Conversations With My Grandad

Grandad: the war was so exciting....
Me: but, I mean, it was kinda bad aswell wasn't it?
Grandad: we used to sit on the roof of this great big hotel just off Tottenham Court Road with these long shovels, do you know about the London Blitz?
Me: yeah
Grandad: well the incendary bombs, they used to fall and set fire to things, so when it was your turn on the roof you had to pick them up in these shovels and fling them into someone else's back garden!
Me: errrrr!!!
Grandad: it was a brilliant time that.


Grandad: Do you know why Beavers make dams?
Me: Errr, no actually. Yeah hang on, why *do* beavers make dams?
Grandad: Becuase they cannot *stand* the sound of running water.


Grandad: I love museums, war museums I would so love to go to one
Me: OK well we should definately go! There's an aeroplane one in Malton nearby, we could go there?
Grandad: Oh I would love to go. Any museum, I love them.
Me: Well let's go there then.
Grandad: Oh wait a minute, I think Vicky and Dave [my mum and dad] took me there last year. It was very dissappointing to me, because they had lots and lots of aeroplanes and ones like the ones I flew but they didn't have the ACTUAL aeroplanes I flew. Yes it was very disappointing.


Me: I think if I were to go into the army I would go into 'Intelligence'
Grandad:  [pause] No you wouldn't. You'd be a driver.


Grandad: I like your buttons on your jacket. They are like Michael Jackson
Me: Oh wow, thanks! Yes they are a bit Michael Jackson. Isn't it sad that he died?
Grandad: Oh yes, it is quite sad. He was such a talented little boy.
Me: Yeah, I mean he was talented all the way through really....
Grandad: I saw a film of him once
Me: Oh yeah?
Grandad: Yes, he was doing all this fantastic dancing and he'd blacked up his face, you know?
Me: Errrm... he was black!
Grandad: [long pause] Oh! So he was!!

My Ideal Husband

My ideal husband has got glowing, bright red eyes which it uses for walking you home in the dark after parties along unlit streets and short-cuts. It has a nose as long as a peacock feather that swishes about when it walks so that other people stay a nice distance away. It has black, pointed teeth that are razor sharp and my ideal husband uses these to bite off tags you accidentally leave in your clothes so you don't make a fool of yourself out in public. Did I mention that instead of nails it has claws and it is VERY possessive? Those claws, by the way, are reinforced with diamond; the hardest substance on the planet. It also has its heart on the outside of its chest so you can see that it is really beating for you.

No Bananas

He was in with this girl, that was a certain! He was so in with her, he might as well BE in her! Scratch that sentence, it's too filthy, even for YOUR mind! But you understand just how in with her he was. The date had moved from the cinema to the cinema bar to the cinema restaurant part of the bar to the pub next door to the cinema to a stroll along the river where she kept touching his arm to her street to her front door to her KITCHEN! The line that had got him in wasn't “do you.. want a cup of coffee?” it was “Hey! Maybe I could make us banana milkshake!” and then they both laughed loads because it was a reference to a flirty jokey conversation they had had earlier in the evening. He walked through the door into her kitchen still laughing. She touched his chest in a 'oh don't! It hurts because I'm laughing so much' sort of way. Then she told him to take a seat at the kitchen table while she made the milkshake. She put the stereo on and David Bowie's 'Low' came blasting out.
“Don't you worry about the neighbours?” he asked, referring to the late hour and the volume nob.
“Don't you wonder... SOMETI-I-I-I-I-MES!”
and then they both sang along with David Bowie:
“'BOUT SOUND AND VISION! DOO DOO DOOOO DOO DOOO!” and then they fell about laughing while David Bowie had to carry on playing and singing.
He took her hands and put her into mock ballroom dance hold and then waltzed her in great big leaps around the kitchen while they sang along at full volume
“BLUE, BLUE, ELECTRIC BLUE THAT'S THE COLOUR OF MY ROOM!”
“That's the colour of your kitchen, MATE!” he said, pointing at the extreme colour choice of her kitchen blind.
“I know!” she said, “I picked it out on purpose. The landlord's gonna go mental when he finds out I chucked away his perfectly nice cream one!” and then they both laughed again until they stopped laughing and David Bowie was still playing things. There was that sort of moment where they probably could have kissed, but they didn't and as the moment lingered it was getting awkward so she broke away suddenly and said
“FUCK!”
and he, relieved of the moment though disappointed in himself for having not initiated a kiss at that perfect moment, said
“What's the matter?”
and she said
“There's no bananas!!”
and he said
“FUCK!”
and she said
“I know! How can I make banana milkshake if there's no bananas?”
and he said
“Yeah! I only came in because you said there was banana milkshake on the cards! This will not do at all!”
and she pulled a sad face and then looked up at him with a cheeky eye-glint and said
“Well... the 24 hour supermarket will be open!”
and he said
“RIGHT! Then that's what I'll do! I'll be the knight and go get you bananas, my lady!”
and then he bowed very low and took her hand and kissed it very gently and gave a sly little look up in to her eyes for a very brief second.
“WHOOOOOOOOSH!” he said as he swept up his coat from the back of the chair and exited out the door into the night.

He was pretty pleased with his exit. It was cool, it was fun and it was gallant. He would get bananas and she would make milkshake and they would drink it and then they would talk about how good the milkshake was and then he would tell a joke and then she would laugh and then he would kiss her.
Ten minutes later he was standing in the fruit isle of the 24 hour supermarket, looking at the card that said 'BANANAS 36p EACH. TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK'.

“There's no bananas AT ALL?” he asked the guy stocking the kiwis up.
“No, sorry. They're all gone, we'll have more in the morning I guess.”
“But the morning's not good enough! I need them now! She needs to make milkshake!”

The guy stocking the kiwis looked away and back at the kiwis. He wasn't interested in his milkshake crisis.

“I mean, it's not about milkshake you understand? It's my ticket to...”
The guy stocking the kiwis interrupted him,
“They just called me on the tannoy. I need to go now.”
And he left him there in the fruit isle, biting his finger, sobering up.

Half an hour later he was at her door.
“Knock knock, my lady” but his language and manner had sort of lost gusto somehow.
She looked tired. What had she been doing for the last forty minutes or so?
“Have you got the bananas?” she said, trying to regain enthusiasm for the whole milkshake thing.
“Errrm, no. Can you believe it, they didn't have any! No bananas!” he said, unable to think of anything funny to say about the situation.
“Oh.” she said. “That's a real shame, I think.”
“Yeah.”
And he was still stood on her doorstep. He looked over her shoulder into her kitchen and saw himself only an hour before hand laughing and flirting with her in there and cursing himself for not having gone in for that kiss earlier.
“Well. There'll be other nights for banana milkshakes! Don't worry.” she said in a tone that was too forced to be as light as she had intended.
“Yes. Of course. Sorry, I feel I let you down.” he said.
“No, don't.” she said and the mood was becoming serious but in a dull sort of way.
“No.” he said. “I guess we can blame the supermarket, eh?”
“Yeah” she said with a small, false laugh.
“Well.” he said, after a pause. He took a low bow again and kissed her hand again though this time she didn't return his eye contact and he quickly let it go.
“I bid you goodnight, my lady. Thank you for a wonderful evening.”
“Yes” she said with a genuine, small smile. “It's been really lovely.” and she sort of curtsied.
He bowed even lower and blew her a kiss. She smiled and nodded her head and gave a wave of her hand, and then she saluted him. He knew it was over. He saluted her back and just before he disappeared behind the wall and into the night he said
“WHOOOOSH”.

The Town And Times of Leo Jennings PART ONE: The Job

In the town where I live, there are two football teams: Fishermen and Firemen. Don't be fooled, they are professional players, it's just one of those team name things that started before the dawn of time, and has stuck through everything ever since. There's barely a fisherman left in this town, and apparently the Firemen name came from the guys that would stoke the fires on the boats and nothing to do with the emergency services. Anyway, the point is, people were passionate about these teams. They both played in the second highest league and would switch and swap around positions in the table; usually around the 5th and 6th mark. One year Fishermen finished top, but they didn't get bumped up because of something dodgy to do with the manager stealing money and owing it back and nobody really knew and the local paper favours Fishermen so the story was hushed up pretty quickly and all anybody knew was that Fishermen started in the same league the next season.

Supporters of the teams aren't geographically based. It has nothing to do with what side of the railway line you live on, or what church is on your corner. It's more to do with what school you went to and whether you got on with the kids of the managers or players from various teams or sometimes it was just as simple as who your dad supported. The girls got a bit involved I guess, but it was definitely a man thing of the town.

Being a man of this town who was born and bred here, I had my team - Firemen, and I supported them with a generous level of enthusiasm. I would go and watch them play every other weekend, sometimes every weekend if I was feeling particularly flush or wanted to piss off my girlfriend. One of the lads in my year at school was son of the star player for Fishermen and I hated him. Hence my allegiance with the opposition. He went on to also play for Fishermen like his dad and mysteriously it was around this time that my support for the Firemen grew more intense.

Four years ago, I lost my job. I'd been working in the office of a Removals company and when the recession hit, people stopped moving house and one day when I was sat there by the silent phone, twiddling my thumbs, the boss called me into his office for a chat.

At first I tried to keep quite optimistic; I was a hard worker, I'd been with that company for five years which showed loyalty and had gained me a lot of experience in office and people skills. I applied for jobs I wanted and didn't get them so then I started applying for every single job that ever came up, but by this time, that's what everyone was doing and I just kept losing out and being pipped at the post. It was tough. My girlfriend was supporting the both of us but the pressure became too much and after a few months we both had to move back to our respective parents' houses as we couldn't keep up with the rent. The living separation put a strain on our relationship as she discovered that she quite enjoyed living without me and so we broke up. Well, I say we broke up but really she broke my heart and kicked me in the balls and spat in my eye while I was rolling around the alley letting every last shred of dignity leave me. In my imagination, I see me laying in that alley, writhing in pain and clutching my stomach and balls and moaning while just being able to see through the spit in my eye, the blurred shape of her walking off in her high stilettos and getting into the car of a guy I knew was new at her office and then the car pulling away and the rain starting.
But the official line is that we broke up. That's what we tell people.

I hate her.

So, there was I; nursing my wounds and with no job, back at my parents' and unable to find work anywhere, when one day my mother knocked on my bedroom door. My bedroom still had stars on the ceiling and posters of my favourite Firemen players from back when I was at school. There's a desk in my bedroom, which has been there since my 11th birthday when I wanted to be a sports journalist, and it's built for a child. When my mother entered that day after the knock on the door, I was sitting at that desk writing a hate poem for my ex girlfriend while listening to a really bad punk band I was really into at school. When I think of myself in that moment: a grown man in that room, it makes me want to punch myself in the face.

Anyway, my mother came into my room and told me that she'd just been down the doctor's surgery and seen an old neighbour of ours' son, Matthew, who was all grown up now and that he had said that he had just gotten a new job that was starting next week and that his old job would be coming up. She suggested I should get in there before they advertised the job and I agreed.

The company was a security company, that's what Matthew had told my mother and what she told me anyway. It was office stuff; admin mainly. To be honest at that point I didn't care what it was, but it actually seemed really decent in way of what I could be good for. I called the number that was scribbled on the back of a 'So You're Worried About An Autoimmune Disease?' pamphlet and asked to speak to the boss. I explained that I was a close friend (lie) of his old employee and I pushed myself on him so that he agreed to having a meeting with me that very afternoon.

In my best office attire and clean shaven employ-me-face I rang the top buzzer at 45 Cork Street and, on hearing the click, walked through that heavy door and up the stairs to the very top floor. I was greeted by a young lady I would have ordinarily considered very attractive if she didn't look so much like my sister, at the reception desk.
"Ah, Mr Jennings. Please take a seat. Mr Petersen will see you in just a few minutes."
I thanked her and took a seat in the empty reception area. On the walls I saw frames containing black and white images of what appeared to be local landscape aerial photographs. They was something a bit odd about them, like they were taken with a fish-eye lens but I couldn't be sure. I noticed one was of the Fishermen grounds and draped over it was a Fishermen's blue and yellow striped scarf.
"Mr Jennings" said my frustratingly cleavage-blessed sister. "Mr Petersen will see you now." and she gestured toward a frosted glass door which bore no name or logo.
"Thanks" I said trying my hardest to look at her face.

Upon entering Mr Petersen's office, I was a little taken aback to find that he was smoking at his desk. The smoking ban had been in place for years and it just seemed so peculiar to see someone in a workplace, in an office smoking! It threw me immediately near to the point of losing my manners in distraction.
I remembered myself and shook his hand, beaming. He was tall, skinny, blond hair, not as old as I had imagined him to be from our phone call. He had high cheek bones and wore a very tight fitting drainpipe suit. He was quite something to look at, but whether this was just because he wasn't what I expected I couldn't be sure. Everything about him had thrown me off guard.

"Mr Jennings! Leo Jennings! Please. My friend, take a seat." He smiled and took another deep, long drag off his cigarette. "Smoke?" and offered me a packet of soft top foreign cigarettes. I hadn't smoked in years, since I had started going out with The Bitch in fact, and seeing those foreign cigarettes that felt like lazy summer holidays with friends in Europe; outside bars, sangria, warm nights, girls...
"Thanks" I said and took a long, white filter-tipped cigarette from him. He held up a lighter decorated with the Danish flag and I started to relax and took in the first drag of my first cigarette in three years and seven months. I leaned back a little and he smiled at me and I smiled back.

"So." he said, "You know Matthew?" I nodded. "He's a good man." I was about to nod again when I sensed the tone and took a punt on a sudden hunch I felt and tilted my head and sort of grimaced ever so slightly." Mr Petersen nodded. "I know." he said. "I know." Then he smiled at me even more. His teeth were so perfect and white and straight. He put out his cigarette out and leaned forward.

"I know you know this isn't just an office job. I know you know why Matthew had to leave and I know you know that I know you know. I am impressed by your discretion and opacity. I am impressed that you knew the drill with the cigarettes."
I was completely overwhelmed and had absolutely no idea what he was talking about but all I knew is that I needed a job and he was about to offer me one. I just needed to hold it together for a few more minutes. I put my cigarette out too and smiled at him across the desk.
"Well. You need not worry about me, Mr Petersen. I am VERY discreet." And then I winked.
He started laughing, "ahh Leo" he said in between giggles "I like you. You will do very nicely. But there's one last thing I need to know." and he leaned forward, so I did too. Our heads were but centimetres apart. He looked me straight in the eye and said
"Which team?"
and without blinking, but having a flash of that image of me sitting in my room earlier that morning listening to bad youth punk and writing hate poetry to my ex at a desk for an eleven year old in a room full of stars on the ceiling and my childhood favourite Firemen posters I said
"Why, Fishermen of course."
Mr Petersen leaned right back on his chair laughing loudly and banging his fist on the table.
"I knew it!!" He was still laughing and rocking back and forth on his chair. "I knew it! I'll see you here Monday morning ten thirty am. Oh don't worry, it's not like we don't work you late to make up for it! April will tell you all you need to know outside, but if you'll excuse me for now I have a telephone call to make."
I couldn't believe it. I had a job!
"Thank you, Mr Petersen. You won't regret it, I promise!" I shook his hand enthusiastically and almost waltzed out of the door right into April, my horribly sexy sister.

"Well, well" she smiled. Her lips were stained red like raspberry puree. I love raspberry puree. Inwardly I groaned, cursing my actual sister.
She went through my pay (30% more than my salary at the Removals place!), showed me where I'd be working, what my log in was, where the tea and coffee was and when she showed me where the paper for the printer was kept, bending over to the bottom drawer, I had to look away.

Karmaic By Nature - For Jessie

Karmaic By Nature
he said
in a way that suggested
he didn't know what he was saying.
Karmaic by Nature?
I asked.
He
looked
down
and said that when he was
tall
he used to look down
all the time at people.
and what about now?
I asked
now that you have been shrunk to the size of
a flea
by your time machine that went wrong again?
he sighed
Well, that's just it
he said
I still look down, but now I look down so that people won't see
my hideous
human
face
on the body of
a flea.

The Last Time I Saw John

The last time I saw John in real life was at his dad’s farm. We were asked to look after it while his dad and step-mum went on their annual holiday. We didn’t know shit about running a farm, but somehow we managed to blunder through. It was early autumn and nice enough weather to want to spend hours in a field trying to catch a sheep that had a poorly leg; or to bomb around the farm on the quad, trying to count the cows. We miscounted them every single time, and so drastically that we didn’t even notice that two calves had been born under our jurisdiction. On an evening, John would hand me a garden fork and gesture toward the vegetable patch saying “have a look round and see what you fancy for your tea” and then we’d cook giant marrows and cabbages into any sort of dish we could manage. After we’d made sure all the chickens were safely shut up in their pen for the night, we’d settle down with a fine wine from his dad’s cellar and watch cheap horror films. It was easy, really.

Being on the farm was good, hard, honest work. The occasion I mentioned with the sheep was especially interesting as we had to call upon the help of a local farmer, Alastair, who sometimes helped out on this one. He was a dairy farmer and after we had managed to catch the sheep (which was fine by the way, just a little lame) we had a long cup of tea with him and he told us all about the industry and where it’s going and how it had changed and that his dad had been born in the very barn we kept the quad in. (Alastair didn't make too subtle a hints at the fact that he wanted to rent the land on this farm and so was eager to press his emotional attachment to it upon us, hoping the sentiment would seep upwards to John's dad.)He was a really great guy and you felt good just by getting on with him; as if vicariously, you were as wholesome as he was, even if for just a few days.

One day some of our friends, including John’s girlfriend, came to stay at the farm for the night. Earlier that day John had asked me if I wouldn’t mind mowing the lawns and the paddock (of which there was a lot). I think he wanted everything looking shipshape and impressive and he strutted about like a land owner as he opened up the shed to reveal the ride-on mower. I’d never used one before and so leaped at the opportunity. I had great fun trying to make the lines as straight as possible and, I admit, to behaving a little bit over-confident and cavalier at times; making too tight a turns too quickly and knocking down a length of fencing John had only finished a few days before. The fence-blow aside, I was really enjoying mowing. I chugged along singing pop songs that I’d re-purposed for my newfound love of mowing.

The Beatles: - please don’t spoil my day I’m miles away and after all, I’m only mowing. Dum dum dum dum dum.
The Bangles: Am I only dreaming, or am I mowing an eternal lawn...
Kate Bush: Keep mowing up that lawn, keep mowing up that hill, keep mowing round that corner
etc.etc.

When I eventually finished and came inside I was shocked to discover that the others had already arrived; they must have driven up the track right next to the paddock I was mowing and I had not noticed them at all.
“Gosh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise you were all here I would have come and said hello otherwise!
and Vicky said
“It’s OK, we’ve been watching you through the window but John had said ‘leave her’.”
Three and a half hours I’d been mowing and it had passed in a blink.

A few days later we were at the end of our farm fostering term and it was the last afternoon. John was staying on that night to make a clean switch over with his dad and step mum but I was leaving that evening. We’d spent the morning putting up a section of fencing that had been destroyed by Tarragon, the bull, in an attempt to reach a sapling just over the fence that must have looked tastier than anything in his field. He watched us as we worked; snorting and generally stropping about. You often find you can get used to anything after a while; sewerage workers get used to their surroundings and the smell, high-rise builders get used to the precarious positions they are in every day (we’ve all seen the famous photo of a bunch of builders having their lunch on some sort of insanely high piece of scaff.) But anyway, my point being, that no matter how one can usually get used to anything with enough exposure, I never got used to being near Tarragon. I simply didn’t trust him and his little devil eyes.
“He’s a softy” John would say, but that’s just what Tarragon wanted him to say and I knew it.

The rest of the afternoon had been spent shoveling muck off the long track up to the farm. We literally used shovels and a stiff brush and it was hard work on the arms and the back. The air was fresh though and the sun was low in the sky. The Dales glowed gently; green lit through orange.
We got back in and cleaned off our wellies and fed the dogs. John flung himself on the sofa and stretched out, while I put the kettle on and as I was stood there making the tea he started talking about the music business and what artists he especially hated. Even with all that good, honest fresh air inside his lungs, out bellowed this vitriol and hatred so quickly that by the time I was handing him his mug, he was already onto the ‘televised’ part of his plan. I laughed it off of course, and only half-listened while I caught up on my emails and reported in jest back to friends on instant messengers the basic gist of John’s hate-filled pipe dream of what he would like to do with Lady Gaga.

I left the farm in a form of goodbye, as it was truly the end of the summer now, and John was moving back through to university the following week and I was away all the days to follow until then. It was a nice way to spend the end of the summer; on the farm and driving down that track in the setting sun with a snoring dog on the front seat who was exhausted from all the excitement of being a farm dog for a week. It felt like the end of a holiday and the beginning of head-down, work mode which has always pretty much been my favourite sort of seasonal feeling.

It was two months later when I saw John again, but this time it wasn’t in real life. I’d been working in the recording studio all day and then came through to the front room to watch Coronation Street with my dinner on a tray on my knees. My mum, dad and sister were all away so it was just me and the dog and the cat. I was sitting there with a horribly catchy whistling melody ringing around my ears, trying to forget about arrangements and kick drum patterns and just enjoy watching new-mother-Molly trying to get around the fact that Tyrone wasn’t the father and that Kevin, who was the father and Tyrone’s business partner was there at the birth and how his wife, who was clueless to the whole situation helped deliver the thing. It was just what I needed, and there, with my vegetable stew, I sank into my planned evening.

Just as Tyrone was suggesting that heroic baby-deliverer Kevin ought to be the godfather, the picture on the television went a little fuzzy and before I could even reach for the remote to try and fiddle around with the settings, there was John’s face looking right at me, from the screen. I simply couldn’t understand what had happened. Had I accidentally set playing some sort of video recording John and I had made messing around on the farm or something? But it didn’t take long to realise that this was not the case, the video nor DVD player were even turned on, I was watching ITV and ITV was broadcasting John... John on a boat...? Yes, he was on a boat of some sort, at sea it seemed from all the motion, and he was adjusting the camera.

My vegetable stew fell from the tray on my lap onto the floor which the dog was quick to take care of and I sat there in absolute bafflement as to what could possibly be going on. Even though it was the strangest thing in the world, for some reason it also seemed familiar somehow in a way that I couldn’t quite understand or remember. John, who was wearing an orange life jacket and had a weather-beaten face with his cheeks even rosier than normal looked nothing but... angry. His arm reached forward to something on the camera and with a clunk he had turned on the microphone. Wind battering the mic like scrunching up crisp packets and the sound of halyards wildly clanging against a mast. It was now clear that John was on a yacht that was not under sail, merely drifting about in whatever body of water he was in the middle of. Above the wind and the clanging sounds came John’s voice while he stared right down the lens.
“Right. I’m sorry to interrupt, but this just had to be done. It’s just gone too far, so I’ve gone too far to even things out. If you think this is extreme just have a little listen to the top 40 charts. Want to arrest me? I don’t give a shit, I’m saving humanity and what you gonna do anyway? I’m in the middle of the fucking ocean, it will be way too late by the time you find me....” and then the really sinister bit where I suddenly remembered why this was familiar to me:
“Or by the time you find her....” at this point, John leaned forward and took a hold of the camera. He jerked it across the deck and zoomed in then out a little until she was bang in focus. There she was; Lady Gaga, bound and gagged to the pulpit. I clapped my hands to my mouth and watched with wide eyes, utterly incapable of turning away even though I KNEW what was coming next.

So that was the last time I saw John in any form. I watched him on that boat with Lady Gaga, dressed in her finest lead bodice that had crude parrots John had obviously made from the foils of KitKat wrappers hanging off her like a baby’s cot mobile. She was wearing an eye patch made from a patch of astro-turf and she wore thigh-length boots that appeared to be made of thousands of snail shells glued together. The whole ITV-watching nation watched as he made her walk the plank whilst blasting out from some elaborate sound system he had rigged up on the deck, the title track from the Marvin Gaye What’s Going On album. When the splash was made John turned to the camera and said
“Sorry you missed Corrie. In a bitch. Over and out!”
and then the picture went fuzzy and came back on to the end credits and mournful horn theme tune of Coronation Street. My phone started ringing immediately, but I didn’t answer the calls.
I’ll ring them back in a bit, I thought as I went to clean up what the dog had missed of the vegetable stew from the floor. Just before I went to fetch the floor cloth and stain remover though I headed for the CD player, and took out What’s Going On.
He’s got a point, I thought as I turned up the volume.

Cat Flap

"Coping with a cat, when you live in a flat
can be hard" said Faye who had been trying to stay out of Evan and Daniel's big argument.
Dan gave a snort "Well you can't talk! You live in a 9th floor apartment!"
"Dogs are different, they're patient, obedient! Dealing with dogs is much easier!"
Evan came in
"Oh don't you begin, going on and on about dogs again!
We want a cat. A cat, and that's that! Tis only the colour we cannot agree on!"

Faye started to pout as she sat drinking her stout in the pub that they always came into. She was only saying, that's all - just saying! Well, really! She was growing quite tired of those two:

"I saw a white one, a cat I mean, in the snow one winter some years ago. It had bright green eyes which came as some surprise as his eyes were all I could see of him!"

"Well I saw this black, giant big cat round the back of the garden last October. It was Halloween and I'd just been to a party and was in no way sober. This cat just seemed to shine and gleam with his glossy black coat he was purring and ever since that, I've wanted a cat as black as the sky when midnight's occurring."

Stirring her foot on the floor, Faye became sure that in both of their points lay the answer.
"I've got it! I know it! Now listen, okay? You two listen to what I'm going to say: the colour of the cat that's not white nor black is very simply GREY!"