"Tall Thin Tales - chapter one"

Tall, Thin Tales

Chapter One

   
  

 
   

Wishing-glass and breathing in petrol

The shop can be found in a village about five
minutes walk from the sea. The village is quiet and the people there
don't tend to mix with the folks who live in the big
towns.

There are all sorts of smaller, feebler
villages nearby, whose residents come into Halfway to do their shopping
and to visit the beach, which is rather pleasant and has its own
charms.

The sea there is mostly grey and frothed, and
is fringed by dunes with fine soft sand. These dunes are called the
Glasswishing dunes, because this is where the locals bury their
Cokebottle wishes. They write their wishes on paper. The paper is then
rolled up tight and secured with a lock of hair and dropped into the
bottle, which should be buried in sand up to the shoulder of the
bottle. It is frowned on to read the Cokebottle wishes of another, and
tradition has it that if you do, you must devote at least an hour a
week to trying to make that wish come true. Some say that this isn't
even a tradition, but a curse. So most folk leave those bottles well
alone. 

There's nobody in the village who remembers the
tall thin shop opening, or who remembers there being a time when it
wasn't open. Not even Mac, who used to work out on the lighthouse and
only came ashore twice a year and was sensitive to everything. Mac has
gone mad from loneliness and out the other side, but he still washes
his hands in petrol twice each day and says that he can smell the
future. 

When Mac comes by, everyone stubs out their
cigarettes, just in case.

Jokestick makes a point of wiping Mac's hands
down with a rag before he will pass Mac a cornet or lolly, and each
night, he wrings out this rag into an olive-green jerry can, and from
this, he fuels his motorcycle. He never stops at the garage in the
village, which is actually just a petrol pump in the town square next
to the tall clock and the war memorial with the superfluous mermaid.
Jokestick always just says, "I'm off to fill the bike with Mac's
handshake"

Nobody ever laughs.

If anyone in the village could be said to be
mean, or particularly meaner than certain others, it'd be Jokestick. He
runs the ice-cream kiosk near the beach. From this kiosk, he also sells
glass bottles of Coke, for the locals, and hair. It is alright for any
girls who want to make wishes, they have hair of their own; but for
short-haired boys or the bald, they need to buy their hair to secure
their wishes tightly. Jokestick collects long strands of hair from
Kellie, who works in Streaks the hairsalon  and he pops just
enough into those transparent bags the bank will give you for putting
coins into.

His father, Frank, used to give the hair away
for free, but he was buried alive five years ago now, and can't stand
the confined space of the kiosk, so spends all day standing in his
garden with his arms outstretched, even if it rains. He can't even go
in his beloved greenhouse to look at the swollen marrows he used to
adore so much.

Why, Jokestick even tried to switch from glass
bottles to plastic, saying that the profit margins were better; but
there was an outcry and the kiosk might have got a little bit tipped
over owing to a mixture of exuberance, childhood memories and Bateman's
Summer Swallow.

The tall, thin shop then.

As has been said, nobody remembers it arriving,
or there ever being a time when it wasn't there.

From the outside, it is just a doorway. A white
door, with four neat glass panels cut into it. The door opens outwards,
as it would have to. The sign above the door reads, in neat navy blue
curly letters "Spaghe"

The tall, thin shop is only as wide as the door itself. Just a little
wider, as we need to take into account the doorframe and hinges, but
that really is it. If you are inside and look directly back at the door
you came in through, there is nothing but door. Not even the tiniest
line of paint.

It would have been possible, even given the limited space,
to have put the full name of the shop above the door, by the simple
expedient of using smaller letters, but perhaps they were striving to
make a point.

The shop is so narrow that only one
person at a time ought to come in. If a local enters and there is
someone already there, being served or making their selection, the
local will back out and wait outside for their opportunity. You have to
back out, because there's not enough room to turn around, unless you
are quite nimble. You have to keep your elbows tucked in.

One of the shopkeepers, Lafferty or
Keeler, will direct you as you walk out backwards, "Just a few more
steps, that's it, nearly there"

The shop is quite long, and the ceiling
seems higher than you would expect it to be. Higher than seems
possible, when you get back outside and look at the black gabled roof,
with the laundrette on one side and the "Halfhearted Off-licence" on
the other.

Lafferty and Keeler are not friends, nor lovers, nor family. Neither of
them will work in the shop at the same time as the other. It is too
narrow, for one thing, but there are other reasons too.

On a Wednesday afternoon, at around
2.28pm, Lafferty will finish her work and close up. She will come out
of the shop, the staff being the only people who come out of the shop
facing forwards, since they have to go in backwards and rely on their
knowledge of the layout and counting steps. She will lock the shop door
and leave the key in a terracotta pot by the basil garden.

Everyone knows that she leaves the key
there, but nobody at Halfway would dream of taking advantage of this.
It is not that they are fairminded, more that there's nothing in the
shop worth stealing.

Keeler, thin, pale and nervous then
opens the shop up again at around 3.12pm and Lafferty won't be seen
again while Monday morning, when her circuit begins anew.  (In
case you're wondering, the people of Halfway say 'while' where most
would say 'until')

The shop only sells one thing and it is
doubtful whether they make a living at it at all. It sells spaghetti.
Good spaghetti. It comes in two varieties, fresh or dried, and every
week, they order the fresh pasta from another part of Italy. They don't
hold with flavoured or coloured spaghetti, saying that just like with
wine, the true aficionado can taste the difference between spaghetti
made by different pasta-experts. The accent is in the flour, the eggs,
the way the relevant hens have been fed, whether the antiqued
pasta-machine has been smoothed with virgin olive oil to make it flow
smoothly, or whether with a little truffle oil.

They each have their own methods.
Lafferty will ask the customer how many strands they want and will
count them out precisely, before bagging them up in a long thin paper
bag, about the dimensions of a baguette (or what locals still persist
in calling 'a French stick'.)

Keeler just asks how many people they
are cooking for and "fresh or dry?" and then grabs them handfuls from
the tall thin glass jars. The transaction is over much quicker with
Keeler, but there is less banter.

Some people, notably the woman named
Elaine (who serves in the Co-op and drinks gin when the store is quiet
and never, never sells any packet spaghetti) wonder how the tall thin
shop can possibly make any money. The Co-op sells packet spaghetti for
twenty four pence. Even if everyone in the village came in and bought a
packet of spaghetti every day, and if the Co-op kept all the money not
just the profit, that would produce less than two hundred and fifty
pounds a week, or just over twelve thousand pounds a year. And that was
to be shared between two workers? And pay all the rent?

Elaine had not been in the tall thin
shop often, which was a relief to Lafferty and Keeler, because her
perfumed juniper breath was a burden in such a confined narrow space,
whereas in the strip-lighted expanses of the Co-op, it was not such an
issue. Nevertheless, Elaine knew that their spaghetti was competitively
priced and that made the whole thing that much more vexing for her. As
she picked up different item after different item, she would speculate
about how much simpler her life would be if she only had to handle one
product. Perhaps prostitution was an answer?

   O  O  O

Wishing-glass and breathing in petrol

The shop can be found in a village about five minutes
walk from the sea. The village is quiet and the people there don't tend
to mix with the folks who live in the big towns.

There are all sorts of smaller, feebler villages
nearby, whose residents come into Halfway to do their shopping and to
visit the beach, which is rather pleasant and has its own charms.

The sea there is mostly grey and frothed, and is
fringed by dunes with fine soft sand. These dunes are called the
Glasswishing dunes, because this is where the locals bury their
Cokebottle wishes. They write their wishes on paper. The paper is then
rolled up tight and secured with a lock of hair and dropped into the
bottle, which should be buried in sand up to the shoulder of the
bottle. It is frowned on to read the Cokebottle wishes of another, and
tradition has it that if you do, you must devote at least an hour a
week to trying to make that wish come true. Some say that this isn't
even a tradition, but a curse. So most folk leave those bottles well
alone. 

There's nobody in the village who remembers the tall
thin shop opening, or who remembers there being a time when it wasn't
open. Not even Mac, who used to work out on the lighthouse and only
came ashore twice a year and was sensitive to everything. Mac has gone
mad from loneliness and out the other side, but he still washes his
hands in petrol twice each day and says that he can smell the
future. 

When Mac comes by, everyone stubs out their cigarettes,
just in case.

Jokestick makes a point of wiping Mac's hands down with
a rag before he will pass Mac a cornet or lolly, and each night, he
wrings out this rag into an olive-green jerry can, and from this, he
fuels his motorcycle. He never stops at the garage in the village,
which is actually just a petrol pump in the town square next to the
tall clock and the war memorial with the superfluous mermaid. Jokestick
always just says, "I'm off to fill the bike with Mac's handshake"

Nobody ever laughs.

If anyone in the village could be said to be mean, or
particularly meaner than certain others, it'd be Jokestick. He runs the
ice-cream kiosk near the beach. From this kiosk, he also sells glass
bottles of Coke, for the locals, and hair. It is alright for any girls
who want to make wishes, they have hair of their own; but for
short-haired boys or the bald, they need to buy their hair to secure
their wishes tightly. Jokestick collects long strands of hair from
Kellie, who works in Streaks the hairsalon  and he pops just
enough into those transparent bags the bank will give you for putting
coins into.

His father, Frank, used to give the hair away for free,
but he was buried alive five years ago now, and can't stand the
confined space of the kiosk, so spends all day standing in his garden
with his arms outstretched, even if it rains. He can't even go in his
beloved greenhouse to look at the swollen marrows he used to adore so
much.

Why, Jokestick even tried to switch from glass bottles
to plastic, saying that the profit margins were better; but there was
an outcry and the kiosk might have got a little bit tipped over owing
to a mixture of exuberance, childhood memories and Bateman's Summer
Swallow.

The tall, thin shop then.

As has been said, nobody remembers it arriving, or
there ever being a time when it wasn't there.

From the outside, it is just a doorway. A white door,
with four neat glass panels cut into it. The door opens outwards, as it
would have to. The sign above the door reads, in neat navy blue curly
letters "Spaghe"

The tall, thin shop is only as wide as the door itself. Just a little
wider, as we need to take into account the doorframe and hinges, but
that really is it. If you are inside and look directly back at the door
you came in through, there is nothing but door. Not even the tiniest
line of paint.

It would have been possible, even given the limited space, to have
put the full name of the shop above the door, by the simple expedient
of using smaller letters, but perhaps they were striving to make a
point.

The shop is so narrow that only one person at a
time ought to come in. If a local enters and there is someone already
there, being served or making their selection, the local will back out
and wait outside for their opportunity. You have to back out, because
there's not enough room to turn around, unless you are quite nimble.
You have to keep your elbows tucked in.

One of the shopkeepers, Lafferty or Keeler,
will direct you as you walk out backwards, "Just a few more steps,
that's it, nearly there"

The shop is quite long, and the ceiling seems
higher than you would expect it to be. Higher than seems possible, when
you get back outside and look at the black gabled roof, with the
laundrette on one side and the "Halfhearted Off-licence" on the
other.

Lafferty and Keeler are not friends, nor lovers, nor family. Neither of
them will work in the shop at the same time as the other. It is too
narrow, for one thing, but there are other reasons too.

On a Wednesday afternoon, at around 2.28pm,
Lafferty will finish her work and close up. She will come out of the
shop, the staff being the only people who come out of the shop facing
forwards, since they have to go in backwards and rely on their
knowledge of the layout and counting steps. She will lock the shop door
and leave the key in a terracotta pot by the basil garden.

Everyone knows that she leaves the key there,
but nobody at Halfway would dream of taking advantage of this. It is
not that they are fairminded, more that there's nothing in the shop
worth stealing.

Keeler, thin, pale and nervous then opens the
shop up again at around 3.12pm and Lafferty won't be seen again while
Monday morning, when her circuit begins anew.  (In case you're
wondering, the people of Halfway say 'while' where most would say
'until')

The shop only sells one thing and it is
doubtful whether they make a living at it at all. It sells spaghetti.
Good spaghetti. It comes in two varieties, fresh or dried, and every
week, they order the fresh pasta from another part of Italy. They don't
hold with flavoured or coloured spaghetti, saying that just like with
wine, the true aficionado can taste the difference between spaghetti
made by different pasta-experts. The accent is in the flour, the eggs,
the way the relevant hens have been fed, whether the antiqued
pasta-machine has been smoothed with virgin olive oil to make it flow
smoothly, or whether with a little truffle oil.

They each have their own methods. Lafferty will
ask the customer how many strands they want and will count them out
precisely, before bagging them up in a long thin paper bag, about the
dimensions of a baguette (or what locals still persist in calling 'a
French stick'.)

Keeler just asks how many people they are
cooking for and "fresh or dry?" and then grabs them handfuls from the
tall thin glass jars. The transaction is over much quicker with Keeler,
but there is less banter.

Some people, notably the woman named Elaine
(who serves in the Co-op and drinks gin when the store is quiet and
never, never sells any packet spaghetti) wonder how the tall thin shop
can possibly make any money. The Co-op sells packet spaghetti for
twenty four pence. Even if everyone in the village came in and bought a
packet of spaghetti every day, and if the Co-op kept all the money not
just the profit, that would produce less than two hundred and fifty
pounds a week, or just over twelve thousand pounds a year. And that was
to be shared between two workers? And pay all the rent?

Elaine had not been in the tall thin shop
often, which was a relief to Lafferty and Keeler, because her perfumed
juniper breath was a burden in such a confined narrow space, whereas in
the strip-lighted expanses of the Co-op, it was not such an issue.
Nevertheless, Elaine knew that their spaghetti was competitively priced
and that made the whole thing that much more vexing for her. As she
picked up different item after different item, she would speculate
about how much simpler her life would be if she only had to handle one
product. Perhaps prostitution was an answer?

   O  O  O

 
   

Wishing-glass and breathing in petrol

The shop can be found in a village about five
minutes walk from the sea. The village is quiet and the people there
don't tend to mix with the folks who live in the big
towns.

There are all sorts of smaller, feebler
villages nearby, whose residents come into Halfway to do their shopping
and to visit the beach, which is rather pleasant and has its own
charms.

The sea there is mostly grey and frothed, and
is fringed by dunes with fine soft sand. These dunes are called the
Glasswishing dunes, because this is where the locals bury their
Cokebottle wishes. They write their wishes on paper. The paper is then
rolled up tight and secured with a lock of hair and dropped into the
bottle, which should be buried in sand up to the shoulder of the
bottle. It is frowned on to read the Cokebottle wishes of another, and
tradition has it that if you do, you must devote at least an hour a
week to trying to make that wish come true. Some say that this isn't
even a tradition, but a curse. So most folk leave those bottles well
alone. 

There's nobody in the village who remembers the
tall thin shop opening, or who remembers there being a time when it
wasn't open. Not even Mac, who used to work out on the lighthouse and
only came ashore twice a year and was sensitive to everything. Mac has
gone mad from loneliness and out the other side, but he still washes
his hands in petrol twice each day and says that he can smell the
future. 

When Mac comes by, everyone stubs out their
cigarettes, just in case.

Jokestick makes a point of wiping Mac's hands
down with a rag before he will pass Mac a cornet or lolly, and each
night, he wrings out this rag into an olive-green jerry can, and from
this, he fuels his motorcycle. He never stops at the garage in the
village, which is actually just a petrol pump in the town square next
to the tall clock and the war memorial with the superfluous mermaid.
Jokestick always just says, "I'm off to fill the bike with Mac's
handshake"

Nobody ever laughs.

If anyone in the village could be said to be
mean, or particularly meaner than certain others, it'd be Jokestick. He
runs the ice-cream kiosk near the beach. From this kiosk, he also sells
glass bottles of Coke, for the locals, and hair. It is alright for any
girls who want to make wishes, they have hair of their own; but for
short-haired boys or the bald, they need to buy their hair to secure
their wishes tightly. Jokestick collects long strands of hair from
Kellie, who works in Streaks the hairsalon  and he pops just
enough into those transparent bags the bank will give you for putting
coins into.

His father, Frank, used to give the hair away
for free, but he was buried alive five years ago now, and can't stand
the confined space of the kiosk, so spends all day standing in his
garden with his arms outstretched, even if it rains. He can't even go
in his beloved greenhouse to look at the swollen marrows he used to
adore so much.

Why, Jokestick even tried to switch from glass
bottles to plastic, saying that the profit margins were better; but
there was an outcry and the kiosk might have got a little bit tipped
over owing to a mixture of exuberance, childhood memories and Bateman's
Summer Swallow.

The tall, thin shop then.

As has been said, nobody remembers it arriving,
or there ever being a time when it wasn't there.

From the outside, it is just a doorway. A white
door, with four neat glass panels cut into it. The door opens outwards,
as it would have to. The sign above the door reads, in neat navy blue
curly letters "Spaghe"

The tall, thin shop is only as wide as the door itself. Just a little
wider, as we need to take into account the doorframe and hinges, but
that really is it. If you are inside and look directly back at the door
you came in through, there is nothing but door. Not even the tiniest
line of paint.

It would have been possible, even given the limited space,
to have put the full name of the shop above the door, by the simple
expedient of using smaller letters, but perhaps they were striving to
make a point.

The shop is so narrow that only one
person at a time ought to come in. If a local enters and there is
someone already there, being served or making their selection, the
local will back out and wait outside for their opportunity. You have to
back out, because there's not enough room to turn around, unless you
are quite nimble. You have to keep your elbows tucked in.

One of the shopkeepers, Lafferty or
Keeler, will direct you as you walk out backwards, "Just a few more
steps, that's it, nearly there"

The shop is quite long, and the ceiling
seems higher than you would expect it to be. Higher than seems
possible, when you get back outside and look at the black gabled roof,
with the laundrette on one side and the "Halfhearted Off-licence" on
the other.

Lafferty and Keeler are not friends, nor lovers, nor family. Neither of
them will work in the shop at the same time as the other. It is too
narrow, for one thing, but there are other reasons too.

On a Wednesday afternoon, at around
2.28pm, Lafferty will finish her work and close up. She will come out
of the shop, the staff being the only people who come out of the shop
facing forwards, since they have to go in backwards and rely on their
knowledge of the layout and counting steps. She will lock the shop door
and leave the key in a terracotta pot by the basil garden.

Everyone knows that she leaves the key
there, but nobody at Halfway would dream of taking advantage of this.
It is not that they are fairminded, more that there's nothing in the
shop worth stealing.

Keeler, thin, pale and nervous then
opens the shop up again at around 3.12pm and Lafferty won't be seen
again while Monday morning, when her circuit begins anew.  (In
case you're wondering, the people of Halfway say 'while' where most
would say 'until')

The shop only sells one thing and it is
doubtful whether they make a living at it at all. It sells spaghetti.
Good spaghetti. It comes in two varieties, fresh or dried, and every
week, they order the fresh pasta from another part of Italy. They don't
hold with flavoured or coloured spaghetti, saying that just like with
wine, the true aficionado can taste the difference between spaghetti
made by different pasta-experts. The accent is in the flour, the eggs,
the way the relevant hens have been fed, whether the antiqued
pasta-machine has been smoothed with virgin olive oil to make it flow
smoothly, or whether with a little truffle oil.

They each have their own methods.
Lafferty will ask the customer how many strands they want and will
count them out precisely, before bagging them up in a long thin paper
bag, about the dimensions of a baguette (or what locals still persist
in calling 'a French stick'.)

Keeler just asks how many people they
are cooking for and "fresh or dry?" and then grabs them handfuls from
the tall thin glass jars. The transaction is over much quicker with
Keeler, but there is less banter.

Some people, notably the woman named
Elaine (who serves in the Co-op and drinks gin when the store is quiet
and never, never sells any packet spaghetti) wonder how the tall thin
shop can possibly make any money. The Co-op sells packet spaghetti for
twenty four pence. Even if everyone in the village came in and bought a
packet of spaghetti every day, and if the Co-op kept all the money not
just the profit, that would produce less than two hundred and fifty
pounds a week, or just over twelve thousand pounds a year. And that was
to be shared between two workers? And pay all the rent?

Elaine had not been in the tall thin
shop often, which was a relief to Lafferty and Keeler, because her
perfumed juniper breath was a burden in such a confined narrow space,
whereas in the strip-lighted expanses of the Co-op, it was not such an
issue. Nevertheless, Elaine knew that their spaghetti was competitively
priced and that made the whole thing that much more vexing for her. As
she picked up different item after different item, she would speculate
about how much simpler her life would be if she only had to handle one
product. Perhaps prostitution was an answer?

   O  O  O

Wishing-glass and breathing in petrol

The shop can be found in a village about five minutes
walk from the sea. The village is quiet and the people there don't tend
to mix with the folks who live in the big towns.

There are all sorts of smaller, feebler villages
nearby, whose residents come into Halfway to do their shopping and to
visit the beach, which is rather pleasant and has its own charms.

The sea there is mostly grey and frothed, and is
fringed by dunes with fine soft sand. These dunes are called the
Glasswishing dunes, because this is where the locals bury their
Cokebottle wishes. They write their wishes on paper. The paper is then
rolled up tight and secured with a lock of hair and dropped into the
bottle, which should be buried in sand up to the shoulder of the
bottle. It is frowned on to read the Cokebottle wishes of another, and
tradition has it that if you do, you must devote at least an hour a
week to trying to make that wish come true. Some say that this isn't
even a tradition, but a curse. So most folk leave those bottles well
alone. 

There's nobody in the village who remembers the tall
thin shop opening, or who remembers there being a time when it wasn't
open. Not even Mac, who used to work out on the lighthouse and only
came ashore twice a year and was sensitive to everything. Mac has gone
mad from loneliness and out the other side, but he still washes his
hands in petrol twice each day and says that he can smell the
future. 

When Mac comes by, everyone stubs out their cigarettes,
just in case.

Jokestick makes a point of wiping Mac's hands down with
a rag before he will pass Mac a cornet or lolly, and each night, he
wrings out this rag into an olive-green jerry can, and from this, he
fuels his motorcycle. He never stops at the garage in the village,
which is actually just a petrol pump in the town square next to the
tall clock and the war memorial with the superfluous mermaid. Jokestick
always just says, "I'm off to fill the bike with Mac's handshake"

Nobody ever laughs.

If anyone in the village could be said to be mean, or
particularly meaner than certain others, it'd be Jokestick. He runs the
ice-cream kiosk near the beach. From this kiosk, he also sells glass
bottles of Coke, for the locals, and hair. It is alright for any girls
who want to make wishes, they have hair of their own; but for
short-haired boys or the bald, they need to buy their hair to secure
their wishes tightly. Jokestick collects long strands of hair from
Kellie, who works in Streaks the hairsalon  and he pops just
enough into those transparent bags the bank will give you for putting
coins into.

His father, Frank, used to give the hair away for free,
but he was buried alive five years ago now, and can't stand the
confined space of the kiosk, so spends all day standing in his garden
with his arms outstretched, even if it rains. He can't even go in his
beloved greenhouse to look at the swollen marrows he used to adore so
much.

Why, Jokestick even tried to switch from glass bottles
to plastic, saying that the profit margins were better; but there was
an outcry and the kiosk might have got a little bit tipped over owing
to a mixture of exuberance, childhood memories and Bateman's Summer
Swallow.

The tall, thin shop then.

As has been said, nobody remembers it arriving, or
there ever being a time when it wasn't there.

From the outside, it is just a doorway. A white door,
with four neat glass panels cut into it. The door opens outwards, as it
would have to. The sign above the door reads, in neat navy blue curly
letters "Spaghe"

The tall, thin shop is only as wide as the door itself. Just a little
wider, as we need to take into account the doorframe and hinges, but
that really is it. If you are inside and look directly back at the door
you came in through, there is nothing but door. Not even the tiniest
line of paint.

It would have been possible, even given the limited space, to have
put the full name of the shop above the door, by the simple expedient
of using smaller letters, but perhaps they were striving to make a
point.

The shop is so narrow that only one person at a
time ought to come in. If a local enters and there is someone already
there, being served or making their selection, the local will back out
and wait outside for their opportunity. You have to back out, because
there's not enough room to turn around, unless you are quite nimble.
You have to keep your elbows tucked in.

One of the shopkeepers, Lafferty or Keeler,
will direct you as you walk out backwards, "Just a few more steps,
that's it, nearly there"

The shop is quite long, and the ceiling seems
higher than you would expect it to be. Higher than seems possible, when
you get back outside and look at the black gabled roof, with the
laundrette on one side and the "Halfhearted Off-licence" on the
other.

Lafferty and Keeler are not friends, nor lovers, nor family. Neither of
them will work in the shop at the same time as the other. It is too
narrow, for one thing, but there are other reasons too.

On a Wednesday afternoon, at around 2.28pm,
Lafferty will finish her work and close up. She will come out of the
shop, the staff being the only people who come out of the shop facing
forwards, since they have to go in backwards and rely on their
knowledge of the layout and counting steps. She will lock the shop door
and leave the key in a terracotta pot by the basil garden.

Everyone knows that she leaves the key there,
but nobody at Halfway would dream of taking advantage of this. It is
not that they are fairminded, more that there's nothing in the shop
worth stealing.

Keeler, thin, pale and nervous then opens the
shop up again at around 3.12pm and Lafferty won't be seen again while
Monday morning, when her circuit begins anew.  (In case you're
wondering, the people of Halfway say 'while' where most would say
'until')

The shop only sells one thing and it is
doubtful whether they make a living at it at all. It sells spaghetti.
Good spaghetti. It comes in two varieties, fresh or dried, and every
week, they order the fresh pasta from another part of Italy. They don't
hold with flavoured or coloured spaghetti, saying that just like with
wine, the true aficionado can taste the difference between spaghetti
made by different pasta-experts. The accent is in the flour, the eggs,
the way the relevant hens have been fed, whether the antiqued
pasta-machine has been smoothed with virgin olive oil to make it flow
smoothly, or whether with a little truffle oil.

They each have their own methods. Lafferty will
ask the customer how many strands they want and will count them out
precisely, before bagging them up in a long thin paper bag, about the
dimensions of a baguette (or what locals still persist in calling 'a
French stick'.)

Keeler just asks how many people they are
cooking for and "fresh or dry?" and then grabs them handfuls from the
tall thin glass jars. The transaction is over much quicker with Keeler,
but there is less banter.

Some people, notably the woman named Elaine
(who serves in the Co-op and drinks gin when the store is quiet and
never, never sells any packet spaghetti) wonder how the tall thin shop
can possibly make any money. The Co-op sells packet spaghetti for
twenty four pence. Even if everyone in the village came in and bought a
packet of spaghetti every day, and if the Co-op kept all the money not
just the profit, that would produce less than two hundred and fifty
pounds a week, or just over twelve thousand pounds a year. And that was
to be shared between two workers? And pay all the rent?

Elaine had not been in the tall thin shop
often, which was a relief to Lafferty and Keeler, because her perfumed
juniper breath was a burden in such a confined narrow space, whereas in
the strip-lighted expanses of the Co-op, it was not such an issue.
Nevertheless, Elaine knew that their spaghetti was competitively priced
and that made the whole thing that much more vexing for her. As she
picked up different item after different item, she would speculate
about how much simpler her life would be if she only had to handle one
product. Perhaps prostitution was an answer?

   O  O  O

On the day of Monday 15th February, it was Lafferty who was serving. If
one had pressed their ear to the letterbox (as indeed a certain Richard
Stripp had done) one would have heard the conversation  recorded
below.

"What melancholy perfume," said Lafferty, who then
hurriedly added, "I mean in an interesting way, of course."

"Yes, it is rather unusual," said Miss Petticoat-Tayle,
without trace of offence, "My gentleman friend bought it for me from
Rebecca The Witch."

Rebecca The Witch is self-styled and lives with
Mac, though not in any inappropriate way. She is a synaesthete,
believing that the senses all interlink and that you can hear tastes,
and smell colours and so forth. She has a little sideline making
fragrances based on music.

Miss Petticoat-Tayle, as always, flicked her credit
card against her hard, bright pink fingernails. Back and forth, back
and forth. She did this in every shop, but nobody ever saw her spend
anything on the credit card. She paid with cash. Crisp ten pound notes.
She exchanged all other money at the bank each Thursday for crisp ten
pound notes. Any coins or ragged fivers, she placed in a separate purse
for fear of contamination. It was her ultimate dream to find a man who
would never make her handle money.

Miss Petticoat-Tayle's favourite thing in the whole
world was having her cuticles pushed back, it had a combination of mild
disagreeableness and suffering and a sense of high purpose. While she
was having this done, generally by Kellie, she would close her eyes and
imagine herself to be Cleopatra on a burnish'd throne, rather than on a
coffee-coloured leatherette swivel chair.

Lafferty sniffed the air again, lightly, "It smells
quite difficult at first, then there's a sort of top-note of
experimentation, almost wilfully so, and then mmm, it settles into
something rather pleasant and then?"

"Yes," said Miss Petticoat-Tayle rather grimly, "The
end notes are rather dissatisfactory, as though the whole affair wasn't
really worthwhile. Don't worry about offending me, I really don't care
for it at all. But the Gentleman Friend likes it, and I'm seeing him
later today."

"What is it, may I ask?" said Lafferty, no doubt with a
view to avoiding it.

"Kid A by Radiohead," said Miss Petticoat-Tayle.

"Ah yes," said Lafferty, who being a fan of the
saxophone, favoured herself the lighter scent of Baker Street, which
she buys from The Witch in a small light blue bottle labelled 'Rafferty
for Lafferty'.

"I do think a fragrance needs a little guitar
to make it work, don't you?" she said, with just a smidgen of tartness
in her voice.

Lafferty works hard to conceal her contempt for
certain people, but some folk just rub her up the wrong way.

"Forty-eight strands, please," said Miss
Petticoat-Tayle, who became brisk and business-like, "Of the fresh, of
course."

"Oh, of course," said Lafferty, as she counted
them out and deftly bagged them.

"Did you hear that Mobius was arrested again
last night?" said Miss Petticoat-Tayle, with just a trace of glee. They
had dated, once upon a time and things had gone lemon-sour between
them.

"I had heard," confessed Lafferty, who had in
fact heard a great deal more than that; but her inclination was to
collect gossip, not to diffuse it.

The transaction completed, Miss P-T backed out
of the shop, and nearly fell over Richard Stripp, as he stooped to tie
his shoelace, which was never really undone.

"Well," she snapped, "I ask you! You're quite
as clumsy and sulky as your brother."

She scuttled off, with her pencil skirt riding
up slightly on her milky-white thighs; a fact of which Richard Stripp
took some note.  Yes, he too had dated her once upon a time, and
it had gone quite acid-sharp between them too.

Richard lit up a Cold Strength cigarette, which
as always smelled like Bunsen burners and the paper they use in
Freeman's catalogues.

It was about a minute and a half later, with no
new customers calling on on the tall thin shop, that Richard learned
that Aunt Dorothea had been found drowned in the Johnson's pool.

He rushed in to tell Lafferty, since besides
selling spaghetti and playing the game of pinata whilst blindfolded,
the solving of crime was what she liked to do best.

When he entered the shop, Lafferty was snipping
out letters from a selection of magazines and placing the most apposite
letters and words into a chubby manila envelope. Lafferty has always
been very fond of blackmail letters and ransom notes as an art form.
She composed her own ersatz ransom demand at the age of eleven, having
run away from home. People say her father never got over it, but it
really was a work of some panache. In any event, he paid up, and if she
hadn't paid the money into her own Yorkshire Building Society account
and left the passbook laying around, he'd have been none the wiser.

She looked good as ever, partway between Snow
White and the very wickedest of Wicked Queens; late thirties, pale
skin, rookblack hair, eyes like glass apples and lips like a cut
throat. She had on a jumper the colour of window putty, fine gauge, and
sleeves rolled up to her elbows. It was smoothed over her neat hips. On
her left arm; she wore an oversized bangle of amber and no other
jewellery or adornment of any kind.

Although Keeler would never tolerate music of
any kind in the tall, thin shop, this was a Monday and Lafferty could
do whatever the hell she liked, so she was playing "Surround yourself
with Sorrow" by Cilla Black, on vinyl, of course. She simply adored the
crackle, the moments of foreplay before the record began. Mmmm.

'What do you do when your love breaks up / do
you fall apart like a buttercup ? / Forget about tomorrow / Surround
yourself with sorrow'

"Hello," she said in a cheery voice, "Look,
I've just found a wonderfully ornate 'Furnish' in large Gothic print. I
can use that in all sorts of places. Unless you furnish me with the
money instantly, others will learn of your misadventures? or?"

"Aunt Dorothea's been found murdered," Richard
told her, all excitable and he nearly swallowed his blackcurrant Chewit
(which still has the obligatory scrap of paper on one corner), "They
say she's drownded."

"Drowned," corrected Lafferty, who if she had a
fault other than cruelty and being too damn attractive it was a
tendency to be pernickety, "it's pronounced drowned. And what makes you
tend towards murder as your diagnosis?"

"Because she drownded - was found dead in the
Johnson's pool."

"But that was drained last summer," said
Lafferty, and if glinted could be a verb, that's exactly what her eyes
did.

She shot a look at her watch. "Damn it to
hell," she said, "Why's something juicy like this got to happen on a
Monday? I'm here till Wednesday afternoon. I can't let the
scent go as cold as that."

"But I don't much care for Keeler," Richard
told her, with a slight whining quality in his voice.

She showed some perfect white teeth and Richard
would swear to god that he could hear her lipstick make a beautiful
sound when her mouth moved. Not the same sound, but a sound as
delicious and perfect as the ship's creak of a Wonderbra.

"And don't think I don't know why," she said,
as she gave him that wicked smile, "Nevertheless, and while I'm
grateful that you gave me the information first, this one is for Keeler
to have first crack at. Give him a call. But make out like I told you
about it, would you?"

"But I hate visiting the Human Clock," said
Richard.

Lafferty picked up a liquorice wheel and
unravelled it; as always throwing the pink speckled centre into the
wastebasket. She was very partial to liquorice.

Once she had eaten the whole strip, having kept
Richard waiting patiently, she popped open a jar of pasta and her
bangle slid ever so slightly down her thin wrist. She took out a single
strand of spaghetti and passed it to him.

"Don't boil it all at once," she instructed
him.