She chuckled as she laid the jumper on the table. “Let me make you another one, and dump that washing over there. See the basket? There’s a pile to go in tomorrow.”
“Thank you. I can make the drink. I think I’d prefer a cup of tea, to be honest.”
“Tea it is. I forget that Ronan is an adult now. Hot chocolate and ham and crisp sandwiches was all he’d eat and drink when he was young. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner, it was the same thing. Amazing he grew to be such a strapping lad,” she said, as she made tea.
“I think he’s a little older than the typical strapping lad,” I replied with a laugh.
“Yes,” she said, with a nostalgic sigh.
“You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?”
“I am. I don’t know what he’s told you about his family and no doubt this is out of turn but being in turn was never my thing. His parents were total arseholes, the pair of them.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond so just reached out to take the tea being offered to me.
She continued, “They were totally neglected, those boys,” as if to justify her statement.
“I don’t know anything about them, other than the hippy and the American.” I gave an embarrassed laugh.
“No doubt Ronan will tell you himself, but as soon as he could, he was out of here. It’s why Rich is a mean bugger. He never forgave Ronan for actually moving on. But then Rich just upped and went as soon as he could, and Ronan had to come back and sort out the mess.”
“I met his ex-wife tonight, she’s a classy lady,” I said.
Maggie snorted. “Oh, she’s a fine one is that…” she struggled to come up with an adjective that was suitable, I guessed.
I laughed. “I’m going to salvage my book from the bathroom floor and hope it isn’t covered in chocolate and then climb into bed.”
“You have a good sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow, some visitors you can help me with.”
“Will do, and thanks, Maggie, for making me feel welcome.”
“It’s nice to have someone around who wants to sort this old monstrosity out.”
I didn’t tell her that I’d only just learned what was expected of me. Obviously, Ronan had told her before asking me. I’d gone from bristling to feeling wanted, to bristling again.
I said goodnight and left Maggie repairing a jumper that really should’ve ended up as a dog bed. I climbed the stairs again, and as I made to turn left to my room, I could hear Ronan’s raised voice.
“I don’t care what you think,” he said, spitting out the words.
I stood where I was, resisting the temptation to creep to the right and earwig at his door.
“She has offered to help with this place. I’ll thank you to keep your fucking nose out of my business, do you hear?”
The level of aggression wasn’t what I expected from the usually quietly spoken Ronan but then, I didn’t really know him. I walked to my room wondering who he was talking to, and assuming it was a discussion about me.
As I climbed into bed, I had to remind myself I was doing something out of character. I was being spontaneous, and it prompted me to check in with Joe. I sent him a quick text to let him know I hadn’t been murdered yet and would call him in the morning. I sipped on my tea and sighed as I dived into my book, The Facilitator, and made a mental note to hand it over to Maggie when I was done. But the way the story was shaping up, I’d either be embarrassed that she’d know I’d read it, or I’d want to read it for a second time before I dared to part with it. Mackenzie Miller was to die for!
Chapter Ten
After falling asleep on my book and a night of erotic dreams, I woke to find the imprint of a page on my cheek. I decided to forego waiting for the shower to heat up or the bath to fill. Instead, I strip washed at the sink. I could make out a couple of words on my face and scrubbed until my skin was red. I chuckled, knowing the scene I had been reading before I fell asleep.
With a little makeup on, I dressed and ventured downstairs. I found a note in the kitchen to help myself to breakfast. Maggie had gone out for provisions (her words), and Ronan was chasing up the estate manager for a meeting and to gather paperwork. It seemed odd to me to have such an errant estate manager, and I wondered if there was a little bad blood between them; hence, the reason Ronan was forever hunting him down.
I made some tea and uncovered a dish of homemade biscuits. I placed a couple on the side of my saucer and decided to take my cup to the library.
The room was dusty, unused, and it was a shame. I decided this would be where I’d work, should I get an office as such. Once the drapes were pulled and if the windows were cleaned, the view was spectacular. It needed some love and attention. I perched on the edge of an antique chaise. Its brocade was stripped bare in places and what were once such vibrant yellows and reds were dulled with neglect and age. I had a feeling it would scrub up well under the right hands, though.
The house was eerily quiet, even the usual racket of the plumbing had decided to take a break that morning. Perhaps everything was on shut down when Maggie was out. The chill in the air told me the heating hadn’t kicked in, especially in this room, and I worried about all the books. Dampness settled around me. I shivered and decided that I wanted to investigate the outside a little more.
I remembered the piles of Wellington boots and padded jackets hanging in one of the outhouses. I was sure I’d find something that would fit and be a little more suitable for the walk.
I thought I could see Charlie darting from outhouse to outhouse as I crossed the courtyard. I found some wellies that fit and tried on a couple of jackets. They were all too large, of course, so I picked the one that didn’t smell the worst. The scent of wet dog permeated the air. At the thought of the dogs, I could hear them bark, the slam of metal doors and then excited yapping. Either it was walk time or breakfast.
Before I got pounced on by a pack of dogs, I scuttled across the courtyard and back towards the woodland Ronan and I had driven the previous day. I wanted to take a good look at the camping area. If there was access from the road, avoiding the main house, a camping site could bring in much-needed funds. Perhaps we could look at holding a festival where local bands and comedians could entertain. Plans started to run through my mind as I walked.
I wasn’t aware of how long I’d walked, but I could hear voices. I tried to follow but found myself disorientated and off track a little. I thought I knew the way back, but I was curious as to who had spoken. I stood for a while listening, but not hearing anything more. Maybe it had been Ronan and his estate manager?
As I walked towards where I believed the campsite had been, I could hear rustling. I quickened my pace. It might have been the middle of the morning, in bright but cold sunshine, but eeriness descended on me. I could be murdered and no one was around to help. I should have brought a walking stick with me; at least it would have given me a weapon. I turned on to a well-trodden path and could see the tents in the distance. The rustling continued, as well as a man’s voice. I wasn’t able to pick out the words, just the tone, and I knew it wasn’t Ronan.
I paused—I was being silly. It was highly unlikely there was a murderer following me; it was more likely to be the estate manager that had probably spoken with Ronan. Or at least it could have been Charlie. Just in front of me, I saw a bush move a little as if someone was forcing their way through. I stared. My jaw clicked open at the sight I was greeted with.
Shuffling towards me through the undergrowth was an elderly woman. In fact, she was a naked elderly woman with scratches up her shins from the whipping bushes she’d barged through. Her eighty-odd-year-old pendulous, sagging tits swung from left to right in sync with the stomp of her swollen legs and boot-clad feet. The slapping sound was the poor breasts hitting the sides of her Zimmer frame as she crouched over it. I covered my mouth with both hands. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh, scream, piss myself, or throw up. However, her beaming smile and twinkling eyes made me shake my head in disbelief. She called o
ut over her shoulder, and an equally-aged gentleman, also naked, soon joined her. No matter how hard I tried to keep my gaze focused over their shoulders, without it being obvious, I failed. I slowly tracked down his hairless, white, and freckled chest with nipples the size of saucers, to his paunchy soft belly that didn’t quite hide the lack of penis. I say lack of penis. There was a mass of skin, and I guessed the chill in the air had ensured his penis was safely tucked up warm and snug inside him. However, it was his balls. Huge balls housed in a hairy sac that contrasted his hairless body and slapped against his thighs. I wanted to wince for him but the smile he also had suggested he had either been nerve blocked and couldn’t feel any pain or quite enjoyed it.
“I think I just found myself in the middle of a Carry On movie,” I whispered to myself.
“Morning, dearie. We’re off to art,” Saggy Tits said. “Are you joining us? Ronan said he had a guest this week.”
I raised my eyebrows at the discovery that Ronan was aware he had naked people in his woods. “Erm, I don’t think so. I was heading for the campsite,” I said.
“So are we. I like to take a stroll, get with nature, before we start art but we got a little lost, didn’t we, dear?” She giggled as she raised her voice so the gentleman could hear her.
“Well, the tents are that way, is that where art normally is?”
“It is. We have such a lovely couple of days. Painting, a bonfire, and barbeque. Good old Charlie always does the cooking for us. Doesn’t do to be standing too close to a metal container full of hot coals in this outfit,” she said, waving her hand across her body.
I had no idea what to say. “I imagine it could be a problem.”
“We best get on. It takes Eric a while to walk with me nowadays, doesn’t it, Eric?” she shouted. Eric nodded, still holding that broad smile.
I wasn’t sure which view I preferred. The limp dick and saggy tits or the wobbly arses with a little tuft of grey hair sprouting from his butt crack.
I winced with every step Eric took, his ball sack swinging in time with his wife’s tits. I started to giggle. Fair play to them both, I’d never have the confidence to stroll naked around woodland on a chilly day.
As we approached the campsite, I could see a nice bonfire already lit and a group of people sitting in a circle. Some were on the ground, some on tree stumps and one or two on shooting sticks, which I could not imagine, was a comfortable seat at all.
Smiles and greetings were thrown my way. I apologised for intruding, explaining that I wasn’t aware they had their art meeting. There didn’t appear to be one of them under sixty, and with a wave, I left them to it. I laughed all the way back to the house.
“What has you so amused?” I heard. Ronan strolled across the courtyard.
“I happened to stumble across some naked art lovers in your campsite.”
“Ah, yes, I did try to warn you, didn’t I?” he said, knowing full well he hadn’t.
“I think I was shocked into silence to start with. But what a perfect location for a nudist camp,” I said. My mind had whirled with the possibilities all the way back.
“A nudist camp?” His eyes widened, and his grin spread at what he probably thought was an absurd idea.
I nodded enthusiastically. “Absolutely. I have no idea how many there are in this part of the world, but you have total privacy, it could be glamping if we tidied up a little. All we have to do is offer activities. And I know just the man to help.” I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialled Joe.
“You met what?” he screeched down the phone. I repeated my discovery. He laughed. “Limp dicks and saggy tits? Oh my god. I have to get the next train up. Are there any hot men under, say, fifty?”
“No, but there could be. I think we could turn this into a To The Manor Born nudist holiday camp!”
“Do you remember Dick and Dinner?”
I started to laugh. “Oh yes, we could do Dick and Dinner,” I said, and I watched Ronan frown. “Anyway,” I continued, “I just wanted to tell you and for you to get your thinking cap on. What would a campsite need to accommodate nudes, or nudists, or whatever they are called?”
“I’ll come up with some ideas,” he said.
We chatted a little more, and he told me that it appeared my ex was about to buy the million and whatnot property with Pete or Saucy Sally, or whatever her name was. I shrugged my shoulders. It didn’t seem to be so painful anymore, and there was a part of me that was happy for him. Perhaps, when I returned home, I would take them a bottle of something as a moving in gift. Or, maybe not.
When I returned my mobile to my pocket. Ronan asked, “Dick and Dinner?”
I felt my cheeks heating. “It was a daft idea of mine. I decided that I wanted to open a nightclub, a high-class one with male pole dancers and a gourmet menu. Dick and Dinner, see?” I said with a laugh. “Anyway, I thought we should do a little research. How many nudist camps are in Scotland?” I asked.
As we walked back into the kitchen, Ronan answered. “Bearing in mind the average weather temperatures we have up here, probably not that many.”
“I don’t doubt that. But for the weeks that there is nice weather, why not? I mean, those guys are out there, and it’s not exactly summer right now.”
“They’re ardent naturists,” Maggie said, as she bowled backwards through the door.
Ronan raced towards her to catch the shopping bags that were about to fall from her hands.
“See, Maggie agrees,” I said, giving her a wink.
Maggie chuckled. “I can’t agree to whatever it is because I didn’t hear most of it,” she replied, placing her remaining bags on the table.
“We could open up a nudist camp. See if it will bring in some money for the estate,” I said.
“Trouble is, those guys have never paid, so it might be a shock to ask them to do so now.”
“They don’t have to; they’re only here for art. But what about a proper facility; a spa or something?”
“The Naked Spa,” Ronan said, slowly while grinning. “I quite like that; it’s unique, and a little more upmarket than a load of oldies running naked through the woods.”
“All natural ingredients, yoga or some other…stuff. We could be on to something here. I need a pad and pen,” I said, excitement starting to build.
“Just dinnae have those extreme earthers, or whatever they’re called,” I heard. I turned to see Charlie behind me. “We don’t want no shagging the trees or the ground,” he added.
“Huh?” I replied.
Charlie waved his hands around as if to assist his point. “The earthers, they love the earth, shag the trees an’ aw’ that,” he said, nonchalantly as he reached for one of the biscuits left over from the morning.
I shuddered at the thought and looked towards Ronan who shrugged his shoulders.
“Anyway, I think the idea of a spa is a great one, but we have one complication. We’d need a building,” Ronan said.
“The outbuildings? Or are they too close to the house?”
“A little too close to be honest. However…grab your coat; I’ve got something to show you.”
I followed Ronan to one of the outbuildings and watched him sit astride a quad bike. “Hop on,” he said.
I did as I was asked and wrapped my arms around his waist as he backed it out. As we passed one outbuilding, I finally got to see who I thought was the estate manager. A seriously handsome man with jet-black hair and piercing blue eyes stared at us as we drove slowly across the courtyard.
“Off to the old gatehouse. I have an idea,” Ronan said.
The man spoke, and by his accent he most certainly wasn’t Scottish. Spanish perhaps? I didn’t get the chance to ask. Ronan drove us out of the courtyard and onto a large track through the woods. It was at least half an hour before we came to an area that was grassed but lined with trees, like an avenue. Ahead I could see two buildings and a rusting old gate between them.
“That used to be the old entrance,” Ronan shouted
over his shoulder.
We pulled up outside one of the gatehouses. I expected a smallish building, something perhaps a sentry would be posted at, if they had such thing back in the day.
“This is a two bedroomed cottage, same the other side. Staff would live here, hundreds of years ago, I imagine. They’ve been shut off for years. I remember my granny living in one before she died, and my father would have one of his mistresses in the other.”
“His…?”
“Yeah, a right regular Marquis of Bath was my father,” he said, disdain dripped from his words.
I frowned at him. “Marquis… Ah, Longleat, the Lord and is concubines, or whatever he called them. How awful for your mum,” I said.
“She didn’t seem to care, to be honest. Anyway, spa,” he said, waving his hands from one building to the other.
“Can you extend them?”
“No idea, we’d have to speak to the planning department at the local council for that, and I suspect the answer would be no, but, if we’re doing this all au naturel then what’s to say we don’t have some posh yurts or similar as treatment rooms?”
“I like that.”
I peered through the window of one of the gatehouses while Ronan fumbled with a bunch of keys. He managed to open the door, and it was like stepping into a museum. Antique furniture crowded the cosy rooms. It was obvious they were good quality pieces but way too large for the gatehouse, and I guessed had been appropriated from the manor house.
“Your gran’s house, I take it?”
“Yeah. She lived in the main house until Mum married and since she couldn’t stand my father, she moved here. She didn’t want to be too far away from my mum and she would drive an old Land Rover every day up to the main house, stay the whole day just to piss off my dad and then come home in the evening. I think that’s why Dad put one of his mistresses opposite, just to piss Gran off.”
“It can’t have been a nice environment for you and Rich,” I said, as I walked through one door and into a deceivingly large kitchen diner.
Limp Dicks & Saggy Tits Page 11