Oxford Double

Why would a man wear a wig?

Kate Ivory was pondering this question as she listened to the protests of a small, shrill French child who was refusing to leave the plane without her toy rabbit.  The child and her mother, who was also loud and shrill, were successfully blocking the narrow gangway. Kate, jammed against a woman in a grey anorak, had been staring at a man a few yards ahead of her in the cabin and had come to the conclusion that his hair – a glossy chestnut brown – was definitely false.  It was just too perfect and not quite the right shade for his pale skin.  And it wasn’t as though the back of his neck was that of an old man: more like someone in his twenties or thirties.  She wished he would turn round so that she could see his face, but his attention was concentrated on the obnoxious child.

‘On l’a trouvé!’ called the stewardess, and the passengers stirred expectantly. 

Of course, thought Kate, there might be perfectly valid reasons for the man to cover his bald cranium with someone else’s hair.  Illness, for example.  Or vanity. She had yet to meet a man who could pass a mirror without checking his appearance.

There was still no movement towards the exit, and it was stuffy in the cabin. Wouldn’t it be uncomfortably hot underneath a wig?  She found that she was scratching her own head in sympathy. As she stared at the wig, the neck below it turned pink as though the man knew he was the object of her attention.