The Barbershop Seven (127 page)

Not so many laughs this time, and the experienced house speaker in him knew that he had passed his peak. Time to finish off the stupid little eejit.

He waited for the noise to abate. He looked around the sea of expectant faces. The sun smiled vigorously on him through the huge windows which dominated the upper walls of the debating chamber. He lifted the papers so that they would be the stick with which he would beat his opponent. They all knew what was coming; some of them held their breath. The leader of the opposition thought, here we go, but cursed the advisor who had persuaded him to ask the question. 'Show that he's not in touch with the bread and butter issues of life in Scotland,' that had been the thinking. Genius.

'This is a great nation,' said JLM, sombrely. 'We have been great in the past, and we will be so again. The Second Enlightenment is coming, sponsored by this government, this Executive. My colleague, Malcolm Malcolm III of the Clan Malcolm, issued a precise and far-reaching paper outlining the future of the Health Service in Scotland only two days ago. The integrated transport policy is coming together.'

He took a statesmanlike pause. Jesus, thought Wanderlip, you're not all going to let him away with this, are you? Someone have the balls to say something! The paper on the Health Service was nothing more than rehashed ideas. No new money, no new thinking. A disaster! There was no integrated transport policy, unless you called collectively ignoring all the problems at the same time, integrated. How could they all just sit here?

'No one is saying that the environment is unimportant,' he continued. 'This government is fully committed to that end. Recycling bins up 5% in the last two years. Legislation forcing industry to explain why they're dumping toxic waste...'

'But it doesn't actually stop them dumping it!' cried a brave little soul from the back. Good for you, thought Wanderlip, at the young woman's voice. At least two of us have testicles in this place.

JLM laughed in the slightly arrogant way that he somehow managed to get away with.

'There will always be arguments from the small-minded about technicalities,' he said, throwing the line away, along with the comment. 'As First Minister it is my position to see the bigger picture. It is my place, my curse, my bane, my affliction, to stand at the window of Scotland's predestination, looking out over the landscape of our heritage and how it leads us onto the promise of our destiny.'

'What the fuck...' muttered Wanderlip, and one or two others, as JLM got carried away.

'Four of my cabinet have likely been murdered in the past few days,' said JLM. 'These are dark times. But yes, I will rise above them, I will lead Scotland onto new glories, a new place on the world stage. We must concentrate for the moment on filling these cabinet positions from within the wonderful ranks of MSPs I see sitting here before me today. '

Another pause while he let the compliment sink in.

'This nation can be great again, and will be great again. This government has grand ideals, a grand vision, and we will realise that vision. This will be the legacy of my administration. This will be the empire on which the purport of our inheritance will be weighed.'

Oh, for crying out loud, thought Wanderlip. Any bloody excuse and he's off on a screaming tangent.

'We will rise and conquer!' exclaimed JLM, coming to the conclusion of his
tour de ridicule
. 'Scotland! Scotland! We will be kings!'

Some idiot couldn't stop himself applauding, and then the next thing anyone knew, there was a tumult of cheering at their great leader's grand vision.

'Fuck's sake,' muttered the leader of the opposition beneath the noise, 'I only asked him a fucking question about beetles.'

***

K
athy Spiderman left First Minister's questions early. Not because she thought it was the most ridiculous, over-the-top, absurdist nonsense that she'd heard JLM come out with in some months – although it was – but because she had been summoned by the same type of note that had earlier summoned Barney Thomson. And, in a strange coincidence, it had also summoned her to the same little conference room on the top floor of Queensberry House, with large windows and a lovely view out over the sun-roasted bottom end of the Royal Mile.

She opened the door to be greeted by the sight of someone leaning on the window ledge, one of the two windows opened wide, allowing in a gorgeous zephyr to douse the humidity.

'Awright?' said Spiderman. 'What's this?

The person at the window glanced round; although Spiderman had already recognised her from the rear view.

'Just catching the breeze.'

Spiderman stood by the door and looked out the window. What were any of them doing inside on a day like this? What was the point in any job when you couldn't just blow it off and make the most of the few glorious days that God gave you? It was one of the reasons why, despite the general appeal of power and the ability to control others' lives, Kathy Spiderman had already made the decision to stand down at the next parliament. Already kicking herself that she'd stood for re-election a year earlier, and hadn't opted out like the twenty-one others; the ones who'd realised that they were wasting their time.

She walked forward, took her place at the window, leant on the ledge and looked down. She could smell the warmth, and it took her to summer holidays when she was young, playing in the streets all day until her mum shouted for her when the sun was still low in the sky. Hopscotch and football and hide and seek and whatever was the big event at the time, whatever that summer demanded they imitate.

'It's beautiful,' she said, still curious as to why she'd been called up here, but this was better than having to listen to Jesse Longfellow-Moses give the parliament details of his latest vision.

'Yeah.'

She turned and looked at the person who had called her; faced flushed with the sun, as if she had been here a while, elbows on the ledge, holding a cup of water in both hands.

'You want a drink?' she asked.

Spiderman looked at the clean, clear liquid, imagined diving into it, submerging, becoming enrobed in still water, the cold touching her skin, removing the discomfort of the day.

'Aye,' she said, and the drink was put into her hands.

She didn't hesitate. Cup straight to her mouth, didn't see it coming. The poison was so fast-acting that she did not even have time to pass the drink back before it took effect. The cup slipped from her hands. She turned and stared, mouth open, gasping for clean air.

'Wh...' was forced from the back of her mouth, and then she slumped forward, so that her midriff was resting on the window ledge. Her weight nearly took her over, but after a wobble or two, she came to rest, arms dangling over the side, feet still on the floor.

The location of the axis made it easy for her feet to be lifted up. Spiderman's killer hesitated, enjoying the first moments of her death. A few seconds and she would splatter onto the Canongate. Let the Undertaker clear that one up.

The killer put her hand on Spiderman's belt. Then she heard a sudden swish of movement behind her. Started to turn, her hair catching the sunlight, like some shampoo ad überchick. Whomp! and she collapsed in a heap at the feet of Kathy Spiderman, bludgeoned crudely over the head with a heavy duty stapler. The weight of her, sliding down the inert legs, caused Spiderman's corpse to fall back into the room, tumbling over her killer's body, where it came to rest, their heads beside one another, so that it seemed that they were almost in intimate conversation.

Like Smith and Jones.

––––––––

B
arney Thomson took a late lunch in the parliament restaurant, having given JLM's napper a final brush up and polish just before he'd departed for questions. So it was, that as JLM graced the chamber with his magnanimity and courage, Barney was beckoned from his solitary lunch of
piquant of asparagus on a mutton of beef, with peaches en croute and the chef's delight of liquorice crème anglaise
, blended delightfully with a spicy Argentinean red, mellow on the throat, but unnecessarily vulgar on the stomach and downright vicious on the bottom, with hints of berry fruits and non-biological warfare, to share lunch with the Three Musketeers, boldly going where no one had gone before to solve all of Scotland's fiscal difficulties.

It was Herr Vogts's doing, as he had really wanted to ask Barney a few questions about men's hairstyling. Weirdlove hadn't been too impressed, Eaglehawk only mildly curious.

Barney walked over in response to the beckoning finger, plate in one hand, savage glass of wine in the other, and took his place at the fourth seat. The others were sharing a bottle of a rumbustious German white, for use as an accompaniment to meat dishes, as a drink on its own, for mixing cement, or for a hundred other practical uses around the building site; and they were eating a variety of things off the chef's menu, which involved compotes and nages and God knows what else.

'You can be our D'Artagnan,' said Vogts, smiling.

Barney laughed.

Weirdlove thought the analogy stupid.

I
want to be D'Artagnan, thought Eaglehawk.

'Well, I think I'm older than the three of you, but if that's how you want to think of me,' said Barney.

'You're only as old as the woman you feel, eh?' said Vogts laughing.

'Old ones are the best,' said Barney.

'Jokes are only as old as the woman who laughs at them,' said Eaglehawk, who would try and compete with Vogts's Groucho routine every now and again, but always ended up sounding like Zeppo. The poor bastard. No one laughed.

'You can take an idiot to water, but you can't make it think,' said Weirdlove caustically, and the other three gave him a quick glance and wondered at which of them the jibe had been aimed.

Weirdlove had known from the start of the day that there was something going on between Eaglehawk and Vogts. He had left them alone the night before, expecting that they would go their separate ways soon after, but it was immediately apparent to him that that had not been the case. He had consequently been suspicious all day.

'What did you do to Jesse's hair today, Barn?' said Eaglehawk, jokingly, deciding to ignore Weirdlove. 'He looked like a criminal.'

Barney shrugged. 'Inevitable,' he said. 'If the man's going to get his hair seen to eight times a day, and he's going to bob around like a ferret while he's in the chair, accidents are bound to happen.'

'And you can't say that the criminal look does not suit him,' said Vogts.

'I wouldn't speak those words too loudly, Herr Vogts,' said Weirdlove, lowering his voice.

Herr Vogts gave his new chum Eaglehawk a knowing smile and stuck a ravaged and toffee-ised carrot into his mouth.

'So,' said Barney, coming to the end of his meal, while just about coming to terms with the feral monstrosity of the wine, 'what can I help you with? Looking for some layman's input into your duplicitous shenanigans over the Euro, presuming you're all experts here?'

'Actually, I just wanted to ask you if you could give me a Gerd Müller, '74,' said Vogts.

For some reason that he could not explain, Barney knew exactly what a Gerd Müller '74 was going to look like. About to agree to it, when Weirdlove launched in.

'Yes, Mr Thomson,' he said, 'perhaps you could give us a layman's view of Scotland joining the Euro independent of Westminster. It'd be very interesting.'

'Well,' said Barney, after draining his glass, and giving it the required two seconds' thought, 'let me see...'

He looked round the table. No JLM here to offend. Didn't think it bothered him if he rubbed any of these men up the wrong way.

'Financially, it'll probably do you good. I say that from a position of complete ignorance, but trading wise, I can't see that it's a bad thing. From the public's point of view, you've got to get the press on your side, the tabloids as well as the business papers. Don't get the tabloids, then you're just going to get ridiculed. Having said all that, ethically and politically the way you're doing it is outrageous. A terrible affront to the voting public. Jesse is a mile up his own arse, not content with being principal politician in a pointless little country on the outskirts of Europe. But you three? I don't know what the story is with any of you.'

Vogts smiled ruefully. We've certainly all got our own reasons, he thought. Eaglehawk regarded Barney with suspicion, reading into his words the implication that he, he himself, James T Eaglehawk, was also up his own arse. Weirdlove gave Barney the sort of look he'd given him when he'd spoken to JLM in the same manner, destructo-rays pinging out across the table.

'Ah,' said a sweet voice behind Barney, 'a lovely little conspiracy of four, all men together.'

Barney turned, recognising the voice, smiled at her. Rebecca Blackadder, dressed in black, still wearing the unnecessarily cool spectacles that JLM demanded of her. Vogts smiled also, what with her being a beautiful woman 'n' all. Eaglehawk regarded her with the contempt in which he held most women with whom he wasn't having sex. Weirdlove breathed deeply. Didn't entirely trust Rebecca Blackadder, even if he sometimes manipulated her into doing his bidding.

'Sorting the world out,' said Vogts.

'I bet you are,' she replied. 'Well, you won't need Barney for that, will you?' And she looked expectantly round the others.

'True enough,' said Weirdlove, without tone, without humour, 'he's said quite enough. We should be getting on. Come on, gentlemen.'

He rose, turned and left without so much as another glance at the doctor. Eaglehawk nodded at Blackadder and Barney and followed Weirdlove from the restaurant.

'I'm only here to make sure Mr Weirdlove does not disappear up his own rectal passage,' said Vogts smiling, then with a nod and a wink, he too was gone.

'Don't mind if I sit down?' said Blackadder, after watching them leave the room.

'Sure,' said Barney. An absolute pleasure.

'What was that all about?' she asked, stirring her coffee.

'Nothing much,' said Barney. 'Just great men, doing great things.'