The First Book of Short Stories by Lyn Funnell

Author:Lyn Funnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mess, humour, love, dogs, men, women, dining out, husband, wife, venice, britain, best friends, fate, unemployment, lottery win, shoplifting, aston martin, tricks, suprises, chips, Anaesthesia
ISBN: 9781849893374
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2011
Published: 2011-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

Stan And Stanley

‘Two hundred grams of Vampire’s Fangs please Mr Grimble.’

‘Certainly young lady. Two hundred grams coming up’. Stan forced a smile as he weighed the gooey sweets, resting his thumb on the scales for good measure. He hated kids. They had too much money nowadays. And you had to watch them like a hawk.

‘Bye-bye dear. See you soon. Give my regards to your parents.’ He waved the little girl out of the shop and sighed. Ten minutes to closing time. And then what? Another evening in the back room watching the telly, alone and unloved. ‘Thank you Mother,’ he muttered, ‘You stole my youth!’

He could go down to the pub for a quick pint, but it was always the same; sarky comments about when was he going to buy a round of drinks, or how were the moths in his wallet. Well he knew they didn’t really like him very much so he wasn’t going to waste his hard-earned money on them!

The bell tinkled as the door opened and Stan forced his money-making smile onto his plump face.

‘Can I help-’ he began. And froze.

‘Yes, I was-’ the customer began. And froze.

Stan stared, pop-eyed at – himself! His double stared back. They both had the same thinning hair with side parting, the same frown lines clustered above the nose, the same bulging paunch. Only the clothes were different. Stan wore a shabby, off-white overall, worn grey trousers and unpolished, scuffed black lace-up shoes. His doppelganger was expensively and immaculately clothed.

Two mouths slowly dropped open and two pairs of eyes travelled downwards while the men patted themselves, checking that they weren’t dreaming. Then they pointed to each other and gurgled, ‘You-you look just like me!’

Hurrying over to the front door, Stan locked it and turned the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’ five minutes early for the first time in his life. He tried not to imagine the money that he might be losing.

‘I think we could do with a drink,’ he gasped.

‘I think we could,’ his double agreed.

They talked through the night, pouring out whisky and troubles. Stan Grimble was forty-seven. He opened the corner newsagent’s seven days a week. He was the third generation of his family to run it. ‘And the last,’ he said bitterly, draining his whisky. He’d hardly ever been out of Tidfield in his life. He’d hardly ever been allowed out of range of his neurotic mother’s voice.

Stanley Ashton was a year older. He was a Company Director with a big house, a flash car and an ulcer. He was on his way back from a meeting in Scotland and he’d become tired of the monotony of motorway driving so he’d turned off, searching for a country inn.

Stan’s domineering mother had died last year, leaving him her life savings and an inbred bitterness. ‘Stan! Stan!’ she’d shrieked a million times a day from her armchair in the lounge. He often winced, thinking that he could still hear her.

Stanley’s nagging, nit-picking, social-climbing wife was still alive and picking. ‘Oh Stanley,’ she’d sigh as though he was a tiresome child.

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