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.

Series 2, Episode 6: The Elephant Scenario

The Scottish government’s Barbershop Lockdown Exemption Scheme had been extended, and the men of the Millport tonsorium were in position, as the world edged nervously into the final year of human civilisation.
A regular Thursday morning. Hirsutological legend Barney Thomson was standing at the shop window, drinking a cup of coffee, still with the aftertaste of the finest pastry this side of Copenhagen on his lips, looking out over the bleak, grey firth of Clyde; Igor, deaf, mute hunchbacked barbershop über-assistant, was sweeping up at the back; and Keanu, roguish, haircutting sidekick, due to be played by a young Paul Newman in the forthcoming motion picture sequel event – Scenes From The Barbershop Ceiling – was cutting the hair of the first customer of the day, Old Man Rasputin, in for his weekly hair and beard trim.

The weather outside was frightful, but the coffee was so delightful, and since there was no place to go, everyone was quite content with the regular early morning barbershop routine. There was music playing – Thomas Tallis’s epic opus melancholia This Is The End, Beautiful Friends, The End, And Never Again Shall We Feast Upon Doughnuts Beneath An Opalescent Sky. On the customers’ bench there lay the familiar pile of the day’s unread newspapers. Barney, as always, felt compelled to continue to send his business the way of the newsagent’s, yet few were there amongst men in these dark days who wanted to blight their lives any further than necessary by reading even more news than that to which they were already being subjected, particularly when it was the jaundiced scream of the British press. And so, there they lay, neglected and untouched, as pristine as anything that smells of that much shit could be.
On the top was the Express with, Clap For Boris Returns, As Grateful Nation Thanks Hero PM; beneath which lay the Guardian, Earth Breathes Sigh Of Relief As All Humans Due To Die Of Either Covid Or Stupidity By Summer 2021; the Sun, Giant Boobs Saved Me From Virus, Says Covid Babe, Hours Before Dying; the Telegraph, headline, Blood-Spattered Hancock Ate My Baby, Claims Sad Mum; the Mirror, Despite World News Avalanche, Rees-Mogg Still Manages To Be Earth’s Biggest Cunt; the Independent with You’ll Never Find Me, Says Fat Insurrectionist Prick Who’s Tweeted His Location Every Few Minutes For The Last Ten Years; the Times with Trump Sex Toys Inc Release New Trump Blow-Up Doll So Trump Can Fuck Himself, Again; and the National, Scotland Says Get Tae Fuck, As Trump Plans OJ Simpson Ayrshire Manoeuvre. Few of them would be called upon to pull their weight.
‘What d’you do at the weekend?’ asked Old Man Rasputin, the words emerging from somewhere in his beard, the exact location of his mouth being not entirely clear.
Keanu paused for a moment, looking curiously at Old Man Rasputin in the mirror. The weekend? It was Thursday. Was asking about the previous weekend after midnight on Monday even legal?
‘Seems a long time ago,’ he said. ‘Hard to remember.’
‘Right enough,’ said Old Man Rasputin, as if he hadn’t asked a question beyond all bounds of regular conversational etiquette in the first place. ‘They say that days now have at least thirty-six hours in them. Some of them double that.’
‘Arf,’ said Igor from the back, nodding.
‘Exactly,’ said Old Man Rasputin. ‘Time has never been more malleable. As a concept, it’s in danger of being lost. Like decency and common sense.’
‘Had a customer in yesterday who insisted his watch had started going backwards,’ said Barney, from his position at the window. ‘And right enough, he had more hair when he left, than when he came in.’
Keanu smiled, then returned to the haircut.
‘What?’ said Old Man Rasputin, but Barney didn’t answer.
‘Watched the skiing, I think,’ said Keanu. ‘I watch quite a lot of skiing. Don’t actually care about the sport, but it’s nice looking at all the snow and the mountains and stuff. Very calming.’
‘What channel’s that on?’
‘Eurosport.’
‘Do I get that?’
‘I don’t know, Mr Rasputin. What TV package d’you have?’
‘Fucked if I know. Margaret buys literally everything. Watches all kinds of shite. I’m like that, is there nothing decent on? But it turns out there’s no’. What’s this skiing malarkey then?’
‘You know what skiing is, right?’
‘Fuck off, son.’
‘Well, people do skiing, and they show it on TV. And people watch it.’
‘Sounds shite.’
‘Aye, but there’s snow. And mountains.’
‘Don’t they have to spray fake snow down the run because everywhere’s twenty-five degrees?’ said Barney from the window.
‘Sometimes, but not this year,’ said Keanu. ‘Been tonnes of snow in the Alps. Looks magical, particularly the trees. You know, a cracking big fir tree, covered in snow, etched against a clear blue sky. Lovely. I could sit and watch that on the tele all day.’
Barney stared at the raindrops running down the window, the grey sea and sky beyond, the bleak, grim west of Scotland winter plunging into his head for all the world like he’d been stabbed in the eye with an eight-inch kitchen knife, hope and enthusiasm hosing out of him like a fountain of blood.
‘D’you get topless skiing?’ asked Rasputin suddenly. ‘I’d watch that.’
 

* * *

 
The morning had moved on, one minute into the next, little to be said for it. There had been two further customers – Big Hannibal No Mates, in for his regular Chianti cut, and Daft Alex, who hadn’t been to a barber since before the first lockdown, and who’d had trouble getting all his hair in through the door, looking for a Deregulated Bolshevik Undercut.
Now the men of the shop were standing at the window – Barney had barely moved from there all day, bar the ten minutes dealing with Big Hannibal – and they were drinking coffee and eating pumpkin pie. Radio 3 was still playing in the background, and although the quiet atmosphere of the shop was currently being bespoiled by ten minutes of the Wagnerian epic calamity opera, Wir Haben Es Gefickt, they could be fairly confident it would be ending soon.
‘We need to talk about the elephant in the room,‘ said Keanu, after he popped the last of the pumpkin pie into his mouth, licked the end of his fingers, and took a sip of coffee. ‘Nice pie, by the way.’
‘I’ll pass it on,’ said Barney.
‘Arf!’
‘Thanks.’
They looked out of the shop window. The rain had stopped, but still the day was bleak and dull, still it presented itself as the polar opposite of a snow-covered pine etched against an Alpine blue sky.
‘You win,’ said Barney, after a while. ‘What’s the elephant?’
‘You keep insisting the buffoon Trump is going to resign, and yet, here we are. Middle of January, and not only is he not resigning, he’s doing everything he can to stay in power. He made a coup attempt, for God’s sake.’
Barney smiled, took a drink of coffee – Columbian, mellow and smooth, with hints of chocolate, liquorice, vanilla, cardamon and Ry Cooder’s Paris, Texas soundtrack album – then indicated the great beyond with his mug. Being one of the few men or women to have predicted that Trump would resign, before, and then again, after the 2020 election, Barney had grown used to being ridiculed.
‘I will concede I was wrong,’ he said, ‘although, to be honest, I don’t think last week was a coup attempt.’
‘You don’t?’
‘Not from him. I mean, there might’ve been plenty of people in the mob who will’ve thought it was a coup, but Trump? I don’t think so.’
‘What d’you think he was trying to get them to do? Raid the canteen? Steal some biscuits?’
‘He doesn’t give a shit. Look at him, he doesn’t ever actually do any presidenting. All he wants to do is play golf and talk about how great he is.’
‘So what was last Wednesday about then?’ asked Igor, albeit, as ever, all that emerged was a peculiar arf from his lips.
‘He’s just a psychopath,’ said Barney.
‘Hmm,’ said Keanu. ‘A serial killer. Nice. Maybe we’ll get him in Millport one day, not like we don’t get our share of serial killers in these parts. And he does own his stupid golf course just down by,’ and he indicated the Ayrshire coast, somewhere in the distance through the murk.
‘The vast majority of psychopaths don’t kill anyone,’ said Barney. ‘It’s just their total lack of empathy. They really don’t give a shit about anything. And last Wednesday was Trump just winding up a crowd, letting them loose, and sitting back watching it on TV, not caring what happened. From the perspective of both sides, he was completely inactive. He neither tried to stop it, nor push it through to any logical conclusion. He just viewed it as entertainment. Didn’t care either way whether people died. Maybe yon haunted scrotum Pence was going to get strung up, maybe not. Maybe democracy would fall, maybe not. Either way he was heading home to eat a burger and snort something, and then he was going to play golf somewhere.’ He paused, took another drink of coffee, then added, ‘Psychopath.’
‘It’s not like psychopaths don’t commit coups though, is it?’ said Keanu, and Igor nodded, and gave him a small dip of the mug in agreement.
Across the road a squabble of gulls landed on the white promenade wall, they argued amongst themselves over a matter that was likely of little consequence, and then they soon lifted off again, soaring away into the breeze, heading out to sea, destined for the gap between the mainland and the island of Wee Cumbrae, where adventurers would travel when seeking the south-west passage to the merengue islands of Latin America.
‘But that’s judging Trump against any kind of standard other than himself. That’s the mistake all these commentators and journalists have been making all these years, and why they really ought to have been speaking to more barbers for the inside scoop.’
‘Can’t argue with that, at least,’ said Keanu.
‘He just wants to shit in the swimming pool, then get out, take a shower, and go and watch everyone else swimming in his shit on TV.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Keanu. ‘Still think it’s not over, though.’
Barney and Igor sipped their coffee and stared out at the world; weather grey, the light dull.
The door opened, and the guru-philosophers of the barbershop turned towards it, each with their coffee cup poised inches below their lips.
‘Haircut?’ asked the young chap, unaware than he had walked into the crucible of new thought at the heart of Scottish Enlightenment 2.0.
‘Hmm,’ said Barney, and he took a moment to look around the shop. ‘I suppose you’ve come to the right place, son. What’ll it be?’
 

* * *

 
Having spent the morning dreaming of snow-capped mountains and snowy forest trails, snow-covered trees and long walks in the snow, before retreating to an open fire and a mug of hot chocolate, sitting by a window, watching the afternoon snow fall upon the fir trees, as night descended, and the lights of the Alpine town began to sparkle in the freezing air, Keanu had picked up a serendipitous international removals brochure that had arrived in the mail, and was taking a read, while Barney cut the hair of barbershop regular, Old Man McGuire.
2020 was a terrible year for many countries, read Keanu, with few suffering as much from the coronavirus as the UK. Now, with 2021 shaping up to be even more apocalyptically awful, and the UK leading the world in lack of preparedness and governmental incompetence, there has never been a better time to consider living overseas. And there’s no need to be put off by the rank stupidity of Brexit. There may be more paperwork involved, but moving to the EU is still possible, and those twenty-seven countries join a host of other attractive destinations for migration and international travel. Indeed the toughest problem you’ll likely find, with virtually every one of the other 192 countries in the world now being preferable to the UK, is deciding which one to choose. Fortunately, we’ve been doing some of the legwork for you. Don’t take this list as definitive, however, as literally anywhere will do. Honestly, right now, you’d be better off living in Mordor.
‘Maybe Sophes and I could move to Switzerland,’ said Keanu contemplatively, as he skimmed through some of the photographs in the brochure. None of the people pictured who’d emigrated seemed to be unhappy. Everywhere else in the world was awash with clean, modern cities, snow-capped mountains, glorious sandy beaches, and cheery white-toothed families, having quality family fun.
‘The fuck d’you want to go there for, son?’ asked Old Man McGuire, glancing over from behind the Sun, which he’d picked up before sitting down to receive his weekly, Mingus McMingus Pompadour Sub-chop from Barney.
‘Looks nice. Lots of snow, everything’s neat and orderly, trains run on time, that kind of thing.’
‘Fifty quid for a sandwich,’ said Old Man McGuire. ‘They hate everyone, you cannae flush the toilet after five p.m., and they’re never going to let you in anyway, son, ‘cause you’re no’ an über-wealthy, corrupt, tax-dodging cunt, which is pretty much the only kinds of people they want.’ He paused, he glanced back at the article he’d been reading – Corrie Star Shags Her Way Out Of Covid Blues – closed the paper, then added, ‘Unless you’re an Albanian footballer.’  He looked back over at Keanu. ‘Can you play football?’
‘No, Mr McGuire,’ said Keanu, smiling. ‘Not bad at FIFA though.’
‘You’ll be lucky if they let you go there on holiday, but since you probably wouldn’t be able to afford the train fare the length of Lake Geneva, no point in getting your knickers in a twist.’
Barney and Keanu shared a smile, the familiar smile that came from many a conversation with Old Man McGuire.
‘Arf,’ said Igor darkly from the rear of the shop, and Keanu looked at him, a little wide-eyed, and swallowed. Igor had stories to tell. Igor had been chased out of many a central and eastern European town by a mob of angry villagers, and Switzerland was no different from Slovakia, Romania, Freedonia, Chewbaccia and Dystopia.
‘Yikes,’ said Keanu, having perfectly understood Igor’s tale of pitchforks, flaming torches, screaming women and lonely nights on desolate mountain tops with only the last Milka bar in the shop for sustenance.
‘Maybe I’ll give Switzerland a miss,’ said Keanu, nodding.
‘Aye, you do that, son,’ said Old Man McGuire, ‘but remember, whichever country you come up with, I’ll have negative comments coming out my arse for it. I know bad stuff about everywhere.’
Keanu laughed, and turned back to the brochure. He’d take it home, he thought, show it to Sophia.
‘Transnistria?’ said Barney, looking at McGuire in the mirror, eyebrows raised.
‘Too thin,’ said McGuire quickly. ‘And there’s fuck all to do…’
 

* * *

 
Jackets on, cups of warm tea in hand, the men of the shop had come across the road to watch the sun go down behind the hills of Arran, as the afternoon wound its way to a close. Not that there was much of the sun to be seen behind fifteen layers of suffocating, finest Scottish cloud. Nevertheless, there was the fresh, damp chill of a winter’s day by the Clyde to enjoy, with finest tea and a piece of shortbread.
They’d been standing by the wall, looking out over the sea for some time. A few people had passed them by, little conversation had been had. The men of the Millport barbershop were considered renegades, the A-Team of Millport – albeit there were only three of them, and none of them had been in the military, or could fly a helicopter, although to be fair, Barney was kind of scared of flying, so there was that – and people were generally wary of addressing them in a non-haircutting situation.
The gulls were circling, but there didn’t appear to be much intent in their actions, as though they were circling because they had no idea what else to do with themselves.
‘What d’you think of Celtic going to Dubai then?’ said Keanu, ever the first to crack, as though they’d been playing a who-can-keep-quiet-the-longest game. Of course, both Barney and Igor had represented their countries at who-can-keep-quiet-the-longest.
Igor took a slurp of tea, looked out over the waves, and pretended not to have heard. Which you can pull off when you’re deaf.
‘Celtic?’ said Barney. ‘They’re a football team?’
‘Funny,’ said Keanu.
‘We don’t do football.’
‘We talk about football in the shop all the time.’
‘Igor and I don’t do football.’
‘Arf!’
‘You,’ Barney continued, ‘talk to customers about football. We’re currently customer lite, which is why we’re standing over here, with ice cold drinks, plates of delicious tapas, basking in the warm glow of the late afternoon sun.’
Igor gave him a wry glance.
‘It’s not about football, though, is it?’ said Keanu.
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No. It’s about the lockdown, it’s about the entitlement of a football club who…’
‘Football,’ said Barney.
‘It’s about the entitlement of an organisation at the heart of Scottish life who think, fuck it, we can do what we want, we’re Celtic. It’s about people who should’ve known better saying, sure, you’re Celtic, on you go, go on holiday or whatever. It’s about no one stopping to think, this is just stupid, by the way. Now they come back, one of their guys has the thing, and they’re having to call up Danny McGrain and Frank McGarvey.’
‘Are they football players?’
Keanu stared out across the waves. In the far distance a freighter, bound for the coffee plantations of Columbia, inched its way across the horizon. A gull squawked loudly, and then settled on a rock, splashed by the spray of waves, just down in front of them. In the bay, a few small boats attached to buoys, chopped back and forth in the swell.
‘They’re old footballers. It was a joke.’
Barney and Igor exchanged a glance.
‘About football?’ said Barney.
‘It’s not about football,’ said Keanu.
‘Sounds to me like it’s about football.’
‘Arf!’
Sure, they had coats and they had warm cups of tea, but to be honest, they weren’t really working. It was late afternoon in January on the Clyde coast, and it was freezing, and there was just nothing really to be done about it.
‘Anyway, I agree with you,’ said Barney.
‘What about?’
‘Your assertion that it was stupid.’
Keanu took a drink, shivered a little as the temperature continued to drop by the second.
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘Glad we sorted that out,’ said Barney. ‘Let’s go inside.’
‘Arf!’ exclaimed Igor, whose fingers had long since turned white.
 

* * *

 
End of the day. There had been eight customers in all. Quiet times for the barbershop business, as the pandemic’s grip tightened. There were those in the land who thought perhaps it was time for barbershops to be closed, for the normal rules of lockdown to be applied to them, yet none were there in government who could truly bring themselves to advocate the shutdown of the hairdressing industry. Hair was just too important.
Nevertheless, for the most part, the customers were beginning to decide with their feet, and the shop was seeing less and less business as time passed. People were getting used to having hair like an early seventies prog rock guitarist. People were getting used to not getting out of their pyjamas. People were getting used to the restrictions of small houses, a life conducted between the kitchen table, the sofa and the bedroom. Life was changing. The journey of the human race from active hunter-gatherers to flatulent, immovable swamp species had picked up pace.
The men of the shop were sitting around, the Closed sign on the door, drinking the last cup of tea, having been joined by Detective Sergeant Monk, in to grab Barney on her way home.
‘How about you?’ asked Keanu, having outlined their day, such as it had been. It had got to the stage where he could remember and list every customer by name.
‘Oh, there was another shoot-out up at the old Miller place at the top of Weymss Road,’ said Monk, ‘and you know what that’s like.’
‘Lots of bullets flying around, but no one actually killed?’ asked Keanu. ‘Like on shows.’
‘No, lots of people killed. Maybe about seventy. Surprised you didn’t hear the news.’
‘Barney doesn’t let us listen to the news.’
‘There was some close combat fighting, then when we finally got in there, turned out there were, like, a hundred or so zombies in the basement, so we had that on our hands for a while. Then old Miller himself, who’d managed to escape, turned up at the Royal Bank, bomb strapped to his chest, and took about twenty people hostage. So we had to deal with that.’
‘How’d that go?’
‘Not so well. He blew himself up, killed everyone in the place.’
‘Wow. You’d think, since it’s like five doors along the road, we would’ve heard.’
‘You didn’t? Weird.’
She smiled, took a long drink of tea.
‘Did anything actually happen requiring police attention?’
Monk took another drink of tea, tipped the cup at Igor in appreciation, and then made the familiar headline news banner gesture. ‘Underemployed Cops In Jigsaw Triumph.’
‘You did a jigsaw?’
‘Bruegel’s Hunters In The Snow. Well, Thad’s doing it, I just helped him out for a few minutes. You know, in between the kidnappings, the riots and the multiple murders.’
‘Nice picture,’ said Keanu. Then he thought about it, and added, ‘I don’t actually know it.’
‘Shocking,’ said Barney. ‘Taking the taxpayers money, frittering away the time on a jigsaw. If only the Daily Mail could see you now. Hero Cop’s Career In Tatters After Jigsaw Outrage.’
‘I’ll deny everything.’
‘We’ve got it on tape.’
‘Fake Tape Blackmailers Get Ten Years,’ said Monk.
‘Using Money Laundered Through Illegal Jigsaw Scheme, Millport Cop Becomes Kingpin In 2 Billion Pound Drug Smuggling Op,’ said Keanu.
‘Right,’ said Monk, ‘though I’m not entirely sure which newspaper has enough space to have that as a headline.’
‘Bent Cop In Jigsaw Drugs Shame,’ said Keanu, and Barney and Igor laughed.
‘Yeah, all right, kid, calm down,’ said Monk.
‘Tough gig the police, right?’ said Barney. ‘Here you are, keeping us safe from zombies, crime lords, drug gangs and a whole host of serial killers, and this is the thanks you get.’
‘I know, right?’
‘Are you friends with any Tories?’ asked Keanu. ‘I mean, if you are, you’ll probably get away with it.’
‘Isn’t it time you were transferring him to the Ouagadougou branch?’ asked Monk.
‘He did say earlier he fancied travelling.’
‘Jigsawgate Copper Did Nothing Wrong, Claims Gove,’ said Keanu, and finally he started laughing, as he lifted the cup of tea to his mouth.
And that was pretty much that, as there aren’t many discussions that can survive even just the mention of Michael Gove’s name, and a relaxed, good-humoured quiet settled over the shop, as they drank their tea, and watched the raindrops run down the window, as outside evening was upon them, and the day would soon be done.
Nevertheless, there were dark forces out there in the world, after all, there always are, and few would there be on earth who would sleep comfortably this night.
Barney drained his tea, straightened his shoulders, nodded to himself, lifted his eyebrows to Monk in the international sign of it being about time to head off, then said, ‘And it’s a wrap.’
And so it was.

Series 2, Episode 5: The Bublé Ultimatum

 

‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,’ said Keanu McPherson.

The men of the Millport barbershop were standing at the window, first cup of coffee and a morning pastry in hand. So far there’d been no customers, and few were expected this Christmas Eve.

Barney Thomson, crack, barbershop über-genius, looked out upon the world. The deserted shore road along the front at Millport, the gull-inhabited white promenade wall, the sea beyond, grey and agitated, spoiling for a storm, the rocks and the Eileans, the few boats buoyed this side of those small islands, the sea stretching away to the ugly, dull blocks of Hunterston B on the mainland, the island of Little Cumbrae to their left, and straight ahead, the line of the horizon, and the passage to the south and the Malay Archipelago.

‘It doesn’t matter how many times you say it, son,’ said Barney, ‘it won’t make it happen.’

There was Christmas music playing in the shop, but Barney wasn’t a fan of the modern Christmas song, having heard – like everyone else – I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day, Last Christmas and All I Want For Christmas eight million times too many for one lifetime. He could stomach Bing and Frank and all those fellows, so they were his compromise, but for the most part, he preferred classical interpretations of the old recognisable Christmas tunes, alongside other classical pieces which affected to be winter-based, but which could really have been anything. Seriously, if Bach’s Christmas Oratorio had been called Bach’s Genocide & Pancakes Oratorio, would anyone have been able to tell the difference? It’s just a bunch of people singing, and, magnificent though it may be, it’s not like you can make out a word of it.

‘Well, you know,’ said Keanu, ‘there’s a chill in the air, there’s expectation, there’s stuff on the tele. We can pull this off.’

‘Arf,’ said Igor, legendary deaf, mute hunchbacked barbershop sidekick, a man still wanted for crimes he didn’t commit in seven eastern European countries.

‘Aye,’ said Barney. ‘It’d be a tough ask any year, given the weather’s just grey and bleak, and those magical wintry Christmases are a thing of the past, but this year, we’re screwed. The dream is over.’ He popped the last of his chocolate croissant into his mouth and squeezed Keanu’s shoulder. ‘Next year perhaps we could all plan to go somewhere for Christmas. Assuming this madness is over by then, and obviously when politicians say things like everything’ll be getting back to normal by the summer, one automatically assumes we’re screwed until the end of the decade. But, we’ll see. All being well, we could have a work trip somewhere, take along the sergeant and Garrett and Sophia.’

‘Arf!’ said Igor.

‘Somewhere magical and cold?’ asked Keanu, taking a sip of coffee, before eating the last of a pecan cinnamon nutmeg spiced cloved Tom-and-Jerry-Christmas-episode Danish.

‘If such a place still exists in the northern hemisphere.’

‘Nice. It’s currently minus-27 in Resolute in northern Canada,’ said Keanu. ‘That could be a goer.’

‘I don’t know that place,’ said Barney. ‘Is it magical, with Christmas markets, an old town square, a three-hundred-year-old church and the peel of a bell on Christmas Eve?’ A beat, then he added, ‘And is there a five-star hotel?’

Keanu fished his phone from his pocket, tapped the screen, took a moment, then passed it to the others so they could see pictures of Resolute.

‘Oh,’ said Barney.

‘Seen worse,’ said Igor, though it came out as arf.

‘Cold, at least,’ said Keanu, looking at the pictures of what looked like a remote, desolate army base.

‘Let’s park it for the moment,’ said Barney. ‘Maybe there’ll be somewhere in Norway or Finland.’ Another pause, and then he added, ‘If the Russians haven’t invaded,’ and Igor nodded, and Keanu slipped the phone back into his pocket, and the day continued outside, Christmas Eve, grey and cold, all hope lost beneath a low cover of cloud.

 

* * *

 

Late morning, and Old Man McGuire was in for his pre-Christmas cut. He’d had his hair cut so often in the past year his head had evolved to meet the challenge, and now his hair, in a mutation new to science, was growing at a rate of a quarter of an inch a day.

In order to combat the familiar weight of disgruntlement from McGuire, Barney had allowed Keanu to put on some of the old 50s warbler Christmas tunes, and the shop was currently relaxing to the sound of Dean Martin crooning his way through classic yuletide, date-rape creepfest Baby It’s Cold Outside, Mind If I Wear Your Skin.

Keanu was giving McGuire his weekly Disconnected Caesar Undercut, Igor was sweeping up at the back, quietly humming along with the tune he couldn’t hear, and Barney was sitting on the customers’ bench, disinterestedly looking through the days’ newspapers. He’d passed on the Times, with its headline, Trump Threatens to Nuke D.C. As Coup Attempt Gathers Momentum; the Independent, Turns Out Farage Is Still A Cunt; the Guardian, New Covid Strain Bullshit Backfires As Rest Of World Tells UK To Fuck Off; the Express, Truss Announces ‘Extraordinary’ New Trade Deal With North Korea Worth £27.34; the Telegraph, Brilliant Boris Blueprint To Save NHS By Wiping Out Over-60s On Track; the Sun, Tory MP’s Covid Babe Caught In Sex Toy Cure Scam; and the National, with its front page scoop, Salmond Returns With New Nude Centrefold Charm Offensive, choosing instead to read the Mail, Time For D-Day 2, As ERG Persuades Boris To Declare War.

‘So, what have you got for us?’ asked McGuire, looking suspiciously at Keanu in the mirror, with his perpetually raised eyebrow.

Keanu, as ever, smiled in response.

‘How’d you mean, Mr McGuire?’

‘It’s Christmas,’ said McGuire.

‘Yep. Magical, isn’t it?’

‘Naw. So, what have you got?’

‘Not sure what you mean, Mr McGuire.’

‘You’re always talking about this set-up of yours, how it’s like a sitcom.’

‘It is.’

‘So, those shows, they always have Christmas episodes, where, you know, Christmas shite happens, and at the end of it people go away feeling all, you know, Christmassy and whatnot. So, what have you got?’

Barney smiled as he laid down the paper – silently vowing to himself to never again, in his life, lift a copy of the Daily Mail – looked at Igor, made the international sign of the cup of tea, Igor perked up like Scooby Doo, and then he walked through to the backroom to stick the kettle on and get the doughnuts lined up on the plate.

‘We’ve got Christmas music on,’ said Keanu.

‘Ach, they’ve got Christmas music playing at the crematorium, son, that doesn’t mean shite. What your audience is looking for is, fuck, I don’t know, an angel, or a benevolent ghost, or some cute yuletide storyline or other.’

‘It’s just not that kind of sitcom,’ said Barney, leaning on the doorway at the back.

McGuire’s eyes narrowed, looking harshly at Barney in the mirror.

‘What kind of sitcom is it, then? There’s certainly no comedy in it.’

‘Seems to be just three guys in a shop talking about stuff,’ said Barney. ‘If something actually happened, it’d change the nature of the show.’

‘But there’s no depth, son,’ said McGuire. ‘Youse’re so shallow, you might as well not be saying anything. Look around you. Look at Scotland, the real thing. You see they drug death figures from last week? What about that? What about independence and the coming war with England? How about crucial questions on what Scotland’s future currency’s going to be?’

He looked from Barney to Keanu and back. Behind Barney, the comforting rumble of the kettle.

‘Thought they’d settled on the groat,’ said Barney.

‘Aye, and if we do that, we’ll be speculated upon, cleaned out and bankrupted before lunch,’ said McGuire, taking him seriously.

‘Frank,’ said Barney, ‘like you said, we’re a sitcom. We don’t do drug deaths. We might do independence, we might not, but really, I’m through with talking about politics. I hate it all. You want to talk about that stuff, go to the pub, where you can be in an episode of River City. Cup of tea and a doughnut?’

‘Doughnut?’ said Keanu and Igor.

Truth be told, Barney had never watched River City, and had no idea if they ever talked about politics.

McGuire squinted into the dull light of late morning.

‘What flavours have you got?’

‘Just the one. Special Christmas flavour, made with the distilled essence of Frank Sinatra.’

‘Aye, all right,’ said McGuire, unhappily. A moment, or two, then he remembered his manners, and muttered, ‘Thanks, son.’

‘Four doughnuts and four cups of tea it is,’ said Barney, retreating into the back of the shop.

And so it was, through the medium of fried dough confection, Barney was able to bring Old Man McGuire the little piece of Christmas magic he was looking for.

 

* * *

 

There was a bit of last-minute, Christmas eve bustle about the shop. Barney was giving Old Man Carpenter a Top Of The World cut, Keanu was giving young Hickenlooper a Hatless Corbyn, Igor was sweeping up, and the tink-tink-tinkling of sleigh bells was a-tinkling through the shop, via a classic selection of Frank Sinatra Christmas tunes.

There’s a happy feeling nothing in the world can buy, when they’re passing round the covid and you’re going to die…

‘That’s the dichotomy at the heart of any artist wishing to release a new Christmas album,’ said Hickenlooper, finding a willing accomplice in Keanu when looking for a chat about festive tunes. ‘The old tunes are so well-known, that even if you go eleven months without listening to them, even if you managed the impossible and only listened to them for a week before Christmas, they have an over-familiarity. It’s unavoidable. So, what you’re looking for is something new. But then, it’s very difficult to produce a new Christmas song that immediately invokes the same kind of emotional, festive response as the old classics.’

‘True,’ said Keanu. ‘Just because you mention Christmas in a song, it doesn’t make it automatically festive. And most modern yuletide classics only invoke Christmas because you hear them every year over a period of time. It’s tough to create a new classic.’

‘Doesn’t really happen until a few other people have recorded the song.’

‘Even Mariah Carey took a while, wasn’t an overnighter.’

Hickenlooper nodded, and Keanu quickly lifted the scissors away from his head in order to save a life-threatening ear injury.

‘Hate that shite,’ muttered Old Man Carpenter from beneath Barney’s scissors.

‘Bit harsh,’ said Keanu, while Hickenlooper gave Carpenter a side-eye.

‘I just want you for my own, she says,’ said Carpenter. ‘Really? That’s some weird, fucked-up, possessive psycho bullshit, by the way. That’s serial killer stuff. No wonder the guy’s not going anywhere near her, smart bastard’s on the other side of the planet.’

‘Come on, Mr Carpenter,’ said Keanu, ‘she’s just looking for a hug.’

‘She wants to lock him in the basement, and if she can’t have him for herself, she’ll turn him into soup.’

Barney smiled, and from the back of the shop they could hear the quiet, comforting sound of Igor sniggering.

‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas,’ said Carpenter, rising to his theme, ‘serial killer on death row, threatening to come back from the dead and kill his abused wife on Christmas Eve. And Santa Clause sees you when you’re sleeping? Does he, now? I mean, that’s not even fucking code, by the way. And see they carols… Lo! He abhors not the virgin’s womb? Seriously, what the fuck is even happening in that sentence? Ditto veiled in flesh the godhead see. That’s just fucking minging, by the way.’

‘So, what you’re looking for,’ said Hickenlooper, deciding to retake control of the conversation by more or less ignoring Old Man Carpenter, ‘is a song that borrows from themes of previous numbers, using familiar chord structures and arrangements. That’s kind of what the Mariah Carey does, and yon Leona Lewis did it with One More Sleep, but as we’ve established with our extensive examination of the documented facts here this morning, it still takes a while for a Christmas song to become part of the collective consciousness.’

‘Leona Lewis?’ chimed in Carpenter, ‘wrote a Christmas song? As well as winning that Olympic gold medal in heptathlon. Some fucking woman, eh? You got her phone number?’

‘That was Denise Lewis,’ said Keanu.

‘He said her name was Leona.’

‘That’s who wrote the Christmas song. Denise was the Olympic athlete.’

‘What?’ snarked Carpenter. ‘The fuck she change her name for?’

‘She didn’t change her name, it’s two different women.’

‘Who are?’

‘Denise and Leona Lewis.’

‘It’s not the same person?’

‘No!’

‘Wait, they’re not one of they lesbian couples are they?’ said Carpenter, and he stared harshly at them in the mirror for a moment, before allowing his face to relax and adding, ‘I mean, I’m a new man, ‘n’ a’ that, these ladies can do what they like, don’t get me wrong.’

‘They’re not a couple, Mr Carpenter,’ said Keanu, smiling.

‘So, what, they are the same person, then? That’s what I was saying. Talented girl.’

‘And we’re done,’ said Barney, giving a final flourish of the scissors, then taking a step back.

‘What the…?’ said Carpenter, not expecting the cut to be over so quickly, and not realising, through his agitated discussion, that Barney had been executing one of his legendary Two-Minute Exceptionals, where he’d have the customer dispatched as quickly as possible, with the finest head of hair in the land.

A moment’s consideration, however, and Old Man Carpenter began nodding, a grudging look of respect on his face.

‘I suppose it’s not shite,’ he said. ‘I’ll have to change my profile picture online, see if I can get hold of the Lewis girl. Might be in with a chance.’

 

* * *

 

‘So, my dad gave us the Santa-doesn’t-actually-exist chat, when I was three…’

‘Ooft,’ said DS Monk.

‘I know, right,’ said Sophia. ‘Anyway, he wasn’t holding back. He did Santa, and then boom, he moved on to Jesus. All that stuff about the nativity, he said, none of it’s true. Sure, he existed, he was a guy who was around at the time and he did things, but virgin birth? Son of God? Forget about it.’

‘Hard to argue,’ said Keanu, and Sophia nodded phlegmatically.

End of the day, the Closed sign up, the shop shut for the holidays. The men of the Millport barbershop had been joined by the wives and girlfriends – the hairdresser, the detective and the lawyer – and they were all sitting around the shop, appropriately spaced out, drinking mulled cider and chewing the festive fat, while the Bublé Christmas album played in the background.

‘And I said, what about the three wise men, and he said, well, the Bible doesn’t actually say how many wise men there were, it just mentions three gifts, and I said, so there could’ve been five thousand wise men, and dad said, there haven’t been five thousand wise men in the history of the world never mind in the Middle East at that singular point in time, and then he said it was made up anyway, so in fact, there weren’t any wise men, because when Jesus was born, he was just another kid like everybody else, and there were no angels and no shepherds and no star. And then, I think mum was having a go at him, but I don’t really remember, I guess he started joking and said that Bing Crosby didn’t really exist either. Trouble being, I was, as I said, three.’

‘Uh-oh,’ said Barney.

‘Exactly. I believed him. And, of course, Dad died not long after that, and I’ve always idolized him, and kind of hung on to the little I can remember about him, this being one of the few things. He said Bing Crosby was this mythical troubadour figure, played by various people through time. So when you heard a Bing Crosby song, it was just someone playing the part of Bing Crosby, the way people play the part of Santa, and that no one ever really knew who the different Crosby’s were. As long as they could do that low crooner thing, they’d get the job.’

‘When did you find out the truth?’ asked Garrett Carmichael, town lawyer, and the person for whom Igor swept up at home.

Sophia looked at Keanu, they shared a rueful smile, then she turned back to Carmichael.

‘Last night.’

There was a moment while everyone drank mulled cider. It was decent mulled cider, by the way, and since the town was small and no one had to drive home, they’d all be having a second glass.

‘Until last night, you thought Bing Crosby didn’t exist?’

‘My dad said. You believe your dad when you’re a kid. And he wasn’t wrong about Santa and Jesus.’

‘What happened last night?’ asked Igor, and even though it came out as ‘Arf?’ everyone understood the question.

‘We were watching a movie called High Society on iPlayer, and I said to Keanu, who’s that playing the geezer who’s way too old for the gorgeous socialite lady, and he says Bing Crosby, and I’m like, yeah, but who’s playing Bing Crosby, and he’s like, no one’s playing Bing Crosby, that’s Bing Crosby playing a guy, I forget his name…’

‘C.K. Dexter-Haven,’ chipped in Monk, who loved High Society.

‘Yep, that’s the guy, and I’m like, no, you don’t understand, who’s the actual dude who’s Bing Crosby, because you don’t usually see Bing Crosby, he’s always just a voice on a Christmas album, and Keanu’s looking at me like, what the fuck, and it took an hour or two, but we got there finally, then I end up spending like another two hours on the internet reading about the actual Bing Crosby, who really did exist by the way, and had seven children, I could tell you all about him, and so I’ve been on a bit of a journey. Have to admit I had to check out Santa and Jesus just to make sure, but it turns out dad wasn’t making that up.’

‘You have a lot of movies to catch up on,’ said Barney, ‘if you like that kind of thing.’

‘Think they might all be a bit old for me,’ said Sophia. ‘I mean, that was some serious fucked-up sexist shit in the movie, by the way.’

‘Yeah,’ said Monk, nodding. ‘You kind of have to get past that, and just enjoy the songs, and looking at Grace Kelly.’

Sophia let out a low whistle. ‘Wow. Beautiful. Couldn’t act for biscuits, but beautiful. What happened to her?’

‘Tell you later,’ said Keanu.

‘I like Road To Morocco,’ said Barney, ‘though it may not be considered one of his best.’

‘We’ll check it out, boss,’ said Keanu, and there was a nod around the room, accompanied by the contemplative drinking of mulled cider, as the collective acknowledged the discussion on Bing Crosby, real or otherwise, had gone as far as it could.

Bublé had moved on to his innovative post-punk version of I Saw Three Ships, and the feeling in the shop was pretty much as acceptable a feeling as one was going to get in these times, when the country was standing at the precipice, waiting to take the blind jump.

‘We need a new Bublé Christmas album,’ said Carmichael, indicating the air with a general wave of the hand. ‘Disappointed he didn’t pull one out of the bag this year to cheer everyone up. I mean, those old guys like Sinatra and the actual Bing Crosby,’ and she smiled at Sophia, ‘and Dean Martin, they’d be bringing Christmas albums out every other year. Bublé’s is the gold standard of this century, but we’ve all heard it a billion times. We need a new one.’

‘Didn’t he do all the Christmas songs last time?’ asked Keanu. ‘As we established previously in the episode, though you missed it, there’s a careful balance to be struck when creating new Christmas material.’

‘There are tonnes he didn’t do,’ said Carmichael. ‘Hark the Herald, Sleigh Ride, Here Comes Santa, Must Be Santa, the one about New Year’s Eve, Little Drummer Boy, Christmas Island, you know. Masses. Plus, he could do versions of newer songs which have either already made it into the lexicon of the season or which he could help establish as new festive classics. Plus, he could do a different version or two of songs he previously did.’ She looked around the room, pleased to see her bold assertion of Bublé’s future recording career was gaining general approval. ‘Lots of potential. Am I right?’

‘You are,’ said Monk. ‘Can’t believe he hasn’t done it already.’

‘Someone should start a petition. I mean, let’s face it, next year is liable to be even shitter than this year, and we’re all going to need a new Bublé festive album by December.’

‘I’m all in,’ said Monk. ‘Let’s work on it in the new year.’

‘Maybe we’ll sue him.’

‘You are a lawyer.’

‘One of those benevolent lawsuits, we don’t want him piss him off.’

‘Yep,’ said Monk, raising her glass. ‘And maybe I’ll benevolently charge him with a crime in international court.’

‘I see a plan coming together,’ said Carmichael. ‘By this means we can start to think about next year in a more positive light.’

‘Anyway,’ said Barney, finishing off his drink, and heading to the back of the shop to get the pan, in order to top everyone up, ‘we’re getting way ahead of ourselves. It’s only Christmas Eve. There are still eight more days for 2020 to get catastrophically worse. And let’s face it, the way it’s going…’

Keanu looked at Monk.

‘Can’t you do something about him?’ and Monk smiled, shrugged, and said, ‘On this occasion, he’s not wrong…’

Barney returned with the pot of steaming mulled cider and began ladling a second helping into everybody’s mug. The smell of hot apples and spices filled the air, Michael Bublé’s first Christmas album of the forthcoming trilogy played on, and outside, as they all turned and looked out at the dark of evening, the snow had just begun to fall.

They watched for a moment, as the magic of Christmas took them, allowing them a fleeting escape from the shitshow of the worst festive season since the third century BC.

‘Merry Christmas, everyone,’ said Keanu, raising his glass.

They shared the look and the sentiment, they lifted their glasses to the room, and they drank in the snowy, spiced, warm contentment of early evening, Christmas Eve.

‘Merry Christmas!’

‘Merry Christmas!’

‘Merry Christmas!’

‘Merry Christmas!’

‘Arf!’