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Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
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Chapter
One
F rank-and-Stan’s Cabs,” announced Susie with a polished perfection. “Sure,” she continued, bobbing her head as her fingernails rattled against the keys of the nicotine-stained keyboard. “That’ll be five to ten minutes,” she offered, with a generous smile down the receiver of her phone. Of course, customers couldn’t see the smile. But it came through in her tone, regardless.
Susie’s practised smile evaporated, however, now replaced by an apprehensive curling of her top lip. “Are you okay, Stella?” she asked, bravely… eventually… pushing her heels into the lino flooring, propelling her chair to a less-than-discreet distance of safety away.
Susie tilted her head in a moment of empathy, but the only response she received was the gentle caress of Stella’s exhaled smoke across her cheek. “Only…” continued Susie with an admirable, stoic determination… “Only, you seem somewhat on edge, Stella. If, you know, you don’t mind me saying so,” she ventured. “Oh, and you should be careful with that knife, Stella. You really could hurt yourself. And what with you making me the official Health and Safety Officer and all… well… you know.”
Stella removed the tip of a butter knife from under the nail of her index finger, examined it for detritus, and flicked away the small globule of unidentified matter thereon that she’d smartly liberated from her person. Then, addressing Susie, she lolled her head back, relaxing her lower jaw and her lips parting in the process — with her cigarette remaining steadfast, adhered to her lower lip as it was.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Stella put forth to Susie, who was busying herself pushing her seat back to its original position.
“What’s that?” enquired Susie.
“The responsibility of being a health and safety officer, Susie. Don’t let the power go to your head— I can take it away just as quickly as I granted it.”
Susie gave a half-smile, casting a glance to Stella’s side of the desk at the smouldering ashtray festooned with the many remnants of cigarettes past, and stationed millimetres from a pile of paper invoices on the one side and several Kit Kat wrappers on the other. “I’ll be sure not to,” she replied. “Let it go to my head, that is.” She nevertheless made a mental note of the office fire extinguisher’s proximity, lest the need arise to employ its use.
“Is everything okay, though, Stella? You know, with you and Lee, I mean? I don’t mean to pry, of course, but you just seem tense, like maybe…”
Susie’s soliloquy continued on, but Stella paid her no attention, instead pushing herself into a standing position, and throwing a suspicious glance towards the portal window into the office next door. She tugged down on her leather skirt, which had ridden up since her previous toilet break, stubbing out her cigarette into the palm of her hand.
Susie winced as Stella twisted what remained of the filtered end into her skin without consideration to the red-hot ash, in what appeared to be a practised, fluid motion. The ashtray on Stella’s desk overflowed, waging a battle to contain its contents with dignity — rather like Stella’s leather skirt — and its contents increased further as the snubbed-out butt was dispatched with precision, coming to a rest on a quivering stack. If the contents had not been toxic and foul-smelling, this whole procedure may have made for a fairly enjoyable game, like Jenga. As it was, Susie was only concerned with edging the fire extinguisher ever closer.
“It’s those two tossers,” announced Stella, pressing her nose up against the cold glass of the aforementioned porthole as she stared — eyes narrowed — into the adjacent room. It was unclear if this was in response to the question Susie had posed to Stella or if, rather, it was simply a declaratory observation.
“… And one of them has just crawled back into the office.”
From Susie’s vantage point it was unclear at first if those in the other room could see their over-attentive observer, but as Stella slowly unfurled and extended her middle finger as if it were operated by a mechanical wind-up key, Susie made the assumption that eye contact had indeed been made.
Stella held her extended digit aloft for several more seconds, both for maximum effect and to make her intentions clear, before turning back to Susie. “What are they doing back here?” Stella asked rhetorically, not really requiring nor desiring a response. “They were supposed to have buggered off to the Isle of Man,” she stated grimly.
Susie offered a conciliatory smile, for anything else could conceivably be considered dangerous in the response it might potentially provoke. She cleared her throat before responding.
“Well they do own the place, Stella.”
“PART-own!” barked Stella, lowering her arm and pointing to her very own mug emblazoned with the words ‘Co-Owner.’
“Maybe they just missed you, Stella?” Susie suggested. “After all, it’s been a couple of months since you came back from the TT. Maybe they longed for your company. Longed for your company, as we all do…”
“Are you taking the piss?” Stella replied, eying Susie coolly.
“I would never,” Susie assured her.
“Did they not tell you they were coming back, Stella?” Susie asked. “Stella?” Susie repeated, after no response was offered. “Anyway, I don’t know why you’re so anxious?”
“Private appointment, they told me,” Stella offered up. “What’s that even mean, anyway, private appointment?” she continued, but not directed at Susie, necessarily, but rather a rant in general. “It’s rubbish, is what it is.”
Stella picked up the butter knife, once again, and resumed the mining operation formerly underway beneath her fingernails, pacing back-and-forth like a caged bear as she did so. She stopped, mid-excavation, and used the blunt edge of the steel in a familiar manner to caress the shadow — or the stubble, as it were — under her chin.
“Maybe they’re selling the business?” Stella advanced, coming to a sudden halt, and punching the wall for good measure with her ham-shaped fist. “Those two wet blankets are selling the business and trying to cut me out— That’s it, I’m sure of it!”
“What? Stella, of course they wouldn’t sell the… Would they?” replied Susie, apprehension drawn across her face. The apprehension was both at the thought of this prospect, as well as it was from the sight of the freshly-damaged wall. Stella’s might was indeed terrible to behold.
“The business has never been busier,” Susie continued. “It’s thriving, surely?” she said, struggling for breath. “Oh god, Stella. What would I do if they sold the business—?”
Stella, not normally one for overt acts of compassion, lowered her knife and marched towards Susie’s desk. She gripped Susie’s head and thrust it into her own ample, heaving bosom. Once nestled in place there, Stella stroked the back of Susie’s head, making comforting — or that was
the intention, at least — grunting-type noises.
Stella continued to stroke Susie’s hair with one hand, and with impressive dexterity managed to expertly retrieve and light a cigarette, and all while retaining a grip on her knife as well. Stella could always sort out a fag no matter the circumstance, no matter the challenge presented.
“I’ve got your back, Susie,” Stella commiserated, adding, in solidarity, “Not like those two traitors!”
… Over the years, Stan had become desensitised to Stella’s peculiar ways. Positioned at the portal window, he nonetheless gave a bit of a start when he found himself caught in Susie’s — imploring? begging for help? — eyeline, an eyeline which was at present partially obscured by a rather large breast flopped over the side of Susie’s face. He shrugged his shoulders. No. Business-as-usual, he decided. No cause for alarm…
“I can’t breathe,” gasped Susie, now fixed into a headlock-slash-chokehold of the most compassionate nature.
“I know, I know, dear,” agreed Stella soothingly, the grunting noises now turning to clucking noises. Stella was, by this point, now caressing the side of Susie’s face. “But I’m not going without a fight. I can tell you that!”
“No. Stella. I mean I really cannot breathe. Please let me go.”
Once released, Susie took in a lungful of air, but being in proximity to Stella meant that this air was contaminated — or Stella might say reassuringly and therapeutically infused — with second-hand-smoke, and Susie burst into a coughing fit.
“Here, hang on!” shouted Stella, impressing her ham-hock fist squarely down between Susie’s shoulder blades like a pile-driver.
The shock and pain alone caused the coughing to abate.
“You’re welcome,” said Stella, puffing her chest out with pride as Susie clutched at her back to locate any vertebrae possibly knocked out of place by the assault. Susie was in too much distress to have witnessed it, of course, though Stan, looking on through the porthole, remarked to himself that he hadn’t thought it possible for Stella’s chest to puff out more than it usually was already.
“Come here,” continued Stella, walking towards the partition door.
Stan, oblivious to what was being said in the other room but terror-stricken regardless at the sight of an advancing Stella, instinctively leapt towards the door and gripped the handle, clenching it tightly.
“Open up!” demanded Stella, her thunderous voice easily permeating the closed door, and all but tearing the handle from Stan’s delicate grip. “I just want to have a little chat with you is all!”
With no response, Stella placed her lit cigarette behind her ear. How her hair was not ignited was a mystery undiscernible even to Science. Stella used her two hands to exert more force upon the handle, which elicited, in response, a desperate plea from the other side of the door.
“Thhtella!” came a panicked voice. “Pwease dwop the weapon!”
Stella released her grip and looked back towards Susie, who yet retained a bluish I’ve-been-choked-and-assaulted tinge to her cheeks. “Is he having me on?” Stella asked of Susie. “He sounds like Daffy Bloody Duck!”
“Thhtella!” shouted Stan once more, in a manner which should certainly have left a trail of expectorated saliva on the other side of the door. “What’ssss thup?”
Stella moved to regain her grip. “If you’re taking the piss, Stanley, you’re going to need to have your plastic surgeon on speed-dial. I’ll tell you that for nothing!”
Stan took a step back, allowing the door to open with a portentous creak. Stella took a step forward, her prodigious frame now filling the doorway.
“What the hell have you done?” she asked. “Just what the hell have you gone and done??”
Though Susie’s scrutiny was obscured by Stella’s bulk and she therefore couldn’t see what was going on nor make out what was being said, she readied herself, certain that her Health & Safety duties would soon be deployed in Stan’s aid. To Susie’s surprise, however, Stella remained unnervingly calm. In fact she took the carefully-placed cigarette from behind her ear and, after a turn, began to cackle. Her cackling became a belly-laugh and progressed to the point where she could no longer stand up straight. At this point, she bowed down, her hands placed on her knees for support, her body silently quivering like a giant blancmange, finally offering, in the process, Susie a glimpse of a cowering Stan.
“Everything okay?” called Susie from her position of relative safety.
When Stella brought herself back up to normal height, she turned with tears of laughter running down her face. “Come and look at this bloody plonker,” she insisted, pointing to Stan, panting and trying to catch her breath. “This is fucking priceless.”
Susie lowered her first aid kit and moved, as instructed, to come look at the plonker — with Stella actually moving over to one side accommodatingly to afford Susie an optimum view.
“Oh, my,” giggled Susie, placing three fingers over her mouth to stifle the less-than-polite snigger. “Are you okay, Stan?” she asked without removing her hand from her mouth, her voice slightly muffled. “I mean… oh, my.”
“Ah-ha-ha!” screamed Stella, struggling for breath. “Look at the state of it! The bloody state of it!”
It was unclear if, by it, Stella were referring to the particulars of the spectacle before her, or by Stan — the plonker — in general.
Stan raised his hands to offer a reply. “I thold you I couldn’t thee you, Thhtella. I thold you you couldund come in,” he offered, slowly, and with dribble running out the side of his mouth and down his chin.
Stella wiped her cheek of its excess moisture. “Oh, Stan,” she told him. “You look like one of those… one of those…” she said, trailing off, and waving her arms up like she were throwing confetti as the word she searched for escaped her. She looked towards Susie for help.
“Like a trout?” suggested Susie, using her fingers, once more, to stifle a further fit of laughter.
“Ha-ha-ha! That’s it… Stan, you look like a trout, is what you look like. What the hell have you done to your lips? You look like a right baboon’s arse! Even more than usual, I mean. And in addition to looking like a trout,” she told him, so full of mirth she was fit to burst. Truly, she thought, it was moments such as these that made life worth living.
Susie stepped in, sensing Stan’s turmoil. “Have you had collagen in your lips, Stan? Is that what’s… gone wrong?”
Stan took one pace back, likely to feign a denial, but his face was that full of product that his expression barely altered. In defeat, he shrugged his shoulders and lowered his head.
“Yeth,” Stan replied, nodding. He lifted his head to reply further, but it didn’t come up all the way. He rather looked like a bull that’d had its neck muscles lanced by a picador.
It was difficult to watch, if one had any heart at all.
“Yeth… yeth I did,” Stan confirmed, showering them both with a fanfare of spit in the process.
“Is that…” asked Stella, pointing at the bloated remains of what once must have been a pair of lips… “a result of the private appointment you were wittering on about?”
“Yeth!” affirmed Stan, resulting in a further spray of spittle to decorate — or desecrate — Stella’s polo shirt yet again.
Stella reached out and grabbed Stan’s jacket — the one Stan was presently wearing — and used it to mop up the saliva on her shirt.
“And Frank?” Stella enquired, dabbing at her shirt without breaking her stride. “Has he been off getting cosmetic alterations as well?” Stella said, now letting Stan and his jacket go
“No,” he said, his head moving side-to-side, and now covering his mouth when he spoke. “He had an apointtthment of hith own — I was suppotthed to meet him back here. Hethe not been back?”
Susie shook her head ‘No’ as Stan grabbed his phone from his pocket, but there were evidently no messages to be had on the device.
“You look concerned… I think…?” suggested Susie
, her eyes running over Stan’s face, scanning it for any sign of movement and expression through the immobilised collagen-induced mask.
Stella’s face — considerably more elastic, despite her several-pack-a-day cigarette habit — exhibited a flicker of enlightenment. “Wait. Is he at the doctor’s?”
Stan went to speak but thought better of it this time given the condition of his lips — and their current spittle-projecting mechanism — opting for a nod of the head, instead, as an indication of the affirmative.
“And you didn’t go with him?” chided Stella with a disappointed tut-tut. “You’re like his wife, forfucksake— you should have been there.”
“He thed he wanted to go on this thone,” replied Stan, eventually. But as soon as the words came from his mouth, he knew exactly where he ought to be, regardless, and he fastened his jacket and legged it.
“You should have him up for that, Susie,” suggested Stella to her, after a bit.
“What’s that?”
“Sexual harassment, Susie. I’m sure that saucy bugger was blowing kisses at you,” she chuckled, setting herself off once more. “Face like a baboon’s arse!” she said, once again. “What an absolute plonker.”
Stan pulled his vibrantly-coloured scarf tight across his face as defence against the wind whipping in from the Irish Sea. It not only served to protect his expensively-preserved skin against the corrosive salty wash, but also obscured the scale of his lips — which had fortunately, at least, by this time begun to deflate — protecting him from the eyes of the casual observer as well.
“Two coffees, please,” asked Stan of the hardy vendor plying his trade in spite of the less-than-ideal weather. Oh, bollocks, said Stan to himself a moment later, an unhappy memory washing over him in a wave of regret, recalling the cup he procured the last time he’d stood at this very spot — a cup of coffee managing, somehow, to be at once both disappointingly weak and yet surprisingly strong in its unpleasantness of flavour.
The gruff fellow behind the mobile cart’s small countertop produced said order a little too quickly for the coffee to conceivably have been made fresh-to-order, or even poured-to-order. “Four pounds,” the man said with a clap of the hands for either warmth or emphasis, or perhaps both.
Frank 'n' Stan's Bucket List #3 Isle 'Le Mans' TT: Featuring Guy Martin Page 1
