‘Let’s go to bed.’
‘We can’t. Ay’ve never been to bed with anyone but Larry, and he says Ay fuck laike a dead… ’ Marigold gave a wail.
‘Hush, just regard it as a superior form of work-out.’
People are said never to remember how they get upstairs to the bedroom’ but it was imprinted on Marigold’s memory, because Lysander kissed her on every stair, but still half her mind was fretting about stretch marks and whether her body would be creased by such tight jeans and, although she’d had a bath two hours ago, whether she should wash again, so she wouldn’t smell of mouldy old woman. As they reached the landing, she nearly led him into the airing cupboard.
‘No, not in our bedroom,’ she squeaked with a resurgence of virtue, ‘and certainly not in there,’ as Lysander tried another door. ‘That’s where I caught Larry and Nikki.’
‘Good, I can lay you and the ghost.’
‘But the central heating’s been off for days.’
Lysander’s body was warmer than any radiator as he drew her close, and slowly began to unbutton her navy-blue cardigan.
‘Turn off the laight,’ moaned Marigold as she shot between the peach satin sheets.
‘I want to look at you,’ said Lysander.
In the end they compromised by leaving the light on on Lysander’s side with the lampshade tipped outwards.
‘God, I love snogging. Let’s go on for hours.’
And Marigold, who hadn’t snogged since the Purley Odeon in the sixties, responded with alacrity.
Then with the joyful excitement of a child unpacking a Christmas stocking he began to explore her body.
‘Christ, these are beautiful.’ He buried his face in her heavy breasts. ‘And do you like being stroked here?’ He turned her over to admire her surprisingly high rounded bottom. ‘This is my favourite bit.’ His hands crept up the velvet inside of her thighs. ‘No, it isn’t quite. This is.’ His long fingers disappeared into the sticky, spongy burrow.
‘Aaaaaah,’ sighed Marigold.
‘Eureka,’ said Lysander as like a doorbell in the dark his middle finger found the nub of her clitoris.
‘Ay reek of what?’ Marigold jumped away in horror. She knew she should have washed beforehand.
‘The only Greek I know. Come here.’
‘Ay truly shouldn’t.’
‘Isn’t it nice?’
‘Heavenly, but we mustn’t, oh, please go on, oh, gracious me, how lovely, oh, help me, help me.’ Marigold went silent and rigid, her breath came in little gasps, and she forgot to hold her tummy in. Finally she gave a contented moan.
‘Oh Laysander, that was top ’ole.’
‘It certainly was.’ Opening her eyes, she saw he was smiling down at her. ‘Open your legs, and I’ll turn you to cream. Did you enjoy it?’
‘Oh, very much, and now Ay must give you pleasure.’
Dutifully Marigold reared up on her elbow. The progress of her hand down his flat belly into the down of hair was impeded by a cock rearing up like the Tower of Pisa.
‘May word.’
Marigold had never really liked Larry’s cock, which was rather small and, because he preferred to make love in the morning, she’d never known after a night’s sleep what was under the folds. She’d always treated it like an unexploded bomb.
But Lysander, having had a shower after their jog, smelled as fresh and sweet as the violets that had scented the valley that afternoon, and his cock tasting faintly of Pear’s soap was so hard and smooth beneath her lips that she began to give it puppy licks.
Used to Dolly’s snake-like flickering expertise, Lysander was curiously turned on. But when she grew bolder and tried to take his cock in her mouth he sensed her fear, and detaching himself slithered down the satin sheets, pulling her on top of him.
‘Oh, that’s wonderful,’ gasped Marigold, feeling gloriously thrust upward. ‘Oh Laysander, I’m flaying from your flagpole. Oh Laysander. LAY-SANDER!’
‘That was miraculous,’ said Lysander, retrieving the duvet from the floor, as he collapsed back on to the satin pillows.
‘You’re amazing, a complete revelation.’
‘Men are supposed to go on for hours, I never last more than a minute — if I’m lucky, so I make up for it beforehand.’
‘Ay should feel guilty.’
‘Why — we must have lost at least five hundred calories.’
Then, suddenly, he sat up, put the fist of one hand into the palm of the other, screwed up his face engagingly like Hermione, and sang in a high falsetto: ‘Blow the cock, southerly, southerly, southerly,’ and they both collapsed with giggles.
‘We mustn’t tell Ferdie,’ said Marigold.
‘No, he’d be livid,’ said Lysander in alarm. ‘He insisted no bonking.’
‘We won’t do it again.’
‘We might. If we use up another five hundred calories, we could get a take-away for supper.’
‘Oh, yes please.’
‘How about now.’
Marigold glanced at the clock in amazement. ‘But you’ll miss Neighbours.’
‘Some things are more important.’
‘Oh Laysander, that’s the greatest compliment Ay’ve ever been paid. Why don’t we phone Mrs Brimscombe and ask her to record it?’
11
This and subsequent glorious couplings cheered Marigold up immensely, particularly when her two sons came home from prep school for the weekend, and fell almost more in love with Lysander than she had. Not only did he play endless billiards and darts with them, and took them to the amusement arcades in Rutminster and to the stables to mess around with Arthur and Tiny, but he also initiated them into the more dubious pleasures of poker, chemmy and betting.
Jason’s shriek of delight when he won £120 on an each-way bet at Chepstow was only equalled by Mark’s quiet satisfaction that, by the end of the weekend, Lysander owed him £5,225 at poker.
Marigold was wryly aware that Lysander was far nearer to the boys in age and behaviour than he was to her. But she was overjoyed to see her sons emerge from pale monosyllabic shell-shock, no doubt induced as much by two terms at an English prep school as by the collapse of their parents’ marriage. She was also gratified that whenever the boys were absorbed with anything, Lysander sloped out to the kitchen for a surreptitious, but no less passionate, embrace. He couldn’t keep his hands off her.
She had lost a further seven pounds a week later when she got a telephone call on her private line. Knowing it could only be Larry, she was only just stopped by Lysander from snatching up the receiver on the first ring. The warmth of his hand over hers gave her strength.
‘Make him wait ten rings, and play it cool.’
Larry was telephoning to say he’d be in the area that evening, could he drop in for a very quick drink. Marigold was thrown into total panic.
‘We’d better ask Ferdie’s advice on this one,’ said Lysander.
Ferdie, bored of not selling houses in London and wanting to suss out properties in Paradise, said he would be straight down to orchestrate the whole thing.
Larry Lockton was a bully with a mega-ego and no small talk, who was used to ordering around thousands at work. Having lost weight, found a decent dentist and coaxed his coarse black hair forward to hide a receding hairline, he had developed sex appeal late in life. Huge success at work and a decent tailor had accelerated the process. When addressing his social superiors, he talked with an orchard of plums in his mouth.
Landing the helicopter, he saw a blur of yellow and purple. What the hell was Marigold doing spoiling his perfect lawn with crocuses? It would take ten grand off the asking price. He must remember to remove his gold discs, the Picasso, the Stubbs and the framed Beethoven sonata, before Marigold got too grasping over the spoils. Letting himself in, Larry was surprised not to be welcomed by Marigold. Only Patch greeted him, and then with reservation. Larry meant fewer chewsticks and banishment from her mistress’s bed at night. Going into the kitchen, he found a table with pink candles laid for two, pink freesias and hyacinths everywhere and two bottles of Moët in the fridge.