Twenty Something by Iain Hollingshead Read Free Book Online Page B

it looks like it’s come straight out of a packet this morning.’
    â€˜Very good, Buddy. It did come out of a packet this morning.’
    â€˜Dirty stopout. Who’s the lucky lady?’
    Was it my imagination, or did I see Leila wince at this point?
    â€˜Rick was the lucky lady. I kipped over at his.’
    â€˜And is the card for Rick, as well?’ He delivers his killer line.
    A little titter goes up around our section of the room. Twenty of the capital’s premier bankers laughing at a gay joke.
    Leila: ‘No, it’s for his granny. It’s a follow-up to the flowers.’
    The little cow of a crowd-pleasing sheep (if that makes any biological sense). Only she and I really understand the significance of her jibe, but it stings like someone’s rubbed citrus-flavoured excrement in my eyes. The crowd roars. Mingers have to crack funny jokes. Pretty girls only have to make an approximate stab at humour.
    I sink lower into my seat as Buddy twirls Leila around to the polyphonic tones of Hot Chocolate’s hit. I don’t believe in miracles. Water into wine? A magician could do that. But I could certainly do with a few conjuring tricks in my current excuse for a life.
Monday 21st February
    Came back from work to find Flatmate Fred hopping around with another letter in his hands. It went like this:
    Â 
    Dear Mr Hardy,
    Thank you for your ‘ashamed and remorseful’ letter. How considerate of you to lighten the workload of the RoyalMail and deliver it by hand. I must apologise for the delay in replying; it took us a few weeks to wipe away the soil.
    Thank you also for the kind donation of
£
1.25. Although this is approximately 0.5% of the value of the stolen winter-flowering cherry, it did allow me to buy a small
café latte
on the way home from work.
    You mention the forbidden fruit. I’m sure I don’t have to remind you what happened to Adam and Eve after eating the apple. If you don’t want to be sent forth from the Garden of Eden that is Onslow Mews, to till the ground whence you were taken, I suggest you come up with a more weighty sum of money in the very near future.
    Otherwise I would recommend that you ask Alcoholics Anonymous for your money back and donate it to a more suitable charity, such as Legal Aid.
    Kind regards,
Bertrand Rogers MBE
(aka Flower Person)
    â€˜Oh buggeroonies. We’re doomed,’ says Flatmate Fred when I’ve finished reading the letter. ‘Shotgun, Big Black Ron takes you up the bum first in jail.’
    â€˜No, we’re not,’ I reply calmly. ‘All we have to do is find a bit of extra cash and Mr Rogers will leave us alone.’
    â€˜But he’s threatening us. He’s going to prosecute us.’
    â€˜No, he’s not. He’s just playing Billy Big-Bollocks. We’ll pay him and then he’ll leave us alone.’
    I can see Flatmate Fred is still unconvinced. But then I look at the letter again and realise that it was addressed to him directly with the correct address.
    â€˜Fred, how the hell did Mr Rogers know your name and address when you wrote him an anonymous letter signed “Stupid White Men”?’
    â€˜Er, because I wrote it on headed notepaper.’
    â€˜You silly, silly tit. You can find the money yourself.’
Tuesday 22nd February
    My fitness obsession has got so bad that, as well as having my corporate membership, I’ve now joined a local gym.
    I don’t know why I bother. I mean, it’s hellish: the overweight women who look like they were poured into their Lycra and forgot to say when; the work-shy layabouts spending their dole money on Lucozade; the bored housewives who drive to the gym, walk on a treadmill while watching MTV, eat a Mars bar to celebrate the successful completion of their exercise routine, and then drive home again. Not to mention the middle-aged losers attempting to pull (the only time they’ll hear heavy breathing is on the