The night finished well. Both women were satiated by the fine, if a little brittle, lasagne, the spectacular Pavlova and the rich coffee that accompanied the Welsh cakes that remained uneaten. The wine was gone, leaving a small glow, and the women had chattered and laughed and sighed with their hands on their stomachs all night.
It was late when Lettie eventually got up to leave. “Thank you. I’ve had a wonderful night,” she said sincerely, but beginning to yawn.
“You’re welcome; it’s been great to have you,” said Mandy. “I was under strict instructions not to show you any photos and I am not allowed to tell Dougie what you look like, but he did say that if you had a face like a melted welly, I would be allowed to tell him that – so that he could make his excuses and come out of the closet.”
“Just tell him that I wore a low-cut blouse and a short black skirt and kept trying to get you to order more from the sweet trolley,” laughed Lettie. They hugged each other good night and Lettie, accompanied by Alfie and a rather stampeded Molly, set off into the darkness.
It is said that your friends are the family that you would choose yourself and, if this is true, Lettie was very impressed with Dougie’s family. She had thoroughly enjoyed her evening and had found in Mandy a good, practical down-to-earth woman to whom she could relate. Her hospitality had warmed Lettie’s heart and made her feel at home. Lettie tended to feel awkward at more formal dinner parties where guests were left stranded at the table with orders to “chat amongst themselves” as their hosts ran themselves ragged. Much preferred was the “I’ve cooked too much, come over” approach and this she felt she had found in Mandy.
Lettie considered all of this as she wandered home along the dark lane. She could just make out the dark shadow of Alfie, but Molly was far too small to warrant one in such a vast landscape. Either side of her, fields stretched up into mountains and she could see their rocky outcrops against the brightly starred sky. Clusters of trees provided windbreaks for the hardy sheep to crouch behind as the winter weather bit, but on that night all was still and content. The lights of Glan Llanfair eventually came into view and her night vision was eroded by the amber glow.
The hour was too late for all but real diehards to be out and about. Two men, arm in arm, rolled past arguing about who would be in their world team. A young couple sat on a wall wrapped around each other in a way that should only be seen on the Continent, reluctant to say their goodnights and thus have to return to their respective homes, and a late night dog walker lighting up the cigarette that would grant him the strength to climb abed beside his wife.
Lettie turned up Dougie’s road and saw Alfie and Molly stop and sniff at a bundle in the middle of it. She slowed down, suddenly anxious, not knowing what to expect. The bundle groaned and moved slightly on the tarmac. Lettie heard the sound of pain and ran up to the bundle.
“Hello? Are you OK?” Her heart was beating fast with the adrenaline. Would it be one of those ruses whereby people pretend to be hurt so that Good Samaritans could be robbed? No, she thought, shaking herself to her senses. This is Glan Llanfair. Glan Llanfair is like Lyme. These things don’t happen in Lyme. And anyway, all she had on her was a door key to a house with nothing much in it but a fridge-full of cheese.
She knelt down and touched the bundle gently, causing another groan. “Are you hurt? Don’t move if you are. I’ll go and get an ambulance.”
“No, no – here.” The bundle rolled onto its back and became a man. He pointed painfully with his head to the large house at the roadside.
“Do you live here? Can I get someone?” The bundle slurred a nod and the smell of beer emitted was enhanced by the large puddle that was forming around his body. It ran slowly into the cracks in the road, gathering dust as it did and glistened in the street light.
Lettie ran up the steps and banged loudly on the large black door. A light went on almost immediately and a thudding noise was heard as someone came heavily down the stairs and wrestled with the solid front door.
“Peter? Is that you? Have you lost your key again?” The door was dragged open and a large lady came out and stopped suddenly as she saw Lettie. “Oh, er, hello, I thought you were someone else.”
Lettie could feel the woman’s blushes rather than see them as she created a strange silhouette in the doorway. Swathes of baby pink netting were wrapped around a hefty figure, trying to protect the modesty that was not adequately covered by the black baby-doll nightdress that lurked beneath. Worn pink mule slippers seemed ridiculously dainty and unable to support the swollen ankles that spilled over them. Grey mottled legs filled the gap between the slippers and the negligée and a large face framed by a growing-out blonde perm filled the space above. Even in her state of semi-panic, Lettie just had to admire the massive cleavage that the lady struggled to hide.
“I’m so sorry to wake you – I was walking back and I found someone on the road. I think he’s hurt. I think he might live near here – can you help, please?”
“Peter? Not my Peter?” Forgetting her modesty, the lady ran down the steps, her pink netting flowing out behind her like a wizard’s cloak and, apparently seeing that it was indeed her Peter, she dropped to her knees, affording Lettie an unforgettable view of the large flesh-coloured undies that had the unenviable task of covering her backside.
“You know him?”
“Yes, it’s my Peter. He’s just come back from work. Peter, love? It’s Eve, love, it’s me, Eve. What’s happened my darlin’? Are you OK?” More groans led Lettie to suggest an ambulance. Yes, yes, you are right, agreed the woman and she pointed at the payphone in the hall, to which Lettie gratefully ran, glad to be able to do something useful. She called an ambulance, giving Dougie’s address and saying it was nearby. Lettie returned to the scene and found Eve sitting in the road, oblivious to Peter’s puddle, which was now slowly being absorbed into the feathers of her mules.
She was stroking Peter’s head and he was groaning with each stroke, so she crooned back in reply. She looked up as Lettie approached, “I think it’s his arms – he says they hurt. But look – he’s also cut his face. He must have done that as he fell. Bloody Council – it’s the holes in the road I s’pect.”
“Yes, poor Peter— Look, the ambulance is on its way. Do you want me to sit with him while you get dressed – you’ll have a long night ahead if you go with him in the ambulance? You’ll need to put something, er, warm on. Perhaps bring him a blanket too; they might be some time?”
The woman seemed to suddenly become aware of herself and giggled apologetically about her attire and then with much grunting and heavy breathing, got onto all fours and struggled to her feet. She calmly wiped the warm beery liquid, which had barely been transformed by its passage through Peter’s body, from her hands and her now grubby wrap, thanked Lettie and waddled off as quickly as she could.
The ambulance crew didn’t seem surprised to find out who their charge was, but were surprised that Eve was concerned enough to want to go to the hospital too.
“Good luck!” said Lettie to Eve as she helped her haul herself into the ambulance, “look after him!”
“Thank you, thank you for your help and, yes, I will look after him. Certainly I will.” And Lettie was left holding a slightly damp blanket in her arms as the ambulance pulled quietly away.
Lettie sat by Dougie’s fire, glad for the warmth after having sat with Eve and Peter for so long. She supped quietly at another cup of tea, now with enough room inside her to warrant the tasting of another of Aunty Betty’s Welsh cakes.
Meanwhile, in the local cottage hospital, a much more frantic scene was being played out. The ambulance men were used to handling drunks and the nurses were used to receiving them.
“Come on, Skinny, come to bed! We’ve not seen you for a while. Come on, you’ll have to get those arms x-rayed; I reckon he’s broken both of them and there’s a nasty cut on his forehead.” Both the nurses and the ambulance men seemed surprised to see Eve’s reaction and her obvious concern.
“Right, Eve, do you want us to drop you back home? Thanks for coming with us, but these gents can sort Skinny out now.”
“I’d like to stay with him, if I am allowed?” she asked, imagining herself running alongside a trolley whilst he weakly called her name.
“Well, if you want to,” said the ambulance man, puzzled, “but it’ll be a long night.”
“It’ll be better for Peter if I am here when he comes round.”
“Sobers up, more like,” said one nurse to the other and was then quietened as he caught sight of Eve’s glare. “OK, come on then, Eve, you can help us get Skinny, er, Peter, sorted out.”
There had been a time when Skinny had almost qualified for his own set of linen at the hospital. One night he had been picked up by some concerned strangers and taken there and received more kindness from the gentle nurses than he had from anyone in his whole adult life. He’d been dressed in a fresh pair of pyjamas, tucked up in a warm, clean bed and then given a good breakfast and a lift home in the morning.
So impressed was he by this, that he would gravitate towards the hospital after particularly long nights, finding out that claiming chest pains was a method by which the nurses found it impossible to turn him away. But, eventually he became a nuisance and took up valuable bed space and resources and therefore was reported to Social Services. They were aware of him and had been happily able to ignore him as a non-priority case. They helped to move him to a town centre flat with two other people, Eve and Trefor, a reclusive man in his fifties, and asked Eve to “keep an eye on him” and then patted themselves on the back for a job well done as the hospital had not been bothered again.
Eve took her charge very seriously, although Social Services may not have thanked her for the precedent she set by the method of her care. A helpful soul by heart, Eve was pleased to have another stray in the house. Trefor was pleasant enough, but simply didn’t need conversation or fuss. Eve’s offers to get discount food or to share her home-made specialities were declined with polite disinterest and eventually she gave up trying. They rarely bumped into each other in the shared living areas, Trefor choosing to cook when Eve was out and then return to his room to eat. She would hear him creeping about the flat at night, but accepted his claims of insomnia; she’d never had another flatmate to compare him to and therefore his behaviour was quite plausible to her.
Eve’s ailing mother took up a great deal of her time, but never gave Eve the grateful thanks and acknowledgement that she not only deserved, but also needed. The most unpleasant of tasks were carried out without fuss or performance and Gloria never remotely comprehended that it may not be her daughter’s greatest ambition in life to do such things. Therefore, when Peter arrived and he not only acknowledged Eve’s presence, but also appreciated the help she gave him moving his meagre possessions in, Eve found a new outlet for her assumed role. He ate her cakes and was a helpless figure to clean up after and to be a surrogate for the children that she had not got round to having yet.
She started nesting in the flat: painted the kitchen and got some phonetically named potpourri for the lounge. The flat had plenty of potential, being large-roomed with high ceilings, but it had been a soulless place due to many years of short-term tenants and a landlord reluctant to invest. Indeed, the landlord had been so impressed by Eve’s handiwork that he had even offered to buy the paint should she wish to do the lounge and hall as well, but the kitchen had pretty much exhausted Eve’s enthusiasm and resulted in tennis elbow – being the only real exercise, beyond hauling Gloria to her feet, her arms had had in years.
In the excitement of having a fresh start, Peter had regaled Eve with the story of his “job” and how the landlord relied upon him and the many hours he worked. Eve had mentioned that he should ask for a few days off as he always seemed a bit tired and headachy, but was impressed by his committed shrug of the shoulders – I would do, but, he needs me.
Shortly after the new arrival, Gloria took a not unexpected turn for the worse and declared that she could no longer manage to get herself up in the mornings. This spitefully called time on Eve’s lie-ins, time for herself and the beginnings of a happy routine with Peter whereby she would quietly put a cup of coffee or perhaps a slice of heavily buttered toast or fruitcake by his bed for him when he woke. She would also silently take away the dirty crockery or chip wrappers from the previous night and perhaps a little bit of washing to make up to a full load with her own.
She would smile with a “tsch, men!” way over the pile of clean washing that would now be lying in a heap on the floor from her previous efforts and was soon putting it away in his largely empty drawers. She could do all this whilst he was still sleeping and when he dragged his eyes unstuck at a later hour, he would assume that the cold coffee and delicious fruitcake or rubbery toast was simply something he had acquired and not finished the night before – just a different habit than the old days of half a cold kebab, with all the sauces, or a few remaining chips.
People in the pub began to think that he was sorting himself out, as his T-shirts were now not only clean, but also ironed. In addition, the landlord’s conscience was also getting cleaner as it was possible that he was no longer exploiting one of his best, albeit not one of his favourite, customers. If Skinny could lead a relatively normal home life, still drink buckets of the landlord’s cheapest and most gut-destroying beer and negate the need to pay for a table clearer, then it was a win-win situation.
Unfortunately, Peter hadn’t noticed Eve’s efforts anyway and he really didn’t care that they were now hurried and at an earlier hour (one requiring slippers rather than the calf-enhancing heels that had threatened the very webbing between his toes). Cold coffee was cold coffee, no matter how many hours it had been sat there. Eve begrudged the disruption to newfound domesticity, but answered her mother’s call in the only way she knew how, with false good grace and as another opportunity to comfort eat.
Eve had been an awkward child, always tall and well-developed for her age. While her peers had been running around carefree, playing tag and climbing trees, she had been battling with heavy periods and unsupported breasts. Gloria had been oblivious to her daughter’s self-consciousness and instead of instilling self-respect and confidence, she nagged at her for stooping and lamented her need of a never-ending supply of large and expensive sanitary towels. Regularly committing the cardinal sin of discussing Eve’s weight and body with a gaggle of over-familiar tea drinkers, she would also feed Eve rich puddings and keep the biscuit and cake tins well stocked, chiding her for ungratefulness if cakes were left to go stale.
Boyfriends had been non-existent and any interest shown either in Eve or by her was soon debated at length by the tea drinkers until Eve shut up, enhanced her stoop and took to eating in private.
Gloria’s control had extended throughout Eve’s adulthood, with the suggestion of secretarial school over the preferred option of hairdressing, and the job at the mini market had been arranged by one of Gloria’s friends of influence. However, in Peter, Eve had seen a chink of light and she wasn’t prepared to relinquish it easily.
Every relationship has its first kiss and theirs was one to be cherished and remembered with a butterfly in the stomach. At least it was for Eve, although it will have to be accepted that if Peter could remember it at all, the only feelings he had had in his stomach for a number of years were of nausea.
Missing their previous late morning “chats”, when Peter had awoken and was re-assuming his personality and Eve would witter on about next to nothing, she decided to change her strategy and had taken to going to bed later and later to try and share a late night cuppa and an after work wind down, just like flatmates were supposed to do. The first time she had caught his return, she was a little astonished by the state of Peter – not just drunk, but nonsensical and reeling. But she made him coffee and resumed her usual chatter to which he broke off part way through muttering “God-da-go-da-bed.”
Luckily, Peter was an amiable dr
unk and soon she was able to steady him and eventually helped put him to bed, enjoying his dependence and good humoured swaying. It was one Saturday night after a particularly good win for Glan Llanfair’s rugby team that Skinny rolled home singing. Excessive drinking by the jubilant side and its supporters, who were more than willing to be partly responsible for the victory, had given the landlord the necessity to close on time, rather than the more lenient and lucrative “as per the customer’s requirements”. By the time Skinny had reached home, he had scored the winning try and was in the mood for celebration.
He had grabbed Eve around where her waist should be and tried unsuccessfully to spin her round. His failure did not deter him and he tried again and again until it dawned on him that his face was in a very ample and succulent bosom, the likes of which he hadn’t enjoyed since he was eight months old. She laughed along with him, feeling the stirrings of lust in her loins. This lust gave her confidence and, just like she had seen in the films, she took his face between her hands, lifted it from its warm resting place and kissed it full on the lips.
Her lack of expertise mattered not a bit to Skinny who was so happy with the world that he would have kissed anything, and indeed had been trying to for most of the night. Somehow he led her to his bed, as a pigeon with its homing device, and there they lay. Awkwardly. With her feet on the floor in their uncertainty and with him alternatively sucking at her face and then burying his face in her soft folds. And then he slept, dribbling gently over her lemon yellow cardigan.
Eve had lain awake and listened to Peter’s heavy breathing. She remained as still as she could, so as not to waken him and possibly ruin the ambience. She smiled into the darkness at her love, requited at last. Eventually, as her arms cramped up, she realised that she could not only move but also manipulate him into any position she chose without him so much as fluttering an eyelid. She removed her shoes and socks and then, after some deliberation, her jeans, and climbed into bed with him, pulling the freshly laundered duvet over the both of them. As dawn rose, she too fell asleep, her lips tingling from the kisses they had dealt to his beer-scented hair.
Chocolate Mousse and Two Spoons Page 15