The Barbershop Seven (75 page)

'Don't give a hoot, son,' said Mulholland. 'Go back and tell Geraldine that she can stick her head up her arse. You can help her to stick her head up her arse if you want; you have my authority.'

The fishing line was tugged again; a sharp pull. Mulholland snapped. Eyes open, he sat up, filled with the instant rage to which he had been prone for months. Did not even try to contain it.

'Bloody hell, Constable, I told you to fuck off! It's my day off, I've got nothing to go in for, so would you just get out of my face? Leave me in peace and tell Geraldine she can go and piss in her shoes. I'll see her in the morning.'

'That wasn't me, sir,' said Hardwood dryly.

'What?'

There was another tug at the line, Hardwood nowhere near it. As ever with his explosions of anger, Mulholland felt instant regret; and as ever, it ruined the sound basis for his argument and put him a couple of goals behind.

It was time, he thought, leaning forward and rubbing his forehead, that Murz started earning her money. He didn't need counselling a few hours a week, it should be all day every day for the next twenty years. And so he ignored the jumping line.

'Sorry, Constable, that was bad.'

'That's all right, sir,' said Hardwood.

'So what's the score, then? Why's Geraldine so keen to see me? Wanting into my pants?' said Mulholland glibly, as he hauled himself from his seat and began to wind in his third fish of the day; three fish he would never get the chance to eat.

'Likes 'em younger than you, sir,' said Hardwood and Mulholland laughed.

'Right, Constable. About your age, by any chance?'

Hardwood smiled, Mulholland shook his head. So it went, and he began to get his equipment together, fishing posted to the back of his mind.

Soon he would be dispatched back to Glasgow, to be once more commissioned to follow the trail of Barney Thomson; and to be once more landed in the dark heart of a murderer's lair, to taste the putrid flesh.

'Whatever it's going to be,' said Mulholland, 'I'll bet it's a load of pants.'

'Aye,' said Hardwood, knowing no more than Mulholland. 'No doubt.'

––––––––

B
arney stepped back and looked at the hair from a different angle. It was not going well. In fact, it was downright ugly. There had been more successful invasions of Russia in the previous two hundred years than this. It was time for retrospection, perhaps even damage limitation.

The Tyrolean Überhosen was one of the most complex haircuts ever to have emerged from Austria, and only three or four barbers outside the general Anschluss area had ever been able to master it. And for all his greatness, for all his communication with the gods of barbery, for all the angels fluttering their wings at his shoulder, and for all the elves weaving necromancy into the very fabric of his comb and scissors, rendering household plastic and steel into wondrous instruments of sortilege and legerdemain, transforming him from the journeyman barber of his past to the thaumaturgist of the present, turning water to wine by the agency of the theurgical jewels of his workmanship, Barney Thomson wasn't one of those three or four; and he was making an arse of it.

It was a tough haircut, no question. Ask any barber in Britain to perform it and they will quail at the very mention, for the line between success and failure is a fine one, and the consequences of that failure can be monumentally disastrous.

Of all the law suits brought against barbers in Great Britain over the final twelve years of the twentieth century, more than half were as a direct result of a failed Tyrolean Überhosen. See a man wearing what is obviously the first hat he could get his hands on, on a warm day when no headwear is required, and it's a sure bet that under that ill-fitting hat is a failed attempt at this haircut of which only kings can truly dream.

Why do men take the chance, many have wondered; but only those who have never seen the finished article in all its glory. It is questioned only by those who have never seen a man, bedecked in a perfectly executed Tyrolean Überhosen, strolling through town, with more confidence about him than Muhammad Ali when he fought Sonny Liston (or anyone else for that matter), men in awe of his every word, desperate women tearing frantically at his trousers, and the sun shining down upon him while rain soaks everyone else in his vicinity.

The barber who can execute the Tyrolean Überhosen is a wealthy man, for he can command a huge fee for every cut. And so Barney had dreamed of this day. Twice before, at Henderson's so very long ago, he had been asked for the cut, but he hadn't had the confidence to agree to do it. Not with those others in the shop just waiting to pass comment; not with his confidence shattered, and even the simplest Frank Sinatra '62 causing him problems. But now he'd been offered the chance of his shot at greatness, and such was his confidence, such was the air of indefatigability about him, the all-conquering hero of hirsutology he believed himself to have become, that he'd taken it on with barely a second thought, and hardly a trembling finger.

Twenty-five minutes in, however, and it was, as previously reported, getting ugly. It was not happening the way it was supposed to; the cut itself was uneven, the hair was not sitting as it should; the razor had buzzed unnecessarily long in his hand. Of course, not every head of hair is right to be turned into this cut, and this was indeed such a head of hair. Even Gert Struble, the famous late-nineteenth-century barber-cum-philosopher from Salzburg, would have been unable to successfully transform this head. Barney had known of this limitation, but bravado had forced his hand.

'How's it going, mate?' asked Wolfie Hopkins, not long returned from a walking holiday in the Tyrol and keen to emulate all the gigolos living it up at the expense of a variety of fabulous women.

Barney hesitated. There's a time for candour, etc., etc. This was a new, more-confident-with-the-customers Barney, however. Was there any point in lying? He could hardly cut the guy's hair down to nothing; he had more hair than Barney the Bear, a bear he'd once seen in a zoo; and the jug of water treatment would be completely lost on the bloke. Perhaps it was time to cut his losses.

'I have to be honest with you, mate. I don't think it's going too well. I'm sorry, but I just don't know what else I can do.'

Leyman Blizzard looked over from where he was struggling through a Zeppo Marx. He'd never even heard of a Tyrolean Überhosen, and he was not about to think critically.

Wolfie Hopkins pursed his lips and nodded. He'd already realised, even though there'd obviously still been some way to go. No fool, Wolfie Hopkins, he'd known the difficulty, been aware of the consequences, he'd known that his hair was probably not suited; and he'd also known that if the barber was sensible and pulled out in time, there would still be other, albeit less attractive, options open to him.

'That's all right, mate,' said Wolfie. 'Is there anything else you can do?'

Barney breathed deeply and took a further step back. Suddenly felt relieved. The haircut wasn't happening, he'd been foolish to start it in the first place, but at least the customer was being realistic.

'Might be able to do you a Lionel Blair,' he said.

Wolfie Hopkins laughed harshly. 'You've got to be joking, mate. Never.'

'Aye, aye, right enough. Don't want to leave you looking like that, eh? What about a William Shatner or maybe even an Estonian Eleemosynary Euclidean Short Back and Sides?'

Hopkins turned around. 'Bloody hell,' he said, 'that last one sounds flash. What is it, exactly?'

'Basically,' said Barney, wondering how he could word this so that it lived up to its name, 'it's a short back and sides.'

Wolfie Hopkins stared into the mirror. The dream had gone. He knew not that he currently sat in the chair of the finest barber in Scotland, but he doubted anyway that any other barber in the country would have been able to give him the cut he desired. Sometimes it made sense just to sit back, take what was coming to you, and go with the flow. Two days to the office Christmas party, and he was as well taking the safe option at this stage. It was not as if he desperately needed great hair to get the women anyway. He could always rely on his charm, his impressive good looks, and if all else failed, his horse-sized genitals.

'Aye, that'll do, mate,' he said. And Barney, breathing a sigh of relief, got down to business.

***

L
ate afternoon in the shop. Getting dark outside. It was about the time that people were beginning to think of packing up work for the day; that the latest Glasgow killer was beginning to wonder about his next victim; and about the time that Joel Mulholland was heading back to Glasgow, to once again face the reality of police work and murder investigation.

Barney was working steadily through a Burt Lancaster '65; Leyman Blizzard was giving a young lad a Jimmy Stewart even though he'd asked for a Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink; while one customer sat and waited, reading that day's edition of the Evening Times. Headline:
Thomson Strikes Again, City in Grip of Fear
.

Barney had seen these headlines, of course, and such was his sense of defeat at the hands of inevitability that he was not in the least surprised that some murderer should have kicked off a killing spree within a few days of his return to the city. He would almost have been surprised if it hadn't happened. But he doubted that anyone was going to turn him in, so disbelieving were all his customers that he was who he claimed to be.

He might have had alibis for the evenings in question, he wasn't sure. There was a fair chance that when the murders were committed he'd been sitting in the Paddle Steamer, bored stiff, listening to the bit about how Leyman had cut Elvis's hair in 1960, how he'd got the King's earwax caught under his fingernail, and how he hadn't washed for a fortnight. Although perhaps he'd been sitting in front of the television at home, with no one to vouch for him but Les Dennis or Peter Sissons.

There was a healthy debate on adverts taking place; or at least, the sort of debate where all the participants are on the same side.

'Load of pish,' said Barney's Burt Lancaster, 'and pretentious pish at that. But that's no' the main thing. You want to know what the main thing is?'

Barney nodded; at a delicate stage, adjacent to the right earlobe.

'When was the last time you saw an advert where the man in it didn't look like a total wank stain on the pants of society? Eh?'

'Aye,' said Leyman Blizzard, 'what he said!'

'I mean,' Burt Lancaster continued, 'every single advert you get these days where there's a bird and a bloke, the bird's as cool as you can get, and the guy's a flipping idiot. You know, if there's two folk eating breakfast cereal, and one of the cereals is a stunning bit of stuff, while the other's a load of shite, gives you haemorrhoids, and makes you look like a total arseface just 'cause you're eating it, you can bet that it's the bird who's eating the new packet of Just Perfect, or Fucking Stunning, or New Fibre Wheato-Flakes or Some Packet of Shite That Makes You Shit Like A Horse And No Want Lunch Until About Three In The Afternoon. And if it's a motor, it'll have some stupid name like the new Fiat Pants or the Renault Smug Bastard, and there'll be some bird who's all racy and chic and gorgeous who'll know all about the car and know how to drive it, while the poor slob of a bloke'll just be sitting watching the fitba', and would much rather be in his Wartburg, and the implication'll be that the bloke can't drive properly 'cause he's got no dick. It absolutely rips my knitting.'

'Rips
your
knitting?' said Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. 'The ones I hate are those domestic ones where the bloke's a total knobend and the bird's got to show him how to do the washing up, or put the washing machine on, or turn on the telly or wipe his arse. It's dreadful.'

'Sexist,' said Burt Lancaster. 'Bloody sexist. You couldn't get away with doing it the other way about.'

'Naw,' said Hasselbaink, 'you couldn't. Adverts are all dominated by women these days. You can't fart without there being some advert for tampons or Canesten or washing-up liquid, or some other women's shite like yon. Shocking.'

'Canesten?' said Leyman Blizzard. 'Did he no' use to play for Morton?'

'You know why it is, though?' said Barney, ignoring Blizzard.

'Why?' said Hasselbaink and Lancaster in unison.

'It's because these advertisers know that women are more susceptible to these things. I mean, let's face it, most of the stuff that gets advertised on the telly's a load of shite, right? They tell you something's going to make your teeth whiter than white, or make you more attractive, or make your shoes shinier, or some shite, whatever, but it's all a load of kiech. Like yon Twix advert from a while back where some bloke would take a galumphing great bite out of some other chocolate bar, jamming the bloody thing so far back down his throat he couldn't breathe, then some eejit would take a minuscule bite from a Twix and then start prattling on about how brilliant he was because he had so much of his bar left, and that the other guy was a wanker. It was all a load o' pish.'

'So?'

'Well, you see, women can't see through all that. They're no' as astute as us men. They're more susceptible to the adman's bullshit. Men have smart, intuitive, clear-thinking, rapier-like minds. Women are just stupid. So the admen have to pander to women's stupidity, knowing that men are too sage to be fooled by them. Too sage,' he repeated.

Burt Lancaster, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and Leyman Blizzard stared into the mirror, thinking deeply about what Barney had just said. Sounded about right, they thought.

'Wait a minute,' said Blizzard. 'Wasn't Canesten the guy that went to the Rangers and got his leg broken?'

––––––––

'I
've thought of a good advert for that crap you drink,' said Barney to Leyman Blizzard.

Blizzard downed the dregs of his neat whisky and laid the glass back on the table.

'Good for you, son,' he said. 'You can tell me all about it after you've got me another.'