Al Im’d me.
Al: What are you doing for lunch?
Me: Listening to you bitch about something.
Al: I hate being so predictable.
A bit after 12:30 we were walking down Victoria Street toward Westminster making our way to a pub we like that is tucked in a quiet street near St. James Park. A couple of older ladies crossed our path. They looked as if they had robbed Queen Elizabeth’s closet and haberdashery.
“I say,” I said to Al in my bluest of blue blood accents, “do you know the way to Buckingham Palace?”
“Do you know who my Father is?” Al replied in an equally put on accent.
“I wonder if they are picking up an OBE?”
“Dunno. She is home.” Al walks through St. James Park to work so he sees if the Standard is being flown.
We turned down a street by St. James Park station and we saw another woman wearing an Ascoty hat.
“Yeah, there is definitely something going on.”
Bells were ringing. Happy church bells.
We ordered our food and our pints and went upstairs. Another couple was sitting in the chairs we normally like to sit in.
‘You know,” Al whispered, “those seats are much more comfortable than these.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s kill them.”
“Sure. Then we can stuff them up the floo.”
“I wouldn’t bother. We can stack them up behind the bar. No one will notice until we are long gone.”
“I think if we’re going to kill someone, we should give some thought of how we are going to dispose of the bodies.”
“Details.”
The bells were still ringing.
We bitched.
“You know what we should do?” Al said. “You should take out a life insurance policy on me—“
“And then I kill you?”
Al glared at me. “No. Then I fake my death and we split the money.”
“Your family will love that. I’m practically a stranger and I get your money?”
“You’re right. We’ll have to kill them first. There will be more money that way. And I don’t want to share my inheritance with Fiona so she has to go as well.”
“Such a loving family.”
Hey, I would say this to their face. I could just wait. They’re Scottish. It won’t be too much longer.”
“Then we fake your death?”
“Exactly.”
When we left the pub the bells were still ringing.
“It sounds like a wedding.”
“That’s what it is!” Al said. “It’s their Diamond wedding. Sixty years.”
I immediately knew who the they was. “Sixty years. I can’t imagine.”
“I know. If I were the Queen I would have killed The Duke of Edinburgh years ago. She could do it. She can’t be prosecuted.”
“I’m starting to worry about you.”
“You’re just starting to worry about me?”
“You have been talking a lot about killing people.”
“I would do it by injecting insulin under the fingernails. That’s how my mother said she was going to kill my father. And she’s a doctor so she would know.”
November 19th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Almost 5 years here and I still can’t do a British accent to save my life.
Sigh - they’ll never give me citizenship.