The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene

by David Carter

  Some time later he rolled over on his back. She crept onto his chest and into his arms. The pair of them were soaked in sweat, her expensive haircut flattened to oblivion, wet hair plastered to her head.

  ‘What’s the matter, darling?’ she whispered.

  ‘Nothing. Why?’

  ‘Sometimes you… sometimes you make love as if it were the very last time… sometimes there is a sense of desperation about it…’

  ‘Are you complaining?’

  ‘No, course not, you know I adore the way you touch me, but…’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘Sometimes you give the impression you are making up for lost time… as if you think you are heading for an early grave.’

  ‘That’s a strange thing to say.’

  ‘I know. It’s unsettling, Gringo. It’s how I feel; it’s how you make me feel. I’m worried for you, Gringo.’

  ‘Then don’t be; I’m not planning on going anywhere, not for a long time yet.’

  ‘I hope not, Gringo, I so hope not.’

  The remainder of the weekend followed an almost identical pattern to their previous visit. They carveried twice, visited the Duke of Clarence where surprisingly Tracey appeared pleased to see them, happily announcing as she ran back to the kitchens: The lovers are back!

  During the next hour and a half most of the Duke’s staff took the opportunity to come out on some spurious excuse to check them out, and they all agreed the pair of them looked better than before, being in love, as they so clearly were, must be doing them the power of good, the lucky devils. No one bore them any ill will, a little jealously perhaps, but that is only human.

  On Sunday evening he laid her out on the rug before the blazing fire, and gently reminded her of what he was all about. Sarah appreciated his newer, softer approach, perhaps he was acting on what she had said, but whatever the reason, there would be no carpet burns this time, no worn out knees, no bite marks across his torso and beyond, just an inner feeling of wellbeing and contentment, knowing as they did, that these were days that would live with them forever.

  They did do one thing differently.

  They drove home later that Sunday night, Sarah needing to get home to check on her ailing mother, Gringo happy to oblige after another wonderful weekend.

  Parked outside her flat he switched all the gear back to her car as she waited for him inside his vehicle. When he’d finished he jumped in beside her.

  ‘Okay, Miss Swift. All done.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For everything.’

  ‘My pleasure, we must do it again soon.’

  She reached across and linked his arm.

  ‘Of course we will, Gringo, of course we will.’

  He went to kiss her again, but this time she turned away.

  ‘I have something for you,’ she said, reaching down and picking up her leather handbag from beneath her feet.

  ‘A present?’ said Gringo, suddenly as excited as a little boy. Gringo adored presents, and he adored women even more who gave him presents. There was a time shortly after Eddie’s death when he had toyed with the idea of becoming a gigolo. He figured that what had happened to Eddie could happen to him, and if time was short, then maybe he should concentrate all his energy in the pursuit of women, and to do that, he would need regular cash. Thinking back on it now he couldn’t think of why he hadn’t done it. He would have been good at it too, and in great demand. Perhaps it wasn’t too late.

  Sarah nodded and unclipped her bag with a loud snick. She pulled out a small box. It was about five inches in width by eight inches long and maybe an inch deep. He guessed it might be a single tier of chocolates, a funny thing to buy a man, he remembered thinking afterwards. The box had been particularly carefully wrapped as only a woman or a gay man can, in blue and beige striped paper that reminded him of father’s old pyjamas. Each end had been meticulously folded and was well stuck down, while on the top was a pre-constructed beige bow that served no purpose other than to make the gift appear more special.

  ‘For me?’ he said, as excited as a mouse inspecting a cheese-laden mousetrap.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘Who else? But please don’t open it today.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he promised, taking it and gently shaking it. Things moved inside. He was sure it was chocolates.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘thanks a lot,’ and suddenly he felt guilty. ‘I haven’t bought you anything.’

  ‘Never mind,’ she said, smiling in that gentle way she possessed. ‘There’s always next time.’

  ‘Yeah, sure is,’ said Gringo, next time, and his mind was already rushing ahead, trying to think of something appropriate to buy her, and instinctively he knew it would be gold earrings. He always bought his women gold earrings, and those same pieces of decorative jewellery often helped him achieve his desires. They adored gold earrings, his ladies, so they said, unless it was just out of politeness, and after that she didn’t invite him in, and in truth he didn’t want to go in.

  They kissed passionately one final time before the twitching curtains, and after that the painted whore, as some of her co-residents referred to her behind her back, eased from the car and went into the flats, waving and smiling one last time.

  Gringo drove home in a hurry as he often did after a successful liaison. He found more mail waiting for him, but nothing from America, though that was only to be expected. She would not have received his second letter yet.

  He sat at the kitchen table and stared down at his present. He picked it up and gently shook it again before setting it back in the centre of the table. Please don’t open it today. He still thought it was chocolates. He picked it up again and sniffed it. Please don’t open it today. It didn’t smell of anything. He set it down again. What could it be? Please don’t open it today. She needn’t have worried about that. He would not open it for several days. What was the point in that?

  The whole exciting secret of presents was in the anticipation, in the guessing as to what might be hidden within, in the excitement of knowing there was a present to come home to, in the knowledge there was someone out there smitten enough to buy you presents.

  Often the opening and the discovery was a huge disappointment, but Gringo didn’t care about that. He fed on the thrill that still rippled through his veins. He would leave the gift there, smouldering and teasing, until his eyes could bear it no longer, and only then, would he relent. When the time came he would attack it, rip it open, and satisfy his curiosity, but only then, and never before.

  Thirty-Five

  On Monday evening Gringo rang Maria and made an arrangement to see her on the Wednesday, and all through the phone call his eyes insisted on returning to the striped box. She seemed genuinely pleased to hear his voice and maybe even a tad surprised. After that he retrieved a letter from his pocket. It was from Michael Soloman. Every time he read it, it brought a crooked smile to his jagged face.

  We are delighted to confirm an ex gratia payment to you of £20,000 for special services rendered to the company in dealing with our present conflict with the tax authorities. We wish you well in your complicated negotiations.

  Yeah right, thought Gringo, and in his mind he imagined he owed something to Maria and Julie for all the expertise they had willingly given. If everything went to plan, Maria would get her just deserts on Wednesday night, perhaps he’d throw in a bonus too, while he hadn’t yet given up on Ms Cairncross. He would have another crack at her just as soon as the date for their decisive second business meeting was booked into the diary.

  Sarah’s gift sat staring up at him, and it was still there, unopened, when he went to bed at eleven o’clock.

  The telephone began ringing at twenty past one. Gringo woke up immediately. It was as if that previous early morning call and the possibility of another similar interruption had persuaded him into sleeping more lightly.

  He sat up, turned on the lamp, and grabbed the phone.

  ‘Hi
!’

  ‘Will you accept a call collect from New York City?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Go ahead, caller.’

  ‘Hello, Gringo?’

  ‘Hi Glen.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m great, how are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. Did I wake you?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I rang you on Saturday night.’

  ‘Did you? I was away.’

  ‘I gathered that. Where were you, out whoring?’

  Gringo laughed aloud. ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘Is there anyone special in your life at the moment, Gringo?’

  ‘Nope. No one at all.’

  ‘That’s sad.’

  ‘No it isn’t. I get by. I do all right.’

  ‘I’ll bet you do. I meant to tell you, we went camping.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Where?’

  ‘Miles away, right out into the countryside, and the country is quite different here to home, I mean it’s just empty of people, total wilderness.’

  ‘Who went?’

  ‘Me and Harry and Elena and Phil. It was a bit embarrassing really.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘We only had the one tent, a pretty big tent, but just the one nevertheless. Not a lot of privacy.’

  That was too much information so far as Gringo was concerned.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Harry and Phil kept teasing us there were wolves in the forest, and there might have been for all I know. One evening the lads went off into the woods and in the next minute we heard howling noises echoing through the trees. We still don’t know if it was real wolves or just Harry and Phil larking about, but I’ll tell you this, Gringo, I nearly shit meself.’

  Gringo didn’t want to know that either. Then he said: ‘Where was this?’

  ‘God knows, somewhere up in the wilds of New England, it took us ages driving there, and even longer coming back, because the heavens opened and we were nearly flooded off the freeway. By the time we got home I was absolutely shattered.’

  Then they talked about the office routine and their families and what had been on the TV news, and even bloody Coronation Street.

  ‘They are miles behind us here with the storyline. I can tell all the others how it turns out,’ she said, full of enthusiasm, as if it were important, as if they were real people, as if Gringo could have cared less. He was amazed they could even get Coronation Street in the United States. Didn’t they have anything better to do?

  Then she surprised him. ‘Would you like my number?’

  He was amazed she’d suggested that. The only reason he hadn’t asked her for it was because he was sure she would have refused.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘sure,’ and she duly read off a long number he carefully copied down.

  It was another long call, though by the time she hung up, they both felt better about themselves.

  In the morning during a hurried breakfast he spoke aloud to the wrapped gift.

  ‘Tonight!’ he said, pointing at the box, threatening it. ‘Tonight you’re going to get it! I am going to undress you, strip you naked, rip you to pieces and expose you to the world!’ and with that silly thought lodged in his mind he laughed crazily and set off for work.

  It was a dull working day and he stayed late. He had that appointment at church with Paul and Kay, an appointment he could have done without, and there wasn’t time to go home and change, so he’d stay and complete some overdue transport costings while he had a free hour.

  He left the office at seven and drove to the Presbyterian Church. Press-bee-teerian, Gringo said aloud, mimicking Paul, Press-bee-teerian.

  As he approached the church he began daydreaming about the weekend he had spent with Sarah, and then as he started to look around for an appropriate place to leave the car, incredibly, there she was, clear as day, coming out of Rosefield Antiques, dressed in grey trousers and a short leather jacket that showed off her rear end a treat. She was accompanied by three big blokes, rough looking fellas, one of whom she sent back to the doors to check they were locked.

  Gringo was stuck in traffic again, and in the next moment they crossed the road in front of him, and all four of them disappeared into the Hare and Hounds. He thought of buzzing down the window, he thought of shouting out: ‘Hi Sarah!’ but he didn’t, and he didn’t really know why. He found a parking space in a side road and walked the short way back to the church.

  Paul and Kay hadn’t arrived, though they turned up a couple of minutes later, and all through the lessons on how to perform a successful wedding, the Press-bee-teerian minister, or whatever they call their vicars, peered over his half moon glasses at Gringo as if to say, This guy could be trouble, while Gringo couldn’t stop thinking of Sarah round the corner in that pub with those rough looking geezers, and then of her back at the shack, with him, doing terribly naughty things.

  Afterwards, Paul offered to buy him a drink, but he begged off and ran back to the Hare and Hounds, but there as no sign of Sarah or the guys. Maybe she was treating them to a quick one on the way home, a drink and no more. He retreated to the car and drove home, pausing only to buy fish and chips, and that was something he almost never did.

  In the house he sat and ate the food alone, occasionally speaking to the present, and afterwards he carefully washed and put the dinner things away, for he detested mess and clutter anywhere in the house.

  Finally, he sat at the table and gazed down at the box. He picked it up and slipped his index finger beneath the tape at the right hand end. She had double wrapped the present. His mother always did that; folding the wrapping paper in two before wrapping his gifts. He had never known anyone else do that, but Sarah did. He tried to pull it open but she’d sealed it well. More force was needed to rip the tape away, but still the box would not come free.

  He attacked the left end with the same result; still the paper would not abandon the box. Inevitably, he reverted to brute strength, ripping the wrapping to shreds, determined to discover what lay beneath.

  It was not chocolates; leastways there was nothing to say it was, because the carton was a heavy duty plain white cardboard box, with just a single line of black text on the top that read: Product Number 2029.

  The box itself consisted of two almost identical pieces, the lid being slightly larger than the base. For a cardboard box it had been incredibly well made, sturdy, the pieces fitting together precisely. He set three fingers at either end and eased off the top.

  Inside, he discovered folded over white tissue paper, the kind of thing that might contain jewellery. Cuff links, tiepin, wristwatch, maybe, maybe not. He liked jewellery. He was getting interested. He folded back the tissue. There was a handwritten card, but he didn’t read it, putting it to one side, now hypnotised by what lay beneath, for whatever it was, it was pretty weird.

  It, or they, were pink and extremely frilly, like some strange sea creature from the depths of the ocean that no human being had ever set eyes upon, a notion strengthened when wispy tentacles came up and out of the box of their own accord, attracted by the static electricity in his excited fingers.

  ‘What the hell?’

  He turned the box upside down and emptied the contents onto the table, the feather-like feelers already on the move and active again. Gringo stared down at his precious present, finally realising what it was. He picked up the card. Sarah had written:

  Gringo,

  I thought you might appreciate these.

  I saw them and immediately thought of you.

  All my love,

  Sarah

  XXXXX

  His attention returned to the pink, frilly, handcuffs. He let out a heavy laugh and held them up before his eyes and gazed at them, amused as the tentacles drifted in the warm air before his face. Then a crazy laugh escaped his throat, a guffaw prompted by seriously wicked thoughts. He grinned and shook his head, then moments later returned them to the box and carried them preciously upstairs, and hid them awa
y from prying eyes.

  Thirty-Six

  He arrived at Maria’s place at just gone eight. She came bounding from the flat, a nervous smile flitting across her lean face. He snatched a second look. Jeez!

  She sported a red mini skirt; he had never seen her in a mini before, and red high heels. The skirt was fastened by a narrow white belt, buckled tight, emphasising her petite waist. He watched her, wide-eyed, as she concentrated on the short walk to the car. This image was all so different, and what legs she had. He leant over to her door and flipped it open.

  ‘Hiya Gringo,’ she said, carefully getting into the car, her skirt, what little of it there was, riding high on her thighs.

  ‘Well just look at you!’

  ‘Do you like it?’ she said, turning toward him. She didn’t really need to ask for there was peculiar look of desire on his face that reminded her of a starving wolf that had stumbled on a herd of caribou.

  ‘Fantastic!’ he said, suddenly remembering how dowdy she looked in those be-trousered outfits she used to wear.

  ‘You don’t think it looks a little tarty?’

  ‘Certainly not! And even if it does, who cares? Don’t you know that men like a touch of tartiness?’

  ‘Do they? I’ll never understand men.’

  ‘Come here,’ he said, and he tugged her over and gave her a massive kiss that by rights belonged much deeper into the evening.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ she said afterwards, pulling down the vanity mirror, opening her handbag to repair the damage. Gringo started the car, suddenly feeling very good about things.

  ‘You have fantastic legs; you should show them off more often.’

  He had intended taking her to a run of the mill pub type place, but because she’d made such an effort, he took her to the considerably more expensive Jackdaw Mill Hotel and Restaurant, a half hour drive into the countryside.

  Maria appreciated that too, she always noticed when men made more of an effort, when they took her somewhere expensive, and didn’t once mention the prices or the bill. So many men were stingy skinflints, but that accusation could never be made against her man, though it was true, Gringo hadn’t taken her anywhere this good for quite some time. It was amazing the power a tight red skirt exerted over a hungry man’s brain.