But it turns out that not only did he make his way home like a wounded pigeon but that he’s somehow had the presence of mind to lock the shop behind him and to take the fucking keys: genius. I says to him, listen Barney, fuck that guy and his foul-mouthed wife. We’ll take the shop and its contents and we’ll make more money for the Ra than they ever knew they had coming to them. But first we drive round to the house where the guy lived with Kathy and we break in.

There’s no one around, of course, they’re both hiding out somewhere, obviously, so as we go looting from room to room. A TV, a video recorder – rare as dice in the Ardoyne at the time – plus a bunch of slasher videos; brilliant stuff. I get myself a pair of shoes, a nice pair of tan brogues, the bastard only went and had the same size feet as me. Barney goes through Kathy’s panties and takes a couple of pairs from her drawer. You dirty bastard, I says to him, but he’s like that, no, I’m giving them to Shona for an anniversary present. You give your wife dirty knickers for a present? I says to him. Sure, she’ll never know, he says. Besides, he says, I’ll break them in first myself, if you know what I’m saying. I wish I fucking didn’t, I says to him. Besides, I says to him, they’ll be a fucking tent on your Shona. Shut it, Barney says. They’re elasticated, designed to fit all comers. Then he laughs and he puts a pair of them over his head like a bally. See? he says. You’re fucking disgusting, I says to him. Something about it was just really uncouth to me.

When Tommy got back from his holidays, we broke the news. We got our own comic shop, I says to him, all profits straight to the Ra. You wee beauty, he says to us, and he spits on his hands and he rubs them together, like that.

*

It’s our grand first day of trading and Barney is only sitting there behind the counter with a fucking bowler hat on. You look like a fucking Orangeman, I says to him, what the fuck. Have you never clocked The New Avengers on the telly? he says to me. This is Steed, he says, pointing to the hat on his head. This will appeal to the geeks, he says. They’ll lap it right up. Steed is a fucking Orangeman, I says to him. That’s fucking heresy, he says to me. Besides, he says, it’s this or it’s fucking Bagpuss, and he raises his hat to reveal the state of my botched knitting job on his noggin. Either way, I says to him, you look like a villain. A supervillain, he says to me, and he takes his hat off and spins it at me like a Frisbee. Wait a minute, I says to him. Now I know who you remind me of. It’s not Steed. It’s fucking Oddjob out the James Bond movies. Oddjob’s a chinky, Barney says to me, what are you trying to say? And without a word of a lie, Tommy comes in right then and soon as he sees Barney sitting there in that hat, he says to him, alright Oddjob? After that it was all over: Barney was Oddjob, even if in real life he was a chinky.