Pow!

I do.’

    I almost croaked when I heard the word haircut.

    Father scratched his head. ‘Why waste the money? I'll buy some clippers and gnaw at their heads instead.’

    ‘Clippers? We've got those.’ Mother took some money out of her pocket and handed it to Father. ‘No, this time they need a real haircut. Fan Zhaoxia knows what she's doing, and she doesn't charge much.’

    ‘There are three heads here,’ said Father with a sweep of his arm. ‘How much do you think that will cost?’

    ‘For those three hard heads of yours, give her ten yuan.’

    ‘What?’ Father reacted with predictable alarm. ‘For ten yuan you can buy half a sack of rice.’

    ‘Three shaved heads are not going to make the difference between rich and poor,’ Mother said charitably. ‘Go on, take them over.’

    ‘Um…’ Father didn't know what to say. ‘Peasants’ heads aren't worth that kind of money.’

    ‘Ask Xiaotong what he thinks about letting me cut his hair,’ Mother said cleverly.

    Holding my belly with my hands, I wobbled my way outside. ‘Dieh!’ I said in utter dejection, ‘I'd rather die than let her cut my hair!’

    Portly Yao Qi walked up, stuck his head in and took a good look at Father, who was agonizing over the cost of professional haircuts. ‘Lao Luo!’ he bellowed as he smacked Father on the back of the neck.

    ‘What?’ Father turned and remarked calmly.

    ‘Is it really you?’

    ‘Who else would it be?’

    ‘Aren't you something—the prodigal son returns! What about Wild Mule?’

    Father shook his head. ‘Don't ask.’ Then he opened the door and took us inside the salon.

    ‘I say, you really are something,’ Yao Qi's voice followed us in. ‘A wife, a mistress, a son and a daughter. Of all the men in Slaughterhouse Village, you're the best!’

    Father shut the door in Yao Qi's face. Yao Qi pushed it back open and, one foot in, carried on: ‘I've missed seeing you about all these years.’

    Father ignored him and, with a wry smile, pulled my sister and me over to a dusty bench strewn with dog-eared magazines that had been flipped through and pawed over more times than I could imagine. The bench was a replica of the one in the station's waiting room, so it was either made by the same carpenter or stolen by the salon owner. A swivelling barber-chair with a footrest and a leather seat—so cracked it looked like it had been slashed—awaited us. The mirror on the wall in front of the chair had rippled and faded, creating only blurred reflections. A narrow shelf under the mirror was crowded with shampoos, hair gels and mousse (that's right, it's called mousse). A pair of electric clippers hung from a rusty nail on the wall alongside a dozen coloured illustrations of fashionable hairstyles worn by young models—men and women; some still stuck fast to the wall while others had begun to peel away. The red brick floor had undergone a change in colour thanks to all the black, white and grey hair that had lain atop it, that and the mud tracked in by customers. A strange and pungent smell—not quite fragrant but far from offensive—in the air inside made me sneeze—three times in a row. It must have been contagious because Jiaojiao did the same thing, three times in a row. She looked funny yet adorable with her face scrunched up with every sneeze.

    ‘Who's thinking of me, Daddy?’ She blinked. ‘Is it my mother?’

    ‘Yes,’ Father said, ‘it must be.’

    A sombre expression creased Yao Qi's face as he remained standing at the door, one foot in, one foot out, neither this nor that, a sort of androgynous stance.

    ‘Lao Luo,’ he said heavily, ‘I'm glad you're back. I'll come by to see you in a couple of days. There's something important I want to talk to you about.’

    With that he was gone; the door slid shut, keeping the clean, snow-injected air outside and thickening the foul air inside. Our sneezing contest over, Jiaojiao and I were more or less acclimated to the smell of the shop. The barber wasn't there at the moment but I knew she'd just left, because the minute I walked in the door I spotted something in the corner that looked like one of those public telephone booths I'd seen in town. A woman in a purple coat was sitting under a semi-circular canopy, her neck stiff and her head covered with brightly coloured curlers. She looked a bit like an astronaut, a bit like a rice-sprout girl at a New Year's celebration and a bit like Pidou's niang. Actually, that's who