4

“Give us Tennents.”

“Oh fuck off, Kestrel’s shit.”

“They’re both shit, warm.”

“Have Kestrel then.”

“Who the fuck bought Kestrel anyway?”

“They was 12 for ten.”

“Fuckin’ drink ‘em then.”

 “I couldn’t really give a fuck, pal.”

For fuck’s sake. Specials are shit, warm. Coat your gob and whistle like malty paint. Don’t refresh me. Ice cold, it goes, if you chug on.

And I hate malt, the taste and the smell. Always have. Had a brewery at the corner of our street when I was a kid, couldn’t help but pass it on the way anywhere. 

Every morning, before the brewery went under, clouds of thick malt, boiling up through the road.

Sometimes got in the house, with a fair wind. Turned my guts, every time.

Good beer they done, I found out, years later, that red bitter. But good riddance.

“Is there none in the fridge?”

“These was in the fridge.”

“Don’t feel like it.”

“The fridge is fucked.”

“Oh give me the fuckin’ Kestrel…”

Yes, the fridge is fucked. Fucked for weeks. Opened it one day and it was fucked. Like everything else in here, more or less. Only waiting on the ovens to go fucked now and we can turn out the lights.

Nothing new in here. Nothing new since they carried the Gaffer out feet first. Just me and him.

“If the council come round that’s us shut.”

“Fuck! When?”

“When what?”

“Sneaky cunts! How long we got?”

“Until what?”

“They fuckin’ shut us!”

“They ain’t been round.”

“You fuckin’ on about then?”

What am I fucking on about? Wasting my puff on this cunt. Fuck off back to your bread you cunt I’ve a Dundee cake to get going.

“Stick the fuckin’ oven on.”

“It is fuckin’ on…

Soft brown sugar, eggs, sultana, self-raising, butter...

The fridge is fucked. The butter is gone. Rancid. Must be. Mind you it’s been shut all this while. That’ll’ve kept the cool in. Not cold, no but –

No this is rancid. Can’t put rancid butter in fruitcake. Again. Not after that wedding. But them fuckers’d have been on the lash too, so not all the puking would have been down to us.

That dough he’s proving just don’t smell right. Too heavy by half. And of cellars. Should be fresh earth, a little sharpness, a little sweetness. I know that smell better than I know fresh air…

Used to have breakfast once it was all banged out to rest. Pound after pound of it rising, giving off. You could smell it 50 yard in any direction.

Fags and tea in the yard and Alice banged the bacon on and fried up yesterday’s bread and eggs and tomatoes.

Never fry today’s bread, staler the better. Same with toast. Take fresh bread just as it comes to you, unless it’s that gummy shite.

“This fuckin’ dough stinks.”

“I know, fuckin’ horrible.”


“What you put in it?


“Nothing. Yeast didn’t smell right neither.”


“From out the fridge?”


“It had wet dust on it.”


Illustrations by Lee Healey.