Mister God, this is Anna by Flynn

Author:Flynn [Flynn]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Nonfiction - General, Non-Classifiable
ISBN: 9780345251541
Publisher: New York : Ballantine Books, 1976, c1975.
Published: 1976-08-12T05:00:00+00:00

* * *

six

Over a cup of tea we made plans. As soon as it was open we'd go to the market and buy a whole stack of mirrors from Woolworth's.

When we got to the marketplace the shops were still closed. The stall holders were assembling their displays under the flaring carbide lamps. The street was crisscrossed with shafts of good-humored abuse, instructions, and speculations as to the course of the day. Feet were stamped as if to kill the creeping insects of the cold. Oil-drum braziers stood on their bricks bringing the tea water to the boil. The coffee stall breathed its perfume of hot dogs and coffee over the marketplace.

"A cuppa, two o' dripping and a cheesecake, guv," said the taxi bloke.

"I'll have a cuppa and a couple of sausages," said his mate.

"What's for you, cock?" It was my turn.

"Two cuppas and four hot dogs."

I slapped the money on the counter and got back the change, along with a handful of tea from the dripping counter. Anna stood grasping her mug in both hands, nose buried deep. Over the rim of the mug two smiling and blazing eyes sucked in everything. She couldn't hold her tea and the hot dogs at the same time, so I stuck them between the fingers of my left hand ready when she wanted them. There was a space on the next stall to put my mug down while I jiggled out a cigarette one-handed. I tried to light a match by scraping it with my thumb. I never managed to learn that trick. The nearest I ever got was when the match head came off and stuck under my thumbnail. It lit then. It wasn't supposed to do that, and it hurt. Anna lifted up her foot and I lit up. The tempo was hotting up.

"Mind yer backs please! Mind yer backs!" Like the bow wave from a passing ship, we all washed into the curb and washed back again as a horse and cart sliced its way through the mob, the horse steaming in the morning frost.

"Ernie!" yelled the lady in the leather apron. "Where the 'ell's them ruddy cabbages?" To anyone who cared to listen she added, "He'll be the death of me; he'll put me in my grave."

"Fat chance!" said someone.

The sandwich-board man arrived, announcing to all and sundry that the end is nigh, and asked for a cup of tea.

"Blimey, the 'erald angel's here!"

"Here you are, Joe. Have a cup of wet-and-warm, with me."

It was the taxi bloke.

"Fanks, guv," said the herald angel.

"Wotcha, Joe. Wot's the good news for today?"

"The end is nigh," moaned old Joe.

"You give me the flippin 'orrors."

"What was it last week?"

"Prepare to meet thy doom!"

"How the hell do you get all them messages?"

"He gets a telegram from St. Peter."

From the end of the counter a voice like a clap of thunder menaced all the company with, "Which of you sodden baskits pinched me sausages?"

"They're under yer flippin' elbow."

" 'Arry, mind yer language, ther's a nipper

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