There's a rumour that it's going to be a different season soon. The weather may become milder or colder. There's road works, traffic lights, tourist types circulating and political uncertainty in the air. An unspoken sense of some kind of unpleasant "change" being brought upon us. By degrees Governments and authorities being less able to cope with sharing the planet with regular humans. Odd and complex creatures. It's a familiar script in life's recurring cycle of dramas.
So I was considering the fate of the Kerfuffle family. They live nearby and unsurprisingly their lives seem to be in a permanent state of kerfuffle. Their neighbour, Freddy the Fish has confirmed this in some of his more lucid moments, messages from across the bar room floor. Freddy likes the odd drink or two, anytime, anywhere. He is quite observant and provides a droll commentary on local events though not always as lucid as I might like. Too much detail and the shutters go up, as has already happened in the mysterious house down the road. Freddy knows the truth but isn't telling.
You'll be glad to hear, if you didn't already know, that the Kerfuffles are presently nestling down and lying low. Their assets may well be seized at any moment. The Kerfuffles are in a quiet kerfuffle. Financial clarity is important. "Dictators don't play chess", says Mr Kerfuffle, "they don't like the rules. They gamble, they play Blackjack, they bluff and they smirk in the face of their victim." "Maybe so", says Mrs Kerfuffle, "but don't try to tell me you wouldn't want to play just a single hand with one and try to win big".
"I am not a victim!" Mr Kerfuffle thinks to himself for a moment. He can only do this because he cannot think to anyone else. His eyes are on fire, almost. "I would play, I would play my hand but I would hold my nerve and take the match to the limit. That is how you play against a dictator."
It was at that moment, across town that Mr Dick Taitor walked into the local pub, ordered a beer and asked the barman if he knew of the whereabouts of the Kerfuffle family. "I'd like to spend some dirty money" says Dick. "I'd like to take your dirty money" says the barman. At the other end of the bar stood Freddy the Fish, he was playing close attention to the conversation. Mr Taitor looked to him to be an "interesting prospect". He said that to himself a number of times, allowing the cement of that thought to cure.
Back at the Kerfuffle's sleep had broken out, well it had for Mrs K. Mr K decided that it was the perfect opportunity to head away as his good lady snoozed in the armchair. There was a message from Freddy on his phone he felt he should respond to. He stuffed a biscuit into his mouth, put on his jacket, grabbed his wallet and quietly crunched his way out of the door without rattling the door lock at all. As the door quietly closed Mrs K opened one eye and smiled a little smile to herself.
Mr K entered the pub by the wrong door. Nobody cared. He recognized the rear profile of Mr T and hesitated for a moment. There was history. The jacket was quite distinctive. Helly Hanson. He turned headed out the in door. Nobody cared. Once on the street and in the air he began thinking again. He knew Freddy would be in there and may have spotted him. Freddy was all ears and about 50% eyes. Mr K had a few drinks down the road and then, propped up with Dutch Courage headed back to see what Mr T and Freddy might be up to.
Now, an hour or so later all three men, Mr K, Mr T and Freddy are in the pub, sitting together around a round brown pub table of the kind we all know and damage occasionally. There were conversations, these are in the past now. They are playing a discrete game of Pontoon and drinking red wine from a bottle in the centre of the round table. Dirty money is being passed between them. A sly enquirer might just see the wads of cash hidden in their fists or being quickly moved in and out of pockets and transferred as the games progress. Most locals are smart enough to look away and the bar staff are whispering to each other about their own little windfalls of dirty money tonight. It came via a series of "keep the change" orders. "Nice" is what they are thinking.
In life however everything ends in tears. Sometimes these can be happy tears, other times not so happy. You can never really tell. It's all in the turn of the cards and the whirring of the wheels ... maybe some beads of perspiration too, oh, and you might find that you have a dry mouth. If this was all just a dream I'd say so now but it wasn't. It was a full set of dreams, one after the other. In proper order. They only became jumbled as my recall fumbled. It's a poor excuse but the best I can do.
So the three of them are deep in the dirty money card game.
"Fuck me that was grim", says Mr Taitor as he trousered close to £1000 in scraggy notes. The other two said nothing, both are observing their sorry shoes and the sorry bar floor. The word "sorry" seems to have been added to every area they encounter within their blurry field of vision. The cash machine up at the Co-op also took quite a hammering.
"Time Please!" The bar staff are eager to tidy up, they've had a good night, well a good night of extravagant tipping and they sense that the best is now over so best end it here. It's getting close to home time. The body language from Freddy and Mr K is fairly low key, subdued and pale faced. They both have a story to tell but no one to tell it to. Before they could collect themselves it became apparent that Mr Taitor fled the scene in his pre-booked taxi, at least five minutes ago.
Freddy makes it home. The house is empty like always. There's no drink, no cigarettes, no heating right now and the bed is unmade. He slinks in, avoiding noise as if he might wake up some imaginary sleeping partner. Tomorrow will be ... tomorrow. Perhaps his pension payment will hit the bank a few days early. He remembers working on the railway. Happy, greasy, grimy days. That British Rail pension's traveled further than he ever did.
Mr K returned home also. His wife, whom he had sneaked away from without so much as a word, was still in her armchair and wide awake. She was engrossed in a cookery show she was watching on catch up TV. Mr K opened his mouth and hoped he'd quickly find some reasonable explanation to offer for both his absence and his loss of a significant amount of money in the disastrous card game. "Shoosh!" She cried, "this pasta bake recipe is one of the best I've ever come across". Which, strangely enough is also how my family and I discovered this delicious meal, so anyway, let's all get on with following the recipe...
