Bubble, Bubble ...

25

Bubble, Bubble…

    It was one of those glorious evenings—Colin was beginning to feel there were far, far too few of them—when Terri had gone over to get Euan’s dinner and he and Penn could have the cottage to themselves for a few hours. He’d been working at his desk, having showered and changed into a pair of the greenish second-hand overalls he’d bought at a very useful shop in Portsmouth. Army surplus—quite. Penn knocked politely at the front door around five-ten. She always did knock, though he’d given her a key. Some rubbish about leaving him his space—well, whatever she wanted. These overalls had a very handy zipper—handy for chaps, that was. He went to the door smiling, sliding it down…

    “Hullo,” said Penn feebly, going very, very red.

    He smiled into her eyes. “Come in.”

    “That’s awfully rude. What if it wasn’t me?” said Penn faintly, coming in.

    “Not quite rude. –I know your knock, you idiot,” he murmured, pulling her against him. Ooh, all of a sudden he was terribly, terribly interested! “Now it’s rude,” he noted, sliding the zipper right down. He got a handful of well-rounded bum in each and attempted to demonstrate to the physicists of the world that whatever they might think about quasars and them others and quantum whatsits, two solid bodies could occupy the same space at the same— Not quite, but it was good trying!

    “Talking of black ’oles,” he said in her ear, “shall we go into the bedroom and see if I can fit something into one?”

    “Now what are you on about?” replied Penn feebly.

    “Only the usual,” he said with a laugh, getting her hand on him. Ooh, that was indescribably wonderful, ooh, Penn! “Rub it!” he gasped.

    Penn rubbed it obligingly so he bit her neck. She gave a little squeak so he had to stifle that with something appropriate. After a bit of that he tried actually sucking her tongue, really hard, and she sort of moaned and tilted her pelvis towards him, well, that was interesting!

    “What was that?” he said, coming up for air.

    Penn was very, very flushed. “Dunno,” she said in a strangled voice. “That was good, what you did.”

    “Uh-huh. Now try this. Put your tongue in my mouth and tickle mine a bit.”

    Penn went redder than ever and gave him a helpless look.

    “You can do it!” he encouraged her.

    “Um, we-ell…” She tried it. It was so good for him that he nearly shot his load on the spot. Judging by the way her ears turned scarlet and she shoved herself against him it was good for her, too.

    “Mm?” he said, just in case it wasn’t.

    “Oh, Colin, oh, Colin!” gasped Penn.

    Well, well, well! He knelt and eased the shorts off her.

    “If you do that,” she said in a strangled voice, “I might come.”

    “That’d be good. Then you could come again, later,” he explained. He knelt up and buried his face in the bush, because it was there. “If you ever attempt anything remotely approaching a bikini line, I will shoot you,” he promised.

    Penn swallowed hard. “Mm. I mean no. Too fat to wear a bikini.”

    “Most of it’s muscle. But I don’t object to the subcutaneous fat, in fact it’s a terrific turn on, hasn’t that dawned yet?” replied Colin with precision, parting the hair. He applied his tongue with precision.

    Penn gave a shriek like a banshee and grabbed his shoulders in a grip of, well, iron. Ow, Christ!

    “Don’t know your own strength,” he said feebly, stopping.

    “What?” she said vaguely.

    “You’re crushing my shoulders,” said Colin faintly.

    “Shit!” She let go and tried to back off but as his arms were very firmly round her thighs, didn’t manage it. “I knew that shoulder was wonky!” she cried accusingly.

    “Just gives me a bit of gyp when the wind’s in the east or a blacksmith mangles me. Just scratch me daintily like a nayce little lidy, would you?”

    “Hah, hah.” She looked down at him uncertainly.

    “This is the bad shoulder,” he admitted with a sigh. “Where that huge right fist of yours goes, okey-doke?”

    She nodded. “You were standing on the running-board or whatever Army trucks have with your right side to the truck, they shot up your left side and you fell off onto it. Why didn’t you say so in the first place, instead of making a bloody martyr of yourself?”

    “I never expected to meet a lady blacksmith, you twerp,” said Colin, kissing the white, soft inside of her thigh, since it was there. “Mm, this is nice! Just grab me manly arm, it didn’t suffer.”

    “All right,” she said in a small voice. “I’m sorry.”

    “No, I am. Some sort of perverted male chauvinism or something: didn’t want to look weak in front of you,” he said with a sigh. “C’n I start this again?”

    “Mm.”

    He started it again but didn’t get the same result so he applied the flat of his tongue and moved it slowly and lingeringly…

    “Oh, Colin!” she gasped. Hooray! He got his tongue right up her—boy, all that wet was flattering to a chap’s ego, to say nothing of what it did to the libido—and slid it in and out for a while until she gave a shriek like a steam engine and, thoughtfully grabbing his biceps, came like—well, did American Challengers taking off into space make very, very loud noises? ’Cos if so, that was Penn coming. Though possibly the phallic symbolism was just due to his fixated male mind.

    When the echoes had more or less stopped ringing in the passage he gave one last flick with the tip of the tongue and she screamed: “AAH!” Approximately. And pulsed like a mighty pump. That was usually about it so he just leaned his cheek on that lovely silky white thigh while she panted and sagged.

    “That it?” he said finally.

    “Mm, ta!” she gasped.

    “No problem,” he replied, standing up and hugging her. “Come into the bedroom and let me fuck you like a crazed rabbit,” he suggested.

    “I thought it was like a buck rat?” replied Penn.

    “Ooh, whoever could’ve said such a crude thing to you?” he squeaked, taking her hand and leading her into his sitting-room-cum-bedroom.

    “Dunno, but I associate it vaguely with Army trucks!” replied Penn with a laugh.

    “Yeah. Just lie down and spread your legs very wide.”

    She did that.

    “I’m going to get up there and fuck my head off for hours,” he promised, fighting with the bloody condom packet. Jesus!

    “Can I do that?”

    “Leave me some male pride!” He wrenched at it, it tore and the bloody leg gave way and he fell on top of her. Not that that was entirely bad, ooh-er! “Didn’t hurt you, did I?”

    “No,” said Penn in a strangled voice.

    “Go on, laugh.”

    Penn laughed helplessly so while she was doing it he retrieved the condom, pulled it on and got up there. Oh, God!

    “Are you—” she began.

    Oh, God, oh, God. Oh—Jesus! “AARRAGH!” he bellowed. “Uh—ARRGH!” God!

    “God,” he croaked quite some aeons later.

    Penn made a strangled noise.

    He managed to raise himself on his elbow. “Not squashing y—No. Laughing,” he ascertained resignedly.

    She shook helplessly. Colin gave in entirely and just lay there, letting himself be shaken around. How many virgins was it a terrorist got if he— Never mind, pile ’em all up together and get on top and it still wouldn’t be as good as being on top of a billows-deep, helplessly laughing Penn.

    He managed to roll off her by the time she was gasping for breath. “All right, I’m an over-hasty, ageing tit,” he croaked.

    “No! I mean, every time you say you’re going do it for hours in that—that threatening tone, you get in there and come like the clappers!” she gasped.

    Ooh, he did not! What a lie! Uh—ooh, did he? Help. “’S’your fault,” he said, grinning. “’S’too good.”

    “Vainglory,” said Penn thoughtfully. “That’s the word.”

    Gee, how rude! How crushing to the male ego! He leaned over and sucked her tit on the strength of it. Then he just put his head down right there and lay like that for ages and ages and …

    “Help, are you up and about? What’s the time?” he croaked.

    Penn grinned. “Just on seven. You’ve been asleep for—”

    “Don’t tell me, me little ego’s crushed enough.”

    “Yeah, and I’m a Dutchman in his clogs.”

    She wasn’t, actually, she was a Penn in his dressing-gown. “Why’d ya want to go and cover it all up?” he whined.

    “I had a shower. I’m gonna get dinner. Terri’s left a lovely salad, and a note saying there’s fish in the fridge.”

    “Uncooked fish? Raw fish?” he said fearfully.

    “Yeah. Can you cook it?”

    “No,” he said definitely.

    “That makes two of us. I can catch ’em but I can’t cook ’em, they take one look at me with a pan in my hand and turn black and nasty.”

    “I can cook steak,” he offered.

    “That’d be good, if there was steak. Bread, cheese and salad?”

    “It’ll have to be,” he admitted.

    “Right you are. Are you going to have a shower?”

    “I’ve had two today already,” he whined.

    “Up to you. I thought the male side didn’t like being all sticky?”

    “You’ve known some really odd chaps, haven’t you?” he said conversationally. “No, well, not when it dries in the creases—no.”

    “Have a shower,” said Penn with a sigh.

    “I may do. When I’ve worked up the strength.”

    “Want a drink?” she said resignedly.

    “Since you offer it so graciously, I’ll accept, thanks so much. Let me see, what do I fancy… If there is any, perhaps you wouldn’t mind, just for a change, making it a—”

    Penn handed him a whisky. “Put that in it, you moron.”

    “Verbaceous moron,” he corrected.

    “Eh?”

    “Good, isn’t it? That was a German lady that thought she could speaka da Henglish. Mixture of verbose and—”

    “Herbaceous?” she croaked.

    “She was deeply into lovely flah gardens, certainly.”

    Penn collapsed into his big sagging armchair and laughed until the tears ran down her face and she had to mop her eyes with the sleeve of his dressing-gown.

    She had discovered some frozen chips and, having bellowed up the stairs “WANT CHIPS?” to which he’d replied graciously “NOT BLACKENED ONES!” was about to put them in the oven, as the better part of valour, when there was a loud knock at the door. Who on earth? Well, maybe it was Anna, locked out, only hadn't Colin said she was up in town painting John in the nuddy? She hesitated and then put the pan of chips down on the bench with a sigh.

    The front door opened to a view of a cross-looking elderly gent in the smoothest of City suits. Very white hair, very red face. Was that a Rolls behind him? Who on earth—?

    “Is this where Colonel Haworth’s living?” he said in a very cross voice.

    Oh, Christ, surely it couldn’t be Colin’s father? Hadn’t he said he was a country vicar given to rabid Leftie demos, though? This old boy didn’t look like one of those. “Um, Colin?” she faltered. “Um, yeah.”

    He looked at her with distaste. “Are you the Spanish au pair?”

    Penn clutched the gaping dressing-gown to over her boobs, very tempted to reply: “No speaka da Henglish,” and slam the door in his face. “No. If it’s any of your business,” she managed.

    “Is he in?” he said grimly.

    “Yes. He’s having a shower,” said Penn weakly. “Who are you?”

    “His Uncle Matthew,” he said grimly.

    Penn just goggled at him.

    “I’m his uncle! Matthew Haworth!” he said loudly, as to a deaf moron with galloping Alzheimer’s.

    “Yes, um, sorry, never heard—I mean, he’s never mentioned you. You’d better come in.” Automatically she led the way to the sitting-room, registering too late the tumbled state of the duvet on Colin’s bed. “Um, have the big chair. I’ll get him,” she said, thankfully escaping.

    He was in the shower, singing—he couldn’t sing to save his life.

    “Ooh! Hullo!” he said brightly.

    “Stop wasting soap— Don’t do that!” she said as he grabbed it and waggled it at her suggestively. Christ, it was stiffening already, the man was insatiable!

    “Good, isn’t it?” he said proudly.

    It was that, all right. Very well sized, and like the rest of him rather pale in colour. Well, pinkish pale. Penn grimaced, experiencing an urge to stand with her legs tightly crossed: what was wrong with her, she was getting as insatiable as he was!

    “There’s an old boy turned up to see you. City suit. Says he’s your uncle.”

    Colin stopped wasting soap abruptly. “Eh?”

    “Yes! Turn that bloody water off, you’ve been under there for half an hour!”

    He turned the water off, staring. “Which uncle?”

    “Matthew. –Haworth.” He was just staring so she added: “Old white-haired biff in a City suit. Looked like a Rolls behind him.”

    “That’s him, all right. Didn’t give you any idea of what it was about? No. Where’s my—Oh. You’re in it,” he said, grinning. “Does he look upset?”

    “I wouldn’t say that. He looks as if he might explode any minute but that could just be high blood pressure.”

    Colin raised his eyebrows slightly. “Better see what he wants. Um—well, those overalls are clean. Chuck ’em over, would you?”

    “Colin,” she said uneasily, “he doesn’t look like the sort of old boy that’d appreciate the sight of you in overalls.”

    “Painty khakis? Pair of shorts that young Georgia told me were a disgrace to humanity—and that was last year,” he remembered.

    “You’ve got a bedroom full of clothes in there!” she snapped.

    “All right, choose something,” he said on a dry note.

    Penn stomped into the bedroom that he didn’t use. She wrenched open the wardrobe door. She grabbed a pair of—Oh. She grabbed another—Blast! She searched feverishly through— What in Christ were these? Huge ribbons down the seams—Oh! Yacht Clubs for the use at, right. Giving in, she grabbed a khaki pair and then unavailingly hunted through the shirts he’d stuffed in a drawer, several drawers—all right, a whole bloody bureau! They were all shades of khaki except for some stiff-fronted things. Finally she found a plain white tee-shirt. She marched into the bathroom and threw them at him.

    “See?”

    “Put them on, they’re still trousers!” she snarled.

    He put them on. They were loose round the waist. “All right, where are your thousands of Army belts?” she groaned.

    “Braces,” he said meekly.

    “What? Oh, get knotted, Colin!”

    “Um, no,” said Colin, biting his lip as it registered that she really thought he was having her on. “These trousers—well, all of the ones in that cupboard, I think—need braces. Well, there may be some—depending on whether Ma in a temper packed my stuff or Viola did it in a tender sisterly fit.”

    “We’d better start looking or the old boy’ll think you’ve nipped down the drainpipe,” she said heavily.

    They went and looked. “These are dress uniform braces, dear heart!” said Colin with a laugh in his voice as she proudly found some. “’Member?”

    Penn went very, very red. “Yeah,” she growled.

    He put an arm round her and laughed. “Very well, I’ll wear ’em! The packing was either Ma in a temper or Viola in ignorance!”

    At least it wasn’t a girlfriend in a temper. Sighing, Penn assisted him with the ridiculous performance required to get a gent into his fucking braces. Un-be-fucking-lievable!

    “Who the fuck helps you with this crap in the Army?” she groaned.

    Colin opened his mouth to say that under canvas in the desert one did not wear— He shut it again. Then he said meekly: “A batman.”

    “Jesus, Colin!”

    “I’m not responsible for the system,” he said meekly. “Come on, let’s see what he wants.”

    Penn hung back.

    “He’s already seen you,” he reminded her.

    “I don’t think he wants to see me again, though!” she said with feeling.

    His nostrils flared for a moment. Penn restrained a gulp. “You’ve been invited for the night, you’re part of my life, if he doesn’t like it he can choke on it. If it gets too much for you, by all means escape to the kitchen, but I’d appreciate your coming down with me.”

    “All right,” said Penn in a very, very small voice that shook in spite of her best efforts. “If you say so.”

    Colin grimaced horribly. He put his arm round her. “Sorry. Please support me, Penn. I don’t know what the old boy can want, but it can’t be good.”

    “Okay,” said Penn, sniffing.

    “Sorry,” he repeated.

    “That’s okay. I don’t think it’s anything very bad,” she said, looking up at him timidly.

    “He’s a banker, he’s a complete poker face— Never mind, let’s not anticipate, mm?”

    They went out with his arm round her waist. He had to let go to negotiate the stairs but nevertheless Penn felt much, much better. Telling herself she was a feeble feminine idiot had no effect whatsoever, so she stopped trying to.

    “Sorry, Uncle Matthew: I was in the shower,” said Colin calmly, putting his arm back round Penn’s waist and propelling her in.

    He gave a sour grunt.

    “Did you meet Penn? Penn Martin. I think you may know her cousins, the Walsinghams,” said Colin with malice aforethought. Uncle Matthew had always had a penchant for opera singers, and he was pretty sure that in the by and by the contralto Antigone Walsingham Corrant, who he now knew was Penn’s cousin and Susan’s niece, had been one of his. Possibly but not necessarily before he’d married that bitch Annabel.

    “Nuh—Uh, how’dja do,” he stuttered. “Related to Sir John Walsingham, the conductor?”

    “He’s my uncle. I’m not musical,” said Penn gruffly.

    “Doesn’t sing,” explained Colin sweetly. Uncle Matthew gave him a filthy look. “How are you, Uncle Matthew? Didn’t you get yourself a drink?” He went over to the little deal cupboard which held the grog.

    “I’m very well, thank you, Colin—no thanks to your recent conduct, I might add—and I didn’t get myself a drink because given the conditions in which you’re living,”—he glared round the room—“I didn’t wish to deprive you of your last drop!”

    “There’s plenty of whisky, Mr Haworth,” said Penn in a small voice.

    “Thank you, Miss Martin,” he said grimly. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like a word with my nephew.”

    Penn looked nervously at Colin.

    “Penn can hear it,” he said, giving his uncle a whisky and handing her a strange-looking dark pink concoction. “Rupy swears by this. Even better than gin and pink. Come and sit down.” He propelled her over to the bed, to her horror, and patted its edge. She sat down numbly. Colin lounged over to the drinks cupboard, fetched his glass of whisky, and sat down beside her. He took a sip. “Go on,” he said neutrally to his uncle.

    The old man took a deep breath. “I’d like to know why you haven’t done me the courtesy of telling me what you were up to, Colin!”

    “Uh—well, didn’t think you’d be interested. I mean, starting up a little craft industry as a minor tourist attraction isn’t exactly your sphere of—”

    “Have you forgotten every word we said on your last leave?” he shouted.

    Colin blinked. “What—last time I was home? I must have. But I hope I didn’t give you the impression that I want to join the b—”

    “Not the bloody BANK!” he howled. “Little Wyndings! We agreed you’d run it for me when you left the Army! And you’ve left the ruddy Army and I’ve been waiting for you to come to your senses!”

    Colin passed his hand through his curls. “Little Wyndings is the damned country house he bought himself with the moolah from the bank,” he explained to the staring Penn. “But I’ve honestly got no recollection of having agreed to any such thing.”

    “Bollocks, Colin!” he shouted, turning bright purple. “Next you’ll be telling me you didn’t stand in my office with that bitch Aimée Mainwaring hanging off your arm telling me the pair of you’d see me at Little Wyndings for Christmas, provided you’d mopped up fucking Saddam Hussein’s lot by then!”

    “Y—N— Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember—Well, I remember I bumped into Aimée at a stupid party. Stood in your office? Where the Christ were we going? Or coming from?”

    “Judging by the fortune the bitch was wearing on her back you were going to Ascot!” he shouted. “Stop playing damned games, Colin!”

    “I’m not,” said Colin, biting his lip. “I can’t remember Ascot, or taking Aimée there, or seeing you in your office.”

    The old man breathed heavily. “It was Ascot, because the next bloody day you insisted on giving me and your cousin Terence dinner at the Club, because you’d won a packet! “

    “I see,” he said tightly. “I’m sorry, sir, but I’ll just check that with Terence.” His phone was on the maroon desk. He picked it up and dialled. “Hullo, Terence. …No, can’t. Look, this is important, so don’t joke, okay? Do you remember, my last leave before Iraq, I shouted you and Uncle Matthew dinner—” The phone spoke at some length. “No. Thanks, Terence,” said Colin at last. “No, he’s here. …Yeah. …Did she? Sounds like her. Ciao, bello, to you, too, in that case.” He hung up and sat down heavily, passing his hand across his forehead.

    “Is—is it the knock on the head?” said Penn fearfully.

    He looked up and shrugged. “Must be. Unless it was the amount of grog I’d absorbed at that damned party.” He swallowed hard. “Terence does remember it, sir—and seeing us at Ascot, as a matter of fact—and I apologise for—for checking up on you,” he said to his uncle. “Apparently it was a damn good dinner and afterwards he and I picked up Aimée and the frightful Juliyanne that he was doing, and went on to God knows where. Aimée kept ordering champagne cocktails and saying ‘Ciao, bello,’ to every male she met, apparently.”

    “Don’t be angry with him, Mr Haworth,” said Penn anxiously. “Sometimes getting hit on the head can make you forget things.”

    “Yes,” he said numbly. Slowly he opened the briefcase he’d brought with him. “Don’t you remember any of it, Colin?”

    “No. Nothing after the party and going home with Aimée—that was a day or two before Ascot, Terence seemed to think. I—as I recollect it, I went home after that. Um, went down on the train with one of the Duff-Ross cousins,” he said, clearing his throat and avoiding Penn’s eye.

    “Wilhelmina. Calls herself Willi,” said the old man with distaste. “Red-headed bint, no better than she should be, either.”

    “Quite,” he said, passing his hand across his face.

    “That was the next day,” said Matthew Haworth flatly.

    Colin bit his lip. “I see.”

    “If you don’t remember, I suppose there’s no point in reminding you of this,” said the old man sourly, handing him a folded legal document.

    Colin looked at it and went very red. “Sir—“

    “Read it,” he said tiredly. “Oh—and there’s this, though presumably you’ve forgotten about it as well. ” He passed him another document.

   Colin glanced through the first, larger document rapidly, gnawing on his lip. Finally he said hoarsely: “Yes. I see.”

    “Can I ask what it is?” said Penn timidly.

    He looked up and said bleakly: “It’s his will.”

    “I’m sorry!” she gasped, turning scarlet.

    “Don’t be,” said Matthew Haworth grimly. “At least you can attest to the fact that I’m hearing what I think I’m hearing and it’s not me that’s apparently losing my mind.”

    “He isn’t!” she cried. “Anyone can forget things after a bump on the head! It can be really—really sporadic!”

    “Sporadic,” said Colin sourly. “Yes. I seem to have forgotten he’s made me his heir on the assumption that I’ll be managing Little Wyndings for him.”

    Penn winced but said: “Neurological damage is completely unpredictable. There’ve been cases of people who’ve forgotten their own names and their families, but can still speak several languages.”

    “Mm. What’s this?” He looked at the other document and shrugged. “I see. –Lease of a flat in town,” he said to Penn. “Did I actually take possession of this dump, Uncle?”

    “No,” he said sourly. “The keys are with Willis, Croft, and that moron James Willis keeps ringing me up and wanting to know when to send them over.”

    “His solicitors,” said Colin to Penn with a sigh. “I don’t seem to have forgotten the inessentials, do I?”

    “No. Did you sign the lease, Colin?”

    “Well, yes, but in case you were wondering whether large sums have been mysteriously disappearing from my bank account at regular intervals, the answer’s no. This is possibly because the lessor is Matthew Haworth Holdings,” he added tiredly.

    “You agreed to it!” shouted his uncle.

    “Apparently, yes. I’m really sorry, Uncle Matthew.”

    “It seems you can’t help it,” he said sourly. “What did that moron, Francis Dorning, actually say?”

    Colin sighed. “Well, you pinned him down under your great claw and interrogated him, in the intervals of eyeing up all the pretty little nurses; you know as much as I do.”

    “In case you were wondering,” said his uncle grimly to Penn: “he always did indulge in misplaced frivolity: it’s not the knock on the head.”

    “Um, no,” said Penn feebly. She hadn't been wondering, actually, only now she was sort of wondering if she ought to be wondering. Help.

    “Well?” he said sourly to Colin.

    “He told me he couldn’t see anything, not to drive until he’d cleared me—he has cleared me, but not for long distances or when I’m tired—and that with bumps on the head one never knows. And to report any anomalies. I suppose I’d better report this,” he said with a sigh.

    Penn looked anxiously at the old man but he seemed to accept this: he just nodded and said: “What about those bloody blackouts?”

    “Haven’t had one for ages. Um… late November, think it was—yes.”

    “Colin, you had a dizzy fit,” said Penn anxiously.

    “Think that was mostly paint fumes. When was that—a month back? Something like that. I’d been working in a paint-filled cottage for hours, and I was waving a long-handled roller above my head,” he said to his uncle. “Added to which, Penn gave me a bloody fright. Anyone might’ve felt dizzy.”

    “What do you mean, fright?” he said, staring.

    “I knocked down a ceiling,” said Penn in a small voice.

    He gaped at her.

    “She’s got the strength, she’s a blacksmith, but not the expertise,” said Colin.

    “Sir John Walsingham’s niece? A blacksm—If this is one of your damned jokes, Colin—”

    “No. My relatives were furious when I took it up,” said Penn quickly. “Hang on: I’ll show you!” She hurried out.

    Matthew stared at this nephew. Colin shook his head slightly. “No idea. Like a refill?”

    “I’ll get them,” he said heavily,

    Colin shrugged, but let him.

    The old man sat down again and drank half his whisky in one swallow. “You agreed to it all,” he said on a tired note.

    “Mm.”

    “I suppose it doesn’t take a qualified psychiatrist to see why you’ve forgotten it!” he said loudly and bitterly.

    Colin winced. “I honestly don’t think it works like that. Much more likely to be sporadic, like Penn said. God knows what else I’ve forgotten.”

    He grunted sourly. After a moment he added: “You certainly forgot to turn up at your cousin Julia’s wedding.”

    Colin blinked. “No, I didn’t, I remember it clear as day. Hanover Square. Giant crinoline, à la Princess of Wales. Crushed-looking bridesmaids in crushed blue silk. ’Ideous.”

    “Not the first one, y’fool!” he shouted.

    He gulped. “I—God. When was it?”

    “December,” he said heavily. “I rang John. He said if you hadn’t turned up then you didn’t feel up to it and as all you were doing was lying around on your spine, he didn’t think you looked as if you were up to it.”

    “Um, yes. So she and Ferdy Carpenter have tied the knot at la—”

    “NO!” he shouted. “She’s married that bloody Jew!”

    “Don’t say ‘that bloody Jew.’ Daniel Gold is a very decent chap. If you do mean him.”

    “Yes!” he snapped.

    “Well, if Ferdy wouldn’t make up his mind to propose—”

    “He went off to Florida with a surgically altered blonde bitch to live off what the ninety-year-old first husband left!” he shouted. “Have you forgotten everything?”

    “Yes. But it sounds as if Julia’s well rid of him.” He realised Penn was standing in the doorway gaping and said kindly: “I think he only means silicone breasts, I don’t think he’s talking about a sex change.”

    “Yes. And something disgusting done to the lips,” said his uncle sourly. “But come to think of it, that was when you were in Germany, I suppose you might not have heard.”

    “Right, well, that’s a relief,” said Colin drily. “Come in, darling: is that a proof of your art?”

    “Yes,” said Penn, going very red. “It’s a trade, not an art.” She held the object out. “I made it,” she said to Mr Haworth.

    “Ironwork,” agreed Colin with a little smile. “Um, very nice, Penn, but what is it?”

    “It’s a boot-scraper, of course,” said the old man sourly.

    Penn smiled at him. “That’s right! Most people have never seen them. This is an 18th-century design.”

    “Yes,” he said heavily. “I’ve got one at Little Wyndings.”

    “Good, that proves she really is a blacksmith!” said Colin with a grin. “You didn’t dash all the way down to the smithy to get that, did you?”

    “No, only up to the Masons’. I made this for Mrs Mason last week.”

    He swallowed. In his dressing-gown. Oh, well. “Good show. Well, we seem to be agreed that I’m losing my mind, but as there’s nothing we can do about it, what about those chips there was a rumour of ten hours back?’

    “Y—Ooh, heck, I’ve left the oven on!” She rushed out.

    “I can’t smell anything burning,” said Colin mildly to his uncle.

    He glared.

    Colin sighed. “All I can do is apologise, Uncle Matthew. I don’t know whether it’s the knock on the head or just the aftermath of being shot up, but—well. My priorities have changed. I’m sorry to hurt you, but I don’t want to manage Little Wyndings.”

    “Look, you could have a decent life!”

    “Decent in your terms,” said Colin wryly. “No—I apologise: that was ungrateful. But I’m making a life here—almost literally with my bare hands. I really couldn’t face having it all handed to me on a plate.”

    “Some sort of feeble crafty thing for bloody tourists?”

    He smiled a little. “It doesn’t really matter what it is: it’s the challenge of creating something where there was nothing. And it is bringing employment to the area. But as a matter of fact, the crafts side of it is great fun. And the trades, of course!”

    After a moment the old man said: “Where did she go to school?”

    Colin swallowed a sigh and tried not to sound as fed up as he felt—after all, the silly old sod couldn’t help his cultural brainwashing, could he? “Her mother got out of the high musical art crap the Walsinghams were into, and married an obscure solicitor from Hastings. Penn went to grammar school there. I haven’t asked how she got into blacksmithing: if she wants me to know, she’ll tell me. But in any case it’s immaterial. She loves it; I’ve never seen a person happier in their work.”

    He grunted. “Does your bloody father know?”

    “He knows I’m fixed down here, yes. Started shouting about fund raising when I tried to tell him what I was doing, so I hung up on him. He doesn’t know about Penn. But I dare say he wouldn’t approve: never mind the sanctimonious lip service, he’s an even bigger snob than you are. Well, he threw ten fits at that portrait of me, and that really is high art.”

    He sniffed, but after a moment said: “Look, the offer’s still open, Colin.”

    “No,” said Colin grimly. “If you need someone to manage the place, for God’s sake hire a competent agent.”

    “We could have had some decent horses.”

    “You can still have horses,” he said heavily. “But all those legs you own are eating their heads off in stables in Newmarket, aren’t they?”

    “Start our own stables,” he said, glaring.

    Oh, God! Was that what had been in the old boy’s head? “I’m sorry, but I’m committed here. We have set it up as a proper company structure—”

    “Know that,” he grunted.

    Ouch. He’d done his homework, then. “Look, Uncle Matthew, instead of trying to turn me into something I’m not, why not, um, build on what you’ve got? What about Anne’s boys?”

    “That ponce she's married to told me to me face he won’t expose them to my lifestyle!”

    Yeah, well. “If you must marry a woman like Annabel—”

    “I’m divorcing the bitch!” he howled.

    Oh, Lor’. That made Number Four down the tubes. Not that he’d ever got anything out of the marriage. Well, except the obvious, but then so had just about every man she’d met. She’d certainly made a heavy pass at him. During a lovely family Christmas under the old boy’s own roof. Poor old Uncle Matthew. “Well, that might help,” he said mildly.

    “It won’t. Told me to keep out of their lives.”

    Jesus, what had he done? He didn’t have to ask, the old man had launched into a long, self-exculpatory complaint. Anne’s husband had most unwillingly let the two boys—they’d be in their mid-teens—go to their grandfather for their holidays on the assumption they’d just be playing with the ponies and the fishing-rods at Little Wyndings. Whereupon the stupid old sod had loaded them into the Rolls and taken off for the flesh-pots of the south of France, complete with not one but two dollybirds. Had he expected the boys not to tell? Colin sighed. He got up and went to the window. “Did you drive yourself down?” he asked heavily.

    “What? Yes! Fucking Havers has left me.”

    “Serves you right for demanding his services at all hours and not giving him a decent holiday.”

    “I gave the bastard four weeks holiday!”

    “Yes, when it suited you. Uh—I seem to remember a long complaint as he drove me to the station, that last leave,” he said limply.

    “So is it all coming back to you?” he said eagerly.

    “No. Sorry. Um, well, if Anne’s kids are out, what about Julia and Daniel?”

    “She’s had a girl, while you’ve been mucking about down here. Bloody fellow can’t keep it in his pants. And before you ask, they are planning more and he’s insisting they have to be brought up as Jews!” he shouted.

    “Little Wyndings isn’t your ancestral acres, why the Hell shouldn’t it be left to a Jewish grandson? In fact why the Hell shouldn’t ancestral bloody acres be left to a Jewish grandson?”

    His Uncle Matthew replied angrily to what he apparently imagined was the sub-text: “You could be running the place for your grandfather instead of your useless wimp of a brother!”

    “I love Michael: don’t bad-mouth him under my roof, please, or I’ll have to ask you to leave,” said Colin coolly.

    His uncle turned puce. “He’s putting in fucking merry-go-rounds!” he choked.

    “Good. I’m thinking of having one on the green here. Excuse me, I’ll see how Penn’s managing with the chips.” He went out to the kitchen and leaned heavily on the bench, not asking how the chips were doing. Well, there were no clouds of smoke—and anyway, who cared?

    “He was shouting again,” said Penn.

    “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

    “No, don’t be. Poor old man.”

    Colin sighed. “Yeah. Well, brung it on himself, largely—but he’s got no sons and it burns him up that Pa’s got two and doesn’t give a stuff about male primogeniture and inherited wealth— Oh, well.”

    “I see. Is he older or younger than your father?’

    “Younger. Older in sin, though.”

    Penn rolled her lips very tightly together. “Mm.”

    “But the suit, the gent’s jewellery and the manicure—oh, and the Roller out the front—had told you that anyway, hadn't they?” he said gaily, putting an arm round her shoulders. “Kiss me?”

    Penn held her face up and he kissed her gently and pulled her to him. He leaned his chin on her head and admitted: “My grandfather’s ninety-eight. Michael, my brother, is managing the family property for him—it’s about a fifth the size of Uncle Matthew’s bloody estate but he’s very bitter because it’ll come to Michael when the old boy goes. Was supposed to go to Pa, but he’d have turned it into a organic farm for underprivileged street kids and coloured refugees, and the old boy couldn’t stomach that.”

    After a moment Penn said drily: “And Jews, one presumes?”

    “Them an’ all. I’m afraid the family dirty linen has been well and truly aired—sorry.”

    “You sort of forget,” she said slowly, “that educated people like him can think like that.”

    “If you’re lucky enough not to bump up against it every day? Yeah: it’s not just the skin-heads, by any means. Though the bank employs all colours and creeds—his prejudices don’t extend as far as his business. It’s just that one doesn’t want ’em in the family,” he said sourly.

    “Yes. My grandmother on the Walsingham side was Jewish,” said Penn in a thoughtful voice.

    Colin gave a yelp of laughter. “Then we’d better get married at once!”

    Penn smiled feebly and didn’t say anything. That sounded like a really great idea. Uh—no! What was she thinking? She was an independent woman, she’d made a life for herself, and she didn’t need that sort of complication! It was just sex. On both sides, she told herself firmly, scowling.

    “All right?” said Colin, looking down at her in surprise. “Not taking the silly old sod seriously?”

    “What? No—but I might if he goes on like that in front of me. Um, will he want chips?”

    “Er—well, unbearably high though his gastronomic standards are, I have a norful feeling that this counts as a free meal, and how do you think he made his millions?” he replied, grinning. “–Just dish ’em up, we won’t ask him. Did I have a bottle of wine at one stage?”

    “Um, we drank one, and Terri used most of one for that stew.”

    “That ambrosia for the mouth!” he corrected, grinning. “Think there might be one left.” He fossicked in the cupboard.

    “Beaujolais,” said Penn happily, looking over his shoulder. “I like that!”

    So did the liquor supermarket in Portsmouth—it stocked so much of the stuff that you had the feeling it had trained it to row itself over. Uncle Matthew didn’t, however. Well, so much the better! Then his shoulders shook. Even betterer! He got the large plastic container of orange juice out of the fridge—Terri had informed him he needed Vitamin C: possibly Caroline had been talking to her. Or Euan, come to think of it. There was no Cointreau, which he rather thought was traditional in it, but he added a slug of brandy—refilling Uncle Matthew’s glass with Scotch as he passed, since he was just sitting there sulking—and plenty of sugar. And just a drop of Campari, to show there was considerable ill-feeling, heh-heh. The result tasted surprisingly good and as Terri had made some ice-cubes he bunged them in. The plastic jug he had to use was fair warning: the old man’s eyes bulged as he bore it in.

    “Shouldn’t we eat in the dining-room?” he said numbly as Penn tenderly laid a ragged tea-towel and a plate of chips and salad on his knee. Colin hadn't even had to beg her to add the salad to the plate of hot chips, she’d done it off her own bat!

    “There’s no table in there,” she explained kindly.

    “No.” Colin drew up the one very, very small table the place did feature and carefully set his jug and three tall tumblers on it. Penn trotted out again before he could tell her to sit down and trotted back with their plates and a precariously balanced salt—“Ta!” She gasped as he grabbed it just in time.—Salt shaker.

    “Sit, I’ll do the honours,” he said.

    She beamed happily and sat, so he poured into the three tall tumblers and handed them round. The old man took his with a numbed expression on his florid face and Colin—in a detached way—felt almost sorry for the old boy, really.

    “Okay!” he said briskly, raising his glass. “Here’s to letting bygones be bygones, new starts, and the success of Bellingford Green Craft Enterprises!” Penn had already explained she was no good at toasts so he added kindly: “Cheers’ll do.”

    “Cheers!” she agreed happily, drinking. “Ooh, yum!”

    Colin didn’t even have to look hard at his uncle, he was agreeing automatically: “Cheers,” as he raised his brimming glass of sangría…

    Terence rang around eleven-fifteen, just as, having got rid of him for the night, they were falling in exhausted heaps on the bed. “Why’d you have to wish him on me?”

    “Because you run a pub, old man. Just be thankful we didn’t ask you to feed him.”

    “According to him he didn’t get food down there. Nourishment, possibly. Food, no. And what the Christ did you give him to drink?”

    Colin’s shoulders shook. “Why, has he been complaining about it?”

    “Complaining? He’s more than half seas over, had to get Alan to help me put him to bed!”

    Colin collapsed in sniggers.

    “You’re as drunk as he is! Look, I won’t ask you now what that garbage about dinners after Ascot was all about, or why he’s been cursing your neurosurgeon to Hell and gone and raving about decent flats in town and racing stables, but don’t think you’re gonna wriggle out of it, you can expect a call tomorrow!” He hung up.

    “Terence. Took two strong men to get Uncle Matthew to bed, after the night air on top of those sangrías,” Colin explained happily. “Don’t look like that, Penn: it’s nothing to a fellow accustomed to putting away the after-dinner port like he does.”

    “Maybe you shouldn’t have put all that brandy in that third jug.”

    “I had to fill it up with something!” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Come here! Let me fill you up with something!”

    “Hah, hah,” said Penn very weakly indeed as he rolled half on top of her and undid the dressing-gown…

    “Who was that horrible old man?” demanded Marion grimly, as, having inspected all the craftspersons, purchased Carole’s very best hand-stitched quilt, composed of thousands of tiny hexagons only an inch across, reducing the seller to helpless, pink-flushed giggles, purchased an exquisite length of lace for his new granddaughter, reducing the lacemaker to ditto, purchased at a vastly inflated price the almost-Chippendale chair which the furniture restorers had been intending to use as an advertisement for their craft, purchased The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch from the not officially open bookshop on a rather flushed Alice Humboldt’s assurance that his granddaughter would grow into it, inspected at his own invitation the company’s books and congratulated a very flushed Caroline on her bookkeeping, purchased Marion’s very best big pot and, last but not least, attended the Grand Opening of the Devonshire tea service at Higgledy-Piggledy and reduced the gratified Jasmine to a mountainous mound of jiggling, giggling jelly, he got into his Rolls, had a short fight over whether or not its gears would allow themselves to be tortured which the gears won, and drove himself smoothly away.

    “I could say, a rich old man that paid through the nose for your best pot,” replied Penn mildly. “Colin’s uncle. On his father’s side.”

    “Penn, I warned you about his family!”

    “Did you?” said Penn mildly.

    Marion breathed heavily through flared nostrils. Eventually she managed to produce: “He put his hand on that frightful Carole woman’s bottom!”

    “Did he? I only saw him put his hand on Jasmine’s bottom,” replied Penn, unmoved. “And I quite like Carole. She’s done all right, and she’s had no-one else to fight her battles.”

    “So what?” she cried. “Who has?”

    “Well, I just think it’s mean to call her frightful. Some women are predisposed to giggle when harmless if dirty old men put their hands on their bottoms, Marion. It’s not just cultural brainwashing, it’s hormones.”

    “It isn’t!”

    Penn sighed. “Where do you imagine the two sexes come from? And please don’t tell me to read that silly book again. If I thought it was silly the first time I certainly won’t be convinced by it the second, however many medical degrees she’s got.”

    The author’s qualifications for declaring that all differentiation on the basis of gender was imposed by that bogey, Society, had featured largely in Marion’s last plea on behalf of this mighty addition to the Women’s Studies curriculum, so she glared.

    “Anyway, he bought stuff,” said Penn peaceably.

    “He patronised us all unmercifully, the sexist old pig, you mean!” she snapped.

    Penn sighed again. More than half of this was not because of Matthew Haworth, sexist old pig though he undoubtedly was, but because Marion was jealous of the fact that she was spending so much time with Colin, and jealous that she had Colin while she herself didn’t have anyone. Never mind the man-hating stance. And it wasn’t that Marion was gay or even slightly inclined that way: the pop psychology pundits had that one all wrong, too. She had been besotted, there was no other word, by the ex, had chased him unmercifully until he’d given in—he was the kind of man that did let women chase him but that then resented them bitterly for it—and had slavishly conformed to every dictate the little piece of slime had ever issued. No disposable nappies being the least of it. It wasn’t a need to be loved on her part, though possibly that came into it. But ninety percent of it was plain and simple hetero sex. They’d been at it like rabbits almost non-stop for the first ten years of the marriage and it was only because some very strong-minded feminist friends had talked Marion into secretly going on the Pill against her Master’s wishes (lowered the libido, was the Word handed down from above) that she hadn’t ended up with ten louts to bring up on her own instead of three. And this was the woman that claimed that the possession of X or Y chromosomes did not of itself dictate behaviour?

    “I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him,” she said darkly.

    Dark utterances of the obvious were one of Marion’s specialties so Penn, despite her best intentions, replied: “Nor would anyone that wasn’t actually blind and catatonic, he has got ‘bon vivant,’ or if you prefer, ‘sexist pig,’ written all over him.”

    “What? Not him!” she shouted. “Bloody Colin!”

    “Marion, all he’s ever done to you is treat you really kindly and let you a nice tiled room for almost nothing. And come to think of it, bring his rich old uncle in specially to see you and encourage him to buy a pot off you.” She was about to add: “And when he said your work was beautiful you went as silly as Carole!” but thought better of it.

    “All right,” said Marion bitterly, “have it your own way: the sun shines out of his ears. But just be warned, because that sort of thing runs in the family!” On which she stalked out.

    Behind her back Penn pulled an awful face at her and mouthed silently: “And you went as silly as Carole, without even needing the hand on the bottom!”

    All of this hadn't got that new batch of candlesticks finished, so she got on with them, closing her mind to anything but the work in hand.

    Terence finally got what seemed to be the truth out of Colin. He stared at him in horror.

    Colin shrugged. “I rang Francis Dorning and he said it wasn’t unusual to have partial amnesia after an almighty bash on the bonce and if Uncle Matthew was his uncle he’d be the first thing he’d forget, too.”

    “Very funny,” he said tightly.

    “No, well, he does think it’s partly psychological: forgot it because I didn’t want it.”

    “Yeah. Um, Little Wyndings is lovely,” he said awkwardly. “Are you sure—”

    “Yes.”

    “Colin, he’d leave it to you!”

    “I’ll forget I heard that,” said Colin drily.

    “Sorry. But wasn’t there a flat in town?’

    “Apparently. And membership of his club. Ugh!” said Colin with a laugh. “I’ve told him to forget it. Look, presumably when I agreed to it I was thinking of getting out when I was sixtyish. I don’t want twelve extra years of it! And can you see Penn in that setting?”

    Terence blinked. “Uh—no. Not the gracious chatelaine type. Though she looked good in that red dress at the Yacht Club.”

    “Uh-huh. That was a one-off. She’s not into doing the flahs or bridge with the county cretins.”

    “No. Um, you thinking seriously of her, then, Colin?” he croaked.

    Colin eyed him drily. “You’re almost as hidebound a thinker as Uncle Matthew. It may come to nothing: we may drive each other bats after a bit. At this stage I just think I’d like to give us a chance. She’s certainly the most interesting woman I’ve met in a very long time.”

    “You said that about that American congresswoman, for God’s sake!”

    “The rambunctious Ramona!” said Colin with a laugh. “God, that woman fucked like a bucking bronco! No, well, she was interesting. Born into complete poverty in New Mexico, had to counter prejudice against both the Mexican Americans and the Native Americans, not to mention being a woman in a man’s world, in more ways than one: put herself through college on a women’s athletics scholarship, that’s almost unheard of! God, I haven’t thought about Ramona in years.”

    “That’s more or less my point,” said Terence grimly. “Ten years back you were ready to chuck in your career and become an American citizen, all for Congresswoman Ramona!”

    “Mm, well, it wasn’t ten years back: it was sixteen.” He watched sardonically as Terence gulped. “Wouldn’t you, if you’d been shunted off to be old Dicky’s aide in ruddy D.C.?”

    Rallying, Terence retorted: “Shunted off? If you hadn't been old Duff-Ross’s grandson you’d have been busted for fucking a general’s wife!”

    “Yes,” he admitted. “Even though he was only a visiting Froggy general.”

    Their eyes met. “And she was only his fourth wife,” admitted Terence in a wobbly voice.

    Simultaneously they both broke down in roars of laughter.

    “Does Penn know about your amorous career?” asked Terence feebly, mopping his eyes.

    “Some of it, yeah. Well, I’d forgotten about Ramona, actually. Well, told her the salient points, I suppose. She doesn’t claim to be a saint, either.”

    The broad-shouldered smith didn’t strike Terence as a blushing virgin, no. On the other hand, he sincerely doubted that many women on earth would have notched up a score like Colin’s. And then, Penn must be at least ten years his junior, maybe more. Perhaps it was just as well that down in these rural parts only John and him knew the sordid details. He saw him on his way, replying in kind to his laughing warning that having a cousin with a pub wasn’t an opportunity he was going to pass up.

    “Any joy?” said Alan’s voice from behind him.

    Terence closed the pub’s main door slowly. “Not much. He’s going up to see his doctor next week, but the fellow’s told him that a bit of amnesia’s not surprising after an injury like that.”

    “That’d be right,” he agreed stolidly. “Some people never get their memories back completely after a head injury.”

    Terence sighed. “No. But—well, that stuff that old Cousin Matthew came out with seems to have been spot-on: Colin did agree to it all. And, well, can’t be blamed for forgetting it, I suppose—but now he’s dead set against it! It’s a complete about face.”

    “Got very involved with his project,” said the former C.P.O. He shot the bolts. “Got your keys, Commander?”

    “Mm? Oh!” Terence locked the deadlock.

    Alan led the way back into the public bar. “I know the old bloke was going on about a personality change, but that was partly the drink talking, partly because his pet scheme’s down the gurgler. Well, you’ve known the Colonel all ’is life: has his personality changed?”

    “No. If you didn’t know him well you might think, seeing him with his lady blacksmith, that he’s a different chap from the fellow who painted the town red with that tart Aimée Mainwaring on his last leave, but believe you me, variety’s always been the spice of his sex life! Lady blacksmiths ain’t the half of it!” he admitted with a laugh.

    “Right. How’s the beer holding out?”

    “Surprising run on the bottled stuff. I was under the impression that gay artisans only drank white wine. I’ve put it on the requisition.” He switched the lights out.

    Responding in kind, Alan replied: “Aye, aye, sir.” They headed for the back door and he said: “That Rob, he was telling me about the ones the Colonel done out in Iraq. Lady journalists, they were.”

    “In safari shirts?” he asked eagerly.

    Alan’s shoulders shook. “Dunno about that! See, there was a Canadian one and an Australian one, and the Canadian one, she was a ’uge woman, taller than ’im, face like a horse, but keen as mustard. But the Australian one, she was a tiny thing, barely reached ’is shoulder.”

    “But keen as mustard too?” he said politely.

    “Keener!” he said with a muffled guffaw. “But see, it’s like you said: variety. Chalk and cheese, they were! Mind you bolt the door after me, now. See yer termorrer!”

    “’Night, Alan!” said Terence with a smile, locking and bolting the back door after him. He went up to bed with the smile lingering, feeling very much better, and deciding not to ring John about Colin, after all.