to Mrs. D.’s side.
“Would you care to dance?” I say in my best upper-crust accent. Mrs. D. cranes forward as if she has difficulty hearing me and it occurs to me that she might have had a few herself. Couldn’t be better.
“Do I know you?” she begins; then she waves her hand in a self-dismissing gesture and starts to get up. “Doesn’t matter whether I do or don’t. I’m not sitting here by myself any longer. Lead me to the floor.”
We weave our way unsteadily through the tables and I am just beginning to wonder whether the band are supposed to be playing a waltz or sounding the retreat when Mrs. D. grips my arm.
“Let’s go to the discotheque,” she says. “The sight of my husband chatting up the boss’s wife is more than my stomach can stand.”
I follow her glance and there is a balding thirty-five-year-old dancing elaborately with Mrs. Carstairs who has on her best ‘be nice to the natives’ expression. As we watch, Mr. D. starts patting his bonce with his breast pocket handkerchief and it is obvious that a combination of heat and nerves is bringing him out in a muck sweat. He looks less competition than Quasimodo with lockjaw, and this, coupled with the fact that Garth is tied up with Mrs. Cronk, makes me daring.
“Come on,” I say passionately. “I want to find somewhere where I can hold you very tight in my arms.”
I take her by the hand and lead her into the welcome darkness of the discotheque, which is full of twitchers and gropers, either doing the total dance bit or touching up each other’s wives. I fall very speedily into the second category and start moulding Mrs. D. to my torso like I am using her to take a plaster cast of my body.
“Hey,” she pants, “who are you? There’s something about you that’s familiar—apart from what you’re doing with your hands.”
“I took your knickers off once,” I say, “and I’d like to do it again. Right now!”
“Can’t you give me any more help than that?” she says.
I lean forward and whisper into her ear what I did when her knickers were off.
“Oh, I know who you are,” she says. “Colin Kelly.”
“No!”
“David McMillan? Peter Por—”
“Look! Let’s forget it,” I yelp. I mean, you can take just so much, can’t you?
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m a little bit pickled tonight, but—” she struggles close to me, “I’m certain whoever you were it was very nice. You’ve got a lovely body.”
“Just what I was going to say about you, darling,” I murmur, deciding to forgive her, “and very soft lips.” I am prepared to gamble that they don’t feel like emery paper and I am right.
“You might have worn a dress,” I grumble. “I want to put my hand up your skirt.”
“This takes off very easily.”
“But where?”
“That’s up to you.”
I seem to remember that we have been through all this before. But that time I was sober. Tonight I am drunk. And when I am drunk and there is a chance of getting my end away, I’d dive through a plate glass window for it.
“I’ve got a car outside,” I lie.
“I don’t like it in cars.”
“This is a big car.”
“Well, I don’t know—”
“Come on!” I kiss her passionately on the mouth, almost loosening one of my front teeth in the process. “I’ll see you round the corner from the front entrance.” I lead her back to the table before she can argue with me, and nod politely at Mr. D., who is leaning forward earnestly in case Mrs. Carstairs wants to stub a fag out in his ear. Mr. C.’s eyes flicker over me for a second, but I don’t think he remembers where we last met. Mrs. C. is dancing with somebody else. I thank Mrs. D. and make tracks for the side entrance which leads to the car park.
I need a pee but there is no time.
Outside the night air makes me giddy but I take a few deep breaths and start checking out the cars. There is a bloody great Vauxhall station wagon, an Alvis and—Minto’s Rolls. I wonder! It would give me a lot of satisfaction to have it away in the back of a Rolls—especially Minto’s. I might even forget to tidy up afterwards. I have no sooner tried the back door and found it open than I see Mrs. D. hovering in the entrance. I kiss her quickly and draw her after me into the shadows.
“This isn’t yours,” she hisses when she see the Rolls. “This is Major Minto’s. Supposing he comes back suddenly?”
“He won’t,” I comfort her. “He’s drawing the raffle at midnight.” This, of course, is a complete lie but it shows you how fast on my feet I can be. ‘Lea the flea’ they call me. I kiss her again and pull her into the car. The door shuts on us with a click as gentle as the snapping of a sparrow’s wishbone.
“Roomy, isn’t it?” I murmur, but Mrs. D. was never one to waste precious moments on conversation. She starts kissing me like she is trying to make my mouth fray at the edges and her fingers tie knots in the hair at the nape of my neck. It is no problem finding the zip of her cat-suit and as it plunges down to the small of her back she wriggles forward so that I can feel that she is not wearing a bra. I run my finger over her body and she sinks down until she is lying across the length of the back seat. I peel off her suit, which for some bloody stupid reason reminds me of the Babygro my sister Rosie’s kid used to wear, and see she is naked except for a pair of panties. I take a firm grip on these and as our mouths meet again I pull them down inch by inch over her straining body. She must be near coming now because her legs are rigid and trembling, and I’m not exactly thinking about Chelsea Reserves’ chances in the London Combination Cup either.
“Lick me,” she moans. “Please lick me.”
Well, you don’t like to disappoint people, do you? And, as I’ve said before, get a few beers inside me and I make your average eyetie seem like Sir Alec Douglas Home with a heavy cold. I am kneeling on the thick pile carpet and just about to make her a very happy lady when I am reminded again of my body’s urgent need for a piss. Better to go now, I think, for in a few minutes it’s going to be impossible. So, detaching myself with difficulty from Mrs. D.’s imploring fingers, I tell her where I am going and nip over to the nearest wall.
I don’t know how many of you have experience of pissing with a hard on but it is bloody difficult. With my hampton sticking up in the air like a level-crossing pole, I nearly pee up my own nostril and end up scoring a direct hit on the Vent-Axia unit. I have just tucked everything away and am about to return to the quivering Mrs. D. when somebody comes round the corner and I shrink back into the shadows. It is, in fact, two people, and to my amazement I recognise Dawn and Tony Sharp, the star-crossed lovers of the Shermer Sevens.
“Oh, God, I want you,” breathes Sharp, sounding like a poor imitation of me a few minutes earlier. “I’ve got to have you.”
They clinch enthusiastically and for a few moments I think they are going to have it away there and then. Before they can prove me right, there is the sound of somebody else approaching and Gruntscomb of the Echo looms into the light.
“Oh, excuse me,” he mumbles, “not trying to be a Peeping Tom. Oh, it’s you, Mr. Sharp. Good evening. Sorry about your accident today, but it didn’t half make a lovely picture, didn’t it? Did you see it in tonight’s Echo? I should think your friend Cronk must have felt like shutting up shop immediately. And, you know—” he drops his voice conspiratorially, “—there’s better to follow. We’ve got an interview with the man, Roper, who was driving the Morris, and he has practically admitted that it was the pressure that he was subjected to when he was with the E.C.D.S. that made him crack up. That’s not going to do them any good, is it? We’re printing his