Monday 19 December 2011

Scene 22: June (Evil Under the Sun)

A telephone call.

Rochester:  You OK petal?

Miss U: (haughtily, think Penelope Keith crossed with Patricia Routledge) WHO IS THIS?

Rochester: Aye, I know.  Don't get uppity.  Keep your pants on.  I know I've been rather quiet of late. I've got a good reason though flower.

Miss U: (yawning theatrically, think Larry Olivier crossed with John Gielgud)  Really?  Do tell . . . who have you impregnated this time, fanny rat?

Rochester:  No one.  Not that I know of anyway.  No.  I've just got back from my holidays pet.  I've been in . . . drumroll. . . Mauritius!

Miss U: (incredulously) Where?

Rochester:  Aye.  All paid for.  It was my prize for being the South West's most tenacious door to door peg salesman.  I was awarded it at the Peg Oscars.  Holiday for two.  Back of the net.

Miss U: (wearily) Oh Rochester, I am not sure I even want to hear about this.  You know, it's bad enough that you earn four times my salary, but you're showered with glittering prizes like i-pads, cases of champagne and holidays in tropical paradises as well. It truly is too much for this impoverished public servant to bear.

Rochester:  Christ you're so fucking selfish. Get over yourself!  Howay flower, can't you just be happy for me?  If there was a Pulitzer Prize for pegs, I would fucking win it you know.

Miss U:  If there was a Pulitzer Prize for overbearing hubris then you'd certainly win that.  But, you know Rochester, I really don't want to hear about you frolicking in the waves with your glowingly pregnant wife.  Shall we move on to a more comfortable topic.  Shall we discuss lesbianism?  Or smoked mackerel pate?

Rochester:  You know what, the holiday wasn't what you think.  It was, in many ways, THE SEVENTH CIRCLE OF CUNTING HELL.  You know me, I'd have preferred a solitary week walking on the moors in the drizzle.

Miss U:  Aww, in a chunky knit?

Rochester:  Aye. In a chunky knit. And for your information Miss Underscore, I didn't go with the missus.

Miss U:  Oh dear God.  Is there a girlfriend?  There is isn't there?

Rochester:  Nah. I went with me brother in law.  Don't ask why, I'd rather not discuss logistics. Also, what they don't tell you about these island paradises is THERE IS FUCK ALL TO DO THERE.

Miss U:  I wouldn't know.  The closest I've ever been to a tropical beach experience is eating a battered pineapple ring from a Scarborough chip shop in 1983.

Rochester:  And we were surrounded by cunting honeymooners.  Waifish lasses in string bikinis canoodling with limp, bookish James Blunt twats in three quarter length trousers.  Walking hand in hand on the beach at sunset. Sipping cocktails from coconut shells.   CUNTING ARSEHOLES. They boiled my piss.  But that wasn't the worst part.

Miss U: (fascinated) Go on

Rochester:  You knaa, when you're a UPVC Messiah they don't just award you a free holiday.  Oh no. That would be too easy.  They give the same holiday to twenty other salesmen too.  There was a whole posse of double glazing salemen on the island. Nah, it wasn't a posse. There must be a better collective noun.  There was a TEDIUM of double glazing salesmen on the island.  There were fucking conferences and seminars laid on for us and everything.  We had to sit through workshops about weatherproofing conservatories.  Can you believe that?  And all these other salesmen,  they were all cunting cockneys.   Every one of 'em. There I was, in the middle of a tropical island, surrounded by loved-up newlyweds and a 20, drunken Sid James cockney cunts crowing about their best sales and how criminal it was that we're not allowed to forge signatures on contracts any more.  Oh, and I'm there WITH MY FUCKING BROTHER IN LAW, so any indiscretion of any kind would be immediately called in to the missus. Jesus Christ.  Two days in and I was wishing I'd won the runner up prize instead.

Miss U: What was the runner up prize?

Rochester:  A gift voucher for Tie Rack and a year's supply of viagra I think.

Miss U:  So, let me get this straight.  You were in one of the most romantic places on earth, surrounded by cockney salesmen.

Rochester: Aye.   

Miss U: And AT NO POINT were you frolicking in the surf with a voluptuous Ursula Andress sort?

Rochester:  Nope.  Tragically not.  There was no frolicking of any kind.  The holiday was devoid of frolicking.  It was entirely frolick-free.  I did walk along the shore with Trevor from the Slough office.  He does have quite big knockers mind.  Does that count? We were discussing fascias. 

Miss U: "And behold I saw a pale horse, and he that sat upon him was named Trevor from the Slough office." No. That doesn't count.  I'll let you have your tender moment with Trevor. (brightly)  I am feeling better about this holiday, you know.  I approve after all.   Good for you Rochester!  You deserved it!

Rochester: (sorrowfully)  I was pissed by lunchtime every day.  A week of twatting tropical fruit baskets for breakfast.  I would have killed for a fried egg sandwich.  Or a bit of marmite on toast.  Fruit for breakfast.  Fuckwits.  What kind of deviant eats fruit for breakfast? 

Miss U: What on earth did you wear? Did you wear your Edwardian funeral director's overcoat on the beach?

Rochester: I should have done. It was a week-long funeral for the soul. Hey, by the way, have I told you, I always wear that overcoat when I am doing my stand-up?  That overcoat has become my trademark.

Miss U:  Stand-up?  I thought you were performing poetry?

Rochester:  Aye well, it is poetry.  But, I do it standing up like.  Anyway flower, that overcoat is becoming iconic.  

Miss U: Like Rigsby's cardigan?  Bobby Thompson's flat cap?

Rochester:  Aye,  like Tommy Cooper's fez.  

Miss U:  Like Fred West's acrylic jumper?  

Rochester: EXACTLY.  Just like Fred West's acrylic jumper.  Iconic. (pause)  Mauritius was not good flower.  I am deeply serious.  I think I'd have rather spent a week in a tawdry Scarborough guest house, rolling around with you and your white cotton knickers on a stained candlewick bedspread.   Especially if there were pineapple fritters involved.  

Miss U:  That's encouraging to hear. Oh Rochester,  I am COCK A HOOP that the whole adventure was chaperoned by your brother in law.  That was a stroke of genius from Mrs Rochester, I presume.

Rochester:  Aye, trappist monks have experienced more debauchery.  Anyway, I returned home and checked out your blog.  Your screenplay flower. 'Parma Violet Tea The Movie'. I notice you've moved on from the tragi-comedy of your dates with my brother,  and you are now documenting 'us'.

Miss U:  And?  Are you enjoying our scenes?

Rochester: I amI am fucked if anyone I know reads it.  You do realise that?

Miss U:  What are the chances of that happening Rochester?  No one reads my blog.

Rochester:  I LOVED your depiction of Senor Boldon .  You captured my brother's crippling social anxiety and misanthropy perfectly.  That did make me laugh.  I'm glad you've got a strong  Church of England streak and the movie's all PG rated.  I don't think I could have handled a scene with him bearing down on you mind. Christ.

Miss U:  Oh heavens.  I couldn't write a sex scene.  I tried.  I just couldn't do it. What about our scenes?  You and me?  How are they playing out, do you think?

Rochester:  You know flower, you've actually made me cry on a couple of occasions.  Honestly.

Miss U:  Fury?

Rochester:  Nah, not that.  Just how it was, when we met.  Boo.  The North Sea.  How much we liked each other.  How it was all fucked, before we even started, by circumstance.  Aye. Something like that pet.

Miss U:  Hmmm.

Rochester:  If I came up North, would you see me petal? I'd like to see you, you know.

Miss U:  Only if you're chaperoned by your brother in law Rochester.  Only then. 

9 comments:

  1. Mauritius?

    The bastard was bored in Mauritius?

    I'm speechless.

    The subtext in the latter part was heartbreaking.
    Unrequited Love.
    Differences in social standing.
    Family.

    I'm so sorry.

    I keep on hoping for a happy ending, but I don't see one eventuating.

    Go out and buy thyself a lovely big Parkin and have a good hot cup of sweet tea.

    Then get pissed.

    Worked for me.


    PS Thanks for posting again. I don't know if my emotionally strung nervous system can suffer much more.

    Bless, Pet.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm so pleased you haven't abandoned writing this as I keep hoping for a happy ending (eternal romantic that I am). He doesn't deserve you but I, for one, and for purely selfish reasons, am glad he's in your life. Sort of.

    Have a lovely christmas, flower.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love this blog, but I really don't want a happy ending. I want you to DUMP Mr Rochester BIG TIME!!! Sorry, that's not very Brontë like in its phrasing, but really, CB's hang up on the unkind-but-lovable-really hero is to blame for wasted real lives.

    Dump him painfully and terminally.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh happy day! You are back. I love the school holiers.

    This is great writing. More?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ah - the Christmas Special!

    I can't see this ending well either - an off again on again cycle seems to be emerging.

    Happy Christmas Miss Underscore!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thank Baby Christ - you're back!

    More! MORE!

    (Also: I want to read Redbookish's blog...)

    ReplyDelete
  7. All hail to our new protagonist: The Brother-in-Law!

    There is no happy ending to this story, he is such a pathetic waste of noise and nothingness.

    Happy Christmas, Miss Underscore! May 2012 bring you a Rochester worthy of his fictional predecessor.

    Louise XXX

    ReplyDelete
  8. Brilliant! Glad to have had a PVT blog update - an early Christmas present!

    ReplyDelete
  9. How in the name of the sweet baby Jesus did I miss this in December? Wonderfully written as usual -always a bittersweet pleasure

    ReplyDelete