Daft Wee Stories (21 page)

He looked in the cupboard and picked up the box of tea bags. He was looking forward to this. He wondered how his old mates would feel if they saw him with his teacup, sipping tea in his living room, watching the
Antiques Roadshow
, his legs crossed, his pinky out, haha. But that would have to wait, because when he looked in the box, it was empty. No fucking tea bags, oh come on, man. There were the remnants of a burst tea bag along the edges of the cupboard shelf. If he was desperate enough, he could slide it all into the teacup, but the tea leaves would also come with year-old crumbs and hair and bits of dead flies, and he wasn't that desperate.

‘Och, I really fancied a cuppa,' he mumbled.

And then something happened.

First, he smelled it. Then he looked down and saw it. He rubbed his eyes, looked away, then looked back. But there it was, and as real as you like. The teacup had somehow been topped up with tea. Piping-hot tea.

He reached for a kitchen knife, because there was only one conclusion you could come to here: somebody had broken in. He searched the kitchen, and found nobody. He searched around the house, opening each door slowly before bursting into the room, stabbing at nothing. After five minutes of checking and double-checking, he came back to the teacup and stared. He didn't know who was behind all this, but he'd be fucked if he was drinking it. It was poisoned. Maybe. Or maybe after drinking it he'd conk out and wake up somewhere he didn't want to be.

He poured the tea into the sink, put the cup back down on the kitchen worktop, and stared at it some more. Somebody must have sneaked in right under his fucking nose and filled the cup with tea, from a flask, then sneaked out. Or maybe he filled it himself, then blacked out. Or maybe …

Could it be?

Try it again. Go.

He had another look around, in case this was some kind of wind-up. He looked around for people, he looked for hidden cameras and microphones. He found nothing. He closed the blinds in case they were filming from outside. He even pointed out to whoever was listening, if anybody was listening, that he knew that this was just a wind-up but he was going to go along with it. He looked back at the cup.

‘I fancy a cuppa,' he said to the cup. And he discovered that this was no wind-up. He had seen some things in his time, including things that weren't really there, but he'd never seen anything like this. The teacup began to fill up with tea. Some doubt still remained: perhaps there was a pipe underneath the cup feeding the tea into it, perhaps they had cut a wee hole in the worktop underneath in the exact position where he put the cup down, with some kind of silent saw, which also sawed through the bottom of the cup, and then they put a wee tube through the cup and pumped the tea in. Somehow. He knew the chances of pulling off a stunt like that were slim, but they weren't as slim as the alternative explanation. He picked up the cup, not sure what he'd prefer to see.

There was no tube. The tea continued to fill to the top of the cup, right there in his hand, right before his eyes. That was it decided then.

It was a magic teacup.

He brought the cup to his mouth, and sipped. He didn't know what to expect. Maybe tea from a magic teacup was, in itself, magic. Maybe it would make him float. Maybe it would taste, I don't know, twinkly. But as it turned out, it was better than that. It was quite simply the perfect cup of tea.

When he was finished, he put the cup down on the worktop, stared at it for a while, and had a thought. What else could the teacup make?

‘I quite fancy a cup of that Earl Grey or whatever it's called.'

The magic teacup filled up with a cup of Earl Grey, as requested. He had a few gulps. It was nice, but it wasn't his thing. He emptied it into the sink and thought of something else.

‘I'd like a herbal tea,' he said, not quite sure what a herbal tea was. But he got one all the same. He had a sip then put it in the sink. ‘Can you give me a coffee?' A coffee was served. ‘Hot chocolate!' A delicious hot chocolate. This was brilliant!

‘Gie's a triple whisky!'

Oh dear.

He didn't mean it. It was just habit. Whenever he felt all jovial and in high spirits, he'd just bark it out – in the old days, that was. He was just about to cancel his order, but the teacup got in there first. Here you are, sir, a triple whisky in a teacup. Enjoy.

He had no intention of drinking it, but he didn't pour it out right away. He just stared. It looked like whisky, that's for sure. He wasn't used to seeing it within a white teacup, mind you, but that was whisky all right. He brought it up to his face – not to drink it, Jesus, not to drink it – just to smell it. And, aye, it smelled like whisky. A very nice whisky.

He should have put it down. But he didn't.

Would it taste like whisky? The teacup could make the perfect cup of tea, but could it make the perfect cup of whisky? He wasn't sure if he'd ever had a perfect whisky; he'd certainly never had a magic whisky. He wondered what it would taste like. Just one sip. Just one. It doesn't really count, does it? A sip of whisky that came from a magic teacup? He didn't think that was against the rules. They didn't mention that in AA. Well, of course they didn't, but, you know. It doesn't really count, does it?

He had a sip. Just a sip.

Twenty cups later, he was blitzed, and fast asleep on the kitchen floor. As for the cup, it was smashed. He bumped the thing over when he went to the toilet, smashed it to pieces on the kitchen tiles. And that was that. The end.

No, I mean it. That's it. The end.

Alky fucking bastard.

I mean, for the love of fuck. No offence to those who have been affected by alcoholism, I've been affected myself. At the time of writing this I've been off the demon drink for ten years, so no offence intended. But this story was going somewhere. He could have filled the teacup with diamonds or gold or a cure for fucking cancer, but no. He didn't even do that thing he wanted to do with the pinky and the crossed legs in the living room in front of the
Antiques Roadshow
, remember that? He said he was looking forward to it. Maybe you were as well. I know I was. But we can forget about that now.

Alky bastard.

Stupid, selfish, alky bastard.

Gerry was sitting at his desk at work with nothing to do. That would be fine, normally; most people would love something like that. You could check your Twitter, Facebook, check the news to see if anything had happened. Not many people would complain about being in that position. But Gerry had been doing nothing since he started at the company. That was almost three years now.

You might be thinking that I don't really mean he was doing nothing, that I mean he was doing little. No, I mean he was doing nothing. When he started, he assumed that somebody would come along at some point and tell him what work he should do, but it hadn't happened, nobody had spoken to him. It wasn't that he was being given the silent treatment, it wasn't that the rest of the office couldn't stand him, far from it. He was very popular in the company, perhaps the most popular employee in the whole floor of over a hundred employees. That's if you could call him an employee. Because, seriously, he did fuck all.

Three years doing fuck all. Maybe it was time to say something. He didn't want to be rude, but maybe it was time. His boss walked past. Now was the time.

‘Can I speak to you, Mags?' he said.

‘Sure, Gerry! How are you today?' said Mags.

Gerry told her that he'd been doing nothing since he arrived at the company three years ago. She laughed it off, saying he should count himself lucky, she wished she had nothing to do. She was so busy!

No, he'd really like something to do, he told her. Once he started being a bit adamant about it, his confidence grew, and Mags could tell that it was time to speak to him. Time to speak to him about the whole thing. Some heads were turning towards the conversation. It looked like it was time.

‘Gerry,' she said. ‘You're paid good money, I don't see what the problem is.'

‘But what for?' asked Gerry. ‘What do I actually do? I don't do anything.'

Some people around chipped in with support for Gerry, telling him he did plenty and was a valued member of the team. Gerry turned to see that pretty much the whole office had stopped working to see this conversation, like it was a long time coming. Gerry could see people craning their heads for a look. Some came over and stroked his head.

‘Gerry,' said Mags. ‘You know how some offices have, like, maybe a cat or a dog?'

‘Aye.'

‘You know, a dog or cat that belongs to somebody in the office and they bring it in and, you know, it's supposed to reduce stress in the workplace and it's good for productivity and so on?'

‘Aye,' said Gerry. ‘But what's this got to do with me?'

‘Well,' said Mags, as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other and tried to find the right words. Gerry looked around the office at all the sympathetic smiles directed towards him.

‘Nobody in the office has a dog or cat,' Mags continued. ‘And it didn't seem right to buy a pet just for the office, one that belonged to the company. What if we went bust? We'd have to throw the thing in the river. So we thought, well …'

Gerry raised his palm and closed his eyes: he didn't want to hear another word. Mags got the message, and stopped talking. This was strange and upsetting. Gerry didn't know what to do. He opened his mouth to speak …

Somebody kicked a ball; Gerry chased after it. He got it!

He was going to say something. Or was he? He couldn't remember.

Anyway, the ball. He got it!

‘The fucking state of these skirting boards,' said Kenny. ‘I'm going to phone the solicitor.'

‘Don't be fucking stupid – phone them for what?' asked Julie.

‘Well, they didn't tell us the skirting boards were wonky when we bought the flat. We could get money from the last lot to fix it.'

‘Don't be fucking stupid,' said Julie again.

‘Well, what about that rattling sound when you flush the toilet?' said Kenny. ‘They didn't tell us about that.'

‘Kenny, it's an old building. We knew that.' Julie had a thought. ‘Here, I've got an idea: how d'you fancy trying out the fireplace?'

She and Kenny had moved into the flat a few weeks ago: an old tenement, loads of character. It had done nothing but piss Kenny off, but Julie loved all its wee quirks. She especially loved that fireplace – it was almost half the reason why she had bought the place. Julie had only lived in new builds, so what a novelty it would be to go and get coal, actual real coal, stick it in the fireplace, an actual real fireplace, and get a fire on the go. Not some fake fire, not that cheesy projection thing you got inside electric fires, but an actual real fire. Kenny agreed, but didn't want to seem too enthusiastic. If he couldn't find coal in any of the cupboards, forget it. No way he was going to the shops and carrying a bag of coal up three flights of stairs like something out a fucking Charles Dickens novel. So he played it cool, he didn't want to get her hopes up, he didn't want anybody making assumptions.

He had a look in the cupboard next to the living room, which was full of the previous owner's unwanted stuff: a broken clothes horse; a child's toy garage without the cars; one of those poles you can extend inside the top of a door frame to do pull-ups. Stuff like that. Rubbish like that. Kenny was about to moan for the millionth time about that last lot, all the wee things they didn't tell him about, and all the wee things they said they were going to do which they didn't, like when they said they would take all their shite with them. He was fucking itching to phone those solicitors, but he forgot all about it when he spotted the bag of coal. All was forgiven. For now.

He dragged the bag over to the fireplace. It was heavy as fuck. Julie told him to not scratch the floor. Kenny reminded her that they were getting a carpet put down, so it didn't matter. She reminded Kenny that they hadn't agreed on that, they were just thinking about it. Kenny asked her if she wanted this fire or not; she said yes. But he wasn't to scratch the floor.

Kenny opened the bag and started putting some coal in the fireplace, before remembering that you had to put wee bits of wood down first. Kindling, it was called. He had another look in the cupboard to see if that last lot had left some kindling next to where the bag of coal was, and thank fuck, they had. He decided, right, he'd just forget about phoning the solicitors. That last lot had saved him a lot of hassle, twice in two minutes. He'd forget all about it, that was that decided.

So eventually, after a few false starts, they got a fire going. Then Julie switched off the light.

‘Romantic, isn't it?' she said.

‘Aye,' said Kenny, not totally agreeing. ‘Bit smoky, though, d'you not think?'

‘I love that smell,' said Julie, taking a big sniff. ‘Kind of makes you feel like—'

‘No, it's too smoky,' said Kenny. ‘You're meant to smell it a bit, but not this much. Switch the light on.'

‘No, keep the light off,' said Julie. ‘A big bright fucking lightbulb over our head? How cosy.'

‘Seriously, Julie,' he said. ‘Switch it fucking on, eh? It's too fucking smoky.'

‘No.'

Kenny tutted, then stood up and walked over to the door. He hit the light switch, and his suspicions were confirmed. Smoke everywhere, man. Smoke billowing everywhere.

‘Fuck!' shouted Julie, looking at the dark smoke filling up the freshly furnished room. ‘Open the windows, quick!' They ran to the windows and opened them up, letting the smoke out and the winter air in. It was fucking baltic. Kenny looked at the smoke still coming from the fire. He saw the tongs hanging from the wee fireplace tool stand and toyed with the idea of using them to lob the coal out the window. He visualised what burning coal would do to somebody's head if it was dropped from three floors up, and decided against it.