Tea and Crumpet

Good Breeding by JL Merrow-5

Oz was in the conservatory again when Giles got home. He seemed to have forsaken the Insanely Bad Elf in favour of one of Mummy’s bottles of Stoli. Giles slumped down beside him, and mutely held out his hand for the bottle of vodka.

“Hugh dumped me,” he said, after a long swallow and a short coughing fit.

“Bastard. I’ll scratch ‘Upper Class t**t of the Year’ into the side of his Merc with my keys, how about that?” Oz suggested.

Giles groaned, and took another swig from the bottle of vodka. “Wasn’t it ‘Twit’, anyway? In the Monty Python sketch, I mean?”

“Oh, who cares. I think Hugh’s more of a t**t than a twit, don’t you?”

Giles didn’t answer. Was Hugh really a…what Oz had said? Had Giles just wasted nearly two years of his life on…on…a front bottom? And why was he drinking vodka, anyway? He looked around the conservatory, whose walls kept tilting drunkenly. Ha. Stupid walls. Couldn’t hold their drink… “Where’s my whisky?”

“Gone,” Oz said happily, holding up not one but two empty bottles of Scotch.

On closer examination Giles realised that there were two Ozzes as well. “Bugger.”

“Yeah, I could just scratch that into the car instead, that’d work. Be quicker, too. Less chance of getting caught. G’is the vodka.”

Giles held out the bottle, wondering which of the two Ozzes would get to it first. The answer, as it happened, was neither.

“I think I’ll take that, darling.”

“Mummy?” Giles looked up and began to snigger. “I’ve got two mummies!” His face fell. “And no boyfriend,” he finished dolefully.

“Oh, darling,” Mummy sighed. “I’m so sorry. Do you want to talk about it?”

“‘S all right, Mrs F. I’ll look after him.” Oz put a brawny arm around Giles’s shoulder, the gesture of solidarity only slightly undermined by his explosive, eighty-proof belch in Giles’s face.

Mummy smiled. In fact, both of her did. “In that case, I’ll leave you boys to it. Now, I’ve brought you each a pint of water, so don’t even think of going to bed before you drink it.”

She left, and Oz took a swig of water. He gave another belch, this one slightly less flammable. “I’ve never thought Hugh was good enough for you. I was at school with him, you know.”

“Oh?” Giles hiccupped. “Pardon me. He’s never mentioned you being friends.”

“Yeah, well, he wouldn’t, would he? ’Cause we weren’t. Catch him being matey with the scholarship boy,” Oz added, his tone suddenly bitter.

Giles stared, as the words filtered through his befuddled brain. Oz’s voice sounded different, too. Just like it had at Angie’s.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Oz said, sticking his chin out. “I got in on a scholarship, ’cause no way could my mum and dad afford to send me to private school.”

“Why are you talking funny?” Giles asked.

Oz laughed, but it wasn’t a very happy sound. “I’m not. I’ve just stopped talking funny. See, you take a lad from a council estate and send him to some posh school, he’s either going to start talking posh like the rest of them or get his bloody teeth kicked in. This is how I grew up talking.” He stopped, and swigged some more water. “You know where I grew up? Not ten streets away from your real mum. The chav.” His arm slipped from around Giles’s shoulder, and he sat rigidly, staring into the blackness of the garden.

Giles’s head was spinning. “I don’t—I think—” He lurched to a standing position. “I think I need to go to bed.”