Low life | 6 September 2018

I’d missed the train, and the next was due in 45 minutes, so I popped into the nearby salon for a haircut, two months since the last one. Half Price Monday for Students, it said on a board outside. Inside, three women attended to three female heads in a spacious salon with the doors and windows flung open to the warm air and the view of the long-stay car park. I was directed to a chair, and presently a woman came bounding through a door, exuberantly, like a chat-show host bounding down the studio steps to wild applause. She was slim and tanned with strong-looking legs, aged about 50. ‘And how are you today?’ she yelled, as if I were deaf as well as old. Gawd help me, I thought. Here, clearly, was the loudest, chattiest and most socially confident woman on the firm. And I guessed that I was about to be expertly questioned and that my foolish inconsistencies were about to be exposed to everyone within earshot, including the ticket collector over at the station.

‘Are you local?’ she began, undeterred by my downcast statement that I mustn’t grumble. I told her I lived in France but had come to Exeter for the day to see an accountant. And did I travel here every year to see my accountant? No, I said. I was up shit creek without a paddle and it had been an exploratory first interview to see if he would consider taking on the role of the paddle. And what did I do for a living? I am a student, I said.