Pork Pie

We had a family friend called Arthur. Of all of our friends and acquaintances Arthur was the roughest. And I mean rough as a badger’s arse. He wasn’t very educated and he was certainly opinionated but as the saying goes, he was a rough diamond and would do anything to help out (especially old ladies).

He used to go rabbiting, fishing and drinking with my husband and was a frequent visitor to our house. I soon learned to leave the teabag in his tea and leave out the sugar in his rhubarb crumble. When he knocked at the back door I always called out, “We don’t need any pegs thanks!” inferring that he was a tinker. His response was always the same, “And you can fuck right off!” He took our teasing in good part even when we brought up the same incidents time after time. There was one night he had gone rabbiting with my husband who had parked his jeep at the edge of a field. What Arthur didn’t realise (because my husband had turned off the car lights) was that his side of the jeep was parked at the edge of a ditch. Arthur opened his door, stepped out and disappeared. When he’d eventually climbed out of the ditch, still swearing and moaning, my husband was curled up in hysterics. We laughed about that for years. Arthur wasn’t very tall but he was stocky having worked a physical job all his life. He was strong and swore like a trooper but somehow it was never offensive. What was funny was watching him turn a lovely shade of pink when he was embarrassed (usually when I crept up behind him and ran my hands up and down his chest). His typical reaction to that was, “Fuck off you twat!” He even got a bit teary when I asked him to drive me to the church for my wedding, “I’d be h-onoured,” he’d said with a sniff.

Anyway, one day he invited my husband to go fishing. It was a spur of the moment decision apparently. My husband asked him when he was thinking of going.

“Tomorrah morning. Four o’clock.”

My husband rolled his eyes. “Four o’clock? Bit bloody early isn’t it?”

Arthur grinned. “I wanna get dahn the lakes before them other twats.”

Now I should mention that it was the middle of winter at this point. It was early evening, we had a log fire burning and we were very cosy. The prospect of getting up at three-thirty to sit by a freezing lake was not appealing to my husband especially since he would have to venture out into the shed now to organise his tackle box.

“Thanks anyway Arthur but I’m going to give it a miss.” I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t surprised by Arthur’s response either.

“Fuck you then, lazy bollocks.”

Ever-prepared, my husband asked him what bait he was intending to use since the bait shops would be closed by now.

“Pork pie.” Arthur said.

“Pork pie?”

“Yes. Fuckin’ pork fuckin’ pie.”

My husband rolled his eyes. Again. “Arthur, carp don’t eat pork pie.”

“Yes they fuckin’ do.” Arthur was insistent.

The two men ended their call with my husband inviting Arthur to call in for a cup of tea when he’d finished at the lakes.

The following day there was no sign of Arthur. Usually he’d be round at our house telling us how all carp were devious bastards or how some prat had scared all the fish away. Eventually my husband phoned him and asked how the fishing had gone.

“It was shit,” said Arthur.

“Really? Why?” My husband was grinning at me.

Arthur sighed. “Nah, I ain’t gonna tell you because you’ll take the piss.”

“No I won’t. I promise.” My husband was still grinning.

He put his phone on speaker so that I could hear what Arthur had to say.

“Right,” said Arthur, “I’ll tell you but if you fuckin’ go on about it I’ll knock you the fuck out.”

“Understood.” My husband was rubbish at acting. Arthur began his fishing story.

“I got dahn the lakes at abaht four o’clock and it was pitch fuckin’ dark. I had me little light on me ‘at so I could see to bait up…”

“With the pork pie?”

“Yes, with the fuckin’ pork pie. Don’t interrupt, you twat. An’ I cast out. Beautiful long way an’ all. Then I sat back, had a cuppa tea an’ a fag an’ waited.”

“And….?”

“Well, I was fuckin’ freezin’. It was cold enough to freeze the bollocks off a brass monkey and I’d bin sat there for fuckin’ hours. Anyway, the sun come up an’ as soon as I could see I saw the bastard.”

“Who?”

“On the frozen fuckin’ lake - that bastard pork pie!”

My husband managed to ask,”So you were sat there all that time and it was just sitting on the ice?” And then we both collapsed laughing until tears ran down our faces.

We heard Arthur mutter, “You pricks,” before he rang off.