No need to be rude about it

Title:  No need to be rude about it.

 ‘Please use the tradesman’s entrance’, said the sign at the general stores.  Robin and I were looking for old tools.  We bought nails, a bucket, a hammer and a monkey wrench and a smashed road sign that read  ‘High Wycombe welcomes careful drivers’. Unfortunately, someone had driven into it.  We hoarded like a pair of magpies.  I don’t wish to crow, I said but… and showed Robin the ‘visa applications on Wednesdays’ sign that I’d nicked from the back of the British embassy in Calcutta. 

Six weeks later Uncle Nick picked us up at the station.

 ‘Let’s eat!  It’s lunchtime.  We’ll try the Sparrow and Tern, as it brews its own beer.  One’s called the Great Bear and the other,  Global Minority’, he said.  But no luck.  It was written in the signs: ‘No parking’ said the sign in the car park.  ‘No smoking’ said the sign in the entrance.  ‘No food Sundays’ said the sign in the bar. It was empty.  So we abandonned the abandonned microbrewery. 

What about the pub across the road? It’s called the King Edward but we call it The Smith and Western, as it sells Smiths ales and it’s on the Great Western.  Once nestled inside the cosy bar, Uncle Nick asked, May I please have some pudding?  The barmaid, Moany Lisa, we called her, pointed to the sign ‘No food Sundays’.  I speculated on the myriad ways to interpret that.  It turned out the barmaid’s real name was Dawn and went to Spanish classes on Sundays.  She smeared her lips with Elizabeth Arden and left.

If on a winter’s night a traveller wants to eat, what do you do?  We consoled ourselves with crisps from the bar, chive and spring onion flavour, and marmite and Branston pickle sandwiches.  We found lodging upstairs.  The inn was furnished with old signage.  We delighted in the notice above the loo that said ‘Close cover before striking’. 

In the passage way was an old crow that could speak.  As we walked by, he announced:  ‘I’ll just have a little bit of chocolate.  It’s such good choc.’  And then ‘Oi! Olof Palme’  It’s been a long time since anyone’s called me that.

In the hotel room, I turned on the TV as I went to turn in for the night.  There was a play.  Some kind of kitchen sink drama:

‘…yeah.  .--  , yeah….  .. someone said.  Actually no. why are you doing that?

Mummy said I had to Before I clean my teeth …. .  Well I AM cleaning my teeth.  Yes I can!’

Robin turned it off again.  ‘That’s no good.  You can’t watch the telly at the same time.’, I said  ‘Anyway, I am off to bed.  Goodnight’

We thought we were in for a peaceful night.  The scream told us we’d got it wrong.  Out in the hallway came a mouse running out from behind a screen quickly followed by Dawn.  Her lips were Coco Rouge this time. 

‘I have had enough of mice and men’, she said. 

She puffed on a cigarette.  It was some fancy foreign pack with a peculiar name.  Not Gaulois or Gitanes or Camel.  Uranus or Colt or something.  ‘Winston Churchill used to smoke these’, she said, disappearing into a room with an H on the door.  ‘Smoking can seriously damage your health’, I said to her disappearing back.