"And My C*ck's A Kipper"

I took a sip of my pint, still looming over him. He was unruffled. Truly, I had never seen anyone with “un sang si froid”.    

‘And that’s why you were "double d-ed", isn’t it? Not too keen on foreign languages in novels, publishers. They know nobody speaks any.’  

I was sure I had not spoken my thoughts aloud. He nodded toward the pint of Black Sheep in my hand.

‘Do get me one of those, old chap. Bit short of tin.’  

I placed my pint on the table top and returned to the bar.

I ordered. Bruce lifted his chin whilst looking over my shoulder,

‘Might need two.’

While he poured, I asked him if he knew who the joker was.

‘Never seen him before. You want him out?’  I was a good customer.   

I sighed, giving up on the day’s writing. ‘No.’

The man had shuffled around so that he was at right angles to the open laptop. He could still see the screen. The pint glass in front of him was empty. There was a little froth on his moustache, until an improbably long tongue flicked over it.  I put both pints on the table, thinking to slide around behind my computer and check he hadn’t done anything malicious – or stupid.  He extended a hand to shake whilst I was still in a half-crouch.

‘Prospero Vint.’

I snorted with laughter, glad that I hadn’t yet started my beer.   

‘It is though.’  He looked offended.

‘And my cock’s a kipper,’ I said.

‘I knew you’d been a military man.’

‘Were you?’  

‘Not for long.’

‘Not surprised. It would take someone who was either very tough - or very funny – to stay in uniform long, with a name like yours.’     

He wiggled his eyebrows and waved Groucho’s imaginary cigar. I thought I might punch him then and there. I couldn’t though, I liked the pub, and wasn’t really sure how much Bruce really liked me.   

My screensaver was on the screen, my meisterwerk: ‘The MacTavish Trilogy’, now so rare you couldn’t even find it in a charity shop. I pressed a random key. Everything was just as I’d left it: Wikipedia open in two tabs, showing the entries for The Hedgehoppers, and Piccadilly Sunshine. A Google search for Simon Dee had produced more than 25 million results. My pathetic Wordle attempt was still open, a six-go ‘phew!’,  “B-L-A-R-T”, which I’d only typed in a fit of pique. My e-mail accounts remained unopened, apparently, except for the one I’d used for publishing, “e_wailer@gmail.com”.  There was nothing to read in it anyway, I deleted everything every morning, as I had done since being dropped.  Now that was peak pique.