the raised house pt.1

I sat dismally regarding my face in the kettle, sighing at the lack of growth above my lip, just as the dull thud of my father, Garth Pagg, was to be heard rousing himself for a day at the bogs.
"Hello father," i quacked as he descended, dressed head to toe in faded denim. I had placed a copy of my life's work, Coltrane Timetable, a long-winded and largely inaccurate history of Robbie Coltrane's career. "Father may I be the first to say that you appear incurably camp in this garb I see before me!"
Father merely grunted, and began sniffing the skimmed. "A bit iffy if you ask me," he murmered.
"Well I suppose it is cow's urine," i reasoned, leaning back in my chair casually.
"Eddie Spatch said he saw you on his wall the other night," he said, squeezing himself into a chair opposite. Eddie Spatch! What was this cretin saying now about me?
"How does he know it was me?" i scoffed.
"He said a clean-shaven lad of twenty-three, wearing that silly film crew jacket of yours.
Silly jacket? I presume he was referring to my "cast and crew only" jacket that i had woven myself in the attic, two winters ago.
"Anyway, it couldn't have been me, I am not clean-shaven!" I thundered, referring to the continuing work-in-progress that was my moustache.
"He said the lad in question was swaying about with a bottle of sherry, shouting something like 'Satanists Unite'."
"Ah that," i grimaced, rolling the words around in my mouth like an unpleasant boiled sweet, as if to say, 'you have me there, father, I shan't protest any longer.'
After a lenthy pause, where we both sipped our tea pensively, I came out and asked it straight.
"Do you have five pounds I could borrow please?"
"What for?" he snapped back, a challenging smirk appearing on his weather-beaten exterior.
"Luncheon."
"Why don't you take yer own sandwiches in like I do?"
"There are a lot of things that you do father which fall short of my targets. And those grotty little sandwiches you insist on escorting across town every morning are indeed one of them. There is a man called Flathead who owns an Internet Cafe, that provides egg and chips and two pounds fifty, and that is how I choose to replenish my body's energy resource at one p.m."
"Well what's the other two-fifty for?" he sneered, reaching into his backside pocket."
"Internet access," I replied matter-of-factly.
And with that I was gone, out into the hall, sniggering. Out into the rain-soaked street. I felt deliciously devious, for Flathead, as I know only too well, had no internet to speak of! And the only spam being deleted was if a particularly misguided builder chose to partake in what was know as "Flathead's Cold Platter."
(to be continued......)