The Last Straw Frank McNallyYou know that situation when somebody takes something you say up wrongly, and there's a fleeting moment when you can correct the misunderstanding, but you don't, and then it's too late? Well, I found myself in just such a predicament at the hairdresser's last weekend.
I've been going to the same place for years, and I'm on nodding terms with the staff there. But the woman who cut my hair this time was new. She was a recent arrival from eastern Europe, and very friendly. So when she asked, with apparently genuine curiosity, if I was from Dublin, I said no. I explained that I'd lived here a long time but my home was - and maybe I mumbled this, assuming it would mean nothing to her - "a place called Monaghan".
To say she was delighted would be an understatement. Smiling triumphantly, she declared: "I knew! I recognise as soon as you talk!" And to say that this took me by surprise would also be an understatement. I was secretly pleased too. The "I'm from Monaghan" line has never got much reaction from Irish women, so for it to arouse excitement in a foreigner was gratifying. Besides, it's always good to hear you haven't started talking like a Dubliner, whatever they think at home.
Unfortunately, the hairdresser went on to explain that although she hadn't been speaking English long enough to distinguish many accents, she'd spotted immediately that mine was "French". I was crestfallen. I also knew that this was the moment to correct the record. And yet I hated to disappoint her. So with a Gallic shrug, I let the moment pass, and just smiled by way of congratulating her on a finely-tuned ear. And then she said: "Monaco is beautiful place, no?"
Monaco. This explained everything, but it was a startling twist all the same. I might conceivably pass for a Frenchman from Brittany. Or, at a push, one from Paris who spent all his life indoors and had somehow missed out on dress sense. But the Côte d'Azur? The freckled face in the mirror laughed at me. "Monaco!" it scoffed: "Say something, you big eejit!" So I said that, yes, Monaco was certainly beautiful, although "completely over-developed".
Then I changed the subject, and asked where she was from. She answered briefly, before lobbing the ball back. Monaco was "very mountainous, no?" I struggled to remember my only visit there, in 1986. Then, lowering my voice in case the other staff heard, and sinking into the seat to make myself smaller, I mumbled that, yes, it was quite mountainous; the drive along the corniche was very dramatic; etc. And then I made another attempt to redirect the conversation.
But God-dammit, she was fascinated with bloody Monaco. Maybe she thought I was a millionaire playboy ("Yeah - right!" sneered the freckles in the mirror) or something. Whatever. We were trapped together in this appalling lie, and there was no going back, even though I doubted my ability to keep up the pretence for the duration of a haircut.
"You have very good football team, no?" she ventured. This was a lucky break. If being a man means anything, it means being able to identify emotionally with a foreign football club that has no real connection with you. Seizing the opportunity, I said that yes, my team had reached the Champions League final last season.
"It was very ironic," I added, warming to the subject. "We had Fernando Morientes on loan from Real Madrid, because he wasn't good enough to make their team. And they were still paying his wages. Then he scored for us against Madrid and knocked them out! Ha, ha!"
She smiled knowingly, sharing my simple male delight at the achievements of a football team. When I mentioned that we lost the final 3-0 ("it still hurts"), she smiled again, sympathetically. And finally, when she inquired if I'd been home recently, and I just said "no", she seemed to understand my reluctance to talk about it.
Then she offered me some "finishing cream", while the guy in the mirror suggested it would take more than finishing cream to fix me. And at last the moment came that signalled the haircut was over. This is not usually a moment I enjoy: I could go through life happily without ever being shown what the back of my head looks like. But eye contact with the front of it had become uncomfortable by now, and the rear-view mirror was a relief.
The haircut cost €16. I calculated that €3 would be a generous enough tip. But then again, there was Monaco's reputation to think of. Like a big-shot in the Monte Carlo Casino, I threw down a 20, waved the change away, and left.