Ian Probert's Blog, page 21

Smack – Chapter 36

Wednesday. 12.45 p.m.: I’m still shaking with rage when Marie pulls up into the driveway in her father’s old Metro. I’m deeply shocked by my phone conversation with Mary Bridges from personnel: the resurrection of that stupid, stupid sexual harassment charge, coupled with Mary’s unexpectedly steely tone of voice leaves me feeling completely impotent. Quite frankly, I’m totally confused: my head is telling me to really get in touch with a lawyer and pursue this matter to its fullest extent, but my instincts are telling me that I’ve already lost; Mary just seemed so sure of herself when we spoke, so in control that I just don’t know what I should do next. Luckily for me, here’s a person who will: I open the front door and move towards Marie with my arms outstretched.

The first thing that surprises me as we wrap ourselves around each other is how pleased I am to see her. She’s had her hair cut and the week away from me seems, perhaps understandably, to have done her some good: she looks younger, fresher somehow, more sharply defined. The second thing that surprises me is the overpowering feeling of love that I have for this woman: I’m realising this as I kiss her on the cheeks and on the mouth – Marie is the part of me that has been missing for the past week, I love this woman in a way that I have never loved another.

We go inside and I make Marie coffee. She sniffs a little as she enters and I’m worried for a moment that she’s picked up the scent of Ralph, but she doesn’t say anything, she just stands beside me in the kitchen, occasionally hugging my back and kissing me on the neck. Then we sit down and I prepare myself for the tortuous process of filling her in on the events of seven days in the life of John Price. Where to begin? My father? Losing my job? The Mary Bridges from personnel phone conversation? Louise? Carol? On second thoughts perhaps I’d better leave those last two out of the proceedings.

If I were a seven-year-old child running home in tears to his mum after a bad day at school, I might possibly say something like this:

…I lost my mobile phone in a service station in Exeter so I didn’t know you were trying to call me… and Michael Dean’s replacement is Margaret Blackmore from books… can you believe that? …and we had a meeting on Monday and she told me that my job was safe, she said that I was one of GP’s finest assets… and then I went into work on Tuesday and you know what? …they threw me out of the building… they only threw me out of the building… they told me they were sacking me and threw me out of the building like I was a criminal… I’ve lost my job… it was just so… so… uncivilised… and I thought of calling you but I felt too depressed… and my mother rang and she said that my father was on his death bed… so I did what you told me to do and drove down to see him… and you know what? …he told me to fuck off… yes, he told me to fuck off… so I fucked off and I drove around the coast on my own for a couple of days… and then I spoke on the phone this morning to Mary Bridges from personnel and she told me that the bastards are only going to give me six grand, which is a fucking joke… and she said that if I tried to do anything about it they’d throw that stupid sexual harassment charge in my face and they’ve got witnesses to prove it…and you know I never did it… you know I didn’t… and I only got back home last night and it was too late to respond to your telephone message so I thought I’d wait until you got home…

Except I’m not a seven-year-old child running home in tears to his mum after a bad day at school, and, omitting the pregnant pauses, editing out the dramatic rise and fall of my voice, excluding the pained expression and tortured eyes, this is, in fact, more or less what I do say to Marie as she sits looking at me in stunned silence.

 

And then it’s Marie’s turn to do a little confessing. She moves closer to me and wraps her arms around me once again and tells me how sorry she is. How she feels she’s let me down by running off a time like this and how she’ll never ever do it again. How much she’s missed me this past week and how much she realises we ought to be together. How she didn’t know what to think when she called my mobile phone and a strange female voice answered. How I’m not to worry about things and that she’ll get everything sorted out. Of how we’ll go and see a lawyer together and try and screw those bastards for every penny they’ve got.

Then we go up to the bedroom and make love. I lie on top of Marie, genuinely happy and relieved to be back with her fried egg breasts; glad that it’s Marie here with me now, not Louise… not even Carol…

 

In the afternoon Marie makes some food and we sit at the table in the kitchen together; her presence reassuring me, already, it seems, a light beginning to appear at the end of the tunnel. I tell her I’m sorry for being so nasty to her last week… I’m sorry for swearing at her all time… I’m sorry for spending far too many hours in the pub with an imbecile like Dave from accounts… that I’m sorry for not doing my share of the washing up… I’m sorry for being me…

Marie smiles at me fondly as I speak and keeps telling me that I have nothing to be sorry about, that she’s thought it all through and it’s just as much her fault as mine… that she’s inherited her bossiness from her mother… that she’ll be more thoughtful in future… that I really ought to stop apologising.

But I’m not apologising enough: because I know that if I revealed the true motivation for this uncharacteristic display of remorse then life as I know it would end in a flash of thunder and lighting that might very well shake the whole street to its foundations.

 

Then, in the midst of all of these dripping apologies the director calls action and the telephone rings and, to demonstrate to Marie what a changed person I am, I’m picking it up without a thought as to who might be at the other end. And I’m hearing the voice of my father:

 

“Hello?”

There is a short silence, and then a quiet rasping noise can be heard at the other end of the line, like the sound of water escaping down the plug-hole. “Hello?” I say again.

Then he speaks. Notwithstanding the seven words he uttered to me on Sunday evening, my father speaks to me for the first time in twenty years and I feel the blood rush to my cheeks. Marie sits in her seat and watches my expression: it is apparent that she has a fair idea who I am talking to.

“John… cough… it’s me – your dad…” he says, his voice weak and jittery.

I say nothing for a moment. I don’t what it is I’m supposed to say.

“John… I’m calling to apologise…cough… I’m sorry about Sunday … I really regret saying what I did… I want to say sorry…”

And there we have it: for the first time in my entire life my father has just apologised to me.

“Well this is a first…” I say grimly.

“Look… cough… cough… I don’t blame you for being angry or bitter… I just want to put things right… that’s all…”

“You have a funny way of showing it…”

“Yes… yes… I know… look… this isn’t easy for me…”

I snort or laugh or tut or make some kind of noise of a similar description.

“No… no… don’t be like that… please… please… I just want to make things up to you while I’ve still got the chance.”

“Well that’s very public spirited of you…”

“Please… cough… please just listen to me for a moment…”

“I’m listening…”

“Look: I’m lying here in bed right now and I’m in almost constant pain… sometimes even breathing hurts so much that I feel like packing it all in… cough… I’m getting weaker and weaker… my body is falling to bits… and if I don’t get a chance to talk to you soon I think I never will…”

But I don’t believe what he is telling me: I’m on edge, I’m expecting his mood to shift at any moment like it used to: “Why the sudden change of heart?” I ask.

“Oh… John… if you could only see things the way I see them now you’d be able understand everything…”

“Well that’s convenient for you, isn’t it?”

“If you… cough… if you call lying in bed with a cancerous growth the size of a pineapple steadily eating its way through your body convenient…”

“I’m sorry… I don’t mean to be so insensitive…”

“Neither do I…”

“I hope that any minute now you’re not going to start telling me how alike we are…”

My father gently laughs: “No… I’m not going to do that…”

I take a deep breath, then he says: “Look… John… I can’t stay on the phone too long; I just haven’t got the… cough… energy… I just want you to come and see me… will you do that for me? I know it’s a lot to ask… will you please come and see me?”

“What would be the point…?” I sigh.

“I think you know what the point would be…”

“No… I’m sorry… it’s not a good idea…”

“Look… John… what do you want me to do… do you want me to go down on my bended knees? Do want me to beg? Look… I’m just sorry… I’m sorry… the… the world is… closing in on me… and I just want to see my son before I die… I’d take the train up to London if I could but I’m not sure that I’d last the journey…”

“Why didn’t you ask me this ten years ago… twenty years ago?” I exclaim, the comment surprises me.

“Oh… cough… I don’t know… I suppose I didn’t know that I’d be sitting here dying one day … you think you’ll live forever… please… cough… won’t you come and see me? Whatever’s happened in the past I do love you, you know… you are my son…”

 

“What will you do?” Marie asks quietly the moment I have replaced the telephone receiver.

“I don’t have much choice, do I?” I say in resignation. “I’m going to have to go and see him, aren’t I?”

“Oh… John…” says Marie, her face lighting up with a smile. “I’m so glad…”

I’m not so glad: the truth of the matter is that I’m suddenly scared to death. I’m absolutely petrified at the prospect of going to see him again. And at the same time I’m amazed… I’m amazed at what I’ve just agreed to do. This time it didn’t take any false blackmail from someone like Carol to break down any of my barriers. All it took, I’m realising now, is for him to do what I’ve been waiting for him to do right from the very start. I look over at Marie, my guilt about the Louise and Carol incidents momentarily surfacing; she’s wearing a neat little black sweater and black jeans that make her look like a refugee from a sixties art house movie, and I’m covering my mouth with my hand and for the one time in my life the only words that will come are the absolute truth: “That’s all that I wanted…” I say dejectedly. “All he had to do was ask and I would have gone to see him straight away… all he had to do was ask.”

Smack – Chapter 35

 

Dear Kitty

Just a quick note to let you know that I’ve arrived back safely. Sorry that we couldn’t stay any longer – John had some business to sort out back in London. What did you think of him? I told you he was a little weird, didn’t I? What did dad think of him? Was he horrified or was he relieved that this one didn’t have a tattoo on his forehead?

I’ll tell you something: John was a difficult nut to crack – I practically had to rip off his clothes to reach that magic 32 (I’m catching you…ha ha). I think what I like most about him is his gentleness; he hardly ever even raises his voice. It’s a change to be seeing someone nice and relaxed like him – he’s nothing like that idiot Brian.

Bad news, though: Last night on the way home I had to put a bit of a temporary dampener on things. I think in retrospect that letting him meet dad was a bit of a mistake. When we were driving along the motorway I could sense John getting all possessive; he didn’t do anything but I could just tell what he was thinking so I had no choice but to give him the old cold shower treatment. The funny thing is, I woke up this morning and I realised that I was really missing him. We’ve only been seeing each other for a week but already I’ve gotten kind of used to him being around. Of course, he’s still got to sort out his girlfriend problem (did I mention this in my last letter?). I rather think it’s going to be messy and in a way I feel sorry for her (her name’s Marie, for what it’s worth) – the poor girl isn’t going to stand a chance when I put on my war paint! I know he finds me irresistible. But then, who can blame him!

It was good to see you and dad – it’s a shame we didn’t have more time to talk. Why don’t you come and see me for a change when you have some spare time? I’ll show you the bright lights – we’ll have a wild time.

Love Carol XXX

PS I’m sorry to have to ask you this but I need a little money, I’m afraid. Is there any chance of getting Dad to send me £100? You can tell him that my grant has run out or something. I know he gets all cross when I ask for money but you’ll use your charm, won’t you Kitty? For me. Pretty please. Just send it to this address.

Johnny Nothing – new kids book from Ian Probert. Out today!

WARNING: This book will seriously damage your funny bone.

The poorest boy in school has just inherited £1 million. But there is a catch: If he can hold on to his cash for a whole year he will earn ten times that amount. Enter Felicity MacKenzie, the ugliest, sweatiest, vilest, cruelest, hairiest mother in the western world. When she steals her son’s money and goes on the spending spree to end all spending sprees it seems that Johnny Nothing will stay poor forever. However, Johnny has a plan – he will imprison his parents and force them to do homework and go to bed early as punishment.

Join Johnny Nothing, Bill and Ben the bouncer men, Ebenezer Dark and a cast of literally dozens in (probably) the funniest book you will (most likely) ever read in (some of) your lifetime. Learn why solicitors like handbags; why dead people are windier than the North Sea; why parents dislike electrocution; and what happens to you after you die.

Johnny Nothing: Book 01 in a series of less than two from best-selling author Ian Probert.

Available exclusively from Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00ITZTOUA

Smack – Chapter 34

Tuesday. 10:45 p.m. I’m back home: I’ve switched the central heating on and the radiators are groaning into life. I’ve just opened a beer and I’m smoking a spliff. I’m standing in the spare room and I’m holding the dressing gown that Carol was wearing on Sunday morning: it’s smells of Carol. Now how pathetic is this? A little under twenty four hours ago I was getting ready to have sex with Carol and now all I can do is scamper after her smell like a dog sniffing at a lamppost. And I’m jealous: not of Jez or Brian or whoever else is likely to find himself lying in Carol’s arms tonight or tomorrow night or the night after that, but jealous of myself, of the person who sat in the pub with Carol’s scabby mates last night totally oblivious to what she had in store for him later on. And I’m wishing I was like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, condemned to wake up every morning in that shitty little caravan in Brixham, doomed to spend the rest of my nights on Steve and Flynn’s grubby mattress with only Carol’s naked body for company.

I trudge downstairs, past the flickering answering machine in the corridor, its digital display telling me that I have five messages in all, another two have been added since I called to collect them on Monday morning. But I can’t be bothered to listen to them now. I’m too tired, too weary. I’m too busy smelling what remains of Carol’s scent before it’s gone forever.

*** 

Wednesday morning. 8.15 a.m.: The alarm wakes me up and I drag myself from my bed. Marie could arrive home at any moment. This is what I have to do before she gets here.

1. Clean the house:

Even though I gave the place a good going over on Sunday morning while Carol was busy following me around trying to persuade me to go and see my father, I’m still not sure that I’ve left every stone unturned. I go through each room methodically: Our bedroom: (mine and Marie’s) I straighten the duvet and check for any signs of Carol – there are none. The spare bedroom: I put the books that Carol has been reading back on their shelves; I check under the bed and find an ash tray filled with roll-up stubs, I empty it into the rubbish bin downstairs and wipe it out with a cloth. The Kitchen: I go down on my knees and check for any stray food left by Ralph: there is none. I put Carol’s dressing gown into the washing machine, taking one last sniff at it before I do so. The living room: I find another ashtray containing a collection of my own and Carol’s cigarette stubs – this meets the same fate as its cousin. I rearrange my CD collection, I check for any stray dog hairs. The bathroom: I examine Marie’s shampoo bottle one last time, I put toothbrushes back where they are supposed to go, I fold up towels and hang them on rails and then decide to rough them up a little: Marie is sure to smell a rat if she comes back to find the whole house in such pristine condition. Or maybe she’ll be pleased that I’ve put so much effort into her welcome home party.

2. The answering machine:

I play my messages: the first, as has already been discussed, is from Marie, the second is from BT, the third is from Louise, the fourth goes something like this:

Message four: John… it’s me… sob… I’m so sorry about what happened… he didn’t mean to shout at you like that… he was just shocked to see you after all this time… he wants to see you… really he does… he wants to talk to you… he’s very weak… Please call me back, I know it’s wrong to…

The message abruptly cuts off at this point, a defect that I’ve noticed before with this make of answering machine. Either that or like me it has had enough of my mother’s incessant bleatings.

Message five: John it’s Marie… I’m getting really worried about you… I tried your mobile several times today but it’s switched off as usual… like I said earlier, I’ll be home around mid-day on Wednesday – please call me as soon as you get this message.

Naturally, I do not call Marie as soon as I get this message. Because according to the story I’m going to be telling her when she arrives back here, I’ll only have just got back to the house myself. And as for my mobile being switched off as usual, well that’s nothing to do with me, whoever stole it or found it on Friday or Saturday or whenever is now solely responsible for its actions. I press the erase button and wipe my messages clean.

3/ Louise:

I call Louise at work:

 

– Hel–lo?

– Hi, Louise… it’s me… John.

– Oh, hi… how are you?

– Not bad… you?

– Oh… fine thanks.

(A pause)

– How can I help you?

– Listen… huh… do you want to meet up?

– Hmmm… that would be very nice.

– Listen… I’m a bit busy for the next few days but what about Thursday or Friday or something? I could meet you after work if you like…”

– Hmmm… yes… that would be very interesting.

(A pause)

– Louise, I take it that you’re talking like a Dalek because someone’s sitting close to you.

– Yes that’s right – I’m sure that I could fit you in.

– Just say yes or no then… Thursday or Friday?

– Hmmm… yes. I think the latter would be better.

– Friday?

– Yes… that’ll be fine.

– Seven-o’clock? Say the Ship… we could meet up there and then go somewhere more quiet.

– Yes. That’s a good idea.

– Seven o’clock in the Ship then.

– Yes. Excellent.

(A pause)

– Louise… is someone sitting at my desk?

– Mmm… yes… I think so…

– Who is it?

– Oh… yes… I think it will be better if we leave it for another time…

– So you can’t talk then…

– Yes… that’s right… excellent.

– Okay. I’ll leave you to it then… Seven o’clock in the Ship, then?

– Good… I’ll look forward to it.

– Bye, then.

– Okay… bye-bye… talk to you later….

4/ My money:

I call Mary Bridges from personnel at work:

– Mary, it’s John Price.

– Oh… John…hi… how are you? …I’ve been waiting for you to call…

– I’m okay.

– That’s good.

(A Pause)

– Let’s talk money, Mary. 

(A Pause)

– Oh… yes…um… fine… Do you want to do it now or would you rather meet for lunch or something?

– Now would be fine.

– Oh…okay… just let me get your file…

(A Pause)

– Right here we are: Yes… right… hmm… let’s see…

– How much, Mary?

(A Pause)

– Well… um… the management have asked to let you know that they are prepared to offer a figure of… um… six thousands pounds as your termination payment…

– You what!

– Umm… yes… it was decided that…

– You are taking the piss, I hope?

(A Pause)

– Um… well… it was decided that…

– I don’t care what was decided, Mary… you know this is a load of bollocks… I’ve already spoken to a lawyer about it… I’m due at least five times that amount…

– Um… yes… um… under normal circumstances… perhaps…

– What you talking about ‘under normal circumstances’? You’ve just fired me and you owe me money and you’re going to fucking pay up!

– Okay, John… if you’re going to get abusive I’m going to hang up…

– You do that and I’ll come and be abusive in your fucking office!

– Calm down, John… you won’t do yourself any good losing your temper…

– What do you expect me to do? You’re trying to rip me off…

– I’m not trying to do anything of the sort, John… I’m just doing my job – you know that… I’m not responsible for decisions like this…

– Well who is responsible?

– Well… management, of course…

– But you are the fucking management!

She hangs up. I call her straight back.

 

– Mary, don’t hang up…

– Fine… so long as you don’t start shouting…

– I won’t start shouting. Just tell me how GP intends to justify its decision to give me only six grand.

(A Pause)

– Well I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this…

– Come to what?

– I was hoping that we wouldn’t have to bring this up…

– Bring up what?

(A Pause)

– Well… um… we’ve had a complaint about you… a serious complaint, I’m afraid…

– But I don’t even work there any more…

– No… I mean before you left…

(A Pause)

– I hope you’re not going to tell me that it’s got something to do with sexual harassment…

(A Pause)

– Oh… I see… you already know …

– Yes… I already know … I already know because the whole thing is a load of crap. I’ve never sexually harassed anyone in my life… the whole thing is completely ridiculous.

(A Pause)

– Um… yes… nevertheless we’ve had a complaint and it was thought to be in the best interests of the company if we tried to avoid any unpleasantness…

– You what? Unpleasantness! You think I’m enjoying all this do you?

– Of course not… it’s just that it was decided it would be better for you if…

– Better for me! Sacking me is better for me?

– You haven’t been sacked, John… your position has been terminated.

– What a load of fucking shit!

(A Pause)

– Well I’m not having this, Mary… I’m going to fucking fight this… I’m going to make your fucking life a misery. You’re going to rue the day that you ever fucking tried it on with me you ugly fucking cunt!

(A Pause)

– Have you quite finished, John?

– No I haven’t fucking finished! I haven’t even fucking started!

(Fainter) – I’ve just put the phone down on my desk John… you have a good swear to yourself and when you’re ready we’ll try and talk like sensible mature adults, shall we?

– Pick it fucking up you fucking bitch!

(A long Pause)

– Mary… pick up the phone will you?

– Mary… pick it up…

– Mary… alright… I won’t shout any more… pick it up…

(A Pause)

– Feeling better, John?

– Not particularly…

– Ready to talk?

(A Pause)

– John?

– Yes… okay…alright… I’m ready to talk…

– Excellent… right… to go back to what we were discussing… the company thought that it was in the best interests of all concerned if we let you go rather than proceed with any disciplinary action…

– Well I don’t agree.

– Yes… well… it was thought that in the long run it would be better for your career if…

– Look Mary… don’t try and pretend that you’re doing this for my own good…

– Um… well… whatever… it was thought that the company…

– And who am I supposed to have sexually harassed anyway?

(A Pause)

– Eh?

– That’s not important at the moment, John…

– Not important! Will you fucking listen to yourself… I’ve just lost my job because somebody’s accused me of something I haven’t done!

– You’re shouting again, John…

– Do you fucking blame me?!

(A Pause)

– Right… be quiet for a moment you little shit…

– What?

– I said be quiet… shut your big fat mouth for once in your life and listen…

– Uh?

– This is the situation John… before I tell you this I want you to know that this is strictly off the record… If you tell anybody else about this I’ll deny that I ever said it…

 (A Pause)

– John?

– Go on…

– As far I’m concerned you can consider yourself extremely fortunate that GP has agreed to pay you six thousand pounds. If it was up to me I’d be asking you for back payment for all the money you’ve cost the company over the years.

– I beg your pardon?

– Frankly, John, you are one of the worst people I have ever encountered in more than 25 years of working in publishing. You’re arrogant… you’re loud-mouthed… you’re juvenile… you’re lazy… you’re unbelievably stupid…you’re a liar… need I go on?

(A Pause)

– As for the sexual harassment accusation… I’m not about to tell you the person’s name so that you can go and start shouting and swearing at her… what I will say is that even though personally I think it’s highly improbable that you’ve ever even been anywhere near this person I would be prepared to take the issue as far as I can. You want to get on to your lawyer and take us to court? Go ahead because you’ll lose, I can tell you that straight away… You want witnesses and evidence? Go ahead and try… it will cost you a lot more than six thousand pounds. By the time we’ve finished with you, you’ll never work in partworks again… nobody will be willing to touch you with a barge pole… you’ll spend the rest of your days on the streets selling the Big Issue if I have anything to do with it.

(A Pause)

– What’s the matter, big-mouth? Don’t feel like talking any more?

– You’re a fucking bitch, Mary…

– I’ll take that as a compliment…

– You won’t get away with this…

– Oh yes we will, John… why don’t you try us – the ball’s in your court…

(A Pause)

– Well… um… I think that concludes matters, John… if it’s any consolation to you you’ll be pleased to know that you’re not the only person whose services are shortly to become surplus to requirements at GP…

– What?

– Oh… I’m sure you’ll hear it on the grapevine sooner or later. Bye John: a cheque will be in the post to you within the next few days. Sign the disclaimer that comes with it and enjoy your money. It’s been nice talking to you.

– Fuck off Mary.

Smack – Chapter 33

It isn’t going to be easy but I’m going to leave Marie. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to sit her down and tell her that the week or so I’ve spent on my own has given me a taste for solitude and that we ought to think seriously about packing it all in while we’re both young enough to find other partners and she is still able to have babies, etc. Or I’m going to get rid of Carol – that’s the best thing to do: I’m going to tell her that even though she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met in my life there’s simply no future in it for us… the age difference is just too much… when she’s my age I’ll be almost as old as her father: I’ll have liver spots and a prostate condition and a flabby old man’s arse: I’m going to be sensible and point out to her that I might seem mature and experienced and glamorous right now but sooner or later she’s going to find herself seeking out a newer model. Or I’m going to be totally honest: I’m going to tell Marie that I’m dumping her for a younger woman with a nose ring… that it might seem ridiculous and that I’m probably making a complete and utter fool of myself… but I’m in love and when you fall in love you owe it to yourself to try and give things a chance to work with the person you are in love with; it goes without saying that Marie’s not going to take it particularly well – I can tell you that for nothing – but I owe her this much at least; we’ve been together for six years and she deserves to hear the truth, however painful it might be. Or I’m not going to tell Marie anything: I’m going to use a bit of Gravity’s 30k cheque to find Carol a cheap place to live so that I can go and visit her whenever I want to; this way neither person gets hurt. Yes, that’s that it. Surely this is the most sensible thing to do.

So many choices, so little time.

It’s 5.11 p.m. and we’ve just passed Exeter. Now that we’ve cleared the city the traffic seems to have thinned out; I’m hoping to be in London by around nine. Carol is sitting beside me, Ralph is asleep in the rear. Whenever my thoughts have permitted it I’ve been having a bit of a Q and A session with Carol, trying to lay to rest a few things that have been bothering me. First of all, I realise now that there was never any need to stop off in Dartmouth town centre and set fire to Jez’ bedsit or hack him to pieces with a machete. It turns out that Jez is merely another ex (Jez, Brian and me – for the rest of our lives the three of us are going to be bound together by what we’ve all done with Carol) and it was never that serious anyway; Carol just slept with him every now and again when she was feeling lonely (well you won’t be lonely any more, my dear). Secondly, her father pays for all that posh gear by selling sculptures: he’s an artist – the Turner Prize-winning sculptor Reg Bailey, no less; along with Linda Lusardi, Peter Cook, Joe Strummer, the small one from the Krankies and Henry Cooper, one of the most famous people I have ever met face to face. Perhaps that’s what I found familiar about him earlier, I realise this with a little ping of relief as the motorway flashes by me, he doesn’t look like me after all – Carol didn’t pick me out of the crowd because I reminded her of daddy – he looks like Reg Bailey, the bloke who pops up in G2 or the Sunday Times colour supplement every now and again. Carol, of course, remains oblivious to my excitement at meeting her famous dad, she just carries on chatting, talking about this and that, filling in the spaces.

 

London looms on the horizon like someone has taken a giant cigarette and stubbed it out with a giant hob-nail boot. After the fresh air of South Devon it’s quite a shock to return to the city and realise what you have been breathing in all this time. It’s not yet nine so we’re well on schedule; as soon as I get home I’m going to wipe that message from Louise on the answer phone clean and take a long hot bath. Maybe Carol won’t be too adverse to lowering her beautiful body into it beside me. I’ll even let her use Marie’s green shampoo if she wants to. Then I’ll open a bottle of wine and order up a take-away, Thai, perhaps, and she can lie in her position on the carpet in one of Marie’s dressing gowns and for a while at least, we can lock ourselves away from the outside world. This will be her last night and even though I know that I’ve got to make sure that she leaves very early tomorrow morning so that I can tidy things up again ready for Marie’s return, I’m going to try my best to make sure that we both have a good time.

I’ve not yet mentioned the clearing out in the morning bit to Carol but I can sense that she understands. Nothing’s been said but I think that she’s shrewd enough to realise that there are a lot of other things to get sorted out before we can even think of taking what’s been happening to the two of us any further. I don’t like to send her back to the streets, I feel like I’m abandoning her, letting her down, but for the moment at least it’s the only option I have open to me. I’ll give her money, of course, I’ll make sure that she’s alright and I’ll try to think of a way that we can see each other again as soon as possible. For the time being, however, we have this one last night: and this time there will be no games, we both now know where we stand with each other and we can simply relax and enjoy the experience of being alone together.

We hit the city and head northwards, and suddenly I’m finding myself wishing that I had spent a little more time down in Devon. I watch the people scurrying through the glistening streets: young women in smart two-pieces with over-determined expressions on their faces; newspaper vendors with flabby beer guts barking out instructions to passers-by; fat businessmen in suits carrying briefcases and umbrellas; lines of intimidating teenage youths blocking the pavements; black taxis throwing their weight around on the roads; police cars and road-works and queues and fluorescent lights and dirty air and tramps and bouncers standing outside clubs and stretch limousines and car horns and movie posters and hamburger stands and statues of long dead famous people. Suddenly I don’t feel quite so at home among all of this; and I’m not even sure that I’ll be able to feel at home even when I get home.

Carol, apparently, is harbouring similar misgivings: we reach the Islington border and she turns to me and asks: “Can you drop me off at the Angel, then?”

“What did you say?”

“I’m sorry… I’ve got a few things to sort out…”

“Can’t they wait until the morning?”

“No… not really… I’ve really got to get them sorted.”

We’re stuck in traffic in Liverpool Road, only ten minutes from home. Only ten minutes away from unbolting the front door and switching on all the lights and wrapping Carol up in my arms and breathing in her wondrous aroma. It’s now 9.45. p.m. and all the shops are closed around here except for a pub and an Australian restaurant. The blood has suddenly drained from my face, my fingers rest on the steering wheel, numb. I am smoking a cigarette, the fumes making my eyes water. “What sort of things?” I ask.

“Nothing really…” replies Carol. “Just things.”

What was I saying about expecting the unexpected? What was I saying?

“Look… don’t be ridiculous Carol,” I urge. “Come and stay for one more night… you must be exhausted.”

“I’d like to but I can’t… I’ve been staying at your place for… what is it… almost a week? I was only supposed to be there for one night… I’ve really got to get back to the squat and see if everything’s alright.”

“Well that’s all right… I’ll come back with you and help you check it out – then we can go back to mine and get a shower and something to eat.”

“No it’s okay… I’ve got food at home.”

“But Carol… I’m not just going to abandon you like this.”

“Well… I would have had to leave tomorrow anyway.”

Ahhhhh. That’s it.

A heavy sigh of relief.

So this is what it’s all about: Carol is annoyed that Marie is coming back tomorrow and is trying to let me know that she’s annoyed; you can hardly blame her, I suppose – why didn’t I think about this before? In effect, what I’m about to do is reject Carol in favour of another woman and she’s angry and disappointed that I’m doing it: of course she’s going to be pissed off about my doing this.

“Oh Carol,” I croon. “Just because you have to leave in the morning doesn’t mean that I’m going to forget all about you… don’t worry… I’ll look after you.”

Carol frowns back at me. “I don’t want to be looked after,” she says. “And I wasn’t worried that you were going to forget me – I’m not going to forget you either.”

“What?” I exclaim.

“Listen, I’ve had a brilliant time… really brilliant… but I’ve really got things to do now. I’ll see you again another time if you like…”

What does she mean, she’ll see me again another time? What does she mean, ‘if you like’? It’s my mother who’s supposed to say things like ‘if you like’– not Carol. I thought that it was kind of taken as written that we would be seeing each other another time – lots of other times, in fact.

“Oh…” I splutter.

And now I’m stone cold: I’m sitting in the car with all my joints gummed up with cement, I’ve suddenly come down with Reg Bailey’s arthritis, I’m Oats stepping out of Cook’s tent: I’m just going out – I may be some time. And I’m suddenly aware of who I am, of what I am, and of what I’m doing with myself at the moment. I’m a thirty-eight-year-old man sitting in a car with a twenty-one-year-old girl, making a complete and utter prat of himself.

But still there are questions that I need to ask: Is it me? Is it something I’ve said? Is it because of Brian? …or Jez? Is it because I’ve already got a girlfriend? Is it something I did wrong at your father’s house? Is it the way I dress? Is it because I’m older than you? Would it help if I got a nose stud? Am I crap in bed? Is my knob too small? Is it my taste in music? Is it because I don’t have a job? Is it because I don’t speak to my father? Why can’t I have sex with you now when only this morning you seemed perfectly happy with the idea? Why have you suddenly un-chosen me?

 

But I don’t say any of these things. I don’t say them because I’m thirty-eight-years-of-age and I know that there are no answers to any of these questions. I’m old enough and ugly enough to recognise when it’s time to call it a day. And I’m not going to further humiliate myself in front of this woman by telling her what I really feel about her. But even as I’m weakly celebrating my good sense I’m inwardly turning on Carol: I’m thinking about the past few days, about the money I’ve spent on her… the food… the drink… the cigarettes… the hash… the free lifts… the meals… the clothes… the caravan… Was all of this simply the price I had to pay for what happened last night? And what about all that business of her using blackmail to try to get me to visit my father? Would Carol really toy with my emotions like that just because she wanted to spend an hour in her own father’s company?

Now the traffic’s moving again and I’m suddenly calming down slightly: It’s Carol’s face that does it for me. I’m looking over at her beautiful, flawless features and I’m realising that she isn’t capable of such deviousness. More than Carol’s lack of knowledge of Greek plate-throwing traditions; more than her inability to realise that if she attacks a party of rugby players in a restaurant it’s the man accompanying her who’s going to catch it; more than the nose ring, and the pierced belly button that I discovered lay beneath her T-shirt yesterday; more than her youth and more than my lack of it, this is the real difference between Carol and I. She could never have planned for any of this to happen; it isn’t in her nature. She’s just living her life; if she thought that sleeping with me would have affected me like it has, she simply wouldn’t have done it in the first place. It feels like I’m being dumped but this isn’t her dumping me: because there was never anything to dump in the first place. Except in my head, that is. It’s all a question of priorities – priorities and perceptions.

The truth of the matter, if I try to think about it rationally, is that Carol probably views what we did last night and this morning in much the same way as I view what I did with Louise last Thursday night. In actual fact, in Carol’s eyes I probably am Louise: I’m somebody she slept with by accident or co-incidence or whatever it was, somebody she slept with whom she doesn’t want to sleep with again. To me, what we did together was one of the most exciting things that has happened to me in years and years and years; to her it had no more significance than walking up to a stranger in the street and asking him for a light – she wouldn’t expect that person to get all hurt and offended if she then asked another person for a light or bought herself a box of matches, and she isn’t expecting me to act like an explorer who has just planted the flag that gives him exclusive rights to all her territories.

I drive her down to the Angel and stop the car by the tube station. She reaches over and cuddles me for a moment and pecks me on the cheek and thanks me for everything and tells me what a great time she has had. It’s Tuesday night and it’s raining again and if I were to walk along Upper Street I’d probably bump into Brian on his way to the King’s Head or whatever (will Carol be spending the night with Brian tonight!?). It’s been almost exactly seven days since I slipped him that twenty and whether I like it or not I’ve got to concede that I’ve had my money’s worth.

Carol climbs out of the car and pulls out her black plastic sack of possessions; Ralph hauls himself out of the rear and arches his back on the wet pavement, evidently recognising where he is, at least one of us glad to be home. While he is doing this, Carol dips her head back inside the car and gives me another kiss on the cheek: “I hope everything sorts itself out for you,” she says.

I turn to her, for a moment losing my self-control: “Carol…” I say, with a casual desperation. “This is so stupid… why don’t you come and stay one more night…?”

Carol, says nothing; she shakes her head patiently. Then she gives me a final kiss, this time on the lips. “Bye, John… thanks,” she says gently.

Carol exits the car but just before she shuts the door she reaches back inside one last time and for a moment I think that she’s changed her mind about coming back home with me. “John…” she says.

“Yes…” I reply expectantly.

“Go and see your dad… don’t let him die without giving yourselves a chance to sort out whatever it is that’s happened between you… nothing can be that bad…”

Smack – Chapter 32

Tuesday 11.03 am.: The redemptive powers of an early morning shag: unless the person you are sharing the experience with happens to go by the name of Louise, there is nothing that can touch it. I’m having breakfast with Steve and Flynn and Carol; I say breakfast, although to call the weak black tea and whole grain toast and Marmite that were thrust in my direction a few moments ago breakfast is actually a gross misrepresentation of the facts. But I don’t care: Steve and Flynn could have given me a bowlful of curried Weetabix and I would still have wolfed it down like it like it was prime Foie Gras set on a bed of sweet orchids. This is not because I am hungry – although actually I am – it’s because I’m satisfied: every pore… every molecule… every atom… every quark in my body is feeling like it has just won the lottery. I am alive… I’m turbo-charged… I’m hyped-alert… I’m super-blessed… I’m ready to run a marathon carrying Jimmy Saville on my shoulders… I feel like I could rip through the Times crossword in world record time… All this because of a shag.

The other person who has just had a shag is sitting across from at the breakfast table, also putting the finishing touches to warm tea and toast and Marmite. If it is at all possible she looks even more beautiful than ever: and if it were possible to rid the breakfast table of the intrusive presence of our hosts, there is every chance that I would be attempting to stretch her over it at this very moment. What a different world it would be if someone like Carol was available on the National Health: there would be no crime, illness would be eradicated, life expectancy would triple; the world would be a better place. I have an idea that Steve is quietly agreeing with this premise as he steals occasional glances at me and then Carol over the table. From the look of him and the flabby hunk of perforated Welsh flesh he shares his bed with, it is fairly apparent that he didn’t get a shag last night. I can almost hear the questions running through his mind: What’s Carol doing with him? What’s he got that I haven’t? Why can’t I get to go to bed with Carol? It’s a pity he can’t hear my responses: Because she’s chosen to be with him. Carol. Because she hasn’t chosen to be with you. It’s the kind of dialogue that I enjoy.

 

 

 

We say goodbye to Steve and Flynn. Carol gives them both a hug and I shake their hands rather too formally and thank them, offering them money for putting us up, which they decline. We walk slowly through the streets, which are largely deserted, and Carol surprises me by putting an arm through my own. To the occasional straggler that we pass we’re now an item, we’re together, we’re a couple. I’m a dirty old man with a hot young chick in tow, a thought which both excites and appals me.

We stroll like young lovers to Jez’ place, which, I discover, is only about five minutes away from Steve and Flynn’s. We knock two or three times and Jez eventually answers the door dressed in an old woollen sweater and white underpants. When we go inside there is a girl lying asleep in his shitty bed. Ralph sees Carol enter and leaps to his feet to greet her. Jez peers at me even more suspiciously than yesterday, like I’m a member of the drugs squad or something.

We have so more tea, which either makes Jez a liar or someone so innately accommodating that he got up early this morning to buy tea bags so that that old bloke who went off, presumably to have sex with his friend Carol last night, can have a cup of tea when they come to pick up the dog that they abandoned in his bedsit. We share one of his spliffs and talk about things I have already forgotten about. Then Carol gives Jez a hug and thanks him for everything and we get ready to leave. I thank Jez for everything, too, and tell him to enjoy what’s left of his life before those planets line up in April and the earth blows up or whatever. He is not amused. We find the car and head off back to London.

 

Except we don’t head off to London. Because before I can even start the car Carol leans over to me from the passenger seat and kisses me tenderly on the side of the face. Then she says: “John… you’ll probably think that I’m being a bit cheeky… but can I ask you a favour?”

“That depends…” I reply mock-suspiciously.

“Well…” she continues. “We’re only about quarter of an hour away and… well…to come all this way and not go would be such a shame…”

“Hmm?”

“Well… we’re so close… would you mind driving me to my dad’s house? If he ever found out that I’d been down here and not paid him a visit he’d be really upset…”

I pause for a moment before I answer: “Don’t you think it’s a little early for the meet-the-parents bit? I mean, at least let me take a shower.”

“No… silly!” laughs Carol. “You won’t have to see him – you can wait outside in the car like I did with you… I won’t be there long… I promise… look, you don’t mind do you?”

Of course I mind. I mind because I want to get back home, I want to get back home and begin repairing some of the damage that lies there waiting for me; amongst other things, I want to get back home and wipe Louise’s message off the answer phone before it falls into the wrong hands. But of course I don’t mind. I don’t mind because I don’t want to be separated from Carol for an instant; I don’t mind because I’ve just had sex with this person and I want to have some more if possible; I don’t mind because every fibre of my being wants to do nothing that would displease this woman sitting beside me.

 

12.16 p.m.: We arrive on the outskirts of Dartmouth and Carol outlines her plans to me: I’m to park the car at a suitable distance from her father’s house and wait inside while she pays a visit on him and Kitty, the elder sister who lives with him. She’s going to keep this endeavour as brief as possible: she’ll have some more tea, give him a cuddle, tell him everything’s all right in London and then we’ll scoot off back home. It shouldn’t take more than an hour or so.

Carol directs me through the twisting country roads, occasionally pointing at buildings and places that she used to know: the school she attended, her first boyfriend’s house, her best friend Sarah’s house. Actually I’m a little surprised because this is obviously one of the more affluent areas of the town. The houses around here are set in vast grounds; all the occupants seem to be two or three car families and own a Land Rover. We turn up a very long and very narrow country lane: if another car were to approach in the opposite direction one of us would have to back up. We turn to the right, then the left. Then the left again. Then we are suddenly arriving in the gravel driveway of an extremely generously proportioned house – at least five or six bedrooms – and I’m pulling the car up and a man holding a pair of garden shears and a walking stick is limping slowly towards us.

I wrench on the handbrake and Carol flings open her door and runs towards the stranger with her arms outstretched. He greets her with a hug and a broad smile: he is about sixty years old or so with a pink bald head and weather-beaten features; I can’t quite put my finger on it but there is something that I find familiar about him. The two of them talk for a few moments, all grins and kisses; I watch from the driver’s seat as the man pats his heart to illustrate his surprise at seeing Carol turn up out of the blue. Then Carol twists towards me and points a finger in my direction and the man peers short-sightedly over at me, then at her again. Now she is motioning for me to leave the car and join the two of them.

I gingerly open my car door and walk over to them, not knowing what I am going to say or do: as I get closer I see a figure in the corner of my eye emerge from the front door of the house, it waves at Carol and she waves back, smiling. “Dad…” says Carol as I approach. “This is my boyfriend… John.”

 

“So how did you two meet?” asks Carol’s father in a BBC announcer voice that seems curiously at odds with his physical appearance.

We’re sitting in the morning room drinking yet more tea, courtesy, this time, of Carol’s elder sister Kitty, who is almost the spitting image of Carol but has brown hair and doesn’t wear a nose ring and is dressed in chic designer clothing that makes it look like she works on Wall Street: with a little encouragement this is what Carol could look like. The morning room itself also has its fair share of designer accoutrements: the table we are sitting around is made from finest Italian pine and fashioned in such a way as to suggest that it wasn’t picked up on the cheap from the local Argos; the cups we are sipping from are made from delicate Swiss china, etched into their undersides is the signature of the person who made them; standing on a bookshelf that is stocked with a large collection of coffee table art books is a stainless steel reproduction of a sculpture by Brancusi, I think. On the wall are several fine art prints: Picasso’s dove, Matisse’s paper cut-out snail, something by Klee, a line drawing by Schiele. They could almost be real. I don’t know what Carol’s father does to finance such opulence but one thing’s for certain: it’s nothing to do with sitting under cash dispensers.

“John was looking for illustrators for a book he was producing and we got to know each other through that…” Carol answers for me.

“Oh…” says Carol’s father looking towards me with interest. “So you’re a writer are you?”

“No… silly,” says Carol. “John’s an editor with Kingfisher… he produces children’s books.”

“Oh… really…” says Carol’s father, not even bothering to feign interest.

In an episode from that long-running 1970s serial called Kung Fu, which had David Carradine in it, I always remember for some reason a scene at the end of the show in which a young Kwai Chang Caine is being given his usual lesson in philosophy from that bald headed guy with ping pong ball eyes. After Kwai Chang has been robbed while delivering something to a nearby village he is asked: ‘And so, Glasshopper… what lesson have you learned today?’. ‘I have learned to expect the unexpected,” replies the boy.

This is the lesson that I too am beginning to learn the more time I spend with Carol. I am become increasingly aware that where she is concerned it’s probably best for your sanity if you try and get used to expecting the unexpected. I really don’t know what she hopes to achieve by putting me in such an awkward position as the one in which I now find myself: is this a test of nerve or something? Because if I stumble over this one, if I fluff my lines and reveal myself as the impostor I am, it’s going to be she who ends up looking all stupid and embarrassed in front of her father, not I. What she’s doing is rather like playing Russian Roulette for a bit of fun when you’re alone at home and there’s nothing on the box. The only possible outcome in a situation like this is a bad one.

Nevertheless, I grit my teeth and try. I’m sitting here with my girlfriend Carol, who I apparently employ to illustrate the children’s books that I edit for Kingfisher, and I try. I have no RADA training and the last time I stepped on to the stage I was playing one of the three wise men in the school nativity play but it’s the best I can do under the circumstances. “So…” I say. “What’s your line of business mister… um… mister…”

It is at this juncture that I recognise the fundamental flaws inherent to a question such as the one I have just asked. First of all, if I’ve been going out with this man’s daughter for, what shall we say… at least a few months… (certainly long enough for Carol to deem it appropriate for me to be introduced to her father) wouldn’t I already have a vague sort of idea about the line of business he happens to be in? Furthermore, wouldn’t it also be likely that I know his surname by now?

“Call me Reg…” says Reg, sympathetically allowing me, it seems, to loosen the noose from around my neck and wrench my dribbling jaw-line clear of danger.

We drink our tea: Carol fills in Reg and Kitty about how her art college career is going: about how she’s only got a year of the course to run but thanks to John here there’s a job waiting for her as soon as she graduates. Reg mutters something about nepotism and I tell him jokingly that if you can’t keep it in the family who can you keep it for. Reg asks Carol about where she is living and she goes into elaborate detail about our cute little house in Islington and says he should come and visit sometime – yes, that’ll be nice, I say. Then Reg points to his knee joints and says he would if it were possible and that maybe in the summer his arthritis will be a little better and he will be able to – I tell him let’s hope so. Then Kitty asks some questions about what films we’ve seen lately and how often we get up to the West End theatres and whether there’s any good exhibitions on at the moment. I make up some answers and sneak a look at my watch: we’ve been here over an hour.

Carol notices me sneaking a look at my watch and decides to put me out of my misery. She asks me what time it is and then tells the other two: “Well…um… I told you it was only a flying visit… we’ve got things to do back at the house, I’m afraid…”

She tells them how great it is to see them both and that she won’t leave it so long next time. Then she starts to get to her feet but before she can Reg stops her: “I’ll… hmm… just walk John back to the car,” he says. From the tone of his voice it is clear that Carol and Kitty are not invited to walk alongside us. I smile nervously and say: oh… yeah… great. I leave my chair and follow Reg as he limps slowly out of the morning room. As we exit I turn for a little moral support for a moment towards where Carol is sitting,; but she is not looking at me, she is smiling at her sister who is smiling back at her and, inexplicably, mouthing the question: thirty-two? at her.

 

Outside, back on the gravel driveway, I walk alongside Carol’s father, my shoulders towering over his. The leaves are fluttering in the wind and there is the smell of freshly-cut grass in the air. Just before we reach the car – in which Ralph, out of boredom or a desire to freak out the neighbours, has relocated himself in the driver’s seat and is currently sitting behind the steering wheel waiting to pick up his passengers – Reg turns to me and speaks:

“Listen, young man,” he says. “I don’t want to get all fatherly on you but I have to say I’m not very happy about the age difference – how old are you… thirty-five… thirty-six?”

“Thirty-three,” I say, tempting providence.

“Thirty-three… huh… well… whatever… like I say I’m not happy that you’re so much older than Carol… however, you seem like a decent enough sort. You’re certainly an improvement on the last one.”

“Thanks.”

“You just make sure you look after her… she’s got too much of her mother in her for her own good… you just make sure you keep an eye on her, that’s all.”

“I will,” I say, as Reg takes hold of my hand and holds it in his own.

“You just make sure that you do…”

It is only when he turns back towards the house to call the other two out that I suddenly realise what it is I found familiar about him earlier on: he looks like I do – an older, balder, shorter, squatter version of me, maybe – but it’s me, all the same.

 

We sit in the car and smile and wave at Reg and Kitty as I start up the engine. They smile and wave back at us and we turn right, then right again, then left and find ourselves back on the long and narrow country lane that leads to civilisation. When we are safely out of earshot I say: “What the fuck was all that about?”

Carol giggles just like she did when she pulled the duvet off me on Sunday morning. “I’m sorry…” she says. “It’s just that I knew you’d never go through with it if I warned you.”

I shake my head in mock exasperation: “And since when did I work for Kingfisher, editing children’s books?”

“Oh… yes… I’m sorry… I thought that since you didn’t have a job at the moment it would be best if I gave you one I knew he’d be impressed with… you know, he’d only have gone on at you if he found out you were working on those horrible partwork things.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Look…” Carol continues. “You’ve just done him a real favour… I know he worries about me being up in London all on my own… now he’s seen you he’s going to feel a lot happier about things. I’m sure he’d rather I was with someone responsible like you than with someone like Jez.”

“Jez?” I exclaim.

“Yeah… those two almost came to blows when we came to visit the Easter before last.”

Smack – Chapter 31

Far too many men in this world – myself included – waste far too much of their lives harbouring under the misapprehension that they are in some way responsible for the woman that they find themselves lying next to when they wake up in the morning. I’m not talking about responsible in the handing-over-the-housekeeping-money-keeping-them-in-dresses-and-pedicures sense; I’m talking about responsible in the meeting-a-woman-and-managing-to-get-her-to agree-to-have-sex-with-you sense. This what I’m thinking as a drag my eyes open in the early morning South Devon light to find the curled up naked form of Carol lying asleep next to me on Jez and Flynn’s lifeless mattress. Because now everything is so clear to me: I realise now that the reason I find myself lying here with a beautiful woman who is seventeen years younger than I am is actually nothing to do with me.

Carol’s flawless features lie half buried in the pillow; the blankets have settled around her waist, allowing her exposed upper body to melt into the shadows like the chiaroscuro brushwork of a young Caravaggio. In soft-focus, I run my eyes over her fresh, unblemished torso, feeling a little like a fourteen-year-old eyeballing a copy of Mayfair …like Augustus Gloop swimming in a chocolate river. No… I’m not responsible for this… this is nothing to do with me – how could I have ever been so naïve as to presume otherwise?

I know that if I apply the natural laws of physics to my current situation there is simply no possible way on earth that I have any right to be sharing a bed, or even a shabby mattress on the floor, with a woman such as this. I could use subterfuge… or lies… or financial incentives… or blackmail… or pity – I could threaten to kill myself; none of these approaches would be enough to provide sufficient incentive to encourage a woman like Carol to willingly sleep with a man like me. And when you reject all possible explanations, when you throw into the waste basket all the available motives for what has just occurred, there is only one conclusion that remains: I’m lying in bed with one of the most beautiful women I have ever encountered in my life for one reason and one reason alone – because Carol wants me to be here.

She wants me to be here in the same way that Louise wanted me to be there in her bed when our bodies clashed last Thursday night; she wants me to be here in the same way that Marie wanted me all those years ago when she first spotted me in the office and decided that she’d like to have me over the photocopier; and she wants me to be here in the same way that Dawn wanted me to be with her before I dumped that spectacular Baywatch babe body of hers for a woman who looked like a slightly more androgynous version of Julie Andrews. It’s a chemical thing, I think; however clichéd it might sound. because there is certainly no logic that exists to link together the decisions of each of these disparate individuals. And if I think about it, this is probably true of every woman that I have ever had sexual intercourse with. They all wanted me to be in their bed because they wanted me to be in their bed; I didn’t charm them with my dazzling wit and razor-sharp repartee; they weren’t overpowered by my devastating good looks; it wasn’t my money they were after; and it certainly wasn’t – I hope, at least – anything to do with pity. They just chose me: they picked me out of the crowd for a reason I’m not sure that even they understand – and I allowed myself to be chosen.

This is where the male of the species ends up deluding itself; because it’s all part of the tribal ritual that we stand together in groups and try to demonstrate the irresistible drawing power of our pheromones, etc. etc. But deep down I think that we all know the truth: we’re just too busy trying to disprove it to ever get around to admitting it. Do you really believe, for example, that Samson ended up with Delilah just because she just fancied a bit of rough? Or that Cleopatra shared her tiger skin sheets with Mark Anthony because she was partial to a man in a tin helmet? Or that Olive passed up her chances with Bluto because she liked a man with spinach breath? Burton and Taylor… Romeo and Juliet… Maggie and Denis… Olivier and Leigh… John and Yoko… Ian Beale and Cindy: all of these men ended up sharing their lives with these women because they had no choice in the matter. The truth is that when it comes to the mating game we’re the batsmen and they are the bowlers: we’re merely innocent bystanders, and to believe otherwise is to believe that the earth is flat or that six million Jews were not gassed in the Nazi ovens.

While I’m busy with my hackneyed philosophising, Carol snores a little in her sleep and to this innocent bystander even her snoring is inestimably attractive. It’s a contented, self-satisfied sort of snore, like someone belching after a meal to demonstrate their appreciation of it. Then Carol begins to stir and slowly opens her eyes and looks up at me, her supermodel face breaking into the sort of grin that could make grown men cry.

 

We make love again. Except this time there’s no fumbling about in the darkness. We’re a little less coy, and if I did pause to provide details I really would end up going all Black Lace on you. When it’s over we press our sweaty shoulders together and share a cigarette. In the distance I can hear the sound of the waves lapping against the shoreline, which, I guess, is kind of appropriate.

Smack – Chapter 30

Monday afternoon: Our semi-conscious snogging session is not discussed but nevertheless something has changed between us. Carol is a little more formal than I’ve become accustomed to, a little more polite, a little less connected. For my part, I am rather more jolly than usual: brighter, sparkier, more pleasant and unassuming than I usually am. Underneath this façade, however, I’ve spent the day fending off a busy, well-ordered queue of panic attacks.

It was after the three of us left the caravan this morning and found a tea shop in the centre of Brixham that it really hit me for the first time that I no longer had a job. When I passed my credit card over to pay for breakfast I found myself suddenly concerned about money and the impact that the lack of it would have on my life now that I didn’t have a regular monthly pay cheque coming in. And it wasn’t just the money that was bothering me.

Off the top of my head I can think of more than one or two people who would find it unfeasibly amusing if I were to give them a run-down on all that has happened to me over the past fortnight. To me, though, I find it all so unfair: not unfair because I’ve just lost my job or because my father’s about to die or because my girlfriend has run off to her mother’s or anything like that – these are, after all, the sorts of things that we all have to deal with at some point in our lives – but unfair because everything’s happened so fast that I have been unable to give any of these issues the attention that they truly deserve.

My second panic attack came a little after breakfast while Carol and I were doing ten minutes of sight-seeing before returning to the car and pointing it in the direction of our next port of call. It was after Carol had gone off to post a letter or something that I took the opportunity to check my messages at home on my mobile. There were three in all: the first was from Marie, who told me in a surprisingly sympathetic tone of voice that it was Sunday afternoon and that she had decided to come home on Wednesday (not yesterday or today as I had assumed, which is quite a relief, actually) and that she was calling because she thought that we ought to have a chat before then and that even though she thought it would be a waste of time she’d try me on my mobile. The second call was from BT, who informed me that for twenty quid a month or whatever I could reduce my monthly phone bill by 45%. The third was from Louise, who apparently does have my home number after all. Like Marie, she also suggested that we ought to have a chat sometime and left me her home number. It was at this point that the second panic attack set in: all of a sudden my mind was full of crazy paranoid visions of the future – in the blink of an eye I’d gone from an image of a bitchy Louise confronting Marie and gleefully spilling the beans about what we’d recently been up to between the sheets, to an image of a bloated, heavily-pregnant Louise appearing on my doorstep demanding maintenance and asking me what I’d like to call the baby (we’ll name it after one of Louise’s distant ancestors, shall we: Lucy). Can you imagine the full horror if I was to discover that Louise was pregnant with my child? This second panic attack was not exactly helped when I then checked for any messages left on my mobile only to find another one from Marie, apparently made a little after Carol had accidentally answered her call in the car yesterday afternoon. This one was decidedly less friendly than the earlier one: it told me to call her back straight away because she hasn’t got a fucking clue what’s going on.

After this came the father-and-mother panic attack; the what-must-Carol-be-thinking-about-what-I-did-to-her-this-morning panic attack; the, oh-god-where-did-I-park-my-car panic attack; and, finally, the stop-having-panic-attacks-and-grow-up panic attack. Then, by around mid-day, my thought processes finally began to settle down a little; and, with Carol jabbering on politely about this and that, I made a few decisions:

Firstly: The mobile phone. How am I going to explain to Marie why a woman’s voice answered my mobile phone when she called me on Sunday afternoon? Solution: That’s quite an easy one, actually – I’m going to tell her that I’ve lost my phone… I’ve left it in the pub or it’s been stolen or something like. Nothing too unbelievable about that one.

Secondly: The trip to Devon. How am I going to explain to Marie the motives behind my sudden unexpected change of heart a propos my father? Again another fairly self-evident one: all I need to say is that Marie was right all along – that she was perfectly justified in endeavouring to convince me to see my father before he died and that, furthermore, she was also correct to run off for a week so that I’d have the time and space in which to reach this conclusion. It goes without saying, of course, that this response is far more preferable to offering the real reason, which was that a beautiful squatter with a nose ring and a tatty dog – who I let stay in the house during Marie’s absence – mock-blackmailed me into doing it. My way, Marie gets to think she convinced me to do the right thing by sheer force of will, which is bound to make her feel pleased with herself and help to heal a few open wounds. This approach has the added bonus of giving me a little ammunition in the event of a future border skirmish, during which I’ll be able to point out how wrong Marie was about my going to visit my father, and that she really ought to get it into her head that she isn’t always right about everything.

Thirdly: Work. This one’s connected with the money panic attack that I had earlier on. Now that the dust is beginning to settle a little it’s gradually dawning on me that I’m going to be owed a rather large sum of money by Gravity. What is it for fifteen years employment? It’s at least a month’s pay for every year, which means that I’m due a cheque for at least 30k. This softens the blow somewhat. As soon as I get home I’m going to call Mary Bridges from personnel and read her the riot act. If I play my cards right I could end up with a lot more than the figure I’ve just mentioned.

Number four: Louise: I could be misreading the signs but I rather got the impression as I was leaving Louise’s house the other morning that she was viewing our boozed up fucking session as the start of something big. It was almost as if she was thinking that she had been granted access to my trousers because there’d been this insatiable, overwhelming attraction burning away inside us all these months. I’m sure she’s expecting dinners and flowers and trips to the cinema and all the rest that goes with it. I’ll have to be careful with this one: too brutal an ending and there’s no telling what she’ll do to exact her revenge. One thing’s for sure – I don’t want her ringing up Marie out of the blue and informing her that we’ve suddenly fallen passionately in love with one another. For this reason I’m going to do what that old Stranglers song advises one to do: I’m going to let her down easy. I’m going to take her for a drink or whatever and try to use good old fashioned body language to let her know the way that my loins are thinking. Instead of dumping her, I’m going to keep a discreet distance and let her get tired of me, I want whatever interest she has in me to quickly dwindle away to nothing. There is, of course, still the minor problem of her leaving that message on my answering machine. Which means that I’ve got to get back and erase it before Marie returns on Wednesday, something which I fully intend to do.

Number five: Carol: Carol is now out of the house, so she’s no longer a problem. What I’m going to do is drive her to her friend’s place in Dartmouth, wave goodbye to her and Ralph, and then turn the car in the opposite direction and head off home. If I’m lucky I’ll be back by early evening; and from that point on I intend to keep my relationship with Carol strictly confined to the undersides of cash dispensers.

Number six: My father: He can fuck off and die.

 

“Pretty please…”

Were fifteen miles away from Dartmouth. It’s 12.10 p.m. and Carol is puckering her lips at me like Marilyn Monroe in the poster for The Seven Year Itch. Carol is endeavouring to get her own way again, her earlier politeness has evaporated away to nothing, as has my uncharacteristic unassumingness.

“You can ask me as much as you like, Carol, but my answer will stay the same… as soon as I’ve dropped you off I’m heading back to London.”

“Please…”

“No Carol.”

“Please…”

“No…”

“Please…”

“No…”

“Please…”

Actually, the pendulum’s swinging back the other way once more: because now I’m going over the events of this morning again and I’m trying to work out in my mind just what exactly Carol’s game is. A few moments ago Carol repeated yesterday’s offer: she asked me again if I’d like to spend a few days in Dartmouth with her and her buddies. At first I thought she was still being polite and I told her no thanks, but it was too late: already her words had managed to bring a whole new perspective to our earlier moment of bleary-eyed intimacy. Up until then I’d been thinking that our snog this morning had been nothing more than the behaviour of two half-asleep people reacting purely on instinct upon waking up in a strange place to find themselves lying next to someone else of the opposite sex. Now I’m not so sure: I’m not so sure because if Carol is really so appalled by what occurred this morning surely she wouldn’t be asking me what she’s me asking now?

“Please…”

“No…”

“Please…”

“No…”

“I’ll tell Marie…”

“You’ll what?”

“I’ll tell Marie that you let me and Ralph stay in your pl…”

“…Shut up Carol.”

 

We arrive in Dartmouth: a carbon copy of the last town that we passed through; another west country clone-zone full of trees, cutesy old Victorian fisherman cottages, country pubs, boats, fish and chip shops selling kebabs and beefburgers, country bumpkins; the cheerful monotony of these picturesque vistas drains the soul. I drive through the cobbled streets and Carol directs me to Jez’ house. We park and she gets out of the car clutching her black plastic sack with Ralph galloping cheerfully behind her and I get ready to bid her farewell but she stops me in mid-sentence and tells me not to be so silly – the least she can do is get Jez to make me a cup of tea to send me on my way. I tell her no thanks again but she insists. I say okay, I will, but I won’t stay for long because, as you already know, I’ve got to get back to London.

Jez turns out to be a white male in his late twenties with blonde dreadlocks, a goatee and a mobile phone clipped to the belt around a pair of tatty combat trousers. He breaks into a smile when he sees Carol, wrapping his arms around her and hugging her. He looks me up and down suspiciously when we’re introduced, then he invites us into his bedsit, which is small and dark and dingy with no TV, a tiny kitchen area with a knackered out old fridge, a sink overflowing with unwashed cups and plates, a nylon-stringed acoustic guitar propped up against an old table, an ancient bed partially hidden by a wooden screen that divides the room into two areas.

Carol asks Jez for tea but he shrugs and tells her he hasn’t got any, which slightly relieves me. Instead, he reaches inside the fridge and pulls out a four-pack of Special Brew. He snaps one open and throws another at Carol, then without asking me if I want one, he hurls one over in my direction, too. I almost drop it. I have to say that sipping Special Brew with Swampy the animal rights activist was not really what I had in mind for this afternoon. There’s an antagonistic quality to his movements, almost as if my refusing to accept his can of beer would somehow confirm everything that he’s been thinking about this straight looking old bloke that has just turned up out of the blue with Carol. The ridiculous thing is that even though I know that Jez and I will probably never set eyes on each other again for the rest of our lives, I can’t stop myself from joining Carol and Jez on the carpet and I can’t stop myself from opening the can of beer he has given to me, and I can’t stop myself from lifting it to my lips and pretending that I’m enjoying it.

Jez moves over to the window and flicks on a tape in a battered old circa 1974 radio-cassette player. The opening bars of the Doors’ ‘The End’ start up. “This is the end… beau-ti-ful friend…” chants Jim Morrison as I glance over at Carol uncomfortably. I can’t help thinking that the singer’s maybe got it right this time. While Jim entertains us, Jez opens a drawer and pulls out a large plastic bag full of grass; for some undisclosed reason he looks over to me and nods. So I nod back, smiling a little.

Over the next half an hour I discover that Jez is unemployed (surprise, surprise); that he doesn’t want to get a job (ditto); that he doesn’t eat meat; that he earns money by busking on the streets; that Ronald MacDonald is evil and is part of a huge conspiracy to take over the world (I already knew that); that he’s been in prison twice for breaking into animal research laboratories (I almost tell him that if it’s a pet he’s after he should try a pet shop); and that the world is likely to end next April because all nine planets will be in conjunction. He’s a wealth of fascinating information is Jez.

I have a second can, this isn’t because I want to but because Jez’ desire for me to have a second can is stronger than my desire not to. While I am doing this Jez demonstrates his seasoned pro smoking status by rolling three separate joints and distributing one of them to each of us. Ralph, squatting at Jez’ bedside, gets a soup bowl full of water for his troubles and some biscuits to chew on. For people who are supposed to be so into animal rights, Carol and her illuminating associate seem curiously indifferent when it comes to treating the poor animal with anything remotely resembling compassion or respect.

By three o’clock I’ve had another two spliffs and I’m on my third can of Special Brew. I give Jez some cash so that he can go and get some more beer and I’m left alone in his squalid hovel with Carol. “What time do you plan to leave?” she smiles innocently.

“Well put it this way,” I reply. “It looks like you’ve got your lift back to London.”

“Oh… how could you think such a thing!” says Carol, genuinely offended, it seems, by my calculated assumption

 

A little after seven we stumble out into the cold evening with Jez leading the way. Ralph gets to stay indoors with only the radio for company. We go to a pub in the centre of town and meet up with about a dozen or so other young men and women who all look like Jez and Carol. I find a table inside and talk to one or two of these people. I am treated as a mild curiosity: they ask me what I do for a living sort of sneeringly and I say with forced pride that I am unemployed like them. This patently fails to impress them. We talk about music and they run through a long list of singers and bands that I have never heard of; I tell them about my punk rocker days, about how I saw the Sex Pistols at the Screen On The Green, about how I saw the Clash at the Hope and Anchor; and even though I did neither of these things this information patently fails to impress them, too.

Towards closing time, Carol mysteriously disappears for about twenty-minutes or so, leaving me alone with her cheerful chums. When she returns she is dragging two other down and outs behind her: “This is Steve and Flynn…” she tells me. (Flynn? What sort of a name is that for a girl?) “They say we can crash in their spare room tonight.”

 

We crash in Steve and Flynn’s spare room. I shan’t bore you too much with descriptions and suchlike, except to say that Steve and Flynn’s spare room makes Jez’ place seem like the Ritz. On one side of the room is a solitary easy chair that looks like it has been picked up in a January sale in a skip, in the centre of the room is a single mattress on the floor with, for some reason, a well-thumbed copy of Bridget Jones’ Diary lying beside it. The only light in the room is provided by a candle. While Carol goes off to the piss-hole that is Steve and Flynn’s bathroom and does whatever it is she has to do, I idly flick through the book, drunk and stoned,.

In the middle of this, Flynn comes into the room and asks me if everything is all right. Flynn, I’m yet to explain, is a chubby vegan from Wales with enough metal wedged into her bloated cheeks to supply the source material for a small cruise liner. I tell her yes thanks and she tells me how great Carol is and I say yes she is.

Carol returns and I leave the two women talking and head off to the bathroom, acutely aware that it has been two days since I’ve taken a shower. I strip off by the sink, grabbing an emaciated piece of soap and rubbing it under my armpits and over my balls. I’m not entirely sure why it is suddenly so important that my genitals should smell of soap.

When I get back to the room Carol and Flynn are giggling. They stop when I enter and we all have a conversation about something. Flynn’s eyes are gleaming, or is it merely all that metal confusing me? Then she shakes me by the hand and tells me she hopes I have a good night’s sleep. I look at my watch as she exits: it is 12.43 a.m.

 

Carol blows out the candle and suddenly the room is in darkness. Neither of us says anything but I can hear the rustle of her removing her clothing. I sit in the chair, suddenly trembling even though the room is not cold. Carol gets into bed and after a pause that really does last an eternity, whispers: “You’re not going to sleep there, are you?”

I mumble something in response. I have no idea what I say and neither, I assume, does Carol.

“Look…” she urges. “Don’t be so silly…”

I move over to the mattress, my trembling now overpowering my whole body, and climb underneath the blankets. I awkwardly lower myself alongside Carol, making sure that were are not touching, which is a difficult, if not impossible thing to be attempting on a mattress of this size. Then I say: “Goodnight, then.”

“Goodnight.”

We lie together in silence. From elsewhere in the house someone is playing a record, Jeff Buckley or somebody like that. I try to listen for a while; occasionally I can hear Steve and Flynn and somebody else’s voice cutting into the music. I’ve still got all my clothes on and have no idea how much of Carol’s clothing remains intact. I start to unbuckle my jeans because I’m realising that if I don’t I’m never going to be able to sleep. “I’m just taking my trousers off,” I say, trying not to sound too guilty. Carol makes the same Homer Simpson noise that I heard her make the other day: “Doooohh…” she says.

The jeans come off, as do my socks. They lie uncomfortably and a little forlornly on the floor next to the mattress. I’m now wearing just a T-shirt and a pair of boxers shorts, through which the smell of my soapy balls must be clearly apparent. I turn my back away from Carol and close my eyes and try to get to sleep but my sixth sense tells me that Carol has her eyes open. I feel her move closer to me; I feel her breath on the back of my neck. She is trembling too.

We stay like this for a long time; I’m afraid to breathe, my body is paralysed. Finally Carol sighs sleepily and whispers: “I’m cold…” And before I can do anything her body is spooning mine, an arm wrapped around my belly, her hairless thighs touching the backs of my own. “It’s okay, isn’t it?” she asks softly.

Now I suddenly have an erection, which, obviously, because it wants to humiliate me, has managed to slip out of the side of my boxer shorts; the boxer shorts themselves are also in on the plot: they have wrapped themselves around my waist so that the front has now relocated itself in the crack of my arse and the back is tangled up in my pubic hair. With Carol pushing her body closer to me I reach down, slowly, casually I’m hoping, to readjust the offending garment. I slip my throbbing dick back inside and lift my bottom off the mattress so that I can attempt this tricky manoeuvre. Lord knows what Carol must be thinking I’m up to. Then, without warning, I feel a hand creep over my own so that I’m left cupping my own balls with her hand covering mine, afraid to move lest Carol should discover what I am hiding underneath.

Then Carol quietly starts to kiss the back of my neck, nibbling it gently, and I shudder involuntarily so that she pulls away from me for a moment and gently whispers: “Are you all right?” Her hand is still on top of my own.

“Ye… yes…” I whisper, my teeth beating a Rumba in time to my shaking body.

Then Carol gets back into position and is kissing my neck again and I’m suddenly thinking about this morning; maybe Carol wasn’t quite so sickened by what we did as I thought she was. And now I’m turning around to face her and wrapping both my arms tightly around her body. Carol is wearing a T-shirt and knickers and no bra. It’s dark but just about light enough to make out her features. From this proximity they are astonishingly beautiful. My nose is three or four millimetres away from her own: I have never in my whole life been so close to a woman this gorgeous.

Suddenly our lips are together: our faces are grinding away in a hot sticky mixture of saliva and teeth and steam and electricity. And I’m reaching under Carol’s T-shirt and frantically cupping her right breast in my hand, kneading it, rubbing the nipple with my thumb. And I’m grinding my crotch into hers and she’s grinding her crotch into mine, and she’s gasping and I’m gasping and she’s reaching down and getting her hand caught up in my ill-positioned boxer shorts. Yes… I really think that I might just have misjudged her this morning: there is now every possibility that the focus group will go home happy, after all.

Now she has her hand clamped around my dick and she’s easing down my tangled boxer shorts and they’re getting caught around my knees and I’m pulling apart from her for a moment and kicking them away from my ankles. And her tongue is in my mouth and she is running it along the underside of my front teeth the way Marie used to do when we first met.

Marie.

Marie.

I jerk myself away from Carol, suddenly haunted by a vision of Marie; suddenly aware of what I’m doing. I feel an arctic rush of guilt: it travels down my spine and finishes up at the tips of my toes. And I’m sitting up in bed, my dick in pain, panting like a dog, breathless, shuddering uncontrollably. “We can’t do this…” I groan.

Carol rolls over on to her back and looks at me. Her T-shirt is pulled up to expose the breasts I had been man-handling a few moments ago. “It looks like we are…” she smiles.

“But why…” I splutter. “What can a girl like you possibly see in a sad old fart like me?”

“Ssshhhh…” says Carol, placing a finger on her lips.

“But…”

Carol pulls down on my shoulders and hauls me back on to the mattress so that I’m lying flat on my back. Then she hovers over me and hoists her T-shirt over her head. “Shut up, John…” she says, lowering her open lips on to my own.

Location:Whitehall Park,London,United Kingdom

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Smack — Chapter 29

I MUST NOT TALK BACK TO MY FATHER.

I MU ST NOT TALK BACK TO MY FATHER.

I MUST NOT XXXX TALK BACK TO MY FATHER.

I MUST NOT TALK BACK TO M Y FATHER.

I’m sitting alone in my bedroom with the typewriter that I got for Christmas. It’s not a real typewriter – it’s one of those things with a cylinder at the top that you turn around by hand until you find the letter you want to type. The typewriter is made of tin and, as if to give the user a glimpse of how much more straightforward things are in the grown-up world, has a false QWERTY keyboard painted on the front. I’m getting quite adept at this: If I concentrate so that my tongue sticks out of the corner of my mouth I can probably manage about four letters a minute. Maybe there’s a future in this.

My father’s gone now and my Spiderman annuals and Airfix models have been returned to their rightful place on the shelf. It must be a Saturday or a Sunday: I don’t know how I know this, I just do. From the wall Noddy Holder smiles out at me like a madman: he is wearing his ridiculous mirrored top hat; squatting beside him is Dave Hill with his stupid fliddy basin cut. I’ve been doing this for some time: if I count up all the letters I have typed and divide them by four, almost three hours.

Suddenly my bedroom door is opening and my father is entering the room. He’s young again: his hair is jet black and held in place by thick grease; he’s wearing a donkey jacket and corduroy trousers. He’s smells of booze… yes, that’s how I know it’s Saturday or Sunday: my father has been out for his customary lunchtime drink today. He’s staggering slightly and his voice is overly loud. “Well…” he demands. “Have you finished?”

“Almost,” I reply, gesturing towards my tin typewriter, suddenly frightened.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asks.

“I’m… erm… typing it…” I reply in a voice that is yet to break.

“No! No! No! No! No!” he exclaims angrily. “Listen to me, Sonny-boy: I told you to write it… not type it.”

“But… but…” I blubber, starting to cry.

“You’ll have to do it again – and this time you can write it five hundred times!” he says, swinging an open hand through the air and smacking me hard on the side of the head. “You’re not leaving this room until you do!”

Now he’s pulling the sheet of paper from my tin typewriter and tearing it into pieces and I’m crying so much that my vision becomes blurred.

The mists clear and my father is gone. Now my mother is standing beside me, no longer a little old lady with white hair but my mother once more. She’s reaching towards me, holding my sobbing frame in her arms. “It’s alright, love,” she is saying softly. “It’s all right.” Now she is kissing me on the cheek, cuddling me, nuzzling me, kissing me on the mouth, whispering words of comfort to me…

My eyes are closed and I’m kissing her back. Her arms are wrapped around me and mine are wrapped around her. Our bodies are interlocked, our tongues are touching, our saliva mixing and leaking down on to my chin. She’s moaning softly and I have an erection which is pushed against her belly. To the other side of me, Ralph is sniffing idly at my ear.

According to focus group protocol it is at this point in the proceedings that I’m supposed to go all Black Lace on you. It is, after all, a pretty sorry state of affairs for all concerned if I don’t get to nibble at the heroine’s milky breasts at least once. A bit of heavy groin action is called for if I’m to get those bums on seats, if I’m to meet those readership targets. So I remove Carol’s coat and pull off her T-shirt and fumble with her bra catch and then give up and drag it over her shoulders. Then I gently caress her breasts and lick her nipples until they are erect and move my tongue over her belly and stroke her silky thighs; and she lets out a short squeal of pleasure and moves her hand down to my trousers, etc. etc.

Of course, none of this happens. What actually occurs is that I wake up with a real jolt, gasping for air and horrified – absolutely appalled – that I’m apparently snogging my mother who, despite what you are thinking, I do not – I most certainly do not – and have never had or never will have an Oedipus-type of thing for. While I am busy waking with a jolt, Carol is lying beside me also busy waking up with a jolt, no doubt horrified too that she has just awoken to find herself snogging a man who to all intents and purposes could be her father. We’re both horrified.

Our senses now restored, we’re separating our tangled bodies and quickly putting as much distance between ourselves as is possible within the cramped confines of the caravan. Carol heads off towards the toilet, where she remains for about ten minutes. I fiddle about with the kettle which, I discover, no longer contains any stagnant water for me to boil up, then I open the door to the caravan and step outside into the weak morning light. Ralph follows me, wagging his tail happily.