Just an evening out

JUST AN EVENING OUT

Cosmo stomps back from the roadside where his pride and joy, a bright
orange painted Robin Reliant van resting on the grass verge. He thrusts
his way angrily through the gap in the Hawthorne hedge with his hands
up in front to protect his face, receiving scratches of retribution to
his arms which he ignores as he steps across the towpath and in through
the sidehatch of the converted Joey boat. In the green gloom of the
tarpaulin-covered cabin he doesn't see the furry bundle that is Grunge,
his girlfriend's dog reposing languishly by the foot of the steps and
promptly treads on him. This is not a clever thing to do as Grunge is a
rottvieller and he is one hundred percent Grace's dog. Grunge only just
tolerates Cosmo on his mistress's narrowboat as a very big favour to
her.
A forbearance that at times Cosmo thinks Grace only just manages to
extend towards him.
Grace is older than Cosmo's twenty-four years yet she is the sensual
erotic Goddess of his testosterone fuelled dreams but the eleven year
age gap sometimes makes him feel like a naughty little boy always in
the wrong. And yes he knows Grace plays with his youthful inferiority
complex to her advantage but he loves her so deeply. Acquiescent he may
be but he doesn't care he is a happy captive of her power and
beauty.
"Sorry Grunge," he says in his most pacifying voice to the growling
bared teeth as he backs hastily away down the cabin.
"Love me, love my dog," is the greeting he receives from Grace as he
approaches her. She is sitting on the end of their double bed
resplendent in one of her Rave outfits adding the final touches to her
makeup in front of a mirror propped upon a tea chest on which two
candles also stand stuffed in the neck of empty vodka bottle
candlesticks.
She is in a good mood with Cosmo. They are going for a night out at the
Canal Club; a rave club in an old canalside warehouse at Broad Street
Wolverhampton and a little indiscretion like treading on her dog wasn't
going to spoil the night.
As Grace's joeyboat is moored on the Northern Stratford Canal in the
leafy Warwickshire countryside miles away from civilisation, any link
with public transport was considered a rural joke. So Cosmo's little
Robin Reliant is an important item to their social life, as were the
three little blue tablets stamped with the impression of a capital 'E',
that are safely wrapped in Clingfilm hidden in his left trouser
pocket.
His 'beloved' is a hedonistic butterfly and she likes dancing in all
her splendid colours. It is one of the many things about Grace that
attracts him.
Now Grace herself, she could put up with just about anything as long as
she has regular Shore Leave, dancing the night away at some rave or
other. So when he announces.
"Sorry girl the bloody car won't start," he knows he is on shaky
ground.
"What!" She cries in her best Cruella De-ville voice as she puts down
her purple lipstick and turns to stare at him with her black piercing
eyes.
Why she felt it necessary to use makeup on her noble black Ivory Coast
face, Cosmo could never understand but it made her happy, something
that he and his car are certainly not doing right now.
"Err I've flattened the battery trying to start it and I've got no
Easystart, forgot to buy some when we were last in town er sorry . . ."
His mumbled apology tailing off as he shuffles his feet on the bare
floorboards, type cast again in the role of naughty schoolboy awaiting
retribution with forlorn finality.
"Well Cosmo My Love," she is angry with him he could tell. 'My Love'
was a dead give-away, a verbal rap across the knuckles with a ruler the
way she could say it.
"Take a battery off the boat and go next door and borrow some Easystart
off your brother. He must have some, that bloody diesel engine on his
boat is addicted to it and then try and get that bloody van started
please. Do you think you can do that for me Cosmo my love?"
"Yes dear straight away, your wish is my command," and he tries to
click his heels, salute, turn and walk out of his commander's cabin
with as much comic military dignity as he dares, to dampen the
smouldering wrath of his beloved.
A gentle little smile flickers over her face as she turns her attention
back to her candle-illuminated mirror.
Cosmo shuffles down the cabin to get a battery with sufficient charge
in it to fulfil the mighty task. Suddenly the Trance music that was
playing gently in the background on the portable CD player dies.
Grace sighs to herself; it had to be that battery! So she hums as she
puts on the final touches to her makeup.
As Grace sits in the glow of yellow candlelight she hears from further
down the boat by the sidehatch a thud as canine skull meets the plastic
casing of a heavy-duty battery followed by a whimper from Grunge.
"Err sorry Grunge," she hears Cosmo say as he backs his way up the
steps and out the hatchway. Grace thought he wasn't sorry at all, a bit
foolhardy perhaps but sorry no. Mind you he would be sorry if he can't
get that bloody car started. She was determined she wasn't going to
miss her night out clubbing no way. She looks at the time on the flyer
she has in her hand for the Canal Club 'Doors open 9.00pm dancing 'til
4.00am', now that's Dancing!
Sitting there in the quiet of the long tarpaulin covered cabin Grace
starts to roll herself a spliff squinting in the soft yellow
candlelight at the makings as she sits quietly listening to the telling
sounds outside her wooden joeyboat.
Cosmo has reached Decka's boat and is knocking on the cabinside.
Decka's boat doesn't have a hatch yet he is still rebuilding it slowly,
ever so very slowly. He is a very untogether man is Decka. Grace could
hear Cosmo's mumbled request for Easystart and Decka's even more
mumbled reply.
Then she could hear the sound of two bodies pushing their way through
the gap in the hawthorn hedge. Then a short while later Decka's return
to his boat for the jump leads and then back through the hedge to the
car. Grace had built her spliff and is lighting it on one of the
candles when she hears some more muttering from the boys, then at last
the sound of the starter motor grinding away, accompanied by the hiss
of the Easystart spraycan, culminating in a coughing from both the
engine exhaust and Decka. She would have to have a word with that boy;
he is getting addicted to sniffing that bloody stuff.
A silence follows, then again the grinding of the starter motor.
"Go on, go on you bitch you can do it!" That remark was from Decka,
such a gentleman, she thought, sexist pig!
More grinding from the starter motor.
"Come on kick in!" Decka again.
She has all her fingers crossed now bending the spliff she is holding,
willing the bloody engine to start. Yes there it goes! The little
aluminium engine in the plastic pig breaks into roaring life shattering
the evening peace, the Kraken wakes! Yes Cinderella is destined for
that ball after all. Cosmo bursts into the boat.
"Come on princess your pumpkin awaits, hurry before she stalls on us.
Grace didn't need telling twice she grabs her bag and blows out the
candles and dashes for the hatchway treading on her dog on the way
out.
"Sorry Grunge," she cries out and is through the door before Grunge
could look up, "the Canal Club awaits!"
The dog hears the slamming of the car doors and the roar of the plastic
pumpkin's engine as it moves off the grass verge on to the little
country road. The engine coughing and spluttering with thick white
smoke pouring out the exhaust is on the verge of dying but then she
gradually picks up momentum and is off roaring down the lane into the
dark night like a Le Mans racer.
Grunge licks his sore lips; he can taste the slight trace of battery
acid on his tongue. He sighs, gets up, takes a few slurps from his
drinking bowl and walks down the cabin to his mistress's double bed
where upon he manages with practised ease to clamber up and settles
down all comfy like for the night. Well he has the place to himself now
'til the loonies return with the dawn.

The plastic pumpkin with it's three occupants arrive in Wolverhampton
and is dutifully parked in the carpark by the front entrance to Carvers
the Builders Merchants near the top of the Twenty-one locks. The Cote
d'Ivoire Princess and her entourage Cosmo and Decka get out of their
surreal vehicle.
The boys' shaven heads shining under the glazed glare of the yellow
neon streetlights. Their Rave outfits have the unintentional Extra
Terrestrial look about them. Decka has long legs and at the best of
times his movements are like an alien creature more accustomed to a
stronger gravitational pull than on Earth. Decka is wearing his
personalised size ten wellies with square shapes crudely cut out with a
pair of scissors giving the Wellington boots a basic impression of
Roman Centuian sandals and with no socks on, his feet were fashionably
handicapped. With his trouser legs rolled up to the knees and wearing a
string vest made out of a plastic onionsack he is a picture of Extra
Terrestrial elegance.
Sartorially Cosmo is only a little better, not the customised wellies
for him instead a pair of black lace-up wrestler's boots and a pair of
tight black lycra knickerbockers topped off with a very colourful
psychedelic tee-shirt which could blind the unprotected eye at twenty
paces.
Princess Grace is wearing a pair of high-heeled silver plastic thigh
boots. They were black plastic boots she'd bought from a dodgy
catalogue but it's amazing what you can do with a tin of silver spray
paint. Above the top of her silver boots approximately four inches of
lovely dark brown thigh is being revealed topped off by a very short
tight black lycra mini-skirt. Through a dark brown see-though blouse
magic movements can be observed as two pert milk chocolate coloured
breasts jiggle in a luscious fashion like fruits of the forest on lusty
display as Grace shakes her head to spin her long black kinky
afro-dreadlocks, conjuring up the image of a frenzied multi legged
black widow spider, a fitting crown for this Ivory Coast
Princess.
The trio look at each other in the yellow neon light and smile. It had
been an eventful journey in the plastic pumpkin; Cosmo's insane game of
'Chicken' with an oncoming Metro tram on the Bilston Road had brought
on an adrenaline rush for all three occupants of the plastic pumpkin.
Their faces were even now gleaming with the fright of it all.
"I thought he was going to move over," protested Cosmo after Grace had
finally stopped squeezing his crutch in terror and he could regain
control of his voice.
"The Metro runs on tramlines, how can it move out of our way?" she had
screamed at him.

Cosmo holds out his right hand to reveal the three blue tablets each
stamped with the impression of an 'E'.
"Ladies first," he says and Grace chooses one and swallows it with a
mouthful of water from a plastic bottle. They each carry a waterbottle
about their person; it is going to be a steamy night.
Decka chooses next and swallows leaving Cosmo with the one that has an
oil stained thumbprint on it. Loaded with 'Es' the three Aliens turn
towards the Broad Street Warehouse.
"Set you fazers on stun men here we go," Decka says as the trio stroll
out of the carpark.
Their route to the Canal Club from the carpark is past Selwin's
boatyard entrance in Little's lane then over the canal bridge turn
right and then along the top lock passing the two British Waterways
cottages and on up to Broad Street bridge crossing Wednesfield road and
then they queue for entrance to the warehouse where two giant propane
gas powered torch flames burn on either side of the balcony to the
entrance door where a drastic haircut could be obtained courtesy of the
management by the accident prone and unwary.
In one of the lock cottages that the hedonistic trio had passed lives
an eighty-three year widow lady called Olive. She with her late husband
had worked on the boats in the old days travelling the length of the
Shropshire Union canal and after nationalisation continued working for
British Waterways. She still receives a small pension from her
erstwhile employers and a lifetime's tenancy of the cottage. Since the
recent conversion of the old F.M.C. warehouse to a nightclub Olive's
evening routine has altered only slightly but ever so
importantly.
After preparing her bedtime mug of Cocoa and listening to the news
headlines on Radio Four she would switch off her hearing aid for a
blissful night's silence something that her neighbour the current lock
keeper could only envy.
The pounding of the electronic concerto that emanated from the old
Fellows, Morton and Clayton warehouse gains strength and volume as it
echoes through the natural sound box that is the concrete coated
bridgehole of Broad Street bridge wrapping the little area of urban
canalscape in it's rigid vibrations like a localised thunderstorm. The
few remaining mallard ducks who had spent the afternoon grazing and
sunbathing lazily on the grassy lawns of the landscaped garden area,
are now huddling together sheltering from the evening breeze, floating
behind the rusty green coloured British Waterways workboat tied up for
the night in the little canal basin beside the nightclub, their ears
closed to all sounds but those of a possible approaching
predator.
A lone hireboat that had succumbed to all the siren like temptations
that the city fathers of Wolverhampton could offer and has decided to
stay the night on the '48 hour' moorings above the top lock, unlike its
more wary fellow travellers who wisely after a short trip to Tesbury's
to replenish supplies, had pushed on another five miles to Dudley's
Black Country Museum for peace security and a touch of nostalgia. The
occupants of the hireboat were only just beginning to realise their
mistake, a middle aged married couple with three teenage children who
are suffering from a slight dose of cabin fever.
Outside the holiday boat sitting on a concrete and wooden slated
parkbench illuminated in a yellow neon glow sits a tramp wrapped in a
torn overcoat with a cheap plastic litre and a half bottle of
supermarket own brand cider in his grubby long fingernailed hand.
Having just missed the chance of a bed for the night at the Good
Shepherd Centre for the homeless, too drunk and too late for rolecall
he was at a loose end. A night on the town with his bottle before him
the tramp had sauntered down to his favourite alfresco sitting room
where his evening's entertainment lay before his eyes, the hireboat
with its interior lights blazing out from the aluminium framed windows
along the length of the moored vessel. This row of windows is like a
hypnotic display of television screens left on overnight in the shop
window of an electrical store. Each window or rather screen displaying
a different television programme for the bemused and befuddled eyes of
the tramp.
On screen one, an old television stand by, a cookery programme. The
mother preparing the evening meal in the galley thwarted by the small
dimensions of the cooking area whilst suffering the onset of a headache
caused by the constant thump, thump of the deep base sound system
pumping out of the Canal Club rattling the pans on the gas cooker
accompanied by the insufferable sound of the grinding steel wheels of
departing trains from the nearby railway station sounding like a giant
bacon slicer on the move. All this cacophony is getting on her nerves
and the only handy antidote for it all, a glass or two of cooking
sherry.
Showing on screen two, a Lifestyle programme. In the dining area, the
father is furtively catching up on a holiday haunting piece of office
work thanks to the wonders of Information technology. Holding a mobile
phone high above his head in his left hand to maintain a signal as he
taps right-handed on the keyboard of the laptop that is connected to
the mobile phone and subsequently to his tyrannical office. He too is
in need of some alcoholic refreshment but the thought of spilling
liquid over the keyboard makes him an unwilling abstainer.
Window three, the living room is showing a lively discussion programme
on the merits or otherwise of certain television programmes conducted
by two articulate but highly volatile teenage viewers as they squabble
over control for the remote of the portable colour television that was
provided by the good hireboat company. It seems that the discussion has
reached a crucial moment as critic 'A' gains control of the remote by
default of punching his sister in the chest. Critic 'B' leaves the
studio in a flood of tears to make an appeal on the cookery programme
for adjudication.
Screen four is not transmitting at the moment it is the frosted glass
of the toilet and shower room.
Screen five is also dark; it is the parents' bedroom, possibly the
scene of some late night televisual activity, a sure ratings winner if
they forget to close the curtains upon retiring for the night.
Screen six is showing a programme of relaxed disdain a sort of low-key
'Wish you were here' holiday programme. The elder teenage daughter is
lying relaxed in a 'Lolita' fashion on the top bunkbed discussing her
enfolding holiday and all its attending horrors to her best-est
schoolfriend on her mobile phone whilst openly picking her nose as if
that action its self is a comment on the holiday she is enduring.
This act of nasal cleanliness is a ratings looser, the Tramp returns
his gaze to screen one and the tipsy chef. He gets up stiffly from his
parkbench and totters over to the boat slurping cider as he goes.
Banging on the roof of the cabin with his free hand he offers the lady
of the boat a few encouraging words which as luck would have it are
drowned out by the roaring diesel engine of a departing train.
"Simon he's banging on the roof again."
"I know dear, but I've called the police out once all ready and you
know what they said."
"I know, 'there is nothing we can do sir you'll just have to ignore him
and hope he goes away.' Well what happens when he falls in the canal?
He's drunk enough to have an unfortunate accident."
"I put that to them dear and they just said 'not your problem sir
better if he did then we can pull him out in the morning, less
paperwork that way sir.'"

The long night rolls on like the grinding steel wheels from the railway
and the pounding beat of tribal music from the old F.M.C. warehouse
reaches an apocalyptic climax around three-thirty in the morning and
then . . . silence!
The clubbers leave the party like stunned and dazed moths do when a
particularly fascinating lightbulb has finally been switched off. The
holidaying couple in bed on the hireboat heave a sigh of relief and
cuddle closer together to finally fall asleep in each others arms. The
tramp is asleep on his park bench with an empty plastic cider bottle
for a pillow. He has been visited during his slumbers by mischievous
fairies that have managed to tie his shoelaces together as a wake up
surprise. The same little devils have also untied the mooring ropes of
the hireboat leaving it to slowly drift broadside towards the top lock.
The retired boatwoman Olive lies asleep in her bed blissfully unaware
of the world outside her little lock cottage.

The little orange pumpkin bounces and splutters erratically down the
narrow country 'B' road. Grace and the boys are in a drained and
depleted state. Decka is lying in the back of the three-wheeled van his
long legs unable to stretch out in the cramped space. His bleary
bloodshot eyes are closed and he is humming in a monotonous nerve
grating tone, which irritates his companions to the hilt.
Grace is slumped in the passenger seat in a very unregal pose a
crumpled spliff between her lips. Cosmo in the driver's seat stares
myopically at the road ahead through the clean slit of windscreen that
was the wipers trail with all his weary concentration on his driving
skills. He doesn't want to be pulled up by a country-bumpkin cop car at
this hour of the morning.
He doesn't want anything to spoil the good night that they have enjoyed
at the Canal Club.
The pounding pulsating hypnotic music had gone on until nearly four
a.m. but like all hedonistic feasts, when appetites had been saited
beyond the limit, a waiter would appear at the feasting table to
present the bill.
All they wanted to do now was sleep around the clock. Their depleted
bodies sapped of all energy, craved rest and oblivion.
So it was no small wonder that the myopic motorist didn't see the early
morning rabbit on the road. Why the rabbit didn't see the big orange
box bearing down on it until it was too late is another story, but it
didn't.
Thud! Rabbit and plastic pumpkin meet head on. Cosmo's foot stomps down
on the brake pedal hard just as fast as his left hand moves over to
cover his vulnerable crutch before Grace's right hand can get there.
The screech of brakes is almost drowned out by Grace's screech of
fright.
"Cosmo! What was that?" They stare mystified through the gap in the
dirty windscreen. Grace's internal video machine is playing motoring
accident nightmares in her head as she leaps out the passenger's door
in a flash.
Decka's customised wellies drop over the back of her seat followed by
the rest of him. Cosmo, the culprit is the last to emerge from the
three-wheeled vehicle. The trio stand in a row staring back down the
road the way they had come.
The victim is lying on it's back on the grey tarmac, a little pool of
scarlet forming by it's head, it's back legs jerking spasmodically in
the last throws of life.
"Oh Cosmo!" Grace screams at him as she runs back towards the twitching
corpse, her beautiful silver booted legs pounding down the road with
all the urgency of an ambulance.
Decka looks at his brother with a carnivorous gleam in his eyes and
can't resist humming the 'Bright Eyes' tune from the Watership Down
soundtrack to add to his brother's misery.
"Oh shut up." Cosmo snaps at his grinning tormentor.
"I'm in enough trouble as it is don't make it any worse." Reluctantly
he shuffles down the road followed by his brother to join their
matriarch who is bending over the still twitching fluffy bunny. She
looks up at Cosmo with tears in her eyes.
"Oh Cosmo do something please." Do what? He isn't bloody James
Herriot!
Cosmo does the only thing he could. He takes hold of his lady's arms,
pulls her up to him and then hugs her. She responds meekly letting him
wrap himself around her and kisses her tearstained cheek.
Decka takes his cue; bending down behind Grace he picks up the still
twitching rabbit by its back legs and administers a heavy thump behind
its head with a clenched fist. Not quite the soft ministering hand of
Mr Herriot but what else was he to do?
Cosmo escorts Grace back to the orange pumpkin muttering gentle words
to soothe her but when they get to the vehicle Grace wants to walk on
to her boat. It was only a few hundred yards away so Cosmo lets go of
her and she slowly walks on, her head bent down, her beautiful black
dreadlocks hiding her tear stained face.
Decka just stands there in the road the dead rabbit in his hand it's
blood slowly trickling into his left wellie. What the hell was he going
to do with the body? He knew what he and his brother would like to do
with it and very tasty it would be but Grace is a vegetarian and her
word is law.
"Oh Hell!" Give it to Grunge, lucky dog; he wasn't under her
matriarchal spell.
Cosmo gets in the plastic pumpkin starts her up and follows his beloved
down the country lane in first gear. Decka reluctantly follows behind
him with the bloody rabbit; it's warm life's blood still dripping on
the tarmac.
A magical tune starts to play on the great celestial jukebox in the sky
covering the roadside scene with a voice like early morning dew:

Down on Cyprus Avenue
With a childlike vision leaping into view
Clicking, clacking of the high heeled shoe
Ford &; Fitzroy, Madame George
Marching with the soldier boy behind
He's much older with hat on drinking wine
And that smell of sweet perfume comes drifting through
The cool night air like Shalimar
(Van Morrison's 'Madame George' from the 'Astral Weeks' album)
Van Morrison accompanying a funeral procession, a fitting end to an
evening out or what?

Copyright 2002. davyferguson.