The Words of the Mouth

by Ronald Smith

  ******

  I had tried to claim from our insurance company for the damage done by the burst pipes, but they rejected the claim, saying that the cause had been my own negligence.

  I had a long talk with Roland, my lawyer in Edinburgh, and we decided to sue the company for loss of income; the idea was that because they had not paid up promptly, I had been unable to hire the Mill to various musicians and bands until the damage was repaired. And when I had hired it out, I had been getting at least

  five hundred pounds a week.

  Lawyers are sharks; they love a kill, and it makes them blood-thirsty. Roland drew up a nasty letter demanding ten thousand pounds, and outlining our plans for litigation, and to my amazement - I didn't really have a leg to stand on since it had been my fault that the water was left on - they wrote back offering a couple of thousand. This was a sign of weakness, Roland decided, and asked the manager of the department we were dealing with for a meeting.

  "Just act insulted by their derisive offer," he briefed me as we went to the Company's office.

  "My client is outraged by the way you've treated him," he began. I clenched my fists and narrowed my eyes.

  "We've been more than generous," protested the Manager, who was a prissy, white-haired man with an effete way of smiling and fluttering his eyelashes, "If you're going to continue pressing your unreasonable claims, I'm going to call in the General Manager.

  He reached for the phone and began pushing buttons on it.

  My lawyer looked at me with a smirk, "Will, did you hear about the poof who propositioned a friend of mine in a gay bar?" he said, in a loud, public voice.

  The Manager went beetroot and put down the phone abruptly.

  "I'll make it three thousand. But that's all you're getting,"

  Outside, Roland laughed, "It was just a hunch, but it worked like a charm.

  I put a cheque for half the money in an envelope addressed to Mairi and enclosed a letter:

  Dear M:

  I ask you to give me something

  Not much

  one thing

  only one

  thing

  A chance to complete this cycle

  with style

  with love

  not of the physical kind

  but the love that exists between two friends

  who've got through that

  into another space

  where friendship counts

  a certain unity

  a shared

  dream

  You can be queen at the party

  and I the erstwhile king

  I'm afraid to write this - like sound like a beggar but you see it seems to be very important to me how one does a thing - you are my lady and I your man of this cycle this epoch where we have reigned in our lives

  The idea of kingship comes in this way.

  a young man considers this beautiful young lady to be

  a princess and all the other small beautiful words

  jewel, gleams a jewel of women lets say he

  the humble supplicant finds his life transformed into

  the celestial he is transformed into the young beautiful prince from this frog.

  But now he is a

  prince he has to do all these new terrible things -

  slay dragons everywhere, build castles, conjure with

  madmen, consult seers on matters of statecraft -

  in other words the supplicant who is really a humble bum has to become a

  king; now inside this king is

  a young humble bum