Scene: The Rovers Return. The Snug. Sometime in the run up to Christmas 1967.
Minnie: Eeeeew, Ena, do wind up your face. I’ve never sin thee looking so mardy in a long while.
Ena: I’ll have you know Minnie Caldwell, I’ve got good reason to be mardy. I’ve been fingered by the Vicar.
Minnie: Whatever for Ena? What on earth has he said?
Ena: Remember those Christmas Hampers we got from Albert Snodgrass on Inkerman Steet? Well, somebody has been through them and taken all the tins and the Dundee cake Family Size Slices. They were there last Tuesday because I checked them, but somebody has been in and the Vicar thinks it’s me.
Martha: Well Ena, I have to say………
Ena: I’ll bid you keep your mouth shut Martha Longhurst and whatever perverted thoughts you might be entertaining in that addled brain of yours……..
Martha: I was just going to say Ena……..
Minnie: I think you’d better shut up Martha. Ena’s never been fingered in her life. It’s not a happy experience for a woman of her years. Anyhow, Ena, on another matter, have you sold any tickets yet for the LGBTQ Christmas dinner?
Ena: I have not Minnie Caldwell, and I will not be selling any either. If you think I’m going to be party to men dressing up as women and women dressing up as men and parading their sordid wares up and down the Vestry Corridor you’ve got another think coming.
Minnie: Well I’ve sold two books of raffle tickets already. And I’ve volunteered to be on tea duty from two…….
Ena: You always were a sucker from a pretty boy Minnie Caldwell.
Martha: She’s always been a sucker for anything in trousers. Problem is, it’ll be the women whose in the trousers…………(Titters to self, holding dentures in for safety).
Minnie: Ena, have you ever met a homosexual?
Ena: If I had met a homosexuaaaaaaaal, do you think I’d want to tell you? I don’t need to meet one, I can smell one at two hundred imperial yards. They have a smell about them.
Minnie: I’ve never met a homosexual. I don’t even know what one looks like, never mind the smell. I think my nephew might be one. He goes to Morocco with his friend. They’ve been friends for five years now. I think they’re close.
Ena: There’s nothing I want to know about your nephew and his visits to Sodom and Gomorrah, Minnie Caldwell. And I’ve paid good money for this milk stout so I’d be obliged if you’d keep it to yourself.
Martha: Seems we ‘ave a lot we ‘ave to keep to ourselves these days.
Minnie: Anyway Ena, I don’t think they’ll be having the Christmas Dinner in the Church Hall this year. I heard the Vicar telling Mrs Evans that we’re housing twenty foreign children this year. They’re coming by bus from the Home Office.
Ena: “Suffer little children to come unto me.” I suppose the fingering cleric will be preaching that to us next Sunday. Well, he’ll be left in no doubt that if a single one of those dayglo’s sets foot in my broom cupboard it’ll be the starting whistle for World War Three. (bangs table)
Marth: I think some of them have already arrived. I was talking to Mrs Jefferies from Sebastopol Terrace. We can see each other from box room window. She was hanging out her husband’s smalls; they’re not very small and I think he has a problem with his digestion. He was gassed you know………………
Ena: For crying out loud, if I expire before you’ve finished Martha Longhurst just sing Abide with Me and ……………….
Martha: As I was saying before I was so rudely contra-rupted, Mrs Jefferies says there’s a bus load of them already landed. Apparently, and this is top secret, the police came to see her yesterday. She’s been flashed.
Minnie and Ena with one voice: Flashed?
Martha: Flashed. She was making her way back from t’corner shop with two ounces of best ham and a small Hovis when she saw the biggest rat run out of the ginnel. She said it were like a rabbit. Anyway, as she passed the end of t’ginnel she saw something in the shadow. “Who is it?” she said? “Who goes there, friend or foe?” Her ‘usband was in civil defence during the war.
Ena: If you don’t get a speed on Martha Longhurst you’ll exit this world with my thumbprints on your epiglottis!
Martha: Flash. Shazzam There it was. Large as life. Like a baby’s arm holding an apple. The biggest one she’d ever seen, and only ten years old. She said it were like her husband’s thigh muscle, but nothing like as wrinkly.
Silence.
More silence.
Minnie: I must away. I’ve got a ravenous pussy at home that needs feedin’. Night Ena. Night Martha.
© Judas was Paid 2021
