The Business Plan

Betty sighed heavily. This gawky, nineteen-year-old with limp ginger hair and a pungent nylon parka was offering her a massage. It wasn’t easy running a valleys hairdressing business where people thought £8 for a shampoo and set was daylight robbery. Could the day get any worse?

Nigel’s sister Sian was a good little hairdresser; sassy and stylish and the elderly customers who still remembered the heady excitement of jitterbugging with GI’s in the Memorial Hall liked hearing what nights out with the girls were like these days.

Betty hadn’t believed it when Sian told her Nigel would ring her with a business proposition and now, looking at him standing there in her office, with acne capable of independent life and fingers fidgeting in his pockets, the prospect of him being able to give a massage, let alone a decent one, was about as unlikely as a Lionel Blair and a troupe of trained fruit bats tap-dancing their way across the Newport transporter bridge.

“Well now. How are you going to show me anything at all when we haven’t got a table?”

“A head massage?” Nigel offered.

“It might er, re-vitalise your chakras for the afternoon,” he added as brightly as he could. He still felt awkward about the terminology but it seemed to be a vital part of the package.

Nigel hoped Betty hadn’t investigated too deeply into Indian massage techniques and health matters. He was only just exploring it himself. But he was right. She hadn’t.

“Cheeky sod!” she spluttered. “As proprietor of this salon, I have my hair done every day. You won’t find chakras on my head and if you did I’d want them wiped out not bloody revitalised!”

It wasn’t going well.

“They’re energy pathways” he mumbled, moving behind the chair where she was sitting and sensing he ought to begin.

He spread the long bony fingers of both hands and held them above her head, taking a deep breath. This would be the very first time he’d touched a strange woman. There below him, through the thinning platinum perm, he saw the opalescent pink scalp of his potential business partner.

Nigel had a hot stomach, rising nausea, bad taste in mouth; it was as though he’d been reading in the back seat of the car on the road to the Royal Welsh Show.

He laid both hands flat against the sides of her warm neck and slowly and firmly moved his fingers vertically up through her hair, spreading them and holding them still and firm on top of her head. Then he began concentric circling movements.

The effect on Betty was that of a small electric current. She gave an involuntary shiver, shut her eyes and imperceptibly, her shoulders softened and relaxed.

My God. The boy definitely had something. Those slow firm movements – not harsh but far from gentle – worked a kind of magic. She wondered for a moment what her head must feel like to him. Was it smooth? Bumpy? Unusual? Actually the experience was starting to feel so good that she really didn’t give a damn.

Casually, without losing contact with her head, Nigel ran his fingers swiftly down the centre of the back of her head, slowing as they travelled down the nape of her neck, gently kneading either side of her spine before spreading his palms over her shoulders.

He still felt sick with nerves. He hoped the somersaulting hippos in his stomach weren’t transmitting through his fingertips. In truth, he’d completely forgotten when on earth he should be doing and was now very definitely massaging off-piste.

The feedback from Betty suggested there was no immediate cause for concern. She was still and silent and remained so when finally, after five minutes, Nigel brought the experience to a close by running his outspread fingers vertically through her hair.

Betty felt a delightful rivulet of pleasure. It was the kind of delightful frisson she hadn’t experienced for many decades. Nigel left his palms lightly at rest on her head for five long seconds before removing them. He returned to the plastic seat in front of her desk and waited.

Betty remained inert; her eyes closed.

Nigel felt increasingly anxious.

“Christ. What if I’ve somehow pressed on a vital nerve and closed down her brain? How’ll I explain that to the paramedics?”

Could you, in fact, kill someone with a massage? This was a question that Gareth had put to him in the pub three weeks ago and after some debate and two further pints they’d decided they had no idea.

Betty stirred and blinked pink eyes at him. She sat up and shifted some papers on her desk. Two round patches of pink appeared high on her cheeks.

“So, then, Nigel,” she began, attempting to sound her usual no-nonsense self.

“Where did you learn to do that?”

“Pontycwm College of Further Education.” Nigel felt it must have gone ok, actually. There were the pink cheeks and Betty’s eyes had taken on the kind of refreshed sparkle that they might have after a couple of hours nap.

“Well, well….”

Betty glanced at the clock and realised that Mrs Morgan-Evans had already been waiting five minutes to have her highlights brightened.

“I’ve got a client now, I’m afraid Nigel but yes, I think we can do something here for you. We’ll have to think where we could fit you in.   I’ll be in touch.”

She was immediately conscious of the “touch” word and blushed as she smiled at him. Blushing was not in her repertoire and the embarrassment of the blush only deepened it. Nigel didn’t even notice. He was out of the office door and striding jauntily through the salon.

He flashed Sian a big grin and a double “thumbs up” just before stumbling noisily over the designer handbag of a sour-looking woman who was being kept waiting for highlights.

He began to make plans. One: tell Gareth. Two: go for celebratory pint. Three: Revise massage technique so as not to kill anyone. Four: Get massage tips from Jake the Fire-Eater.

Iolo the window cleaner swiped a blade through the suds on Betty’s salon window and watched contemptuously as Nigel walked away down the street.

He hadn’t been able to get much of a view through the half-closed blinds of Betty’s office but he’d seen enough of Nigel’s back and those elbows rhythmically working away to draw his own conclusion before he averted his eyes in disgust.

He’d always thought that boy must be a pervert, but in Betty’s private office too! It was abhorrent. It couldn’t be tolerated. It was his mission to expose evil wherever it lurked in Cwmdonkin. He’d make sure people knew the truth about Nigel Williams.

(less than 2,000 words!  woo-hoo!)