The Barbershop Seven by Douglas Lindsay Read Free Book Online Page B

think they are. Keep taking all my customers. It's getting to be a right blinking joke.'
    Bill nodded. In the past he had been on the receiving end of one of Barney's one hour fifteen minute Towering Inferno haircuts, and in the end had been forced to move from the area to avoid subjecting himself to the fickle fate of his friend's scissors.
    'They're good barbers, Barney.'
    Barney stopped what he was doing, the words cutting to his core. Dropped his dominoes, placed his hands decisively on the table. Fire glinted in his eye. A green glint.
    'And I'm not, is that what you're saying, Bill? Eh?'
    Bill quickly raised his hands in a placatory gesture. 'No, no, Barney, I didn't mean it that way, you know I didn't.'
    'Like hell you didn't. Et tu, Bluto?' said Barney, getting within inches of quoting Shakespeare.
    'Look, mate, calm down, I didn't mean anything. Now pick up your dominoes and get on with the game.'
    With a grunt, a scowl and a noisy suck of his teeth, Barney slowly lifted his weapons of war and, unhappy that Bill had seen what he held in his hands, resumed combat.
    The game continued for another couple of minutes before Bill felt confident enough to reintroduce the subject. The quiet chatter of the pub continued around them, broken only by the occasional ejaculation of outrage.
    'So what's the problem with the two of them, Barney?' he asked gingerly.
    Barney grumbled. 'Ach, I don't know, Bill. They're just making my life a misery. They're two smug bastards the pair of them. Getting on my tits, so they are.'
    Barney was distracted, made a bad move. He didn't notice, but Bill did. Bill The Cat. Suddenly, given the opening, he began to play dynamite dominoes, a man at the pinnacle of his form, making great sweeping moves of brio and verve, which Barney wrongly attributed to him having had a glimpse of his hand.
    'So what are you going to do about it?' said Bill, after administering the coup de grâce .
    Barney, vanquished in the game, laid down his weapons and placed his hands on the table. Looked Bill square in the eye. They had been friends a long time, been through a lot. The Vietnam war, the Falklands conflict, the miners' strike. Not that they'd been to any of them, but they'd watched a lot of them on television together. And so, Barney felt able to confide the worst excesses of his imagination in Bill.
    He leant forward conspiratorially across the table. This was it, a moment to test the bond to its fullest.
    'How long have we been friends, Bill?' he asked, voice hushed.
    Bill shrugged. 'Oh, I don't know. A long time, Barney.' His too was the voice of a conspirator, although he was unaware of why he was whispering.
    Barney inched ever closer towards him, his chin ever nearer the table.
    'Barney?' asked Bill, before he could say anything else.
    'What?'
    'You're not going to kiss me, are you?'
    Barney raised his eyes, annoyed. Didn't want to be distracted at a time like this. 'Don't be a bloody mug, you eejit. Now listen up.' He paused, hesitating momentarily before the pounce. 'Tell me Bill, do you know anything about poison?'
    'Poison? You mean like for rats, that kind of thing?'
    'Aye,' said Barney, thinking that rats were exactly what it was for.
    'Oh, I don't know...' said Bill. Then, as his rapier mind began to kick in and he saw the direction in which Barney was heading, he sat up straight. He looked into the eyes of his friend. 'You don't mean...?'
    'Aye.'
    'You've got rats in the shop!'
    Barney tutted loudly, went through the headshaking routine, then slightly lifted his jaw from two inches above the table.
    'No, no! It's not rats I want to poison.' He took a suspicious look around about him to see if anyone was listening. 'Well, it is rats, but the human kind.'
    This took a minute or two to hit Bill, and when it did it was a thumping great smack in the teeth. As the realisation struck, there came a great crash of thunder outside and the windows of the pub shook with the rain and the wind. He stood up