The Barbershop Seven (133 page)

She let out a great sigh, then engaged the eyes of the single member of JLM's team who happened to be sitting in the office at that point.

'You the barber?' she asked.

Barney Thomson nodded.

'Suppose so,' he said, 'but if you wanted to tell me different, I'd probably be prepared to believe you.'

She closed her eyes briefly at another man speaking in riddles, then walked slowly from the office, not looking at the mural as she went.

––––––––

'W
hat about Wanderlip?'

James Eaglehawk looked up at the shark which was swimming overhead. He shivered. How thick was this glass, he wondered. How many million gallons of water were behind it? The pressures must be enormous. Day after day, week after week, months drifting into years. How often did they check these things? His mind rambled on. These places were always making cutbacks, weren't they? There's not an institution on the planet not making cutbacks. Did they put the proper manpower in place to check for cracks in the infrastructure of the tank? A systematic regime of inspections? Wasn't it inevitable that at some stage the glass would crack, the tunnel underneath the tank would fill up with water, and the people who happened to be under the aquarium at the time would either be drowned, or be eaten by the bloody great sharks that were swimming overhead? He could tell they were looking at him; one shark in particular. It cast a brazen glance at him every time it passed by. It was circling, just waiting for the first fissure to appear in the infrastructure of the glass, the first chink in the armour. Then, fucking voom! it'd be down like a shot, eating Eaglehawk for breakfast.

He shivered again, could almost hear the sound of his bones crunching as the shark bit massively into his midriff, could imagine the shark enjoying the
meringue of braised guinea fowl
which he'd eaten the previous night, could see the look in the shark's eye as it champed his testicles. Human testicles were probably a delicacy for these things.

'What you having today, Sharky?'
one would say to another
.
Eaglehawk thought of sharks as speaking with Australian accents.

'Me, mate? I got lucky, cobber, I've got some human 'nads for my supper.'

'Fabulous, mate. You got any to spare?'

'Come on, mate, there's only two of them and they're pretty fuckin' tiny.'

'What?' he said, dragging his eyes away from the shark who was going to kill him, back to Conrad Vogts.

Vogts smiled.

'You're imagining the shark eating your testicles?' he said.

No one, and especially not a politician, likes to know that someone can read their innermost fears. Even the slightest hint that the façade has been breached, and you're in trouble. Good thing, then, that Vogts was an ally...

'No, no,' Eaglehawk said, completely turning his back on the shark, although he could still feel its eyes burrowing into him. 'I was just imagining swimming with them in the Caribbean or somewhere. That must be so cool.'

'Indeed,' said Vogts, seeing through the lie. And Eaglehawk knew he could see the lie, just as Vogts knew that Eaglehawk knew. Eaglehawk didn't know, however, that Vogts knew that he knew, so we can bring this thing to an end.

'What about Wanderlip?' Vogts repeated. 'Where do you see her fitting into all of this?'

A figure of authority approached them in an all-in-one. Short, bobbed blonde hair, fairly attractive.

'Gentlemen,' she said, 'could you step back onto the conveyor, please?'

Eaglehawk shot her a glance, nearly gave her a 'do you know who I am' speech. Or, more to the point, 'do you know who I'm about to be?'

'Certainly, certainly,' said Vogts, 'we only got off so that you would come and speak to us. You are very beautiful.'

'I can tell you're not Scottish,' she said, as the two men followed her instruction.

'I'm from Koblenz,' said Vogts, as he started to move away from her. 'A beautiful city on the Rhein. You must come and see it one day. We could take a cruise together. Drink wine by moonlight, watch the clouds through castle parapets, make love all night beneath the stars.'

She ostentatiously glanced down at his lunchbox and smiled.

'All night, eh? What drugs are you taking?'

'Just the opiate of your beauty,' said Vogts with a smile.

'Aye, I'm never done travelling to continental Europe,' she said, turning away as the conveyor belt began to take Vogts and Eaglehawk around a corner. But she had a wee smile on her face, no question. And the young lad coming along the belt who had heard the exchange, saw her smile and thought that he might have a go himself, if she was that easy.

'Hey, Hen,' he said, as he passed her by, and she turned to him, still smiling. 'I'm fi' Glasgow. Fancy coming doon the Clyde wi' me for a shag?'

The smile died on her face, just as the retort died on her lips when she saw the two children with their parents coming behind the lad who'd had a go. She turned away, the delight of the flirtatious moment gone, and went about her business.

Vogts turned back to Eaglehawk, still smiling. Eaglehawk had ignored the exchange, and was keeping a close eye on the shark, which he was sure was following him now that he was on the move. Was there some way the shark could get out of the tank? Maybe there wasn't a lid on it, because they assumed that the sharks couldn't climb over the sides. This bastard could, though.

'Talking of beautiful women,' said Vogts, 'what about Wanderlip?'

Eaglehawk attempted to return to the present. Shook off the presence of the shark, tried to think about Winona Wanderlip.

'She'll have to go,' said Eaglehawk in a low voice, casting glances around at the other visitors. There was no one within a few yards, however, and in any case everyone else was there to look at the fish, rather than for reasons of political intrigue. Vogts was also there to look at the fish, which was why he'd dragged Eaglehawk out to North Queensferry.

'Of all the cabinet ministers that could have been murdered, Melanie aside,' continued Eaglehawk, 'she's the one we needed taken out first. This psychopath is doing us a favour, no question, but we could've done with the loony bastard getting rid of Winnie first of all.'

'Unless,' said Vogts, and his tone made Eaglehawk forget the sharks just for a few seconds, 'she is behind it all.'

'Why?' said Eaglehawk, even though he was not at all disposed to support her in any way. 'The only person between her and the position of First Minister is Jesse. Why get rid of people who might've supported her?'

Vogts raised his eyebrows.

'Go figure, as our American friends might say,' he said. 'Women are strange creatures, and let us not pretend to ever know their thoughts. Politics is the social equivalent of a woman; no one ever knows what their political opponent, or even their political ally, is thinking. And so, a woman in politics, my God, is the most explosive of combinations. If ever there was an eruption waiting to happen, it is such a woman, and your colleague, Winnie, most certainly fits the bill.'

Eaglehawk nodded.

'Too right,' he said.

'So,' said Vogts, 'what are you going to do with her?'

Eaglehawk turned away from Vogts. Immediately found himself staring at the shark. Shuddered, turned back to Vogts, the fear still crawling over his body.

'Throw her to the bloody sharks,' said Eaglehawk, and he held Vogts's gaze for a second, then dropped his eyes. 'Let's get out of here,' he said, 'this place gives me the creeps.'

And off he charged, in search of the great outdoors.

––––––––

T
he First Minister and his entourage were in a barber's emporium in the shopping mall in Perth. JLM had done the rounds, given his soapbox speech to an enthusiastic crowd of Japanese and American tourists who'd thought he was an actor doing a Winston Churchill impersonation for their benefit, gladhanded a few bemused passers-by who'd thought that maybe he was someone off
River City
or
Chewin' The Fat
, and finally had hit upon the idea of visiting a barber's shop, commandeering one of the chairs and getting Barney to publicly perform on his hair.

Barney had no problem with this, except for the obvious point, that there was very, very little he could actually do to JLM's hair.

There were four chairs set up, a busy little establishment, three barbers working away as JLM held court, the junior barber turfed aside to sit and read the paper while Barney applied a blunt razor to the back of JLM's scalp.

'You can't underestimate the importance of a quality men's hairstylist,' said JLM, approximately his fifteenth platitude since arriving in the shop.

As with the fourteen previous examples of banality, the other three barbers completely ignored him. There was the usual strained atmosphere that pervades any establishment during the visit of an unwanted dignitary. The commonplace conversational topics, from St Johnstone's footballing travails, to whether Rangers and Celtic should head off and join the English Premiership or a more appropriate league like the Small-Minded Sectarian Self-Possessed Filled With Mediocre Foreign Talent And Shite At Football Conference, and from the Fatty Arbuckle theory on why it takes four men to insert a light bulb up someone's arse, to lengthy discussions on naturalistic fallacy and the error of defining good in empirical terms, were cast aside, to be replaced by discomfort and reticence.

One of the barbers had asked Barney what the Hell he intended to do to JLM's hair, given the shortness of it, and Barney had replied absolutely bugger all, it's all about fooling the customer and making them think they're having good done to them. After which the barbers had viewed Barney with a little less animosity, realising that he was being dragged around in JLM's absurd wake, rather than being a driving force behind the man's delusions.

So, the shop went about its business, as JLM pronounced on a variety of vacuous points; the perfect politician.

'They say that getting your hair cut by another man is only one step up from chimps picking fleas out of each other's hair,' said JLM. 'But they're wrong!'

One of the customers almost asked who 'they' were, because he'd never heard anyone say that before, but decided that silence was the better part of curiosity. He was in the middle of having a rather dubious
Russell Crowe, Gladiator
visited upon him. The other two customers currently being attended to were being given respectively an
Oliver Reed, Gladiator
, and a
Third Tiger From The Left, Gladiator
. (The shop was doing a special
Gladiator
weekend. To tie in with the whole thing, Barney had decided he was giving JLM an
Unnamed Baldy Man In The Coliseum Crowd, Gladiator
.)

The Amazing Mr X stood at the door, looking up and down the shopping mall, the people once more decked out for cold weather, the young ladies, who two days before had been baring substantial amounts of flesh, now totally covered up in polyunsaturated clothes of various descriptions. X was disappointed.

'Gillete, Wilkinson Sword, oh yes,' said JLM. 'Makers of fine razors, the pair of them. Absolutely.'

And so JLM went on, as Barney took a strangely long time to not cut his hair. He was rather enjoying the comfort and safety of the barber's shop, which he hadn't expected. But here he was, back where he had spent most of his working life – possibly – and feeling very much at home. The smell, the stillness, the relaxed atmosphere, albeit a relaxed atmosphere compromised by the presence of the First Minister. He felt at home. Back in the saddle. He was an F-15 pilot, having spent years in double wing exhibition jobs at air shows, back at the controls of a fighter. He was Good King Richard, back from the crusades, ready to kick Prince John's arse. He was East Berlin after the Wall had fallen. He was Clint Eastwood in
Space Cowboys
. He was Bill Clinton after he put the Monica thing behind him. Well, let's not get carried away.

However, he couldn't drag it out for ever, and eventually Parker Weirdlove returned from a brief shopping expedition for some delicious pink embroidered underwear, to inform JLM that he was falling behind the curve and had better be getting a move on. Barney wrapped up the cut, which wasn't hard seeing as he hadn't done anything, and off they went.

***

B
arney got back to Edinburgh a little after three, having been dismissed before JLM's duties were over, JLM having pronounced that his hair was 'solid' for the day. Barney couldn't face his room, and had retreated to the World's End to hide behind a bottle of beer and some nuts. He'd discovered something else while in the Perth shopping mall, a fact that related to all these stories he'd been told about his puff, and he wanted to think about it over a large amount of alcohol.

Had spent a quiet hour or two contemplating his past and what to do about his future, when he was approached by two men seasonally attired in long coats and dour expressions, clutching large pints of lager in their cool fingers.

Solomon and Kent.

'Mind if we join you?' said Solomon, sitting down at Barney's table.

Barney smiled and waved the appropriate hand. Kent followed and both he and Solomon took long drinks from the watering hole.

'Nothing new for you today, I'm afraid,' said Barney. 'Although I did overhear the tail end of a conversation on the Nash Equilibrium which might interest you.'

'I doubt it,' said Solomon. 'I don't even know what that is.'

'Economics theory, apparently,' said Barney.

'Outstanding,' said Solomon. 'Who gives a shit? If you want to get into casual chit-chat, I'll be willing to discuss Tom & Jerry, but beyond that I'm not much of a conversationalist.'

'Ain't that the truth,' said Kent.

'Zip it, wise guy,' said Solomon.

'I never liked the Cat Concerto, for all the plaudits it got,' said Barney.

'I hear you, pal,' said Solomon.

'At least it got away from the sickening violence and depravity of some of the others,' interjected Kent.