Chapter 56

A decision has been made. We are going to the zoo, then to the Casablanca Suroundaround. She wants to see the cuddly catlike creatures just in from Planet hf39. They have wings apparently. How long have I been away? I should know about these things. I am about to comment that she should wear some knickers either under or over her see through thingy, when it turns opaque and a deep shimmering blue.

'science meets couture." She says. "I can change the colour at will."
Brian says goodbye nicely and have a good day as we leave the apartment, and will you be back for supper? He is just being a pain, it is non of his business. Now I have money I can have him replaced. There is a dual compartment telebooth in the basement of my apartment. Red gives me the co-ordinates of the zoo and I use booth "A" she uses booth "B". There are newer telebooths that can take up to ten people if they are going to the same place, don"t ask me how they don"t muddle people up, so you end up with someone else's legs. I prefer the single occupant booth, it has always delivered as promised. I put in the co-ordintes and let it read my retina, so the money goes out of my bank account, and in an instant I am in a coffee shop somewhere. Red materializes beside me.

"Coffee first, cats second."

"Look", I say, "Can we give these cuddly creatures a miss, I have an aversion to anything batlike."

"They are not bats."

"If they have fur, big ears and wings they are bats."

"If I dressed up in a fur suit with ears and stuck on some plastic wings, would you still have sex with me?"

Her blue suit starts turning into something furry.

"Red please, be you, no metamorphosing into something that gives me the horrors."

The waitress steps up just in time, and asks for our order. Red orders a double expresso and I get an Earle Grey tea. I got the taste when I played Ronnie Scotts club as Tubby Hayes. The coffee shop is full of mothers with children, not a favourite scenario for a jobbing muso, but I"m with a beautiful woman, kid free, so I should complain? 
The drinks arrive and we sip them each lost in our own thoughts. Mine have turned to Veronica. They say a healthy male thinks of sex every five minutes. So am I thinking of sex when the image of Veronica pops into my head. Maybe, but it is more me wondering how she is. The last time I saw her I was in my Fats guise and she was lying bleeding to death at my feet. She must have more holes in her than a piece of Gruyere cheese. I have to trust that the paramedics to have stemmed the flow and got her into I.C. Yeh course they did this is 400037 not 1937. I drain the last of my tea and take Red's hand.