Free These Demented Lands by Alan Warner

really, really
is
!’
    â€˜Wait, wait,’ he rocked back on his heels, ‘What she said was, glaring at the keys I was fiddling with in my palm, “That’s awful interesting, Mister,” she used the word “Mister” the way a child would, “I don’t have many clothes with me, they went down with that stinking little ferry that almost killed me, but rest assured if I had anything, it’d be so short,
soooo short
it’d be halfway up my butt. Don’t
ever
tell me or any other girl how to dress – and can I have my keys?”’
    â€˜She walked into that one; let me guess when you’re driving up to Far Places in the limo next?’
    â€˜Ummm, tomorrow?!’
    We both laughed out loud. I said, ‘Past the Wee Freeze . . .’
    â€˜Past The Best Little Hairhouse in Town . . .
    â€˜Into Horan’s Fashions.’
    â€˜What size is she?’ Brotherhood shrugged.
    â€˜Ten, the women I fall in love with are always size-ten tops.’
    Brotherhood asked, ‘Your wife?’
    â€˜That was before I left her, she’ll’ve lost a lot of weight since I walked out.’ I smiled defiantly, the pain only half cranked up through the whisky spookers. ‘What’s she say next?’
    â€˜Oh, come on, I think I’d a fine tactical opening created, it was all over to her. I sneered, held out the keys so they dangled down and she had to pick them rather than grab, “Make yourself at home . . .”’
    â€˜Wait, wait . . . you hadn’t handed her the kitbag . . .?’
    â€˜Steady on, Sam Spade, you don’t think I’m carrying some women’s libber’s grenade launcher; she had it all the time – not looking as if she was letting go either – so I say, “Make yourself at home, I’ll be seeing you up in the lounge later; we’re serving dinner in ten minutes.”’
    I said, ‘Wow, so she was Florence Nightingale on our latest Titanic.’
    â€˜Of course, aye, but let me finish my tac-au-tac; she asks, “Is the telly back on yet?” “Yes it is, it’s just come on the minute you arrived, you brought a flooding of eternal bullshit with you.”’
    I smirked and flicked at my empty glass.
    â€˜By now she’d got the key in, opened the door and leaned, fumbled around to find the light switch, forced it on with her palm and seen there’s no TV. She looks at me with real hatred, dead sexy. “I had the TV in this room taken up to myfather; he’s very ill in bed you know.” “Can’t I have a room with telly . . .?” Telly, that’s what she calls it. “No you cannot have a fucking tell-eh,” I say, and feel like shoving her in the door but I said, “There are two in the lounge.” “I’m
no
going up there” . . . 
No
like that, “Oh yes you will be,” I say, “The radiator doesn’t work in this room,” and I lean in and slam the dobr behind her.’
    I was holding my chin down onto my chest with laughter, ‘She’ll be checking out at dawn, man!’
    Brotherhood gave an inward look that startled me. ‘I don’t think so!’
    I held up my glass and wiggled it, ‘Charge this to room 15.’
    We both laughed and Brotherhood replied, ‘I will, you know I will!’ he took the tumbler from my fingers and turned his back on me, I could see his hands pour out a large slap of sherry-cask whisky, not bothering with the measure; he stooped, removed the ice-tray, dropped three cubes into a glass towel, folded the fabric twice and with a serrated mallet suddenly and sharply pulverised the ice. The honeymooners from 6 actually stopped their hushed conversation. I smiled at the back of Brotherhood’s dinner jacket,
I’ll permit myself a foolish and private instant of an old croaking that I guess