JG's Pages for Poets  ( and the occasional prose)

Page No S10

A short, short story from GORDON LINNELL

UNCLE ALBERT'S WIG

Uncle Albert was bald. But never on a Sunday afternoon. At 12.30 Aunty Ada would bring down his grey wig from upstairs together with the canister of adhesive spray and the ritual began. She planted the wig firmly on his head then set about securing it with liberal squirts of the spray.

"You're bloody drownin' me, Ada! Do you have to put so much on?"

"You don't want the bloody thing dropping into your soup, do you?" replied Ada with spirit, applying a few more prolonged presses on the nozzle.

"Bloody 'ell," moaned Albert, "I'm soaked!"

"Oh, sod off!" said Ada, cheerfully.

Albert, querulous to the end, finally acknowledged that the toupée seemed secure although he still didn't see that he had to be subjected to such a drenching every Sunday lunchtime. In truth Ada probably gave a few more squirts than were strictly necessary, just for the hell of it.

And the wig, it must be said, gave Albert something of an air distingué. He stood around 5' 8'' only, but in his toupée he looked somehow a little bit like the west end of Crew's answer to John Wayne.

It was now 1pm. Outside their Casson Street home waited their trusty Hillman Minx which Albert drove every Sunday at this time to the Ming Sum Chinese restaurant on Chester Bridge. Not that they ate Chinese food, of course. "Foreign" stuff like that was never to be trusted. Chicken breast, boiled potatoes, peas and carrots was their meal, week in, week out. And always with a cup of tea, of course. It seemed that every Sunday when they were half way through their meal a certain gentleman in a brown suit would rise from his table and mount the broad staircase which led up to the toilets on the first floor. 

"There he goes," pronounced Ada with some foreboding.

Two minutes later the gentleman emerged from the lavatory and began to descend the stairs, the front of his trousers widely stained with urine.

"And here he comes," said Albert. "You'd think a bugger of his age would have learned by now to have a piss properly, wouldn't you?"

The meal, as every Sunday had been very satisfactory. Pleasantries with the waiter were exchanged, the bill was settled.

"See you next week," said the Chinaman.

"You can count on that," said Ada

The toupée had not fallen off into the soup, nor indeed into any other part of Albert's meal. Home in the Minx and Ada removed the wig, took it upstairs and put it away until next Sunday. And my bald uncle settled down to a few hours of Granada television.

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A few copies of Gordon Linnell's book, "A Teacher's Life", describing his adventures as a teacher in Ellesmere Portare are available.  Queries through jg@pages for poets.co.uk

Gordon is still interested in your ghostly experiences!  Click for details.

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