Danny Yates Must Die. Stephen Walker

       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.’

      ‘For three hours, Daniel, for three hours. And believe me, it’s the last time I blind date anyone on your recommendation. So where is your “mate” Chuff during your time of crisis? Practising that hilarious trick of his with the U-bend?’

      ‘Everyone thinks it’s funny except you.’

      ‘Danny, they laugh out of pity.’

      He told her, ‘I spent the early hours on the Mission’s pay phone, trying to call my old friends. Do you know, every single one of them moved house while I was comatose?’

      ‘Yeah, that’s what they tell you.’

      ‘No, really. Each number was answered by someone I didn’t know. And none had a forwarding address. What do you think the odds are against that?’

      ‘With you, pretty long; you were never that lucky before. Anyway, the party. Annette was the one in the cyberman suit.’

      He looked at her. ‘That was a girl?’

      ‘A girl? You know what was inside that baco-foil? Winona Ryder, or as good as. And you turned down a chance to snog that?’

      He thought about this. ‘Which Winona Ryder?’

      She frowned, intent on the road ahead. ‘Which Winona Ryder? Which d’you think? The one works down the chip shop, says she’s Elvis.’

      ‘But she’s not the same in every movie is she? She’s a human chameleon. In some movies she’s nice. In some she’s nasty.’

      ‘She’s Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice. Happy?’

      ‘She’d do, I suppose.’

      ‘You suppose.’

      ‘I preferred Edward Scissorhands Winona.’

      ‘Oh, I’m sorry; you see, I forgot that a classy bloke like you has to be careful which Winona Ryder he’s seen in public with.’

      ‘Just as long as she’s not The Crucible Winona.’

      Lucy chuckled malevolently. ‘Oh yeah. I remember you running out the living room in a panic, half way through that one.’

      He shuffled in his seat, turning red, and gazed out through the side window. ‘I was not in a panic. I was just …’

      ‘You were just what?’

      ‘I was checking things.’

      ‘What things?’

      ‘Things that needed checking.’

      She smirked and accelerated. ‘Anyway, Annette’s sweet. Everyone says so. And frankly, cybermen are not scary. She’s a little eccentric but you like that in a woman. And, Danny, God strike me down if I’m lying but, although she wears one, Annette does not need a bra.’

      ‘Here we go,’ he groaned.

      ‘ “Here we go,” what?’

      ‘Have you ever considered therapy for this fixation?’

      ‘What fixation?’ she asked.

      ‘Your breast fixation.’

      ‘I have no fixation.’

      ‘They’re your sole topic of conversation.’

      ‘No they’re not.’

      ‘Yes, Lucy, they are.’

      ‘No, Daniel, they are not. I have a full and varied range of conversational subjects.’

      ‘Such as?’

      ‘Such as Annette Helstrang, who I was in the process of describing when you so rudely interrupted.’

      ‘Okay, so tell me about her.’

      ‘Danny, this girl has rock hard nipples. Every morning, climb from bed, go downstairs, collect two eggs from the fridge, close the fridge door, get a frying pan, go back upstairs, walk into her bedroom. Tap once, tap twice, crack those eggs, one on each breast. Sizzle sizzle sizzle. Sunny side up, you’ve got breakfast. That’s how firm we’re talking. I know how important spigotal hardness is to a man in a home-sharing scenario.’

      ‘Lucy, nipples are not a factor.’

      ‘Mine were.’

      ‘No. They weren’t.’

      ‘Don’t lie.’

      ‘They were never important.’

      ‘What