Beaky's Blather

Bag for Life

‘Oh it was beautiful; expensive of course, but you get what you pay for, don’t you think?’ The stout woman glanced at her stylist in the mirror. The younger woman lifted a scoop of hair, tipping her head gently to one side as she acknowledged her client through the mirror.

‘Yes, expensive is what I needed,’ the stout woman continued ‘… get the experience I needed. I Had, for two weeks… sheer luxury….pampered’. She nodded, affirming her own opinion.  ‘It’s what you’ve got to do…. pay enough. It’s never cheap….is it?  Doubt crossed her face briefly.  ‘Have you been…?’ she asked into the mirror. The stylist smiled awkwardly.

‘No.…oh  no. Not yet. She waved a thought aside. No… will do …soon, when…

‘That’s good….splash out. You deserve it I bet…. working here, she glanced in the mirror taking in the length of the salon, reception desk behind her and beyond, four chairs, four clients, four stylists, four holiday conversations. 

The stylist zoned out. She hadn’t had a holiday for three years. Not since her marriage collapsed. Two trips home to stay with her mother, but that wasn’t a holiday, not really; just loneliness in a different place. She picked up the heavy hairbrush, felt its weight. Solid. She hefted it in her hand and dragged it though her client’s hair, slowly drawing out the length of a dyed tress.

Across the road, a woman in a stained, coat looked across the roof of a car towards the salon window. She clutched a hard handle inside her pocket. Would she do it?  or would she lose the courage that had carried her here? She stared over the road into the salon window at a woman in a high-backed chair. Behind her, a hairdresser lifted her hair. They enjoyed themselves, she was sure. Talking, smiling, their lives were good,  unlike hers; it was rubbish, she knew. She had nothing, only a hunger, a craving. She felt only compulsion; she was mad with need. 

Taking the diagonal, she crossed the road, thin body curled inwards. She aimed for the salon door and clutched tightly the handle inside her coat. Barging the door open, two steps led her to the reception desk. She pushed a Tesco bag-for-life onto the counter and dragged the knife from her coat. 

‘Put the money in the bag,’ she croaked, evoking an air of menace.’ Put all the fucking money in the bag!’ She slapped the bag down again onto the counter. 

Behind her, the stout woman levered herself around in the chair, stretching her heavy chin, as she sought to identify who was shouting behind her.

‘Who is that shouting?’ she demanded.

Standing behind the chair, the stylist raised her heavy hairbrush to avoid her client’s face. The desperate woman at the counter, struck out instinctively, as she sheltered her head beneath the raised arm.  The hairbrush clattered to the floor and spun across the salon floor as the knife found a gap between the stylist’s seventh and eighth rib. It slipped through soft offal.  With a sound like a released party balloon, the stylist’s lungs emptied through the hole pierced in her side and she sank to her knees, as her blood streamed from the knifes handle onto the floor and into the bag for life.