‘All yours,’ said Graham, towelling his hair as he strolled back in.
‘Thanks,’ she said, glancing down at her chest. The nipples were still hard and stiff, like tiny pepper-mills. Strange he didn’t notice.
She watched him apply a thick layer of greasy sun-block. Graham never took risks, especially since his oldest friend had been diagnosed with skin cancer. Today, the forecast had promised highs of ninety and, even at this early hour, the day was already hot. She shifted position on the bed, until she was lying directly in the pool of sunlight streaming from the window. The rays were like a lover’s hands, fondling every curve and crevice of her body. She closed her eyes and, as a deep scarlet shutter engulfed her lids, she imagined scarlet gasps and cries escaping from her open mouth as the sun penetrated, scorched.
‘Have you seen my tie – the striped one?’
‘No.’ All she could see was the top of the white-water-rafter’s head, bobbing back and forth as he crouched between her legs, still rasping with that tongue of his. She pushed him off, tried to concentrate on Graham. ‘It’s far too hot for a tie.’
‘Try telling that to the Royal Berkshire!’
Of course. She’d forgotten the dress code: jackets and ties in the clubhouse, even in tropical conditions.
‘Shall I get breakfast?’ he offered, buttoning his blazer. ‘I’m in a bit of a rush.’
‘I’ll do it,’ she said, not moving. He had his back to her now, so she grazed her teeth, to and fro, along the inside of her wrist. Teeth were every bit as versatile as tongues.
‘You seem tired, my love.’ He came to sit beside her on the bed. ‘Don’t get up on my account. I’ll just make some toast or something, and you can have a lie-in.’
Not much joy in a lie-in on her own. Reluctantly, she swung her legs off the bed and, after a perfunctory wash, pulled on shorts and a top, and went barefoot to the kitchen. Opening the fridge, she stood for several moments in front of the open door, letting its frosty breath cool her overheated body. ‘Calm down,’ she muttered, removing three eggs from the rack. ‘It’s over now. That’s it.’
She placed the eggs on the worktop, returning to the fridge for the low-cholesterol spread. Everything they ate these days seemed to be divided into his and hers: his Benecol, her butter; his skimmed milk, her cream; his tofu, her full-fat cheese. One of the disadvantages, she’d found, in marrying a much older man was that he had developed health problems, while she remained frustratingly fit. Graham’s cholesterol wasn’t dangerously high, but he had to be ultra-careful with his diet.
She cracked the eggs into a basin, carefully separating the whites from the yolks – only whites were allowed. She beat them with unnecessary force, angry with the anaemic, flimsy mixture. No colour in it, or richness, no hint of satisfaction.
While the pan was heating, she laid the table, banging down the plates and cups. They, too, were white and delicate. Nothing in this kitchen seemed attuned to her present mood; prissy pastel walls, blinds drawn down to bar the sun, dried flowers on the windowsill, lacking sap and succulence. Even the garden was parched; the lawn brownish-dry and cracking, from the long period of drought.
‘It’s ready, Graham,’ she called, dishing up the egg-white omelette and sprinkling it with low-sodium salt.
He joined her at the table, immaculately attired in the blazer and a pair of linen trousers. ‘Aren’t you eating, my love?’
‘I’m not hungry,’ she shrugged.
Not for food, in any case.
As she stepped out of the house at last, the sun pounced on her and pawed her, glaring in her eyes, blazing against her back, drawing a rush of perspiration from every inch of skin exposed. The sheer force of the heat dazed her into submission; all her plans dissolving as she melted in its embrace. Shopping was out of the question. The only possibility was to lie on the grass and flop.
She dawdled down the hill towards the common, aware of her thighs rubbing moistly against each other with every step she took. It was an agreeable sensation wearing almost nothing – no underwear, no tights, just sandals and a gauzy dress.
Once she reached South Heathside, she found her way obstructed by a cordon of traffic cones and barriers, with diversion signs indicating an alternative route. She paused to watch the group of men re-tarmacing the road, surprised they should be out in such fierce heat. Yet far from covering themselves, they were all naked to the waist; their bare torsos glistening-damp, their hair dark and drenched with sweat. They were shouting to each other over the noise of the machines – a thudding, juddering descant, interspersed with high-pitched beeps, together with whining sounds and soft seductive hissing from a pair of diesel rollers.
She moved a little nearer, intrigued by a huge lorry, the entire back of which was rearing up – up and up, like a giant erection – tipping fresh supplies of tarmac into an open metal mouth that drew it down, drew it in, as if never satisfied. This black ejaculation was followed by a whole series more, as spurts of boiling tarmac gushed onto the road from the steel jaws of the machine. Immediately the men began to smooth it with their shovels, and she transferred her gaze to their brawny backs and sinewy arms; the muscles rippling and pulsing as they worked. Clouds of steam were rising from the tarmac, the acrid, febrile smell of which hung heavy in the air. Although it clogged her throat and choked her lungs, she still longed to be one of the gang, part of all that heat and noise and danger, and operating those brute machines herself. She tried to imagine sitting in the cab, with panting engines and throbbing motors vibrating underneath her, as she controlled massive rollers or hulking wheels, or operated levers that made rampant lorries rear aloft. The only incongruous object was a wheelbarrow: a helpless-looking, creaky thing that seemed to belong to another era. Like Graham, she thought, quickly suppressing the thought as shamefully disloyal.
For the last few minutes, the foreman had been observing her, and now came slouching over, wiping his face on a piece of dirty rag. ‘Anything wrong?’ he asked.
She shook her head, riveted by the mass of tattoos that covered every inch of his stomach, arms and chest.
‘You can’t come this way. The road’s closed. Didn’t you see the signs?’
‘Yes,’ she muttered, unable – and unwilling – to tear her eyes away.
‘You need to take the Compton Rise diversion.’
‘I know.’ His body seemed to pulse and writhe as she peered, entranced, at the tangled maze of anchors, snakes and hearts.
Suddenly, on impulse, she squeezed through a gap between two of the steel barriers and gripped him by the arm, tracing the coils of one long rippling serpent from his hot, perspiring shoulder to his belly.
He looked nonplussed, embarrassed, standing with his head down, while her hand went lower still. Then, all at once, he steered her off the road towards the grass verge of the common, continued on, until he found a screen of bushes, then threw her down on the rough, uneven ground and began stripping off her dress. She could feel prickly bits of leaf and twig pressing into her naked back as she watched him unzip his jeans.
His body felt colossal after Graham’s; his full weight bearing down on her, his huge hands hot and heavy on her breasts. The reek of sweat from his underarms had displaced the smell of tarmac, and she was inhaling beer and onions on his breath. As he moved against her, the anchors seemed to jab and thrust, penetrating deep inside her, while the serpents looped and undulated, sinuous against her skin.
‘Bite my nipples,’ she ordered. She was now the foreman, demanding instant obedience from her gang of willing men.
‘Yes, harder.’
‘Now flick them with your tongue.’
‘That’s good. It’s great! Go on!’
‘Now take the whole of my breast into your mouth.’
‘Fantastic! And the other one.’
‘No, don’t come yet. I’m not ready. Hold off until I tell you.’ He could damned well do what she wanted; accept her rules and timing, for a change.
Another m
an appeared – a great lout of a guy, with a shaven head, who was standing by the bushes, already unbuckling his belt, obviously keen for a share of the action.
‘Wait your turn!’ she snapped. She didn’t want to rush; needed time to relish all the varying sensations: her wrists pinioned in a fierce, hurting grip as the foreman’s bristly stubble chafed against her breasts; his nails clawing down her back, then a convulsive, violent shudder blazing from his groin to hers, as she shouted, ‘Yes! Oh, yes!’
As he clambered off, she remained stretched out on the grass, glancing up at the heat-haze shimmering in the sky. It seemed to drift and quiver downwards, until it fluttered through her body, cell by sensuous cell.
‘Jesus fucking Christ!’ the second bloke exclaimed, staring at her nakedness. He had left his hobnailed boots on, and his trousers fell in folds around his ankles as, awkwardly, he straddled her.
‘Don’t talk!’ she barked, drawing him towards her. ‘And lie still until I say.’ She needed to get the feel of him first: the strange smoothness of his bullet head underneath her hands; the chain around his neck, entangled in his chest-hair; the wet fullness of his lips.
Only after several minutes, did she allow him to bore in. Immediately she bucked and thrust against him, and he responded with a string of shouted expletives.
‘Shut up, I said! We’re doing this in silence.’ It was a powerful feeling, shushing someone else, seeing them submit.
For the second time that morning, she came at the exact same moment as the man – unheard of in her marriage – but she, too, kept silent, deliberately, letting her body do the shouting. Then abruptly she kneed him off, to make room for the next: a lad of seventeen or so, and the only one of the workmen wearing his fluorescent jacket. He was just a stripling, and kept the jacket on – perhaps to conceal his puny chest. He seemed bashful altogether, leading her deeper into the undergrowth, to ensure they were well hidden. In contrast to the previous guy, his hair was exceptionally long and tied back in a ponytail that kept thumping up and down against her shoulder, like a second ardent lover joining in. She adapted herself to its rhythm, her body moving in time with it, then suddenly putting on a spurt as it began spanking – faster, faster – in a wild impetuous climax.
Afterwards, she let him lie against her, enjoying the feeling of the fluorescent jacket against her naked breasts – a delicious shiny clamminess. But he was soon embarrassed by the other men, who had now come over, excited by her cries, and were squeezing between the tangled shrubs, to watch.
Once the lad had slunk away, a small, swarthy bloke lunged forward and took her from behind. He kept up a non-stop commentary in some alien tongue she couldn’t understand, although this time she didn’t silence him. She liked the barbarous sound of it, which seemed to match his violent, jerky thrusting and the strange guttural roar snarling from his throat when, finally, he collapsed against her back.
After two more guys – an Asian and a Scot – she called a halt, at last. These men had work to do, so she snapped her fingers, sent them back on-site.
‘But I’ll be here again tomorrow,’ she told the foreman, who was hanging around and clearly still aroused. She scrambled up, exhausted, from the ground, brushing bits of leaf from her thighs. ‘We’ve only just begun.’
‘So how was golf?’
‘Fantastic! Angus and I were neck and neck until the eighteenth, then I birdied and took the game.’
‘So I hope he bought you lunch.’
‘No, actually he didn’t. His son was playing in a cricket match, so he had to get back to watch. In fact, I’ve been in for quite some while and was beginning to get worried. You’re much later than you said.’
‘Sorry. I … lost track of time.’
‘But was the shopping trip successful? Did you get the dress you wanted?’
‘No. Nothing seemed to suit me.’
‘You’re too hard on yourself, my sweet. You look beautiful tonight.’
‘What, in this old thing?’
‘Yes, in that old thing. It’s what’s underneath that counts.’
She moved towards him, kissed him on the cheek – a chaste, loving, contrite, guilt-clogged kiss. ‘I love you, Graham. I love you more than anything. It’s terribly important that you know.’
‘But of course I know. And I love you. It goes without saying.’
‘No!’ she insisted. ‘It doesn’t. Love’s so … so difficult.’
‘What is all this? You sound quite overwrought.’
She pulled away. ‘It’s nothing. I’ll get supper. You must be starving if you missed lunch.’
‘Well, a bit peckish, I must admit. What are we going to have?’
‘Not sure yet.’ She opened the freezer, stared in at the haddock fillets, white and tame and safe; the skinless, boneless (joyless) chicken breasts. Wearily, she opted for the fish – poached in meagre low-fat milk, as usual, and served with some starveling sauce.
As she stood at the sink peeling onions for the sauce, the gang of workmen suddenly burst in. They had finished work, downed tools, then stopped off at the Kentucky Fried for a giant-sized bucket of chicken, along with a load of chips. They seated themselves at the table, gnawing on the chicken pieces, brushing breadcrumbs off their lips with dirty, callused hands, tossing the bones behind them before dipping in again.
The smell was tantalizing: flagrant grease, shameless fat, audacious, brazen spices. She put her knife down, went across to join them. Within seconds she was tucking in herself, crunching wings and breasts; the crispy, oily texture of the coating a perfect contrast to the yielding, succulent softness of the chips. She crammed another dozen chips in all at once, savouring the luscious film of grease adhering to her tongue and teeth; the triumphant feeling of fullness and excess.
She was so intent on the sensations, she barely noticed Graham slip into the kitchen. But he came towards her, put his hand gently on her shoulder. ‘So have you decided, darling?’
‘Decided what?’ she asked, rising to her feet, alarmed.
Patting his stomach in response, he gave a rueful laugh.
‘Oh, your supper, you mean,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder at the delicious depredation on the table: crumpled bits of paper, half-gnawed bones, the scattering of crunchy, savoury crumbs. ‘I thought we might have something different, for a change – Kentucky Fried Chicken and chips.’ The cholesterol count would be lethal – enough to kill her husband there and then.
‘You’re joking, of course.’
‘Of course,’ she murmured, wiping her ravished, grease-emblazoned hands on her torn and oil-stained dress.
May
‘Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!’ Slowing to a halt, Jenny snatched up the map from the passenger seat and checked the name on the signpost. Yes, as she’d feared, she was headed in the wrong direction. Again. Her map-reading skills were minimal, but then she was used to Patrick navigating.
Furious at the thought of him, she wrenched at the steering wheel and tried to turn the car round in the narrow, rutted lane, but succeeded only in stalling the engine and eventually landing up with her back wheels in the ditch.
‘Look, for God’s sake, get a grip,’ she muttered to herself, winding down the window and taking in a few deep breaths. The air was warm and scented, the hedgerows were frothing with cow parsley, and the fringes of the field beyond spangled with polished buttercups. Yet she was polluting both the weather and the scenery with her own toxic cloud of anger and frustration. If she only managed to calm down, she could still enjoy this lush May afternoon, despite the fact she was incorrigibly lost. Everywhere she looked, different shades of green were eagerly unfurling: thrustful shoots of new spring wheat; translucent, tender beech leaves; lusty nettles rampant in the hedge. There was no sound except the birds: sweet, silvery trills and deeper, husky notes, neither of which she was able to identify. It was Patrick who was the authority on birds.
Sighing, she restarted the engine and, having extricated the car from the ditch, r
etraced her route until she reached a fork in the road. Should she go straight on, or bear right? By now she was so thoroughly confused, she might as well decide by tossing a coin. If only there were somebody to ask, but for the last few miles there hadn’t been a single sign of human habitation, just fields and woods unfolding on either side, until they lost themselves in the hazy blue horizon. It was as if she had reached a land where no one lived, not even sheep and cows. And, as she squinted at the map again, she had a sudden strange suspicion that this was territory beyond maps, and that Patrick might be wreaking his revenge by dissolving all its boundaries and landmarks, in order to trap her in its coils.
Shivering, despite the heat, she made herself drive on, opting for the right fork, but regretting her decision once the road began to peter out into a narrow, puddled cart-track. However, she followed it for half a mile in the hope the track might lead on to a farm, only to be thwarted by a heap of ancient farm machinery, rusting where it lay, and blocking any hope of further progress. Was Patrick working another ominous spell, picking up whole villages and transferring them to distant counties, so that she would never, ever reach her destination; never find Briar Cottage, or its owner, Phyllis Potts? If so, she was doomed to spend the entire weekend driving round in endless circles, in an empty country devoid of humankind.
The Biggest Female in the World and other stories Page 12