VII — The Bingo Bam-Bam

When the two women finally reached Bingo Bam-Bam, the queue had already started to form. At the front of the queue, the two esteemed ladies, Edna and Ethel, stood.

Edna was the first to notice and nudged her friend. "Here, Ethel, cop who's joining the queue."

"I've already clocked them, Edna. Bring it on!"

The doors opened and the women, and some men, began to file into the foyer of Bingo Bam-Bam. They each paid their fee and headed for the bingo hall.

However, Edna and Ethel first called off at the kiosk to buy a couple of cold drinks to help cool their faces down. Mary and Daisy headed straight for the bingo hall.

"Sit near the front, Mary, as I can't climb those steps with my bad legs," Daisy urged, and both women sat at the very front.

It wasn't long before the other pair of women from Scardale entered, and noticing all the front seats had already been taken—and to their horror, "fat Daisy and Mary, the bitch" were sitting in them, too—the two women began to visibly shake.

"Get to the second row, Ethel, quick!" ordered Edna. "There's only two seats left."

The middle-aged women scrambled to secure Bingo Bam-Bam's last two seats on the second row, which they did—just—but not before falling into a brief altercation with two much younger women from Leeds.

"Sorry, love," Edna shouted, throwing herself into one seat and her handbag into the other to secure Ethel's seat, "they're taken, these seats, by me and her here," and she pointed back at her friend, struggling to get to the seat.

"All right, love; keep your hair on," the young woman threw back, before muttering, "Old bitch."

"I heard that!" called Edna.

"You were meant to," came the reply.

"Sit down, Ethel. No respect the kids have these days. I remember when we were young, you always gave your seat away to people older than you."

Ethel did remember when she and Edna were young, but struggled to remember ever a single instance when Edna had given away her seat to an older woman.

"Look who's directly behind us, Mary," whispered Daisy.

"I know; I've heard them."

Edna and Ethel sat directly behind their "sworn enemies," with the insult "corpulent amoebas" still stinging in their ears and awaiting revenge. An occasion, later, did not let them down.

Ronnie had been drinking now for a good hour, and the tempo of his consumption hadn't slowed down. Thomas had tried to slow him down, but it was all in vain, and with each attempt he made, Ronnie would become more irritable and even, on one occasion, a little aggressive with his best friend.

"What are you? My Mam? Listen, I'm out on a day's holiday, and I'm having a drink, Thomas. You're a mate, for God's sake. Get another drink and have some fun," Ronnie remonstrated.

"There's a flock of lasses over there at that table, and Billy and me are going to have a bit of fun. Just watch."

Thomas thought about the circumstance and situation, but only for a brief couple of moments, before finally concluding, "Oh, what the hell. Let's have a bit of fun," and off he went to join in the banter with Billy and Ronnie, who had already muscled in on the female company.

Ronnie was right in the very middle of them and had begun to tell them an outrageous lie.

"All the fives, 55; two and one, 21..." continued the Bam-Bam's bingo caller.

The four Scardale women had played a number of games now, but without any success, and the latest game fell to a purple-haired woman at the far end of the hall.

"Have we time for one more game, Mary, before we have to head off back to the bus? The next one pays £20 to the winner."

"Yes, there's more than enough time, and it'd be fantastic to win the money," Mary concluded.

Directly behind the two women, Edna and Ethel had already decided the next game would be their last one. The caller began the numbers of the £20 Star Game.

Mary had started off very well on her card, but for Edna and Ethel, it soon became obvious they hadn't ticked off enough numbers to win, and both Edna and Ethel now kept one casual eye on their own cards and one hard and intent eye on Mary's card in front.

"Come on, come on! I only want 34 and we've won, Daisy. Come on, 34, come on!" gasped Mary.

"Seven and two, 72; on its own, number 2..."

"Please, 34, come on, please! Come on, come to mammy!"

"I'll tell you what will come to 'mammy'," Edna hissed, and just as the caller called out, "Three and four...," Edna threw the last of her drink down the back of Mary.

The drink was still very cold, and all Mary could do was gasp and appear frozen for a second.

"Four and nine, 49."

"House!" one voice shouted.

"House!" another shouted almost at the same time.

"...House," Mary finally shouted.

"I'm ever so sorry, Mary, the drink must've slipped out of my hand somehow," offered Edna lamely, but with a noticeable tone of sarcasm.

"You deliberate bitch!" Mary thundered back, which made the whole of the hall turn and view the spectacle.

"You did that on purpose so I couldn't call out 'House'. I'll get you for this, Edna Biggins, believe me I will."

"But it was an accident, an accident. Tell her, Ethel—tell this one here it was an accident."

"It was an accident, Mary. Edna would never do anything like that."

"Piss off, both of you," came Mary's offensive reply. "If you were a bit younger—well, a lot younger, Edna—I'd smack you out."

"You can keep your fat trap out of this, lard arse!" Edna shouted, beginning to lose all decorum.

"Ignore her, Daisy. What goes around comes around," said Mary.

"Just like corpulent amoebas, eh, Mary?" Edna uttered each one of these words with stinging effect, and, feeling an immense sense of revenge, let a weird, ironic smile burst through the red cheeks of her face.

Ethel let out a giggle. Daisy looked at Mary and Mary looked back at Daisy, both not knowing what to say.

"Corpulent amoebas? What the hell are you on about? On second thoughts, I don't want to know what goes through your twisted mind," Mary shouted.

"Yeah, and I'm no 'fucking snake' either, Mary Hardaker. Remember that," Edna shouted back.

But Mary and Daisy had already left to collect what was left of their winnings.

Three tickets now shared the £20, and when Daisy Doodeck had taken her half of the share, Mary was left with little more than £2.

She was livid, and upon arrival back at the coach car park, her temper was stoked to the extreme.