Merv and Granny discuss life, the universe and everything.
Written by Big M
“Can I getcher anything, love?” Granny carefully approached Merv who was spread out on the Chesterfield doing leg raises with his crook leg.
“Nah, oh, yeah, some Panadol Osteo, and top up me South Sea Island Scotch, thanks, love” Merv had been doing leg raises religiously, twenty every hour.
“Here you go.” Granny had the capsules in her grubby hand. “Here. Flush it down with this.” As she proffered a generous tumbler of scotch. “Do you think we need to talk about the elephant in the room?”
“Hell yeah, why do you think that dwarves don’t exist?”
“I was wondering about yer interest in dwarves, you seem to know a hell of a lot more
about them than a grown man should!” The old girl was already getting heated up.
We might be small but we still count…
Merv swivelled around and plonked his leg on an Ottoman. “You first, Granny, why don’t you believe in them?”
“Well, they’re like fairies and elves, no one has ever seen them!” Granny stood her ground.
“Yeah, no one’s ever seen fairies and elves, but there’s dwarves everywhere.” Merv took a generous sip. “ There’s an achondroplastic dwarf down the road.”
“What, that little bloke?”
“Yes, he’s an actual dwarf!”
“Yer jokin’!”
“No, he’s married to the florist.”
“What, the big tall streak of misery?”
“Yep.”
“Imagine them in the fart sack!” Granny started to giggle. “Well, what about you bein’ the expert on dwarves?”
“I’m not an expert, I got talking to a few of them when I was a copper. A big bastard was bullying them all, so some of us coppers used casually drop into the café they hung out in, and, we used to chat and learned a bit about them.”
“Is that all? Here was I thinkin’ you had some sort of weird fetish.”
Can’t you see I’m busy…
Merv’s phone rang. “O’Way here, we’re fucked, absolutely fucked. It turns out that DFAT is completely unaware that we’ve left the country, and, as we are acting as agents for a foreign power, we could be charged under foreign incursion legislation.”
“Hold on, hold on, you mean yer there illegally?”
“Yep, we left Australia on a Papal plane, never went through customs or filed a visa. England can regard us as foreign combatants. The MI5 bloke twigged to it. He reckons it was deliberate, to get us to perform some sort of act of aggression on English soil, so become mercenaries.”
“So are the Tykes gonna fly you back?”
“Nah, can’t trust ‘em. We’re boarding a container ship that will get us to Sydney in about forty days. Paid in cash. No questions asked.”
“Where’d you get the reddies?”
“Had ‘em in my briefcase. I never travel anywhere with less than twenty thou
Did you say readies…
American. Been stuck before. American cash does wonders! We’ll be ditching our mobiles, might be able to make a radio call, or something…”
“But what about the paedos?” Merv was hoping for a refill, but Granny didn’t get the hint.
“You wouldn’t believe this. The Tykes were sending us to protect ‘em, not arrest ‘em. I never would have thought in a million years. Is Granny there? Tell her I’ll get Foodge to call her before we ditch these phones.”
Granny was visibly shaken, but still climbed the stairs so she could have one last conversation with her Foodge before the blackout.
‘What about Wes?”
“He’s farewelling his young lady as we speak.”
“See yuz all in forty days, Father, travel safe!”
O’Way travels in style across the universe…