Smoking Poppy by Graham Joyce (the read aloud family .txt) 📕

found and stamped me something by Baudelaire. I might have guessed he was French by his name.

‘If you don’t mind waiting a moment, I’ll walk out with you,’ she said. ‘Only I hate walking across that dark car park.’

‘Not at all,’ I said, quite flattered to be asked to escort a young woman anywhere, even if it was only to the safety of the well-lit street. I waited while she armed the burglar alarm, flicked off the porch lights and secured the door.

‘This Decker,’ I said as we carefully stepped over rainwater puddles to cut across the gloomy car park. Our boots crunched the wet gravel underfoot. ‘Is he a drinking pal of yours?’

‘Drinking? When do I get out drinking?’ She laughed. ‘I’ve got a two-year-old daughter to think about. I should get out drinking!’

‘Where is she now?’

‘My mum looks after her while I work.’

‘I’ll baby-sit for you,’ I blurted.

She stopped in her tracks and looked at me strangely. ‘Why?’

‘To give you a break, I mean. A night off. I’ve had kids of my own. Two. A pair. Boy and a girl. I know the ropes.’

‘Why?’

What could I tell her? That the reason I wanted to baby-sit was because my own daughter was rotting in an Asian jail and I wanted to watch her two-year-old baby, in flight, sleeping. It wouldn’t come out right. ‘Just a thought.’

We started walking again. ‘I’ll bear it in mind,’ Lucy said, and I felt foolish beyond measure. ‘I’ll be all right now,’ she said when we reached the parade of shops. ‘Thanks, Mr Innes. See you!’

I was actually walking the same way as her, but I felt compelled to mumble a goodbye, turn on my heels and step out in the opposite direction. After a few yards I drew abreast of the Shoulder of Mutton, a roustabout’s pub I never use, but I had to dive inside just to get something to put the colour back in my face.

8

Izzy was completing the Daily Telegraph crossword while waiting for the quiz to get underway. She could crack a crossword puzzle before the tonic had stopped fizzing in her gin. She wasn’t the greatest conversationalist in the world, Izzy. But then neither was I according to Mick Williams, and that night I was too busy looking round to see if Decker was going to arrive.

Decker had proved to be a useful addition to the team on the previous occasion, coming up with one or two answers that had stumped the rest of us. He also had the tact not to volunteer answers before we did; he’d wait, and if none were forthcoming, he’d offer one. I suspected him of general knowledge. Though that didn’t stop my unreasonable interest in breaking his face.

The difficulty with these occasional team members was what to do with the pot. The prize money of twenty-five pounds to the winning team always went into a pot, since we didn’t know what else to do with it. The pot was kept by Izzy, and she sat on it like a dragon in a cave. Mick and I had guessed that the pot kept her in juice, but we never said anything. Then when these casual players came along you had to split the winnings for tiny returns.

But Decker, hearing Izzy mention the pot, insisted that we keep his share. Whereupon Izzy had insisted that he join on a regular basis. I should add that Izzy goes skittish and stupid when any presentable young man appears. She simpers; she smiles broadly; she flutters her eyelids and she shows off her intellect, which is considerable. Really, you wouldn’t think she’d bother what with the state she’s in. But whenever Decker rang the bell with a correct answer she’d lean across me to grip his knee between a powerful thumb and forefinger.

Slightly nonplussed by this romantic attention, Decker had muttered something about not liking routines, but eventually conceded to turn up the following week. That is, this week. But with the quiz about to start there was no sign of him.

Izzy dispatched the crossword in record time, laid down her pen, glared over the top of her spectacles and said, ‘Where’s our sweet hippy then?’

‘Cow fell on him while he were drinkin’ milk,’ Mick said, dragging on a snout. I didn’t get this joke. Then I noticed Mick had a nicotine patch on the back of his wrist.

‘I thought the point of a nicotine patch was to stop you smoking?’

Mick looked at the patch as if someone else had put it there. He was about to say something but the quiz had started.

About a quarter of the way through I got a hot blast of patchouli oil or whatever it is. A small fist, red hairs bristling on putty-white skin, parked a pint of Muckster’s for me, and then another one for Mick, on the table. A gin and tonic came for Izzy, followed by another pint as a voice breathed in my ear, ‘Lucy sends her regards.’ I turned my head to see Decker weaving back to the bar with his tin tray.

He pulled up a stool between Izzy and Mick, and the quizmaster wanted to know who wrote, ‘Ode to a Nightingale’.

I should have left it. I knew there would be trouble. But I just barked out, ‘Keats.’

Disgusted, Izzy threw her pen down on the table. ‘My department,’ she snapped nastily.

Mick looked at me as if I’d gone out of my mind. ‘Literature. Izzy’s department. You know the rules.’

I picked up the pen. ‘Rules? What rules? There are no rules.’

Mick turned to Decker. Talking to me by pretending to explain to the new boy. ‘Izzy, literature and history. Me, sport, TV and pop music. Dan is general knowledge and odd bits of science. First run, that is. We have first run in our own department, then if we don’t shout, someone else can. Not rules, Dan is right. Technically. But the way we play it.’

Decker nodded thoughtfully. ‘I see.’

‘Keats,’ Izzy spat.