Borstal Slags Read Online Free PDF Page B

Promotion? Personally, I’m not much interested in climbing the corporate ladder. What about you, Mr Humphreys? Would you rather be on top?
    MR HUMPHREYS: Ooh, I’m quite happy near the bottom.
    The TV burbled on.
    Slipping back into his wedding fantasy, Sam tried to ignore the faces of his colleagues amid the pews. Damn it all, this was
his
dream! Those bastards had no right to gatecrash it!
    He tried to fill his imagination with the image of Annie in her bridal gown. She looked – and how could she not? – wonderful. He allowed a pale aura of light to shimmer around her, a soft-focus haze that gave her an almost ethereal radiance. Subtly – perhaps a little tackily – he made her eyes glint alluringly beneath her veil as she turned to smile at him.
    The priest stepped forward to read the wedding service. But Sam’s imagination decided on a cruel casting decision.
    ‘Oh no, not you!’
    There was a panatela smouldering unashamedly in the priest’s gob. He tugged at his dog collar to loosen it, sniffed, glanced about, and reached under his cassock to flagrantly shepherd a wayward bollock.
    ‘Shall we crack on with and adjourn to the bar?’ grunted Father Hunt. ‘The padre is parched.’
    ‘You’re just bloody spoiling it, Guv. You’re always bloody spoiling it.’
    INT: GRACE BROTHER’S DEPARTMENT STORE – EVENING
    Later that evening, everyone’s working late.
    Bald, jug-eared Mr Rumbold appears dressed in an overcoat and carrying an umbrella. With him is an extremely attractive young new employee, Miss Belfridge. Mr Rumbold is clearly excited by her company.
    MR RUMBOLD: Since we’re finishing late tonight, I promised to accompany the lovely Miss Belfridge safely to her front door.
    CAPTAIN PEACOCK: Isn’t that rather out of your way, Mr Rumbold? You don’t live anywhere near Miss Belfridge.
    MR HUMPHREYS:
I
can give you a lift home, Miss Belfridge. I’ve got my mother’s motorbike and sidecar.
    MISS BELFRIDGE: But Mr Humphreys, I thought you were completely the other way.
    MR HUMPHREYS:
(Purses his lips)
That’s a wicked rumour.
    Drifting on the outskirts of sleep, Sam tried to rearrange his fantasy. He blotted out Gene and Ray and the others and tried to replace them. But who with? He wanted to imagine Annie’s father proudly escorting his beautiful daughter up the aisle, but Sam had no image of the man.
    I don’t really know anything about Annie’s father,
he thought, sleepily sipping more beer, and sliding further into the warm bath of sleep.
In fact, I don’t know much about her past life at all. Bits and pieces. She may have mentioned something about brothers. Are they in the Force too? Does she come from a police family? And what about her childhood, all those years before I met her?
    He began to imagine old boyfriends she might have had over the years. There would have been no shortage of willing candidates. Spotty, callow-faced youths, trying to impress her at the disco, or deep-voice uniformed coppers with little intelligence and even less imagination, offering her a future of child-rearing and domestic servitude.
    Sam felt waves of jealousy lap at the edge of his dozing mind. To think that he could so easily have missed his chance with Annie, that he might have lost her to some schoolyard boyfriend or dull-as-ditchwater lug in uniform. Just to
imagine
her with somebody else made his muscles tighten and his stomach clench.
    But she’s
not
with somebody else – she’s with
me
. More or less. Pretty much. In a manner of speaking.
    There
was
no husband, emerging from the shadows to reclaim his runaway bride. Whatever the Devil in the Dark may be, it was not Annie’s husband. It was impossible. It was unthinkable!
    MR HUMPHREYS: Wait there, Miss Belfridge, while I get my motorcycle things. I stuck my helmet round the back.
    CAPTAIN PEACOCK: Stuck it round the back, Mr Humphreys? I hope you haven’t put it anywhere that might cause a blockage.
    MR HUMPHREYS: It’s only a small one,