A woman told me she would fulfil my ultimate fantasy for £100 - so I asked her to paint my house.
Sean O'Bryan.
Flotsam and Jetsam
While carrying out research for this story – at great expense and danger, I might add. You can’t carouse all night in the grog shops of the harbour without spending a pretty penny. Not to mention the danger of falling into the harbour at chucking out time.
Cor! The things I do for a story.
Anyway I was sitting in the Benbow nursing a pint of Old Brown Dog, an excellent brew. Not as good, I might point out as the two I’d had in the Flying Dutchman, earlier, but better than the four in the Lord Nelson at the beginning of the night.
‘Alcoholic! Me? Listen, I can stop, just like that…Ah well I never could snap me fingers. If you don’t believe me see how I began at four, reduced down to two and finally one. Now I ask you could I have done that if I were an Alcoholic? Belay that answer, now, where was I?’
I was in the Benbow with my pint when the door opened letting in a blast of rain. The conversation died, I looked up in the silence and there, backlit by the lightning, stood a dark cloaked figure with a stick. The figure entered the room, the door closed and everyone began talking again.
I watched the stranger as he tapped his way to the bar; he leaned forward and said something to the barman. I read his lips, ‘a gint of gold gog.’ It’s no good; I’ll have to get a better lip-reading book .He scanned the room and then his eyes locked on mine. At least I think they did, I couldn’t see his face for the hood.
The bartender said something; I didn’t bother reading his lips. The hooded figure picked up his pint and began to tap his way towards me. Reaching the table he said, ‘Is anyone sitting in this seat?’
‘Yeah, the invisible man,’ I said.
He didn’t reply he just ran his hands over the chair and sat down. Now I was embarrassed, the man obviously has a problem with his sight, ‘I’m sorry are you blind?’ I asked.
‘No, God bless you sir, I used to be, until I went to Specsavers. Do you know they do two pair of frames for the price of one?’
‘Just the frames no lenses,’ I quipped.
He ignored me and pulled back his hood so that everyone could admire his Calvin Kline specs. After a round of applause from the admiring crowd, he took a sip of his pint, began to pat his pockets, gave a grunt and delving inside his coat, withdrew a tatty piece of folded paper.
‘My name is Blind Pew and I’ve been ordered to give you this, Billy,’ he said, holding out the paper.
I was surprised; my name wasn’t Billy, and he wasn’t blind. I took the paper, opened it and in the centre was an inkblot. ‘Your pen’s been leaking,’ I said.
‘That’s no inkblot,’ said he. ‘That be the black spot.’
‘Not the dreaded black spot,’ I cried,
Everyone stopped talking and turned to stare. Blind Pew drained his pint, stood and said, ‘Remember Billy, you’re a dead man now,’ then he left slamming the door behind him.
What a bummer the night had turned out to be, and wanting no more of it I staggered out the door, only to stumbled and fall into a shop entrance two doors up. Which was lucky, for a gang of roughs, rushed past and burst into the Benbow shouting for Billy Bones.
I struggled to my feet, and staggered towards the park. What happened next I haven’t a clue, everything became hazy – I blamed it on the kippers I had for tea, before I went out – and I knew nothing more until I awoke in the morning on a park bench. My mouth tasted like a beaver’s backside and the hammers of hell were pounding in my head.
I would have dismissed the proceedings of the night before as a drunken illusion. If it hadn’t been for the piece of paper I still gripped in my hand, the one that had the inkblot in the middle.
Copyright © Fred Watson 2006
______________________
You Might Like
_________________________
