The Barbershop Seven (215 page)

'Can I get you anything else?' she asked, the third time she'd used those words to start her approach, a poor second to
is everything all right for you, sir?

Barney looked up. Confident enough in himself to recognise her attraction, but not interested. He knew he had the look about him, the look of the traveller, the look of one who walked amongst men, restless and weary. Women loved that, but he also knew he could never be as interesting as they hoped he was going to be. He was running from life and the strangulation of attachment and community; he was no warrior.

'I'm all right, thanks, Selina,' he said. 'I should be going shortly.'

'You can't go out in that,' she said, wishing that every word which left her mouth could be more erudite.

'Places to go,' said Barney.

Selina, name-badged to an adoring world, stared at him and wondered where it was that this man had to go to. Somewhere dangerous, she imagined. The eyes said as much. The rest of the people in here were taking a break from shoe-shopping or were about to go off to meet their mother-in-law or their accountant. But this man, who'd drunk three cups of tea and eaten two pieces of cherry pie, he would have grander designs.

'All right there, darlin',' said a man's voice behind her. 'You going to stand there ogling that bloke all day? Get us a cheese sandwich, luv.'

Selina smiled at Barney, no trace of embarrassment.

'Got to go,' she said.

Barney smiled, said nothing.

'You're welcome,' Selina added as an afterthought, and turned round to the next table, to the man who was after some mature cheddar.

Barney turned and looked once more out of the window. During the brief intercourse with the waitress the rain had begun to ease, although not yet enough for anyone to venture out from under cover. He checked his watch again, lifted the cup to his mouth, and looked outside at pools of water dancing with the raindrops.

***

T
hirty-five minutes later, Barney was off the Docklands Railway, and walking the short distance to the building which housed the offices of Bethlehem, Forsyth & Crane. Checked the small gold nameplate screwed into the wall, pressed the buzzer and waited. The rain had all but ceased, but there was a cold wind bustling down here from the river, and he pulled his jacket tightly around him.

'Hello?' crackled at him, and he looked up into the small camera which was showing him to the receptionist and the security guards on each level of the building.

'Barney Thomson, barber,' said Barney, and immediately the door buzzed. He pushed it open and he walked into the domain of the seventh largest advertising agency in Britain. Up some stairs, around a corner, through another door and he was into reception.

The waiting area suggested everything you'd expect from a modern, chic, marketing operation. Sleek, minimalist Scandinavian furniture in pale colours; a few stark modern pictures of nothing in particular, painted in pallid blues and yellows; abrupt chairs, built for style rather than comfort; and a tremendous feeling of freshness and light and cleanliness. Almost as if there was a giant invisible panty liner soaking up all the dirt and darkness and grime.

They made TV adverts in offices like this.

The receptionist was sitting behind a clean-lined desk of pale brown veneer, straight-backed and elegant, her fingers surgically attached to her keyboard. She wore one of those little mics in front of her lips, as if she was Madonna and at any minute was liable to start gambolling full-chested around the room singing
Like A Prayer
. She went by the name of Imelda Marcos – not
the
Imelda Marcos, mind, although she was partial to a new pair of shoes – and was ready for Barney with a clipped smile and eyebrows that met in the middle.

'Mr Thomson?'

'I was ten seconds ago,' said Barney. Already tired of the purity of it all. If there had been a marketing agency reception on
The Little House On The Prairie
, it would've been this clean and wholesome.

'You're three and a half minutes early,' said Imelda, the smile vanishing, never to return. 'Would you like a drink?'

'What've you got?' asked Barney, looking around the area and choosing to sit down in an ergonomically designed comfy chair, with cushioning to suit the average Scandinavian backside.

Imelda Marcos's back was up. There'd been the ten seconds ago sarcastic remark, and now the bloke had had the temerity to sit down without first being offered a seat. Her voice rattled out, Gatling gun rapid-fire. Barney was a Zulu and she was Welsh.

'Latte, espresso, decaf, New York decaf, cappuccino, Earl Grey, lapsang souchong, Darjeeling or iced hydrogenated mineral water?'

Barney crossed his legs. 'A cup of tea would be nice,' he said. 'PG Tips if you've got it.'

Imelda gave him the Stare for a few seconds, pressed a quick button and spoke into her
Like A Prayer
microphone.

'Cup of English Breakfast for Barney Thomson,' she clipped. 'No sugar.'

***

F
irst there were The Folk Who Filled The Vacancies, then there was Personnel, then Human Resources. Bethlehem, Forsyth & Crane had a Miscellaneous Anthropoid Department. Situated on the third floor, MAD employed nine people. The head of the department rarely conducted interviews himself. However the hair of his employees was something about which Thomas Bethlehem felt very strongly, and he had asked Anthony Waugh if he wouldn't mind taking charge of the barber interviews.
The proximity of the two dictates that the state of your hair impacts on the state of your brain
, Bethlehem had once ridiculously pronounced, although he hadn't meant it. Still, he liked his employees well turned out and deliciously manicured.

Waugh was a seventh generation Oxford graduate, brought in by Bethlehem at great expense from Saatchi to help attract superior quality staff. Waugh had come for the money, and had no intention of ever settling at what was a smaller company. He was not entirely unlike those highly paid overseas dumplings who sign for Rangers and Celtic for a couple of years, before leaving for England; except that he was genuine top quality – he was Christian Vieri rather than Daniel Cousin – and the top three London agencies hadn't understood what he was playing at working for BF&C.

Bethlehem wanted to conquer the business in Britain, he wanted to be a player on the international scene, he wanted to do it from the base which he already had, and he'd known the only way to get there was to hire the best people. And the way to get the best people was to hire the best human resources man he could get hold of. Anthony Waugh had not come cheaply, but he'd had his price, same as everyone else on the planet.

'You worked for the Scottish First Minister?' said Waugh, looking up from a piece of paper Barney couldn't read. Waugh was bored. He was no fan of Bethlehem, and considered that he was doing this absurd barber thing more as a favour to the boss, rather than under some sort of diktat. However, he'd never had any intention of spending his day interviewing a stream of haircutters to find out if they knew what a mullet was. He had used his contacts, he had sent out his people, and he had selected his man. This pretence at an interview was to keep it all above board, keep Bethlehem happy, and would allow him to tick another box on the way to his big city bonus. To all intents and purposes, however, Barney already had the job.

'Not for long,' said Barney. 'Just a few days. Didn't really work out.'

Waugh scanned the next couple of lines, even though it was already in his head.

'Since then you've worked in Millport, but from the fact you're here, I guess you're not settled there. The peripatetical man who can't settle, is that you?'

'More Incredible Hulk than Aristotle,' said Barney.

'He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god,' said Waugh, quoting the legendary Greek marketing executive.

Barney smiled. Not a lot you can say to people when they're going to quote ancient philosophy at you. A neat little one liner from the livid green giant might have been appropriate, but then the big fella never really did say much that was worth repeating.

'Sometimes the soul needs to wander as much as the mind,' he said, saying what the Incredible Hulk was probably thinking under all those rage issues that kept coming to the surface.

'Indeed,' said Waugh. 'And how long d'you think you'll work for Mr Bethlehem before your mind and soul need to wander?'

Barney shrugged. 'You people asked me to come here,' he said. 'You'll get what you pay for. I'm not promising you anything, except that I can do any haircut that any of your employees will ask for.'

'You haven't much experience with women,' said Waugh quickly.

'How d'you mean that?' said Barney. Either way, and it was obvious what he'd meant, he was right. Twenty years of dull, dull marriage, followed by the most slender of flings, hardly constituted experience with women; and he wasn't exactly a hairstylist either.

Waugh laughed softly and held his hands open in explanation.

'Not much,' said Barney, 'but really there's not a lot to it. It's all in the talk and how much product you persuade them they need on their hair.'

Waugh smiled. 'Women are simple,' he said, echoing one of the guiding principles that had made Bethlehem, Forsyth & Crane what it was.

'Ain't that the truth,' said Barney, playing along, while actually thinking that most women have more personality strands than there are grains of sand in Australia.

Waugh nodded, looked back at the mysterious piece of paper in front of him. Nothing else to say. Time to get back to more important matters.

'Thanks for coming in,' said Waugh, looking up and, by use of the international eyebrow symbol, indicating that it was time for Barney to hoof it on out of there.

Barney rose quickly.

'Thanks,' he said.

'You can find your way down to reception,' said Waugh.

'Sure,' said Barney, to the top of Waugh's head.

He turned and walked quickly from the office, closing the door behind him. He nodded at Waugh's secretary as he walked though the outer office – the secretary smiled, recognising the primordial attractiveness of the wanderer in Barney – then down the stairs and into reception, where Imelda Marcos was doing a full throttle
Express Yourself
, then he was down the final flight of steps and back out into the cold of a bleak Docklands morning in March.

***

B
y the time Barney had returned to the small flat in NW1 in which he had already been installed by the contracted out men from PwC, there was a message on his answering machine from Imelda Marcos informing him that he had secured the barber position, and requesting that he report for work promptly at eight o'clock the following morning.

––––––––

T
he offices of Bethlehem, Forsyth & Crane took up all of a ten storey block in Canary Wharf. Joe Forsyth had negotiated a long term deal on the property in the mid-nineties, picking his moment during a bad week when it looked like the market would lose the momentum it had built up after the calamities of '92. With the change of address on the letterhead, from Birmingham to NE14, the fortunes of the company had changed overnight. Ever since, the story of BF&C had been one of growth and increasing market-share.

The departure of the last remaining founding partners other than Bethlehem – there had originally been five in all – had seen barely a blip in the rise of the company, as the sheer bravado and exuberance of Thomas Bethlehem had seen them through potential difficulties with clients initially attracted by either Forsyth or Margie Crane.

Forsyth had gone quietly, the culmination of endless disagreements with Bethlehem over the ethics of the company and their business. Bethlehem wanted to have fun, sleep with lots of women and make huge amounts of money. He had known all along that Forsyth's idealism made him easy meat for the carnivores of the world of marketing, so that when the going got tough, Forsyth got going.

Crane had departed after an incident with a Lebanese prostitute and two sachets of illegal drugs had left her position untenable. Knowing his feelings on women, she had presumed she'd been set up by Bethlehem, although she hadn't. So she had left with a chip on her shoulder, albeit quietly, and with her tail between her legs. Despite the fact that her departure had meant a far bigger slice of the cherry pie for him, Bethlehem had almost been sad to see her go.

Crane had started a small firm in Birmingham, pitching for the bottom end of the billboard business. Forsyth had gone off to Australia to fight for the rights of the Aboriginals. Bethlehem had lost interest the minute the two of them were out of the door. And their first names, Margie and Joe, had become the bywords in the company for the general public, the masses out there who read the Sun and the Mirror, who watched Ant & Dec and Corrie and Eastenders, who played football and drank down the pub, who wore their cell phones like cowboys wore their guns, and who were there to be duped and controlled and made to buy any old shit that people like Thomas Bethlehem were paid to make them want to buy.

***

B
arney turned as the door opened and his first customer of the day, the first of his new position, walked into the small office, which had been converted overnight into a barber's shop. There would be no money exchanging hands, however. Barney was paid as an employee of the company, the other employees would get their hair cut on the company. Thomas Bethlehem was that serious about hair.

Barney lifted himself off the barber's chair, where he had been sitting at the tenth floor window, looking out on the Thames.

'Morning,' said Barney. He knew from his appointments list, already handed to him by Imelda Marcos, that this was Hugo Fitzgerald, Head of Television Contracts.

Fitzgerald nodded, hung the jacket of his suit on a hanger, and slid into the seat, which he then swivelled round away from the window so that he was looking in the large mirror. He settled back, opened up a folder he had brought in with him and waited to be set upon. Barney knew that Fitzgerald would be expecting to be asked what he wanted, but he could see that this was a man whose head demanded a jejune, but appropriate, Brad Pitt. And so, with an apposite cape tossed around the neck, Barney picked up his new razor, flicked the switch, felt the old familiar buzz in his fingers and got to work.