Scenes From The Barbershop Floor

Series 2, Episode 7: The Silence Imperative

‘What’ll we talk about now?’
The men of the Millport barbershop were in position, standing at the window, looking out on the world, drinking a fresh cup of morning coffee.
The road outside was quiet, rain softly falling. Directly across from them was the white promenade wall. Beyond that, the tide was high, the sea agitated, and every now and again spray would rear up, clear the wall and splash down onto the pavement. The gulls whirled in the wind, their mournful cries carrying across the crash of the waves; the small boats tied up in the bay away to their left strained against their moorings; in the far distance, on the blurred line of the horizon, a tanker laden with the finest haggis, square sausage and Irn Bru headed slowly to the south-west passage, bound for the Scottish settlements of Central America.
The smell of coffee hung in the chill morning air, itself speaking of far-off lands, with its nutty, chocolatey, spiciness. At least, that was what it had said on the back of the packet. Barney Thomson, ace international hirsutologist, enjoying it though he was, could really only taste coffee.
‘How d’you mean?’ he said after a few moments.
‘Now that Trump’s gone,’ said Keanu McPherson, Goose to Barney’s Maverick.
‘Arf,’ said Igor, deaf, mute gentleman barber’s assistant, who didn’t really have a Top Gun equivalent.
‘Perhaps,’ said Barney, ‘we can all relax, and go back to introspective silence for a few years.’
‘Really? I mean American politics is still a squabbling shitshow worth talking about, there’s the Trump impeachment trial, there’s the chaotic tragedy of the UK’s covid mismanagement, and we’ve Scottish independence to get excited about.’
Barney watched a couple of gulls wrestle over a chocolate bar wrapper, before both decided it wasn’t worth the hassle, and they flew off in separate directions, as the wrapper floated away in the wind, before finally coming to rest on the crest of a wave, far out to sea.
Years later, that chocolate bar wrapper would end up in the stomach of a blabberfish in the middle of the Pacific, that blabberfish would be caught by a hungry fisherman off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Kaho’oelvis, who would eat the fish whole, and later die from the entanglement of Snickers wrapper in his gut. All because Big Alec couldn’t be arsed crossing the road to put the wrapper in the bin.
‘I like introspective silence,’ said Barney.
‘Arf,’ said Igor, nodding.
 

* * *

 
‘You’ll be missing not having the Millport Lions of the Desert Burns supper this year,’ said Tank Montgomery, in for his monthly Uranus thundercut.
Barney continued the steady clip of scissors across the top of his head, giving him a quick glance in the mirror.
‘I don’t know, Tank,’ he said. ‘I never go to the Lions Burns supper.’
‘Wait, what? Didn’t you give the address to the lassies two year ago?’
At the window, Keanu laughed, while Igor looked up with a dubious eyebrow from the back of the shop.
‘You’re mixing me up with someone who talks in public,’ said Barney.
‘So you’ve never been to a Burns supper?’
‘Aye,’ said Barney, ‘I have been to a Burns supper. That’s how I know I don’t like them.’
Tank straightened his shoulders, and Barney chose to pause the cut, as he could see the man was beginning to get a bit agitated. Had something of a combustible reputation, Mr Tank Montgomery. His nickname didn’t come from serving in the military, it came from the time he punched a tank after getting into an argument with a guide at the Imperial War Museum in London.
He’d broken all six fingers in his right hand.
‘Is it because you hate Scotland?’
Barney gave him the look in the mirror.
‘Burns, then? You hate Burns?’
Barney continued to give him the look.
‘What’s the problem with a Burns supper then, eh?’
‘Really?’
‘Aye? Don’t go giving us any of your shite. I can get my haircut in Largs, you know. Not like they don’t know me over there.’
‘I don’t like formal dinners,’ said Barney. ‘For that matter, I don’t like informal dinners. I don’t like the bruhaha of everyone dressing up. I don’t like speeches. I don’t like people trying to be funny, when they’re clearly not funny, and I’m not that bothered when they are actually funny. I don’t like to listen to poetry. I don’t like listening to people talk in general. When there’s hubbub, I don’t like having to raise my voice to speak, and I don’t like having to concentrate through a tumult to hear what others are saying. I don’t like charity lotteries and charity auctions. Should there be dancing, I don’t like dancing. There’s literally nothing about Burns suppers that I like, Tank, and none of it’s got anything to do with Scotland, or really anything to do with Burns. Though, since you brought it up, I don’t actually like Burns anyway. If there was a Robert Louis Stevenson or Muriel Spark evening, I could go to that.’ A beat, then he added, ‘As long as there were no speeches, and no dancing. And there was no one else there.’
Tank Montgomery had looked suspiciously at Barney throughout, he slowly nodded, looked at himself in the mirror – the international sign of accepting that the haircut needed to be restarted – then he said, ‘Sounds like you hate haggis.’
 

* * *

 
Igor and Keanu were standing at the window, enjoying the slow passage of time outside, while Barney was sitting on the customers’ bench, having lifted the Daily Mail off the top of that day’s pile of uninformed, jaundiced horse manure, headline, Boris On Fire, Becomes First Ever Person To Compare Nicola Sturgeon To Krankies. With Barney having lifted the Mail, on top of the pile now sat the Daily Record, Lawwell Gives Lennon Summer 2027 Ultimatum, beneath which, nestling in raw sewage, were the Express, Hero Boris Fathers Six More Kids In Brexit Bonanza; the Sun, Massive British Tits Cure Covid; the Telegraph, Shock Biblical Find Reveals Boris Descended From Jesus; the National, Indy Scotland To Join Trading Block With Transnistria, North Korea And Julian Assange; the Mirror, Hancock Cuts To Chase, Kills OAPs With Bare Hands; and the Daily Star, Emmerdale Hunk Shagged My Mum Then Killed Her And Wore Her Skin To Asda, Claims Upset Loz.
The door opened, literally the first thing to happen in Millport in over an hour and a half. A young man in a suit, sporting immaculately groomed hair, and the kind of smile you would never tire of cutting in half with a chainsaw.
‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for one Barnabus Thomson.’
He looked enthusiastically around the room, assuming, curiously, that there would be some level of buy-in to his gusto.
‘Barney?’ he said, the chainsaw-deserving smile widening in the face of disinterest.
Igor put his hand up, to accompany his scowl.
‘Excellent,’ said Chainsaw Guy, though he looked a little unsure.
And then Keanu raised his hand, and Barney raised his hand, in the familiar I’m Spartacus and so’s my wife routine that they pulled whenever these kinds of shenanigans were kicking off.
‘OK, I don’t really understand,’ said Chainsaw Guy, ‘but whichever one of you is Mr Thomson, I have exciting news. Michael Gove would like you to come and work for him in London.’ Now his smile was so large it burst off his face. ‘Isn’t it amazing?’
The door opened, unexpectedly, and another young man entered the shop, similar sharp suit, similar age, this year’s hair, and for a moment Barney assumed they were together. However, from the looks they gave each other, it quickly became apparent they had been, until that moment, unaware of the other’s existence.
‘Barney Thomson?’ said This Year’s Hair.
‘Jesus,’ muttered Barney. ‘I’m Barney Thomson, what d’you want?’
‘Hey, don’t be so glum, chum,’ said This Year’s Hair. ‘I bring glad tidings.’
‘I doubt it.’
‘I have in this case,’ and he patted the folder he was holding, which was a folder rather than a case, ‘an extraordinary offer, the like of which you’ve never had in your career. We would like to take you from this humble, downtrodden, dusty old barbershop, and make you personal barber to the next First Minister of Scotland, and the first Prime Minister of an independent Scotland, Alex Salmond. You on board?’
He smiled broadly. Since he’d had the floor for fifteen uninterrupted seconds, he’d grown in confidence. Even though he’d been pretty fucking confident to begin with.
‘D’you hear that, Igor,’ said Barney. ‘He called your shop dusty.’
This Year’s Hair laughed, then he glanced at Igor and the laugh turned a little nervous.
‘Arf,’ said Igor, darkly.
‘It’s OK,’ said Barney, ‘we’ll give him another minute or two. Then you can kill him.’
‘Wait, what?’
‘We’ve still got some fava beans in the cupboard, right?’ said Keanu.
Barney couldn’t help smiling, and This Year’s Hair allowed himself to smile along.
‘That escalated quickly,’ said Chainsaw Guy, using one of the clichés of the day.
Now they looked at each other, the newcomer aware that he was at a disadvantage, and that he was not alone in his endeavours.
‘You’re not from Alex’s office, are you?’ he said.
‘No,’ said Chainsaw Guy. ‘I’m a representative from the actual government, not from whatever it is you speak for.’
‘What does Nicola want with a barbershop?’
‘I work for Michael Gove, you nonce,’ said Chainsaw Guy. ‘Now fuck off, and let the grown-ups talk.’
This Year’s Hair took a moment to adjust to this reality, then switched his annoyance to Barney. It was one thing the buffoons in Westminster pitching up here looking to make a big money barbershop signing – they’d done it before, after all – but Barney sitting here entertaining them was a much greater offence.
‘You’re actually negotiating with this clown?’ said This Year’s Hair. ‘There’s a storm coming, Mr Thomson. Choices are going to have to be made. Old alliances will be cast aside, friendships will be lost, sides will be taken, families will be riven in two. Whose side are you on?’
A moment, Barney held the gaze across the short distance of the shop, then said, ‘Sorry, what were the choices again?’
‘You can be as glib as you like, Mr Thomson,’ said This Year’s Hair, ‘but people who go along with England in this fight are already on the wrong side of history. That’s a decision only a fool would make. The real choice is who leads Scotland forward to the new age, the new dawn. That’s where the battle lines will be drawn, that’s where blood will be spilled.’
‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ said Barney. A beat, then he added, ‘Thanks for stopping by.’
‘You haven’t heard Mr Salmond’s offer?’
‘Good point,’ said Barney. ‘Tell him I’d like to be Scotland’s first ambassador to the UN in New York. We’ll need Igor to be Foreign Sec, and we’d like Keanu to be Culture Minister, and get in the Scotland squad for the Euros.’
‘Nice,’ said Keanu. ‘Can they really do that? I mean, I don’t have a professional contract. And I’m shite.’
‘You can play in place of Ollie McBurnie,’ said Chainsaw Guy, who had wrongly taken Barney’s list of demands as further evidence that Barney was on his side, ‘then even if you never score, it’ll make no material difference.’
‘Mr Salmond will not appreciate being made fun of, Mr Thomson.’
‘I wasn’t making fun of anyone,’ said Barney, ‘and would you stop with the Mr Thomson thing every sentence, you sound like a Poundshop Bond villain.’
Unable to stop himself, Igor sniggered quietly by the window, and This Year’s Hair slung him an angry look. Then, feeling unnecessarily humiliated, he turned away, stopping with his fingers on the door handle.
‘This isn’t over, Mr Thomson,’ he said. ‘Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered. A sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!’
And with that, out the door, the blast of cold, damp air, and he was gone.
‘Wow,’ said Chainsaw Guy. ‘What was that?’
‘From Lord of the Rings, obviously,’ said Keanu, looking at him scornfully.
‘I don’t even know what that is,’ he said. ‘Anyway, thank goodness he’s gone. Now, let’s crack on before the delegation from Sleepy Joe’s office comes calling, am I right?’
‘Whatever,’ said Barney. ‘I can’t tell you how excited I am to be talking to a representative of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.’
‘Ah, very dry, Mr Thomson, I like it. However, who you are in fact speaking to is a representative of the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s widely known Boris will be resigning in the next couple of months. The door will be open, and really, there are only two people in contention. Mr Gove, and the treacherous Home Secretary. The game is afoot, the challenge has been set, and Mr Gove is intent on picking up the gauntlet. He’s the right man at the right time. Lots of bridges to be mended after the last couple of years. And as for Scotland, you don’t get much more Scottish than Michael. They love him up here.’
‘Nothing we like better than a posh twat who leaves the country, loses his accent, then comes back to tell us what to do.’
‘Exactly,’ said the Hair. ‘And that’s why he needs the best hair in the business. You start tomorrow, Mr Thomson.’
‘There’s something to be said for chutzpah,’ said Barney, ‘although to be honest the main thing is that it’s fucking annoying. Your relieved of your duty, you may return to London.’
‘So, wait, that’s a yes?’
‘Goodbye, Chainsaw Guy,’ said Barney. ‘And tell your boss he might need to do a little more polling north of the border.’
‘Chainsaw what…?’
The door opened behind him, he turned quickly, and there was Igor standing, indicating for him that it was time to leave.
And, as usual, Igor was right.
 

* * *

 
‘Pretty depressing it’s started up again,’ said Keanu, a short while later, as the men of the shop stood at the window, drinking a refreshing cup of tea, looking out at the early afternoon.
‘It’s been raining all day, son,’ said Barney.
‘Not the rain, the comedians turning up at the shop wanting you to go and cut some arsehole’s hair, so they can substitute style for substance.’
Barney drank his tea, looking out over another bleak west of Scotland afternoon. In the far distance the giant ocean linear Titanic II began to edge its way into view from behind Little Cumbrae, as it made its way slowly towards the new deep-water shipyards in Saltcoats.
‘Won’t come to anything,’ said Barney. ‘More than likely it’s just the guy who writes our sitcom ran out of ideas, or, you know, thought it would be a good idea to reintroduce that kind of storyline.’
Keanu laughed, lifted the mug to his lips, took a revitalising drink.
‘Epic,’ he said. ‘Wait, if this thing, where we cut people’s hair and stand at the window talking about stuff is just a show, maybe the guy who writes it could get something really cool to happen.’
‘Like what?’
‘Dinosaurs would be good, right?’
‘Arf,’ said Igor, nodding.
 ‘I’ll have a word,’ said Barney. ‘See what I can do.’
And once again, as the wind blew, and the waves battled angrily in the bay, the men of the shop returned to a comfortable silence.
 

* * *

 
‘What is it now, son?’ asked Old Man McGuire.
Nearing the end of the day, the lights of the shop already on, darkness falling all the more quickly because of the grim, grey light of the sky. There were two customers in for the last gasp of the day, Barney giving young Scooby McCorkindale a double undercut Kool Aid, while Keanu was giving Old Man McGuire his regular Danny McGrain ’87.
‘How’d you mean that, Mr McGuire?’ asked Keanu.
‘I read your last book, what was it called again?’
‘You mean The Mysterious Death of Carolina D’Regimentary?’
‘Aye, that was it. You’re aye talking about no’ writing any more crime novels, but the fuck d’you call that? You had a murder, you had a police guy, and you had suspects. It was practically a fucking episode of that bastard Lewis.’
Keanu smiled, as he continued about the cut, his scissors moving steadily across what little hair Old Man McGuire still had. In reality, regardless of whatever haircut he requested – from a Danny McGrain to a Ladio Gaga – all he ever got was a bit of a trim.
‘I decided to have another go at a crime novel,’ said Keanu. ‘It’s where the money is.’
‘I liked the literary erotic steam-punk wizard mash-up you did before that one,’ chipped in Scooby McCorkindale, from beneath Barney’s scissors. ‘What was that called again?’
‘The Strange Case of Mrs Cratchit’s Wand Emporium,’ said Keanu.
‘That was brilliant,’ said Scooby. ‘Any chance of a follow-up?’
‘I’ve got an idea or two, but trouble is, no one buys literary novels. Same old story.’
‘Even though you had wizards and weird, steam-driven Victorian sex toys?’
‘That’s the way it goes.’
‘The fuck d’you call it literary for then?’ asked Old Man McGuire. ‘Just say it’s porn, or it’s wizards, people’ll buy yon shite.’
‘The word literary prepares people better for what’s to come.’
‘And what’s that?’
‘There’s hardly any storyline, nothing happens, and then the book just ends without the things that hadn’t really been happening getting resolved. You see, all these genres that people read, they come with expectations. You kill someone in a crime novel, the reader expects to find out who did it. Two people fall in love in a romance novel, the reader expects them to shag, or to fall out, or one of them to die, or something. Literary novels are so much easier. You create the tension, then just go and have chips.’
‘That’s what I liked about it,’ said Scooby. ‘It had recognisable genre-type traits, but you didn’t force the narrative into an unlikely resolution. Like real life.’
‘Ha!’ barked Old Man McGuire. ‘You mean the erotic, fake steam tech, wizard novel was like real life. Fuck kind of life are you leading?’ and he squinted uncomfortably sideways at Scooby. No answer forthcoming, he turned back to Keanu. ‘Right, you, tell us what you’re writing next.’
Barney was smiling quietly to himself, the conversation happening around him, but one in which he was happy not to be involved. Igor had switched off, silently sweeping the floor at the rear of the shop, troubled by visions of mad scientists dangerously manipulating lightning.
‘I like all this stuff about the Reddit people messing with the hedge fund guys who were trying to short Gamestop, so I thought I might do something with that.’
‘I’ve got nae fucking idea what just happened in that sentence, son,’ said McGuire.
‘It’s like The Big Short, except it’s in real life.’
‘The Big Short was real life,’ said Scooby McCorkindale.
‘Good point.’
‘I’ve no’ seen it,’ said Old Man McGuire. ‘Explain it to me.’
‘It’s about shorting stock.’
‘I don’t fucking know what that is!’
Keanu stared at him in the mirror. He started to think about what shorting stock actually meant, he struggled to put it into words. He thought about the movie, and wondered if he could explain it via the medium of Christian Bale, but that didn’t help.
‘Em…’ he said.
‘Fuck me,’ said Old Man McGuire, ‘you sound like yon muppet Trump trying to explain particle physics.’
‘I kind of need Anthony Bourdain standing over a pot of fish,’ said Keanu.
‘The fuck is Anthony Bourdain?’
‘Dead now,’ chipped in Scooby.
‘Who’s dead? Trump? Thank fuck for that, guy was a prick.’
‘You explain it to him,’ said Keanu to Scooby.
‘Shorting stock?’
‘Aye.’
‘No bother,’ said Scooby. ‘So you have these cunts who think stock’s going to go down, so they borrow the stock from other cunts, then they sell the stock they’ve borrowed to different cunts, then the stock goes down, and they buy it back from the cunts they sold it to, or from some other bunch of cunts, then they give the stock back to the first cunts, and they keep the money they made. That make sense?’
‘Do us a favour, Barney, eh?’ said Old Man McGuire. ‘Stab that eejit in the back of the head. Didn’t understand a word of that.’
‘Cheeky bastard,’ said Scooby.
This is why, thought Barney, conversations are generally better off not happening at all, and he glanced forlornly over his shoulder at the space on the wall where at one time in the shop’s recent history there had been a list of proscribed topics. And he thought how marvellous it would be if they could have that list back, if it could be adhered to without any fuss and nonsense. Or perhaps they could institute a rule whereby customers were only allowed to talk on subjects on which they were certifiably an acknowledged expert.
Tough to police, thought Barney.
And then, right on cue with the mention of police in his head, the door opened, and DS Monk entered.
‘Hola!’ she said enthusiastically, mask on, entering the seat of male dominion.
Barney smiled, feeling the room brighten as it always did on Monk’s arrival.
‘Good day?’
‘Average,’ he said, with a good-natured shrug.
‘Not so bad, Mrs Thomson,’ said Keanu, who’d taken to calling DS Monk Mrs Thomson, even though she and Barney weren’t married, and she always smiled at the name.
‘Arf!’ said Igor, agreeably from the back, leaning on the broom to take in the conversation.
‘Sounds like a blinder,’ said Monk.
‘It was shite,’ said Old Man McGuire, and then he disappeared a little further inside the barber’s cape.
Monk and Barney rolled their eyes at each other, the cuts continued, Igor made the international sign of a cup of tea and everyone present perked up, as they always did. And so, as Igor walked into the back of the shop to get the kettle on and lay the last of the day’s doughnuts on a plate, the work of the shop – another regular day held safely in the hands of the finest barbershop trio this side of New York – wound its way to a close.