Hostage drama at the village hairdresser

‘Then I got taken hostage in Iran,’ said the lady sitting next to me in the hairdresser’s as she was having her hair crimped.

‘Really?’ said the hairdresser, who had the flat irons on her hair and was making her look like an 1980s pop star. ‘And how was that?’

He was obviously stuck in hairdresser mode, and having not heard what she had said, perhaps, was ploughing on regardless, assuming the chatter was about her holiday.

‘I’m sorry, what do you mean?’ said the lady who had been admiring herself in the mirror as he worked and now turned her head a little to look round at this carefree, handsome man in his mid-forties who was crimping her.

The hairdresser must then have rerun the tape in his head and realised what she had said, and what he had said in reply. ‘Er, I mean, was that a good hostage experience or…?’

‘A good hostage experience?’ said the woman, incredulous. Crikey, I thought, for I was sat right next to her in this tiny salon in a quaint Surrey village, which was really quite cosy and cheerful on a dark evening, or it had been up until now.

I was waiting for my long, tangled hair to be cut and tamed, and was watching fascinated as the stylist gave this other customer’s hair more body by crimping only the underneath layers, in fact.

It was intriguing, but not half so intriguing as the story she was telling him about her life and times, in a very loud voice, seemingly happy for me to hear. I was trying to read Hello!, but this was better by far. I was taking it all in, but I don’t think the hairdresser was.