'Such as?'
'Well my old man was well involved, wasn't he? And when he died, old Ephesian was round here the first day, you know what I'm saying? Soon as my old geezer had pegged it, the guy was round here like a flash. Which is what he just did with Ruthie across the garden. So, I'm thinking, it might just be for the same reason. He had something to collect from my house. And you know, I left him alone with my dad's stuff and he walked out carrying a bag. I thought it was all the old Masons shit, didn't really care. Left him to it. Now, old Ruthie didn't let him away with it so easily. She goes and finds what it is that Jonah had stashed away and what Ephesian's looking for. She doesn't give it to him and she hides it.'
He was smiling. Chardonnay Deluth stared back at him, getting quite sucked into the conspiracy.
'Unfortunately for the old Ruthmeister, I'm watching through my little bag of tricks up there. She leaves, I go and dig it up and now the thing that Ephisimo is looking for t'ain't in Rutheramma's freezer, it's in mine. And he can send as many of his henchmen round to the Ruthsmeller Pursuivant's house as he likes but he ain't finding shit.'
Drained his beer in one long gulp, belched massively and smiled knowingly across the table.
'I'm impressed,' she said, because she was the sort of girl who would be impressed by that kind of talk.
'Course you are, darlin'.'
'And now,' she said, 'you're going to tell me what it is that Jonah had in his freezer. Aren't you?'
He smiled again. Looked a bit cheeky. She loved it, because she was strangely besotted with Romeo McGhee. Most other people would have been taking a baseball bat to his head.
He stood up, opened the freezer door, lifted out the small bag and placed it on the table.
Chardonnay Deluth stared at it, not entirely sure what she was looking at. She lifted the bag, turned it over in her fingers, suddenly realised what it was. Others might have dropped it in horror but a huge smile came to her face. She looked at McGhee with wonder, the smile on his face increased ten fold.
'A human hand,' she said. 'Fuck me.'
He took another beer from the fridge and turned back.
'I could do that,' he said, smiling.
***
Barney Thomson walked along the sea front. Had just passed the Crocodile Rock – the crocodile shaped rock that has been painted as a red, white and black crocodile since 1903, and which provided Elton John and Bernie Taupin much inspiration after a holiday to Millport in 1971 – and was promenading by Newton beach, looking out to sea, enjoying the smell of the air, the breeze in his face. A couple of dogs about, their owners in their wake, not many other people abroad. Just before six, late afternoon turning to early evening, the last hour of daylight soon to be lost under a layer of dark, low cloud.
He had left Igor and Ruth Harrison to it. Didn't think that Jacobs and the absurd Randolph would be back soon but had armed Ruth with his mobile number in case they returned even more heavy-handed than before. Thought, however, that there would be a night's reflection on their part before they hit upon another plan. He knew she'd be safe in Igor's arms, which was where he thought she would end up, and was literally where she already was, now that Barney was ten minutes away.
Barney smiled at the thought of Igor and a woman. Any woman. Good on the lad. Short, hunched, mute, deaf and downright ugly but there's nothing to get in the way of a beautiful personality.
Pondered briefly the human hand in Ruth's freezer but just didn't want to think about it. More death and murder and dismemberment. And so he allowed his thoughts to drift to Garrett Carmichael even though he knew she wasn't for him. Just not fated, in some way. Perhaps Agnes, his long-gone ex-wife had been his fate. A dull twenty-year marriage, that was all he could expect. There had been a couple of women in his brief sojourn in Edinburgh but he'd never really known what he'd wanted.
So much of human action is based on trying to achieve something new, because it seems so empty to sit on what you have. Yet where do you stop when it comes to relationships? With everything else, there's always another challenge. There's always another mountain; if not higher, then more remote or less well climbed or more dangerous. There's always another sea or ocean to circumnavigate or to row across or to dive to the bottom of. There's always another jungle to explore – or at least there will be for about another twenty years - another lost city to spend decades searching for. But with relationships, you so quickly come to the crunch and once you've made the commitment there's no moving on. Ever. Not without hurt and heartache and losing your insides. How much had he hurt Agnes?
'Thinking about women, eh?' said a voice.
Barney, sucked through a straw from melancholic reflections, looked round. An old fella sitting on a bench, eating a cheese sandwich, bottle of Strongbow at his side, watching the waves in amongst the boats. Barney had given him a Justin Timberlake Superbowl XXXVIII cut that morning.
'Aye,' he said, smiling ruefully. 'You guys all given some special psychic implant when you hit old geezerdom?'
Justin Timberlake indicated the sea with his cheese sandwich.
'We're all wise in the ways of the souls of men, who live by the sea,' he said.
Barney nodded.
'You know who said that?'
'Nope.'
'I just did,' said Timberlake laughing, and he took another bite of sandwich. Barney shook his head.
'Feels like I've come into a town of Aristotles and Nietzsches,' he said.
'Nietzsche was an arsehole,' said Timberlake.
'Aye,' said Barney. Everyone thinks that.
'You'll be going out with Garrett for dinner tonight then?'
Barney shrugged. I expect, he thought, that he knows what I had for my lunch too.
'Aye,' he said.
'She's not for you, though, you know that. Then you've got the whole mid-life crisis thing, which isn't really a mid-life crisis, it's beyond mid-life. Really, you're not too far from old geezerdom yourself.'
He laughed quietly, took the last of his cheese sandwich.
'That makes me feel better,' said Barney.
Swig of cider and the old fella indicated the sea again.
'With the exception of a good woman, all a mid-life crisis amounts to is the realisation that whenever you get what you want in life, you find out that you didn't really want it after all. You know who said that?'
Barney smiled.
'René Descartes?' he asked, playing the game.
'One of mine,' said Timberlake with that cheeky smile.
Barney smiled and began to walk off. Old men talking mince, everywhere he went. Timberlake allowed him a pace or two.
'Get by that and you'll be fine,' he said. Barney stopped but didn't turn. 'There's always suicide of course. The thought of suicide is a great source of comfort; with it a calm passage is to be made across many a bad night.'
Barney turned, smile gone, the weight of melancholy returning much more heavily than before.
'Nietzsche,' he said flatly.
'Aye,' said Timberlake. He drained the cider and winked. Barney stared at him for a second and then turned and walked on.
Suicide? It wasn't that bad. Not yet, at any rate.
Bar Room Blitz
Tony and Luigi were sitting in the bar of the George Hotel by the old pier at the bottom of Cardiff Street. Strategy to discuss, although Luigi was wishing he had strategy to discuss with a strategist, rather than with a monkey. There had been nothing obvious in the cathedral, which was as much as could be expected, but there must have been a clue somewhere. What they needed to do, Luigi thought, was take a bulldozer to the place.
'This is a nice wine,' said Tony, holding up the glass and checking it for length. 'Can't beat a good Italian.'
Luigi shook his head.
'My mother's piss tastes better than this shit,' he said. 'You're such a moron. You've been out of Italy two stinkin' minutes and you're more misty-eyed than Pavarotti.'
'This is a good wine,' protested Tony.
'Smell it,' he said.
Tony smelled it.
'You getting that?' asked Luigi.
'What?'
'Horse shit, that's what this smells of. Stinkin' horse shit. You'd think you hadn't seen Italy in years the way you go on. We were there yesterday morning for Chrissake's, and with any luck we'll be there again tomorrow night. Get a grip of yourself. This is Britain. You think we export any decent wine to this lot? Are you kidding me? Why waste it on an entire nation of tasteless morons? These people eat French fries with pasta for crying out loud! Taste it again and when you do it, think of the wine we shared with the cardinal on Saturday evening.'
Tony took another sip of low-grade exported petroleum extract that passed for wine in Safeways.
'Jesus,' he said. 'This is terrible.'
'Thank you. I wouldn't use this shit in my bolognaise sauce.'
'Me neither.'
Luigi mouthed Tony's reply, mocking him.
'Bolognaise sauce. You never made a stinkin' bolognaise sauce in your life.'
'Oh yeah? Well, what about that time I nearly died eating your stupid bolognaise sauce. I was sick for a week. I was sick like a dog. I was so sick I thought my stomach was going to come out through my fuckin' eyeballs.'
'That wasn't bolognaise sauce, that was dog food made out of uncooked chicken offal. You're such a stinkin' idi—'
'Fuckin' Eye-ties,' said a voice from across the bar. Strong Glasgow accent, not so rare in these parts anymore.
Tony and Luigi looked round. There was a lad at the bar. Big, lumbering, meat and two veg short of a main course. Holding a pint, staring at the two emissaries from the Vatican with scorn. Mid-20s, denim jacket, ripped jeans, a suspect Ewan MacGregor Trainspotting cut, executed by an inexperienced hairdresser called Wendolene. Had been christened Donald Gallagher by his unsuspecting parents but had been known as Donaldinho for a number of years, by his own insistence.
'What did you say?' said Tony.
Luigi prodded Tony's arm. They weren't here to get into fights with morons in bars. They didn't have to keep entirely in the shadows but there was no need to attract attention to themselves any more than the fact of being two Italians in a small town in Scotland would anyway.
'Fuckin' Italian bampots,' said the guy. The barman glanced at him and wondered if it was too early to put a call through to Police Constable Gainsborough. It wasn't as if, after all, PC Gainsborough wasn't expecting the call. 'Did yese get intae a fight at home and yese had tae run away?' said the guy. 'Wis that it? Yese were prob'ly shaggin' some'dy's missus, knowin' you lot. Or maybe,' and he turned around fully to face them, to lay the accusation wholly on the table, 'you were shaggin' each other and had tae get away fi' the lynch mob.'
Straight over Luigi's head. Couldn't have cared less. Tony, being a simple man 'n all, was on the verge of crashing over the table and attacking him. Luigi put his hand on Tony's arm.
'Oh, very nice,' sneered Donaldinho from behind his pint. 'Yese'll be shaggin' each other up the arse next. Course, the minute you see someone's back you probably want to stab them in it.'
Tony made to move. Luigi grabbed his shoulder, pulled him back down into his seat. Luigi did not yet suspect that this was a set-up but only the simple man rises to simple bait.
'Tony, sit down, shut up. Barman, are you just going to let this guy talk to your other customers like this?'
Donaldinho took a long drink from the trough.
'He's got a point,' said Murray the barman. 'Tuck it in, mate. There's no need for that kind of thing in here.'
There were two other occupied tables. A bloke and his wife, who looked worried by the whole business and were on the point of leaving; and a couple of old women on their annual escape from Glasgow, who were excited by the thought of getting to watch an actual wrestling match, likely with real blood.
'Is that no' just typical,' said Donaldinho. 'Hidin' behind others. Fuckin' brave the pair o' ye. Fuckin' arse bandits.'
'Enough, mate, or I'll call the polis,' said the barkeep.
Donaldinho glanced at him, then turned back. Luigi was staring at the floor, concerned only that Tony did not do anything stupid. Tony was agitating to go on the rampage. He may have been an out and out idiot and he may have been much much smaller than his adversary but he was more than capable of killing him.
He had a gun in his jacket.
'Two bum-fluffs the gither,' said Donaldinho, 'too wee and scaredy tae dae anythin' but sit there. Nae wunner we shat a' o'er yese in the war.'
Luigi tugged at Tony's shoulder. Tony wriggled free and came at Donaldinho like a tank.
Donaldinho cracked his pint glass off the edge of the bar, spraying beer over the barman, the glass pinging around the room. He turned and met Tony full on. Fists and feet and glass met in a fantastic crunch. A looping parabola of blood spurted instantly into the air.
The couple, who had up until now been quietly enjoying their gin and tonics, left hurriedly. The old women leant forward, hands clapping with glee.
'My money's on the Italian lad, Marion,' said one.
'Ach, away and bile yer heid, Nella,' said the other.
Donaldinho and Tony's heads met with a crunch. Blood was everywhere, although it was impossible to see whose it was. The barkeep stood well clear. Luigi knew he could not get involved. At least one of them had to stay out of trouble. In any case, he knew that Tony would not need help.
And, as he took another sip of disgusting wine, the obviousness of the set-up finally hit him. He smacked his hand off his forehead, then he rose, pushed the table away from him and, avoiding the brawling couple in the middle of the bar, walked hurriedly up the stairs to get his things from the room.
The Well Of Life
The sea front was quiet and although Barney was a good distance from the George Hotel, he was aware of the stramash as Tony, the Vatican's less than holy ambassador, was dragged out by Police Constable Gainsborough. Tony had been disarmed and Donaldinho had been allowed to skulk away into the shadows – or, more accurately, to skulk away to the hospital, as his broken beer glass had been turned against him by his more expertly brutal opponent. Tony had belatedly realised what had occurred earlier to Luigi but there was nothing to be done about it now other than sitting in his cell until the inevitable call came through from a higher authority to have him released.
Barney watched for a few seconds, vaguely curious, then turned back to the red door. Hesitated, then lifted the brass door knocker – a wonderfully hideous gargoyle with a double nose and a bit of a Boris Johnson – and let it drop. A moment's pause, then the sound of two pairs of scampering feet. The door was pulled open and Hoagy and Ella stood against the wall forming a line of two, backs straight, arms by their sides.
Hoagy saluted and said, 'You have permission to come aboard, sir!'
Barney smiled, returned the salute, then stooped to inspect the troops as he went by. He straightened Hoagy's shirt and tugged at Ella's collar, which had her in fits of giggles.
'All proper and correct,' said Barney. 'Stand down.'
They both saluted, Hoagy's accompanied by a lop-sided wink.
'Where's your mum?' asked Barney.
'Upstairs,' said Hoagy. 'In the bathroom doing girl's stuff. But there's no amount of make-up going to help her lose weight.'
Barney nodded. Five year-olds are bad enough, much worse when they're going on fifteen, as most of them seem to be now.
'I heard that!' shouted Garrett Carmichael from upstairs. 'I've had enough of your cheek.'
Hoagy looked innocent and shrugged his shoulders. Ella shook her head disapprovingly and said, 'He's just a little fuck.'
They're coming on faster these days, thought Barney.
Like the wind, Garrett Carmichael appeared at the top of the stairs. Towel wrapped turban-like around her hair, red trousers, nothing on top but a black bra. Barney turn
ed away.
'What did you say?'
'I said he's a little fuck,' Ella replied. Very matter of fact.
Garrett came steaming down to the bottom of the stairs. Barney glanced at her, looked at Hoagy – who gave him a you get everything in this house look – then stared at the ceiling.
'That,' said Garrett, holding Ella's hand, 'was a very, very bad word to say. Don't let me ever hear that again. Where did you hear it? It's very, very naughty. Do you understand?'
Domestic bliss, thought Barney. Wherever you look in family life there's usually something to support the way of the wanderer.
Ella looked blameless and perplexed.
'I just said he was a little fuck,' she protested innocently.
'Right!' said Garrett angrily. 'I told you not to say it! It's bad! Go and stand in the bathroom until you're ready to say sorry.'
One and a half seconds, then the three year-old bottom lip appeared and she burst into tears. Garrett let out a huge exasperated and annoyed sigh, then looked at Barney.
'You deal with it,' she said, and stormed back up the stairs.
'Mummy!' wailed Ella, as her mother disappeared from view. 'Mummy!'
Barney looked down at this scene of child carnage and felt glad that these spawn were not, and never would be, his.
Hoagy shrugged his shoulders.
'Mum's on,' he said. 'That's what dad used to say. Not sure what it means.'
That, my grown up little friend, thought Barney, is something that will never change.
'Can you explain it to me?' he asked.
'Wee man,' said Barney, raising his voice over the general tumult of Ella's rejection issues, 'you must be joking.'
The front door was knocked and then Miranda Donaldson bustled in, looked at Barney with grave suspicion, ignored Hoagy and headed straight for the greeting wean.
'What's the matter with you, darlin'? she said, bending down next to Ella.
The Barbershop Seven: A Barney Thomson omnibus Page 121