The View from Under the Table by Lee Reynoldson

May07_The_View_From_Under_the_Table

 

Read by Silas Hawkins

 

I much prefer the view from under the table. I like to be the first one there at any social gathering. Besides, I do my best drinking there.

Take tonight, a dinner party. Please, someone, take tonight, wrap it in a faded memory and bury it somewhere it will never be found. I mean, is this what life boils down to in the end? It wasn't what I signed up for. The food is great, the company is good too, superb choice of wine, mind if I top up … again? Cheers.

Yeah, the company is good; we're all intelligent erudite people, but please kill me now.

With or without dinner this is no party; this is the dull death of the mid-thirties. I know. I have been to parties. Parties are fun. This is just painful. Wine kills pain, it's my favourite painkiller; tasty tannin red, by the bucketful, get me red-faced and loud, and soon.

They're talking house prices, please god no. Not the all-time dinner party from hell cliché, next it'll be children, another glass? Yes please, top me up.

Once under the table things don't look so bad. Our hosts, our perfect hosts, Jacinta and Michael –even their correct pronunciation of each grape variety, and every fucking ethnic dance company and obscure third world dialect – even that doesn't grate when I'm under the table.

Fill me up again, ta.

James and Sophia … when I'm under the table I think I can just about listen to their tales of holidaying in Tuscany, without thinking "If I hear that story of how you found that perfect peasant bistro, the one that served the simply to-die-for Octopus linguini in black ink sauce" one more time …

Well, when I'm happily ensconced under the table, there are, let's say, slightly fewer hot-rage daydreams where I grind a wine glass into James's face, before stomping on his…

…don't mind if I do, is this the Merlot or the Cab Sauv?

Just a quick aside from under the table, word to the not-so-wise; hey ladies, your husband, boyfriend, perfect partner … guess what? He wants to fuck all your friends.

All of them. Even the ugly ones. Your sister too. If your mother isn't too bad, he'd go there too.

Don't fall for the Mr Caring New Age Man BS, it's a front. While you're sitting next to him at the dinner party, he's thinking of a thousand-and-one ways to degrade and abuse your good friend Jacinta.

Oh yeah baby, slapping that ass, bending her over the table in front of you all, and the sly glimpse of cleavage as she refills the wine glasses … we are talking pearls of wisdom here, people.

Don't believe me, ladies? Ask him. Ask the fucker! He'll deny it (always best option) but it's true, and now you know. We're all dogs.

Ahh … time for another glass I think. No, I'll stick with the red, but now that you've refilled me, I wouldn't mind trying the white, what's for pudding?

Then there's Mary, I love her, take that as a given, mainly when I'm drunk – well, actually, mainly when she's drunk, it's the only time she lets me. But no. I'm being flip. I often lie awake at night, I look at her lying next to me and my heart breaks. She's so good, too good for me, but then again aren't they all? Our women lads, they're too good for all of us. We know it. Deep down, deep down inside we know, we're not worthy, we're damn lucky, we don't appreciate them, don't deserve them, would be nothing without them, if it wasn't for the love of our good, good women…

…good God Mary you're such a tight-arsed bitch!

Can't she lay off the fucking nagging just for one fucking night? I mean, if Michael didn't want me to drink his very expensive brandy he wouldn't have let me steer the conversation towards the very expensive bottles of brandy loitering in his drinks cabinet.

She knows I don't like her nagging. Worse, I hate the veiled reprimands in public. In a social situation let's keep the relationship stuff private. I mean come on, at dinner parties let's keep a united front. Still, if that's the way she wants it, cause and effect, I'm not stupid – I know the score, in fact I'm a clever cunt, I can retaliate. I'm no babe in the woods when it comes to this shit. I think it was Socrates who said "Beware the barrenness of a busy wife." I'll throw that one to the table. Then again, like Plato said, "Only the dead have seen the end of the war of the sexes."

And me?

Let's not talk about that.

Nothing much to say other than "Top me up again" and "Have I told you I much prefer the view from under the table?" Hmm … then again, perhaps I'll just have one more drink; just one more is all I need.

Then I'll be ready to tell them all what I really think.

 

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The View From Under The Table by Lee Reynoldson was read by Silas Hawkins at the Liars' League Mad & Bad event on May 8 2007.

 

Lee Reynoldson is a new(ish) writer from Leicester who learnt most of his craft writing at Alex Keegan's Boot Camp, a hard-working online community of writers.

 

Silas Hawkins is continuing the family voiceover tradition (he is the son of Larry the Lamb and Earnest the Policeman). Recent credits include the narration of a 4-part documentary on Latin music for the BBC and the voicing of a singing pink alien frog thingy for animated children's series Wonderpets.
Voice Agent: [email protected]
Acting Agent: [email protected]