Post by alice on Jan 28, 2015 8:58:51 GMT 7
This is the beginning of a short story - VERY first draft.
They lay on loungers like rotisserie chickens, turning and basting in the sun’s juices.
Rounded tummies, fluffy white-blonde hair on blackened faces, bronzed puffy circles pouching under eyes once set in unlined skin.
“Hey, Joe!” A male rooster called out jovially, his face florid from the colourful combination of sun and wine. “Have you got any of that Mussel Bay Sauvignon Blanc?”
Joe, dressed in colonial waiter garb – knee high socks and a beige safari suit scuttled forward. In his conversations with this man, Joe forgot his hijab-ed wife at home with his five children; he forgot the reason for his pay cheque; he delighted in the attentions of the Rooster and the Rooster revelled in being pals with the staff. It proved his eminence as a man of the world. A man not only respected in Wales – but also Singapore.
Joe – whose real name was Mohammed – poured the wine.
“I hate to see wine go to waste,” the Welsh man boomed. “I’d rather see a church burn down.”
He was the leader; propped up against the back of the lounger, his stomach protruding from him, proud and cathedral-like. His wife wormed her way behind him, squeezing her own dome of fat through the gap, shoring up her position as his consort. The tropical flowers on her swimsuit framed his head, giving him the look of a Frida Kahlo portrait – eyebrows and all.
The rest of the pack sitting eagerly on their beds, upright; the spines of Len Deightons and Jilly Coopers broken and flattened, laughed at the insouciance.
“I see Leon Brittan’s died,” a brown-haired man said from behind Roy Orbison glasses.
“Oh,” his wife murmured in a sad fashion. In truth, she wasn’t sure who Leon Brittan was. But he sounded important. His surname was the same as the country.
“Lucky for him. Gets him out of all that paedophile business.”
The wife’s eyes turned fearful. Were we for or against this Leon Brittan, she wondered?
“Oh,” she said again, her voice ambiguous now – happy and sad at the same time.
“I went to Richard Tailor’s this morning,” the Rooster’s wife said brightly, rescuing her. She giggled. “I mean….” She snorted. “Richard the tailor. Not like his name is Richard Tailor.” She continued laughing to herself for some time at this.
Roy Orbison ignored her, continuing to flick through the newspaper. “Page 3’s back again in The Sun.”
“There is a God!” roared the Rooster.
His wife tutted with a twinkle. “He’s making me some table runners.”
Only Roy Orbison’s wife understood that this was a continuation of the Richard Tailor story.
“Lovely they are. Big red swirls.”
The Rooster nodded. “Good night last night, weren’t it? Good crack. I mean,” he shuffled forward on his haunches, “could we have drunk any more wine, I ask you?”
“Will you use them in the dining room? The table runners?”
The Rooster’s wife moved back to her lounger, unable to stay put for any length of time. “For special. Not every day.”
Roy Orbison’s wife nodded, understanding everything.
“Cambridge are playing Man U tonight,” her husband said, with a sniff.
“What?” his wife asked, her head on one side like a bird’s. Football. A subject her husband loved and that she often participated in, despite rudimentary knowledge; trying to demonstrate in doing so that she could be as likeable and valuable as a man. “Cambridge? Playing Man U?” she giggled, crafting a look of amused surprise.
“FA Cup,” he muttered.
“Well, Man U will win of course. Won’t they?” she scoffed with a smile. See? Look how much I know about this subject!
“Bloody well hope so.”
Rooster smacked his lips. “Night markets tonight?”
“We need something to take back to Bernadette.”
Rooster lowered his double chin even further, his mouth soured. The name of Bernadette seemed to cast a shadow which leaked from the stone, white minarets of the hotel; stark against the blue sky.
“Joe?” he called. And Joe came again; this time, sitting on the bed next to the Rooster for a long while, slapping his legs with glee at the stories Rooster began to tell.
…
Rooster’s real name is Tony and his wife’s name is Michelle. They come to Singapore every January, escaping the British winter for a month in the Raffles Hotel. They mostly come with Roy Orbison - who is actually called Roy, and his wife Vivian; and another couple – Penny and Nigel – who were drinking mocha-chinos at the coffee shop when this exchange occurred.
It is important to remember, for the purposes of this story, that Roy does not like Penny. The reason behind this is not important – suffice to say, it involves a market gardening competition, the results of which are now never discussed. Roy finds losing things unbearable. Hence his sulk, later on, when it is discovered that Cambridge held Man U to a nil-nil draw.
Tony doesn’t mind Penny. Or Nigel for that matter. But, if pushed to choose, he would say he prefers Roy and Vivian. He and Roy are on the same level. They retired from middle management four years ago, when the plot was hatched to come to South East Asia for the winter. They save wisely; they laugh loudly. They like to watch their wives move through the hot air in Singapore like large, heavy peacocks. They like the smallness of the Joes. They like the way their stomachs seem to demonstrate their wealth against the petite, brown skinned waiters.
Nigel on the other hand, is a lean man. And he is wealthy. More so than the money which enables the other four to leave the cold, whipped wind of the British Isles in the dark of its most miserable month. Nigel is rich in a way which means he never has to look at the total of a restaurant bill; in that he and Penny were able to send their luggage on ahead, her black tie gowns and cocktails laid out flat in a trunk. Saving her the effort of squeezing them, crumpled, into a suitcase and then the worry at the airline check-in counter that said suitcases would be within the 30kg limit.
This is the main reason why he and his wife cause antipathy in their travelling companions. Nigel - Tony often thinks to himself - is a man on the make. Most evenings, Roy cannot stop his eyes fixating on Nigel’s Rolex, endlessly wondering its worth.
…
Later, after the sun had hit its nadir and bounced back to disappear below the horizon, the wives went before their husbands up to the Long Bar. Fresh and perfumed, their blonde hair curled and dark at its ends from a shower; they wore mid-length skirts, ruched sleeves, carrying their leather handbags like talismans, protection against sudden moves or the unpredictable nature of life.
“By the window, Michelle?” Vivian asked
They pushed their way through the dark wooden tables, crunching over the monkey nut shells sprayed carelessly over the floor. Upstairs, the house band played Bobby Darrin songs, soft and unobtrusive.
“No more slings,” Penny said, as they settled at the table. “If I see another maraschino cherry….”
“I might have a G and T. Comes in a bigger glass.”
“Me too,” said Vivian.
“White wine,” Penny said to the waiter. “So, Tony wants to go shopping tonight?”
Michelle sighed. “Down to China Town. Then I said about Bernadette. About needing to get her something….”
“And he got a mard on,” Vivian finished for her. She fished in her bag for her phone. “Boys are on their way down,” she said, looking at the screen.
“Which is ridiculous because it’s not like he’d be backing down from anything because he gave her a blimmin’ lucky cat.”
They paused as the waiter came and deposited the drinks, waiting a beat until after he’d left before swapping the drinks round to where they should be.
“It’s been going on a long time now, hasn’t it?” Penny said, her eyes flicking towards the bar where a crowd of middle-aged men stood, Tiger beers in hand.
Michelle clinked the ice in her glass, her mouth bunched a little on one side. “Oh, it’s not as bad as all that.” She shone a bright smile at Penny. “Barely registers.”
Penny smiled back, the action of a cat, her green eyes flashing in the gloom of the bar. She cracked open a monkey nut. “Not keen on Mario, is he?”
Michelle sipped from her glass. “It’s not really a question of Mario, Penny,” she said, crunching an ice cube. “Mario’s neither here nor there. It’s Bernadette’s future Tony’s concerned about.” The sound of ice splitting between her teeth sounded like breaking bones. “And if she moves to London, where’s the certainty? At home, she’s got it all panned out. Promotion. Flat in the centre. All panned out.” She placed the glass carefully back on the table, another glossy smile emerging. “As a mother,” the pause hung in the air as Penny glanced again at the men at the bar. “I can understand his worries.”
“Do you come here often, ladies?” Tony eased himself into a leather club chair at the table, with a familiar wave to the barman. “Alright, Ravi. Yep, same as always!” He beamed at the women as Roy and Nigel sank into the remaining empty chairs.
“Whatcha been gossiping about, then? Don’t tell me,” he held up his hand in mock approbation. “Still lusting after that handbag, Viv? Come on Roy, mate,” he rested his chubby arms across the top of his stomach in an approximation of a fold, grinning at his friend. “Do your worst, why don’t you? Treat the little lady to a late Christmas pressie?”
[...]
I have a couple of questions:
1) I suspect readers will find the amount of characters confusing....BUT, despite this, are you still interested to see what happens?
2) How do you find the change in tone from the beginning section to the latter?
Thanks!
They lay on loungers like rotisserie chickens, turning and basting in the sun’s juices.
Rounded tummies, fluffy white-blonde hair on blackened faces, bronzed puffy circles pouching under eyes once set in unlined skin.
“Hey, Joe!” A male rooster called out jovially, his face florid from the colourful combination of sun and wine. “Have you got any of that Mussel Bay Sauvignon Blanc?”
Joe, dressed in colonial waiter garb – knee high socks and a beige safari suit scuttled forward. In his conversations with this man, Joe forgot his hijab-ed wife at home with his five children; he forgot the reason for his pay cheque; he delighted in the attentions of the Rooster and the Rooster revelled in being pals with the staff. It proved his eminence as a man of the world. A man not only respected in Wales – but also Singapore.
Joe – whose real name was Mohammed – poured the wine.
“I hate to see wine go to waste,” the Welsh man boomed. “I’d rather see a church burn down.”
He was the leader; propped up against the back of the lounger, his stomach protruding from him, proud and cathedral-like. His wife wormed her way behind him, squeezing her own dome of fat through the gap, shoring up her position as his consort. The tropical flowers on her swimsuit framed his head, giving him the look of a Frida Kahlo portrait – eyebrows and all.
The rest of the pack sitting eagerly on their beds, upright; the spines of Len Deightons and Jilly Coopers broken and flattened, laughed at the insouciance.
“I see Leon Brittan’s died,” a brown-haired man said from behind Roy Orbison glasses.
“Oh,” his wife murmured in a sad fashion. In truth, she wasn’t sure who Leon Brittan was. But he sounded important. His surname was the same as the country.
“Lucky for him. Gets him out of all that paedophile business.”
The wife’s eyes turned fearful. Were we for or against this Leon Brittan, she wondered?
“Oh,” she said again, her voice ambiguous now – happy and sad at the same time.
“I went to Richard Tailor’s this morning,” the Rooster’s wife said brightly, rescuing her. She giggled. “I mean….” She snorted. “Richard the tailor. Not like his name is Richard Tailor.” She continued laughing to herself for some time at this.
Roy Orbison ignored her, continuing to flick through the newspaper. “Page 3’s back again in The Sun.”
“There is a God!” roared the Rooster.
His wife tutted with a twinkle. “He’s making me some table runners.”
Only Roy Orbison’s wife understood that this was a continuation of the Richard Tailor story.
“Lovely they are. Big red swirls.”
The Rooster nodded. “Good night last night, weren’t it? Good crack. I mean,” he shuffled forward on his haunches, “could we have drunk any more wine, I ask you?”
“Will you use them in the dining room? The table runners?”
The Rooster’s wife moved back to her lounger, unable to stay put for any length of time. “For special. Not every day.”
Roy Orbison’s wife nodded, understanding everything.
“Cambridge are playing Man U tonight,” her husband said, with a sniff.
“What?” his wife asked, her head on one side like a bird’s. Football. A subject her husband loved and that she often participated in, despite rudimentary knowledge; trying to demonstrate in doing so that she could be as likeable and valuable as a man. “Cambridge? Playing Man U?” she giggled, crafting a look of amused surprise.
“FA Cup,” he muttered.
“Well, Man U will win of course. Won’t they?” she scoffed with a smile. See? Look how much I know about this subject!
“Bloody well hope so.”
Rooster smacked his lips. “Night markets tonight?”
“We need something to take back to Bernadette.”
Rooster lowered his double chin even further, his mouth soured. The name of Bernadette seemed to cast a shadow which leaked from the stone, white minarets of the hotel; stark against the blue sky.
“Joe?” he called. And Joe came again; this time, sitting on the bed next to the Rooster for a long while, slapping his legs with glee at the stories Rooster began to tell.
…
Rooster’s real name is Tony and his wife’s name is Michelle. They come to Singapore every January, escaping the British winter for a month in the Raffles Hotel. They mostly come with Roy Orbison - who is actually called Roy, and his wife Vivian; and another couple – Penny and Nigel – who were drinking mocha-chinos at the coffee shop when this exchange occurred.
It is important to remember, for the purposes of this story, that Roy does not like Penny. The reason behind this is not important – suffice to say, it involves a market gardening competition, the results of which are now never discussed. Roy finds losing things unbearable. Hence his sulk, later on, when it is discovered that Cambridge held Man U to a nil-nil draw.
Tony doesn’t mind Penny. Or Nigel for that matter. But, if pushed to choose, he would say he prefers Roy and Vivian. He and Roy are on the same level. They retired from middle management four years ago, when the plot was hatched to come to South East Asia for the winter. They save wisely; they laugh loudly. They like to watch their wives move through the hot air in Singapore like large, heavy peacocks. They like the smallness of the Joes. They like the way their stomachs seem to demonstrate their wealth against the petite, brown skinned waiters.
Nigel on the other hand, is a lean man. And he is wealthy. More so than the money which enables the other four to leave the cold, whipped wind of the British Isles in the dark of its most miserable month. Nigel is rich in a way which means he never has to look at the total of a restaurant bill; in that he and Penny were able to send their luggage on ahead, her black tie gowns and cocktails laid out flat in a trunk. Saving her the effort of squeezing them, crumpled, into a suitcase and then the worry at the airline check-in counter that said suitcases would be within the 30kg limit.
This is the main reason why he and his wife cause antipathy in their travelling companions. Nigel - Tony often thinks to himself - is a man on the make. Most evenings, Roy cannot stop his eyes fixating on Nigel’s Rolex, endlessly wondering its worth.
…
Later, after the sun had hit its nadir and bounced back to disappear below the horizon, the wives went before their husbands up to the Long Bar. Fresh and perfumed, their blonde hair curled and dark at its ends from a shower; they wore mid-length skirts, ruched sleeves, carrying their leather handbags like talismans, protection against sudden moves or the unpredictable nature of life.
“By the window, Michelle?” Vivian asked
They pushed their way through the dark wooden tables, crunching over the monkey nut shells sprayed carelessly over the floor. Upstairs, the house band played Bobby Darrin songs, soft and unobtrusive.
“No more slings,” Penny said, as they settled at the table. “If I see another maraschino cherry….”
“I might have a G and T. Comes in a bigger glass.”
“Me too,” said Vivian.
“White wine,” Penny said to the waiter. “So, Tony wants to go shopping tonight?”
Michelle sighed. “Down to China Town. Then I said about Bernadette. About needing to get her something….”
“And he got a mard on,” Vivian finished for her. She fished in her bag for her phone. “Boys are on their way down,” she said, looking at the screen.
“Which is ridiculous because it’s not like he’d be backing down from anything because he gave her a blimmin’ lucky cat.”
They paused as the waiter came and deposited the drinks, waiting a beat until after he’d left before swapping the drinks round to where they should be.
“It’s been going on a long time now, hasn’t it?” Penny said, her eyes flicking towards the bar where a crowd of middle-aged men stood, Tiger beers in hand.
Michelle clinked the ice in her glass, her mouth bunched a little on one side. “Oh, it’s not as bad as all that.” She shone a bright smile at Penny. “Barely registers.”
Penny smiled back, the action of a cat, her green eyes flashing in the gloom of the bar. She cracked open a monkey nut. “Not keen on Mario, is he?”
Michelle sipped from her glass. “It’s not really a question of Mario, Penny,” she said, crunching an ice cube. “Mario’s neither here nor there. It’s Bernadette’s future Tony’s concerned about.” The sound of ice splitting between her teeth sounded like breaking bones. “And if she moves to London, where’s the certainty? At home, she’s got it all panned out. Promotion. Flat in the centre. All panned out.” She placed the glass carefully back on the table, another glossy smile emerging. “As a mother,” the pause hung in the air as Penny glanced again at the men at the bar. “I can understand his worries.”
“Do you come here often, ladies?” Tony eased himself into a leather club chair at the table, with a familiar wave to the barman. “Alright, Ravi. Yep, same as always!” He beamed at the women as Roy and Nigel sank into the remaining empty chairs.
“Whatcha been gossiping about, then? Don’t tell me,” he held up his hand in mock approbation. “Still lusting after that handbag, Viv? Come on Roy, mate,” he rested his chubby arms across the top of his stomach in an approximation of a fold, grinning at his friend. “Do your worst, why don’t you? Treat the little lady to a late Christmas pressie?”
[...]
I have a couple of questions:
1) I suspect readers will find the amount of characters confusing....BUT, despite this, are you still interested to see what happens?
2) How do you find the change in tone from the beginning section to the latter?
Thanks!
