The Phone Call

On saturday night I went to an Ann Summers party – fab clothing, shame about the fight….not kidding…drinks were thrown. I just trampolined with the dog.

Sunday dragged a bit after all that excitement. I was nursing a mild hangover and decided to see whether a bath might restore my flagging spirits. So it was with some annoyance that as I slipped into the soothing water my peace and quiet was shattered by a ringing of the phone.

‘Leave it’

I said to myself. But it went on and on, so I gathered a towel around me and padded into the bedroom  Where is it? In the pocket of my jeans?.Only for the bloody thing to stop just as I get to it.

‘Typical’

But as I was just about to return to the cooling waters of my bath, when it went again.

‘Oh for fuck’s sake’ I said to myself thickly as, once again I rushed into the bedoom to locate my phone.

‘Hello’ I said

‘Err Hi.Is that Paula? A male voice asked.

‘No, you’ve got the wrong number there’s no-one here called Paula’ I replied curtly as I glanced through to the bathroom.

‘Oh …Sorry. I was sure I had the right number’

‘What number are you looking for?’ I asked

My impatience was growing

‘Let me see … 0796 838 2122’

He replied

‘That’s why, this is 0786 838 2121 …You have dialled a wrong number’

‘Oh I’m sorry. Sorry to bother you’

‘Okay’

‘By …

Paula pressed the red button before he finished. She went to the bedroom and checked the call-back service but it was a witheld number.

‘Hmmmmm’ she thought to herself as she returned to the bathroom.

She laid the towel on the radiator and slipped back into the tub.She tried running a bit more hot water but the immersion heater was empty.

So he had her phone number.

Thanks to Hannah

Dolores Valium: Actress and Socialite

As soon as the director yelled ‘Cut’ Dolores exploded. Brice Surtees recoiled. The crew and sound guys stood, holding props, cables and coffees open-mouthed, as She launched into a tirade of invective at Harvey. Everyone was aghast. Dolores left no-one in any doubt about what she thought about his abilities as a lover or of his ‘dumbass story’ As far as she was concerned’  Harvey could ‘Blow it out of his ass’

’Your’re a cheap bastard, Harvey Hampersand, and I never want see you again’

And with that, Dolores tore off her false eyelashes and flounced off the soundstage and into the parking lot.
New York City seemed a much better proposition than calforn-aye-ey . Dolores had the apartment at Lexington and 63^rd she had bought with her late husband Philco Carburettor a theatrical impressario with sideline in protection, extortion and money laundering. It was a swell joint and had been the venue for many exclusive and memorable parties in the Roaring Thirties

Ypres 1915

I find myself in a large room with a single small table and two chairs placed oppsite each other. It looks for all the world like an old hospital ward. There are large floor to ceiling height windows which curve around the end of the room, and I surmise means that the building I am in forms a cescent at this end. Long fine white drapes hang down over the windows, letting in a surprising amount of light, but diffusing it, so that shadows play slowly on the curtains and into the room. The place smells of carbolic, like the bathroom in my great grandparents’ house. Otherwise it is empty

I pull out the nearest chair sit down and wait.

After what seems about three or four minutes, behind me I hear the noise of a door opening. Someone enters the room, closes the door firmly and walks over to where I am sitting, pulls out the other chair, and sits down. As he does so I notice that I hear a sprinking sound of dried mud as it drops from my companion’s trousers and tunic; which are of a drab faded khaki onto the floor.

He gives the slightest of nods by way of greeting and I do likewise. He reaches up to his breast pocket and pulls out a battered Old Holborn tobacco tin, opens it and motions me to take a roll up cigarette, with a shake of my head and a faint smile, I decline.

He picks one out ( there are about half a dozen ready rolled and a bit of loose tobacco in the tin) and, taking a box of matches from the same pocket, lights it. He extinguishes the match and, without even looking for an ashtray, drops it on the floor, and then grinds his boot on it just to make sure.

He takes a long drag of his cigarrette, I hear the mellow ‘Pah’ sound as he finishes his pull, before    removng it from his lips and inhaling deeply, his eyes never leaving my face. He puts his tongue out a little way and picks of a couple of small pieces of tobacco from it. I notice that his hands are black, with dirt ingrained into the folds and creases of skin and beneath the fingernails. The smoke is blown out of his nose in a great plume, it mixes with the more unruly whisps which come from the cigarette. He sits back in his chair, putting his right foot over his left knee. I notice the dry mud-caked hobnailed boots he is wearing . He takes another long drag, then sits up, his piercing blue eyes searching mine.

“Who are you?”