Excellent fuck, Cynth, but she went a bit funny afterwards with all this ‘hold me, Michael’ stuff. Birds are like nosh-ups, have a big one and you’re satiated. Don’t wanna go near one again for a bit, do ya? Basic psychology, but something skirt never get. She went a bit frosty, and I was trying to get some bleedin kip in for the next morning’s flight to Gatwick, so we ends up rowin. She only tears off into the night, but, well, for me it’s mission accomplished, innit. I reckoned that with a seeing-to like that she was well bound to be back. Sure as night follows day.
And I wasn’t wrong. True what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder, and the ravine wider. There’s no mention of the previous argy-bargy and she’s all over me like a cheap suit tonight, asking me about bleeding Walton-on-Thames. — Great town, I tell her. — Whenever I leave I always keep a little bit of Walton in me. What about you?
— I’m from Faversham, she says, — you know that…
— Well then, I say, how’d you like a little bit of Walton in you?
She punches me in the chest but she’s looking around making sure the coast is clear and she whispers, — Your place at midnight?
— I shall be waiting, I say in my best MC tones.
Fair play to Cynth; she don’t keep me too long, once I turf em all out and lock up. She double-backs and I hear a familiar knock on the door from the back staircase. I let her in, then we’re on the couch ripping each other’s clothes off like teenagers and all that flab’s flying all over the place, and I’m on her in a sweaty hump and she’s off like an alarm clock n all.
Jesus fack almighty!
The next day at least the bleedin rains have eased off a bit but the weekend hangovers have kicked in ever so bad. Cynth couldn’t stay, told her old man she was playing cards with her mates and cleared off early. I don’t lie around in bed too long. I’m up and strolling through town to pick up some nice fish, fresh off the boat, then phoning Trees-the-ex back in Walton-on-Thames. Before you can say Jimmy Pursey the dopey cow only goes and tells me that she thinks it would be a good idea to send our Emily over for some of the school holidays, which translates as ‘I’m knocking off some geezer and I want her out from under my bleedin feet’.
Thanks a farking bundle, you filthy old trout.
Puts me in a right shit frame of mind, that does. Still, you got to keep thinking: calmness and serenity. So I gets in the motor and takes a trip down to the Kraut side of the island using the FV1 coastal route and bypassing that farking dump Puerto del Rosario. As you get onto the FV20 and head south to Gran Tarajal it could be a different world. It’s the best-looking bit of the island by far, and the portion which the old Squareheads have thoughtfully commandeered for themselves. Makes you wonder who won the farking war. I park up outside a boozer I occasionally use and poke my head round the door but it’s dead. There’s this waitress who works in a restaurant I like down here, but it don’t look like she’s in today. No worries: they’ve a nice bit of grilled lemon sole on.
A bit of tucker sets me up and when I get back for the evening shift Rodj is already in, and Cynth ain’t far behind. — How’s it goin with Marce? I ask him discreetly.
— Nuffink’s going on, he shakes his head angrily, which means it most certainly is. No need for the cunt to get all bleedin narky; it ain’t as if they’ve exactly been discreet about the whole thing!
I clock a couple of dodgy-looking geezers standing at the bar. One’s a big burly fucker with a crew cut, wearing light-reflective glasses. The other’s a weaselly little cunt with shifty eyes and greasy hair, slicked back. He’s dripping with tom; two earrings, at least two gold chains round his neck, bracelets on his wrist and sovereign rings on nearly every finger. Farking little tart. But it wasn’t so much how they looked as what they were saying that got me interested. You got to watch putting your nose in but I got intrigued and found out that by hiding behind the gingham curtain which drapes at the side of the small public bar, pretending to be looking at the books, I can hear every bleedin word they say. Meantime, the cunts think I’m in the back shop! So here I am, fiddling away, but getting a proper earful.
—… but there’s a few around here she’s going to have to sack if she’s gonna go all the way to the top. Baggage and such. I mean, I ain’t naming no names but that gel’s got star potential and I’d be loath to have it undermined through some dodgy associations… it sounds like the weaselly cunt with the gold is saying.
— You’re thinking of Graham, I take it? the big cropped-haired bastard says. His voice is gravelly, like a villain on The Bill.
The other cunt has a high, nasal, snidey tone: — Like I said, I ain’t naming no names, but if the cap fits…
— You got to save her from herself, Trev.
— Well, we’re gonna have to sit down togevah, just the two of us over a nice meal, bottle of wine, and have a serious little chat…
— Serious chat…
— A serious chat about her future, cause I’d hate to see her blow it. But what she needs is a little discipline, a firm hand. Otherwise she’s gonna throw it all away.
— Cruel to be kind, Trev.
— Exactly, Chris. Tough love I believe is what they call it nowadays. And if that Graham was to just somehow disappear it would make my job a great deal easier.
There’s a silence as the big brick-shithouse geezer goes, — Disappear… let’s be clear about this, Trev. Disappear from her life or disappear for good?
The other cunt’s voice goes low. I think he says, — Whatever it takes.
— If he did vanish off the scene, she’d be very upset.
— In the short term, Chris, in the short term. But she’d get over it. Course, she’d need a shoulder to cry on.
Then Cynth comes through and shouts something, whipping the curtain away, dozy farking cow, which is so farking mortifying as them geezers see me standing up from behind the bar. They look daggers at me giving me that ‘how much have you heard’ thing, but I just keep staring at the ledger in my hand, worrying that my cheeks are flushing. — Yes, my lovely? I say as distractedly as I can.
— We need some San Miguels and Coronas up here right now.
— Where’s Rodj? I ask, as if I don’t know.
— He nipped out for a moment.
A wooing, no doubt, the cahnt. — Bleedin hell, gel, can’t it wait? I’m engrossed in those books. Totally engrossed, I turn to the geezers at the bar. — Got to do everything around here, I shake my head and smile, and the big cunt gives me a tight grin back, but the weaselly geezer’s eyes are all black pools.
I drop the books and head downstairs, cursing that fat, stupid blundering cow.
Farking villains. Never did like the cunts, even back home. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve pulled a few strokes myself now and again, but I don’t get off on all that gangster bollocks. Most of those cunts are just fucking bullies and you’re the mug who’s got to listen to their bullshit and laugh in all the right places. Wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so farking boring most of the time. Yeah, some of these geezers are genuinely witty, but most of them’s peddling the same farking shit you’ve heard a million times before.
Eventually, the cunts drink up and leave. The greasy little fucker with the gold gives me a long, slow, hard nod and I’m paranoid all bleedin day, in me own farking place.
At night it’s a better atmosphere in the pub and I lock Vince, Bert and myself in for a card school. Funny to think that by keeping Bert here right now, I’m probably assisting Rodj in his quest to nail his missus. Mixed feelings about that one. Vince is a decent sort, from Manchester, or near there. Rents out properties here on the island. Dodgy as, never seems to do anything, always away on little trips, but generally has a horsechoker of a wad in his pocket. Bertie runs a sporting-goods shop but if you ask me it’s been bought with funny money. He’s a shifty little git, and every time some new face comes in the boozer he seems to get a bit antsy.