The Barbershop Seven by Douglas Lindsay

out.
    Agnes gasped. It wasn't Sobriety who'd objected. It was Bleach.
    'Yes, dear,' she said finally, after coming to terms with the fact that Bleach was pregnant by Blane, when everyone had believed that she'd been artificially inseminated with Rock's semen.
    'Are you not listening to me? I've killed Wullie!' His voice had become a desperate plea for help.
    'Oh, aye, dear? What did you do that for?'
    He took a step nearer to her. She wasn't looking at him, but maybe she was listening at last. 'I didn't mean to. It was an accident. I swear to God, I didn't mean to.'
    Agnes briefly turned and looked at him. 'Don't worry, dear, I'm sure he'll have forgotten all about it in the morning.'
    Barney dropped to his knees, put his hands to his face. Finally, the magnitude of what had happened was coming to him, the idiocy of what he'd done. He had killed a man. Maybe not intentionally, but he had killed him, and now he was plotting to dispose of the body. Whatever trouble he'd been in when he'd started had now increased a hundred fold.
    Why had he not just phoned the police and explained what had happened? Nobody would have suspected him of murder, why should they have? He was known as a reasonable man. Just because he'd been about to lose his job was no reason for him to kill anyone.
    He started sobbing, loud retches coming from deep within, his chest heaving and the tears tumbling down his face. He bent over, putting his forehead to the floor, started banging his hands on the carpet. With no force, however, just a quiet, pathetic gesture of desperation. The first time he had cried since the death of his father.
    'Shh!' Agnes waved a desultory hand, as she turned the volume of the television up with the other. Lance and Billy Bob were arguing over which one of them had first refusal on Flame.
    Barney quietened down, but remained on the floor, sobbing softly, his head in his hands. Then slowly, a small voice began to come to him, a small instinctive voice nudging at his subconscious. The small voice which everyone hears whenever there is a problem which they cannot resolve. 'Go to your mum,' it was saying. 'Go to your mum.'
    Maybe that was right, maybe that was the thing to do. She'd been almost gung-ho about killing the two of them, perhaps she would know what to do now. It seemed ridiculous, but he needed help, advice at the very least, and it wasn't as if he had too many options. He would go to see his mother.
    He struggled to his feet, looking sadly at the back of Agnes's head, then trudged into the bedroom. He changed his clothes and put the blood stained ones into a plastic bag, which he secreted at the bottom of the wardrobe. He walked back into the sitting room, a sense of purpose having crept unawares back into his stride.
    'I'm going to my mother's.'
    'Yes, dear.'
    And as Barney walked from the house, Charity and Monogamy were trying to pick a dress for Cerease to wear to the christening of Cream and Hamper's daughter, Tupperware.
Forgive Me, Mother, For I Have Sinned
    ––––––––
    T here is a time of definition in the life of every man when the pieces fall together or events take place to shape the future. It might happen suddenly or it might be a gradual process, a build up of things over weeks or months. Sometimes when it occurs he will be unaware that it is doing so, until one day he looks back and realises that his life has altered completely, for better or worse. It could be that he has fallen in love. It could be that some outside event changes his whole attitude to life, so that he views everything from a different perspective, and then indeed is life new. It could be that someone dies, creating a hole in his life that cannot be filled. It could be a new job, or a new car, or a new interest of any kind. Or it could be that he accidentally stabs his boss to death with a pair of scissors.
    Barney's life was changing, he knew it was happening, and there was nothing he could do about it. He tried telling