VERBAL CONTRACT

By Roger Noons 

a mug of Camp coffee, from the bottle.

The house was of the kind that knocking on the front door would prove to be a waste of time, so I walked along the narrow passageway alongside the gable end, arriving on the back yard just as a woman emerged from a wash house, with her arms full of bed linen.

    ‘Mrs. Cooper?’

    She looked me up and down. ‘I don’t do freebies for coppers.’

    ‘I’m not a policeman.’

    ‘What then?’

    ‘Public Health Inspector.’

    ‘Can you get me a council house?’

    ‘Any particular estate?’

    ‘It’s nice on the Poet’s.’

    ‘How does Longfellow Road sound?’

    ‘Three bedrooms?’

    I nodded.

    ‘Come on then.’ She opened the door into the rear living room. ‘Wipe your feet,’ she added over her shoulder, ‘And no rough stuff.’

About the author 

Roger frequently contributes to CafeLit