Danny Yates Must Die. Stephen Walker

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       seven

      First thing next morning.

      Annette Helstrang awoke, threw back the sheets, sat up, stretched out in a great big, foot-stomping, yawn. Then she watched the floor, puzzled.

      Between her bare feet, a pair of legs were protruding from beneath her bed.

      ‘Lucy?’ Early morning, Danny answered a knock at the Mission door, surprised to find her stood on the doorstep.

      She grabbed his arm, almost yanked it from its socket, and dragged him to her psychedelic taxi.

      ‘How did you find me?’ he asked.

      Fingers tapping steering wheel, in time to REM, she said, ‘I asked myself where would the saddest of sad losers end up in this town, chose the Seaman’s Mission and rang the bell. You answered.’

      Lucy drove along a tree-shaded road out of town, Danny seated beside her in the pink and purple cab she ran to supplement her student loan. Wedged above the rear view mirror was a rolled up copy of the comic book Daisy the Cow. Daisy would spend each issue’s thirty-seven pages sampling different types of grass to see which tasted best. In the end, she always settled on New Zealand Rye; the message being that the familiar is always the best. Daisy the Cow was the number one comic strip among students. It was an irony thing.

      ‘So, what’s this about?’ asked Danny

      ‘I have a King Kong of a surprise for you.’

      ‘You’ve found something of mine you’ve not stolen?’

      ‘Don’t get bitter on me, Danny.’

      ‘Well what do you expect? You take my room, my rats, my grocery box, on top of all the other rotten things you’ve done to me over the years.’

      ‘You don’t want to know what I have to say?’

      He folded his arms and looked out through the side window. ‘Get on with it.’

      ‘I, Lucy Jane Smith, who everyone said was neither use nor ornament, have found you a home.’

      ‘Is it crap?’

      ‘Daniel, this is not crap. This is with Annette Helstrang. You remember her from Hallowe’en?’

      ‘The horror movie?’

      ‘The party. She was at my Walpurgis do. Annette remembers you; remembers you big time. She was the nice one.’

      ‘There was no nice one at your Hallowe’en do.’

      ‘Course there was. She frightened you.’

      ‘They all frightened me,’ he complained. ‘They all frighten me at all your do’s. I don’t know where you unearth your friends but, frankly, I’d rather you didn’t.’

      ‘You’re one to talk,’ she retorted. ‘With the state of your friends.’

      ‘What’s wrong with my friends?’

      ‘Chuff, Biffer and Bloaty Elvis? Need I say more?’

      ‘Chuff was a good enough name for you when you went out with him.’

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