The Barbershop Seven (150 page)

'I think so,' she said. If he ever turned up.

'A good man,' said Ephesian, then he added unthinkingly, 'though they say that at any given time he might be having affairs with three women in his congregation.' He knew that Ruth Harrison was one of them but as usual with him the words were not intended to manipulate, they were all he could think of to say at that particular moment. He felt as awkward in this situation as did she but completely lacked the conversational skills to bring this chat over tea and biscuits around to the reason that had brought him here in the first place.

Ruth had just been punched in the stomach. Three women! She'd never heard it before and she had no idea if Bartholomew Ephesian was just toying with her. But then, did it not have a ring of authenticity to it? It felt like it could be true. Like when Luke tells Leia that Darth's her father.

'Jonah wasn't a religious man,' said Ephesian.

This time there was something in Ephesian's voice, a slight change in quality from the false sincerity and the painful attempts at conversation. This was him finally getting to the point of the visit, although he now sounded awkward in a different way. That they were actually going to get to the nub had her feeling relief as well as curiosity, although both feelings were overwhelmed by the painful moment of realisation about the Reverend Dreyfus.

'Hadn't been in church in years,' she said.

'No,' said Ephesian. 'I know.'

She glanced back and then away again, disconcerted. That Bartholomew Ephesian should know anything about her husband at all seemed strange.

'He went out on a Tuesday evening,' said Ephesian. She glanced up quickly again, worried now. Didn't like the fact that Ephesian should know about Jonah's social engagements. Maybe that was what bothered her, as she'd been mostly unaware herself what Jonah had done on all those Tuesdays. Ought to have known, as there'd been plenty of gossip around the village about it, but it demonstrated how uninterested she'd been in her husband's life.

'I think maybe you should leave now,' she said suddenly, voice betraying her lack of confidence.

Ephesian's face contorted briefly then grimly relaxed.

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'of course, of course. This is a very difficult time for you and I'm sitting here making inane small talk. Thoughtless of me. I should leave you in peace.'

She glanced at him, felt a shiver worm its way down her back. Suddenly Ephesian looked like the dangerous man that everyone said he was, the ominous presence that hung over the town from the big house on the hill.

Ephesian rose and straightened his jacket. Ruth Harrison got to her feet, staring at the floor. She could feel his discomfort; he was completely unaware of hers.

'Take care of yourself, Mrs Harrison,' he said and he stepped away. She couldn't look at him. 'I'll see myself out.'

He turned and left the sitting room. She couldn't bear to even watch him go. The front door opened and Bartholomew Ephesian stepped back out into the cold morning. He closed the door behind him and only then did his face change.

He stopped on the steps. He stared at the hill in front of him, rising above Kames Bay.

'There might just have to be another death in the family,' he muttered to himself, then he walked on quickly down the steps and climbed into his BMW.

Inside the house Ruth Harrison twitched the curtain as the car drove off, then she retreated into the middle of the room and looked down at the remnants of coffee and biscuits.

What had all that been about? Jonah and Bartholomew Ephesian? Had they ever even spoken to each other? As if she didn't have enough to worry about. Shaking herself out of it and deciding it was time to start fretting and getting annoyed about the Reverend Dreyfus, she placed the detritus from the most uncomfortable half hour she'd had in years onto a tray and headed into the kitchen.

A tray which she suddenly dropped as she heard the first of the familiar footfalls on the upstairs landing, heading in the direction of the bathroom.

––––––––

'S
o, we go for a walk, beautiful, beautiful day. Warm and hazy, no clouds, the buzz of insects, the burble of a small river, just the slight breath of wind. All the live murmur of a summer's day, as Arnold wrote, you know. Perfect. May 1941, remember it like it was yesterday. Birds in the trees, that delicious warmth that gets under your skin. Only one problem...'

'The girl was mingin'?' ventured Barney.

'Crustaceous,' said the old guy beneath his scissors. 'Don't know what was going on. I was with the Engineers, stationed down in the south of England. She was the sister of one of the other guys. Set me up totally. Got a weekend off, came up for a few days with her in Callandar, thought I was in luck. She meets me off the train. I'll be wearing pink, she says, and that should have been the warning shot across the old bows straight off. Pink, for God's sake. I takes one look at her and I think, you must be flippin' kidding me, darlin'. I'm not touching you with a stick. Should have just walked right past her and gone to the boozer, got one of the other guys to write to her saying I'd been shot and killed in North Africa. But no, I'm a decent bloke, couldn't completely blank her, so I go up, hold out my hand, I'm Rusty Brown, I say, and off we go for two nights in a hotel, and by jings was I glad we'd booked separate rooms. By jings!'

Barney stood back and checked the sides of the head. He was cutting the hair of another old fella in his early 90s who'd come in looking for a Kobe Bryant. He was amongst strange people, but his gloom of early morning had lifted with his parade of pensioners with their stories and strange haircut requests. And it was almost as if they'd worked out the appointments between themselves, as they only ever came in one at a time.

'So, where was I?' said the old fella, who still called himself Rusty, even though he hadn't been in the army since 1946. His given name Matthew was a perfectly acceptable name for anyone, and he was under no requirement whatsoever to have a schoolboy nickname. Like Midge Ure and Sting.

'Beautiful summer's day,' said Barney. 'Insects buzzing, trees and grass and a river running through it.'

'Aye,' said Rusty, 'that was it. Postcard perfect. The war seemed a hundred miles away. Well, to be fair, it was actually about eight hundred miles away, but you know what I'm saying, it was like there was no war.'

'I hear you,' said Barney.

Igor swept and wished that Rusty Brown would get on with his story as he'd heard it before, and knew, as Barney did not, that he would tell it every time he came into the shop.

'We sit by the river, side by side on the grassy bank. Watch the insects buzzing on the surface of the water, could even see a couple of fish. Not a soul in the world except me and the bogmonster from Inverary.'

'So what happened?' asked Barney.

Igor glanced up. You'll only encourage him by asking questions, he thought, then he mouthed the answer in time with Rusty Brown's reply.

'I kissed her,' he said, ruefully. '
I
kissed
her
! I mean, what was I thinking? In the name of God!' He looked wide-eyed at Barney, Barney smiled. Igor's timing had been perfect. He too looked wide-eyed and then he made the appropriate gestures with his hands as Rusty said, 'How does that happen? Seriously. What is it that makes a sane man do something like that?'

'How did you get out of it?' asked Barney.

'Ah,' said Rusty and he looked sly. 'I got one of the lads to send me a telegram telling me I was needed in Gallipoli.'

'Right. Didn't she know you'd got the wrong war?'

'Ach,' said Rusty, 'she was a woman. She didn't know the difference.'

Barney laid down the scissors, checked once more over the hair, then lifted the hand mirror to show Rusty the back of his head. Rusty nodded his appreciation. Barney went about the mop-up business, brushing off, removing the towel and cape.

'Gave her brother a right bollocking when I got back,' said Rusty. 'Still, the eejit got a bullet in the face when he stepped off the boat in Normandy, so he got what was coming to him.'

Rusty straightened up, checked himself in the mirror, fished in his pocket for a fiver, handed it over, nodded at Barney, looked at Igor and said, 'I've got a hunch you'll be here the next time,' then walked to the door laughing quietly to himself. Igor and Barney exchanged a look. And, as Rusty left, right on cue another old fella walked in, he and Rusty knocking knuckles as they passed. The door closed. The new customer looked from Igor to Barney.

'You're the new barber,' he said to Barney, showing remarkable insight. 'I'm Ginger Rogers.'

'What can I do for you, Ginger?' asked Barney.

Ginger removed his jacket and took his place.

'I'll have a Kiefer Sutherland, please, my man.
24
.'

'No problem,' said Barney.

'Aye,' said Ginger Rogers. 'It isn't that they can't see the solution, it's that they can't see the problem,' he added, quoting GK Chesterton for no apparent reason.

'Arf,' said Igor from behind his broom.

***

R
uth Harrison had cleaned her teeth and was feeling a little happier. She'd had to visit the local grocers to buy a new toothbrush, thereby avoiding the need to go to her bathroom, also taking the opportunity to use their toilet, but at least now her mouth was fresh should there be any need for kissing.

She looked at the clock. 12.17. The Reverend Dreyfus should have been here an hour ago. Maybe he could have lunch when he finally came. Lunch and a glass of wine.

She looked in the fridge and found a bottle of white. A velvety Montenegrin Chardonnay, persuasive yet hardworking, somewhat brutal on the nostrils, sadistic on the tongue and venomous on the throat, but gentle on the stomach and lower intestines and a positive boon to your rectal passage.

What to eat? She looked around the fridge, didn't encounter anything that would pass for a lunch dish. She straightened up, closed the fridge door. She hadn't cooked since she'd been married. Jonah had done all the food shopping and all the cooking. Ruth hadn't been near a meal in its pre-ready-to-eat stage for more than two decades.

'Maybe there'll be something in the freezer,' she mumbled.

The freezer was outside in the garden shed, somewhere else she never went, partly because of the spider issue.

She opened the back door, pulled her cardigan tightly across her chest, two yards, then she tentatively opened the door to the shed, expecting to immediately find herself covered in garden tarantulas.

The shed was immaculately clean, which was how Jonah had liked to keep it. Not a cobweb in sight. With trepidation she flicked the light switch and, hunching over to reduce her overall body size so that the spiders would have less of an area to land upon, she leant in and opened the freezer door.

She had no idea what sorts of things Jonah kept in there, or indeed, whether he ever did any freezer shopping. Discovered, for the first time in her life, that the freezer had drawers and she had to inch her way further into the shed to pull them out.

Top drawer, ice cream. Five flavours, all involving chocolate.

Second drawer, vegetables. Peas, corn, carrots, peppers, chips. All right, thought Ruth, we can have something with chips and peas, with ice cream for dessert.

The third drawer was large and taken up completely by a turkey. Obviously he'd bought that before she'd forced him to take the family out for Christmas lunch at the George.

Fourth drawer. Bread. Four loaves. Could she give the Reverend Dreyfus a chip butty?

She bent down, opened the bottom drawer. There was only one item, a freezer bag, frosted white, closed with a small white plastic tie-up. Maybe it was some kind of meat she could defrost in the microwave. She lifted it out to see what was inside. Hard to tell, and she had to press against the bag to make out what it was.

Suddenly she realised what she was holding. She dropped it on the floor, her body tensing instantly with the shock. She staggered back, smacking her head on the shed entrance, dislodging a large garden spider which then fell onto her face. She screamed and stumbled out into the garden, flapping frantically at her cheeks. She ran into the centre of the garden, whisked off her cardigan and threw it on the grass, then started scrabbling at her hair in case the spider had fled upwards. Hands all over her head, then over her neck and back, all breathlessly accompanied by a frenzied jig.

Eventually, after a full minute, the panic of having had an actual spider land on her face subsided, and she stood nervously in the middle of the lawn, staring at the ground, her hands on her hips. And only then, once she had assured herself that there were no spiders anywhere near her, did she start to think about what she'd just discovered in the freezer. She stared at the door to the shed.

And the thing that bothered her most about it, she suddenly realised, was that she was going to have to go back in there to put the bag back inside the freezer and close the door, because there was no way that she could let anyone find out about it.

'That was a bit of a performance, darlin',' said a voice from the other side of the garden fence. 'Been at the waccy baccy again?'

She looked round at Romeo McGhee. Felt a little stupid, but her feelings of embarrassment were nothing compared to the anxiety produced by her freezer find.

'Spider,' she said.

'Cool,' said McGhee.

'Not really,' said Ruth Harrison.

And she looked down at her cardigan and wondered if it was safe to pick it up, or whether she should stand all over it first.

––––––––

J
ames Randolph was being chased down a dark alleyway by a pack of slabbering wolves. The walls of the alley were closing in, and as he ran he could feel his legs becoming heavier and heavier. Then there was the flock of vultures circling overhead, the squadron of Meschersmitts coming in for the attack, streams of bullets already kicking up dust all around his feet, the lions prowling the roofs of the buildings above, their teeth stained red with blood, and the volley of thunderbolts being sent down by the god Titan. And that was not to mention the nagging doubts he had at the back of his mind that he'd left the oven on, the bath tap running, the freezer door open and toast under the grill.