Tim cringed as Ivan’s beer belly slumped in the seat alongside
with a belch of early morning whisky.
“Alreight young Timmy?”
He pulled the lead of his iPod clear of Ivan’s considerable
backside and mumbled a begrudging ‘Hello’.
Straggles of greasy black hair fell like a withered hanging
basket from the worst comb-over Tim had ever seen. Saggy chins
and ruddy cheeks jostled in time with spluttering lips as he
bellowed greetings to more arrivals.
Regulars from the Pig and Whistle were quickly filling the
dilapidated, single-decker coach as Tim desperately looked
round for the safety of an empty seat. He was supposed to be
sitting with Rachael, but she was late. It was their first
date, and now the pub troublemaker had taken a shine to him.
Tim glanced anxiously at the line of smiling figures making
their way down the coach then out through the grimy window at
others milling outside in the car park sunshine. She hadn’t
changed her mind – had she?
Most of the faded blue seats were filled and the landlord was
checking off names on a clipboard when he caught sight of a
hurrying figure in a floral pink dress. She arrived breathless
in the doorway, brushing back a straggle of sunflower hair
from flustered cheeks. “Sorry I’m late,” she panted to the
driver.
She spotted Tim’s waving hand and made her way down the aisle
with a wide grin. Ivan stared her defiantly in the eye, his
bulk plugged into the protesting narrow seat like a stopper in
a bottle. There was no way past him and he wasn’t for moving.
“Pretty please, there’s a window seat next to Freda,” said
Rachael.
She knew Ivan and Freda had a history, although exactly what
sort of history she wasn’t sure. It was clearly not the sort
she had hoped for as Freda overheard and jabbed a scowling
two-finger gesture in their direction.
Ivan pointed to an
empty seat four rows up. “Get thiself sat down lass, or are
tha gonna stand theer all day.”
She gave him the look reserved for pub gropers and stomped
back down the coach with a clatter of high heels. A moment
later her face appeared above a headrest. “Keep it zipped,”
she mouthed with an ominous roll of the eyes towards Ivan. Tim
nodded, but he’d already decided he was going to tell the
slobbering hulk exactly what he thought of him.
Suddenly a hand clamped his own to the armrest. He froze as
Ivan’s backside raised itself an inch from the seat with the
sound of a watery trombone. “Ahhh...needed that,” he grunted.
It quickly became clear that the stench of last night’s pub
crawl was the least of Tim’s worries as a half-bottle of
Johnnie Walker appeared
from the grimy fleece coat. Tim realised that
confrontation wasn’t such a good idea after all as Ivan’s
unshaven face leered close. “Here Timmy, set ya up for the
day.”
Ivan wasn’t the sort of man you said no to when he’d had a
drink, and from the looks of it he’d had plenty - most of it
down the front of his Man-U T shirt and faded jeans.
“Bit early for me Ivan; I’ll hang on till breakfast if it’s
all the same with you.”
“Some kinda wimp are ya lad? Get a slug of this down yer
gullet.”
Tim caught a glimpse of gold fillings through puffy lips as
the bottle jabbed against his chest. He hated whisky, but it
was either that or run the risk of one of Ivan’s tirades. The
stuff tasted awful, like hospital anaesthetic burning his
throat. Ivan snatched the bottle back with a growl of approval
and slipped it back into his coat. Escape was out of the
question now.
A loud cheer erupted as the doors hissed closed and the engine
burbled into life. The landlord swayed upright in front of his
congregation clutching a megaphone borrowed from the
five-a-side football team. As the coach lurched on to the main
road he grabbed an overhead luggage rack and stuttered a
hesitant “One…two…three….testing,” into his new toy.
“Reight lads and lasses,” crackled the thin mechanical voice,
“fust stop, breakfast at Aggy’s Tea Parlur in Longridge; then
it’s Blackpoo, an as much as tha can drink.”
Another cheer was quickly followed
by Ivan’s fist punching the air and an ear-splitting rendition
of Here we go, Here we
go, Here we go…
Tim slumped his head against the window and resigned himself
to half an hour beside the flatulent lump of lard.
By the time Aggy’s Tea Parlour came in sight Ivan was snoring
his head off with the empty whisky bottle clutched to his
belly like a prized teddy bear. His head jerked upright at the
lurch of brakes and crunching gravel in front of the
ramshackle transport café. “What? Where?”
“He’s doing my head in,” muttered Tim across a plastic
tablecloth of greasy bacon and runny eggs.
Rachel squeezed his hand and glanced to the next table where
Ivan was ear bashing the driver over a tatty road map and a
can of lager.
“He’s harmless enough, and besides, he did let us have the
coach for free.”
Tim looked out of the window to the
blue lettering along the side of the hand-painted, yellow
juggernaut - Ivan’s
Express for Luxury tours in congenial company.
“Do you think we should report him under the Trade
Descriptions Act?” he said, taking another sip of lukewarm
coffee from a chipped mug.
Rachael slid a fifty pence piece across the table and pointed
to the jukebox. “Elvis and Blue Suede Shoes,” she whispered,
“it’s his favourite. Maybe it’ll put him in a better mood.”
A minute later Ivan’s face lit up
like a halloween pumpkin at the sound of ….Well
it’s a one for the money....two for the show…three to get
ready then…
“Everybody, on’t dance floower,” he yelled, leaping to his
feet.
A moment later, an elderly couple who looked like a good walk
would kill them were gyrating like zombie rockers from a
sixties movie. Others quickly joined them, tables were moved
aside and in no time at all the place had taken on the air of
a Saturday night disco.
Rachael checked on Ivan then grabbed Tim’s hand and dragged
him outside to the empty coach. They cuddled up on the back
seat, kissing between nervous giggles. She’d fancied him since
school and was beginning to think he wasn’t interested. In the
end she’d given up hinting and got her friend Patty to ask him
outright. Even that was like pulling teeth when his mates
found out and managed to convince him it was a wind up.
“So when did you decide you fancied me too,” she whispered,
avoiding his gaze.
He ran a finger across her cheek. “At school,” he replied
nervously, ”in the last year.”
“What!” she said, pushing him away with a scowl, “You mean you
wasted three years of my life because you were too soft to ask
me out?”
“It wasn’t that …it was just that I didn’t.. y’know…couldn’t
think what to…”
She yanked him close and kissed him hard on the lips. “Now
that’s what’s called a wind up silly.”
Tim felt his cheeks burning.
“It’s true what they say about men,” she laughed.
“And what’s that then?”
“That they’re from Mars.”
Tim frowned. “So you’re a sucker for flying saucers and little
green men?”
“Looks like it,” she said curling an arm round his waist.
Ivan was too busy eyeing up a potential dance partner to
notice they’d gone. A wide-eyed waitress uttered a stifled
shriek as the crazed space hopper seized her. The café owner
was screaming, “stop it, stop it this instant, we’re not
licensed for dancing”.
She made a grab for the nearest reveller and found herself in
a cheek-to-cheek boogie with a nose-ring skinhead. His tongue
flicked a gold bobble in her face and she instinctively jerked
a knee upward. He staggered back clutching his groin and she
made a dive for the juke box.
“Out, the lot of you; out now before I call the police,” she
yelled, holding up the electrical plug with a shriek of
triumph.
Ivan slowed to an one-legged wobble with the look of a
schoolboy caught in the girls locker room.
“Only a bitta fun gal, what’s yer beef?”
They stumbled out into the car park, Ivan pausing to give her
the benefit of his mooning skills, narrowly dodging the
half-eaten pork pie she hurled.
Rachael and Tim ducked down as the others trooped on board.
With a bit of luck Ivan would be too busy haranguing the
driver to notice his drinking partner was missing.
“Timmy, where the hell are ya?”
Ivan’s glowering form blocked the aisle as he scanned the rows
of seats for a familiar face.
“He’s there with Rachel,” yelled four of his so-called mates
with pointing fingers and cackles of laughter.
“Get yer backside up ‘ere lad, there’ll be time enough for
snoggin when we get theer.”
Tim ignored Patty Taylor’s grinning thumbs-up from the seat
opposite as Ivan thrust a can of luke-warm Heineken in his
lap. “Wash thi breakfast down with that.”
By the time the coach pulled into the car park below Blackpool
tower Tim was feeling distictly light headed. Three lagers and
Ivan’s insistence on singing football anthems for the last
hour had been a nightmare. His ribs were sore from drunken
elbows and jibing fingers when he couldn’t remember the words
and he was sure his sense of smell had suffered irreparable
damage. Luckily Ivan stopped to bestow more words of wisdom on
the befuddled driver which gave him the chance to do runner.
Rachel caught up and dragged him to one side. “You ok? Has
Ivan been giving you a hard time?”
“I’m fine,” he muttered with a wary eye on the cheery throng
alighting from the coach, “let’s get outa here before he
notices I’ve gone.”
They hadn’t managed ten yards when Ivan’s voice boomed out.
“You two! Back here on the double.”
Rachel gripped her handbag ready to administer a swift smack
round the head as Ivan pinned Tim to the front of the coach
between two rusty wiper blades.
The watery eyes swayed an inch from his face. “Think on lad.
Back here at midnight, and yer better not get up to anything
tha shouldn’t wi ma daughter.”
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