Sport 29: Spring 2002
Saturday Afternoon
Saturday Afternoon
It's warm and raining and
we're on our way home
after coffee and biscuits with
jammy middles, when we stop
in a dishevelled but happy state
outside Claudio Coiffure.
We've been considering
haircuts and while we're standing
talking, Claudio comes out and says
that we'd better come in,
all of us, so we do, and in no time we're seated
in a row—me and Felix and Greg—with
Claudio, Bruno and Sofia washing our hair.
Bruno asks about Felix, and when I say he has
a fringe, there's uproar—impossible, a fringe
in France—so Felix has the time
of his life, with spikes and gel and Bruno's
earrings, and I'm talking English to Claudio
because he says it's cheaper that way
and Sofia gets so carried away
that she washes Greg's hair twice.
Then the three of us have scalp massages
and Claudio says he'll make my hair
all supple, and as beautiful as his wife's, and Sofia,
she's drying Greg's hair and blowing air down
her front—all the way down to her beautiful, decorated
middle, and we're having such a good time
that we want them all to come and live
with us. But then we're finished and have
to go, so we say ciao, and Claudio gives Felix a
page 14
sports' medal and we go out into the late
afternoon looking much better and a little more
Italian than when we went in. At home
we take photos of our new selves and Felix
hangs his medal on our bed head
and we go to sleep that night in our award-
winning bed and dream Italian dreams and what
our lives in that other country
might have been.