A Cat Called Merlot

Click on image to hear Merlot!

Thursday 20th August 2020

The Victoria Avenue summer street party, held last Saturday, was not without incident. Jeff (Number 29), rigged up a speaker system along the road and addressed everyone (frequently) through a microphone attached to his head, as though he was organising a Beyonce concert. The residents, some more reluctant than others, carted out their tables and chairs and set up on the pavement outside their houses, with a variety of finger-foods and copious amounts of alcohol in the hope of improving the evening. At seven thirty, Jeff gave a detailed briefing about COVID and Health and Safety and how nobody should run to the next table, when the music stopped. Instead, he said, “Everyone  should walk in an orderly fashion”. As predicted, it all ended in disarray after the eleventh song, as an argument broke out between the residents of Numbers 28 and 30 over “premature movement” and Gary the builder from Number 11, said he’d nothing in common with Yaz (Number 22) and why should he be made to spend  time in his company as he still owed him for fixing his shower? Things calmed down after a bit of a reshuffle but for a while, the atmosphere remained tense and there was a lot of heckling about Jeff’s choice of music, which was based mainly on Elvis tracks. By nine thirty, Mrs Waters from Number 21 had overdone it on Prosecco and she crossed the road and straddled Mike Jones, whilst miming to “I wanna be your teddy bear” . On seeing this, Jeff started shouting down his microphone about social distancing but she wasn’t taking any notice. After a few verses, she was helped back to her house, yelling if anyone wanted a proper party, they should knock on her door as she knew lots of games and had a variety of masks. Jackie looked over at Carol and mouthed something like  “Glut!” (?). Matt from Number 20, said to girlfriend Chantal, he might pop in and see if Mrs Waters was ok, as she lived alone. Chantal said he could but if he did, she would personally put an end to his ability to have any more children. There was a moment’s hesitation before he sat down and helped himself to another beer. By eleven, following plenty of alcohol and having hijacked the sound system, everyone had broken ranks and Gary had formed a conga down the middle of the road, shouting it would be fine as they were all outside, nobody would be facing each other and physical contact would be less than fifteen minutes! 

Queenie’s mother, Lydia arrived on Thursday evening. Her hair was dyed pink, interwoven with flowers and plaited at the back. This time, she had a bodybuilder friend with her called Mars. He was well over six feet, had hair below his shoulders and was covered in Celtic tattoos. They were off to a re-enactment weekend in Leicester. Lydia wafted into the house in her usual haze of bangles and patchouli and promptly introduced a startled Queenie (with a wink), as her “sister”. At that point Queenie asked Mars if he would mind if she had a private word with Lydia and she dragged her out into the garden to find out what was going on. From my position, curled up on a garden chair, I was in a prime spot to hear Lydia tell Queenie she couldn’t possibly admit she had a daughter of forty-nine as she’d told him she was only fifty-five. The maths just didn’t work! Queenie suggested that the whole thing wasn’t very appropriate to which Lydia replied she was simply “living in the moment.” Queenie walked off saying she was living like a sleazy cougar and what would her two grandchildren think? Later that evening there was a lot of loud music coming from the van and a strange, sweet tobacco smell. As I walked past, Lydia flung the window open and shouted  “Merlot darling, you’ll love this, it’s Def Leopard!”…Pardon?

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