My Neighbours Are Stealing My Mail

by Ian Edwards

  ‘The Hoof has reviews online?’ James abandoned his drumming and focused his attention on Amy.

  ‘It’s got three reviews on “Which Pub” website.’ She told him. ‘All of them gave it one star. It was described as filthy, disgusting and probably harbouring the Black Death.’

  ‘Who said that?’ James said defensively.

  ‘They all did. And those were some of the better comments.’

  James shrugged. ‘Those people wouldn’t know a proper pub if it hit them in the face. They’re welcome to their plastic beer and plastic bottles. They should leave the earthy culture to those that appreciate it.’

  ‘Earthy culture..?’ Amy scoffed. ‘Is that what it’s called these days?’

  James shook his head and went back to his drum solo.

  ‘Is there anywhere to park?’ She asked as they approached the traffic lights.

  ‘There’s a car park round the back. Turn left at the lights and take the right by the Hoof.’

  Amy frowned. ‘A car park?’

  ‘Yeah, its round the back by the bins, but Gary is moving them out the way so that cars can park there tonight. He’s expecting a big turn out.’

  She shook her head and followed James’s directions.

  ‘There you go, plenty of space,’ he said as they approached the back of the pub.

  Four large wheelie bins had been pushed up against the side wall leaving enough room for two normal sized cars, three smaller city cars or a single SUV.

  Amy bumped her SUV up the kerb and took the space provided.

  ‘Who’s that over there?’ Amy asked, turning the engine off and opening her door.

  A man was standing behind the larger bin. ‘That’s Gary, the landlord,’ James told her as he left the car. ‘Hey Gary,’ he called out.

  ‘You alright James?’ Gary replied, stepping out from behind the bins, zipping up his flies.

  Amy noticed a large puddle round his feet and subconsciously took a step back.

  Wiping his hands on the front of his trousers, Gary nodded at Amy. ‘That’s a nice pink car you’ve got there.’

  ‘It’s Cerise actually.’

  ‘Nah, that’s pink, trust me.’

  James sidled up to Amy. ‘Ignore him he’s never been good with colours,’ he whispered. ‘We think he’s colour blind. It would certainly account for some of the décor.’

  ‘OK then,’ Gary announced. ‘Let’s get in there. I’m just about to put the sandwiches out.’

  Amy looked down at the large puddle and thought one star had been generous.

  *

  Alan gave James and Amy a wave as they entered the bar.

  ‘First time here Amy?’ Alan asked politely, well aware of the answer.

  Amy looked around the sparsely populated bar. ‘Yes. Do people come back a second time?’

  Alan and James exchanged looks while Amy continued. ‘James told me what this place is like, but I thought he was exaggerating. It’s actually worse. It’s awful…’

  Alan smirked. ‘Gary cleaned up earlier, he’s made a real effort tonight.’

  Amy frowned. ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Tell me he didn’t move the pork pie?’ James asked.

  Alan nodded solemnly. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘What pork pie? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Years ago,’ Alan started as if he was about to share an epic family secret. ‘A pork pie was dropped on the floor and rolled under a table.’ Alan nodded towards a table in the corner. ‘It remained there for years untouched…’

  ‘It was evolving,’ James added. ‘Slowly turning into a life form. It was becoming sentient.’

  Alan continued. ‘We had to feed it mice.’

  ‘Some pubs have a cat or a dog,’ James told her. ‘But the Cloven Hoof has a pork pie.’

  Alan tried and failed to put on a sincere face. ‘But now it’s gone. Two years of scientific study over before you can say Food Standards Agency.’

  James sighed. ‘Gary’s sold out, he’s gone all corporate now.’

  Amy doubted that Gary could even spell corporate, let alone embrace its values. ‘Where’s Rosie?’ She asked, looking to get away from talk of sentient bar snacks.

  Alan reached for his pint. ‘She’s on her way, she’s picking up Jayne.’

  ‘There’s Harry,’ James said as Harry walked into the bar, looked around, shook his head and made his way towards his friends.

  ‘Evening boys, Amy. I had a nightmare getting here. I can never work out if the sign at the front of the bus is where the bus is going or where it’s already been.’

  ‘Grab a table Harry,’ James told him. ‘I’ll bring some drinks over.’

  Amy took Harry by the elbow and steered him towards an empty table. ‘I don’t think your nightmare is necessarily over,’ she whispered conspiratorially.

  Watching Amy steer Harry towards a vacant table, James turned to Alan. ‘Does Frankie know what he’s got to do?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s fine with it.’

  A breeze blew past them and Frankie appeared further along the bar.

  ‘Frankie?’ James asked.

  Alan nodded. ‘Right on time.’

  ‘Evening Gents...’ Frankie said stepping between the two friends. ‘Ready to cheat your local out of a hundred quid?’

  ‘It’s not cheating,’ Alan lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘You’re on the team.’ He took a folded sheet of paper out of his pocket and opened it out. ‘Look, these are the rules – no mobile phones. It doesn’t say anything about ghosts.’

  James saw the pub door open. ‘That’s enough talk of ghosts and cheating, Rosie’s here.’

  Rosie and Jayne made their way toward the bar.

  ‘I see this place hasn’t changed since I was last here,’ Rosie said. ‘Still dreadful.’

  Jayne smiled at Alan and James. ‘It’s not too bad, I’ve seen worse.’

  Rosie looked at her sister. ‘You’re a police officer, you raid crack dens for a living. It’s hardly a comparison.’

  James smirked. ‘Maybe Gary should put that on a sign above the door. “Better than a crack den.”’

  ‘What’s a crack den?’ Frankie asked looking at Alan.

  ‘And,’ James continued. ‘Gary’s never had any problems with drugs here.’

  ‘Even crack addicts have standards.’ Rosie quipped.

  Frankie looked at Alan. ‘What’s crack?’

  ‘Harry’s here,’ Alan said looking to change the subject. ‘He’s over in the corner with Amy.’

  ‘I’ll try and have a word with him before we start,’ Rosie said and turned to her sister. ‘Can you bring some drinks over?’

  Jayne nodded enthusiastically as Rosie headed off to find Harry. The door opened as Rosie walked by. Sarah and Mario wandered inside.

  Frankie put his hand on Alan’s shoulder. ‘This could be interesting.’

  They watched as Sarah introduced Mario to Rosie, then all three looked towards Alan and laughed.

  ‘I didn’t think they got on,’ James said.

  ‘Oh no, we’re all united in a common cause.’ Jayne told them.

  Alan frowned. ‘Which is?’

  ‘To beat you two, or as Rosie calls it - taking the idiots to the cleaners. You see, common ground.’

  Alan and James exchanged looks while Jayne paid for her drinks, gave them a smile and set off to find her sister.

  *

  ‘So this is your local?’ Mario asked Alan as they leaned against the bar.

  Alan nodded. ‘Yeah, we’ve been coming here for years. It’s like a second home for James and me. It’s got a real family atmosphere.’

  ‘What, miserable with constant arguments and bickering?’

  Alan laughed. ‘That pretty much sums it up.’

  Mario drained his bottle. ‘Do you get much trouble in here?’

  Alan cast his eye over the far corner of the bar where the locals, all three of them, had congregated. Two had already passed out, heads o
n the table and snoring. The third, a lady of indeterminable age was drinking direct from a bottle of wine and crying. He shook his head. ‘No, hardly ever. Why?

  ‘I saw the boarded-up window and wondered,’ he gestured towards the back of the pub.

  Alan looked over at the sheet of plywood that had been screwed across the window, a reminder of James’s clumsiness. ‘Oh that…’ He paused. ‘A couple of blokes got a bit out of hand, drunk, rowdy you know the type. Well I threw them both out, so they threw a brick through the window.’

  ‘Really?’ Mario asked oblivious to Frankie’s laughter.

  Alan shrugged. ‘Yeah, trust me, they won’t be back.’

  On the other side of the bar James and Harry stared at the same boarded up window.

  ‘What happened here?’ Harry asked.

  ‘Well,’ James looked over his shoulder, checked that they weren’t overheard and lowered his voice. ‘I was in here one night a couple of weeks ago, just having a quiet drink on my own, and these three blokes came in, really drunk, shouting, making a pain of themselves.’ He took a long pull on his bottle and continued. ‘Gary went over and asked them to keep the noise down. He was really polite, but they were too drunk to care. Anyway, one of them pushed him over…’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ Harry said quietly.

  James nodded. ‘I know, totally out of order.’ He lowered his voice even more. ‘I couldn’t just sit there and let Gary get all this hassle could I?’

  Harry shook his head.

  ‘So I went over, helped Gary up and told them to get out.’

  ‘How did they react to that?’

  ‘Well, like I said, they were out of control. One of them came at me.’

  Harry leaned closer. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I had no choice. I took him out of the game. Grabbed him and threw him through the window.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Well it had a sobering effect on the others and they ran off.’

  ‘The guy you threw out of the window, was he badly hurt?’

  James paused for a second. ‘Well fortunately for him, somebody had dumped a mattress on the pavement just outside and he landed on it and ran off.’

  ‘So you saved the day?’

  James smiled. ‘I suppose I did. But anybody would have done the same thing, wouldn’t they?’

  Harry smiled patiently.

  ‘Look Harry, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about it. You know Amy worries, and if she thought I was stepping in and sorting out situations like this she’d worry even more.’

  ‘Don’t worry James, I’ll keep it to myself.’

  ‘Thanks Harry,’ James whispered.

  ‘Looks like Gary’s getting everything set up,’ Alan said joining his friends.

  The three of them looked over to where Gary was dragging and pushing tables around.

  ‘He looks like he’s struggling,’ Harry said, looking at the red faced man panting and sweating under the effort. ‘Should we give him a hand?’

  James shook his head. ‘He’s fine.’

  ‘Gary would hate people to think he couldn’t manage. Offering to help would be the worst thing we could do,’ Alan added.

  Harry watched the fat balding middle aged man straining to drag a heavy table across the floor. ‘Oh, right,’ Harry said without conviction.

  *

  Gary placed a sheaf of A4 paper on the bar and looked out across the room. He had moved the tables around so everyone would be positioned in front of him while he asked the questions. They were bloody heavy he thought. It wouldn’t have hurt any of the lazy sods to have helped him.

  ‘OK everybody,’ he called out. ‘If I could have your attention…’

  Slowly the different groups stopped their own private conversations and turned to face the compere.

  ‘Welcome to the Cloven Hoof’s first quiz night…’

  Somewhere towards the back of the bar somebody clapped slowly.

  ‘Err…OK. Thank you…’

  ‘That’s not the first dose of clap we’ve had in here,’ Alan whispered to James and got a dig in the ribs from Rosie.

  ‘This is going to be a general knowledge quiz with rounds consisting of current affairs, sport, politics, health and beauty, music and other stuff that I’ve thought of today.’

  James sniggered.

  ‘You’ll find the answer sheets on each table and I’ll collect these at the end of the quiz. If anyone’s caught using their mobile phones to look up an answer they’ll be disqualified from the quiz and banned from here for a week.’

  ‘Is that a promise?’ Rosie whispered to Jayne.

  ‘OK, if you’d like to find a table, I’ll get things started.’ Gary concluded.

  While everyone looked around for their teammates, Alan and James slipped round the table at the front of the bar directly in front of Gary.

  ‘James,’ Gary called out.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You and Alan at the back,’ Gary pointed to the far end of the room by the boarded up window. ‘You broke the window, you two can sit up there next to it. It’ll be a constant reminder of your clumsiness.’

  Alan and James reluctantly stood up and made their way to the back.

  ‘Why is Mario staring at you and laughing?’ James asked him.

  Alan shrugged. ‘No idea, I was going to ask why Harry is looking at you and shaking his head.’

  ‘He probably feels we’ve been hard done by,’ James said while trying to avoid Harry’s eyes.

  ‘Looks like you’re going to have shout out the answers,’ Alan said to Frankie who was standing by the plywood window. ‘Have you got your shouting voice on?’

  ‘Don’t worry son it’ll be fine. It’ll be just like playing some of the old theatres with terrible acoustics.’

  They made a big deal of pulling out the chairs and sitting down.

  Alan looked out across the bar. The girls’ team of Rosie, Amy, Jayne and Sarah sat just along from them, seemingly enjoying a private joke, he thought, at their expense. While Harry and Mario had slipped into the table vacated by Alan and James a few minutes earlier. A number of other tables were occupied by regulars who Alan and James were on nodding terms with.

  ‘Boris looks like he’s in for a session,’ James whispered and they both looked over at the figure wearing a furry hat and staring intently at Gary, a bottle of vodka on his table.

  Gary shuffled his papers again and laid them out in front of him across the bar.

  Alan turned to Frankie. Go on, get down the front,’ he whispered.

  Frankie nodded and disappeared.

  ‘OK then,’ Gary announced. ‘Time to get started. The first round will be on…’ A strong breeze blew past him, scattering his carefully stacked papers all over Harry and Mario as Frankie re-appeared next to him.

  Gary looked down at his question and answer sheets. ‘Will somebody shut that bloody door?’

  Chapter 23

  Gary collected his papers back together again, stacked them neatly on the bar and began. ‘Right, no more mucking about, let’s get started.’

  Frankie peered over Gary’s shoulder at the papers laid on the counter. He looked at Alan, grinned and gave a thumbs up.

  Gary coughed. ‘OK, folks. Round one. Question one. Name two of the notorious Russian spy ring known as the Cambridge Five.’

  Alan looked around the room. The girls looked at each other and smiled, Rosie whispered something to Jayne who scribbled something on her sheet of paper. Mario raised his eyebrows at Harry who winked and also wrote something down. In the other corner Boris gave a cheer and, tongue out, began writing.

  ‘What’s Frankie doing?’ James whispered.

  Alan shrugged. Frankie peered closely at the assorted sheets of paper laid out in front of him. After a moment he straightened his back with a groan and wandered over to Alan and James’ table.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Alan hissed.

  ‘Better plan,’ Frankie rep
lied. ‘I can see all the answers. I’ve got the first three. Write them down, I’ll go up and get the next lot.’

  ‘That wasn’t the plan at all!’ Alan shouted aloud, causing everyone to stare in his direction. ‘James…’ he added quickly, punching his friend on the arm.

  ‘Ow! What did you do that for?’ James scowled at his friend.

  ‘Sorry mate,’ Alan said. ‘Cock up on the Frankie front,’ he added more quietly.

  ‘I heard that!’ Frankie said. ‘’It’s not a cock up. It’s an improvement to the plan. Do you want the answers or not?’

  Alan nodded imperceptibly.

  ‘Well alright then. Here’s the first three answers…

  *

  Alan and James clinked their pint glasses together noisily, dark, frothy beer spilling over the table.

  ‘Mate, we smashed this,’ Alan giggled, nudging his friend.

  ‘I reckon we should go round all the pubs. Get Frankie on board, we’d clean up,’ James agreed.

  Alan grinned and peered at Gary marking each team’s answers. Leaning toward Rosie’s table he slurred; ‘Don’t know why he’s bothering, we’ve won this by a mile,’ he said to his girlfriend.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure, Alan, I think we did quite well. And the pair of you…’ she nodded at James, ‘spent more time drinking and giggling than writing down answers. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were up to something.’

  Alan raised his arms in mock outrage. ‘Up to something? Me? How dare you. I’ll have you know…’

  Any further comment ceased as Gary shuffled some papers and tapped his mic. ‘Right then,’ he began. ‘I’ve totted up the answers and have the results. Well done to most of you. Some of you however, should probably re-sit your eleven plus.’ He glared at Alan and James, who looked at each other and giggled.

  ‘OK. Here we go. I’ll give you the top four teams. In fourth place with fifteen points is Boris. Not bad seeing as you were on your own,’ Gary said. Boris raised his glass, burped and placed his head on the table.

  ‘In third place we have the Cloven Woofs with a staggering twenty points.’ A small cheer rose from the front table.

  ‘In second place…’ Gary paused for a moment in an attempt to build tension. The remaining tables stared at each other in hope and expectation.