Free Breakfast on Pluto by Patrick McCabe

jacket and a dinky little T-shirt with a scarlet baby heart over the left breast. Not to
mention trousers most exceptionally delicious, of velvet once again and big-buckled belt of patent black. With her eyeshadow laden and hair again dyed: boy with the swirling, shiny hair –
could it be Pussy? Methinks it is! – did she perhaps resemble Miss Lynsey de Paul? She certainly did, let there be no doubt! Indeed often swinging her hips while working Piccadilly, to the
tune of ‘Sugar Me!’ – for services rendered, of course!
    And now she sits there facing dearest Berts! Marlon Margarine definitely not – but everyone’s favourite uncle perhaps. The one who always arrives with prezzies and is never done
trying to amuse everyone – squirting you with his novelty trick flower and going: ‘Ha ha! Only joking!’, flopping down in his favourite armchair – the one he sits in every
year – and ruffling the heads of kiddies all around as he says: ‘Well! Wot’s been ’appening then? Any stories for your Uncle Bertie?’ As they all say: ‘Oh, Uncle
Berts! How O how we love him!’
    Except when he gets too drunk of course, and starts blubbering in the corner and wilting like a great big daffodil (he just loved yellow!), saying nobody loved him and that his life had come to
nothing. Uncle Bertie plastered across the table at every single wedding, everyone mortified with shame.
    And now, here he was at it again in front of a complete stranger! Oh, Bertie Bertie Berts – what a sight to behold after practically a crate of beer! Holsten Pils like dribbly teeth going plok! as his spidery eyes they liquidized upon the table.
    But waking up – eureka! – just as his favourite song came on the jukebox! How he adored them, Peters and Lee! As he did not fail to inform the entire company!
    ‘I can’t believe it! It’s on! My favourite song! What a coincidence! Astonishing, in fact!’
    It was unlikely, as a general rule old Berts deciding at the drop of a hat to entertain crowded cafés to renditions of ‘Welcome Home’ or indeed any other popular numbers, but
right at that very moment, at 3 a.m. on the 11th of August 1973, there would have been very little that anyone who took the notion could have done to stop him! He even insisted on his new companion
– moi , of course! – accompanying him on a waltz around the floor, much to the amusement of the assorted Irish, Turkish and other immigrant workers who cried: ‘Drop the
hand!’, ‘Pair of Hoors!’ and ‘Get them off ya!’
    As Berts crooned in Puss’s tender ear: ‘ Welcome Home! Welcome! Come on in and close the door! ’
    Later – much later! (already the tubes were groaning into life), over a very appreciable number of Pils, it transpired that Berts had a theory. ‘Gasp!’ I counterfeited
admirably. Yes, Berts went on, he had no doubt whatsoever that this particular song, as written, told only half the story.
    I nodded feverishly as he stared into my eyes with something, if you didn’t know better, you might be inclined to consider very close indeed to complete and utter madness, of a firmly
pathological and obsessive kind, and not been in the slightest bit surprised if they had stormed the café and carted him off for good never to be seen again. Especially when he poked his
finger into your chest and plaintively cried: ‘What about the inside of the house? Eh? The tables and chairs and sideboards and that? You don’t hear about
them, do you? Oh no!’ Out of nowhere he began to sing (And what a performer! I kid you not!), twirling in and out among the tables.
    Welcome Home Welcome
    You’ve been gone too long
    I nearly fell off the chair as stalk-eyed he leaned right in to me and continued:
    Come on in you’re home once more!
    He slapped his perfectly manicured hand down on the formica.
    ‘You’ve got to hear about the inside , don’t you understand! And I’m going to see to it that we do! Oh, yes! I’ve got my own band you know! Been