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| Bouffée the Vampire Slayer | |
| By Bagheera | ||||||||
| 04 May 2006 | ||||||||
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Today I decided to sit down and MAKE time to set a few thoughts on paper! A mysterious stranger arrives ........ Oooooooo - eeeeeeeeeer !! Bouffée the Vampire Slayer Bert had been the village barber for more years than anyone could remember.When he suddenly announced that he was closing temporarily to refurbish the business, it was assumed that he had decided to do more than slap on a coat of the cheapest special offer emulsion paint he had occasionally thrown at the walls of the shop from time to time. Over the May Bank Holiday weekend the front of the premises was shrouded from public view and the noise and bustle of rebuilding activity continued non-stop, including both Saturday and Sunday night. On Tuesday morning the refurbished premises were launched upon an unsuspecting public by an equally revamped Bert. Gone was the comb with missing teeth peeking out of his top pocket, along with the blunt scissors and dubiously mottled rag he had carried for years but had never been seen to use. The sign over the fascia proclaimed that this was Bartolini’s Bouffé Beauty Salon; Bert refused to answer to any other name. Bartolini had undergone a transformation himself, but remained tight-lipped as to who (if anyone) had attended to his restyling: eventually, the villagers had to assume that he had performed the task himself. Granted, he had taken on a couple of assistant “Styling Technicians” as he called them, but the general consensus was that he would have been unlikely to entrust his own appearance to an untried ‘new blood’. It was clear that he intended to be a living advertisement for the services he intended to provide. The standard “pudding basin” or “short back and sides” which the men and boys of the Village had suffered uncomplaining for so many years became immediately “so last week” that nobody even considered it. Bartolini’s chosen sculpture resembled an imaginative creation which started out as a Harry Enfield Scouser mop and tended towards a Ma Simpson geometric cut. Twin streaks from forehead to nape of neck hinted that he had been lying in the street outside the salon when double yellow lines were being painted (another recent amendment to life in the Village) and had then scrambled hastily through the yew hedge around the churchyard to avoid being seen en deshabillée . “Of course, it’s vital to keep abreast of changes in employment legislation and also keep up with the times! That’s why the salon is, naturally, unisex. We cannot afford to be thought in any way discriminatory or prejudiced in our business dealings!” spluttered Bartolini, first time he was challenged by one of his weekly “shave an’ a haircut” stalwarts about the sudden influx of female patrons. “What’s all this Vogue an’ Cheshire Life twaddle all about?” protested another regular, hoisting the offending tomes above his head and almost giving himself a heart attack from the effort required to lift them. “I mean, where’s the Sun and the Daily Sport nowadays?” A pained look flickered across Bartolini’s face. He patted at his perfect, lacquered curls (though it was physically impossible for them to escape the constraints of the sculpting gel which held them in place) but was spared the need to invent or seek a plausible response when the entry door chimed softly and a stranger entered. The tiniest lenses of thick pebble-glasses could be spotted, hidden behind luxuriant, long but scrupulously clean hair. The prospective client was clearly in need of the best personal service Signor Bartolini had to offer. “Do I need an app . point . ment?” As the potential client stumbled on the final word, Bartolini realised that the stranger was not English. The lilt shaded more towards France than Italy or Spain, he thought. “Point du tout, monsieur! Permettez- moi, je vous en prie !" Several sets of local eyebrows disappeared in an upwards direction at this. Many of the onlookers would have bet several months’ worth of (someone else’s) pay packets on the racing certainty that Bert/Bartolini was barely able to speak English, let alone “Frog” or any other language. Guiding the unscheduled client towards a revolving – reclining – superaccessorised customer-comfort-station (which in a previous incarnation had been a humble chair), Bartolini continued to spout a seamless and apparently effortless stream of fluent French, indicating with a glare which would have frightened the most foolhardy Gorgon that the spectators would be best advised to disappear tout suite. The hint was quickly taken. What further dark secrets might surface in the re-invented Bartolini persona they had known simply as Bert for so many years? The door closed, allowing Bartolini to speak privately with his customer. After a few seconds pause, a muffled voice proclaimed from behind the concealing screen of hair: “Je cherche le sergéant Bagheera ...........”
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