey Hepburn in her younger days.”
“More like Matt Lucus,” I burbled. An image of myself as a giant bonneted baby came into my mind. I had to shake myself out of it. In shaking myself out of it a bit more hair fell out.
Turning myself into a second rate tribute to Audrey Hepburn in her younger days, took a good hour and then I had to get the hoover out to clean up what was now lying on the floor. On the up side, I won’t need another haircut in six weeks, or even six months, so as things go, that wasn’t bad value for money. “You look amazing,” said Jackie as she waxed what was left of my barnet.
“I look like a man,” I said glibly.
“Are you bloody blind or what?” she said wagging her hairbrush under my nose. “You do not look like a man. You look like Audrey Hepburn in her younger days.”
“Come with me,” she said. Then she frogmarched me to the mantlepiece and told me to take a good look in the big mirror. Jackie, me and one of the A Team, lined up and had a serious go at convincing ourselves. Definitely, Audrey Hepburn in her younger days. Who were we kidding?
I’ve tried it every which way: I’ve taken a selfie. I’ve put on my readers and had a good gaze. The truth of the matter is that I have no real idea of what I look like. I was explaining this to the sister who opened the fridge door and while having a good rummage said, “well you’ve got the same shaped head as Favourite Uncle.”
Thank goodness for girlfriends with cars and twenty-twenty vision, although not necessarily their children. I was once in the car with a girlfriend when her phone rang. She answered the call on speaker. It was her son, who was calling to say he’d just seen her drive past him and wanted to know, “Who was that really really old woman in the car with you?”
“It’s me, Anna,” I bellowed back. The phone went down. I never miss the opportunity to embarrass him whenever I can. His Mother went on an emergency run to the fabric shop in Turnpike Lane yesterday to buy yards of the head gear. Guilt is a wonderful thing.
Whether Audrey Hepburn in her younger days or Matt Lucas, I’ve come to the conclusion its not that important, to know how others see me, or even how I physically see myself. It’s better to know how it feels to be me without hair. I’m alright with it. What’s more there are online instructions for everything and that includes variations on a turban through to how Grace Kelly wore her scarves.
I’m well on my way with the turban theme and optimistic my inner Grace Kelly, is somewhere. Audrey Hepburn may be a push but I bet if I look hard enough Grace is somewhere, but possibly not in the fridge.