Sweet Read Free Page A

kings?’ he spat, barring my way with his dinky foot.
    ‘The . . . queen of . . . clubs?’ I answered weakly, thinking it was some sort of gay game.
    ‘No, Marie!’
    ‘Maria,’ I pointed out reasonably. ‘Ave-Maria Sweet, on the dotted line, but you can call me Sugar.’
    ‘Really? Well, TARDY is what I call you.’
    ‘Steady on!’ I protested. He didn’t know nothing about my sex life!
    ‘Yes, tardy! That means LATE, in case you’re not familiar with the word!’ He held out his wrist to me, showing me a crap Barbie watch that even the Teat Twins would have chucked in the bin. ‘What time do you call THIS!’
    I peered at it. ‘Um . . . three minutes past nine?’
    ‘EXACTLY! And those three minutes are minutes I will never, ever be able to get back again. And THAT, Marie, is why punctuality is the courtesy of kings! Because to a CREATIVE person, every minute is a monarch! A monarch which you have seen fit to behead, three times over, with the casual weapon of your tardiness!’ I must’ve looked the way I felt, totally amazed and confused, because he then threw in, ‘ Comprendez ?’
    Oh, I GOT that. ‘“Understand” – right?’
    You’d have thought I’d accused him of intercourse, the way he reacted – drew himself up to his full four foot nothing and stamped his stunted flipper like a crazy thing. ‘YES! – UNDERSTAND!’ He grabbed me by my arm but it wasn’t in a loving caring way like I’d planned, taking the duster from my hand and making me the official Baggy-Aggy muse. Instead, with a brute force worthy of any Ravendene wife-beating bully, he seized my wrist and dragged me into the house, slamming the door behind me. ‘Understand, Marie, that you are here to facilitate OUR creation! And that we are NOT here to facilitate your recreation, or your PROCREATION, or any of the other AYSHUNS that YOUR PEOPLE use as an excuse to waste OTHER PEOPLE’S time and spoil OTHER PEOPLE’S lives!’
    You could have knocked me down with a Fetherlite; what did THREE FUCKING MINUTES matter in the grand scheme of things, or even in the skanky schedule of a couple of woofters? ‘Hang about, mate – chill out—’
    ‘I AM “chilled”, “mate”!’ Baggy hissed. ‘I am so chilled, you could shake a perfect Martini in my skull!’ He held out one of those dirty great checked plastic laundry bags – and somehow I just knew it wasn’t packed with sumptuous swatches of velvets and satins, and rough-cut patterns just itching to be fitted on my nubile young body, and accessories which I’d be allowed to take home if I really, REALLY liked at the end of long day’s musing. Nope – because they didn’t smell of ammonia, disinfectant and beeswax, to my knowledge. ‘And this, love-bucket – this is all yours. Why don’t you give it a twirl? And when you’ve got every surface in the place so shiny that you can see your pretty face in it, then YOU can chill too. It should only take, ooh, six hours! Ciao!’
    And with that the front door slammed and I was alone in my tragic kingdom, with my mop sceptre and scrunchy crown. So of course I did what anyone would have done faced with such indignity – I sat down on the sofa, turned on the telly, found Trisha and lit up a spliff. Worker’s playtime!

 
    3
    ‘One day I was walking to Asda, just chillin’ in the sun
    When suddenly it struck me, swearing big-time would be fun!
    In the underpass, I shouted, “Ass!” and who should I see
    But a slick little chick giving it a go, shouting, “Ho!” right back at me!
    Then a third girl, called Rajinder, from the Paki shop—’
    I’d had enough. It was only eight in the morning, Saturday, and being woken up by the little bastards after two weeks of toil and torment at the hands of Aggy and Baggy was bad enough, but now they were being racist too – well, Kimmy had told me how bad that was, judging by appearances, and I could see it now, the vile ginger twats. I dragged myself out of my pit, opened my