The Word Cloud

Tom Molloy negotiated the white transit van around the tight country lane, cursing as he did so. Grunting with the effort of steering the vehicle, he involuntarily ducked as a low branch thudded into the sloping roof, causing echoes to ricochet around the cab.

“Jesus wept, Killa, are you sure this is the way? Looks like nothings been down here since the Romans!” He spat, glancing across at Ady in the passenger seat, sitting with his feet propped on the dashboard whilst eating an apple.

“Map says its right, mate, and I’m pretty sure I’ve been here before” Ady Killarney replied. “Been a couple of years though” he added, biting a chunk out of the fruit.

Ady was thinking back and was struggling to remember the grass growing in the middle of the road the last time he’d been down here. He had to admit that it didn’t look promising.

They were on their third day away from home, trawling their way around the west country, trying to collect the normal assortment of poll tax, business rates and magistrates fines. So far they had removed a caravan from a driveway in Bristol and had it put on the back of a low loader, only to receive a snotty phone call from the company auctioneer saying it was worth a fraction of what they thought, questioning their judgement and their parentage.

It was June, the weather was warm, and apart from the occasional bout of violence and tears, all was well with the world. The two of them made a good team, both doing the job and in the bar, and they had enjoyed a few pints in Chard the night before, and Weston-Super-Mare the night before that.

Molloy was a native of Portlaw, just north of Waterford, but had moved to England as a child. Like Killarney, he turned on the accent and the blarney like a hose depending on the situation, and he played the persecuted Irishman role very well when needed. He had recently discovered that his wife was having an affair, catching her and her lover in the act in Molloy’s own bed. His response had been brutal, but charges were dropped when the lover had refused to press them after leaving hospital. Molloy kicked his wife out of the house and now lived there with his two grown up children, both in their late teens and early twenties.

Molloy and Killarney were both essentially loners, both happy to work on their own unless they were paired together. They trusted one another through their upbringings, and although the company felt they occasionally went too far on occasions, the fact that other bailiffs weren’t particularly keen working with either of them made the decision a no brainer. Molloy was seen as a loose cannon since the separation. He went through a spell drinking too much before between him and Killarney, he began to control it. He still drank, he couldn’t live without alcohol he had come to realise, but he felt that he now knew his limit. He knew that he wasn’t a young man anymore, three years the senior of the two, and that too much alcohol put him in the mood for fighting. He had been a brawler in his younger days, and his knuckles still carried the scars, but he knew there was a time and a place these days.

Their colleagues treated both with almost reverential awe, as though they were frontier cowboys or the SAS, sent in where no one else would go. They were the guys sent on the calls that other bailiffs had already been chased down the road with baseball bats. They were always bought drinks as soon as they walked into the pub after work, and they were always treated with respect, but still no one wanted to work with them. Where Killarney had always been called ‘Semtex’, Molloy acquired the nickname ‘Mercury’….two short fuses together.

Killarney was in a good mood, having won lunch for the second day running. They played a word association game that involved one of them, in this case Molloy, giving the other a certain word that he had to somehow involve in the visit. Molloy had smiled when he had suggested the word ‘spatula’, and set the limit at one hundred points. Killarney could accrue points by using the word himself which was worth ten points, by getting the debtor to use it was twenty points, and thirty points was available if a policeman used it after being called to prevent a breach of the piece. Molloy had been confident of levelling the loss from the previous day when the word used was ‘stampede’, and was interested to see quite how his friend was going to attempt the game.

There had been no threat to Molloy’s wallet early on in the call. They had met the woman of the house who had said that her husband was at work, and they had waited in the lounge whilst she had telephoned him. Her demeanour had changed as they waited for his return, and they had both noticed it with apprehension. After ten minutes of scanning the room for a photograph of the man, being in a house with a wife whilst her man was on his way was always a nervous time, Killarney found, the door had been thrown open on its hinges. A six foot four inches tall, bull of a man had stormed in, glancing at both of them and storming over to his wife.

“You stupid fucking cow” he shouted, “didn’t I give you the money to pay it? Didn’t I?” He had ended his tirade with a slap across his wife’s face, knocking her to the ground where she simply sat, crying. His attention then turned to Molloy, who had taken a step forward to try and prevent the hit but had been surprised by the man’s sheer speed.

“You…get the fuck out of here. Now!” He spat menacingly, eyes narrowing as Molloy didn’t move a muscle, just looking at him with a slight smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

The man then proceeded to actually try and pick Molloy up, to which the bailiff responded by widening his eyes over his assailants shoulder at Killarney, as if to say ‘can you believe this guy?’

The two men then proceeded to have a grappling match that involved the husband trying to rugby scrum Molloy towards the door. Molloy responded with as little movement as possible whilst trying not to get his suit ripped. This went on for a couple of long minutes, before Killarney cleared his throat:

“Behold, gentlemen, enough of this nonsense” he proclaimed in a fake, slightly upper crust accent that would have sounded comical at any other time. Molloy and the husband paused in their struggle to look across at him. “This” he said, holding up his brick like NEC mobile phone, “is my spatula, and I shall use my spatula to summon assistance.”

Shit, thought Molloy, twenty points.

“A spatula?” grunted the husband in his cider soaked west country dialect, arms falling to his side. “That’s a fucking phone, you idiot, not a spatula” He looked at Molloy, as if bizarrely seeking agreement from the man he was just fighting. Molloy simply sighed, mouthed the words ‘fucking sixty’ at Ady, shook his head and tried to smooth the grab marks from his suit jacket.

“This spatula is magic” said Killarney in a joyful tone, looking not unlike a grizzled Kenneth Williams whilst pointing at the phone in his other hand. “It has a direct line to the local constabulary, as it doesn’t want to become a broken spatula.”

The husbands shoulders slowly slumped, and Killarney and Molloy looked at each other knowingly, and then expectantly at the defeated looking man in front of them.

“Please” he said quietly, “not the police, I’ve got a record….I’m on parole” He looked suddenly like a young boy, realising he was in too deep. Killarney looked again at Molloy, a slightly anxious look on his face. He raised the phone again, gesturing at it with his other hand, his finger on the send button.

“Please” implored the husband, his hands fanning down in an imploring gesture of calm. “Please” he repeated, “put the spatula down, I’ll get the money, I’ll ring my brother.”

Molloy watched Killarney’s face break into a grin, and a knowing wink in the direction of his colleague. Killarney crossed to the woman and helped her up off the floor.

“Okay, now we’re talking” he said, in a distinctly more Irish accent than before. “Put the kettle on then, love” he said to the woman, then turned to her husband once again. “Its just over six hundred and eighty pounds in total. Can you get it?” The man nodded, resigned to his humiliation, his defeat. “Good” added the bailiff, “because it goes up thirty quid every half hour we’re here.”

The man looked at him and shook his head slightly. Ady raised his eyebrows questioningly:

“Want to borrow the phone?” he asked, a smile on his face.

Forty-five minutes later Molloy was checking fifty pound notes handed to him by a scowling car dealer of a brother, whilst Ady finished his coffee, which he had watched closely as it was made.

As they had left the house, Molloy had shook his head:

“How the fuck did you get lunch out of me there?” he said.

“Aah, that’ll be the blarney” replied Killarney

As Stephen says, you have a problem with your sentences and grammar at times - I've listed the ones I could find :

"He spat, glancing across at Ady in the passenger seat, sitting with his feet propped on the dashboard" The spitting seems connected to the glancing, and the comma after seat makes me think it's Molloy whose feet are propped on the dashboard - no mean feat when he's driving!

"they occasionally went too far on occasions" Too many occasions.

"He went through a spell drinking too much before between him and Killarney, he began to control it." I cannot work out exactly what this is trying to say! Did Killarney help him control his drinking? In which case, how about "He went through a spell drinking too much, then between his own efforts and Killarney's help, he began to control it."

"They were the guys sent on the calls that other bailiffs had already been chased down the road" Change "that" to "where", and you're fine.

"After ten minutes of scanning the room for a photograph of the man, being in a house with a wife whilst her man was on his way was always a nervous time, Killarney found, the door had been thrown open on its hinges. " Phew, another very confusing sentence. How about : "Being in a house with a wife whilst her man was on his way was always a nervous time, Killarney found. He spent ten minutes scanning the room for a photograph of the man without success. Suddenly the door was thrown open on its hinges. "

A bit of work to tidy it up and this is a nice story. I really liked the idea of these two would-be thugs playing a daily word game - lovely touch.