A Streetcar Named Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce

A Streetcar Named Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce

Author:Malcolm Pryce [Pryce, Malcolm]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zoo of Words
Published: 2024-05-24T00:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER 14

The following day Calamity took the afternoon off to be with her aunt who was visiting. I was sitting alone in my office dozing when a strange sound from the stairwell woke me.

A voice cried out, ‘Anybody home!’

I looked up and saw that the voice came from a giant teacup framed in the doorway. I focused, and the image resolved into one just as strange: it was Rapunzel, standing in a fibreglass teacup held aloft by ropes to her shoulder, her legs emerging from the base of the cup. She walked into the room, the cup swinging gently like a tutu. ‘Louie! I got the job.’

‘What job is that?’

‘I told you I was going for a job interview. This is it.’

‘The job is a teacup?’

‘It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.’ She giggled in a way that suggested she wasn’t accomplished at telling jokes.

‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘It wouldn’t be Aberystwyth without someone walking up the Prom dressed as a cup.’

‘I’m advertising the café on Constitution Hill. They are running a prize draw. I have to hand out tickets. If you put them in the tub in the café, you go into the draw and hopefully buy a cup of tea at the same time. It’s meant to be a way of drumming up business.’

‘Congratulations.’

‘You don’t have to pretend. It’s a crappy job. But Mr Griffiths said if I did it for the month, and increased his sales, he would write me a good reference.’

‘A job is a job.’

She let her gaze wander round the room, doing a quiet inventory of my life. She turned to the door and read the words on the frosted-glass top half: ‘Knight Err Investigations. You’ve lost the “ant”.’

‘Yes.’

‘Why don’t you replace it?’

‘Because I hate it.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s a silly conceit. I’m no knight errant. Just a man doing a job.’

‘Where’s Calamity?’

‘Her aunt from Dolgellau has come to visit. She’s taken the afternoon off.’

‘So you are free then?’

‘As I’ll ever be.’

‘Good! You can come with me as I hand out the tickets.’



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