Of
all the things she might have asked of him, knowing as they both do the hold
she exerts, and too that little she assumes of his influence, for her to
request Bazooka gum is as unexpected as it is exactly in keeping with her
character.
deleted
name: Bazooka gum? How much? I mean, are we
ache1:
I don’t know, can you, it doesn’t have to be... Say a boxload? How many’s in a
box?
Uncapping
his pen, he makes a note
deleted
name (writing): Bazooka gum, box.
before
asking
deleted
name: And that’s it? A box of gum?
ache1:
And some Moosehead beers.
her
words crashing into his so that he is forced to comprehend them at a fraction
of remove from their hearing. No stranger himself to the use of alcohol in the
quietening of his own spectres, still her request startles him a little, the
sudden consideration that it is this as forms the main element of her want, the
gum itself little more than a concession to that status her age forces them
both to acknowledge.
deleted
name: Moosehead?
and
then before he even realises he is remembering,
deleted
name: Not Coors?
Too,
there is the notion that she could just as easily charge any drink in the
hotel’s bars she might want to his account, all of it even, there being no
difference at all to the all-round end result, for either of them.
ache1:
Not Coors, no. Moosehead.
deleted
name: I’ll make a note
and
then appending it underneath the already-written line.
deleted
name (clearing throat): And how much ehm, how much would you like?
ache1:
Fuck, I don’t know. How many’s in a box of that? Send me a box and we’ll
take it from there.
This
can pass without comment, or this cannot pass. This cannot pass.
deleted
name: Would you say you have a good memory?
ache1:
Sorry would I what?
deleted
name: Hang on...
ache1:
No I didn’t hear what you said, what, would I say what was it?
deleted
name: Okay, have you g-, get a pen if you haven’t got one, because I want
you to write this down. Have you got a pen there?
ache1:
Hang on
leaning
across to scrabble a crayon and a blank sheet of the hotel stationery from off
the bedside cabinet before clamping the telephone between ear and shoulder,
ready to write,
ache1:
Okay, proceed.
deleted
name (with a deal of deliberation): I want you to write this down. Ready?
pausing
for effect, before
deleted
name: You only throw the dice until the dice throw you.
ache1
(as she writes): Yep, yep, throw the dice, they throw you, got it, got it.
but
without, of course, in any way at all actually getting it.
