A LONDON ADVENTURE

SUCKING THE MONKEY

We were on our way out when I said, ‘I’m just going to the bathroom.’
‘I hope you haven’t got a secret stash up there,’ she said.
‘That is outrageous,’ I said, ‘how could you say such a thing...’
‘Easily,’ she said.
‘Actually, if I did have a secret stash,’ I said, ‘and I had a discreet swig, I’d be sucking the monkey.’
‘“Sucking the monkey?”’ she said. ‘That sounds rude.’
I stood at the back of the chair she sat in and she turned herself to face me.
‘It was in a book called Brewer’s Phrase and Fable Thebus found in the charity shop on St. Mark’s and what it is, is when a sailor had a bottle of drink in his back pocket with a tube leading from it up to his shoulder so when he wanted a drink without anyone, especially the captain or first mate, knowing what he was doing, all he had to do was suck on the end of the tube and this was known as “sucking the monkey.”’
I turned my head and made as if I was sucking from something at my right shoulder and said, ‘it’s probably the same root as “I’ve got a monkey on my back.”’
‘Probably,’ she said.

BEGGARS CAN’T BE CHOOSERS

We were crossing South End Green, Hampstead, when behind me a man’s voice, ‘you got ten p so I can get a hot drink?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Oh, go on, just ten p, that’s all I need.’
He followed us a few metres asking still then tried someone else.
‘I hate getting hassled like that,’ I said.
‘Hmm,’ she said.
A few minutes later, as we talked about the affect on local shops as a result of the new Marks and Spencer food hall opening in the square, after we’d read an article had been stuck in the window of a deli had closed down, I saw the same man coming towards us.
‘Oh no, it’s him again,’ I said.
‘You got five pence?’ he said. ‘That’s all I need.’
He stood in front of us one hand out the other holding a yellow plastic carrier bag. I put my hand in my pocket took out the change and picked out all the none pound and two pound coins and gave them to him.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I used to live round here and now I can’t even afford the price of a hot drink.’
‘Can you go local?’ I said.
‘Well that place,’ he said pointing to the cafe next to the Starbucks, ‘costs a fiver for a cake and tea or whatever, which is a bit much really.’
‘I suppose so,’ I said. ‘I guess beggars can’t be choosers.’
‘More’s the pity,’ he said before walking off and tapping for change a woman who wore a long black coat and hat.

A FINE PEN

I said, ‘I’ll pay for this if I may?’ holding the pen out to the woman’d take my money as the woman I stood next to asked how she’d got the job.
Apparently she knew the manager who’d told her she wanted some time out but needed a replacement to cover for her and wouldn’t you know it she was available and said, ‘I’ll do it.’
‘Only one ninety nine,’ she said as she took the pen and scanned the price in. ‘Bargain.’
‘They write so well, these pens,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘they’re so smooth.’
‘Aren’t they though,’ I said, ‘and i can get so much more writing on a page.’
‘Economical too,’ she said.

MEGABUS MEGALATE

We got to Victoria early to get the seats on the seven-thirty had the most leg room. When we got there there was a crowd of people with luggage and a line of parked buses I walked the length of looking for the one going to Bristol.
No sign and no one I asked had seen it.
‘Last call for Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham.’
I heard people say, ‘you know where the Bristol bus is?’
‘Anyone for Bristol?’ he said and people walked towards him.
‘The bus is running about two hours late...’ he said.
‘...two hours?’
‘...there’s been an accident on the motorway, probably because of the weather, and the bus was right behind it and has just got back on the motorway but will be about two hours late so here about nine-thirty.’
‘When you said, “it’ll be all over soon,” you spoke too soon,’ she said to me and I apologised.
A few minutes later he said, ‘it’ll be here about ten,’ so we went to a pub called The Traveller’s Tavern was near the bus station.
‘More like The Non-Traveller’s Tavern,’ I said.
We left the pub at nine forty-five and back at the bus station the man said, ‘it’s just passed Hammersmith so it’ll be here soon but he’ll need a break before it leaves.’
‘So what time will that be, then,’ she said.
‘As soon after ten as possible,’ he said. ‘You can wait in that bus over there if you want,’ and we did.
By the time we left London it was ten forty-five and we got to Eastville ten past one where the taxi she’d ordered while I slept on the bus turned up within five minutes.