The Moons

© 2013 David Jasmin-Green

“Wot's for din-dins, then?” Oberon Moon grunted as he lay on the sofa in his vest and y-fronts smoking a cigarette and idly surfing channels with the remote control.

“I dunno, I ain't really thought about it yet,” Mavis replied, looking up from the booties she was knitting for her first grandchild. “What do you fancy?”

“I fancy a nice big chunk of steak roasted in a bacon jacket with peas and new spuds; or a bit of pork with loads of crackling and roasters; or a skip-load of dormice and tender veal slices lightly fried in olive oil and served with calabrese and button mushrooms and corn on the cob in a tangy garlic and chive sauce.”

“You've never tasted veal or dormice, you lyin' get. You're out of luck, anyway, we ain't got anythin' that excitin'. You can 'ave fried egg and beans, fried egg and spaghetti, an egg sandwich or bread and drippin' – take your pick, fatty.”

“Shit..... What about puddin'?”

“Bread and cheapo strawberry jam.”

“Lovely. Ain't it about time you got some shoppin' in, woman?”

“With what? We're skint until Friday, love, 'cos you won't get off your idle arse and go and earn some money to keep us.”

“There are no jobs, you divvy, especially for a fifty five year old man with a bad back 'oo's been out of work for nearly four years through no fault of 'is own. And at least my arse isn't a fat idle arse like an arse not a million miles away from me.”

“You're the biggest arse in this 'ouse, love, metaphorically speakin' an' your physical arse is considerably lardier than mine.”

“Charmin'. Do you fancy a dabble tonight, by any chance, you sexy, multi-love-handled thang?”

“You really know 'ow to charm a girl's knickers off, 'ave I ever told you that? It depends 'oo it's with, I suppose.”

“What's that supposed to mean, you bleedin' tart? For better or worse, for richer or poorer, for fatter or even fatter or ridiculously morbidly obese, we said in our vows, and if we didn't we ought to 'ave done – and I for one 'appened to mean it. 'Ave you got George Clooney waiting for you upstairs ready to despoil our marital bed wiv 'is manly charms an' adulterous presence? Is Brad Pitt 'idin behind the sofa waitin' for me to go and have a shit so that 'e can bend you over the coffee table an' slip you a quick length? Or maybe you 'ave Johnny Depp or David Beckham secreted in the shed or tucked in the cupboard under the sink an' camouflaged with dusters an' cans of Pledge on the off-chance that I'll nip out for an hour with the dog. Maybe all four of 'em are 'ere, an' they plan to double kebab you..... Sometimes you make me wonder what sort of woman I married, Mavis.”

“Oh, stop your whingeing, you miserable old get. You're so sensitive – you know I'm only kiddin' and I only 'ave eyes for you, Oberon, even if you do 'ave a bloody silly name. Fancy namin' your kid after the king of the fairies - you must 'ave 'ad 'ell to pay at school, an' I often wonder what your mother was smokin' when she came up with a moniker like that.”

“You've got a bleedin' cheek, you 'ave. What about our kids' names? When our first born was on 'is way I wanted to give 'im a nice, simple manly name like John after John the Butcher, Mike after the Postman ('oo, completely coincidentally, I've always told meself, 'e looks suspiciously like), Wilf after me best mate or Kevin after me dear departed dad. But no, you wouldn't 'ave it - you insisted on callin' 'im Prince (after the artist formerly known as Prince and now represented by an illegible squiggle, though the prick's probably changed it back by now) - Prince Rupert bloody Unwin Moon. Rupert is a bear's or an upper class puff's name, an' Unwins is a soddin' seed catalogue!”

“There's no way on this Earth I was callin' a son of mine friggin' Wilf.”

“When our eldest daughter was born I narrowed down the choices swimmin' around in me 'ead to Janice after the nice woman at the Post Office that you used to say I fancied, though of course I bloody well didn't, Sheila, after Sheila B Devotion ('oo admittedly I did fancy), Edwina Loretta after me old mum an' Alice after Alice Cooper an' me younger sister, but you weren't 'avin any of that. You wouldn't settle until you saw Floella Ocelot Gasoline in black an' white on 'er birth certificate. I told you that an ocelot was an African wild cat an' gasoline was a mostly American name for petrol, but you didn't believe me, you said one of your buddies down the school 'ad a daughter called Ocelot Gasoline, even though the woman was a certifiable nutter an' she ended up doin' ten years for cuttin' off 'er 'usband's willy with a steak knife 'cos 'e said 'er beef lasagne tasted like warmed up dog shit.”

“Floella Ocelot Gasoline bloody well suits 'er.”

“It might well suit 'er, but that's beside the point! To add insult to injury you called our baby girl Amethyst Nitrate Vindaloo Atrocious Watermelon – it 'as a lovely musical ring to it, you kept sayin', even though I explained that nitrate is soddin' fertiliser, Vindaloo is a scorchingly 'ot curry, though you chose Vindaloo after that daft Fat Les song that you like rather than the curry, atrocious means bloody 'orrible (a name that she's been doin' 'er best to live up to since she 'it 'er teens, by the way) an' a watermelon is, well, a watermelon. A couple of months later you admitted that it was Wunderbar that you wanted to call' er, meanin', I suppose, wonderful, instead of watermelon - but some'ow it escaped your memory. Loop the friggin' loop, you are, madam.”

“Takes one to friggin' know one.”

“Where are you off to?”

“To put the kettle on and let the dog in. Fancy a coffee, chubby?”

“Go on then, you're a bloody angel.”