Page 447 - tender-is-the-night

XI

Dick and Nicole were accustomed to go together to the
barber, and have haircuts and shampoos in adjoining rooms.
From Dick’s side Nicole could hear the snip of shears, the
count of changes, the Voilàs and Pardons. The day after his
return they went down to be shorn and washed in the per-
fumed breeze of the fans.
In front of the Carleton Hotel, its windows as stubbornly
blank to the summer as so many cellar doors, a car passed
them and Tommy Barban was in it. Nicole’s momentary
glimpse of his expression, taciturn and thoughtful and, in
the second of seeing her, wide-eyed and alert, disturbed her.
She wanted to be going where he was going. The hour with
the hair-dresser seemed one of the wasteful intervals that
composed her life, another little prison. The coiffeuse in her
white uniform, faintly sweating lip-rouge and cologne re-
minded her of many nurses.
In the next room Dick dozed under an apron and a lather
of soap. The mirror in front of Nicole reflected the passage
between the men’s side and the women’s, and Nicole start-
ed up at the sight of Tommy entering and wheeling sharply
into the men’s shop. She knew with a flush of joy that there
was going to be some sort of showdown.
She heard fragments of its beginning.
‘Hello, I want to see you.’

447