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MY CORNWALL
Acceptance
'...Hell!' he shouted, as soon as he could form the word from his wildly gyrating hole, now starting to resemble lips, in the top portion of this snowclad Yeti like figure.
'...Hell!' echoed a traumatized
Geoffrey.
'...Hell!' said I, not wishing to be the odd one out.
We all stared at each other. Neptune stared through two slits in his foam at Geoffrey with death in his eyes. Geoffrey stared back with murder in his and I stared at the foam and beer covered ceiling that had started to drip best bitter on all three of us.
'Bloody...buggerin'...bugger!' spluttered Neptune, after a good bit of spitting. Bloody...buggerin'...bugger exploded on us.
'I'm not accepting this,' said a gruff voice from the door way.
We spun round, well at least Geoffrey and I did, Neptune attempted to but out of the corner of my eye I noticed him spin instead into the open jaws of the cellar.
It was that family again, led by the erstwhile Wolverhampton grocer and backed up by his wife, a woman of undoubted strengths, none of which could be described as feminine. Anyway she was obviously made of sterner stuff than he... and wanted recompense.
'He's not accepting it,' she croaked, 'and we want an apology and then we want some food.'
I suppose its part of the job. Landlords meet all sorts of situations in their life behind a bar, and experience teaches them to deal with the more unexpected and traumatic ones. Geoffrey had been a landlord for thirty years, ever since he retired from the Merchant Navy. He had dealt with everything that life in the victualling trade could throw at him. And, what's more he was the very essence of geniality whenever it hit him full in the mush.
"Certainly," he said, without a moment's hesitation. I was very proud of him; the aplomb in the middle of all this devastation not to mention another bout of invective from the region of the cellar renewed my admiration of his steadfast calling. 'Pasties suit you?'
'Are they cold?" demanded the grocer's wife.
"And bloody wet!' shouted
Geoffrey, picking up a handful of what was once
his wife's pride, joy and unparalleled expertise in the art of 'Cornish Pasty'
making but now resembled soggy lumps of cow pat and hurled them with full
force in the general direction of the potential customers.
It normally takes about four and a half hours to get from west Cornwall to Wolverhampton. All speed records were broken that day, we know that because of the solicitors letter that followed in due course, itemizing in detail, dry cleaning and petrol receipts, discrimination and loss of face ...etc,etc.
I and a few of the early doors crowd that arrived shortly afterwards helped Geoffrey clear up the bar and surrounds. Neptune was told in no uncertain terms to clear his own mess up down below as it wasn't on, 'havin' a buggerin' dog and barkin' yourself'. The best bitter was connected and sweetness and light once again descended on the Trevelyan.
Of course, as the afternoon wore on, the story circulated throughout the village and well after closing time the pub was full of well-wishers, the curious and just plain drunks all embossing the saga of Geoffrey's excursion into diplomatic relations between the Cornish and `up country' peoples.
Neptune naturally turned his disastrous escapade to his advantage, telling everybody that without his intervention Geoffrey and me would no doubt, have been dragged off to the wilds of Wolverhampton and hung up by the thumbs until Geoffrey succumbed to offering the hospitality they so richly deserved.
'I'm tellin' you,' said Neptune to Laura, who had come in search of her loved one. 'I come out o' that cellar like a rat up a bloody drainpipe when I 'eard boy Geoffrey havin' a spot o 'other with they teazy up country idiots.'
"You were magnificent,' she said.
An effervescent sort of glow came into his bloodshot eyes. 'Aye,' he muttered, 'Never accept they sort 'o people, shoutin' an' cursing down ere...never 'ave, never will.'
'By the way,' I said, 'we found a crate of broccoli on the doorstep this morning...Can't throw any light on it can you?'
Neptune grasped both Laura's and
my hands and gripped them with a surprising amount of strength. 'Old Cornish
custom,' he said. 'Means you bin accepted!'
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