I was on night-duty and had decided to drive the little Ford around my own patch to check some of the pubs. Day-trippers and visitors were in the district and some tended to abuse the hospitality of the landlords by staying late. This created antagonism among the local drinkers because it was their privilege to drink after hours, being friends of the licensees. Such privileges must not be abused.
For this reason I liked to pop into my local pubs just before closing-time to eject everyone, and the appearance of the uniform was generally sufficient to do the trick. At 11.10, therefore, I popped into the Hopbind Inn at Elsinby, which was heaving with warm bodies and thick with heavy smoke.
“Time, gentlemen, please,” called George when he espied me, and the usual deathly hush descended. Gradually everyone drank up and left, one by one, the visitors being the first to remove themselves, and the local folks hanging back as they always did. During the exodus, one of them sidled up to me and whispered, “Full moon tonight, Mr Rhea.”
This was Isaac Samuels, a local poacher.
“Is it?” I asked, wondering why this should be of interest to me.
“Aye, midnight or thereabouts. Full moon.” He could see I was not comprehending the hidden significance of this occurrence. “You know!” he said, pointing vaguely to a locality behind the pub, somewhere out in the woods.
I scratched my head. “Sorry, Zaccy,” I had to admit defeat. “I’m not with you.”
“Full moon,” he repeated in a stage whisper. “You’ll be there, eh?”
I must have looked decidedly stupid because he led me outside and said, “Acorn Cottage — we’re all going up there, now.”
“Why?” I asked in total innocence.
“Thoo knows,” he said, his old head nodding in its own secret language. “Full moon…” and he nudged my arm, grinning all the while through his assorted black teeth.
“Can I come?” I had to ask, wondering if their full-moon sojourn was legal.
“Aye, course you can. We all are.”
“Show me,” I was interested and still did not link this with Prudence.
He led me stealthily out of the back door of the Hopbind Inn and along a stony lane with a row of cottages and a school at one side. We turned left at a junction in the lane and I found myself tramping across leaf mould and grass as he took me, by the light of the moon, through a woodland glade.
The path was clearly defined by the passage of many feet and we climbed through picturesque wooded areas in almost total silence. As a poacher he could negotiate woodland more silently than a ghost, and I was equally accustomed to being silent, although I couldn’t compete with him in these surroundings. We made our way steeply into the wood until we veered left and returned towards the village, albeit at a higher level.
Within five minutes we were in a wooded glade, deep among the trees, and I was surprised to find about twenty men there, all totally silent. Some turned and smiled as I made my way into the arena. I now realised we were directly behind the home of Miss Prudence Proctor. It was now that I saw the famous balcony, showing clearly in the night due to its coat of brilliant white paint. The cottage was in darkness.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to Isaac.
“Thoo’ll see,” was all he said, nudging me and laughing softly. “Thoo’ll see, Mr Rhea.”
It was clear that no further enlightenment was to be given, so I waited for about twenty minutes, wondering if Sergeant Blaketon was looking for me. I daren’t leave now, for I was sure all was going to be revealed. Several more gentlemen arrived to make a considerable audience in the wood, every one of them standing silently behind Acorn Cottage.
Then things began to happen. The French windows of the bedroom were opened on to the balcony and I could just distinguish two long smooth arms pushing them open. The bedroom inside was in darkness, and then lights came on. These were not the normal household lights, but were in brilliant and exotic colours — red, green, purple and many others, all combining to give a low, vibrant hue to the room. Pulsating music then began to sound from that room; it was a tune I did not recognise, but it had a hint of gypsy magic as it came from the record-player, amplified so that we could hear it clearly. Finally, Prudence appeared.
Silhouetted against the colourful background and sensuously bathed in alternating colours, was a tall woman in swirling drapes of some lightweight fabric, silk, maybe, or satin or even something more flimsy. To the stirring intensity of that music she began to dance on the balcony. Her hair, long and dark, swirled as she moved and her eyes flashed in the changing light.
The long-playing record provided a selection of vibrant music which grew faster and faster and more furious as we watched. The lights changed all the time, sometimes very low and dim, exchanging suddenly to bright and piercing rays as they focused on the entrancing woman who danced before our eyes. Faster and faster went the music, faster and faster went Miss Prudence Proctor until the thin veils began to disappear. With the skill of a professional strip-tease artiste, she began to remove her veils, one by one, gracefully and sensually, all the time maintaining perfect time to the changing mood of the music.
I looked at the men. They were transfixed. Their eyes were glued on the unbelievable scene before them, and I smiled. They’d have to pay pounds for this sort of entertainment in the city, yet here she was, free and totally uninhibited, providing an exotic evening for her audience in a Yorkshire wood. As the music intensified so did she. As the first record finished the second dropped into place to continue the rhythm as more veils were discarded. It was clear that every single one was going to be removed tonight.
And they were. One by one she removed her seven gossamer veils in movements that spoke of total devotion to her art. She was aided by a lovely body against a backcloth of moving light and throbbing music. In that sylvan setting her rustic audience made not a sound. There were no whistles, applause or shouts — nothing. It was as if they knew that any sound from them would stop the show, perhaps forever. It would be like waking up before the end of a wonderful dream.
But the display did end. The final veil was discarded in a smooth and beautiful movement to reveal the mature splendour of this strange and compelling woman. At that point the music stopped and the lights went out. She vanished as suddenly as she had appeared.
Silently the awestruck men returned home through the wood, not speaking and not making a sound. They would tell their wives they’d been talking late at the pub, and no one would be any wiser.
“Does she know you lads watch her?” I asked Isaac when we neared the village.
“Nay, lad,” he laughed. “She’s no idea.”
Personally I doubted this, but did not press the matter.
“How did you know she’d do that?” I asked him.
“It’s full moon,” he answered. “She does it at every full moon.”
He made that statement as if it explained everything. Perhaps it did.
If frustrated ladies wish to prance around naked at full moon in the privacy of their own homes it is barely a police problem. On the other hand, there are many ladies who are not frustrated and who relieve their pent-up emotions by love-making in all sorts of unlikely places. While this is likewise not a police problem per se it is true that many a night-duty constable has helped cars out of rivers and bogs in which they have inexplicably found themselves while their occupants were busy with other things. Similarly, many a policeman has stumbled across couples busy in public places like carparks, pub forecourts and even in the street. I was once told of a naked pair hard at it in the back seat of their Ford Consul in full view of the incoming customers at a local pub. They seemed totally unabashed by the interesting display they were providing and, although none of the drinkers complained, the landlord did ring me about it. He didn’t want the reputation of his pub tarnished by powerful rumours of open-air orgies.
I proceeded to the scene, as we say in official jargon, and sure enough the story was accurate. A naked man and woman were
very actively making love in the car, apparently oblivious to the fact that their performance was in a very open and public carpark. Acting in the best interests of the general public, I tapped on the window. After the passage of a moment or two it was wound down by a man looking very flushed about the face and perspiring somewhat from his recent exertions.
“What’s up, mate?” he asked, wiping his brow.
“You realise where you are?” I put to him, wondering how to open this conversation.
“Aye,” he said.
“Well, you’re causing embarrassment,” I continued. “The folks in the pub are embarrassed.”
“Not them!” he wiped his brow again. “They’ll be lapping it up. Look, it’s not illegal, is it?”
“It depends where you do it and who you do it with.”
“She’s the missus.”
“Whose missus?” I asked the obvious question.
“Mine,” he said flatly. “She’s my missus.”
“Well, can’t you go home?”
“Home?” he growled, peering up at me. “I have no home. We live with her parents, the bloody-in-laws. Her mother’s an interfering old cuss and we haven’t a minute to ourselves. Paper-thin walls, an’ all. No privacy even in bed. We can’t relax, there’s no fun. So we go out and do it in the car.”
“But not on a pub forecourt?”
“Couldn’t wait,” he said. “Look mate, I’m sorry if I caused upset, honest. I thought the windows were steamed up.”
“They are,” I agreed, “but the light from the pub shines right in, and although you couldn’t be seen in detail, there’s no mistaking what was happening.”
“There’s no peace, luv,” he said to his wife. “Come on, let’s go.”
“There’s a disused aerodrome a mile up the road,” I advised him. “First turn left.”
“Is there?”
“Let’s go there,” said a sweet voice from the depths of the car, and they did. I checked that his car number was correct and tallied with his name. The woman really was his wife. I felt a twinge of sorrow for people who live in conditions so appalling that they must carry out this most private of acts in a public place. Privacy is a valuable commodity.
There are many furtive lovers who perform in public places which they believe to be private, and they do so because they do not wish to be caught by their respective husbands/wives/boyfriends/girlfriends/lovers. In truth, illicit romance of this kind is usually discovered and a tryst of this sort captured our imagination late one Friday night.
We are fortunate in North Yorkshire to have lots of open countryside and spacious moorland areas which are ideal for those who wish to ‘get away from it all’, even for an hour or two. Many of the moorland heights and green valleys have become rendezvous points for lovers of all ages and both sexes, and if one travels around at night, like policemen do, one sees cars, vans, tents and uncovered people dotted about like daisies on a lawn. The period of peak activity is around eleven o’clock in the evening which broadly coincides with pub closing-times. Some of the very hardy and determined remain there until one or even two o’clock. On a winter’s night this demands devotion of an extraordinary kind.
Such a couple were John Withy and Sheila Grove. John was about thirty-three years old, married with two children, and a painter and decorator by trade. He was a busy man who successfully ran his own business and, although he worked long hours, he did have a certain amount of freedom of movement. This was usefully employed among the many desirable ladies he met in the course of his work, lots of whom wanted their fronts decorating. As a consequence John had many romances, most of which were short-lived in the extreme, even as short as half-an-hour, but once in a while he would find someone with whom he fell deeply in love.
Such a woman was Mrs Sheila Grove. She was a delightfully vague sort of girl whose husband was a commercial traveller. He was away from home for lengthy periods and Sheila grew somewhat lonesome. John had been contracted to paint the Grove household and, as a consequence, Sheila invited him in for a cup of tea. From that stage the romance blossomed. Sheila, however, was a crafty lover and, upon realising what the neighbours might think, took great pains to conceal her new-found friendship. She let the kettle steam up the kitchen windows or met John away from the family home.
Romances of this kind never escape the notice of neighbours. Neighbours see all, hear all and say everything; what they don’t see they invent, and what they can’t invent isn’t worth thinking about. Word therefore got around to everyone except John’s wife that he was very busy decorating Mrs Grove’s panels and architraves. John, meanwhile, had informed his wife that he was working late on an important and rushed job, which to a certain extent was true.
Much of his overtime and rushing was spent in his little van high on the North Yorkshire moors on the edge of Aidensfield beat. His favourite pitch was a lofty spot on a moorland ridge beneath some pine-trees. A small knot of pines grew from this exposed ridge and they were bent due to the prevailing winds never dying away, but this slender row of timber provided some sort of shelter for his little van, marked ‘Withy — Decorator’. It would proceed to that lovely place once or twice a week, and inside its cosy interior John and Sheila would commence their stripping and pasting.
During my routine patrols I passed the van several times but did not disturb the happy couple. It was a very lonely area and they caused no harm to anyone. I did not investigate because I knew who it was and what they were doing, and it was no part of a policeman’s duty to interfere with moral misbehaviour of a personal kind. I did wonder, however, when and how their little game would be discovered. Invariably, such liaisons are discovered and I felt sure John and Sheila were no exception.
It was very appropriate that their meeting place was known as Lovers Leap, for legend said that, years ago towards the turn of the century, a young couple leapt to their deaths from this point. This was due to some parental opposition to their romance.
Sometimes on my day off I would walk here with Mary and the children, for the vantage point provided a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside. It was breathtakingly beautiful. From the small plateau beneath the stooping firs the ground fell steeply away across a heathery and bracken-covered hillside. That hillside is covered with young silver-birch trees, knotted briars and acres of tightly growing bracken as it slopes steeply into a ravine many feet below.
The ravine contains a moorland stream of purest water which bubbles happily over granite as it makes its way, full of minerals, to the sea. Beyond is the wild, colourful expanse of the North Yorkshire moors with Fylingdales Early Warning Station in the background and, beyond that, the romance of the wild North Sea.
At night the view is equally grand because the valleys and hillsides are dotted with tiny lights, shining like glow-worms, and the dark block of moorland suggests intrigue, danger, mystery and of course, romance, just like the inside of Withy’s decorating van.
It was to this location, therefore that John Withy and his van, with Sheila at his side, proceeded one night, intent upon a spot of dressing down and undercoating. I was on duty at the time, patrolling in the little Ford Anglia, and had no occasion to visit Lovers Leap that night — not initially, that is. From what I learned later it seems that the happy pair, excited and keen, had reached the site of their future passion. In the cosiness of the decorating van, with its load of paint, wallpaper, ladders and associated tins and bottles of fluid they had commenced their evening ritual.
Kisses and cuddles developed into slaps and tickles, and in no time all their clothing was thrown off as they settled down to the real business of the evening. The two warm and naked bodies writhed and pumped in sheer ecstasy, although they were rather hampered because they had to manipulate themselves into all kinds of positions on the front seats. Unfortunately, the rear of the van was laden with tomorrow’s wallpapers, paint and brush, cleaning fluid, and there was no room for humans in love. This did not deter John and Sheila — in fact, i
t spurred them to make a decent job on a poor location, and soon the little van was bouncing rhythmically to the movements of the blissful pair.
Their frantic and ecstatic writhing performed a small act which was destined to lead to their eternal embarrassment. Their movements knocked the handbrake of the little van and it released its grip on the vehicle. Slowly but surely the handbrake abandoned its post under the undulating movements of the couple, and the vehicle began to move, very slowly at first.
In their climaxing moments the couple did not notice this gentle motion and before long the van was running down the slope. Very slowly it moved from its parking place while every delirious action of the pair inside gave the van more momentum. Soon it was travelling quite fast and before John and Sheila realised what was happening the van was careering out of control down the steep, bracken-covered slope of Lovers Leap.
It was too late to stop it. Panic-stricken, John leapt from the object of his passion and managed to open his door, shouting for his lover to jump. Both jumped out. There was nothing else they could do. They rolled over and over in the thick bracken, Sheila screaming with fear, pain and shock as the bouncing van careered along its downward route, rattling and crashing through the thick undergrowth and demolishing a host of tiny silver birches. It could go no farther than the gully.
As expected there was an almighty crash as the van and its contents dropped like a stone into the ravine and burst into flames. Petrol, paint and the paraphernalia of decorating, all combined to create a time-bomb within the van. An enormous explosion followed as the entire thing blew up. Fires broke out along the hillside as the dry bracken began to burn, and soon the intense flames of the blazing van roared into the heavens, illuminating the night sky for miles around.
Constable on the Prowl (The Constable Nick Series Book 2) Page 20