Charity: (A Very Short Story).
The fact that across the
vast gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded our world with
envious eyes, and slowly but surely were beginning to draw their plans against
us was nothing that concerned Fred Dander as he picked his way slowly down the
cobbled streets of the West Country town he lived in, on his way to work.
No.
He had a birthday card on
his mind. His niece.
How he had a niece was
something of a mystery, because a niece would presuppose some sort of wife,
wouldn’t it? No, he reasoned, it was something to do with a sister. Did he have
a sister?
And how about arranging
all those CDs today? Some sort of Christmas tree affair, for sure. Each to be
its very own ornament, catching the light and making pretty striations in the
dust.
Dangling. He liked
danglers.
Like the worm, dangling
from where it had been pushed onto a fishing hook that had pricked the clumsy
thumb – wriggling, struggling and catching the eye of anything beady enough to
witness it.
The blackbird with the
golden beak that hops upon the newly painted fence and looks at the wife in the
kitchen organising strudels for a dinner party has no emotion about her at all.
It might be that she projects herself onto it – in itself, it has no idea that it
is thought of as cute, comely, handsome.
Nor does it have any idea
that it might pluck at and eat that six legged harvester from where it is going
about whatever business six legged harvesters go about - in order to be
distinct from the spiders they resemble.
It has absolutely no idea
what’s coming next, because it has absolutely no ideas whatsoever. And that’s
being generous to blackbirds.
They say you’ll find a
penguin on every one of their record sleeves, if you look hard enough. But Fred
Dander wasn’t about to do that.
Once he arrived at the
door of the shop where he worked, it was locked and there were several
cardboard boxes blocking the entrance – as well as a black bin bag tied at the
top.
Fred peered at this last
object closely. Sure enough, there were a couple of wire coat hangers poking
out from the top – they had ripped a tear in the plastic fabric – well, of
course they had. Sharp objects and bin bags? No contest.
Didn’t people read the
instructions he had placed around the shop on carefully crayoned pieces of
card? ‘Please do not put wire objects inside black plastic bin-liners – they
will penetrate the thin sheeting and cause unwanted leakage. This particularly
includes coat hangers.’
Well, evidently not. Now,
if he moved the black sack, it would shed its load of unwanted clothes all over
the doorstep.
A clear and present danger
to unwary shoppers attempting access and egress today – that was certain. And
what if some of the spillage tumbled into the road? Surely he would be responsible
for a hazard to traffic, wouldn’t he?
Through no fault of his
own.
It would be the fault of
the careless blighter – yes, blighter – who had maliciously deposited a sack
full of unwanted bric-a-brac on Fred’s doorstep after closing time. Too idle to
go to the recycling centre, of course.
A sack would certainly
reduce today’s footfall if not dealt with in a manner of extreme urgency.
Fred looked over the
obstacles in front of the door and peered into the dim exterior. Where was
Molly? Blast the woman, always late. Although there was no one to see, he
ostentatiously checked and tapped at the cheap watch he wore on his left wrist.
Tap, tap, tap.
Ticka Timex.
He read another of his
helpful notices, fixed onto the glass he was looking through. ‘Whilst we are
always pleased to receive your donations – we cannot accept used male underwear
unless it has been washed thoroughly before it is donated.’
And, as he was admiring
his handiwork, several cars, vans, small trucks swept past.
Early morning traffic,
blithely oblivious to what was unfolding – and, in each interior, someone at
the centre of their own world, emanating striations that did not and would not
connect with Fred’s.
Who was, even now, considering
writing another stern notice about shop opening times – he reasoned he would
make it double sided. He could get away with that – after all, your actual
shopper needs important information like this upon entering and as a reminder
when leaving, don’t they?
Also it would sit nicely
in front of Molly’s aging eyes, wouldn’t it? Especially if he used bright
enough crayons. Yes, things would certainly change around here now that he had
volunteered.
At last the interior
lights flickered into life. She had entered from the back where there was a
pokey little staff car park.
She had her own key,
something that he intended to appropriate as soon as was possible – once the
management had discovered that he was far from just any old plain volunteer.
Molly got paid. Not much,
to be sure, but paid, nevertheless. What she spent it on was anybody’s guess.
Bacon butties? Caramel lattes? Fred had asked her once or twice, but her
cracked old face refused to spill the beans – as though his questions were
irrelevant.
Oh, it wasn’t that she was
rude. She was anything but rude. But, for some reason, she had a habit of
drifting above his conversation – after half an hour or so – preferring instead
to serve the customers that were browsing.
Yes. That was a good way
to put it. She drifted away from his words like flotsam upon a backwash unable
to determine its course or fate. And if you lashed yourself to it, made use of
it like some sort of life raft, you too would be similarly tossed and turned by
the currents and washed up upon any one of a number of careless shores.
He tapped at the window.
Why hadn’t she seen him?
Deaf, of course, that was it. What was she doing in there? Fiddling about with
computerised stuff – ah, yes, the card machine for payments. Fred had yet to
figure that out – but, make no mistake – that was on his to-do list.
He tapped again. More
stridently this time, leaning across the boxes and sacks. She looked up,
recognised him, gave a watery smile and hob-nobbled from behind the desk,
negotiated several displays of books and clothing and reached for the latch.
Turning it, the door
opened.
“Good morning, Mr Dander.”
“Good morning, Molly. As
you can see, we have a bit of an emergency to deal with, straight off the bat.
People, eh? What can you do?” And he frowned at those items blocking the door.
He was coming from an
opposite direction, was Willie Kipling.
It’s true, that in Stafford, some years ago, there was a road system that
had been improperly thought through. Call it a gyratory if you like.
There’s one at Balham on
the South Circular – a road that, if followed, would have the traveller believe
they’d finish at the same point from where they’d set out – except, of course, it
doesn’t work like that.
In Stafford, somehow, the gyratory
would push any vehicle in a Westerly
direction, shaped rather like a funnel. Cars press in from each side adding
pressure – until – like a knife, a fork, a bottle from a cork, the car is
propelled forwards.
But, this is no champagne
celebration.
The hapless driver is
unaware, until it is too late, that there are two orange flashing lights
overhead and an imperative that barks: ‘To Enter Here Is to Incur a Fine Of
1000 Pounds’.
Had Willie Kipling ever
been in Stafford, he would not have rolled the
window down in order to warn the front most car. Nobody would. They would
simply alternate between clutch and brake, brake and clutch, considering the
lilies, before their turn came to either turn left or take the leap.
And still, from the
opposite direction, he came.
If anyone cared to notice,
he was relatively squat and shrivelled as though he needed a few strokes from a
bicycle pump.
He’s striding with a bag
in his hand, having earlier parked the car half a mile away. He didn’t concern
himself with that inconvenience because life in itself was an inconvenience– or
at least it was made that way by someone, somewhere in summertime.
He was like a river that
knew where it was flowing, he took the right turn and just kept going - those
people in front of him were rocks to be negotiated, strewn along his river bed
to be ground by erosion, transported and deposited.
For their part, they
didn’t seem aware that they had transmuted into boulders to be ground to
detritus. In fact they didn’t seem aware at all. On closer inspection, they
were all coming from their own opposite directions.
Willie Kipling reached the
corner.
He surveyed the junction
before him, biting a middle aged, off-pink tongue between his teeth – not so
hard as to cut into the moist flesh, but hard enough to send signals to the
brain: I’m alive. That hurts. A little.
Opposite was a bakery that
sold cheap and highly deadly savouries. They smelt good, of course – being made
of burnt, fused cheese, processed meats and jacketed by flaky crumbs that
caught the unwary by the throat until they choked.
Outside the bakery stood a
person vaping, surreptitiously.
“Morning, Wullie.”
Willie ignored him. It did
not cross his mind that vaping looked like taking drugs. Nor did it register
that vaping was supposed to be safer than smoking and this had turned out to be
a lie.
Instead, he briefly
regretted packing it in a few years back.
Doctor’s advice as the
years marched on like soldiers fighting a war of attrition.
By now, he had galloped
down the cobble stones and was in front of a shop. The door was blocked by a
couple of boxes and a black bin bag. It looked as though the shop had just
opened and inside Willie could just make out two elderly people in what seemed
to be a bit of a flap.
Willie shrugged his
shoulders, picking up the black plastic sack.
To nobody’s surprise, it
did not immediately rip or shed its load all over the doorsteps. His footfall
firm and sure. Willie carried the sack over the threshold and placed it safely
by the counter.
A small bell of the very
old-fashioned kind telegraphed a message to alert the unwary vendor of cheap,
unwanted goods that there was a customer in the shop.
Preloved, as they are
known today – the goods, not the customers.
And the old lady behind
nodded a thank you. She had noticed a kindness.
The man, however, appeared
to be in a high state of flapdoodle. “I tell you, members of the public need to
be made more aware of the hazards to safety, Molly.”
“Yes, Mr Dander.”
Waiting with his bag,
Willie immediately assessed the dynamic unfolding before him. Mr Dander? What
sort of name was that? A weightless name. A person might easily drift above
such a name. No, the woman behind the counter – she was the one in charge.
When the time came, Willie
fully intended to ignore Mr Dander. He knew the sort. An expert on everything
with absolutely no knowledge whatsoever.
But the time wasn’t coming
anytime soon.
“Now, Molly, about my
birthday card.”
“Well, Mr Dander, the shop
does have a good variety.”
“Does it? Can you show
me?”
Molly reluctantly shuffled
out from behind her counter, circumnavigating the outwardly patient Willie
Kipling.
Now, she stood next to Mr
Dander in front of a display of multi-coloured squares. My, what a fuss he was
making. He couldn’t keep still, hopping from one foot to another like a
blackbird on a burning fence. He would seize a card, flap it about like an
aeroplane, replace it – reading the inscriptions aloud to Molly.
“To my niece, you’re
nice.” He cried, tossing another one back into its rack. “What about that one?”
“Oh yes, very nice.”
“No, niece.”
“Yes, Mr Dander.”
Like a butterfly that
couldn’t sting like a bee, Mr Dander flitted onto a different topic altogether,
executing a rather fey pas de deux as he did so. “What about our CDs?”
“CDs, Mr Dander? Oh, yes,
I’m sure your niece would love one of those. What about this one? It’s by…”
Molly screwed her eyes to her glasses, “…Gareth Gates. And this one is by Will
Young. Who are they then?”
“No, no, no, no, Molly,”
Mr Dander snapped, snatching the CDs from her and tossing them into a perfumed
hand basket full of pot-pourri. “ Not that at all. I mean, due to mismanagement,
we hardly sell any of them. I’ve been here four days now and not one CD has
been bought by anybody.”
“Perhaps because nobody
likes them?” Molly ventured, peering at the dusty shelf.
“Fiddlesticks. If we
arranged them into a Christmas tree formation, like they demonstrated on Blue
Peter last night, why these things would fly.”
Clearly sceptical about
digitised musical discs taking to the sky, Molly shook her head, remembering
how boomerangs don’t come back and she rolled her eyes at Willie, still
waiting, but getting increasingly irritated at the overly flamboyant Mr Dander.
Who now pointed at him, as
though seeing Willie for the first time. “What do you think?” It was clearly an
engagement question.
But Willie preferred the
bachelor life. “I doubt your discs will take off,” He snapped, sarcastically.
“Can you help me please? I’ve been waiting quite a while now.”
“Yes,” Molly agreed. “And
he bought that black bin bag inside.”
Clearly, Mr Dander did not
want to stop mid-flow and be brought down to earth. “Yes. Just as soon as I’ve
cleared up the doorstep. That black bag will have shed its hazardous interior
everywhere. I won’t be a jiffy.”
“It’s here.”
“What is?”
“That black bag.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. It’s quite intact.
I’d move the boxes, but I’m in rather a hurry.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“I see.” Mr Dander seemed
torn between wanting two things at once. As such, his body swayed as though it
were a piece of iron filing caught between magnetic poles, each exerting an
equal pull. His face was contorted. The expert reader of such things as body
language would easily infer that he had no wish to attend to Willie, but he was
weighing up the consequences.
Before he could move to the
door, Willie interjected, using a neutral tone, that nevertheless had some
weight. “If you wouldn’t mind?”
And he tipped the contents
of his bag onto the counter. A record tumbled out. It was 12 inch, housed in a
dull off grey piece of well-worn plastic.
The sleeve inside was
dog-eared and faded – it once had been black but now had spots of mildew – however
the title was a splash of colour could be read easily. ‘Black Sabbath Volume
4’. Next to it was a crayoned sticker that announced ‘£4.99!’ in a way that
seemed very pleased with itself.
Fred Dander recognised it
at once.
“I bought this here
yesterday.”
“Ah, yes. The Black
Sabbath? What appears to be wrong with it?”
“I’ll tell you what’s
wrong with it. It’s scratched, that’s what’s wrong with it. It doesn’t play.”
Fred creased his brow,
flared his nostrils and pursed his lip. Either there was a bad smell in his
vicinity or he did not believe what he was hearing. “May I?”
Willie passed him the
record, irritated inwardly, but outwardly betraying no emotion. So, there was
going to be a fight was there?
Fred Dander ripped the
vinyl from its sleeve, somewhat carelessly as though he did not know how to
handle it. He held it up to the light and squinted. It was hard to miss two or
three deep and bloody gores on either side that cut across the grooves as
though someone had taken a hacksaw to the plastic. “Scratched? Where?”
Willie snatched the disc
from him. “There. And there.” He snapped, emphatically, whilst flipping the
record expertly and jabbing his fingers at the two trenches.
“It’s not scratched. It’s
used.”
“Used? By whom? A
carpenter for chisel practice?”
“Jesus was carpenter,”
Molly reflected, nostalgically. “I knew him once.”
Willie ignored her. “I
know a scratched disc when I see one. And this one looks as though a herring
gull has sharpened its beak on it.”
“Well, of course it’s
scratched. If it wasn’t scratched, it wouldn’t give off an authentic sound,
would it?” Mr Dander replied, cupping a hand to his ear and gazing skywards as
though listening to the music of the spheres.
“The only authentic sound
this replicates is the noise of your mother breaking wind before breakfast
after a night spent bothering processed peas.”
“My mother died some years
ago, thank you very much, and I’ll ask you to remember that. A delicate
creature, possessed of a wonderful bouquet that resembled nothing so much as a
perfumed garden.”
“I want a refund.”
“Well, didn’t you notice
the price?”
“What’s that got to do
with it?” Willie grabbed the sleeve and read the sticker. “Of course I noticed
it. I couldn’t miss it. It looked like it was crayoned on there by a small boy
in shorts.”
“The low, low price of
£4.99 reflected the condition of the record. You couldn’t buy a decent copy for
that sort of price, could you?”
“And when did this shop
become a record dealer’s?” Willie snapped, because he was irritated by the way
charity shops considered themselves experts in vinyl pricing once they had
realised there was a market. It was happening too much.
Dander ignored him.
“Didn’t you buy records just for the sleeve?” He asked. “Why, you could stick
this to a wall. Better yet, you could buy one of our frames. It would look
lovely – stuck to a wall, wouldn’t it?”
“The only wall this would
improve is the public conveniences on Treddle
Street,” Willie replied, with conviction. “It
smells about as bad.”
“Well, when I was a boy,
I’d love to have that stuck to my wall.”
“You were an only child,
were you? Not used to much in the way of company?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, given that I’m not
about to rush out and stick the mangy, dog-eared artefact to any wall – except
perhaps yours, if you insist – I want a refund.”
“Sorry. That’s against our
policy.”
“Is it?” Willie growled,
with just a hint of menace.
“I’m afraid so. It’s in
our motto, you see? ‘Once you’ve carried it away, don’t…er…bring it back on
another day.’”
“You just made that up.”
“No, I didn’t, did I
Molly? Molly?”
But she was already
floating somewhere above it all, humming to herself whilst she bagged up some chunky
knitwear for a mother and her daughter who had been watching all this time without
much interest. “They’re coming back aren’t they?” Molly reminisced, passing the
brown paper bag to the mother.
“What are?” Mrs Knitwear
replied.
“Those old fashioned
records.”
“Well, that one isn’t,”
she responded, accurately, tucking the bag into her push along trolley.
And, because she was
correct, it was why five minutes later, Willie was leaving the way he came.
Clutching his bag, cursing under his breath and striding the half mile or so
back to the car park.
Some people claim that the
allure of a bag of chocolate Revels is that you never know which centre you
will get. What will it be? Strawberry? Orange?
Caramel? Peanut?
Others claim you can tell
by the shape. The Maltesers are a dead giveaway.
And it’s never going to be
strawberry, anyway, because Mars don’t make those. And they outlawed the peanut
variety due to allegies.
But none of this was
passing through the mind of Ted Thatcher.
His gritty gravel drive
curved gracefully, bordered between two banks of impassive greenery that had
grown without any thought as one century turned its back on the next – possibly
rhododendron, possibly camellia - because it’s easy to mistake one for the
other and nether had any interest in minding the other’s business, anyway.
In fact, whoever had
initially planted these bushes, famous before the fall, probably hadn’t a clue,
as he pushed seeds into soil – which would grow, which would whither and what
they might become.
He might have been in the
habit of wiping the soil from his frost-bitten hands onto his blue canvas
jerkin – probably in vogue back then – only to spend weary nights, stripped to
the waist, using a washboard to play skiffle before scrubbing and hanging
dripping garments from tatty lines borrowed from straw bales in the horses’ stable.
It was all chance where
those drips would fall and which weeds would flourish in the straight line
beneath the sodden clothes.
Then, thoughtlessly, the
mosquito would land on his bare back – or gnat, midge, wasp, fly, spidercrab –
it’s all one, really, in the heat oppressed room of his mind.
Hot, because air conditioning
was only something imagined in his day and would never really take off in the
West Country once realised, due to a lack of consistent warmth in summer.
Where he was bitten and
what was taken was similarly unknowable.
Nor did any passing insect
have any idea that what it was doing was theft and wrong. If you see something
that doesn’t look right speak to a member of staff or a policeman and they’ll
sort it. See it, say it, sorted.
“Well, he don’t look
right, for a start,” Ted Thatcher thought, sorting it, his back bent like
tulips on the cast iron shore. He was moving slowly up the drive picking up stones
amongst the grit and chucking them into his bushes with venom. “Puncture my
tyres, would you, bastards? Well, here’s one in the eye for Harold.”
He stooped again, with a
grimace as his back stabbed and hamstrings twanged. He wasn’t adept at bending
his legs at the knee in the recommended fashion and so resembled a rusting mug-handle
seen side-on.
Ted rubbed a grizzled,
half shaven chin, blinked some moisture from his stinging left eye, pushed his
glasses back up his nose and stared at the ground.
Then he seized and flung
another rock. The leaves rustled and were still.
The sharp stone, having
been hurled, would lie there forever. It would never be rediscovered and never
contribute anything else to the world until some unknowable future catastrophe
might dislodge it from its final resting place.
Just a cat jumping onto
the ledge, going in through a window, swishing its tail, jumping out again
without a clue as to why.
His drive wasn’t long
enough for this to take all day. It was long enough to be called a drive, that
much is certain, but in the grand scheme of things, only modestly so.
Ted Thatcher, if he
wished, could boast his house had a drive, don’t you know, over a pint of real
ale in the snug whilst propping up the bar of his local, in his seat, from his
pewter mug kept there by his publican - ‘TED’S Tankard’ written on the side,
above a Cornish crest.
If he wished.
But other people he knew
had similar drives in front of their modestly proportioned houses – and kept
wives, too.
So, Ted Thatcher did not
wish.
Oh, secretly he might have
thought about it but he was more of an Arthur than a Croft. In fact he knew Sir
Gerald in a small way and had once played crib with him, many years ago.
He remembered that he’d
been allowed in because he’d had some matches. Swan Vestas.
Wives, indeed.
“Records is more better
than wives,” Ted Thatcher muttered, to himself, because nobody was listening.
Now at the top of his
drive and satisfied he’d cleared away the majority of any malevolent stones
that were blighting his life, he shoved through the back door of his house.
Ted clomped through the
kitchen, in his boots – Hanna would clean that on Tuesday because he paid her
thirty pounds a week for the privilege – then shouldered open the door of his
rumpus room.
He’d had a sign designed
for it a couple of years back ‘Ted’s MAN’S Room – Strictly NO admittance unless
your name is TED’, which he was very pleased with.
In his younger days he’d
had one of those stickers for his car – a Mini Minor back then – in see-through
green plastic. It announced ‘Ted’s CAR’ and was stuck in such a way that it was
above his head when he was driving.
He’d been very pleased
with that, too.
But, once inside his den, he
was anything but pleased. A frown crossed his face like a cloud scudding across
the moon. He looked at the back wall of the small room and was – displeased.
“And that don’t look right, neither,” he muttered, remembering an announcement
he’d heard earlier.
The back wall was lined,
from ceiling to floor with vinyl records, housed in sturdy box like shelves
that criss-crossed the painted brick.
They had been carefully
sorted, too. Not just from A to Z, although that was part of it, certainly. But
also into decades. And within the decades, genres. The whole collection looked
lovingly kept and treasured.
At right angles to the
vinyl were two record turntables – decks, if you like – linked through a mixing
desk and wired to an amp and speakers. If Ted ever intended to play this music,
he had the wherewithal.
But what was the cause of
his angst?
Ted Thatcher wandered over
to the shelves set at midriff height, far left and put his finger in the hole
where Black Sabbath Volume 4 would be – if he owned it. Or perhaps he had owned
it, but now it was gone.
Here was ‘Master of
Reality’. Here was ‘Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath’. But in between was just a black
hole, a void, an emptiness big enough to fit a very small finger into. Here was
nothing, just a gaping chasm.
A bell rung. His doorbell.
Now who would be calling at such a time?
What time it was, Ted
didn’t really know, because one day blended into another. He stomped back the
way he came, scowling. Took a sharp left. Peered through the frosted glass of
his front door. A recognisable blob presented itself.
Ted flung the door open.
“Kipling.”
“Good afternoon, Mr
Thatcher.”
“Afternoon, is it? I don’t
hold with afternoons, do I?”
“No, Mr Thatcher. You
always tell me that afternoons only come before the darkness of the dawn.”
“Exactly. So what’s good
about that, then?”
Willie Kipling took a
breath, he appeared uncertain what to say next. It didn’t look as though Mr
Thatcher was going to let him come into the house.
Ted stood in front of him,
semi-solid, a junket in need of rennet, coagulating – his poached prickly pear
face reddening. “What’s that, then?”
Mr Thatcher jabbed a grey,
grubby finger at the bag.
“That, Mr Thatcher, is
Black Sabbath Volume 4.”
Ted Thatcher’s face
cracked into a smile. “Is it, now? Excellent. Well, now. Brilliant. You’d
better come in, then. Hadn’t you?” And he moved backwards, to allow access.
Once inside, Willie
Kipling gloomily followed the old fellow’s back as they made their way to the
romper room. There wasn’t much in age between them, but enough.
Willie hated the house.
Stupid house. Ideas above its station, Willie thought – listed as a mansion, it
was anything but.
Big enough for Thatcher,
though. Thatcher? What kind of a pathetic name was that? Somebody who put straw
on people’s houses for a living, so that on a hot day they would spontaneously
combust and reduce Essex to a heap of ashes
and sand.
He noted that there was a
trail of mud on the carpets and wooden flooring that looked as though it had
fallen off Ted's boots. “Has Hanna been this week?”
“No. She sent me a
message. On my phone, you know? Phone. No manners these days, cleaners.
Bastards. Couldn’t call round to say she was sick, could she? Had to say it
from her bed. On the phone. Which meant my phone got a message on it. I had to delete it. Delete it!”
“You can’t buy quality
these days.”
“No, you can’t”
“Well not for thirty
pounds a week, that is,” added Willie, in his head. They had arrived.
“Well, show me, then.”
Reluctantly, Willie passed
him the same carrier bag he had left the shop with that morning.
He had debated whether to
pay a visit, but, as that debate consisted mostly of himself talking to a
careless universe, it had not lasted long.
He had taken his time
swallowing a miniscule, lukewarm coffee called Flat White – it was neither
flat, nor white - in ‘Bean and Bake’ a tatty little overpriced place with
uncomfortable wicker chairs and peeling blue paint.
Designed, no doubt, for
the less choosy tourist.
‘Bean and Bake’ had
replaced a previous hopeful contender called ‘Lace and Latte’ offering similar
fare, at similar prices and with a predictable outcome.
While there, he wondered
how long ‘Bean and Bake’ would last. Stupid name for a shop, no doubt alluding
to baked beans – something he imagined most tourists associated with farting.
They’d pull a face and
move along. Nobody needed to be reminded of that, did they?
Then again, perhaps they
didn’t care. How did he know?
Willie Kipling waited for
the response.
Ted Thatcher wasn’t long
in providing it, neither. He was holding up the nasty, fungus infested,
crumpled sleeve in both hands, frowning at it. “Why this is the very same record I
sent you to that shop with,” he snapped.
“Yes, Mr Thatcher.”
“I sent you to replace
it.”
“That’s true.”
“It’s the same one you
told me about a couple of days ago, that I told you to buy and bring.”
“I can’t deny it.”
“That when I looked it
over, told you straight that it was shite, and shite would never, ever do. Even if the
price was only £4.99.”
“You did say that, you
told me straight, it was shitty copy, take the shitty thing back and you’d been
ripped off by that shitty place, no matter what the price.”
“So why did you bring it
back? I don’t want it brought back, do I?”
“You certainly don’t. You
told me under no circumstances to bring it back. It’s like bacon bought from the Co Op, you said. There's plenty of
streaky out there passing itself off as back and you’ve no room for streaky in a pan fit for back – that’s what you said.”
Ted Thatcher jabbed a bony
finger in Willie’s chest. “So, why did you then?” He snarled, wiping the
spittle from his bottom lip with the back of his other hand.
“Well, the problem was the
price, you see, Mr Thatcher. It seems we should’ve been aware that no LP of
this quality would sell for only £4.99.”
“Quality?” Thatcher
screamed, enraged, “That record isn’t quality, isn’t nothing even like quality.
It’s a turd pretending to be a brownie, that’s what it is. What is it?”
“A turd pretending to be a
brownie, Mr Thatcher.”
“What bloody use is it,
Kipling?”
“You can stick it to the
wall. I was told that’s all the rage these days.”
“And why would someone
want to pin dung to their wall, Kipling, eh? People down the pub would laugh at
me. ‘Look, that’s Ted Thatcher, the man who displays his own crap’. No, it’ll
not do, will it? Who told you that it would do?”
“It was Mr Dander’s idea.”
“Mr Wanker? What kind of a
name is that?”
“Dander, Mr Thatcher. Mr
Dander.”
Ted Thatcher snorted. “Dander,
eh? Well, we’ll see about that.”
Willie Kipling looked
uncertainly. “Well, what do you want me to do?”
“What do I want you to do?
I want you to piss off, that’s what. You’re totally clueless, Kipling. If you
hadn’t got me that record in the first place, none of this would’ve happened,
would it?”
“I suppose not.”
“There’s no suppose about
it, Kipling. What kind of employee fetches his boss a piece of garbage like
this?” Ted Thatcher shouted, jabbing a forefinger at Black Sabbath Volume 4 to
emphasize his point. “You’re a whippet sent to fetch a rabbit returning with a
soiled bog brush that's gone to seed and has shed its bristles, that’s what you are. You’re fired.”
“But what about Dander?”
“Don’t you worry about
Dander. I’ll do all the worrying about Dander, the plank. By the time I’m
finished with Dander, he’ll wish he was a…a...panda.”
“Panda, sir?”
“A Fiat Panda. One of the
most crappiest cars ever to bother the vehicle tax inspector and his mate Mr
Traffic Warden, that’s what. The bastard.”
“OK, Mr Thatcher.” Willie
shrugged, somewhat crestfallen and walking back to where he’d parked. He was
wondering whether the bastard was Dander, The Tax Inspector or Mr Warden.
He decided it was Dander,
before jumping into his Fiat Panda and driving down the gentle drive. Drive?
That was rich.
A few days later, Willie
Kipling was sat waiting for a milky coffee in the ‘Bean and Bake’. He was
flicking through the West Briton glancing at the jobs section. Not that he
really needed a job, to be fair – but he did like something to occupy his day.
He was sat by the window
admiring the flaky blue paint, peeling like burnt skin without malice or forethought from the
frames.
Now, Willie stiffened.
What was that? In his
sightlines was a badly crayoned poster that he was sure was a recent addition.
He read it carefully, then skimmed through it again. ‘Patrons. Do not let your
dogs drink from our coffee cups. Allowing dogs to drink from or urinate into
our coffee cups puts other patrons at risk from disease.’
From the counter, Fred
Dander watched. He had slipped on a blue face mask from Boots in a fit of
unease, having recognised Kipling the moment he walked in. However, he was
smirking as he stirred the recently ordered Flat White.
As he finished preparing
the beverage, the manager, an elderly lady called Flora, walked out from the
staffroom to the left of the pastry display. “How is it going, Mr Dander? It
was good of you to volunteer for work here.”
“Oh, very well, Mrs
Biddle,” Dander replied, who already had designs on a full time position and
the keys to the café. “Very well indeed. Would you mind taking this coffee over
to that gentleman?”
As she did so, Fred Dander
pulled out a letter from his back pocket with an official seal headed ‘Trade
Descriptions Act’ and ‘County Court’.
Flora placed the coffee
on his table.
Willie had finished reading the notice a third time. “What’s the
difference,” he thought, looking at the cup with an inward shrug. “This tastes
like piss anyway.”
And Kipling stayed for a
time, without weeping or raving as one demented or pondering the strange
marvels that had come to pass. It may or may not be that in the larger design
of the universe, any invasion from anywhere could be for the ultimate benefit
of man.
The future belongs to the
future and probably cares not one jot.
