San Bartolommeo

Álvaro Jaramillo rented a room over the Dogmen Deli. 'Telford and Wrekin' reads the sign over the Lecumberri Apothecary. ‘San Bartolommeo is a thieving crook’ reads the banner over the dispensing counter, and above that ‘De Hiragana fucks Canaries whilst Ergolding watches’. ‘I’ll sleep when I’m damn well ready… not a moment before!’ yelled the man in the hat from behind the dispensing counter. The Bagenalstown Chemist’s are in cahoots with the Brighton Hove Apothecary. ‘this has to stop!’ squalled the man in the hat. ‘surely!’ When he was a boy he lived with his grandmamma and grandpapa in a boycotter’s house outside the five mile fence. It was here, under the strawberry hedge, that he learned to play jack the ball and build boats out of clown paper. His grandpapa’s cob filled the sitting room with gray blue smoke, his trousers sooty with ash. His grandmamma fried haddock cakes on top of the woodstove, her apron doughy with lard and flower.