Life's Fare

by Greg Yevko

  “Excuse me?” Stanley was confused. He wasn’t used to women not warming to him very quickly, so this slightly cold response was not what he was expecting. Also, he didn’t have a clue what the hell lardy cake was.

  “The lardy cake is particularly good today,” repeated Mrs-Marley-To-Be in the same monotonic delivery. The pad and pencil remained on guard in her defence.

  Stanley reasoned that either she was confusing him with being a subversive agent, and this was some code to signify that he should now give her some clandestine package, or that she possibly only had a limited vocabulary and maybe was new to the English language. He decided to go for the latter.

  “How – is – you – today?” asked Stanley in a slowed down version of English that he had used at various times in the war, especially in the far east.

  “I – am – well,” replied Mrs-Marley-To-Be in the same, laboured manner. Aha, she thought to herself, he can only just about speak English. I’ll have to go slowly with this young man.

  “Can – I – have – cake?” continued Stanley, still speaking loudly and slowly, and pointing to a cake stand which was standing on a nearby table, then pointing to his mouth, then rubbing his tummy whilst making exaggerated chewing motions with his jaw.

  Poor chap is clearly retarded, thought Mrs-Marley-To-Be, “Yes – of – course – you – may – have – cake” she slowly responded, gently patting him on the shoulder in the caring manner of a nurse with a debilitated patient.

  Shit, this is good, thought Stanley. She is clearly coming on to me in the physical way that says I may be patting your shoulder now, but this is just the start of something very physical to come, and he couldn’t prevent himself from rubbing his hands together in child-like glee as he watched the cheeks of Mrs-Marley-To-Be’s rear end undulate their way back to the counter to collect his cake.

  And so the Nearly-Relationship started. It took several visits of slow, painful communication between the two of them with exaggerated gesticulations to clarify when either of them came up with what they thought was a difficult to understand sentence. Things were brought to a head eventually, when one of Mrs-Marley-To-Be’s waitress friends happened to pass the table at the same time as Stanley was trying to get across the concept of wanting sweet syrup with his toasted bacon sandwich. It had not helped the situation when Stanley’s delivery of the word ‘bacon’ sounded suspiciously like he wanted a ‘beer can’.

  “Why don’t you just ask her normally?” said the waitress to Stanley, having witnessed his agonized theatricals to convey the message.

  “I is afraid she doesn’t speak good English,” he informed the waitress as she came up to the table to stand next to Mrs-Marley-To-Be. The two waitresses exchanged glances, and Stanley was suddenly stunned into horrified amazement as Mrs-Marley-To-Be’s eyes widened as she repeated his sentence back to him in utter contempt. “I is afraid she doesn’t speak good English? I IS AFRAID SHE DOESN’T SPEAK GOOD ENGLISH??”

  The second part of the repeated sentence was more deliberate and more carefully enunciated than any spoken English that Stanley had ever heard before anywhere in the world.

  “It’s YOU who has the trouble with English, my friend,” spluttered Mrs-Marley-To-Be, and with a furious twirl of the famous pinafore, she spun on her heels and headed for the swinging doors into the back room of the Tea House.

  “Shit man,” exclaimed Stanley, “that is some woman.”

  Umhlabathi 2.6 11:00 am Wednesday 3rd August 1949

  Stanley decided that he would have to swallow his pride and be the first one to break the awkward atmosphere that had descended upon what had started out as becoming, at least as he saw it, a blossoming relationship.

  For the next three days following the twirling pinafore incident, Stanley had gone into the tea-room only to find that Mrs Marley-To-Be took every evasive action she could muster to avoid coming within communications range of Stanley. No matter what Stanley did to try and catch her eye to place an order with her, with all the accomplishment of a highly-trained nuisance-avoider, she was able to miss making eye contact with him at will. Fortunately, Stanley was not a man to give up easily, and he knew that with luck on his side and dogged determination, he would find a way to get through to her.

  He went back over his repertoire for attracting women that he had used over the years. He found himself ruling out one scenario after another as he considered how they would play out in these current circumstances, and he gradually started to realise that his options were almost exhausted. After a lot of thought and several cups of tea, he let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. Stanley decided that drastic action was called for; he ordered the hot-dog. This was going to be make or break.

  He thanked the waitress whom he now knew as Katya, Mrs Marley-To-Be’s friend from the other day, as she placed the plate with the hot-dog and salad garnish on the table in front of him.

  Stanley looked around the tea room, taking in the clientele to assess the risk of the emergency action he was about to undertake. It was a Wednesday morning and the place wasn’t particularly full, but there was still more than a dozen or so people enjoying a mid-morning break from their usual routines. In a discreet corner at a table for two there was a young couple who were clearly deeply in love, staring wistfully into each other’s eyes as they clasped their eager hands together, their coffee slowly getting colder on the table whilst their footsie under it predicted other things getting much hotter. At a larger table sat a family, the mother struggling valiantly to stop the young child crying by making empty promises of cakes and fizzy drinks whilst the father unhelpfully read his copy of The Times, wishing he was back in the office instead of having committed one of his hard-earned holiday days to a fun-filled family day out. Dotted around the room, other tables were occupied by groups of twos, threes and fours, each demonstrating varying degrees of social engagement as people either chatted, ate or merely sat, some unable or unwilling to overcome the oppressive atmosphere of the environment they had created for themselves. Such was a typical English tea-room. Stanley surveyed them all and calculated the risks. He had done this trick on a couple of occasions before, once in St Lucia and once in El Kourzia in Tunisia at the army barracks, and it was in the army barracks that he had been rumbled, and that brought back painful memories; he hated it when his tricks back-fired.

  Umhlabathi 2.6 11:45 am Wednesday 3rd August 1949

  “But officer,” complained Stanley, “surely you can see the funny side?”

  PC Warburton clearly did not see the funny side.

  “Sir, from what I have heard from Mr Tillerson, the act you have just carried out is not only definitely not funny, it is bordering on indecent, and is at the very least, most unhygienic. Heaven knows what the innocent young ladies who work here must have thought – I’m sure they would not have found it in the slightest bit funny.”

  PC Warburton was wrong. Most of the staff at the Lyons Tea room had indeed found it extremely funny, and it was only the stand-in manager, Norbert Tillerson, who had decided that such a flagrant disregard of both the law and basic human dignity needed to be brought to the attention of His Majesty’s local constabulary.

  “If you would like to accompany me to the station, we’ll be able to sort this all out whilst I’m writing up the report,” PC Warburton informed Stanley, and had already placed his alarmingly large right hand onto Stanley’s left shoulder.

  Mrs Marley-To-Be looked across at the by-now somewhat concerned Stanley. Whilst admittedly it had been considerably shocking to be faced by Stanley’s generously proportioned manhood, there was something about this good-looking man from the Caribbean that had attracted her from the start, as she had confessed to Katya after that bizarre first meeting when there had been the misunderstanding of each other’s English language capabilities. She had been deploying her Hard To Get strategy, which, as Katya had kept her informed over the last few days, appeared to be working pretty damn well. She decided that she had played Stanley long eno
ugh, and now was the time for a change of tactics. She slinked across the room to where the two men were facing each other.

  “Oh, PC Warburton, couldn’t we just discuss this a little first?” she intoned in her most sultry voice to the officer.

  “I’m very sorry, miss, but this is clearly a most serious offence,” started PC Warburton, only to find Mrs Marley-To-Be standing extremely close to him, a large piece of lardy cake being presented on a blue and white willow-patterned plate which was being held alarmingly close to her heaving bosom.

  “Surely if nobody actually complains then it can’t be an offence, can it?” crooned Mrs Marley-To-Be, running her finger idly around the plate in a tantalising way and putting on a simple and yet alluring expression.

  “I’m afraid Mr Tillerson has indeed already made a complaint,” countered PC Warburton.

  “But I’m sure he would be willing to withdraw his complaint and confirm that there is in fact, no problem,” she said, smiling at the policeman, then turning away with a witheringly icy stare towards Norbert, who by now was looking somewhat flustered in the corner of the tea-room. He had already been accosted by a number of the staff threatening many variations of retaliation which would have made many a grown man wince and place a hand almost involuntarily over his lower regions.

  “Yes, yes,” acquiesced Norbert in a relieved voice, “I withdraw my complaint.”

  Mrs Marley-To-Be turned back around and looked imploringly again at PC Warburton and pushed the lardy cake a little closer. PC Warburton hesitated. On the one hand, he had the prospect of taking someone down the station to make out a full report on a case where there was very little collaborative evidence from the mainly female witnesses of the alleged offence. He would then have to track down any associated people who might know anything about this chap, who, in his opinion, appeared to be a fairly harmless, though according to Mr Tillerson’s account, be a well-endowed, newly arrived immigrant. On the other hand, the offer of a nice extra break, all in the line of duty in the famous Lyons Tea Room with a hot cuppa and what looked like a very generous portion of cake indeed. Like in all good analytical police work, there were many pros and cons that needed to be considered.

  The lardy cake was indeed extremely good. PC Warburton rose from the table, brushed the last of the crumbs from his uniform, picked up his helmet, and said his goodbyes and thank yous to the staff. He then left the tea room, placed his helmet on his head, tucked the black strap tightly under his chin, then continued on his way to make sure the streets of London remained a safe place for locals and tourists alike.

  “God bless the British Bobby,” said Stanley with a big grin once PC Warburton was well out of ear-shot. “I thought I was right in it there.”

  “You nearly were, you bloody idiot,” said Mrs Marley-To-Be, trying hard to pretend to be angry, though being unable to stop herself from reflecting Stanley’s infectious beam.

  “You’s my heroine,” confided Stanley, giving her a big wink. “From now on I shall call you My Saviour.”

  “I’d rather you just call me Marlene,” she said with a laugh, and touched his arm in a very meaningful way.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Golland 3.1 Tunesday

  Perun disliked Tunesday more than any other day of the week.

  “Dermyo, that awful racket all bloody day. Come on, Tempus my tavarisch, get those big beautiful bulbs turned over as quick as you can to save us all.” He had already attempted to deaden as much of the music as possible by gathering clouds around the part of his being that absorbed external noise, but there only seemed to be wispy cumulus stratus around rather than the bulkier cumulus nimbus he had been hoping for. He tried to put the noise out of what passed as his head and concentrated on putting his case forward as to how he viewed the general incompetence of what had been going on down below.

  “So, tavarisch, you see how these two-legs behave,” Perun had taken a liking to the term that The Creator had coined for the seemingly more adventurous, and even to a degree, slightly more advanced of Her creatures that now seemed to be vaguely in charge out of all the entities that rushed about on the creation the group had put together last Sadderday.

  “You can see that the most minor incident to the most major one can have huge impacts on what they do and how they react.”

  “Ah, yes,” interjected Bondje, “but you can also see that when they react, they do indeed manage to turn most disasters into some sort of victory – sort of. I mean, look what happened to all those big lumbering things that The Creator put there right at the start. Remember what happened when you accidentally dropped that small meteor onto the creation last Moanday – pretty much wiped all the big stuff out, but the two-logs seem hardier than that, in spite of their size.”

  “I think you mean ‘two-legs’, tavarisch,” corrected Perun, “but if you recall, the only two-legs around were on the other side of Umhlabathi when that fell, so that’s how come they’re still around. And anyway, don’t you remember that only on the last turn of the bulb, the two-legs almost wiped themselves out entirely without any interference from anyone else. What did they call it? The Great War? Didn’t look that great to me. And look what happened just now when I influenced that two-leg to break up some of those floaty things when he was buzzing around the sky. All the two-legs wanted to get involved after that; at the end of the day, looks to me like these two-legs just like spoiling for a fight – guaranteed they’ll wipe themselves out before too long, mark my words.”

  Bondje was not convinced. “For sure, some of them can be a bit, let’s say, tetchy.” Perun raised what would have been an eye-brow.

  “I think more than ‘tetchy’, tavarisch.”

  “Well, maybe, but look what happens when they get together in their little twosomes and make little ones, which they then spend the rest of their lives looking after and worrying about. Don’t you think that is a sign of how caring and nurturing the two-legs can be, rather than fighting?” countered Bondje.

  “I prefer it when they get together in their little threesomes to be honest,” said Perun with a wistful look in what should have been his eye, “but to be fair, they don’t seem to make little ones and stick together when they do that. Good entertainment though.”

  Bondje simulated an exasperated eye-roll. “Okay,” he said, “let’s see what our two-leg will do if he gets properly paired off,” and with that, both he and Perun returned to the allotted viewing chamber that they had agreed to use as a base for the observations of their wager.

  “By the way, I’d just like to say that you are beyond hope at times, Perun,” exclaimed Bondje, and they settled back to their observation task, both wondering what might possibly happen next down on Umhlabathi, and whether or not their assistance might be required, just a little.

  Umhlabathi 3.1 1950

  Stanley was never quite sure exactly when or why the overwhelming desire to marry Mrs Marley-To-Be hit him when it did, he just knew that he had to marry this magnificent creature with the heaving breasts. He knew that he could never afford to have a big wedding, so he hatched a simple and straight forward plan which he hoped Mrs Marley-To-Be would appreciate, and not reject him in an outright fit of rage, seeing it for what it really was, a cheap-skate way to get married.

  Having made a good friend in the young Polish man who had been demobbed around the same time as Stanley and who had taken the flat next to him in the converted house in which they both now rented rooms at somewhat exorbitant rates, Stanley had hatched his plan in alliance with Rye. They were both outsiders and both had left the country of their birth to try and make a better life in England; both were fighting despondency and disillusionment at what they had found in London’s streets, supposedly ‘paved with gold’.

  “So, do we need to go through this one more time?” Stanley had asked his friend, as yet another glass of Old Navy went down.

  “My friend, all is clear,” replied Rye, as he held up his glass in anticipation of the customary clinking togethe
r that they had adopted. “All I have to do is be at the registry office just before 3pm, yes?”

  “2PM, 2PM!” yelled Stanley into the face of his friend.

  “Calm, my friend, I make joke, yes?” replied Rye, a satisfied smile crossing his Slavic features.

  Stanley shook his head in exasperation and looked Heavenward with rolling eyes. “Just make sure you get there,” he said at last to his chuckling friend, whose shoulders were struggling not to bounce as he tried to stifle his laughter at the annoyance he had created.

  “No problem, I will be outside the office at five minutes before 2pm, don’t worry. Is good, yes?”

  “Yes, is good,” mimicked Stanley.

  The following day, Stanley had met up with Mrs Marley-To-Be as usual after her morning shift at the tea room.

  She had greeted him with, “You are looking unusually smart,” eyeing his suit suspiciously as he attempted to plant a kiss on her cheek at the same time as giving her behind a playful pat.

  “Always trying to look my best for you, my darling,” he had replied, eyes twinkling, and Mrs Marley-To-Be couldn’t help but smile at the roguish man who had stolen her heart, now standing in front of her. “… and I have a surprise for you,” he had added, mysteriously tapping the side of his nose.

  Mrs Marley-To-Be was not a big fan of surprises, but had reluctantly decided to just go along with Stanley, since no amount of cajoling or persuasion could prise an answer to the question of what the hell was going on. She was even more surprised when they boarded a bus and Stanley asked for two singles to The Bromley Public Hall. As they got off at the top end of Bow Road, she suddenly spotted Rye, and then she began to go from bemused to slightly panicked.

  “Rye? What the f…,” she began, but Stanley quickly ushered her through the doorway where Rye had been waiting for them.