Cherry Pickers

By RJ Willey

18-year-old Bobby Kemp got to the ‘60s in time alright, no further than Leeds, and remembered all of it. What a year: school out and passed the 11+. So, being a white-collar worker for the council is his future. A steady job then, set for life. A steady girl, engagement, marriage, kids, house, car, pension. But steady on, is that all? He hasn’t done anything, yet.

His feeble rites of passage – steady as she goes, poop-poop, bleat – are dissed by a passing back-packing Californian, Ben Gaunt, who’s seeking his family roots near York. To Bobby’s ill-content at getting nowhere, slowly he offers, ‘It’s your life, man. Just go...’ And he does: he drops everything and goes on the road into the ‘60s.

Along this passage there are side alleys, little ginnels and dead ends, each with characters and their stories to walk with for a while, until he just goes...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398452428

RJ Willey

Willey’s career graph since 1960 is neither a Manhattan nor a High Alpine…more flat savanna with termite mounds. Post War secondary grammar…note the runner-up status. So, office-worker, not artisan, the fastest losers. Even in the Army, sergeant-clerk, not a wannabee officer. Raised himself a tad in flat East Anglia, wardenning youth hostels, for self aggrandisement in the hospitality business that led to hotels in South Africa. Timeously, as President De Klerk had choked, providing the opportunity to wawyk some in the uncertainty of an emerging African democracy. Writing about what you know then dated from 1960, the author is well into the fourth of the Cherry Picker content, Cherry Picker Too, the one after this.

Book preview

About the Author

Willey’s career graph since 1960 is neither a Manhattan nor a High Alpine…more flat savanna with termite mounds.

Post War secondary grammar…note the runner-up status. So, office-worker, not artisan, the fastest losers. Even in the Army, sergeant-clerk, not a wannabee officer.

Raised himself a tad in flat East Anglia, wardenning youth hostels, for self aggrandisement in the hospitality business that led to hotels in South Africa. Timeously, as President De Klerk had choked, providing the opportunity to wawyk some in the uncertainty of an emerging African democracy.

Writing about what you know then dated from 1960, the author is well into the fourth of the Cherry Picker content, Cherry Picker Too, the one after this.

Copyright Information ©

RJ Willey 2023

The right of RJ Willey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398452411 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398452428 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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Chapter 1

The privet-green double-decker bus drove the bend at a speed much faster than that of the stop-at-every-stop, ding-ding bus. It’s filled-to-capacity regular season ticket-holders swayed to the right on the bend then to the left as the bus straightened out for the long uphill to Bramley.

At the bus stop, those waiting in the queue, at first cursed the driver, through his female line, following up quickly with similar curses at the conductor’s inability to pull his finger out and push the bell, ding-ding. Had he have stopped the bus on their behalf, such was its speed, it would have been a hundred yards past the stop. Further curses at this going home time of day, blue-breathed undertones were growled at the City of Leeds Corporation for condoning destination only buses, seated to capacity, not stopping and for out of towners only.

Again, the bus swerved hard, unexpectedly this time, into the middle of the road, without regard for the oncoming traffic, to avoid another Corporation vehicle parked under a street light with its cover open. The passengers looked up briefly from whatever they were reading, saw nothing unusual, turned again to their newspapers and cigarettes. Smoking only allowed, top deck.

The truck had a tower built over the driving cab, and a fixed ladder led to a railed platform. A man wearing dark dungarees, on the back, L.C.C., was cleaning the hinged glass cover.

‘Cherry-Picker,’ Bobby said, from his position on the aisle side to his companion seated by the window, as she scanned the Evening Post. Their conversation had faltered during the two-mile drive from town, not unusual on this route, where the passengers were no more than regular nodding acquaintances, meeting daily weekdays only. Yet surprisingly, between Bobby and Mary, given their circumstances and sitting thigh by thigh, they had little to say to each other. Mary had not taken into account that with an age difference of over twenty years, approximately, they had little in common, and after the usual pleasantries, she’d glanced at her evening paper.

He was unfazed, gave himself a quick smile at resisting leaving his seat to get off at what was his usual stop, and definitely not at this speed. No, my lucky lad, Miss Mary was taking him to her house, for what was as yet, unspecified, but not to be contrary, he hoped. He was on a high. This could be his lucky day. And about time too. That according to the lads in the canteen who opined that if you hadn’t had it in by the time National Service came around, you had by the time the two years military service ended. That didn’t apply to him as National Service was over. So, eighteen, looking to get it in before he was nineteen, five ten in his stocking feet, weighed ten ten or as the Yanks said, a hundred and fifty pounds, and very fit for soccer all year round in out of doors.

Good-looking, his girlfriend Kathy boasted but she was biased and didn’t mind his hair colour as much as he did. She liked to ruffle its straightness when he least expected it, laughed when he flattened it out again. Donkey brown he’d described it in a primary school lesson, made the teachers laugh, grew it longer now that it was becoming fashionable and everyone was getting beyond the short back and sides compulsion.

He hadn’t noticed Kathy at school in West Leeds, they were two years apart, which he learned from the lads that suited the hows and whys of boy meets girl. He hadn’t known why until one coffee break the lads explained that it gave the man two years to get some in, experience that is, heavily underlined, so that he wasn’t all fingers and thumbs when the time came to ‘do the business.’ The habitually obscene Ernest, married with three kids, said theoretically and practically there was nothing wrong with the how to s of one, two, three or four fingers and the thumb…wicked grinned, just as long you knew what you were doing, allowed them to mull that over without showing their ignorance.

‘What? You think so?’ Mary was suddenly distracted, from the newspaper, at his seemingly telling remark. She gave a nervous glance around. Had anyone heard what touched a thou-shalt-not-with-one-so-young nerve in her. She allowed her reading glasses slip slide to the end of her nose, studied him for side.

‘Yeah. That truck we passed…driver swerved. Used for cleaning street lights, called the cherry-picker.’ Happy to be making conversation.

‘Ohh. Is it?’ Minutely patronizing and managing to sound as interested as if it were. But, Mary, he’s trying to make conversation, so do try to make the effort, it was you who wanted this after all is said and done. ‘Slang, presumably? I mean, they don’t really use it for picking cherries?’

He laughed while pressing his leg against hers to signal a joke. ‘Except when it’s not used for picking apples and pears.’ Making contact, as he would have done with Kathy. He needed some reassurance. Her reading glasses were adding years to her looks and she appeared absorbed in her Post rather than whispering to him of the bedroom delights he hoped were in store. She responded with equal pressure. That was okay. They were well past his stop, he’d missed out on going home, getting changed and meeting his girlfriend. Double fried eggs, back bacon, beans and chips, tea bread and butter, and she didn’t mind when he slipped the last few chips between the last slice of bread.

He needed to know that Mary was not just a prick-teaser the older lads spoke about. Not that he would know one, if he met one, discounting even in the general sense that all women could be so called, whether they knew it or not…the lad’s words. This was common knowledge, according to them as simply by getting out of bed in the morning, and dressing in sexy clothing, along with high heels, because who in their right minds, if women could be said to have minds would do that, labelled them all…and particularly the sundry. Any protest from him in favour of the sweet birds of his youth… ‘She was only sixteen/only sixteen/and I loved her so-ohho’, was met crudely with the definitive, ‘She bleeds, doesn’t she?’ Sorry Sam, school’s out.

It was Mary who’d arranged this…what? A tea and scones late afternoon…leading to what? As yet, he didn’t know had fantastically high hopes. It had been sudden, at very short notice, after a gap of several weeks since that time she’d touched him where it mattered. That first contact on the day of the office Xmas Party and Concert had stayed with him, and today led him by the nose, like a young dog, in, oh yes, in search of a bone home.

She’d been applying stage make up to his face as he sat eyes closed and her leg had slid slowly, carefully, alert for a quick retreat and an oh sorry, had he rejected her advancing knee. She had not overexcited his interest at first as he was concentrating on remembering the few lines he would have to speak on stage, within the hour. Sober, there would not have been any difficulty. But he was not. Earlier in the day, the pretence that the office was closed became obvious as the returnees from lunch looked far, far merrier than when they’d left, and if they returned to their desks, it was not to work.

The directors of the several departments were absent, attending their Xmas lunch and were unlikely to be seen working at their desks, until after the holiday. There was work but no more than peripatetic meandering through the floors, bottle somewhere about the person, looking for more work of a similar nature. Work had become the curse of the drinking classes, and was discouraged everywhere, and Bobby discovered that a few beers would take you merrily up the incline of inebriation but slugs from a bottle of Navy Rum, humbled as one stumbled, though without going down.

Under the wide apron sheet, Mary’s knee had gotten through to him, her probing patella nudging him back to alertness. She saw his eyes open, look into hers, recognize by the look on her face it was welcomed…a knee in the groin can be so misunderstood…instructed him to keep still as she was almost done.

He stroked her fleshy leg with both hands, fingering the frontier where nylon ended and smooth slightly moist pinkness began. Up until then, eyes closed head back, relaxed and in a dreamy waking sleep, he recalled the kisses he’d demanded from every lovely female office worker, intercepted in the corridors. And now this.

‘Bobby,’ she inquired quietly. ‘Are you okay?’ Lightly tapped his forehead with a comb, while withdrawing her leg. He was going too far.

He resisted dropping off, with a start…going downhill now. ‘Whassit?’

‘What have you been drinking?’ checked her watch. ‘You’re on in forty minutes.’

‘Whatever I was given, of course. Only good manners, innit? Itsh my first hoffice party don’t-you-know?’ Playing the fool as well as the semi-drunk.

‘Silly boy. I can smell rum.’

‘That is not my perfume, madam. It is strictly for consumption.’ Paused. ‘TB or not TB.’ Grinned sillily, funny at the time.

During the weeks after Xmas and well into the first New Year of the sixties, nothing happened to even come close to their brief intimacy. They saw each other most weekdays, at breaks, in the corridors but always with several others around or about. Once they were very close but it was in the coffee queue, and impossible to exchange any meaningful looks. It was nothing like in the movies where a significant look or a fleeting touch was more than good enough to get started.

Catching him alone in the basement one warm afternoon in Spring, and after looking and listening here there and everywhere, she ordered. ‘Pudsey Express.’ Urgency in her voice. Since Xmas, the opportunities planned or accidental hadn’t happened and here just entering his stockroom was the right moment. She could not take any chances of a scandal, he was an office junior and she the senior in her department, respect and politeness her due.

Before leaving home in the morning, she habitually prepared for her evening meal and today’s was to be a hotpot, enough for two days. ‘I must be mad,’ she’d said to herself when the moment arrived, impulsive and without warning. And now at the bus stop, not really reading the newspaper, and in fact peeping around a back page full sized pic of Geoff Boycott, to check he was following her instructions, she added to her madness. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, such a darling boy.’

‘Pu pu…Pudsey, Miss Miller?’ He’d stammered.

‘The next stop to yours, Bobby.’ About to say more, thought better of it.

‘I know.’ Thoughts whirling, had not been there, knew it was where Len Hutton was born, said so.

He’d been standing at the door to his stockroom, about to unlock, when he heard from behind him the clack clack of high heels. Curious he delayed entering until the unknown female appeared around the corner. Who knows it might have been his girlfriend, Kathy, when he would have taken full advantage and gently pulled her inside for what’s aka a bit of slap and tickle. He was taken aback at seeing Mary.

She’d left the canteen further along the basement corridor saw him there stopped, looked back to check if anyone was about, before taking her full advantage, and playing her Pudsey Express Game, snap! ‘Later then, Bobby.’ Click-clacked around the corner, pressed the button for the lift.

He peeped around the corner watched liked what he saw, The mythical older woman, and this one in her dark grey two-piece, skirt below the knee. Very shapely, he thought, and all so suddenly. Didn’t care for her Lana Turner hairstyle, a bit old-fashioned, needed a rest, the war well over, move on, to Marilyn Monroe’s blonde bombshell style. Had he told any of the lads of his reservations, it’s certain they’d have commented one never checked the mantelpiece while poking the fire. But such was the idolatry of them for the older woman, even with a fuller figure, it was still the done thing, even punnily. Forgo the usual preliminaries with young women, the chatting-up, the dating, the paying, making progress, getting to bases…all irrelevant with the mature woman. They got straight to the point, and they paid.

Chapter 2

A hundred yards off across the Headrow, he could see Mary in the queue at the bus stop. She was wearing a white head scarf and reading a newspaper. How should he approach her? Say, fancy seeing you here, whilst casually queue jumping? Pretending she wasn’t there and standing at the back? Or, walk straight past to his own stop, let’s just forget all about it, okay?

If he took the push-in choice with an apologetic ‘I’m with her’, it might work, but would they think she was his mother, and no way was he going to greet her with a ‘hello mum, thanks for saving my place’. Better not.

With girls my age, it was easy-peasy, make a Side is correct date, win some lose some, i.e., my boyfriend’s home from somewhere, or I’m washing my hair tonight or any other long winded let him down lightly, in short, no. Make it and take her to the pictures, the back row of course, a well tried and tested practice, procedural almost, hold hands for starters, letting go only to make way for newcomers getting to their seats, or to buy an ice-cream in the interval. All leads to an arm around her shoulder, and kisses, maybe, depending on the on screen drama or lack of and only made difficult if one or the other or both chewed gum. A grope was favourite if only for bragging rights with the lads when they demanded ‘what j’dyer get?’

Ballroom dancing was favourite, and in the office breaks they taught him the basic steps. The waltz, the slow foxtrot, the quickstep and the ideal way to meet girls just as girls had been taught the ideal ways to meet boys. Get off with a girl, the plan, even as late as the last waltz, make a date for the following week, go for a walk, or to a pub or the movies, repeat as before.

His workmate, Ronnie, had just completed his National Service, and his dad had a pub… ‘was not a nymphomaniac, ha-ha-ha’, laughed at the ballroom story told him the Mecca Locarno in the Leeds Arcade was the place to go. Strict tempo was square, jive, be-bop and rock ’n roll was the thing. Yeah, where you can really get to grips in a smooch because that Jimmy Saville DJ, who dyes his hair blond hair calls everyone guys and gals knows when to play Roy Orbison’s slow stuff, right? None of your quick-quick, not touching, only slow-slow, get in close… showed him how. Here’s what you do.

‘Take her hand, the one hanging loose, other arm around her waist. She shimmies back slowly as you push forward, left foot first, followed by right. You do the guiding with the arm around her waist, just shuffle, man. Wear your crepe soles. You don’t have any? No beetle crushers? No brothel creepers? Only joking. Teddy Boys are yesterday, Italian is the in style, so you’re okay. Great. So you get in close, closer, closer still’…used an office chair for the girl… ‘feel her tits against your shirt, okay. She likes you! So, smooch!’ And he whooped shrilly, no one knew why he did that.

Mary was the older woman. Old enough to be his mother, at a push, and the less said about her, the better, so no back row at the pictures for them, or smooching at the Mecca Locarno…unlikely she’d want to be allowed in, even on the pretence she was rescuing a teenage daughter. Nor with him dancing at the majestic ballroom, while having to overhear the baby snatcher sneers. Lingering, in the Snug Bar out, and seeing the landlady giving them the once over. ‘Old enough to be his mother. Shouldn’t ought to be allowed’, to her hubby who demurred quietly to himself, ‘chance’d be a fine thing.’

So how could they get started? All very well for the lads at the office pontificating about driving a Morris Minor before you try a Rolls Royce, and he would given half a chance, but where or when? Anywhere out and about in the park in full view of narrow minds would invite cruel comments. Mary could be asked ‘was Bobby her son?’ ‘a nice looking lad’ then behind her back, ‘didn’t know she was married, carrying her bags, isn’t she?’

Once off the bus, she led him to her house, a semi in a near identical street of pebble-dashed red brick semis, gardens front and back, but not always connected.

‘Just look at those leaves,’ she complained, as she led him from the gate, up the stone garden path. ‘Lain there all winter. I can never get on top of it.’

The long dead shapeless crumbs of leaves were breezily swirling around old grass and new shoots of Spring bulbs.

To himself, ’getting on top of. Is that a hint? Happy to hear if it is, and exactly what’s on my mind. Knowing what’s gone before. Her knee between my legs, my hands stroking her thighs. The looks, the glances, our legs touching on the bus this has gotta be it. Pinch me someone, but I’m outside her front door, I’m not the Jehovah’s Witness, and we are going inside because she has the door key in her hand. This is getting started!

‘Come on in, Bobby love, before the neighbours come out for a really good look.’

He liked that, skipped inside as she closed the door quickly, and hoping there might be a big hug and kisses just for starters. No, but she’d visibly relaxed, said she’d put the kettle on.

Everything stops for tea, he thought, as she smiled removed her light coat, hung it on a hook, then smoothed down what was underneath.

Oh yeah, like to see that smoothing down and uplift. And is there honey with ye olde English tea ceremony, dee dah dee dah?

She went before him into her kitchen, asked him to excuse the mess, none discernible, and tidy like an Ideal Home Exhibition, while turning a knob on the gas stove and getting instant ignition under a kettle. On the kitchen table he saw a tea tray, set for two. China looking, thin white, with pink roses and a matching tea cosy. A brass ringed wooden biscuit barrel close by. Man, everything was ready, had to have been prepared before she had left for work that morning. That was impressive. How could she have known? Or, did she do this every working day? Ready for just in cases?

Phew was not a word he usually used, but phew it was, though ecky thump would have been stronger. No. This was the time for…well, I’ll go to the back of our ’ouse. Better, yeah.

He followed her around watching her every move and waiting and watching for when to get a grip. He liked the sexy way she bent to take a bottle of milk from the underbar fridge, stood poured some into a jug, bent again to return the bottle to the fridge. Oh boy, getting started.

Ignoring his stares she returned to the hall, picked the letters out of the basket beneath the letter box and scanned the contents. He waited, there wouldn’t be one for him, wasn’t sure what to do next.

She told him, ‘Sit yourself down, Bobby.’ Miles ahead in leading this young dog by the nose, every tremulous sniff of the way.

He pulled out a chair sat hurriedly as though he’d been ordered like a dog, looked around her fitted kitchen, his admiration disturbed by the piercing whistle of the kettle.

‘Frame yourself, Bobby.’ Chiding from the hall while fluffing up her hair, and drawing in her tummy. Her feet were killing her but she did not remove her high heels, returned to the kitchen to watch him rinsing hot water around in the tea pot. ‘Tea in the caddy, love. Two spoons…no make it three, you probably like it stronger.’ All accompanied by approving looks, like a mother, or to his mind soon to be lover. Just say the word, Mary.

Not exactly like Joe and Alice, from Room at the Top, he thought, whilst pouring the boiling water over the tea leaves. Give it time. No sooner had they got behind a door than it was pants down, knickers off and were going at it… so yeah give it time.

He placed the tea pot in its space on the tray, slipped on the tea cosy, gave her a look of having put in his thumb pulled out a plum, said what a good boy am I.

She was not overly impressed with this ordinary daily event, led the way into a lounge where she said it was warmer, pointed to the coffee table and that he should put it down there, sat on her couch. ‘I have a Baxi fireplace, so this room is always warm and cosy. And it heats the water for baths and showers.’

Wanting to please, he showed how impressed he was while bouncing a little on the firm comfortable leather couch. And not so shabby for what he had in mind, after it got dark. ‘You have a shower?’

‘Over the bath.’ Pouring tea for them through a strainer. ‘It’s got one of those mixers, and when you turn on the tap, you can choose…’

‘Best not to be watching the bath taps when you choose a shower though,’ he joked.

‘No.’ Humouring him. ‘There’s a piece of Perspex fitted from the ceiling down. Better than a shower curtain, I think. Not that I have showers, much. A good soak before bed, I prefer.’

Was that a hint? Bawdy bath times ahead? He took the proffered cup of tea, as using tongs she dropped in one lump of sugar, paused to see if he wanted more. He shook his head, no thanks, adding sillily he was sweet enough.

They sat close, angled sideways, their knees near to touching. The lads at the office swore blind that crossed legs and plunging necklines were huge come-ons. Women never did know what they were doing but something deep inside told them this is what they must do, don’t even ask, lerremgerron wi it.

Mary sat straight up, the jacket of her two piece undone to reveal a non-plunging white blouse, her legs close together uncrossed, so no help there. Tea and biscuits on the couch? He couldn’t recall the lads mentioning their significance in the how to advice on seduction. In their own homes don’t women offer the same tea to the vicar?

She sipped her tea, offered. ‘Help yourself to biscuits, love.’ As he pondered at her biscuit ploy. ‘If you’d like a bath or shower you can but…’ Appealingly. ‘… there is a favour I’d like from you?’

With a Bourbon Cream to his lips he was uncertain whether to bite or speak.’ Yeah, yeah.’ The eager dog, anything.

‘Oh that’s nice of you. Those leaves in my garden. I never get the time. Would you?’ A biscuit wouldn’t melt in the mouth of a head of department.

The youthful immaturity in him could not prevent a blinked look of disappointment. On his mind, and giving it all away, tea and empathy in a cosy room, the coy looks over the rims of their tea cups would lead to the first urgent hug, the hot hungry kisses and a slow slide down into this so, so firm couch made for moments like this…gotta maker’s guarantee.

Uh-ho as what she was saying in the nicest possible way still seemed like an instruction from an older person, at the office. He’d been that route already. Been the apprentice instructed to go to the stores and draw a pound of rubber nails, or the junior given a hand written note placed in an open envelope and traipsed around every department, each time getting a signature and further instruction onward to another department. Why’d everyone think it so funny? Only when directed to his final destination, the Gents toilet, where his instruction was to open the envelope did he read he was to return with a S.H.I.T. paper.

Apprenticeship, school fees, rites of passage, for how long, how much more?

She did ask in the nicest possible way, whilst sipping tea through lips he ached to kiss… the choice, take it or leave it. He was pumping up his Joe Lambton attitude, gonna leave it, when she finally had him by the short and curlies.

‘And after a nice shower, or a bath, there’ll be lamb hot pot. Already in the oven.’

‘With Yorkshire pudding?’ Happily bargaining.

‘Dumplings and spring greens. Chocolate cake and whipped cream to follow.’

Whipped he was, by her in her house, and through his stomach, his famished body still untouched.

Chapter 3

He swept the leaves into lines parallel with the edge of the lawns, before making smaller piles at intervals, culminating in two large piles thence to the compost heap. His sweeps got rhythm and Bunny Berrigan helped with his version of I can’t get started.

He sang quietly, I’ve been around the world in a plane/ I’ve set off revolutions in Spain./ The North Pole I’ve charted/ but still I can’t get started with you.

He knew the song, the lyrics, the pauses, before during and after their performance, sang it over and over, accompaniment to his sweeping. Bobby the gardener. That’s me. Whatever happened to Bobby Shaftho, ho ho? Joe Lambton would not have put up with this. Definitely no sweeping leaves for his supper. Would have told Mary where to gerrof, what to do with her tea and bikkies. ‘Get me a bottle of beer an’ when you’ve done wi them leaves gerrup stairs an inta bed wi’ thi clothes off, sithee. I’ll be up thir shortly…an’ not so bloody shortly, ah can tell thi!’

Remind me, just for fun, how did we get started? Last Xmas, young sir. Having missed most of the progress of the well-made play, from curtain up, staring fixedly at the audience while clinging to the rear of a sofa, misty brained on rum, during the sound and movement he was aware something was expected of him soon. Kathy, girlfriend and co bit part actress, had stayed in character and from time to time nudged him theatrically as though it were affection from a loved one. In fact it was to keep him from falling down or asleep. She had been instructed by Keith the director to keep an eye on him as it was obvious that he was one of those in a long line of Thespians, that got their artistic inspiration and spirit whichever came first, out of a bottle.

‘My dear. Sometimes one must be cruel to be kind. He’ll probably take it from you, so when you nudge, nudge hard with the toe of your shoe… on his ankle. There’s a good girl.’

The lads in the office had assisted in Bobby’s more than mellowness. Word had got around that the play was a dreary and unfunny drawing room comedy, a vehicle for the berky trainee accountant and his girlfriend. They were the leading man and lady with long passages of light banter about nothing other than boy meets girl, loses girl, finds girl again, happy ever after, curtain.

The slugs of rum had been administered at intervals, topping him up but without knocking him out. The lads wanted a live and kicking dummy.

He had celebrated far too well. Kathy had been out of the office during the drinking part of the office party as it had seemed like a better idea than staying at the office and being snagged for Xmas kisses by the roving males with bottles. More to the point she could complete her last minute shopping. This decision caused her to miss being kissed by Bobby, in the course of him kissing everyone in range. Two of her girlfriends had quickly informed her of his largesse around the office, without revealing they were included, though she guessed as much. She forgave him, saved her ire for when the time came to give added impetus to her high heeled shoe if and when.

As the time approached for his few short lines to be spoken, Kathy had in the course of little bits of business nudged him more forcefully than lovers ought, but without any noticeable response. Gentle pain was not getting through. Out of sight behind the couch, she tapped his ankle with a short sharp shock, a fair warning she thought. The pain registered sufficiently through his maritime fog, and true to his character he grinned like a ventriloquist’s dummy. A little more aware now, he congratulated himself for that little bit of ad hoc business, laughed through the pain, though at the time the leading lady was breaking down in tears.

At the back of the hall, the lads filling one row, exchanged knowing glances. Bobby’s unscripted bodily jerk away from the back of the couch accompanied by his rictus grin, leading Ray to whisper hoarsely, ‘Gottle a geer!’ and immediately imitated by Martin. It looked like their investment was paying off.

Kathy was certain now that Bobby would neither move from his position as plotted nor escort her to a window to say his few complementary words. Only when he spoke could she respond, and move the play along for the male and female leads. Their lines approached, Kathy panicked, pent up, it not occurring to her to ad lib with a ‘shall we move to the window, my dear?’ No, she cued his ankle with her pointy hard-toed shoe.

Later, going over the evening with her parents, her mother sympathized. Father commented pithily, ‘Ought to have teld drunken bugger to bloody well get off stage.’

When Kathy came to think about it, the end result would have been just as calamitous as what did happen. Her second kick got through to his rum-dulled brain, inducing a pain-filled cry.

‘Shii…ee…ay! Belinda!’ With loathing, at her, while lifting his ankle to rub away the pain. ‘Whaddyadothafor?’ Hopping on one leg.

Those lines and Kathy’s repost of ‘drunkard’ were lost drowned out by the cheers and guffaws, first from the lads at the back, thence taken up by the rest. There hadn’t been many laughs in the course of this onerous duty call. The leading actors were struck dumb as Bobby and Kathy exchanged words that were not part of the play, yet were so well acted and expressed it appeared they were.

She berated him for the amount of kissing that had been going on in her absence and all he could offer was, ‘It’s Xmas, Kate!’ A bleat, the audience picked up whenever Kathy paused, and the lads deliberately with, ‘Kiss me, Kate!’

The lead actors were desperate to dive back into the text, but were at a loss as it was so far removed from Bobby and Kathy’s. They agreed to move over to the window talk some rhubarb and allow the bit part actors their big break.

Problems then, for Bobby and Kathy as now they were in their sub plot, how to get out of it and get back in, to the chosen, the rehearsed route, and to the end.

Bobby had not abandoned the play. It was going on still, and what’s more getting laughs despite this viciousness from one who was supposed to be his intended. The kicks in the ankle mystified him, feeling more like pain than acted pain. Other than that, he thought Kathy was very good, so true to life. Some little haughtiness was called for in response to her anger. Throwing back his head and acting haughtily, like Charles Laughton, in Hobson’s Choice, he put in a bit of business, tightened the belt on his silk dressing gown, unaware it had been loose for some time and trailing on the floor. As he tightened, so he stepped forward on to the belt, pulling apart his gown and revealing not the expected trousers of a suit, but red jockey underpants.

The audience loved it, laughed and cheered as he continued trippingly into the wings.

Kathy lost the plot, put her hand to mouth, wide-eyed at his stumbling exit.

The audience loved that too, cheered and clapped his prat fall while the lads led the encores and cheers for, ‘More! More! Encore!’, while falling around in their seats.

It was not the end of the play, but it was the end of the evening. The director instructed Bobby to get back on stage sit on the couch and ‘say bloody nowt’. Bobby entered to applause behaved as instructed but was unable to keep a straight face.

After he called for curtain, the director was heard to say to his assistants that if he had known they could do knockabout comedy, it would have been better than this bloody farce.

In the wings, Mary was near overcome, decided she had to have him. He’d the same recklessness of the young men she had known and loved during the war, Devil may care had been their motto, as they flew out to kill or be killed. They always boasted they would come back! Alive! privately admitting they might be minus the odd part. She loved that bravura, saw it in Bobby, could not see him lasting long in this office world. She was old enough to be his mother, but vive la difference, she was not.

Chapter 4

Sweeping and clearing leaves and singing under his breath, ‘Oh since you farted, I can’t get started with you’, he heard her call, sotto voce from the doorway. When he turned, she urged him inside with a siren’s confidential gesture, plus she had a glass in her hand. How do these women do it? One moment, the brush off, not a hint of even some time never, the next minute there’s a glass of something in her hand and it’s come hither luv.

She’d changed out of her office two-piece into a low cut pink blouse atop of a darker pink flouncy skirt, separated by a black belt. He hoped that she didn’t go in for judo. The style though, exactly the one the lads had advised were de rigueur for getting comfy with your tart. Tight said she’d put up a fight, but loose meant what it said.

She handed him the glass with a smile for a mixer.

He left off leaf duty asked, ‘What is it? Sherry?’

‘No.’ Laughing. ‘Nor is it rum, sailor boy.’ Feeling in the mood now, and younger by the moment. And in her best Mae West imitation said, ‘In my house, lovely boy, you take your whisky neat, or not at all.’

For one moment he was about to turn his nose up at a large scotch, by insisting he was strictly a beer man, and that lately, by Kathy’s command. Since the rum episode he had not touched any spirits. But flaming youth called out for manliness and that meant whisky. He’d seen men order doubles, say. ‘Down the hatch.’ And what he did.

Mary was more intent on getting him off the doorstep and out of sight of the neighbours, eased him towards the door step, but glass in hand odd job man, did not quite get into the house as neither in nor out he knocked back the scotch as though it were the last mouthful of a pint of beer. ‘Aahhh…!’ His summary judgement.’…that went down well.’ Only as far as his chest though, a choking cough the first alarm. Next a massive protest from his stomach rejected such toxicity in one large dose. His eyes blew their top, watered, forced his head down and his mouth refilled with what it had so easily accepted a short while ago, creating indecision within his natural plumbing and gravity. Get rid won as he gasped, spluttered and ejected, mentioned Huey and Raoulf’s names by the by.

For that alone she could have hugged and kissed him for a reminder of all those young off duty fly boys of years gone by, in some East of England pub. Did pull him inside, closed the door and patted him on the back, robustly.

Her old attitudes of not wanting to annoy or anger those young men, living on their nerves, by pretending to be a helpless weak female, hands fluttering, oh what to do, what to do, until he got it together, apologized with, ‘It’s alright old girl. I’ll be alright in a moment.’

True to form Bobby recovered from the spirit’s assault admitted that it went down the wrong way, held out his glass. ‘Same again, please.’ Gulped.

‘Not just yet, luv.’ Took his glass. ‘Don’t you want to shower?’ Nodding, yes you do for his answer. ‘I’ll bring you one up.’ Looking up the stairs to her landing.

Putty in her hands and willingly going upstairs, thinking, yes please, upstairs is favourite. First for a shower where’ll she’ll bring me another drink when I’m in the altogether…waiting for her to try to get me pissed. Oh dear, what should a poor young boy like me do? At home with three younger brothers, I lock the bathroom door, but it’s time to change the habits of a lifetime and unlock my great expectations.

The staircase was very unlike his own, had thick pile fitted carpets, nowhere near worn, and ornaments and vases on the ledges, small pics hung on the walls, and everywhere immaculate, free from dust in dingy corners. Feminine touches, yeah, like Kathy’s house, and one or two groups of young fellas in uniform from wartime.

On the landing two of the three doors were closed and he went into the bathroom noticed at once when searching for it, no lock on the door.

As he stripped and placed his clothes on what looked like a laundry box, he felt the soft luxury of a woman’s house as it smothered him like perfumed cotton wool. He folded his clothes guessed that the laundry box also served as a stool, its soft top matching the light blue of the shower curtains and those at the window. Blue for this boy, he decided. There was a place for everything and everything was in its place. Light blue. Was Mary a Cambridge supporter? Same for the toilet mat and seat cover. The rubber mat inside the bath was another shade of blue… could this boy blue come blow up his horn, ho-ho? Spare toilet rolls stood to one side of the toilet in a blue holder, and on the other side a blue plastic basket for cleaning materials, adjacent to a blue brush and holder.

He turned on the shower, sang, I’m Mr Blue/ when you say you’re sorry/then turn around heading for the lights of town, dah dee dah dee dah dee dah… Noticed there were mixed colours of scented soaps in a tall glass vase with a lid. The water was ready and he stepped into the bath shampooed his hair. With white foam streaming down his mostly white body he felt colour coordinated, and having kept the song going in his head ended with, Call me Mr Blue.

He heard the bathroom door being opened as it brushed over the carpet.

‘Drink, I promised you.’ Mary said, paused, before leaving. ‘Don’t be long now.’

He turned off the shower, thinking her pause was yeah just long enough to have a skeg…ha-ha-ha, but she said don’t be long…had better make her mind up! He reached for a towel and opening his eyes hoping to find a glass of beer on the stool saw scotch on the rocks, definitely having a go at his resistance. He he he, there isn’t any, sipped the drink noticed, aha, my clothes are gone. In their place an Oxford blue towelling dressing gown. Not only Picasso had a blue period, then.

He towelled himself vigorously in an impossible attempt to discourage his matching thought and blood flow. Couldn’t be done he wasn’t in control had thoughts of only what lay just beyond the bathroom door. She’d removed his clothes, his only means of restraint, couldn’t leave like this. He lifted the toilet lid, sat, hoping the cooling porcelain might work. It did not…and he felt like that dancer who said that with nude ballet not everything stopped when the music did. He stood wrapped a towel around his waist but it wasn’t the perfect corset… course not.

On tip toes and pointedly, he leant over the wash basin and turned on the cold tap, swished the water around. Aahh! Too bloody cold. And still no effect. What had he got here? I’m giving instructions, like cool it, dick, but it’s got a mind of its own. Mine. Almost like it’s gotta mind of its own. But who rules here? Mind or matter? And does it matter just as long as it’s before I’m nineteen it’s win-win.

He wiped the condensation off the mirror above the sink, straightened his hair with both hands. Think, man. Anything. What, though? England? No…but, I can’t go out of here like this.

Behind him a tap on the door, and Mary entered asked with a little laugh if he was decent. Her reflection showed she too wore a white bath robe, tv soap commercial white, no heels but soft looking white slippers with pom-poms. From behind, she pushed up against him, her smiling reflection on his shoulder.

‘Combing my hair,’ he said as the strength of her perfume went to his head, easily undoing the work of the cold water.

‘Got a hair dryer in the bedroom, luv. Bring your drink.’ Left the door open.

The robe’s overlap provided a double thickness where it mattered most and as he followed her, he told himself there were to be no bits of business with the cord. No tripping up on this stage, life is not to imitate art. Some comedy’s okay but not farce. Sipping his scotch… ahh, better, and with as much élan as he could imitate, he slid like a lounge lizard across the landing and into her bedroom. Getting started, I’m getting started! Pent up and temporarily penned in simultaneously.

Chapter 5

It was dark except for around the dressing table its upright oblong mirror surrounded at intervals by bare white bulbs, like those in theatre dressing rooms. Mary stood close by the bed, barely lit by the street light through the closed curtains of a bay window. Drink in hand, a comb in the other and used to indicate he had to sit on the stool by the dressing table. He did, quickly sipped his scotch, thinking, what next?

She came around the bed, stood behind switched on her hair dryer, aimed it at his hair.

‘I was just wondering how I should comb it.’ Deftly parting his hair down the middle.

He protested, ‘No way!’ at her Brylcreem Boys style.

She laughed. ‘Or like this, then.’ Like her late father’s off-centre parting with stiffly plastered waves to left and right.

He scowled. ‘Aw come on, Mary.’ Realised that was the first time he’d used her first name. No longer Miss Miller office style, then.

She started again, ruffled his hair and began combing front to back from his widow’s peak, streamlined his hair like an Olympic cyclist’s helmet.

Oh man, he was loving this. Not because of what she was doing with his hair, could easily recomb how he wanted it, but at the press of her body forever bumping against his back and neck. He made a mental note to only go to ladies’ hairdressers in future, for that body buzz alone.

He saw in the mirror, she was concentrating on her work and no chance now of containment under the dressing table. It was going to happen. Man oh man, it was going to happen! Behind them was the double bed, sheets drawn back, and in between Mary, his older woman. ‘Bouffant, sil vous plait, madame.’

‘Don’t you madam, me, young sir. This is a respectable house.’ Laughed and studied his reflection. ‘Italian styles are in fashion.’ Nodded to their reflections. ‘I think I can see you now. A made to measure very dark blue three piece suit, sixteen inch bottoms, no turn-ups, shiny black winkle pickers…’ Tapped him on the head with her comb. ‘Call you my Romeo.’ Turned off the hair drier, for the moment, looked at his face, in the mirror, wished she were twenty years younger and ready to fall in love.

He saw her look, wondered what she was thinking, heard her sigh, akin to ‘back to work’, as she switched on the drier.

‘What is it?’ Interested as it was about him.

‘Not Romeo… my Bobby Dazzler.’ Faffed and combed some more until she was happy. ‘Say something in Italian.’

He chose two song titles. ‘Volare? Ciao ciao bambino?’ Showed a full set of gleaming teeth, posing, dazzling to suit her description. But what was she wearing under her robe?

‘No, not goodbye.’ Switched off the drier while leaning forward to place it on the dressing table.

He was given only a brief glimpse down deep inside her robe where he wanted to be, as in the same movement she switched out the lights. ‘Finished, lovely boy.’ Taking his head in her hands and kissing his scalp.

He arose, stood, loosened his robe, let it fall, as he turned to where she waited, similarly disrobed. They kissed and hugged, caressed and explored, in a naked embrace.

She’d wondered at times if it would ever happen again, and of course it could if she wished to get entangled with many a married man at the office. No. Messy, and she knew the outcome…she’d lose out. She chose this young man. Youthful, slim, spare, his skinniness gone, and a reminder of those young men of her youth. Admitting to thirty five, she was well aware she was thirty nine, near tearful at times, as she recalled the loss of a generation of young men like Bobby. Her figure had grown comfortable over the years, though she squeezed it into tight fitting clothes, wore high heels, for the effect alone. In the forties, those long dead youths had drooled over her looks, compared her to Lana Turner, called her cheesecake, proposed marriage, stuck snaps of her in a bathing costume on their lockers. There’d been so many wanting to marry her. What a time that was. Could easily have been widowed more than once.

She’d arranged everything so that Bobby would see her in her best light. She could not have born it if even the minutest flicker of distaste crossed his face. To be beautiful again, desirable, so that he wanted her with the same intensity of those young airmen from her past, implied careful attention to time and place, and the mood she created.

He was urging her to fall on to the bed. She would but not in the way he wished, not yet. She knew he had a steady girl, thought it unlikely they ever got to where she was with him now. If she allowed him to have her now, it would be over… over and too soon, a quickie for him but not what she wanted after so long. He flopped on the bed, tried to pull her down next to him. Holding hands across a divide of desires, she went with, felt past his knees, took hold of him. His gasp told her that he was more than ready and he sat up with elastic ease, a move she with her fuller figure envied. She pushed him back, away, firmly but gently. ‘Lay back. My treat.’ Her last word before bowing her head to pluck his cherry from his tree.

He protested but what did he know, he was putty in her hands. She clung to her self-imposed task and weakly willingly he gave way to the love on offer from her, in her bed. At last, at last. Getting started, Bunny.

She rolled off the bed and hurried into the bathroom.

Chapter 6

He turned over on to his back, tumescence stilled. Done it. A first. He stretched an X akimbo. Yes, yes, yes, done it, fingered his prick as though it were a trophy for which he had competed for and won. He’d finally done it. Somewhere in the back of his head a small voice disagreed not quite yet you haven’t, my lad. Was ignored by the champion celebrating his trophy win, albeit deflating by the moment.

In the bathroom, Mary dealt practically with what could not be called an immaculate conception. She gargled, cleaned her teeth thoroughly, rinsed with mouthwash, looked at her reflection, unsaid, bloody hell, the things we do… straightened her hair, made herself ready to re-enter, thinking now me. She opened the door slowly allowed the light from behind to give her an aura and lightly on her toes entered through the open door with what she felt was impossibly entrancing, whispered huskily, ‘I’m back.’ Closed the door on the light.

She rolled on beside him and he moved from being outstretched in wonder, to tucked up, she beside in the crook of his arm. His lady, to be hugged and kissed… her face, her neck, find a breast, oh man.

She nibbled under his chin, slid her hand across his flat stomach to make him ready again.

In his head the bawdy song of the ex-military lads.

’And this is number one and we’ve only just begun

roll me over lay me down and do it again

roll me over in the clover,

roll me over lay me down and do it again.’

And he did, finally, after much encouragement from Mary’s ever loving arms. A final with extra time still to come.

Through the curtains the street lights filtered sufficient light for him to make out her shape. Like him she lay on her back, between him and the light and like him breathing easier now, as they quietly went over their previous. ‘Thank you, Mary, thank you.’ Way, way over the top, had he known it at the time.

She turned on to her side to try and see something in his face, caught only his profile. To be thanked by a man, that was unusual. It did sound heartfelt, genuine. He was not the best she’d had, guessed it was probably his first so he had an excuse. She kissed his cheek in lieu of her thank you.

‘I feel like, you know, like my whole life has just started. Finally.’ Sighing.

Ah, guessed right then. That sounded sincere. ‘That’s good.’ Then remembering there was a mutton hot pot slowly drying up in the oven, she stroked his face. ‘Now, my spare tender young swain, there is a mutton hot pot downstairs—’

‘What do you mean spare?’ Huffily.

She laughed. ‘I mean that unlike my mutton, there’s not an ounce of fat on you.’ And while squeezing his upper arm realized that mutton could be misconstrued.

He turned on his side and held her breast. ‘Do we have to…?’

She laughed. ‘A girl has to keep her strength up.’ Rolled off the bed, found her gown and went downstairs.

He sat up. Joe Lambton would have been sitting up too, smoking a cigarette, planning ahead. Too right he would. Yeah, but what now he’d got the girl? How to get on in the world, of course, given his newly acquired status. Ticked having an affair with an older woman, great. So next is to get the rich powerful man’s daughter in the pudding club. Okay. That needs