Hot Gin

Hen has no clean clothes left - time to do laundry. Lacing his boots
underneath his dressing gown and sleep-shorts, he rolls the piles up
into an orange bag, then goes to knock on Manley's door.

"Laundry?" asks Hen, holding up his bag.

Manley scoops sleep out of his eyes in handfuls.

"It's, like, seven thirty. What&;#8230;you're going in your
dressing gown?"

"I haven't got any clothes left. I'm taking my umbrella as well, coz
it's raining. No one will be up, anyway."

Manley groans.

"Alright then. Hold on a few minutes."

Them few minutes later, Manley and Hen are walking through the Waveney
tunnels and out into the old grey drizzle. Rabbits sniffle at them from
cover of bushes. Most of the windows are curtained, and the trees drip.
Under the umbrella, Hen says, "I'm going to write a scrapbook novel
about us two, Manley. A hackjob, and I'll be pretty Suetonian about it
- an untrustworthy account - a crafty fox of a book."

Manley rubs his arms against the cold and says, "Well, good. So long
as I'm not some loping bear."

They walk past E block and head down the path towards grass slopes and
Nelson Court, the rain rapping on Hen's umbrella as he swivels it into
the face of the wind.

"Don't worry. I've decided I'm not even a writer." he says, "I'm more
of a scrap poet."

Manley scoffs, "A scrap poet? And if I ask what that is, you'll
probably tell me."

"Well," says Hen, "I say scrap poet. More like one of the best scrap
poets, really. If I were a writer, now, then I'd be like the samurai of
the Sengoku period, when they were all ronin, dying out. Too many of
them, you see, all freelance, or in little schools, many with followers
and admirers purporting their master writer to be the best - everyone
has what they want already where writers are concerned."

"Oh ho? So you think there's no room for you? Maybe you're just too
lazy."

"But who wants me, Manley? Where's the gulf?"

Manley sighs and curls his lip. The rain intensifies and dies again,
and the skirt of Hen's dressing gown leaps about in the wind, exposing
his shins, knees and lower thighs to the bunnies.

"So I've come up with this idea that I'm a scrap poet. What scrap poets
do, you see, is collect scrap. We get crumbs, Manley. Leftovers. It's
all we can afford. And we assemble it into something to occupy our
time. It's a health trick. Lucky for us - some people don't even get
the leftovers."

Manley bows his head against the spit.

"That's a neat manifesto, Hen, but where do I come into it?"

"Who else is going to write a book about you, Manley?"

"Everyone. If I become a famous&;#8230;" Manley fights for a fitting
career, "&;#8230;errum&;#8230;a famous&;#8230;help me out
here."

"Become a famous lifeboatman," suggests Hen. "The most decent career is
that of a lifeboatman. The artists are all in advertising and common
decency is an oxymoron."

"Ho! Just because you have no common decency," Manley scoffs.

"I can't - it's impossible. I'll have to be a lifeboatman too and
become uncommonly decent. That's not to say I'll be a famous one like
you. But now I'm a scrap poet anyway. And until you up your profile,
you're my scrap. How'd you like that?"

"I feel like a used stamp, glued to sugar paper by your vile
thumb."

Hen wrinkles his nose, but grudgingly concurs, there beneath a canopy
of small trees on the road to the main street.

The launderette is warm and sanct with the humming resonance of a
temple in the mountains. Sat there on net metal seats, in the
background of drums rolling, sloshing and booming like caged
stormclouds, Manley takes out two juggling balls from his bag and
begins juggling them with his right hand.

Twenty minutes to go. Hen produces a notebook from the front pocket of
his gown - not spiral-bound.

"OK, old man. How about this? Writing is good therapy - if we share the
materials and the audience well enough, then we might all feel so good
about ourselves that we all join up as volunteer lifeboatmen. Course,
that'll make your task harder. Becoming a famous one, I mean. What do
you say to that?"

"I wish I was a lifeboatman right now," says Manley, pausing from his
juggling to clap a palm with his fist. His juggling balls bump on the
seat and roll.

"So help me with my therapy session," says Hen, and starts scrawling in
his notebook. "I'll read it as I write. No one really believes in the
sanctity of human life. In fact, it's the worst sanctuary ever - anyone
alive is just asking to be killed."

"It's almost like being alive makes you a viable target for murder!"
exclaims Manley, taking up the balls again.

"Yes," says Hen. "Exactly. Manley - your fucking juggling is like my
cunting writing.
You've got the arms and I've got the fingers."

A juggling ball falls into Hen's lap, accompanied by a tisk of
frustration. Hen tosses it back to Manley, who takes a third one from
his bag and switches to both hands.

"Now, this novel about you and me," mutters Hen. "Since it is a
scrapbook novel, the first few buckets of scrap, and many consequenting
buckets of scrap, introduce us to people, up front and informal."

"How about, 'Since this is a scrapbook novel, it's not exactly top
drawer'?" suggests Manley. "That's more honest."

Hen says, like a disapproving father, "I wouldn't buy into top drawer
if they paid me."