The Barbershop Seven (214 page)

'Yeah, nice try, Hugo,' said Hemingway, 'but it's a little too scientific.'

'Luxury Perspiration Point,' suggested Wodehouse.

'Upper Body Limb Vertex,' said Fitzgerald, stupidly.

'Subordinate Collar Bone Terrain,' said Wodehouse.

'Silvicultural Anti-Convex Environment,' said Fitzgerald.

'Keep 'em coming,' said Hemingway quickly, to interrupt the flow, 'that's good work. We're not quite there, yet.' Not even close, he thought, but you don't publicly disparage.

'Duplex Hormonal Dispatch Orientation,' said Wodehouse, descending into absurdity.

'Not quite there yet,' repeated Hemingway.

Hemingway knew that Orwell would be down in a few minutes and he wanted them to have something before he got there. Jude Orwell would have the answer in about five seconds, but it would be better for them all if they could think of something before he arrived. Hemingway didn't suffer from the same insecurities as the others though, so he didn't care which one of them came up with the idea.

'The Love Pit,' said Wodehouse from the window, in the appropriate tone of voice.

Hemingway nodded, chin resting in his entwined fingers.

'Not bad,' he said. 'Not bad.'

'That could apply to about twenty-five different areas of the female anatomy,' said Fitzgerald, jealously.

'Yeah,' said Hemingway, 'but it doesn't mean a campaign won't change the perceptions of the British people. For the moment, it's all we've got.' Then he said
The Love Pit
over to himself in an advert voice, to try to get used to the idea. It didn't matter if people thought it was stupid the first time they heard it; it was whether it would be the accepted term after they'd been hearing it for six months.

The door opened and they all looked up as Jude Orwell walked into the room, closing the door behind him. None of them actually rose and saluted but they all thought about it. Orwell felt the Force. He wasn't head of this company. Not yet. But the day was coming.

He threw the folder he was carrying onto the table and sat down next to Hemingway, back against the chair, feet propped on the desk. These men were in thrall of him; he had no one to impress.

'Tell me what you've got,' he said.

Hemingway glanced at the others, then looked Orwell in the eye.

'The Love Pit,' he said.

A loud horn sounded far below at the front of the building, as a BMW cut up a Jag.

'The Love Pit,' repeated Orwell, and Wodehouse continued to watch the boats on the river, butterflies in his stomach, as he waited for the boss to pronounce.

'Don't like it,' said Orwell, after an eternity. 'It's the use of the word pit, you see. Wrong word to use. Totally wrong.'

'Yeah,' said Hemingway, 'you're right.'

Bloody bastard, thought Wodehouse.

'You got anything else?' asked Orwell.

'There are others, but zenith-wise Love Pit was the actualisation of the discussion to this point,' said Hemingway.

Orwell breathed deeply, then let the air out in a long sigh.

'So, what do we have?' he said rhetorically. 'The chick steps out of the shower, dries herself off, shows us a bit of boob, then as she reaches for the deodorant, the voiceover – and I'm assuming here we're talking Bergerac or Lovejoy – says something like,
Exron ... for your armpits
.'

'Yep,' said Hemingway.

'You can see why we need another word for it,' said Orwell. 'We'd be as well getting Cilla Black at this rate.'

'Totally,' said Hemingway, quite happy to suck up to anyone in a suit.

Orwell removed his cell phone from its holster, flicked the top, pressed a button with his thumb, and kicked back even more.

'Rose,' he said, 'I need the French word for armpit. Yeah,
armpit
.'

As soon as he said it, the others stared at the carpet, kicking themselves. The French translation. Simple, easy, straightforward. One of the basics. That was why Orwell was the upcoming King. That was why Thomas Bethlehem, the chief executive of Bethlehem, Forsyth & Crane, had to watch his back.

'Thanks, Rose,' said Orwell, and he was closing the cap and fitting the phone back into the holster as he said it.

They all waited, wishing they'd made that call.

Orwell held his hand aloft to illustrate his vision. Without saying a word, he conjured up the image of the naked überchick, towel at her feet, clean and sparkling and reaching for the deodorant.

'
Exron
,' he said, in his best Bergerac, '
Pour L'Aisselle
.' And he looked around the room and smiled. Hemingway nodded, Wodehouse shook his head and smiled ruefully at the floor.

'Excellent,' said Hemingway.

'You sure the Margies and Joes are going to know what a
l'aisselle
is?' asked Fitzgerald.

It was no big deal questioning Orwell. He was quite happy to answer all critics from within, because he was comfortable with his own ball-breaking confidence. His men all knew they could say what they wanted. No Tony Blair or Margaret Thatcher this man. Critics were welcome.

He smiled and patted Fitzgerald on the back as he walked past him, folder back under his arm.

'The woman's going to be putting the stuff on her armpits at the time, Hugo. If some people are just too stupid to work out what the hell a
l'aisselle
is, do we actually want them to buy the damned product?'

Laughing at his own line, he turned once more and embraced the three of them with a smile.

'You cool with the rest of it, Piers?' he asked.

'Sure,' said Hemingway.

And with that, Orwell was gone.

The door closed and once again the room was silent, the only noise the sounds of a cold London in March. Wodehouse turned away once more and looked down at the hypnotic river below. Fitzgerald stared at the table and felt a little foolish.

'Right,' said Hemingway, 'you heard the man. Let's get on with it, there's plenty more to sort out.'

'Totally,' said Wodehouse.

Bloody suck up, thought Fitzgerald.

––––––––

'W
ill the rain ever stop?'

Barney Thomson turned away from the window of the shop and looked behind him. He could see Igor in the back room making another cup of tea. Back hunched, bending over the worktop. Fifth cup that day, not yet eleven o'clock. Nothing much else to do.

Barney stared at Keanu. The lad was kicked back, feet up on the edge of the counter, nearing the end of
The Lost Children of Ngor Lak
. Had so far managed to stay awake.

It had been a long slow winter, the three of them hanging on until the spring rush. If it ever came. Barney had begun to think that maybe it was time he went on the move again. He didn't need to sell the shop. He could leave Igor in charge, Keanu would be able to take care of the haircutting, and Barney would have the safety net to return to should his peregrinations be unfulfilling. Maybe they would take in enough money for the two of them to get by if he wasn't around.

'What?' asked Barney.

Keanu looked up. He was smiling.

'What?' he said.

'You said something,' said Barney. 'About the rain.'

Keanu looked mildly curious, thought about it for a second, but couldn't remember having said anything for the previous twenty minutes. Shook his head, looked back at the book. Immediately started smiling again.

Barney stared around the room. He'd known it wasn't Keanu who had spoken. Hadn't been his voice. He shivered, looked back out of the window.

Igor appeared at his side, two cups of tea in hand, Keanu's already placed at his side. Barney took the cup and nodded. Igor stood beside him and the two of them stared across the road, across the white promenade wall, out to sea.

A single seagull circled slowly across the road, and then came to rest on the wall across from the shop. It turned and looked at Barney, seemed to stare straight into his soul. Igor shivered and glanced at Barney.

The gull had haunted Barney Thomson in the past, but had not been seen in over two years. Two weeks previously, however, it had reappeared.

'Arf,' muttered Igor.

Barney nodded. 'I know, my hunchbacked little friend,' he said. 'He's back.'

'Who's back?' asked Keanu, appearing beside them.

Barney glanced back at the book, now placed on the counter.

'What happened?'

'The Kate Winslet and Helena Bonham-Carter characters just had sex, but they're done now and it got a little flat afterwards. Thought I'd take a break. Maybe a customer'll come in.'

Barney smiled. Not much chance of that. There was barely anyone walking along the street, never mind coming in looking for a haircut of any description.

'Ah, the seagull's back,' said Keanu, noticing the bird staring at them from across the wall. 'I guess some weird shit's about to go down.'

'You think?'

Keanu nodded, then placed a hand, the one which didn't have an obligation to a cup of tea, on Barney's shoulder.

'You know, my haircutting genius of a friend, that once that wee fella pitches up, gloom, mayhem and disorder cannot be far behind. I say, bring it on. It's about time something happened around this joint.'

'Arf,' said Igor.

Barney didn't reply. He stared into the black eye of the gull across the road. The notion struck him. This was his fate. How many years had he been looking into the black eye of the gull? Now here he was, too restless to settle, too tired to face more gloom, mayhem and disorder.

The weight of his unhappiness settled on the shop. The wind forced the rain against the window, chains clanked across the street. Two old women scowled past, their heads bowed to the weather, on their way to the Post Office. If it was still in business. A car drove by spraying water across the pavement. Human life moved on. Once more the main street was deserted. The three men stood and looked across at the gull.

Igor saw them first, staring along the street in the direction of Kames. Slowly Barney and then Keanu picked up on his gaze, and they followed his look along the road.

Two men, dark suits, black ties, black, expensive shoes. No overcoats, seemingly oblivious to the weather. They walked at a steady pace, eyes straight ahead. They were on the other side of the road, but there was no doubt where they were heading.

'And as if by magic ... ' said Keanu.

'Hmm,' said Barney. 'I don't think it's magic.'

Keanu looked back at the gull as it shuffled backwards off the white promenade wall and turned and flew away out across the sea. He waved his cup in its direction.

'How does he know? I mean really, it's a dumb-ass seagull, but it knows when there's shit about to happen. How weird is that?'

Neither Barney nor Igor answered. Barney knew, but he wasn't about to get into some strange discussion which might, frankly, verge into metaphysics and the nature of good and evil.

The two men crossed the road without checking for traffic. They still hadn't looked at the barbershop, but it was obvious that this was their intended destination. Suddenly Igor and Keanu got the sense of what was about to happen. These two men were coming for Barney, and even though it might not be in any particularly invasive way, even though they weren't about to force Barney to go with them, they knew that Barney would go.

They looked at Barney. Barney stared straight ahead, his eyes never leaving the two men as they neared. Suddenly the dull idyll of the barbershop was about to be shattered, as surely as if a bomb had been dropped on them.

The door opened. The two men walked in. They looked like Federal Agents. Men on a mission, at the very least on a mission to be inordinately cool. They left the door open. They weren't staying.

Keanu and Igor waited for them to produce badges and guns. The announcement of their government credentials. Barney glanced at his jacket on the peg on the wall. Looked back out to sea, to see whether the gull was still in the area. The cold day, the grey sea looked back at him.

'One of you is Barney Thomson,' said one of the men. His voice was too high-pitched for his clothes, had a thin east London accent.

'We're from PricewaterhouseCoopers,' said the other guy, in what sounded like a staged American accent.

'Why the fuck are you dressed like that, then?' said Keanu, annoyed at these men who were about to shatter his sylvan barbershop bliss.

'Mr Thomson,' said High Pitch, looking directly at Barney now, 'we're headhunters for a firm in the City. Our client, Mr Bethlehem of Bethlehem, Forsyth & Crane, is looking for a personal barber.'

Keanu looked disdainfully at them, the questions queueing up in his mouth. Why Barney? How had they even heard about Barney? Were they going to give him a trial? An interview? What was so special about Barney?

The questions stalled at the last one. Barney had a few questions himself, but he didn't need to ask them. This moment had been coming for a while.

Barney put his hand on Igor's shoulder and squeezed. Igor looked sorrowfully up at his boss. The shop had been gripped by sadness. If the men in suits felt it, they were at least oblivious to the fact that they had caused it.

'Arf,' said Igor. Even Keanu understood him. You can't go. Not like this, not just suddenly dropping everything. This is your home. This is your job. We're your friends. This is your life. We need you ...

Barney squeezed Igor's shoulder more tightly then let go. He felt the weight of sudden sadness even more heavily than the others. An instant oppressive melancholy, that staying in the shop would not conquer.

'Sorry,' he muttered to Igor. 'I'll get my coat,' he added, talking to the men in suits, then he patted Keanu on the arm as he walked past.

Two and a half minutes later, Barney Thomson walked from his barbershop in Millport and neither Igor nor Keanu knew if he would ever be back.

––––––––

T
he waitress appeared beside him, as she had done repeatedly throughout his one hour stay. She was always more attentive to customers whom she found attractive – she was no different from any other member of the world's waiting collective – and Barney had the disenchanted look about him that she so loved in men. Tired eyes, but eyes that showed depth and intelligence and wisdom. She had tried to make conversation, but he hadn't been interested, and she'd consequently found him all the more beguiling.