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by Tim Turnbull |
All the World Behind the counter they murmur in Turkish, passing plates, scraping bacon off the griddle and handing round the scraps of paper on which our orders are encrypted. A mum and dad coax bits of sausage into a pouting six year old. A Bradford City fan grills the Irish postman for directions up to White Hart Lane; three builders, doing overtime, tuck into giant breakfasts as they analyse and comment on the Sun¹s sports coverage. An old man with a hernia has difficulty sitting down. His chair shreiks. She enters with a flourish, with a toss of the head. Her walk is mannered, her clothes modish - combats, leather, hair dyed but unkempt. She wears a smidgin of make-up (it is early) and carries a quality newspaper. Her dietary requirements are particular, in the New York style, and have to be repeated several times, the man goldfishing it all back to her but what comes looks suspiciously like scrambled egg and beans with the toast on a seperate plate. She takes the corner seat and then, the coup de grâce, out comes the slender Nokia she uses as a megaphone, trawling the tar black sea of her neurosis, siphoning insecurity up into the room. Our contact with the netherworld she says things the like of which we¹ve never heard, albeit couched in a very clever code that makes them sound mundane. She would love to come on Sunday but she must be back in London for rehearsal. She hates Mike and Stewart and Louise. She will not be patronised. Her pitch is shaky but the diction is perfect. Normal activity ceases. She stirs the beans around and lights a Marlborough. Everyone is quiet for her cold reading. Even the light dims, politely. And on it goes until she¹s bored, bangs the table getting up, rattles the knives and forks, leaves the egg but takes the last triangle of toast to eat, flamboyantly, in the street. The bell tings and the door slams as she leaves. Conversation restarts as a faint hum and moments later life resumes.
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| Edited By Jim Chandler & Haze McElhenny Site Design & Cover Graphics By UrbanDecay.Org |
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