Happy Hour Sampler
Happy Hour Sampler
Happy Hour Sampler
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Frank talking
She wrapped a third ziplock bag around the dog droppings, placed
the insulated pile inside a plastic express-post envelope, sealed
that and placed the whole thing neatly on the bottom shelf of her
refrigerator. Though confident contamination was not an issue,
Franny decided a dose of bleach throughout her Fisher & Paykel
the next day would not go astray. She made a mental note to do
that, but not before she had shoved the whole fragrant bundle in a
post box somewhere random, away from prying eyes. And nostrils.
Now her priority was a stiff Tanqueray. Eyes shifting to the clock
above the fridge, she breathed out, seeing once again she had made
it to six o’clock.
‘Praise the Lord and pass the mustard!’ She reached for her
mobile phone, switched it to silent, then stashed it inside the cutlery
draw. The last two days had been unexpectedly rough, her emotions
in tumult since the arrival of a letter from The Evil Prick who had
killed her Frank. Who wouldn’t need a bloody gin?
Some people said the nights were the worst, but Franny disagreed.
Almost daily she found herself watching the kitchen clock as it
inched towards six, ready to exhale that guilty sigh.
That night was movie night and, as she stood sipping a second
gin and waiting for the dogs’ dinner to warm in the microwave,
Franny perused a list of film titles on her iPad. ‘You know what?’
she said to Breakfast Bar Frank, a photograph of her husband in
Neighbourhood watch
Driving back from the nearest dog beach with Whisky and Soda
the next day, Franny took a detour, pulling into the carpark of a
bland constellation of mismatched budget retail outlets offering
everything from pet supplies to tax services and manicures.
‘Hang on, mutts,’ she called back to the dogs, ‘your mistress
needs to make a deposit.’
Franny looked over each shoulder in a poor impression of an
ageing spy, grabbed the excrement-heavy express-post envelope
from under the passenger seat and stepped out of the car. The day
was warm. She cursed herself for having left the parcel in the car
while walking the dogs. After all her drying and chilling efforts,
the spongy heft now left her feeling nauseous.
Franny practically jogged to the nearby post box, despite the fact
no one else was parked nearby, dropped in the parcel, then returned
to the car and sped off. Flying over a speed hump near the exit in
third gear, she looked at the rear-view mirror just as Soda’s furry
blonde head came close to colliding with the car’s roof.
‘Sorry, old girl,’ she said.
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By four o’clock that afternoon Franny was in the room she used
as her studio. Yes, she could see the street from there. No, she
was not snooping. Her radio blared talkback from her favourite
drive-time show, ‘Drive with Karl’. She loved that the audience was
predominantly comprised of right-wing curmudgeons and paranoid
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That night, linguine with white truffle oil was on the menu. Franny
liked to cook along with Nigella Lawson now and then so her iPad
was perched on the kitchen bench, the toaster acting as its support.
In the old days, especially on weekends or when it came to enter-
taining, Frank had been the star chef, Franny his scullery maid or
maître d’. Nevertheless, with a little help from her famous online
friends, she liked to think she was maintaining standards.
‘My romantic dinner for one,’ she said to the framed version of
Kitchen Frank, before touching the screen to resume the video. ‘I’m
not choosing an ingredient; I have a precious potion, in the form of
white truffle oil,’ she echoed the words of the TV chef while waving
a small bottle of yellowish liquid about in the air.
On the screen, Nigella lit candles and popped an ice bucket on
the table to accompany her pasta-for-one. This was where Franny
drew the line.
‘I’ll take this as my prompt that it’s time for a glass of wine, oh
luscious one,’ she said, opening the fridge door to grab a bottle
of Arneis, ‘but Ms Lawson, as my team of production assistants
is currently on vacation, I might keep the set-decorating to a
minimum.’
While grating parmesan into a bowl that already contained cream,
egg and truffle oil, she became aware of a low, rumbling growl.
‘What’s wrong, Soda?’
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