Bron-18

Continued from Chpater 17: Bron-17 | ABCtales

Wednesday morning. The sun, still hidden, but beginning to brighten the clouds. The roar of the Bayswater Road dulled as Bron ambled gently down the path, past the Ranger’s Lodge.

The gardener was crouching down, gently stroking the dry, dark-brown soil around an azalea shrub with a trowel, teasing out small weeds by the roots. Then she stood up, wiped her hands on her bright red work trousers and smiled at Bron. A blue-black afro framed a smooth pale, wide face, with orange freckles. “Hi! Nice day for it.”

“Nice day for what?”

“Walking in the park, taking the air…”

“Yeah. ‘Spose so. Yes, it is…”

“You Welsh?”

“Yes.”

“Thought I recognised the accent.”

“No shit, Sherlock … ” (Bron had heard Fenster say that in The Usual Suspects a few weeks ago and used it at every opportunity.)

“Sorry. I was being intrusive. You come here often?”

“That’s a chat-up line.”

“Uuumm, urrrrr, maybe… Sorry – I’m being intrusive again.”

“Yeah, if you must know, all the time. When I’m not working. I work nights, mostly. So I’m here most days.”

“How come I haven’t noticed you before?”

“Because, because, maybe…I don’t stand out. Millions of people must come here every day, I’ve really no idea why…”

“I’d notice a face as lovely as yours.”

“You one of those lesbians?”

“Yes, I am one of those lesbians. And you?”

“Me? I’m not anything.”

“You’re not a nun – from the Tyburn convent?”

“Fuck off! You must be fucking joking…”
”Sorry…”

“You say sorry a lot, don’t you?”

“Spose I do. Sorry.”

“There’s a club I go to, me and my friends. Just off the Strand. Like to come?”

“What, you and all your lesbian mates, all having it off? If you think you’re going to get me down on the floor of this place and start licking and drooling all over my private bits with all your fanny-friends looking on - ”

“No, no no! It’s not like that at all! It’s a social club, that’s all. It’s just a safe space where we can meet…”
”What, you and all your little bum-chums? I don’t think so…”

“It’s really quite, quite…decorous. Honestly, you would think it was just a normal pub. There’s stand-up comedy tonight. And I promise – absolutely no drooling.”

“Well, I’m not working tonight ... What time?”

“Seven thirty?”

“OK…If you see me, you see me. If not, not…”

“Understood. And I promise … absolutely no drooling.”

“Better not be.”

 

 

A few minutes after seven thirty, Bron pushed open the door of the Caterwaul Club, in a small side-street just off the Strand. The brown and red carpet, with its swirly gold pattern was slightly sticky; Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax pumped out of the sound-system. The woman lady – Grace, was her name she’d said – was sitting alone at a small round table, just inside the door. She’d swapped her red work-trousers for a soft, black velvet pair and a cropped white teeshirt, her quite ample breasts well hidden under a sturdy bra. Her afro showed signs of sprucing-up.  

“Oh, hi Bron!” said Grace, standing up. She made as if to embrace Bron but then thought better of it, letting her arms fall awkwardly to her sides. “Glad you could make it. Drink?”

“Er, yeah. Coke.”

“No rum?”

“No. I don’t, I don’t…”

“Very wise. Are you Chapel?”

“Everyone asks that. No.”

Grace disappeared into the mob jostling around the bar. She emerged a couple of minutes, clutching two glasses and accompanied by a tall, big-boned woman in a green taffeta dress with long black curled hair tumbling down her shoulders and clutching a half-full glass of white wine.

“Bron, this is Georgetta, Georgetta, this is Bron,” said Grace, setting the glasses gently down on the table.

“Oh HELLOOOO!” squeaked Georgetta. Her voice was oddly high-pitched for someone her size. “Are you Grace’s new…?”

“No, no - we only met this morning,” Grace quickly broke in. “She’s just come for the comedy. Bron grew up on a farm in North Wales.”

“A farm in North Wales? How impossibly ROMANTIC! - O Mary, go call the cattle home, across the sands o' Dee;

The western wind was wild and dank with  foam,

And all alone went she.

The creeping tide came up along the sand,

As far as eye could see;

The blinding mist came down - 

And never home came she. Charles Kingsley, one of my favourite poems – so sad and haunting…”

“Silly bitch, should have checked the tide before she took the cows out. My brother managed to get the van stuck on the Four Mile Bridge like that. Bugger probably wished he HAD drowned - Mam went apeshit…”

“And what do you do for a living, Bron?”

“I work on the railway. New Birch Moor depot.”

“Oh, I think trains are SO romantic!”

“Yeah - specially when you get to empty the toilet tanks at two o’clock in the morning. Got a poem about that too?”

 

 

They walked down the Mall, Bron wheeling her bike with one hand, heading for Hyde Park Corner. Grace would get a bus to her flat in Putney; Bron could cut across the park to Marble Arch. They walked side by side, Grace the bike decorously between them.

So, did you enjoy the comedy, Bron?”

“Yes. They were good. But the biggest laugh of the night – it was when that compere woman asked that bloke where he worked and he said, what was it, Air Cargo Daily?”

“Air Cargo News. Don’t think he minded, though.”

 

They walked on in companionable silence for a minute.

“Georgetta likes you.”

“Really? I was rude…”

“She likes that.”

“Lesbians, eh? I suppose she’d want me to thrash her with whips and chains …”

“We’re not so bad, are we? No wanton displays on the club floor. Bron?”

“Yes?”

“I mean, I’ve no idea what your disposition is, but … “

“If I fancy a bit of fanny-fondling, you’ll be the first to know.”

“You’re so impossibly romantic, Bron.”

To be continued in Chapter 19