The Haircut by Keith Bradley

Today, I have a wonderful guest, who over the coming months has become a good friend. Keith Bradley, yet to be published, writes fast action, edge of your seat, thrillers for the screen. When not writing about psychological killers, Keith also turns his hand to writing short stories that are guaranteed to put a smile on your face. So, please, sit back and enjoy, The Haircut by Keith Bradley.

 

‘Well you can forget about going to Blackpool with your brother if you don’t have a haircut,’ my mum said to me, after we’d been arguing about it for ages.

John, our kid, is going to take me and my best friend Colin, in his new company car, to Blackpool for my birthday. He gets a new company car every August and this time it’s a red, mark 4 Ford Cortina. I wish he still lived at home. Before he got married I spent loads of time with him. My mum was always telling me to stop mithering him. I’d say: ‘Where are you going our kid?’ ‘Can I come?’ ‘What time will you be back?’ He’d say: ‘I’m going to see a man about a dog’, ‘When you’re older’ and ‘Ask no questions, get told no lies.’ It was ace when John lived at home. He would have talked my mum out of making me go for a haircut.

‘Why do I need a haircut before I go to Blackpool?’

‘Because I say so.’

‘So, I’ve got to do everything you say because you say so?’

‘I’m your mother.’

‘So, if you told me to put my head in the oven, I’d have to put my head in the oven would I then?’

I’d got her here, because when I say I’m doing something because our kid does it she always says to me, ‘so you’d put your head in the oven if your brother told you to, would you?’

‘I haven’t got time for your lip, Kevin. Why can’t you just do as you’re told for once?’

She was starting to get annoyed, but she never really loses her temper, not really.

‘I don’t even need a haircut.’

‘Don’t need a haircut! What do you mean don’t need a haircut? Have you seen yourself in the mirror? Don’t need a haircut. Your fringe is nearly over your eyes and the sides are over your ears.’

‘No, they’re not.’

‘Kevin stop acting the goat. You need a haircut.’

‘Can I go with dad then?’

‘What’s wrong with Cindy? She always gives your hair a lovely cut.’

 ‘Nothing. But you said I could go to dad’s barber when I was older.’

‘What will I tell Cindy?’

‘Tell her I’ve gone to dad’s barber’

‘I can’t say that! She’ll be offended.’

‘Tell her I’m ill then.’

‘And what if she sees you in the street then? What do I say to her then, then? Hey?’

‘So, does that mean I’ve got to go to Cindy’s with you for ever?’

Click HERE to read more of  The Haircut.

 

About Keith

Keith Bradley left school at 16 and worked as a waiter, carpet cleaner, office clerk and systems analyst. In 1995 his passion for horse racing led him to become a jockeys’ agent. He was hugely successful and represented amongst others Tom Queally, the rider of Frankel and Seb Sanders, the 2007 champion.

In 2011 he became a mature student and obtained a first-class degree in French, Media and translation and then a masters degree on the renown creative write course at the University of East Anglia. His translation of Marilyn 1962 by Sébastien Cauchon was used to produce the script for the Hollywood miniseries, currently in production, of the same name. As a writer, he is tired of seeing the working class portrayed in a negative light and writes humorous short stories and scripts based on his childhood in Whalley Range. He has also recently written a full-length police procedural script with mainly female leads set in Milton Keynes and a situation com set in a betting shop

He has lived chronologically in Manchester, Nottingham, Newmarket, Milton Keynes, Clermont Ferrand and currently lives in Norwich with his partner Wendy and Ollie the wonder dog.