I guide Billy to the Flounder’s beach hut. Hut — this place is bigger than Ma’s flat. We push against the back door and we’re in the large living room. Billy and I dance about and chuck open the shutters. Enter moonlight and the beach as Billy continues his Dad rap.
‘Pop asked me to drill some holes in the kitchen. But I had to empty the wheelbarrow. So he did the drilling. He hit a cable or something. Anyway, he’s dead, isn’t he?’
We kiss for a long time, about forty minutes. There’s not a lot you can do in kissing; half an hour of someone’s tongue in your mouth could seem an eternity, but what there is to do, we do. I take off all my clothes and listen to the sea and almost cry for missing South Africa Road so. But at least there is the light friction of our lips together, barely touching. Harder. I pull the strong bulk of his head towards mine, pressing my tongue to the corner of his mouth. Soon I pass through the mouth’s parting to trace the inside curve of his lips. Suddenly his tongue fills my mouth, invading me, and I clench it with my teeth. Oh, oh, oh. As he withdraws I follow him, sliding my tongue into the oven of his gob and lie there on the bench by the open shutters overlooking the Arabian Sea, connected by tongue and saliva, my fingers in his ears and hair, his finger inside my body, our bodies dissolving until we forget ourselves and think of nothing, thank fuck.
*
It’s still dark and no more than ninety minutes have passed, when I hear a car pulling up outside the hut. I shake Billy awake, push him off me and pull him across the hut and into the kitchen. The fucking door’s warped and won’t shut so we just lie down on the floor next to each other. I clam Billy up with my hand over his gob. There’s a shit smell right next to my nose. I start to giggle. I stuff Billy’s fingers into my mouth. He’s laughing all over the place too. But we shut up sharpish when a couple come into the hut and start to move around. For some reason I imagine we’re going to be shot.
The man says: ‘Curious, indeed. My sister must have left the shutters open last time she came here.’
The other person says it’s lovely, the moonlight and so on. Then there’s no talking. I can’t see a sausage but my ears are at full stretch. Yes, kissing noises.
Nadia says: ‘Here’s the condoms, Bubble!’
My sister and the Flounder! Well. The Flounder lights a lantern. Yes, there they are now, I can see them: she’s trying to pull his long shirt over his head, and he’s resisting.
‘Just my bottoms!’ he squeals. ‘My stomach! Oh, my God!’
I’m not surprised he’s ashamed, looking in this low light at the size of the balcony over his toy shop.
I hear my name. Nadia starts to tell the Flounder — or ‘Bubble’ as she keeps calling him — how the Family Planning in London gave me condoms. The Flounder’s clucking with disapproval and lying on the bench by the window looking like a hippo, with my sister squatting over his guts, rising and sitting, sighing and exclaiming sometimes, almost in surprise. They chat away quite naturally, fucking and gossiping and the Flounder talks about me. Am I promiscuous, he wants to know. Do I do it with just anyone? How is my father going to discipline me now he’s got his hands on me? Billy shifts about. He could easily be believing this shit. I wish I had some paper and a pen to write him a note. I kiss him gently instead. When I kiss him I get a renewal of this strange sensation that I’ve never felt before today: I feel it’s Billy I’m kissing, not just his lips or body, but some inside thing, as if his skin is just a representative of all of him, his past and his blood. Amour has never been this personal for me before!
Nadia and the Flounder are getting hotter. She keeps asking Bubble why they can’t do this every day. He says, yes, yes, yes, and won’t you tickle my balls? I wonder how she’ll find them. Then the Flounder shudders and Nadia, moving in rhythm like someone doing a slow dance, has to stop. ‘Bubble!’ she says and slaps him, as if he’s a naughty child that’s just thrown up. A long fart escapes Bubble’s behind. ‘Oh, Bubble,’ she says, and falls on to him, holding him closer.
Soon he is asleep. Nadia unstraddles him and moves to a chair and has a little cry as she sits looking at him. She only wants to be held and kissed and touched. I feel like going to her myself.
*
When I wake up it’s daylight and they’re sitting there together, talking about their favourite subject. The Flounder is smoking and she is trying to masturbate him.
‘So why did she come here with you?’ he is asking. Billy opens his eyes and doesn’t know where he is. Then he sighs. I agree with him. What a place to be, what a thing to be doing! (But then, come to think of it, you always find me in the kitchen at parties.)
‘Nina just asked me one day at breakfast. I had no choice and this man, Howard —’
‘Yes, yes,’ the Flounder laughs. ‘You said he was handsome.’
‘I only said he had nice hair,’ she says.
But I’m in sympathy with the Flounder here, finding this compliment a little gratuitous. The Flounder gets up. He’s ready to go.
And so is Billy. ‘I can’t stand much more of this,’ he says. Nadia suddenly jerks her head towards us. For a moment I think she’s seen us. But the Flounder distracts her.
I hear the tinkle of the car keys and the Flounder says: ‘Here, put your panties on. Wouldn’t want to leave your panties here on the floor. But let me kiss them first! I kiss them!’
There are sucky kissing noises. Billy is twitching badly and drumming his heels on the floor. Nadia looks at the Flounder with his face buried in a handful of white cotton.
‘And,’ he says with a muffled voice, ‘I’m getting lead in my pencil again, Nadia. Let us lie down, my pretty one.’
The Flounder takes her hand enthusiastically and jerks it towards his ding-dong. She smacks him away. She’s not looking too pleased.
‘I’ve got my pants on, you bloody fool!’ Nadia says harshly. ‘That pair of knickers you’ve sunk your nose in must belong to another woman you’ve had here!’
‘What! But I’ve had no other woman here!’ The Flounder glares at her furiously. He examines the panties, as if hoping to find a name inside. ‘Marks & Spencers. How strange. I feel sick now.’
‘Marks & Spencers! Fuck this!’ says Billy, forcing my hands off his face. ‘My arms and legs are going to fucking drop off in a minute!’
So up gets Billy. He combs his hair and turns up the collar of his shirt and then strolls into the living room singing a couple of choruses from The The. I get up and follow him, just in time to see Nadia open her mouth and let off a huge scream at the sight of us. The Flounder, who has no bottoms on, gives a frightened yelp and drops my pants which I pick up and, quite naturally, put on. I’m calm and completely resigned to the worst. Anyway, I’ve got my arm round Billy.
‘Hi, everyone,’ Billy says. ‘We were just asleep in the other room. Don’t worry, we didn’t hear anything, not about the condoms or Nina’s character or the panties or anything. Not a thing. How about a cup of tea or something?’
*
I get off Billy’s bike midday. ‘Baby,’ he says.
‘Happy,’ I say, wearing his checked shirt, tail out. Across the lawn with its sprinkler I set off for Dad’s club, a sun-loved white palace set in flowers.
White-uniformed bearers humble as undertakers set down trays of foaming yogurt. I could do with a proper drink myself. Colonels with generals and ladies with perms, fans and crossed legs sit in cane chairs. I wish I’d slept more.
The old man. There you are, blazer and slacks, turning the pages of The Times on an oak lectern overlooking the gardens. You look up. Well, well, well, say your eyes, not a dull day now. Her to play with.