26.5.2009

THE COFFEE CLUB.

    THE COFFEE CLUB.

http://www.netsaga.is/media/files/zoology3%281%29.mp3

 

    Heavy rain lashed against the derelict building causing cascades of water to fall from off the roof and onto the ground three stories below.

 

    The wind kept whipping open one of the double wooden doors almost taking it from off its hinges and every so often it would swing round and hit the wall with such force that it was liable to break in two.

 

    Just then as the door banged once again a light could be seen falling upon it and shedding a little warmth onto this cold place giving it a false sense of comfort.

 

    This light came from a torch that one of two people were holding.

 

    These two slowly but surely walked towards the open door.

 

    The man reaches out and clutches hold of the swinging door while the female takes hold of the torch and shines it into the empty hallway.

 

    "Anybody in here?"

    She calls into the darkness, her only reply comes from a couple of pigeons flying out of there in a hurry as their home is disturbed.

 

    After both people had regained their composure the lady said to the man,

 

    "Ur, I will hold the door, y? you go on in."

 

    She handed him the torch real quick like so that he didn't have time to argue.

 

    He took the torch and gave her a look which read;

    Gee thanks!

    I always get all the dirty work.?

 

    She watched him go on in allowing about thirty seconds to go by before calling out,

 

    "Is there anyone in there?"

 

    A voice calls out from the darkness,

 

    "No! Not that I can see. Hold on! who the hell are you? No! Ahh!"

 

    "Ben, Ben. Are you alright?" She was now really worried.

 

    Suddenly staggering out into the road her man is clutching something protruding from his stomach, it was what looked to be a screwdriver!

    The lady lets out a scream!

    "Hey Sharon calm down, it's only a joke see!" Then Ben pulls it out to reveal to her that in actual of fact it had once been a screwdriver but now only half of one. He had placed it between the buttons of his shirt to make it look authentic and to his amusement it had worked real well.

    Sharon wasn't amused. "That?s not funny," she said as her blue eyes penetrated his hazel ones. "Now is it safe to go in?"

    "Yeah course it is. Come on in."

    As Sharon entered she gave the entrance a quick look over, that was all it needed. To her right was an old long wooden counter with an old rusted looking bell sitting on the top. Behind it stood an empty cloakroom with all kinds of different patterned cobwebs from various spiders that lurked in the shadows. Sharon was not going to look in there! She hated spiders. In fact she hated anything creepy looking that had skinny legs and moved. So, why did she marry Ben? Because he was the only one who had put or had any kind of faith in her, but this evening she knew it was going to be stretched to breaking point.

    She watched him fumble through the maize of keys the solicitor had given them and after trying about the tenth one he managed to open another set of wooden doors, he now had the torch, but when he shone it through the room was still dark, pitch black to be exact.

    "Er, Shaz, is this room a black hole?" He asked as he turned to get some kind of answer from her.

    She had is answer, "No, um, to the left there should be a panel full of switches." She watched him disappear into the darkness and then as she moved into the black hole of a room it was suddenly filled with light and there in front of her was the very room that she had fallen in love with!

    The marble floor and pillars did their best to shine through the dirt and grime they were buried under. To the left and the right were rows upon rows of stacked tables and chairs all covered over by dust cloths. At the far end stood the stage and off to the left of it were double doors leading to the kitchen and to the right were a couple of doors leading to the toilets and on the right a little further nearer to the entrance you came in stood the bar.

    "Isn't it great!" Sharon squealed with delight.

    Ben wasn't so sure and it sounded in his voice, "Ur, what's this place again?"

    "It was a private club or some kind of restaurant at some point."

    "Now when you suggested that we should move from the island and start up another coffee shop, I was thinking of maybe a trendy little number in a modern shopping arcade or one not so trendy but in a modern town centre, but this?" He said as he raised both his hands to all that stood around him, or had fallen around him.

    Sharon noted his use of the word modern and now had to find a good reply in order to win over her husband, "Well it is in a town!" Well done girl that was a great reply! It was a lame one and she knew it, still she was surprised that her husband bought it after a fashion.

    "Yeah, I guess? But this place is too big to be just a coffee shop," He muttered before putting his voice of reason on to get the point across that he was really trying to make here. "Shaz, this place is, well, how can I say this. If I had enough words to explain what I mean... No lets keep it simple. I think this place ought to be condemned not renovated."

    To Sharon, her husbands voice of reason was definitely not very reasonable, "Ben that is complete rubbish. This place has great potential."

    Ben looked around him before choosing his reply, after all he was on pretty thin ground and having an argument about a silly place was going to loose him a nice meal at an exclusive restaurant. Then again a take-away sounded good. "Where Shaz where? It's going to cost us and arm and a leg to repair this thing. I'm sure that our one small coffee shop on the Isle Of Wight is going to earn enough profit to do up this heap." He had put way too much sarcasm into that last sentence and he could see that his wife was doing her best to stay calm.

    "Ben, calm down! I have my inheritance to fall back on."

    "Shaz, you can't sell the house." As soon as he said this his wife gave him a sheepish look which told him something was wrong very wrong, "You haven't sold the house?"

    She noted his calm question and serenely replied the affirmative, "Yes for six and a half."
"Shaz! That was our retirement home!" The plea was in vain for the truth of the matter had sunk in.

    "Was. Anyway we don't need it and I certainly don?t plan to retire yet. I have a good forty years left before I lay down my hat."

    "But, but you never talked it over with me!"

    "There wasn't time. While you were over there working I was made an offer so I took it."

    So there it was, his loving wife had just purchased this thing with their retirement money. The nightmare was bad real bad. Ben just wanted to wake up from this one, though knew this to be reality. He could not keep his voice calm "And you brought this?"

    She looked at him with that sweet innocent expression that she pulls so well and said in plain simple English... "Yeah."

    Again frustration was allowed to slip from his voice, "But what are we going to do with it?"

    Sharon could see that this conversation was going nowhere and so decided to end it here... "Ben I am going to make a coffee shop out of this place. Look lets leave it there and head back to the hotel and tomorrow we can come back and take a fresh look around. Everything will look better in daylight." With that said she walked on out.

    "Yeah I bet it will look far better in natural light....Not!" He mumbled as he turned the lights off and closed the door. He walked on towards the entrance and as he did the floor boards creaked under protest of the weight being put on them "You lot can shut up and all, this place is a pile of crahhhh!

    The rotten floor boards cracked and gave way under his feet as Ben found himself in a hole up to his neck deep. He tried to get out but found he had no foot hold to lever himself out of there and not enough room to pull himself out either.

    The solution was simple... "Shaz help!"

    A voice called back to him from outside, "I ain't falling for that one again! Come on lets go."

    "Shaz I ain't joking... I'm stuck down in a hole!"

    Sharon's head peered round the wooden door, "Where?"

    "Ur, down here. Can you give me a pull out?"

    She tried and tried to get him out but alas he would not come. Then a little idea trickled its way into her mind. "Hold on! I have a plan, wait there."

    "Ha, flippin ha!" He called after her but she was too far out to hear.

    It seemed to Ben an eternity until she arrived and threw a rope at him.

    "Try and put that around you," was all she had to say.

    After a great deal of squeezing and grunting he finally managed to wrap it around so it fitted just under his arm pits. Just as he had done this he could hear a car start up, but not just any car, it was Sharon's.

    "Why is she starting up the engine?" He asked out loud to himself and when his brain fed him the answer all he could say was, "Sharon No!"

    It came too late as the car accelerated away at speed and the rope went very taught before Ben was sucked out of the hole finding himself flying through the air to land just outside the double doors. His ordeal wasn't over yet, as he found himself being dragged along the wet road at quite a good speed! It seemed another eternity had passed before the car stopped and he slowed up to land in a nice, cold and very wet puddle.

    Face down in it he heard his wife ask, "Are you okay?"

    "Whuur," was all that came out.

    Shaz hopped from one foot to the other which showed she felt really on edge as to what her husband was going to do next. A divorce seemed on the cards. She had to say something to ease this worse case scenario that she found herself in, "Um, sorry! I think I kinda accelerated too hard. I was halfway down the road before I knew." She then proceeded to let out a very nervous giggle.

    By this time Ben had picked himself up from off the dirty road and looking every bit the tramp in his ripped clothes, drenched in all sorts of disgusting things he fetched her a cold stare and said in a rather frosty way, "Lets just get back to the hotel before you kill me."

    As he got into the car all Shaz could say was, "Oop's!"

*******************

    After a hot shower and a fresh set of clothes he felt a lot better. Boy what a day it had been!

    First meeting Sharon from the train, it had been just like the movies... Stepping down from the train with flowers in one hand and a case in the other, he caught sight of his wife as she stood and gave him a real big frantic wave from the other side of the metal fencing. His heart raced and hurried him along to get through the ticket office and out into the car park where he could hold her in his arms again.

    He hurried through the ticket office and nearly killed a little dog as he stepped on it's tail causing it to yelp out loud which caused it's snooty owner to do the same. After apologising frantically to them both he gave in his ticket to the guard and as he looked up towards the entrance he saw her on the other side running towards the sliding doors, he too ran then twang!

    They had met at the doors and both had ran head first into them knocking themselves backwards and onto the floor. How were they supposed to know that these doors were slow to open! Picking themselves up and waiting for the electronic doors to slide open they decided to leave the hugging and kissing to later as both had to mop up their bloody noses and get out of there.

    After spending the afternoon at the hotel she had broken the news about that dirty old place and then from on it turned out to be down hill all the way.

    So here he stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom at the hotel putting plasters onto his scratched face, all thanks to that mad bit of driving from his darling wife. It had occurred to him that if they had been strapped for cash that she could have tried to kill him to get that nice big cash lump sum so as to pay for that decrepit stinking rotten cesspit of a place! But she had money and she really loved him even though sometimes there was an underlying nagging doubt about that. But he had survived and he could tell by his wife's guilty look as he sat in the car that she hadn't meant to pull away quite so fast as that. Now he had survived to ask her this one burning question...

    "Shaz, where are we eating tonight?"

    Not that one! The other burning question!

    "Sorry you mean the other one?"

    Yes!

    "Shaz, why did you sell your fathers house for sixty five thousand?" He called from the bathroom to where she was sitting at the dressing table in the bedroom.

    The reply came fast, "I needed the money in my account, not going out of it to pay for the up keep of an old estate which I don't want to live in anymore. Anyway the amount was six and a half million."

    Upon hearing this reply Ben's eyes opened up real wide and as the figure sunk into that large head of his he felt dizzy and needed to sit himself down on the toilet, "Six and a half million?"

    "Yeah and the place I have just purchased I got in the auction for just one hundred and forty three thousand! Now I think that we have enough cash to keep us going for a while."

    Too right! In fact why bother going into business? This the year nineteen ninety six, they could just live out the rest of their lives on a paradise island somewhere. Oh, but he had forgotten that Shaz ain?t retiring until she's about sixty five! Then he thought a little further. No, she will soon get bored with her new building and the amount it needs doing to it and then she will sell it to a company for demolishing, then it will be paradise here we come!

    Picking himself up from the toilet he went in to the bedroom and finished off getting ready before going out for dinner at an exclusive restaurant, one of many in London.