An utterly distrustful flutter of her lips passed for a smile. “Michael, I do believe you’re a romantic at heart. Of all the men I know, Lord Moggerhanger is the most honest and upright, and extremely generous.”
“How generous? Does he fuck you?” I knew she wasn’t averse to such an expression, though a further smile persuaded me to believe she spoke the truth: “He’s never laid a hand on me.”
Frances had told me that women often got randy in an empty house that was hardly ever empty, because she was tempted to masturbate, and occasionally did in such circumstances, which reflection led me to put my arms around Alice. “Where is everybody?”
“Wherever they are, one or another will be back soon enough.”
Maybe they wouldn’t, or if so she didn’t care, for there was no opposition to my kisses. “I love those warm little doves longing to be stroked, as I recall they did from our very satisfying encounter at Spleen Manor. I can’t help but remember your beautiful breasts.”
She didn’t answer, so perhaps believed me, on giving the kisses back with more interest than could be got on a Tessa account. My hand went gently and surreptitiously under her skirt, and far enough up to plink her suspenders undone, the silk knickers of a power dresser like oil to my fingers, loose enough to get into and trawl her cleft. Her shock of laughter was tinged with the aphrodisiac of panic. “You’ll have to be quick.”
She leaned against the wall, Moggerhanger’s speckled map above her dark hair and, speed being of the essence, I played her into coming, before cupping her narrow arse and floating in myself.
She took a kleenex from the desk drawer. “That was a lovely dessert, after my luncheon sandwich. Totally unexpected, though none the worse for that. Very yummy. Do you do that to every woman you meet?”
A red pin had dropped from the map during her transports and, peering at the inset plan of London, I stuck it in Buckingham Palace. “Not very often. I haven’t done it to anyone for at least six months. You’re irresistible.”
Like all women, and quite rightly, she expected kisses of appreciation after the act, so I drew her close and spread a few from neck to forehead. “That was so marvellous I never want to do it again with anybody else. You’ve been in my dreams more times than I can say in the last three years. With my wife I think about being in bed with you at Spleen Manor, so my hard on comes up soon after it’s gone down. In those comfortable hotels on the way to Athens, the route to which you paved with good advice and preparation, I laid hands on myself whenever you came to mind. It was that wonderful way your whole body writhes when you come, like just now. I’ll never forget it.”
Worldly she was, and sometimes hard with it, but she liked being talked into a lickerish mood. I remembered Kenny Dukes once accidentally, or maybe deliberately, putting a hand on her behind while following her into the office for his monthly pay cheque. She swung around with the face of a vixen and told him to soak his filthy hands in prussic acid before touching her. ‘I don’t want your black fingernails anywhere near me, you God-awful prick.’ Kenny might not have rated such a going over, but it wasn’t for me to pity someone who should have known that if you’re compelled to make a pass at a woman you should always try it from the front.
My eulogy of her performance went on long enough between kisses to get her worked up again, and both of us knew we were in for more pleasure, but she pulled away when her sharp hearing detected the squeak and bang of the main gate. “I hear him coming. See me at home. You know where I live.”
In the kitchen Mrs Blemish was unloading groceries into cupboards and fridges. “I’ve driven all the way from Athens,” I told her, “and I’m somewhat hungry.”
The tail of grey hair swaying over her shoulder completed the presence of a tall and dignified woman, who had troubles no one deserved. Her husband Percy had always been prone to nervous crack ups, and I recalled giving her a lift some years ago near Goole when she was running away from where they lived in deadly antipathy at Tinderbox Cottage, unable to tolerate his schizoid antics any longer. She was going to seek her fortune in London, and because I was on my way to Peppercorn Cottage I had to let her off near Doncaster, but gave her my address care of Moggerhanger’s in case she ever wanted help. When she did, and came to Ealing hoping to see me, Moggerhanger met her at the door, and was so taken by her that he set her on as his cook-housekeeper.
When Percy by some means tracked her down, and came into the kitchen intending to give her a good hiding for abandoning him, Moggerhanger, never one to mess about, knocked him down but, perhaps intrigued by his curious mental condition, gave him work as an odd job man and occasional caretaker of Peppercorn Cottage. Even I had to admit Mogg could be generous at times.
Mrs Blemish cooked three eggs, fried a thick slice of gammon whose smell reminded me of my Irish grandmother’s house as a kid, and put it on the table. As I ate, Moggerhanger walked by, followed by Toffee Bottle, Cottapilly and Pindary. “How are things these days, Mrs Blemish?” I asked when they had gone.
“They’re not good, Michael, but I don’t complain.”
Her mood could only have been caused by her friable and unpredictable husband. “Playing up again, is he?”
She disciplined her tremulous lips, and wiped away a tear before it could fall. It was wicked how a swine could ruin such a fine woman. Percy was sick in the head, and tormented her only so that he wouldn’t get worse, making her ill in the process.
“Lord Moggerhanger saw him about to have a turn the other day, and gave him a talking to. He sent him to Peppercorn Cottage for a week, with instructions to clean the place inside and out.”
I could think of no worse habitat for Percy Blemish, because it was falling apart and overrun with rats. After a couple of nights there I was surprised my hair hadn’t turned white, and Kenny Dukes twitched with horror at the mention of the place. Moggerhanger didn’t think badly of it because he’d lived in worse as a child, or so he said, but to send Percy to do such durance vile among the rats was at least unrealistic, as I told Mrs Blemish, though thinking that on the other hand maybe a mad person could only feel sane in such a place.
“Percy isn’t there,” she said. “That’s the truth of it. After a couple of nights he left the place with a rat in his pocket, and when the rat ran away he hitchhiked through the Midlands to Tinderbox Cottage. He swore terribly on the phone last night, saying that if I didn’t come up and look after him he would set the place on fire. He told me he had his lighter lit and a box of paper under the dining room table all ready, and that I had to promise to go straightaway, or else. But Lord Moggerhanger wouldn’t give me leave, and I didn’t want to go in any case, though my heart was breaking. I don’t know what to do.”
I poured another cup of tea. “Let’s look on the bright side, and hope that if he does set the cottage alight he won’t get out. You’ll be shut of him then.”
I felt rotten straight after saying this, but she said: “The thought occurred to me, and I didn’t sleep all last night from feeling guilty.”
I squeezed her hand. “He thrives on terrorising you. I’d go up there myself, except I think I’m going to be busy for a while. And because I can’t fetch him he’s got me feeling guilty as well, though I’m the sort who wouldn’t put up with it even from my own brother, if I had one. I only feel guilty when I’ve done something wrong to somebody I love, and not because somebody else has done wrong. That’s how you should think of it, Mrs Blemish.”