Salon job was a real hair-raiser
SOME time ago I was contacted by reader Helen Fry who told me of an incident which occurred when she was a teenager.
Her tale is an eerie one, and at first she was reluctant to share it. But then she agreed, and I’m glad she did.
When Helen was 17 years old, she worked in a hairdressing salon in Gateshead.
She aspired to be a stylist, but “had to start at the bottom,” as she put it.
“I used to make the tea, sweep the cuttings off the floor, order stock and other things. To be honest, it was boring.”
Helen said there was a room just off the cellar, which her employer had told her never to enter under any circumstances.
When she queried why, she was simply told that it was “private”.
Some months later, Helen had a row with her boss: “She said she wanted to change the name of the salon, and out of the blue I made a suggestion.
I said, ‘Why don’t you call it Polly Perm-anents?’ I thought it sounded catchy, but the boss didn’t. She told me my suggestion was ridiculous and really embarrassed me in front of the other staff. Straight away, I decided to leave.”
But before Helen left, she was determined to have a peek at the “private room” under the cellar.
She waited until the next time her boss asked her to lock up the salon, which she often did, and took her chance.
“The door to the private room wasn’t locked, so getting into it wasn’t a problem. I’d once seen the boss go in there, and she just opened the door and went inside.
“As soon as I’d tidied up the salon and was ready to go home, I went downstairs into the cellar and went towards the door.
“I opened it, and I remember being really nervous. I didn’t know what I was going to find in there.”
Whatever she might have expected, it wasn’t what she actually encountered. “I got a real shock,” she told me, “because there was someone in the room.
“It was an elderly woman, and she was sitting in a chair reading a newspaper. There was nothing in the room except for the chair and a table in the corner.
“She looked up at me and she seemed to be annoyed. I just said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ and shut the door. Then I raced upstairs, locked the door and went home.
“The next day was a Sunday, and I pushed a note through the door saying I wasn’t going back as I had another job.
“I didn’t really, but I thought it was the only plausible excuse I could use. I never heard from the salon again.”
The following week, Helen got a job working on the checkout. It wasn’t what she wanted to do, but at least it was better than being unemployed.
Some months went by, and then, one day, Helen was astonished to see the elderly woman standing in the queue waiting to be served.
“She looked at me,” said Helen, “and seemed to be startled. She immediately left the queue and joined the next one along. She obviously didn’t want to have any contact with me.”
Helen never did find out who the old woman was, or what she was doing sitting in the “private” room.
“Over 30 years have passed now, and I’m sure she must be dead,” she said. “The whole thing was very strange. She certainly wasn’t a prisoner there, so what was she doing?”
We’ll never know, I suppose, As Helen Fry says, “very strange” indeed.
* Got a spooky tale? Send it to wraithscape@mikehallowell.com
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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