The Limoncello and My Christmas Haircut

It's true - you still have time before the New Year to right the wrongs of 2025. Maybe start sweeping with a new broom, or get a new look haircut. Read on so that David Benn can guide you in how to go about it ...

It was nearly six o’clock on a very warm and humid December evening when I pushed open the door of Louis’s small hair salon on Redfern Street. Dressed in a tight white singlet and baggy blue jeans, the large tanned Greek Cypriot lounged back in one of the two salon chairs with his hands behind his great bald head and yawned.

‘David. All ready for your Christmas haircut?’

Louis had gone to school in London and, despite having lived in Australia for many years, he retained an East End accent.

‘Sorry I’m late Louis. It’s Christmas and I’m busy.’

‘Don’t worry. It’s Christmas here too and I was running late.’

I dropped into the chair beside Louis and undid the top button of my shirt.

‘Are you going home for Christmas, Louis?’

The great muscled, middle-aged man slowly lifted himself out of his chair and swept a cape over my shoulders and clipped it up the back. He frowned and ran his long fingers though my hair.

‘No, I really haven’t been home much since I moved to Australia. We’ll take a bit off the top, but the sides really need to be cleaned up.’

He paused for a second. ‘One of my other customers gave me bottle of limoncello. You wanna have a limoncello with me for Christmas?’

‘Yeah, I’ll have a limoncello with you. What’s limoncello?’

‘Oh, it’s like a lemon liqueur thing. It’s homemade apparently.’

Louis walked out the back of the salon and returned with two whiskey tumblers and an Italianate glass bottle, depicting leaves and fruit, filled with bright yellow liquid. Condensation frosted over the bottle.

Louis poured two half glasses, took a sip of the liquid and set about cutting my hair.

I took a sip. The drink was at once cold and sweet and bitter and full of spirit. I took another sip.

Louis took another sip and looked at me. ‘That’s not half bad that is.’

I took another sip. ‘You know what’s in it?’

Louis took a sip. ‘Well, lemons obviously.’

We half chuckled. Louis kept cutting my hair.

After a few minutes he stopped cutting, took a sip, stepped back and crossed his arms. ‘You know, I think it’s time we put some colour in your hair. It’s starting to look a bit flat and brassy, you know? A bit yellow.’

I picked up my almost empty glass of limoncello. ‘Not yellow like this though?’

Louis picked up the leaves and fruit bottle and refilled our glasses. ‘Not quite but I think we should do something about it.’

I raised my glass. ‘I agree. Let’s do something about it.’

We chinked glasses and took a sip.

Louis placed his glass the table beside us. ‘Right. You wait here. I’ll be back in a second.’

Louis raced off to the back room. I smothered a laugh as I imagined myself running down Redfern Street dressed in a hairdresser’s cape.’

Louis came back with a small plastic mixing bowl and several tubes of hair colour. He squeezed thick paint-like colour into the bowl and started mixing it around with a brush. He slopped it out onto my head, spreading it over my hair with the brush.

When he had covered my hair in dark purple paint he stepped back, picked up his glass and took a sip.

‘Okay, this is just a mild platinum that’ll give your hair a silver colour.’

He pushed a hooded dryer across the room, fixed it over my head and refilled our glasses.

‘We don’t want to overdo it so a few minutes ought to be fine. Were you around in the eighties? Do you remember Bananarama?’

I took a sip. “No, and yes. I wasn't even a newborn back then ... but I've caught up with the eighties now.’

Louis took a sip. “Great. I really miss the eighties.’

Louis pulled his phone out of his pocket and started swiping his thumb over the screen. Immediately the room was filled with a thumping disco beat and angelic female vocals.

I took a sip.

Louis took a sip. ‘I was in high school in the eighties. I was just starting to work out I was gay. Bananarama was the soundtrack to my coming out.’

I took a sip. ‘You came out while you were at school?’

‘Yeah, but only to myself.’

We both hung our heads and silently stifled our laughter.

Louis composed himself and took a deep breath. ‘God. Let’s get that purple shit off your head.’

He kicked the hood dryer back across the room and ushered me over to the basins. I leant back and he rinsed the paint out of my hair. The warm water washed through my hair and over my scalp. The room swung from side to side.

Louis wrapped a towel over my head and vigorously rubbed. He left me wrapped in the towel as he ushered me back to the chair.

He kept rubbing and drying for another minute. Finally, he stopped.

‘Okay, one more sip before the big reveal.

’We both took a sip and he swept the towel from my head.

My hair was fluorescent purple. My jaw dropped. Louis burst out laughing.

I closed my eyes and started laughing. ‘Did you mean to do that?’

Louis gasped for air. ‘No. It’s never been that successful. It looks beautiful!’

I tried to take a sip, but I was laughing too much. ‘Yes, it looks beautiful.’

Louis choked back his laughing. ‘Yes, you look beautiful David.’

I pointed to Louis in the mirror. ‘No, you’re beautiful Louis.’

Louis looked at himself in the mirror. ‘You’re right David, I’m beautiful. I’m beautiful.’

Copyright: text - David Benn; photos - Wix.

Posts on this Sydney School of Arts & Humanities blog (www.ssoa.com.au) are published to showcase the work of emerging writers who meet weekly to workshop their short stories, memoir or novels.

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