Smoko At East Seaham Read online

CHAPTER 5

  DE-BAGGED

  An elderly couple are walking home from their local shopping centre.

  ‘Oh, oh…’

  ‘What’s the matter, dear? We haven’t got far to go now.’

  ‘It’s this here shopping bag. It’s cutting into my fingers something chronic! What on earth have we got in there, woman?’

  ‘Give it to me!’

  ‘No. No. I just asked what’s in there, that’s all.’

  ‘Well if you must know, I bought a ream of printer paper for my computer.’

  ‘Oh, heck! I might have known. That stuff’s as heavy as flipping house bricks. I don’t know what they’re doing selling stupid rubbish like that in grocery shops!’

  ‘It’s not rubbish. It’s essential supplies. For me. For us.’

  ‘Us? Us? I never use the damn stupid computer, or the paper.’

  ‘Oh, no, no. You wouldn’t know how. Computer illiterate, you are! One of the original Luddites born again, if ever there was one. It’s a wonder we have television in the house. It’s a wonder you don’t complain to the Council about no horse troughs in the street.’

  ‘Ah, but I watch telly ‘cause it’s educational!’

  ‘What, sport? Big Brother? Sex in the City?’

  ‘It’s better than that rubbish you watch on that there computer!’

  ‘It’s good. It keeps me in touch with the real world.’

  ‘I ain’t got no time for it. Never have. Never will.’

  ‘No, because computers make you think. You’ve never got time for anything that makes you think! You never have and you never will, except, of course, when you want me to look something up for you. Lottery results, things for sale, or a hundred and one diseases and ailments you imagine you’re suffering from.’

  ‘Oh, look at these boys coming along here riding bikes on the footpath. “HEY YOU KIDS. GET OFF THE…” Oh! Oh! Oh!’

  ‘You old fool! Going down like that! You should have stood aside and let them pass. Not fall all over the place.’

  ‘Fallen down, my foot! They knocked me down, didn’t they?’

  ‘More like they grabbed your bag and pulled you off your feet, you mean.’

  ‘The bag! It’s gone! It’s gone. Oh, damn! Why. Why would they want to rob a poor old man like me?’

  ‘Well, they probably thought you were Mr Big. You know, one of them big drug dealers. They thought the bag must be full of dope, when in fact all it was, was just a bag full of paper being carried by an old dope!’

  ‘I’m not letting them get away with that. I’m going to the Police Station. I’m writing to the newspapers, I’m complaining to Neighbourhood Watch.’

  ‘Oh, don’t bother with all that. I’ll talk to my friends on the net, they’ll know what to do.’

  ‘Friends on the net? You ain’t got no friends, let alone on the net. Those people are just a group of old tossers and wasters…and perverts! I bet they’re always asking for you, for pictures.’

  ‘Alright. Alright. Now you’ve got it out of your system, let’s see if I can get you up.’

  ‘Oh! Oh! I can’t. I can’t. My back.’

  ‘Oh, alright. Stay where you are. And keep still.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, dear. What are we going to do?’

  ‘Do? I’ll get help, on my mobile phone.’

  ‘Oh, God! Out comes the damn techy stuff again.’

  ‘Don’t bag it, you old fool! That’s what it’s for. That’s why I bought it.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Why do you carry it everywhere, so you can call for help if you need it?’

  ‘If we need it, dear. Not just me. Now, what would you like, Sir? Police, Fire, Ambulance; or a taxi? Or maybe a hearse?’

  ‘Oh, don’t be daft. A taxi, I think. I’ll probably be laid up for a week, like last time my back went out.’

  ‘Right, then.’

  ‘Taxi, please. Er, just outside 142 Rogerson Road. Yes, near the supermarket. That’s right. Thank you.’

  ‘There you are, then. All done, I even heard the taxi start its motor up.’

  ‘That’s just a recording!’

  ‘Is it? Now how would a techno-flipping-blind person like you know that?’

  ‘Just you cut out the wise cracks and get me home pronto! Me back’s flipping killing me’

  ‘Yes, Sir. Three bags full, Sir. Ah! Here comes the taxi now.’