The Barbershop Seven (114 page)

'The First Minister has an agenda that few in the party know about,' said Weirdlove, ignoring JLM, his speech having done the usual 0-120mph in half a second. 'Correction, no one in the party knows about it. You learn this, you keep schtoom. The First Minister is trusting you with this, against my counsel. You got that?'

'Just like government,' said Barney. 'Tell you a piece of information you don't want to know in the first place, then threaten you so that you keep your mouth shut.'

JLM laughed. Weirdlove glowered. The Amazing Mr X didn't even blink.

'We're about to receive a visitor from the German delegation. His name is Conrad Vogts. Only this group and about two people on the German side know this is happening. You understand what I'm saying,' said Weirdlove, leaning forward.

'I think so,' said Barney, causticity creeping into his voice, which was new for him.

'Tone!' barked Weirdlove.

'Calm down,' JLM said to him, still amused by Barney in a paternal kind of a way, even though he was a couple of years younger than him.

'All right,' said Weirdlove, 'this is one of their top men. He's here to speak to myself and to the First Minister. You don't say a word. You listen, that's all. The First Minister wants you here, but that's where your involvement ends. You don't say anything. Not a word. Schtoom. Silence. You getting this?'

'Actually,' said Barney, 'you're beginning to confuse me a little.'

Another zinger of a look passed across Weirdlove's face. There was a knock at the door. The muscles relaxed around Weirdlove's mouth, JLM's shoulders straightened so that he became even more of a statesman than he'd been two seconds earlier, and as the door opened without invitation, The Amazing Mr X leapt to his feet, his hand reaching inside his jacket.

'Sit down, X,' said JLM, rising to greet the newcomer. The Amazing Mr X backed off. JLM schmoozed smoothly, as their visitor closed the door behind him and looked with interest around the four men already inside the small room. A room whose windows looked out onto a warm Brussels street, with cars and buses and no pedestrians.

'Herr Vogts,' said JLM, hand extended. 'Delighted you could make it.'

'I am tickled also,' said Vogts. A tall man, thick shock of greying hair, a warmth and ease about the thin face. Virtually no accent when he spoke English; if anything, a trace of American. And he spoke faster than Parker Weirdlove. 'I'll have a meeting with anyone who'll have me,' he continued. 'But then, most people won't have me. Especially women. Not that I'm interested in men, not in that way. Though at the same time I've got nothing against homosexuals. Some of my best friends are friends with people who know homosexuals, so that proves something, even if I don't know what.'

'Lovely,' said JLM, a little nonplussed. 'This is Parker Weirdlove, who you've talked to. And this is Barney Thomson, the government's principal advisor on fiscal matters.'

There would've been a time when Barney would've flinched. He nodded, rose from his chair, and shook Vogts by the hand.

'Hello,' said Barney, gruffly.

'I had you pegged as the barber,' said Vogts, 'but then, I never was much good with a peg. Especially when it came to hanging up the washing. That's why my wife divorced me. That and all those women. She just couldn't get enough of them.'

'Sit down, sit down,' said JLM, mostly to shut Herr Vogts up. Parker Weirdlove, having set up this meeting, which both he and JLM viewed as something of a fulcrum in their term of government, sat down and eyed Vogts with a great deal of suspicion. Barney Thomson didn't quite know what to make of him, but then that went for everyone he'd met in the past two days. The Amazing Mr X stared at the door, occasionally glanced at the windows, and thought of women.

'How can we help you?' asked Vogts, having nestled down into his seat.

'You will be aware of the delicate nature of this meeting?' said Weirdlove, before JLM could say anything.

'Oh, yes, delicate,' said Vogts. 'Like the fine hairs of a woman's pubes.'

'Yeah,' said The Amazing Mr X, in a low voice.

Weirdlove raised the sort of eyebrow that had many in the Scottish Executive reeling, but which meant nothing to the likes of Conrad Vogts.

'Yes,' said JLM, 'I rather like that. Lovely analogy. Really rather splendid.'

'No one in our parliament knows we're here with you, no one knows what we're going to talk about,' said Weirdlove, attempting added gravitas in the voice, to compensate for the fact that Vogts didn't appear to have any.

'Even I don't know what we're going to talk about,' said Vogts. 'Not that that's anything new.'

'We understand you're a bit of an expert on the Euro,' said JLM.

'I am an expert on many things,' said Vogts. 'Hamburg, the 1983 European cup final, Monty Python's Flying Circus, the comedies of the Marx Brothers. And women.'

'Yeah,' said The Amazing Mr X.

'I am also considered an expert on the Euro,' said Vogts, 'although that's probably because I speak very quickly on a subject that most people don't know enough about.'

'A tonic to hear such honesty in the political field,' said JLM.

'Ah, tonic,' said Vogts, 'I am also an expert on Indian tonic and its use as an alcoholic mixer.'

'Lovely. Champion,' said JLM. 'Look, Mr Weirdlove is going to explain where we're coming from.'

'Indeed,' said Vogts, and he turned to face him. 'I'm all ears, although that's only because the plastic surgeon misheard me. I was supposed to be all beer.'

'The thing is,' said Weirdlove, his voice shooting out even more quickly, as overcompensation for having a political interlocutor who he felt was kicking his backside, 'it is clear to us that Britain's policy of exclusion from the Euro-zone is a total disaster. It is affecting Scotland tremendously badly, and the Westminster government is moving far too slowly. We need to be decisive and audacious.'

'So what are you saying?' asked Vogts. 'You want to take Scotland into the Euro zone separately? That's not in your constitution.'

Weirdlove threw a quick sideways glance at JLM.

'Not at the moment,' said Weirdlove.

'You're going to have a referendum?' asked Vogts. 'I am much in favour of referendums. I think we should have referendums for everything. Governments should have referendums on where they're going to buy their sausages.'

'You're a big advocate of referendums then?' said Weirdlove, suspiciously.

'They are the very essence of democracy,' said Vogts. 'The rock on which political freedom is based.'

'We're not going to have one,' said JLM, loosely. 'We're going to push it through without telling anyone.'

'Lovely,' said Vogts, 'an even more fundamental political necessity. Don't tell the people anything if they're going to get in your way.'

'My thoughts exactly,' said JLM.

'I think we can do business,' said Vogts.

'Champion,' said JLM.

***

H
err Vogts left the small room thirty minutes later after reaching a broad agreement that someone would be seconded from Berlin, most likely Vogts himself, to help Weirdlove and JLM draw up plans to introduce the Euro to Scotland, completely bypassing Westminster in the process. The intention was to make the final statement with such grandeur and eloquence, and with some major European political alliances announced at the same time, that the public would be carried along in a wave of devolutionary excitement. In the meantime, JLM had to stoke the anti-English fires, which would be like peeling a banana, and investigate every legal loophole in the constitution that would help them subvert Westminster's control over Holyrood.

The financial plans would be drawn up with the help of the Deputy Finance Minister, James Eaglehawk, leaving the temporary Finance Minister, Winona Wanderlip, totally in the dark. When the fiscal coup d'état was announced, she would hear about it in the usual manner, from the press, her position would be untenable, in her own and in the public's eyes, and she would gracefully resign.

Following the Euro and further splits with Westminster, independence would be inevitable, backed by a rising swell of public opinion. JLM would be a hero and the father of the new sovereign Scotland.

A plan of the utmost cunning.

'What did you think?' said JLM, looking Barney in the eye. Waiting for words of wisdom from his latest sage.

Barney glanced at Weirdlove, who gave him one of his 'remember what I told you' looks. Barney turned back to JLM, having already determined to more or less ignore everything that Weirdlove had said. He'd already been dead, for goodness sake. What else could they do to him?

'I think it's disgracefully dishonest,' said Barney. 'You've come to power on the back of parliamentary democracy, and in the past two days I've seen repeated evidence that you intend to ride roughshod all over it. It's prescriptive government at its most unhinged. You don't give a damn about the country or the people, you're only interested in the furtherance of your own political ambitions. You have total contempt for every institution and procedure that got you where you are, and if you think I'm going to exculpate you with some two-second soundbite to make you feel good, as if you deserve plaudit for some sort of aesthetic spontaneity of thought, you're wrong.'

JLM nodded. Faint smirk of amusement at the corner of his mouth. The megalomaniac's ability to laugh at and easily dismiss home-truths

'I actually meant, what did you think of Herr Vogts?' he said.

Weirdlove steamed gently under his suit.

'Oh,' said Barney. 'Seemed like a decent enough bloke. Bit of a Mel Gibson Lethal Weapon
2
cut.'

'Lovely,' said JLM. 'Can we trust him?'

'Of course not,' said Barney. 'But then, he can't trust you.'

JLM laughed and rose from his chair. Like a flash, The Amazing Mr X was on his feet, checking the windows, watching the door, trigger finger twitching.

'Very good, Barney, very good,' said JLM. 'Come on, let's go.'

The Amazing Mr X pushed past Weirdlove, opened the door, checked the corridor, then indicated that it was safe for the party to leave the room. He walked out ahead and stood waiting. Rolling his eyes, Weirdlove breezed past him and strode purposefully up the corridor. JLM and Barney walked out together, The Amazing Mr X falling in behind.

'Barney,' said JLM, lightly taking his arm. 'Just a word. Don't ever speak to me like that again. It might just be that we send you back where you came from.'

'I don't even know where that is,' said Barney, not rising to the threat.

JLM gave him an ugly glance and upped his pace to walk quickly after Weirdlove.

'Oh, and Barney,' he said, turning under a large photograph of the Brandenberg Gate. 'Could you do me a Dean Martin '57 for my meeting with the Portuguese delegation? Apparently there's a woman as part of their team, bit of a looker, goes big for a man who can croon
That's Amore
.'

'Aye,' said Barney. 'No bother.'

'Champion,' said JLM, and then he strode on, came broadside with Parker Weirdlove, and immediately dropped into stern conversation.

––––––––

T
he cabinet of the Scottish Executive was in full session. Almost full session. JLM wasn't in attendance, but then that was nothing new of late. In the three weeks since the resumption of parliament, he had not yet deigned to show his face at cabinet, having begun to think that there was little point in it. If any of his ministers said something he didn't like, he'd ignore them anyway. So what, he would voice to anyone who cared to listen, was the point of going in the first place? As First Minister, the man in control of the country's destiny, he had better things to do than listen to his government.

The difference from the norm was the absence of JLM's deputy, Fforbes Benderhook, an appallingly spineless Liberal Democrat. A man for whom political ambition went no further than sucking up to the First Minister's substantial butt, and who would attend cabinet on his behalf, reporting back diligently on any of the Labour members who raised even the slightest concern or dissension against any of JLM's policies.

He was the obvious one not to call to the meeting. The others, however, Winona Wanderlip suspected, were as fed up with JLM's grandstanding as was she. So the rest of the cabinet were there, with the obvious exception of Melanie Honeyfoot, who was dead, dead, dead.

They sat around the small table in Wanderlip's office. Winona, herself, at the head, and thereafter clockwise around the table: Peggy Filiben, Education, a nothing short of spectacularly attractive woman; the previously encountered Wally McLaven, Tourism, Culture & Sport, ex-Rangers, a man who thought culture was the ability to speak consecutive sentences without using the phrase 'to be fair', and who was sitting with his hand guzzling at Filiben's thigh; Malcolm Malcolm III of the Clan Malcolm, Health, ex-Westminster; Kathy Spiderman, Justice, a bizarre wee woman who would more normally have been found arguing the price of a toaster-of-uncertain-provenance down the Barrows on a Saturday morning, but who was a long-term ally of JLM's, turned bad; Trudger McIntyre, Environment and Rural Development, another futile Liberal Democrat, who had the whole Captain Mainwaring vibe to a tee; and finally, next to Wanderlip, Nelly Stratton, Parliamentary Business, a nebby wee cow.

'To be fair to the lad, JLM,' said McLaven, after Wanderlip had finished a long outburst on the trip to Brussels, which had succeeded a similar outburst on her being lumped with the Finance portfolio, 'just because we don't know what he's up to, doesn't mean it's dodgy.'

'If it's not dodgy,' said Wanderlip, 'then why not tell us what he's doing? Did you see it on News24? There were about five people turned up to listen to his speech to the European parliament. What was the point?'

'They bastards don't deserve him,' growled Kathy Spiderman, in that tone which suggested that she thought everyone in Brussels should be whipped with razor wire.

'The people of Scotland,' said Wanderlip, a group she regularly hijacked to support her views, regardless of whether or not they did, 'don't deserve for JLM to be buggering off around the world in search of fame, when he should be here addressing the issues affecting his own country.'