From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle Read Online Free Page A

just a sprinkling of customers, mostly familiar: two businessmen from the north end of the Street, their laptops and mobiles at hand; Oriana, from the Medical Centre, and her friend, their heads bent in earnest discussion; Willy Edwards, the lawyer, whose office was above Hair Today (est. 2006): he had most of his meetings at Coralie’s. Coralie herself was away at her bach with JohnLeo. Laurel, the barista, was in charge.
    Two tables away from Ren and Barney sat Suit who every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday came to Coralie’s at 3 p.m. for a cup of Earl Grey tea and a Black Doris friand while he read the newspaper. Suit was a creature of habit.
    ‘And his habit is a suit!’ Albert Anderson liked to say.
    Suit’s life, including his eating, was very carefully organised. He was happy to tell you about his timetable. He rose at 6.15 a.m. and ate muesli at 6.25 a.m. At 6.50 a.m. he left the apartment towalk to work. At 10 a.m. he had an apple or a pear. At midday he ate his two cheese sandwiches in Little Wilt. He was a watchmaker and worked at the north end of High Street where people generally ate lunch beside the fountain, but Suit was loyal to Little Wilt. After his sandwiches he walked about the south of the city for thirty minutes. On Saturdays he walked to the vegetable market with his string bag. On Sunday mornings he walked to the Basilica and sang in the choir at High Mass. On Sunday afternoons he went to Montgomery’s (est. 1984) to buy his weekly book.
    Everyone on the Street knew Suit’s routines. He had been keeping them faithfully ever since he had come to live with Mireille, years ago, above her florist shop, Forget-me-Knot (est. 1995).
    The most curious thing about Suit was his alarm clock, which went everywhere with him inside his leather satchel. It was an old-fashioned alarm with bells on top. You seldom saw the clock but everyone had heard the bells go off at one time or another, a muffled clanging that alerted Suit to something on his timetable. You could often hear the clock’s sturdy tick. Barney could hear it now.
    Ren heard it too – her magnified fish eyes swivelled sideways to Suit and swiftly back again to Barney. They smiled at each other. Barney and Ren liked Suit. He was gentlemanly and kind and a little shy. Barney liked that Suit always helped with the dishes when he and Mireille came over for dinner. Ren admired Suit’s planning and organisation. She had asked for – and received – an alarm clock for her fifth birthday. Hers stayed on the bedside table.
     
    ‘Right!’ said Ren.
    She placed the new Production Book on the table (it was a school exercise book, a Warwick 1AF, unruled). She removed an HB 5 pencil from her pencil case and considered its sharp point with a satisfied smile. It was a fresh one with an unused eraser. Ren liked new stationery for each production.
    ‘Autumn Short: Number Five , Kettle Productions,’ said Ren.She wrote this on the cover of the exercise book and turned to the first page. ‘So. What’s the idea?’
    And here they confronted their first problem: Barney had absolutely no idea. It wasn’t that his mind was blank. No indeed. It was full of all manner of stuff but you couldn’t really call any of it an actual idea. Certainly not an idea for the next KP Short.
    This unsatisfactory state of affairs had bothered Barney increasingly over the last week. It was so unfamiliar. It was not at all how things had worked for the three previous Shorts. Thanks to Felix La Marche and Hal Nicholas’s instructions the last three Shorts had evolved swiftly and smoothly. Little Red Riding Hood had become Red Riding Hoodie and Oliver Twist had become Silent Movie and – apart from the occasional cast exodus – both had worked like a dream. (He hadn’t used the whole of Oliver Twist , just the section where Oliver has a brief stay at the wealthy end of town.)
    As for Feliz Navidad , this brilliant idea had struck Barney like a small electric shock the day