AT THE AGE of fifty-five, Norman Plummer had honed to a fine degree the art of failure. Plummer by name, but Cheam Station ticket clerk by occupation, Norman had failed to grow a completely joined-up moustache which resembled a blurred, follicular SOS in morse code above his thin upper lip.
He had succeeded, however, in growing a luxuriant strand of hair on the left side of his head, just above the ear, for the sole purpose of combing over his shiny, bald scalp. The success of this deception, however, was always subject to the time of day and wind direction. During his morning ablutions before the cracked mirror, Norman was able to convince himself that his coiffure was reminiscent of a young Dirk Bogarde’s but the tonsorial flap would invariably take wing as soon as he left for work, giving the overall impression of a highly-animated question mark dancing over his left ear.
It was not as if Norman was vain. He had been resigned to the fact, from an early age, that he would not exceed five foot four and had long ceased to be amazed by his apparent invisibility to women, and to people in general. He was the sort of person, who, when he entered a room full of people, gave the impression that someone had just left. As the prosecuting counsel at his trial said, ‘It’s the quiet ones you have to watch, m’lud.’
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