THE HENS WOULD LAY OMELETTES
He found Zoë on the terrace. She was wearing a white silk blouse and grey linen slacks with blood-red slippers and she was feeding the peacocks. The scene looked like a bad cover for Vogue. “Had a good week?” he asked.
“Perfectly frightful. Yours?”
“Frightfully perfect. Right now the Vulcan’s in the hangar with a sick whatsit and so the crew’s been stood down. I’m completely at your mercy for the next forty-eight hours. As the actress said to the bishop: ‘Scream your loudest, my pretty one, nobody can hear you here.’ Or I hope not.”
“Let’s go to Cambridge,” Zoë said. “I want to punt on the river.”
“Punt. Well, it’s not what I was thinking of. But if you really want to…”
“I’ve been dreaming of it all week. It’ll be heavenly.”
They stopped halfway for lunch and reached Cambridge early in the afternoon. Silk found the boatyard. There was a long queue of undergraduates. The sun was hot and the queue was not moving. “This won’t be heavenly,” he said. “This looks hellish. Bloody students. Why aren’t they at work?”
“I’ll go and investigate. You park the car, darling.”
When he came back, she was at the boathouse jetty, talking to a man whose foot was hooked over the side of a punt to stop it drifting away. “Such a pleasure,” she said, and flashed a smile as she tipped him. She stepped into the punt. The man handed Silk a pole, and glanced at the tip: a pound note: half a day’s pay. “Pleasure’s all mine, sir,” he said. “Remember, give it a twist so it don’t stick in the mud.”
As Silk poled away, there were angry mutterings from the queue, some whistling and stamping. He concentrated on his punting. It was not like flying a Vulcan. The boat yawed horribly until he learned to trail the pole and use it as a rudder. They reached King’s College backs before he felt confident enough to let the punt drift alongside the bank and come to rest. “You bribed them,” he said.
“Certainly not. I told them we’d driven all the way from Lincoln, and you were a double DFC, and they were awfully decent about it.”
“What bollocks. How much?”
“Twenty quid.”
“Bloody hell, Zoë. You could buy a punt for that.”
“Actually, I think I did.” The punt had plenty of cushions, and she was stretched out on them. Her straw hat was tilted forward to keep the sun out of her eyes. Her hands were linked behind her head, and this lifted her breasts in a way that made him breathe deeply and blink hard. “Hullo,” she said. “You want sex.”
“Christ… Am I so obvious?”
“Not your fault, Silko. I’m definitely not complaining. Come on, let’s do it. Here and now.”
Silk looked up and down the river. “I can count a dozen punts, and a hundred people walking by.”
“All of them English. They’ll be more embarrassed than we will. They’ll look the other way and talk loudly. Come and join me, Silko. Let’s make whoopee.”
The straw hat shadowed her eyes, but her mouth was smiling. “You’re serious,” he said.
“Well, sex is a serious business. The future of mankind depends on it. Not to mention the fate of nations.”
He sat down. “You’d risk your reputation for the sake of a quick shag in a punt.”
“It needn’t be quick. Take a chance, old sport. Live dangerously for once.”
He leaned back, resting on his arms. He looked at the sky and tried to picture the scene. Both stark naked? No. But their clothing would be dishevelled, at the very least. The punt would rock, perhaps rather a lot, and make waves. Passing students would applaud. Someone would have a camera… “I live dangerously seven days a week,” he said.
“No, you don’t. You’re up at sixty thousand feet, with your enormous bomb. We’re the ones living dangerously, down below.”
“That’s the fate of nations.” His words sounded cheap. “Anyway, outdoor intercourse would certainly get me kicked out of Bomber Command, and you wouldn’t like that. I’d end up lord of the manor, pissed as a fart by breakfast, rogering the chambermaids, shooting the poachers from the clock tower. Might upset your guests.”
“No poachers to shoot. Nothing on the estate to poach.”
“Then I’ll hire some bloody poachers.” Silk stood up and eased the punt away from the bank. “I’ll hire dozens of the buggers, all poaching like fury around the clock, and all paid top whack with a Christmas bonus to boot. We can afford it, can’t we?”
“Heavens, yes.” Zoë sounded sleepy. “I think I must have married you for your bum, Silko. When you bend your knees like that, and tense your buttocks, they’re so shapely…”
“Really? The group captain said exactly the same thing, just the other day. So it must be true.”
Briefly, he considered adding something nice about Zoë. Whatever he said, it might cause sex to raise its foolish head, again, in this punt. Zoë was thinking too: thinking of mentioning other reasons why she married him. They were complicated. In the end, they both said nothing. Eventually they saw an undergraduate fall off his punt, still grasping his pole, stuck firmly in the riverbed. He made a large splash. “Crashed in flames,” Zoë said. “Damned poor show.” That made Silk laugh. From then on, the afternoon went happily. When it finished, Zoë donated the punt to a young couple. “Gosh, thanks,” they said.
They drove home at no great speed. The evening sky put on a five-star performance. “Look,” Zoë said. “Old gold, baby blue and shocking pink. God must be holding a clearance sale. Turn left here, Silko.”
He slowed. “It’s just a lane.”
“It’ll take us to a nice old pub. You’ll like it.”
The lane was flanked by thick hedges; they made a green tunnel. The car hit a pothole. “What a shocker,” he said. “Take a letter to my MP, Miss Smith. No, hang on, you are my MP. Can’t you do something to –”
“No, I can’t. Look out: horses.”
He stopped to let the riders go by. A girl smiled down. “Good God,” he said. “She looks just like Laura.”
“Rubbish. Laura’s a brunette.”
“Really? I remember her as sort of blondeish.”
“You’re a man, Silko. You don’t know mauve from mashed potato.” He grunted a denial. “Okay: tell me what I’m wearing,” she said. “Don’t look. Speak up. What colours?”
The riders had passed. “You can’t expect me to drive and think,” he said. “Besides, I haven’t seen Laura for years. I bet she was blonde once.” They argued amiably for a while: familiar phrases, comfortable attitudes. “Why doesn’t she come over and see you?” Silk asked.
“If she wants to, she will.”
“I could see her. The squadron sends a Vulcan to the States now and then. I could easily pop over to Radcliffe.”
“No. Lousy idea.”
“Why? We could –”
“She’s in love, Silko. We talk on the phone, Laura and I. She’s thoroughly, happily, totally in love with some lucky fellah. Think back: when you were her age, would you sooner spend a day with someone young and wonderful, or with someone twice as old and half as funny?”
The sun was setting behind clouds and the lane became suddenly dark. Silk switched on his sidelights. “I can be funny,” he said. “I can –”