At the door the woman paused and looked back at him. 'It is not nice vot you vill see,' she said thickly. 'Three veeks viz ze central heating turned up high and ze refrigerator door open iz not nice. But then you will know about deliquescence, the liquefaction that takes place when…'
Purefoy had gone ashen and he was sweating profusely. 'For God's sake, get it over with,' he squeaked. The sound of sobbing was clearly audible now. The woman opened the door with a flourish and pushed Purefoy Osbert into the room. Mrs Ndhlovo was lying on the bed with a handkerchief pushed into her mouth, and she was red in the face with tears running down her cheeks and with her knees doubled up in a spasm. For a moment Purefoy gaped at her and a surge of relief swept over him. It was a brief moment. There was absolutely nothing the matter with her. It was simply that she was howling with laughter.
With a final spasm she rolled off the bed and took the handkerchief out of her mouth. 'Oh Purefoy,' she said weakly, 'you were delicious.'
But Purefoy Osbert hardly heard her. The other woman was doubled up with laughter too. In blind fury he pushed past her and out of the flat and was presently striding angrily down the street. He had had Mrs Ndhlovo and Kloone University and the whole damned lot. They could stuff themselves for all he cared. Without even bothering to collect his papers from the University he made for the car park and began the long drive back to Cambridge. And as he drove he composed in his mind a letter that would say exactly how he now felt about Mrs Bloody Ndhlovo.
Behind him in the apartment the woman he had thought of as Mrs Ndhlovo, and who had insisted on being called by that name, looked up from the red roses still lying on the floor and said sadly to her sister, 'We seem to have gone too far this time. Poor Purefoy. I suppose he's never going to forgive me. And you have to admit that he did face the facts terribly well.'
'If he's really in love with you, he'll get over it,' said her sister. And he has to have, a sense of humour somewhere or he wouldn't be worth marrying anyway.'
'It's not going to be easy to explain,' Ingrid said. 'Oh dear. How the past comes back to haunt us.'
27
Getting hold of a black woman who was prepared to do what General Sir Cathcart D'Eath wanted done to Purefoy Osbert was proving harder than he had expected. His contacts in the SAS had not been able to help him at all. 'Financial cuts,' he was told. 'Half our chaps are on secondment somewhere or helping the Americans out. We're practically becoming a self-financing service. Bloody diabolical state of affairs. Sorry not to be of any use but there it is. Recruitment is down to nearly zero.' As a result the Zulu woman had been made redundant and had gone back to South Africa to stiffen up the new Defence Force there, and none of the General's chums in London was able to suggest an alternative. In the end he was forced to make do with a hefty white woman from Thetford whom one of his stable boys recommended as being hot stuff and not particular.
The General, inspecting her across the bar of the pub in which she worked, could see what he meant. She was an elderly peroxide blonde well past her sell-by date whose best days had been in the Sixties and Seventies when the American airbases had been at their busiest and she'd had ever so much fun with the boys at Mildenhall and Alconbury and all, know what I mean? The General thought he did, and arranged for her to come to the safe house opposite the Botanical Gardens he kept for his own peculiar practices. Surrounded by offices and occupied on the ground floor during the day by a firm of architects, it was virtually indistinguishable from all the other buildings in the street and had the added advantage of being approachable through a garage in a lane at the back. Here in a pink and padded bedroom the General discussed the choice of costume and the scenario he had in mind for her. 'He's quite a young man,' he said, conscious that he wasn't sure how old Dr Osbert was.
Myrtle Ransby said she liked young men too. She also liked older men. 'More experienced like, know what I mean?'
The General preferred not to. His diverse tastes did not run to anyone quite as ripe as Myrtle. He preferred to concentrate on Purefoy Osbert's supposed preferences. In the next room behind the mirror Sir Cathcart's attractive secretary had already sighted the video camera and arranged the sound. 'The thing is,' he continued, 'he's spent a long time in Africa, in fact he is South African and he is both attracted to and terrified of black women. The point of this therapy is to prove to him that colour is completely irrelevant…'
'It isn't,' said Myrtle, but the look in the General's eyes silenced her.
'In other words we are all exactly the same under the skin which is why you are to wear this…er, confection.' Sir Cathcart indicated a black latex costume on a chair. 'It will lessen the need for you to black up and help to contain your charms which, you must admit, you do have in abundance.'
'Ooh, you are awful, General, you are and all,' said Myrtle Ransby.
Sir Cathcart confined himself to dubious compliments. Awful was not the way he would have described Myrtle Ransby. Time and the ravages of long tempestuous nights and alcohol had told on her. She was infinitely worse than awful. Her hairstyle was particularly affecting.
'I don't see how you're going to get me into the rubber hood and it still look natural,' she said. 'I mean it's going to spoil my en bouffant, know what I mean?'
'There is that,' said the General, beginning to wonder if he would ever feel quite the same about black latex. Certainly the suit would never fit the smaller women he preferred, and there was no doubt in his mind that Dr Osbert would find his sexual perspectives fundamentally altered. Then again, naked and white, Myrtle might well send him clean off his trolley.
Behind the screen he had insisted she use to change, Myrtle was struggling. 'It's ever so difficult to get into,' she called out. 'You sure this wasn't made for a much smaller girl? I mean I've got my proportions and all.'
'You have indeed, my dear,' said Sir Cathcart, 'and very lovely they are too.'
Ten minutes later Myrtle appeared round the screen and fulfilled his worst expectations. Wrinkled pink skin was apparent through the slits where her nipples were supposed to be. They were evidently squashed up over her shoulders. 'It's because I had to pull it up from below,' she explained breathlessly. "They're all squeezed up. Now if you was to put your finger through and sort of hook it round you could pull them down so that they poked out proper.'
The General gritted his teeth and did what she suggested. It wasn't pleasant, and Myrtle made it no easier by pressing herself urgently against him and murmuring what a lovely man he was. But in the end her enormous teats bulged through the slits and behind them her breasts assumed a more orthodox if knobbly appearance. The only trouble was that the nipples were not black ones.
'We'll just have to dye them,' said the General. 'Can't see any other way round it.'
'You can't dye my eyes, dearie. What are you going to do about them?'
The General considered the problem for a moment. 'The best thing would be if you didn't look at him too closely. The hood will help and we'll keep the lights down low. Besides, I daresay his attention will be focused on other parts of you which will be much nearer to him.'
Myrtle giggled. 'Ooh, fancy that,' she said. 'You want me to give him the old cough medicine, do you?'
'Cough medicine? I don't quite follow.'
'The cunning linctus, you know. Some fellatios like it, know what I mean?'
'Yes, yes, absolutely,' said Sir Cathcart with a shudder, 'though I can assure you that it's not my cup of tea.'
'Ooh, you are awful, General. Fancy thinking of that too. Do you think he'd like a nice-'
'I'm sure he'd find it delightful, but I think we'll give it a miss all the same Now then the game plan is this-'
'I've got to go wee-wee,' said Myrtle. "This costume is ever so tight and my-'