the East Coast Driving School twice and giving the impression that I love helping old ladies across the road and being kind to animals. Petal notices that my fly is undone but you can’t have everything and overall it must have gone well because for the rest of the week we are besieged with people wanting to learn to drive and one woman from Felixstowe who craves a lock of my hair—I send it to her, of course.
I continue to take Miss Frankcom and people nudge each other in the street as we go past. We are like a travelling advertisement for the E.C.D.S. With all this goodwill and public image flying about I am keen not to spoil it by kicking Sharp in the crutch but this does not change my resolve to get the bastard when the right moment comes along. In the meantime, there is Mrs. Dent to keep me occupied.
She is one of Garth’s pupils, and I can see why when I get a crack at her while he is taking a week’s holiday with his aunt under the shadow of the Brecon Beacons. She is a wispy blonde of about thirty who is constantly biting her lip and fingering her necklace when her hands aren’t creeping round the edge of the driving wheel. She chats to herself at moments of stress and is as mixed up as a kid’s fishing line. I remember birds like her from when I was cleaning windows and I am quick to check out her background as we spiral up towards the golf course.
“What kind of car does your husband drive?” I say conversationally.
“Some kind of Jag, I think. The latest saloon.”
“Has he ever taken you out in it?”
She laughs derisively. “You must be joking. I hardly ever see either of them. No—that’s a lie. I see them together on Saturday mornings when he’s cleaning the blasted thing. I’ve often wished I could get that much attention, but it’s difficult when you’re a woman.”
“He’s fond of the car, is he?” I say innocently.
“Fond of it!? If he had the choice between it and me and the kids I wouldn’t fancy our chances. That and his golf are the only things he cares about.”
For a girl with a soft face she comes over very hard and her voice is flat as shovel.
“What does he do?”
“He’s a Brand Manager for Python’s. That’s like being one of the ones who was crucified next to Jesus.”
“I’ve heard of them.”
“It’s the only thing you ever hear about in our house. That, and ‘why don’t you try and do a bit more with yourself. I give you enough money, don’t I?’ I’m supposed to prance around in front of his business associates just in case the marketing director has a heart attack.”
“What, because of you prancing around in front of him? Don’t hog the middle of the road so much!”
“No! Because of the—oh, it doesn’t matter. The whole bloody thing doesn’t matter. Look, can we stop for a cigarette in a minute?”
“Yes. There’s a lay-by up here on the right. Pull in there.”
She dives in her handbag and lights up as if she was doing it against the clock; then puffs a thin stream of smoke over her left shoulder.
“Do you want one?”
“No. I gave it up.”
“That’s very strong-minded of you.”
“Not strong-minded. Just scared. I was frightened of killing myself.”
“You could die crossing the road.”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t do it by throwing myself under a car.”
She shrugs her shoulders and gazes out across the golf course.
“That’s the seventeenth over there,” she says.
“Oh.” I try to sound interested. “Do you play too?”
She smiles. “No, I don’t. Where’s Mr. Williams?”
“Garth, you mean? He’s visiting his mum in Wales, I think. You have him usually, don’t you?”
She looks at me a bit sharpish as if she suspects I might be trying to suggest something.
“Yes, that’s right.” She decides that I didn’t mean anything and her expression softens. “I didn’t know you called him Garth.”
“Well, he’s a big fellow, isn’t he?”
“Yes, I suppose he is. What do they call you?”
She settles down in her seat and tilts her head back so she is blowing smoke against the car roof. Her tits stand out firm against her blouse and I would like to put my hands on them. Sitting like this she is asking for it. But you never know with some birds. Often the pushy ones are the first to start yelling for a copper. It’s the quiet ones who won’t look you in the eyes who usually turn up trumps. At least, that is how it was when I was cleaning windows and my clientele is not all that different.
“Well?” she says.
“Well what?”
“What do they call you?”
“Oh!” I’ve been so busy looking at her tits I have forgotten what she was rabbiting about. “I don’t know. I haven’t been with the firm long enough to get a nickname.”
“You make it sound as if you qualify for one when you retire. My husband would approve of that. Another non-contributory fringe benefit.”
Back to the old man again. I don’t have to be able to do the Times crossword to get the message that he is not looming very large in her legend at the moment. It would be nice to think that this probably spelled out a big welcome for my hand testing her knicker elastic but that might not be true either. I have often found that women who rabbit on like maniacs about how wonderful their husbands are become the first to ask you if you would like to see their new counterpanes. This is because they feel guilty about their adulterous desires and don’t want to commit the additional sin of blaming their innocent husbands for them. Similarly, the women who bitch about their husbands are really making them scapegoats for their own lack of guts in not having an affair. “If my husband wasn’t so pathetically jealous and old-fashioned,” they grumble to themselves, “I could have a whale of a time.” The fact is that they are usually dyed-in-the-wool Puritans who would pass out if you tweaked their suspenders coming out of a ‘War on Want’ lunch.
Fascinating lot of old cobblers, isn’t it? No? Oh, well, I don’t blame you if you disagree with me. Any theory you have about women is unlikely to be provable in more than one case. Anyway, there we are, with Mrs. Dent flashing her tits at me and throwing in a bit of thigh for good measure and me wondering what is the best method of getting my hands on both of them. I am also wondering just how much driving Mrs. D. expects to fit into an hour’s session. I don’t mind watching the East wind turn every blade of grass on the Cromingham golf course into a hunchback, but I feel I should be doing a bit more for my money.
“Is this what you usually do when you’re having a lesson?” I say.
“It depends on the instructor,” she says, looking at me like Lauren Bacall used to look at Humphrey Bogart. I wait for her to eject a meaningful puff of smoke in my direction, and sure enough she does.
“You mean that some are more easy going than others?”
“You could put it like that. I prefer to say that some are more imaginative than others.”
“What do you mean?” It’s always worth while asking women that when you don’t know what to say next.
“John Williams knows that there is more to playing golf than hitting a golf ball four hundred yards. Do you know that if there’s a hint of sun, you can lie in the bottom of that bunker by the seventeenth green in a bikini?”
“Fascinating, but what’s that got to do with learning to drive?”
“What’s learning to drive