Bob Servant Read Online Free

Freed
(“Not only have you upset a number of female customers,” summed up Magistrate McLelland, “but your lies subjected a defenceless animal to a gruelling experience, one from which he or she may not recover.”’).

4
Meeting Frank
    Grove Street Academy was slap-bang in the middle of Broughty Ferry and very much the place to be for a thirteen-year-old. I was at the age when boys start really appreciating skirt and there was plenty of that about so when I took up my seat on the first day of term I was happy enough. Then I turned round and caught sight of Frank. Frank was funny-looking even as a kid. He wasn’t one of those people who look OK as a kid then get funny-looking later, like Michael Jackson or Alf Whicker, 13 he looked funny right from the start. But it wasn’t even Frank’s looks that made me laugh the first time I saw him, that’s how ridiculous his jumper was.
    To this day Frank pretends that his school jumper had what he calls an emergency exit. The fact of the matter was that it had been knitted by his aunt who was a bad one for the gin and she’d given the thing three arms. I looked at this guy, sitting in the corner with an extra arm starting below his chin as if he was an elephant and thought, ‘Jesus, we’ve got a live one here.’
    A few days later I was walking through the playground, checking out the skirt and minding my own business, when I heard a terrible wailing. It was Frank and he wasn’t wailing about his jumper but about his sandwiches. About a year before, Scotland’s first-ever curry house had been opened in Dundee by a man called Bert McKintosh who had been stationed in Calcutta during the war. Dundee had onlyhad fish and chip shops in the past and Bengali Bertie’s caused chaos because people weren’t used to the spices. 14
    Looking back I think that Bengali Bertie’s must have burrowed into my head like a rabbit because later I would also be a fast food revolutionary in the Cheeseburger Wars. At the time though the only effect that Bengali Bertie’s had on me was through watching Frank trying to eat his sandwiches.
    In those days your sandwiches at school would usually be leftovers from dinner the night before. With my mum being so busy with the Amateur Dramatics 15 I usually just kept some of my chips from dinner and stuck them in a white bap. Some of the other kids had more complicated arrangements but no-one had anything like Frank.
    Frank’s mum, who you’ll meet shortly, was a right character. I liked her, but a lot of people thought she was a weirdo and I can see why because she used to get a wee bit obsessed with things. At the time she was obsessed with Bengali Bertie’s. She’d be up there every night getting a few dishes and in the morning Frank got what was left in his sandwiches.
    Right from the start Frank had told her he didn’t like the food from Bengali Bertie’s, so his mum used to try and trick him and he’d pull out some right crackers for lunch as a result. Corned beef nan breads, pakoras on sticks to look like toffee apples, the whole sorry business. On that particular morning his mum sprung a real belter on him, a tandoori bap which she’d said was special mince.
    He’d just taken his first bite when I walked past and heard his wailing. He was in a bad state, to be fair, panting away with his tongue hanging out like a little dog. Forty years later I know that losing his dignity in public has been Frank’s life work but at the time I felt sorry for the guy. I walked over, took out my Barr’s Limeade and poured a very generous amount into his mouth.
    â€˜Thanks,’ he said, when he’d got his breath back.
    â€˜No bother,’ I said and walked off. There was quite a lot of skirt watching and I did one of those Just Doing My Job looks that are used so well on women by firemen, doctors and funeral directors. It definitely gave me a boost with