Hill On Hols

2

Hill On Hols

    Hill’s brother Allan collapsed in splutters, gasping: “Prat!”

    Hill glared.

    “Why didn’t you—” He wiped his eyes. “God, that’s done me good! Why didn’t you ask her if you could see her after the bloody Course had finished, if you were that interested?”

    “I wasn’t that interested!” he shouted.

    Allan just eyed him drily.

    “All right! She gave me the brush-off,” he admitted sourly.

    “Yeah,” his brother conceded, blowing his nose hard. “How are the mighty fallen.”

    Hill glared.

    “Didn’t realize you were that hopeless, old man,” he said in a very friendly voice. “Does the Army surgically remove all initiative? Or is it simply that the endless square-bashing—”

    “Shut UP!” he shouted.

    “—induces a need to do everything by rote? One, two; one, two,” he elaborated.

    “You sound like her,” said Hill sourly.

    Allan collapsed in splutters again, though admitting as he wiped his eyes: “In that case, Hilly, I honestly can’t see why you’d want to see her again.”

    “I don’t. And don’t call me that.”

    Ignoring both these points, his brother replied mildly: “Couldn’t you at least have got her address from the office, Hilly?”

    “Participants’ details are not revealed to the Leaders!” he snapped.

    “What about the blonde bit in the office? Don’t tell me she was impervious to your well-worn charms after all!”

    Hill was grimly silent.

    Allan smiled slowly. “I get it. Hell hath no fury, eh? Well, serves you right for doing her in the first place. Have you tried the phone book?”

    “NO!” he shouted.

    Allan just looked at him.

    After a moment Hill admitted sourly: “They don’t give out Participants’ surnames. And I’m not that interested in her.”

    “Yes, you are, Hilly, dear old chap, you’ve been banging on about her unceasingly ever since you got here.”

    “I have NUH—” Uh, shit, had he? Well, shit! He got up. “Where’s Pa?” he said sourly.

    “Down at the boatshed tarring Coot’s bottom. But he won’t want to hear about your—”

    Hill had stamped out.

    “—your Hattie,” finished his brother mildly. “Well, well, well. One for the books.”

    Allan had been correct: Pa was in the boatshed tarring Coot’s bottom. There was a lovely smell of warm tar and the brazier was making the shed very warm.

    “You know,” he said slowly, not bothering to greet his older son, whom, given his habit of getting up at crack of dawn and disappearing to the boatshed in summer, he hadn’t yet seen today, “you could try the cretinous corporation. They probably won’t give out her address, but if you just ring and ask to speak to H—”

    “Don’t you start!”

    His father straightened with a tarry brush in his hand. “That is, if your interest extends further than boring your family solid with moans about her all hols. Your trouble is—”

    “I’m warning you, Pa, shut up,” he warned.

    “—you’re not used to rejection, like us ordinary chaps,” he finished placidly, dipping it in the tar pot. “Bugger. Give this a stir, would you, Hilly?”

    Sighing, Hill stirred the tar with the indicated stick. He watched the subsequent application dully. Finally he said: “The damned thing’s older than I am, Pa, why are you bothering?”

    “She’s older than I am, actually,” replied his father with maddening placidity. “That’s why, really, bless her. –Did you ask the bint in the office for her address?”

    Hill had never so much as breathed a word to his father about the bint in the office! “Who the fuck mentioned her?” he snarled. “Allan Big-Mouth, I presume?”

    “No, it was the obvious deduction,” he replied calmly. “Well?”

    “The bitch wouldn’t let on and threatened to report me to the bosses into the bargain!” he snarled. “Happy?”

    “Not really, old man,” he said kindly, looking at him with concern.

    Ignoring this completely, Hill said: “Can I take Swallow?”

    “Of course. Want me to help you step the mast?”

    “No, thanks, I’ll row.”

    His father raised his eyebrows slightly: Swallow was only a sailing dinghy, but she was built like a tank and had a tendency to wallow like one. She could be rowed, yes, but it wasn’t something you’d volunteer for unless you wanted to torture yourself. Presumably he did. Well, he was fit enough: it wouldn’t do him any harm. He watched expressionlessly as Hill shoved off, grimly refusing any help, and grimly rowed off, the shoulders visibly straining under the ancient tee-shirt his mother had forced on him while she forcibly removed all his gear for washing, deaf to his protests that he wasn’t a schoolboy or incapable and it didn’t need it.

    “Silly tit,” he concluded. “Lost weight, too, with all this damned rushing about on the moors. Not to say the pining. Silly tit.”

    At great trouble to himself, Hill had taken Melissa Scott-Adams to the secret spot. You sailed down the lake for half an hour, found the little island, rounded its point, ducked through the narrow and almost indiscernible gap between the point and the island proper—its shape being more or less that of a snail—and there you were. Totally sheltered and delightful, and very, very green. “A green thought in a green shade,” in fact. He and Allan had found the secret spot ages before he’d ever known the quotation, but the minute he heard it he knew it was meant for it. Allan called it Green Cove but really, it rated something far more deliciously romantic, only Hill had never been able to think of anything good enough.

    Melissa was got up in a huge-brimmed red sunhat, a red and black striped halter top, tight red trousers of the variety which end halfway down the shins, and very high-heeled red sandals which he had had great difficulty in persuading her she would be safer not wearing when she stepped into the little boat. It wasn’t until she’d sat down, pouting, that it had dawned that the female had expected him to lift her into it! For Pete’s sake! It wasn’t the first time they— It wasn’t the first time, by any means! He’d known her since they were both sixteen and she’d come to stay with her cousins on the neighbouring property for the summer. True, she had been hopeless in boats then, too, but the tumbling dark curls, the huge grey-blue eyes, and, to be frank, the huge tits had more than compensated for this. Even to Allan, who was only fourteen that summer and still affecting to despise all girls bar none. Quite some time on, Melissa’s eyes were just as lovely and about as heavily made up, the tits were just about as good, in fact merely looking at them nestled in their striped halter Hill felt all ooh-er, and one could overlook the fact that the lovely dark curls had been replaced by reddish-purple wisps. The hip bones showed where once no bones had, but then, it wasn’t a perfect world, was it?

    “There are mosquitoes here!” she said angrily, slapping at her bare arm.

    “Er—no. No mosquitoes, Melissa, this is Britain, not Ther Bee-ah-mas. Possibly a gnat or two. But I can’t see any.”

    Crossly Melissa retorted: “Just don’t expect me to sit on that, that’s all!”

    Hill looked blankly at the grass. What was wrong with it?

    “It’s been raining,” she said evilly.

    “Um, yesterday morning,” he replied feebly.

    “Exactly! I’m not risking pneumonia!”

    “I’ve got a rug,” he said meekly, producing it.

    “The damp’ll come through that,” she replied immediately.

    Uh—had she developed rheumatism, or perhaps arthritis, since they were teenagers together, was that it? “I really don’t think so. It’s pretty solid. Just let me help you out—”

    “I’m not sitting on wet grass in a cloud of mosquitoes!” she snapped. “I thought you said we were going somewhere nice?”

    “But this is—” Oh, Lor’. “Melissa, you’ve known the dump most of your life, you can’t seriously have supposed that someone would have built a lovely glassed-in restaurant serving nasty Japanese salad greens sprinkled with flah petals in this neck of the woods?”

    She glared. “You mean I might have known they wouldn’t! And what’s wrong with a minceur salad, pray?”

    “Nothing, if you’re a herbivore,” said Hill sadly. “Um, well, sorry. If I fold the rug over that should protect you from the damp.”

    Grudgingly she conceded she’d try it. He had to quarter the rug, which left very little for him to sit on, but he tried sitting very, very close, only to be told he was squashing her. There had been a time when she had wanted to be squashed by him but for one reason or another he didn’t remind her of this. She spurned the cold chicken, even though it was genuine free-range—well, one of Ma’s hens that pottered round the orchard—spurned the Stilton that Pa didn’t know he’d nicked, shuddered at the mere sight of the hard-boiled eggs—it wasn’t a picnic without hard-boiled eggs, for God’s sake, had the woman completely forgotten her roots?—and grudgingly ate one tomato, without salt.

    “At least have a bread roll, Melissa.”

    “I don’t eat white bread,” said Melissa with nasty finality. “Is there any spring water?”

    “Um, Évian. Here.”

    She sipped it grudgingly.

    Not surprisingly after this lot they got back rather earlier than he’d anticipated. Melissa didn’t offer to let him drive her back to her uncle’s dump, or indeed, give any sign that she wished for more of his company. Hill watched sourly as the little cream Merc shot down the drive. Sourly he went indoors.

    “You’re back early,” said Allan mildly.

    Injudiciously, Hill glared.

    “Losing your touch, Hilly, old man,” he said, shaking his head.

    “I am NOT losing my touch!” he bellowed. “The silly bitch expected a fucking restaurant with bloody tasteless minceur salads!”

    Abruptly Allan collapsed in splutters.

    Jackie Meldrum had always been eager, willing and able. The tanned, thin type with large dark eyes and neat bobbed black hair, you know? In his experience that type was either very eager or totally uninterested. There was the small point that in the interval since he’d last seen her she’d married Whatsisface. On the other hand a mutual friend had kindly told Hill that Whatsisface, who did some sort of engineering, had pushed off to somewhere totally obscure to do it—Bahrain, possibly—and Jackie was really pissed off about it. Apparently she was still at the old flat so even though at this time of the year there was a very good chance she wouldn’t be in London, he optimistically rang its number. She was there, was thrilled to hear from him and when he suggested lunch for old times’ sake enthusiastically invited him there instead.

    Hill turned up on the dot of the appointed hour with a giant bunch of flahs and a lovely bottle of bubbly—she’d always adored the bubbles, had Jackie.

    It was a mews flat—rather nice, and he wouldn’t have minded one like it, actually. The door was opened, after some considerable time, by a very small object in a grubby tee-shirt and possibly nothing else—the tee-shirt being mercifully long enough to conceal the facts as well as its sex. Hill gaped at it.

    “Come in, Mum’s in the kitchen,” it said.

    “Yuh—um—Is this Jackie Mel—uh, Jackie’s place?” he croaked.

    “Yes; she’s in the kitchen.”

    How long had it been? It couldn’t have been that long, surely! He stumbled numbly in its wake.

    A giant form was bending to the refrigerator. “Hullo, Hill, darling!” it cried, straightening.

    Oh, Christ! The large dark eyes and the neat bobbed black hair were still in evidence, but the tan had vanished, and so had the thin. She was very, very pregnant but it wasn’t only that, by no means.

    Hill tried to say all the right things. She was thrilled by the bubbly and, though pointing out that she shouldn’t really, didn’t seem averse to the idea of drinking some—she was fed up with “this”, patting the immense bulge. The object in the tee-shirt was, of course, hers. Hers and Christopher’s—that was right: the type that never called himself Chris, took himself with ’orrible seriousness. Damian. Four. Christ.

    The one consolation was, Allan wasn’t there to snigger at him.

    Since he was a glutton for punishment, he then rang Delia Hawkins. Well, it could only turn out to be another disaster, couldn’t it? She had always been very much the same type, though the hair was the brown and very shiny sort, not black. She was in town, was terrifically pleased to hear from him, and stated firmly that she’d meet him at his hotel. Promising. Er—lunchtime, not in the evening. Well, still quite promising. His room number? Ooh! Very promising!

    She arrived on the dot—unless it was Room Service or the maid. He hurried to open—

    “Hill, darling, you haven’t changed at all!”

    “Nor have you,” said Hill, a trifle limply—not all over, no. But it was a considerable relief to see she was still as slim and tanned as ever. The hair was no longer in an excruciatingly neat bob, but rather shorter, though still shiny. And still excruciatingly neat. The excruciatingly neat charcoal trouser suit, Wiry Lady Execs for the use of, was a little off-putting, but—

    She came in, shoving the door shut behind her, dumped her briefcase and, plastering herself against him, propelled him firmly back against the bed and— Help! Flat onto his back on the bed. Then fastening herself to his mouth like a—a—one of those sucker-fish things, really.

    There was nothing he could do except lie back and let her take over. So he did that. He hadn’t exactly forgotten she’d always been like that but he had sort of shoved it to the back of his mind, sort of half-deliberately.

    In very short order she was on top, having managed with remarkable neatness what had always struck Hill as the rather awkward manoeuvre of getting the legs tucked up either side of him. Well, possibly she was as fit as those very young, very nubile acrobats that had posed for the pics in the Kamasutra. Pity she didn’t have their attributes to go with it. What she did have was a considerable stretch of rib cage, well displayed, she was sort of arching herself backwards up there, and very small, pointy tits. They were technically female tits, yes, but that was about all you could say for them. He hadn’t exactly forgotten they’d always been like that but he had sort of shoved it to the back of his mind. And he was sure she was thinner than she used to be! He’d had a hazy memory of a generous amount of pubic hair but possibly he’d been mixed up and that had been someone else. Because there was very little now. Sort of a small vertical moustache, but very fortunately he could only see it, given his supine position, if he raised his head excruciatingly and peered, and he wasn’t gonna do that. She was jerking herself up and down on him and to start with that had been really good, only it was starting to get just a bit boring, ’cos at the same time she was stimulating her own nipples and going “Ooh-ooh,” as she did it. Hadn’t anybody ever told her that (a) a chap could do that for her and (b) a chap would quite like to do that for her?

    “I could rub your nipples, Delia,” he croaked feebly.

    “Ooh-ooh. No, stimulate my clitoris,” she ordered clinically.

    All right, he would. He did that. “Okay?”

    “Use the flat of your thumb,” she ordered clinically.

    He did that. Then he thought he might use some initiative! So he slid his other hand round to the firmly muscled bum—it just about fit into his hand, too—and palpated a buttock for bit. Then he reached over—

    “I’m not into any sort of anal stimulation,” she announced.

    Christ, he’d only been going to tickle it! “Sorry,” he said meekly.

    “Ooh-ooh.”

    Okay, ooh-ooh. They’d just do that, then. They just did that for some time and finally Delia started to go “Ooh-ooh-oof. “Ooh-ooh-oof.” Not with anything that could have been categorized as enthusiasm or enjoyment, but presumably it was progress. So he let himself raise his bum, and shove—

    “Don’t do that!”

    Fair enough: she had already ordered him not to do that. Hadn’t anybody ever told her that a chap needed—nay, that it was a chap’s instinct to do that? Something to do with perpetuating the race and, um, them drives? That sort of thing? But he did his best not to do it or anything like it. And if he had to hold back much longer he’d go limp, that was wot. That or explode involuntarily.

    “Ooh-ooh-oof. Ooh-ooh-oof. Oof! Oof!”

    Possibly that was it but alas, Hill no longer cared whether it was or it wasn’t, so he raised his bum before she could remove her person and fucked really hard for about two seconds and—he had been holding back like blazes for some time—came like the clappers with a yell fit to raise the roof. She’d got off him before he’d even got his breath, but gee, that didn’t surprise him.

    “All right?” he said, very, very faintly.

    “Yes, thanks. Sorry I can’t stay: got a meeting,” replied Delia briskly, heading for the shower.

    Right. Yes. Of course.

    So he gave in entirely and went over to France to stay with his sister, Harriet, and her husband, Will Blaiklock, in their trendily restored cottage in Normandy. Possibly technically half a cottage, or maybe the two had always been semidetached, but whatever, the building contained two, side by side. Side by side stuck out in the depths of the Normandy countryside. It was mostly cider apples round here and the view was not unpleasant, but not exciting, either. Well, flattish with rows and rows of trees, yeah. The apples were inedible even when ripe.

    Harriet had been inspired partly by something she’d seen on the telly and partly by the fact that their friends Alison and Howard were doing it. Alison and Howard had a much nicer detached cottage with a proper view of a little bridge over a little stream, much nearer to the town and its amenities like shops and proper road surfaces. Their other friends, Susan and Vernon Waddington, were the mugs that had been suckered into buying the other semidetached one. Every so often the local farmer who’d sold the dumps to them for an extortionate price came down and inspected them. Apparently being a landowner who’d sold off two crumbling stone dumps without water, electricity, gas or sewerage—all of which the unsuspecting English buyers had had to have put in at immense expense—entitled you to do that, in France. As a result of these inspections Harriet’s hens had had to go: not properly fenced in; Vernon’s motorbike had been vetoed: scared the neighbour’s cows (there being no cows in sight, naturally); most of Susan’s herb garden had had to go: would turn into rampant weeds and contaminate the local crops (no crops in sight except well established cider apple trees); and Will’s and Vernon’s joint garage had had to go: no planning permission. Added to which there was nothing to actually do in the depths of the Normandy countryside in summer. So the gilt had worn off the gingerbread and they were looking round for some other English suckers to buy the dumps. But meanwhile they were grimly making use of them.

    Harriet and Will had two boys, aged eight and seven: Jeremy Bertram (for Will’s dad and grandad) and Jolyon Allan (for Pa and Grandfather, poor little sod). One couldn’t blame them for calling themselves firmly “J.B.” and “Joe.” In spite of the language difficulty, or possibly simply ignoring the language difficulty entirely, they had struck up a close friendship with one, Thierry, and one, Jean-Marie, from the neighbouring farms, and regularly disappeared for entire days with these two experts in coarse fishing, newt-bottling, and just plain getting-wet-and-filthy, whenever they came over here. Which left Will pretty free to sit round drinking the local cider. Susan and Vernon had no kids but this didn’t stop Vernon from sitting round drinking the local cider. When he was here, that was; he wasn’t, this trip: his firm had just been taken over by a large American-based multinational and he’d been sent to the States on an Orientation Course. –Hill had jumped sharply as this information was purveyed but of course it was nothing to do with paint guns or getting lost with compasses. Not that the Yanks didn’t do that, as well; in fact Susan told him kindly that she was sure Vernon’s new Manager would want to book them all in with him!

    Susan was a well rounded, blonde, blue-eyed woman in her mid-thirties and after they’d all been to lunch and dinner in the local town several times and he’d been taken for her hubby it sort of began to penetrate to Hill’s consciousness that she didn’t actually object to this or, in fact, to him. In fact she pretty soon let him come into her cottage for late-night coffee and, after they’d got themselves round a couple of glasses of Cointreau instead of coffee, let him come into her. It was a trifle embarrassing that, what with not having had it for ages apart from the brief and unlovely episode with Delia, he ruddy well did come, on the spot, but Susan only giggled like mad and said that was all right and would he like to do something lovely for her? Which he would, the more so as she was apparently content to leave it up to him to decide what. Early the next morning she was apparently content to let him try to improve upon his performance. Well, when he woke up it was sort of pressing itself of its own accord against something rounded and smooth and warm that turned out to be her bum and when he nuzzled into her neck, sort of hoping she might be awake or might be the sort of lady that woke up and didn’t blame you for curtailing her beauty sleep, she said muzzily: “I’m on the Pill, so you cou’ just’ do’t.” Golly! He couldn’t remember when he’d last heard that remark, so, turning her over and kissing her eagerly, he got up there and— Golly! In fact, gosh! In fact— God! “AAA-ARGH! Uh—AAARGH!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs.

    “Jesus, I’m sorry, Susan,” he said sheepishly, after an about an aeon had passed and he was able to utter again. “Too keen. Um—haven’t really had it for a bit.”

    “That’s all right, Hilly!” said Susan with a loud giggle. “You’ll do better next time, I’m sure!”

    Ooh, goody, was there gonna be a next time? On the strength of it he got down there and did something very nice for her. Well, judging by the shrieking and the clawing of his shoulders she thought it was nice. Then she lay back smirking and revealed: “Vernon doesn’t do that much.”

    Really? More fool him, then. ’Cos in his experience, it softened them up no end.

    Susan certainly seem to be softened up. Because she didn’t complain when he woke up some time later, having dropped off again, nor when he followed her into the shower and showed her how it had got all interested again—though she did give a loud giggle and say: “Already?” Nor did she complain when he shoved her back against the shower wall and getting up there, fucked very hard for some time. In fact eventually she began to moan and bit his ear—Ooh!—and gasped: “Could we finish it lying down?”

    So he lugged her through to the bedroom, fell on her on the bed and began to— Whereupon Susan let out a shriek like a banshee and, yelling out a rude word wot a lady like her usually didn’t, clenched like fury on him. So he let go and showered into her, this time obligingly yelling: “AAA-ARGH! Uh—AAARGH!” In case she hadn’t got the point that he didn’t half mind ladies that yelled out rude words as they were coming on the old piece of meat.

    After that they were both just about strong enough to have a proper wash and get dressed and eat their breakfasts.

    “I won’t ask where you were last night,” said his sister drily as he eventually limped into her kitchen.

    “No, don’t. Got any coffee?”

    “Not what you and the French call coffee, no. M. Dupont actually had a go at me about not having a coffee-pot last time we were over here, would you believe?”

    “You mean the old stinker came into your kitchen and—” She was nodding. “Ye gods! No wonder you want to sell the dump! Well, instant’ll do.” He watched, smiling, as she switched the electric jug on, and added: “Colin calls it dust, did you know?”

    Frowning, Harriet replied: “Was that deliberate?”

    “Eh? Oh! No, for Christ’s sake; that was years back!”

    “Mm, and he’s probably forgotten all about it,” she said drily.

    “Er, well, busy man, Colin,” he admitted feebly. “Um, everything is all right between you and Will, is it?”

    “Yes, of course!” replied his sister, just as if there had never been a time when Will had gone home to his doting mum and she’d thrown herself into Colin Haworth’s far too ready arms. Oh, well. No-one was perfect. And at least Will didn’t know about the thing with Colin.

    Harriet and Will thought they might drive over to the next town but one for lunch, for a change, but Susan didn’t fancy it, really, so Hill didn’t fancy it, either. This was definitely the right move, because the minute the dusty Volvo station-waggon had disappeared down the very rutted, very dusty track that led to the apology for a road, she sort of leaned against his side and said with a giggle: “Shall we?”

    “This’d be lunch, would it?” replied Hill primly, getting an arm round her and helping her into her cottage.

    “If you like!” said Susan with a very loud giggle.

    Actually he did like, for a change, so he got her perched on her scrubbed French kitchen table—very ethnic, it was: she hadn’t yet given in and coated it with polyurethane like Harriet had—and, drawing up a handy kitchen chair, sat down and started. Quite soon she was gasping: “Oh, Hilly! Oh, Hilly! Ooh!” That sort of gasp. Not to mention the flooding that was going on down there. That tit Vernon didn’t often do it, when this was how she reacted? The man was a tit! It got so encouraging, in fact, that he stood up, tore off all his clothes, pushed her back a bit on the table and got on top of her. “Jesus, Susan, this is good! Oh—God! Can you? AAA-ARGH! Uh—AAARGH!”

    Well, yes, she had been able to, and she had been, which was why he had. He attempted to take most of his weight off her but as she had her arms round him and held on tight, took it as a sign she didn’t want him to get off her. Then she put her legs right up, round his bum, that was interesting. So he bit her ear on the strength of it and she shrieked: “Aii-eee-eee!” And clenched like the hand of God on his poor little fellow and Plop! Expelled it completely. Poor little fellow that it was.

    “Strewth,” he managed to say, as eventually the grip of her arms and legs relaxed and he was able to roll onto his back and pant.

    Susan gave a smothered giggle.

    “Do you always come like that when a chappie does you on your kitchen table?” he said faintly.

    She squeezed his hand hard. “Only when it’s you, Hilly!”

    Well, that was flattering.

    The rest of the week was pretty much similar. Generically speaking, at least. She also liked it very much when she was leaning on her French windowsill, admiring the view of cider apple trees, and he crept up behind her and, whipping the skirt up and wrenching the knickers down, stuck his tongue— Yeah. In fact it was almost guaranteed to give her a come within the next five seconds. Nor did she object if, when she was standing at the sinkbench making something very complicated like a cup of tea—the girls were agreed that on holiday they didn’t cook—he crept up behind her, pressed the old fellow against her, and getting his hand round her front, whipped her skirt up and got a finger through the leg hole of the panties and tickled her a bit. Nor did she order him to do it with the flat of his thumb or give it its clinical name: most encouraging. She didn’t even object to kneeling in front of him as he sprawled in the armchair and sucking it for ages and ages and—Ooh-er! Though she did insist on his not “wasting” it by coming like that, but poking it into her instead and coming there. Which he didn’t actually object to—no. All in all it was an exhausting, if thrilling week and he was able to say to Will with some truth when Susan had regretfully gone home in time to meet the tit off his international flight: “I feel completely shagged out.”

    “Yeah, hah, hah,” replied his brother-in-law mildly, pouring cider.

    “Thanks. Aaah!”

    “You wanna watch out for that,” said his brother-in-law kindly.

    “Eh?”

    “The cider. It’s old Dupont’s special. Packs a wallop.”

    “Oh! Yeah, I will.”

    Will drank cider thirstily, gazing peacefully at the view of cider apple trees. At the moment they were sitting in the sun on the forecourt of the semidetached cottages, but the view from the back was much the same. However, the back was occupied at the moment by Harriet grimly weeding what was left of the herb garden, and they were tacitly agreed neither of them wanted to watch that.

    “You could watch out for the other as well, though,” he said eventually.

    Hill blinked. “Huh?”

    “Susan Waddington,” he elaborated.

    “Um, didn’t seem interested in turning it into anything more, um, permanent,” he ventured. “Thought her and Vernon were quite, um, settled, really?”

    Will eyed him drily. “They are, apart from the fact that he can’t have kids—low sperm count. They’ve been trying for some time.”

    There was a sufficiently long silence on the sunny forecourt with its view of the cider apple trees.

    “I see,” said Hill finally.

    “Thought you might: mm,” replied his brother-in-law placidly.

    He ended up back in London with a week of his leave left. Well—should go back to Ma and Pa’s dump, really. Take another hotel room? The cheaper rooms were of course all booked out for the summer by the flocks of foreign tourists, and he’d already paid an arm and a leg for that room he’d stupidly given up in a favour of the Normandy venture. He didn’t really fancy sacrificing the other arm and leg. He dithered, but gave in and rang Uncle Hubert. Only too glad to have him. Mm. That meant he still hadn’t given up his daft idea that Hill might like to come into his business. Security systems. Uncle Hubert in the long-ago had started the firm with a chum, also ex-Army, under the impression that all over England businesses wanted security guards with high moral standards and big Alsatian dogs. They had only done reasonably well until the advent of the computer, even though they had diversified into home alarms: those daft things in your front hall that beeped and were supposed to ring bells at places unseen so as the police and/or the firm could come rushing to the rescue only twenty-five minutes after the bur-gu-lars had knocked you out and beaten it with the family silver. However, Uncle Hubert had accidentally hired the right chap and the business had really taken off over the last ten years, once the chap had figured out what could be done with computers and alarms. They were now into high-tech security and did the bizzo for half of the City. Well, Uncle Hubert’s house, clubs, and tailoring certainly proclaimed they did. Not to mention that draughty dump he’d recently bought himself up in Scotland. Baronial ’all, kind of thing. If he ever got sick of it and its genuine tattered Scotch banners he’d be able to sell it to an American billionaire, that was for sure.

    Of course, making all this moolah and buying baronial ’alls had brought it home forcibly to the old guy that he didn’t have an heir—well, three daughters out of, variously, his first and second wives, but they didn’t count. So he’d got married again. Sherri, so spelled. Less than half his age, the figure of a film starlet—on consideration, make that a film starlet of the Fifties—the brain of a gnat and the personality of a particularly demented hen. She had, however, produced little Jonathan for him. Seven months after the wedding, but if the old boy believed he was his, so much the better. Unfortunately it’d be another eighteen years or so before he was old enough to come into the firm, and in the meantime—yeah.

    Over an excellent dinner Uncle Hubert attempted to convince him what an excellent career security systems were, Hill attempted to pump him about what large corporation might be called Firth-Something or Something-Firth, definitely with offices in London, because he sort of thought the Corporate Gits from the aforesaid had been Hattie’s lot of Corporate Gits, Sherri told them all about some ghastly show she’d been to, possibly a musical but that was not at all clear from the narrative, Uncle Hubert’s second daughter, Lindy, told them bitterly exactly what was wrong with the wealthy Q.C. she’d just dumped and how American divorce lawyers (as opposed to ours, didn’t need to be stated) saw to it that you got your share of the marriage’s assets, and Uncle Hubert’s youngest daughter, Babs, who had definitely dumped her husband some time back but, or so Hill had thought, was supposed to be engaged to a chap in the Foreign Office, blatantly made eyes at him, Hill.

    Surprisingly enough it was not either Babs, who’d continued to make eyes at him after dinner, nor Sherri, who’d started to do so once Uncle Hubert had shown signs of nodding off after the brandy that followed the port that followed the burgundy that followed the fino, but Lindy, who came into his room that night.

    “Are you up for some uncomplicated sex?” she demanded grimly, standing there in her tightly belted, tailored navy dressing-gown.

    Hill was already tucked up in his virtuous wee bed. “Um, I might be, given the appropriate encouragement, Lindy,” he quavered. “Are you sure about this?”

    “Yes,” she said, unbelting the robe and letting it drop.

    Gosh!

    “Ignore the bikini line, that was all his idea,” she said grimly.

    “Uh—yes, I was,” he croaked. She was a tall woman, almost his own height. He had always realized she was wide-shouldered and broad-hipped, of course, but had she always had that pair? God—surely the prick hadn’t made her have them done, as well? She was sallow-skinned, in strong contrast to the blonde Susan Waddington, but at the precise moment that merely added to the attraction. Dusky and very, very nubile.

    “I put on a lot of weight after Joshua, especially round the bust and hips, and I don’t seem to be able to get it off,” she said grimly, putting her hand on the extremely—extremely—attractive belly.

    “No, don’t! I mean, I like it,” he croaked, goggling.

    Uncertainly Lindy took the hand away. “He started nagging me about getting in more tennis and swimming, this’d be in between managing his gracious home and appearing at stupid dinners on his arm suitably dressed and coiffed, and taking his fucking suits to the cleaners and— Sorry, Hilly,” she said, biting her lip.

    “That’s okay. Come over here: I’ll show you how much I like it all.” She came over to the bed, looking uncertain, and Hill sat up straight and mumbled his face into the beckoning belly, meanwhile, since they were there, reaching up and getting two very good handfuls.

    Lindy gave a gasp as her belly jerked convulsively under his mouth and at that point Hill simply swept the bedclothes back and let her see he really was up for it. She went red as fire and her legs shook, so he pulled her on top of him and, positively gluing his mouth to hers—it was a wide, full-lipped, generous mouth, wasted on that moron she’d married, he’d always thought—got on with it.

    By about three in the morning he judged she was pretty satisfied so he let himself fall asleep.

    When he eventually woke up she was sitting up in bed staring at him.

    “’Lo,” he said fuzzily.

    “God, I thought I dreamt it,” said Lindy groggily.

    “No—well, not unless you usually have two belting comes in your dreams, Lindy,” he said politely.

    “No!” she said with a strangled laugh, clapping her hand to her mouth and goggling at him over it.

    “If you’d put your legs apart,” said Hill kindly, “I could give you another one.”

    “N— Um, I mean—“

    Helpfully he put a hand on a thigh and pushed gently.

    Lindy gave a moan, let go the bedclothes she’d been clutching to her, fell on top of him and kissed him like, um, well, like there was no tomorrow, would do. Hill obligingly kissed her back and as she seemed to like it, and he very much liked it, encouraged her to edge up—no, she wasn’t squashing him—and then encouraged himself to edge down a bit and then—as she was gasping “Oh, Hilly; oh, Hilly!” he wasn’t put off by all this edging—to edge up again sufficiently to—

    “Oh, Hilly!” she shouted as he entered her. “Oh, God; oh, God,” she moaned, squashing all the breath out of him, meanwhile her entire body was moving up and down on his entire—

    Gee, that was quite encouraging. “Christ, don’t fuck me like that, Lindy, I’ll come!” he gasped.

    “What, then?” she said faintly.

    “Just slow down. Let me lift you up a bit.” He supported her torso with both hands and managed to breathe a bit. “That’s better!” he said, smiling into her eyes. “Do me slowly, mm?”

    Lindy did him slowly, moaning as she did so. This was so discouraging that Hill found he was raising his bum so as to give it a good shove—

    “Oh, Hill-ee-ee!” she screamed, coming like fury on him.

    Hill fucked a bit while she was coming on him and this was so very, very good that— “AAA-ARGH! Uh—AAARGH!”

    About fifty years later Lindy rolled off him and said groggily: “I do like it when you yell like that, Hilly.”

    Uh—did he? Had he? “Oh, good,” he managed.

    “He always used to grunt,” she said sourly.

    “Er—mm?”

    “When he came, I mean,” she said sourly.

    “Oh! Um, just grunt?”

    “Mm.”

    “Oh. Um, I think I always yell. I suppose I sort of thought other chaps did, too. When they were with a woman, you know. Not when they were pulling themselves under the bedclothes at school, obviously.”

    “No,” said Lindy with a sigh. “–Was I too quick?”

    “Um, no,” he said foggily.

    “He always said I was.”

    Oh! Got it! “Uh-huh.”

    “But he’d never fuck when I wanted to!” she burst out.

    “In that case the impression I’ve always had of him, namely that he’s an inconsiderate stuffed shirt as well as totally up himself, can’t have been wrong, Lindy,” he said mildly.

    “No.”

    “If I may ask, did he ever let you go on top?”

    “No.”

    In that case very nearly all was explained. He took her hand and squeezed it.

    “I’ve always fancied you, actually, Hilly,” she said with a sigh. “Remember that day on the river? Hugh and I were up at Oxford. You were still at school—Daddy brought you over for a treat.”

    “Oh! Good God, yes! That day!” said Hill with a laugh. “Of course I remember! Uncle Hubert had some woman in a huge blue hat!”

    “That’s right. Gosh, I’ve forgotten her name. She made Daddy take her down river, and you paddled off in your canoe, so I thought Hugh might want to, um, do it.”

    “A chap would,” he said mildly.

    “Yes, but he wouldn’t, he said what if any of you came back! And he had the cheek to tell me that nice girls don’t say fuck!”

    Jesus, why hadn’t she dumped the tit then and there? “Um, so was that why you came in the canoe with me, Lindy?” he groped.

    “Only partly,” said Lindy, very flushed. “Um, you’d taken your shirt off, Hilly, and I—I wanted you awfully… Well, as I say, I’ve always fancied you.”

    “Flattering, but undeserved: as I remember it, I came the minute you got my pants down and got your hand on me!” he said, grinning.

    “Only the first time!” replied Lindy with a laugh.

    Right: they’d drunk the lemonade and eaten the sandwiches—still no sign of Uncle Hubert and the blue hat lady, and he had deliberately steered the canoe away from Hugh’s orbit: he might only have been sixteen but he wasn’t entirely thick—and then Lindy had found a nice little spot under a willow and taken off all her clothes and lain down in the canoe and made him take all his off and get on top of her. With the expected result. Well, hers hadn’t been expected by him—no. Hill closed his eyes: he could still feel her clenching on him… “It was wonderful,” he murmured.

    “Um—thanks!” said his big cousin with a startled laugh.

    “You could do a damn’ sight better than that fool, Hugh, you know,” he murmured, yawning.

    “I don’t think I want to, I’ve had it with domesticity. Looking back, I feel as if I’ve spent the last twenty years not really being me.”

    Er, well, that wasn't an uncommon syndrome when one’s marriage turned out to be a fizzer, but… “Twenty?” he croaked.

    “Since our engagement, yes. Richard’ll be twenty next year,” she said with a sigh. “–Do you think boat-building’s mad?’

    “Don’t think anyone in my immediate family thinks that, Lindy: not given we’ve got a pa who lives in his boatshed!” he said with a laugh. “Um, for Richard, is this?”

    “And me,” she said grimly. “We want to build real wooden boats.”

    Ouch! Still, even if she didn’t get as much out of the prick as an American divorce’d net her, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t be broke, so he said mildly: “Sounds good to me. You may not make your fortunes, but you’ll avoid the trendies, they’re all into fibreglass things where sailing consists of winding winches, bum up, for hours on end. Real wooden boat lovers may be a small market but at least they’re keen.”

    Beaming, Lindy sat up and told him all about where they thought they might do it and the man Richard knew who was a real tradesman, but no businessman, he needed someone for the business side… Well, if she or Richard had anything of Uncle Hubert in them at all, they should do all right. And far be it from him to dissuade anyone who’d found something they really wanted to do!

    Over breakfast—Uncle Hubert was down but there was no sign of Sherri or Babs—Lindy suddenly said: “I’ve just had a thought, Hilly.”

    “Mm?” he replied round the bacon, eggs and sausage he unaccountably felt like this morning.

    “You know you were asking Daddy about some firm—Firth or something? ”

    “Yes?” he said eagerly, fork suspended.

    “Why don’t you try the Internet? Just put in Firth and, um, London, maybe?”

    “Duh-doesn’t that sort of search usually result in five thousand results, um, what do they call them? Hits?”

    “You can but try,” she replied. “I could do it for you! Can I use the computer in the study, Daddy?”

    The old man agreed cheerfully. Lindy finished her breakfast and dashed off to do it. Hill abandoned his plate—unaccountably he suddenly didn’t feel hungry—and followed her.

    Oh, crumbs. There it was: the third one down. Lindy was clicking with the whatsit: the corporate blah was miraculously replaced by actual details of addresses. He accepted the print-out in a shaking hand. “Thanks awfully, Lindy,” he croaked.

    “She’s a lucky woman,” replied his big cousin simply.

    Hill went very, very red. “I—”

    “It’s all right, you don’t have to explain. It was lovely, Hilly,” she said mildly, going out.

    Hill sat down shakily: his legs had given way.

    “Hattie,” he repeated. “She does computer troubleshooting, um, p.c. troubleshooting.”

    “That’ll be IT,” replied the refeened lady at the other end of the phone.

    Er—possibly. “Yes,” he agreed.

   “Putting you throow,” she cooed.

    Crumbs, she’d put him through!’

    “Coats,” said a man’s voice, sounding very grumpy.

    “Um, pardon?” replied Hill numbly.

    “Coats! What extension did you want?”

    “Cuh—oh,” he said numbly. Coates, it must be. “Um, is that the right number for Hattie?”

    “She’s left,” replied Coates.

    Hill felt the bottom fall out of his tummy. “Nuh— Uh—when?” he croaked.

    “Last week, I think. Might’ve been the week before, I’ve been on leave,” he said grumpily. “Can I help?”

    “No, um, it’s puh—personal… Um, do you know where she’s gone?”

    “No idea, I’m afraid.”

    “Is she—is she doing another IT job?”

    “Dunno. Sorry.” He hung up.

    Oh, God! Hill looked sourly at his useless piece of computer-generated paper. If only he’d— Oh, shit! Missed her by a week, two at the most? To think at the time he’d been doing bloody Susan Waddington, Hattie had been—Well, shit! Shit, shit, shit!

    He had two days’ leave left. Then he’d have to report to the tits in the London office. Inspiration had struck so he went and hung round Firth, Camberwell casually at lunchtime. N.B.G. Okay, he hung round casually at going-home time. N.B. Fucking G. Okay, he’d try again next day. He hung round casually at lunchtime…

    “Janette! Fancy bumping into you! So this is your building, is it?”

    Janette had gone very pink and was obviously very pleased to see him again. “Hill! Whatever are you doing in this neck of the woods?”

    “Had an appointment, thought I’d stroll,” he lied easily. “What a piece of luck! Fancy a spot of lunch?”

    “It’s all right, Janette,” said the grim-faced lady exec at her side. “I’ll see you later.”

    Janette looked after her guiltily as she marched off, grim-faced, but then looked up at Hill with a beaming smile.

    He took her somewhere rather nice, and gave her what would have been a lovely lunch if she hadn't chosen all minceur dishes, but when he said hopefully, having chatted airily about what fun it had all been, and what a nice bunch they had been, Was that funny Hattie still working for them? she said no, and then further admitted that she didn’t knew where she’d gone: IT people were always coming and going. Hill bit his lip but said it:

    “You wouldn’t have an address for her, then?”

    “Um, no!” said Janette, giving him a startled look. “Did she leave something behind? I could give it to Personnel, they’d have an address for her.”

    The brilliant thought struck him, he could enclose a letter for her! Telling her what a tit he was not to have apologized abjectly for being such a prat on the Course, and how much he wanted to see her— Um, yes. “Um, yes. We think it must be hers. Well, she did have an awful lot of stuff. Um, well, if I parcel it up and, um—”

    Eagerly Janette offered to meet him as and when and he could give it to her and she’d make sure it got to Personnel. Oh, Hell. On the other hand it did seem to be a surer way of getting it to her than if he just addressed it to Hattie, c/- Firth, Camberwell.

    “Thanks awfully, Janette. Um, the silly thing is, we only keep a record of numbers once the courses have finished and we haven’t got her full name any more.”

    Apparently swallowing this hook, line and sinker, Janette told him happily her surname was Perkins.

    Any faint hope that he might be able to find her in the London phone book died the death. Perkins? There must be a million of them in Britain and five hundred thousand of them would be sure to live in London. Feebly he agreed to meet Janette after work tomorrow.

    The morrow of course featured the meeting with the bosses at the office. They thought the war-gaming thing was losing popularity and blah, blah. It wasn’t his job to offer ideas, he was only a Course Leader, so he just looked helpful and interested. Obstacle courses? They already had rock climbing and orienteering and a very silly exercise where Participants had to get themselves across a small stream without getting wet and with the aid of two logs, neither of which was long enough to form a bridge… Old tyres? Oh! Them obstacle courses. Um, yes, he supposed he could get the specifications for a wall like the one the GIs had had to scramble up in GI Jane (whatever the Hell that was: one of the lady bosses wasn’t very up with the corporate play, but very keen on offering new ideas). One of the other lady bosses, who was very the much the Wiry Lady Exec type, objected strongly that the whole point of that had been she couldn’t—something about body weight ratios of the female form, so Hill, though not uninterested in the female form as such, switched off. –Eh? Very well, he would talk to some Army chums, if they said so. (And he wouldn’t point out that none of their Participants were GIs or even Americans.) Oh—he had had a nibble from a possible new client. Resignedly he gave them the details of Vernon Waddington’s place of employment, explaining they’d just been taken over by a multinat— They knew that, and they were thrilled. In that case possibly he’d be able to afford to eat for the next year, after all. Because his previous idea had been that they’d called this meeting in order to give him the Order of the Boot.

    They actually offered to put him up at a hotel while he contacted the Army chums and got the specifications for the obstacle course equipment and found a range of possible suppliers from which they would later make the wrong choice entirely, but Hill admitted honestly that he was staying with Uncle Hubert, actually. This elicited beaming smiles and it belatedly dawned. They knew who Uncle Hubert was, and they knew all about his blasted HT Security, in fact they would probably recognize its nasty logo in their sleep.—The letters “igh” and “ech” were cunningly worked into it, regardless of the fact that the firm had been started when there was no such thing as high tech and “HT” were actually the old boy’s initials.—And in short they had known from the word “go” that he, Hill, was the old boy’s nephew.

    After that he would have headed straight for the nearest pub, but it was one of those corporate watering-holes that had happy hours. Then the nastiest of the bosses nabbed him just as he thought he was escaping through the revolving glass doors and asked him in a cosy way if he still belonged to the Army and Navy. As he’d forgotten to resign, though fully intending to—what use was it to him when he was stuck up on the Yorkshire moors?—he admitted he did and was then forced to take the bugger there.

    However, it didn’t turn out all that badly, because old Hammerhead was there with Jerry Coleby and Adam Gilfillan and the two of them leapt on him like drowning men and dragged him into their group and the old boy then patronized the boss terrifically. The full bit. Did he know old So-and-So? No? What a pity. That was in old So-and-So’s day, did he know— What a pity. Down in old So-and-So’s county, know the place, do you, Um? What a pity. Old Kenneth’s dump up in Scotland—know it? Not far from Balmoral, one can quite easily pop over— Long story about the complete boredom of Balmoral and the relief it was to pop over to old Kenneth’s dump. You shoot, of course, Um? Eagerly the boss admitted he did, making it all too ’orribly clear he was panting for an invite, and the old bastard returned blandly: “Good show.” If he hadn’t already had so many medals he couldn’t stand up under ’em, Hill would have awarded him one on the spot. Jerry and Adam then nobly joined in by chatting about Colin’s lot and the boss was completely out of it. And in fact slung his hook fairly soon. Old Hammerhead then invited Hill warmly down to his dump for a bit of shooting but alas, he had to admit he’d be up in Yorkshire, working. Um—not all that far from Colin’s grandfather’s place, no, sir. Oh, your daughter’s brother-in-law’s place, eh? He looked round desperately for help but bloody Jerry and Adam just grinned at him. Yuh—uh—well, have to be on duty twenty-four hours in this job, sir, but, um— Yes, bit of leave. Yes: pop over. Thanks awfully, sir.

    The old boy then toddled off looking frightfully pleased with himself and Adam and Jerry collapsed in splutters of the most agonising sort.

    “Thing is,” Adam explained, blowing his nose, “the daughter’s eldest has just blotted her copybook with a skiing instruct—”

    “Formula One driver,” interrupted Jerry, grinning.

    “Something of the sort, yes. And so the whole family’s frantically dredging up suitable candidates from all over—”

    “Look, shut it, Adam.”

     “–the British Isles,” he finished, grinning.

    “The Commonwealth,” corrected Jerry. “There was that Australian chap, father’s a media tycoon or some such.”

    “Oh, yes: the Commonwealth,” he said, grinning.

    “Neither of you is funny and I’m not available,” said Hill tightly.

    They gaped at him.

    “Not—available,” he said evilly, “and kindly spread that all round your frightful friends, would you?”

    “Look, old boy—”

    “Shut it, Jerry. –And you. I’m going.” He went.

    Janette was at the appointed spot and in fact he had the strong impression that she might have been standing there for some time. Ouch. She accepted the parcel eagerly.—It contained one brand-new Italian coffee-pot and two Mars Bars.—She didn’t ask but she said brightly: “Ooh, it’s quite heavy! I mean, not really heavy, but I thought it might be something like socks!” So he admitted it was a coffee-pot and Janette said happily that oh, yes, Hattie had made some lovely coffee for them. Had she? Who, them? Blue Group? He’d never been favoured with lovely coffee! “We were out on the moors,” she said, smiling, “and nobody was managing to build a fire, and Hattie admitted she had some fire starters and a big box of matches and, um, actually a cigarette lighter as well, only she didn’t know how to work that. So Greg showed her how it worked and, um, after that it seemed silly not to use… Um, sorry! I suppose we should have got a lot of demerits for that, but it was an awful day, and we only had raw sausages.”

    “Oh—that day,” he said lamely. “Um, yes. Well, the other groups all cheated, too, so it doesn’t really matter.” She was looking up at him hopefully, blast! “Well, how about a spot?” he said weakly.

    “Ooh, lovely!” replied Janette immediately, grabbing his arm.

    Hell. But he led her off to an appropriate watering-hole and after three white wines on her side and three whiskies on his (on top of what he’d already consumed at the club, yes), it seemed silly not to have a bite, so they did that. Janette didn’t entirely drop the minceur thing but she did accept a nice little piece of fillet steak and the orange and blackcurrant thing she had after it was almost like pudding. And then she really gave in and let him give her a Kahlua with the coffee and as he was having a Cognac it seemed silly not to have another each and then it seemed silly not to take her home in a taxi. Since they were in it and she was giggling terrifically it seemed silly not to kiss her. When they got to her place it seemed awfully silly not to come in for just a coffee.

    Possibly if Hill had been a totally honourable gent it would never, ever have got this far, but as it had, and he wasn’t, it might as well go all the way, so it did.

    In the morning he found he was still there: that did tend to happen if one drank a lot of grog, did a lady rather rapidly, and fell asleep like a stone.

    She did have to rush off to work but as there was time for a quickie, they had one. Then she really did have to rush off to work so he insisted on forcing some money for a taxi on her. No, really, Hill!—Yes.—No, honestly!—Yes.—No, I couldn’t!—You must, Janette, it’d make me feel ever so much betterer. She gave in, giggling, and vanished with a coy wave. He’d already made sure she had the parcel, so that was that. Hill tottered off to the shower.

    … Why in God’s name had he done the woman? There was no answer to that, except that he was a selfish bastard unable to refuse it when it was on offer. Or you could put it another way and say that life was like that, ’cos we weren’t all completely faithful, chaste, honourable heroes, in fact Hill had never actually met a chappie who was. Not under the appropriate conditions. Though they presumably did exist: the idea must’ve come from somewhere.

    After this he deserved nothing and this was what he got. He tried ringing all the Perkinses in the London phone directory but that resulted only in, in the first instance, an amazed call from Uncle Hubert wanting to know why he’d done all that phoning, old chap, not that he minded, of course, and an embarrassed offer to pay on his part, which of course was robustly refused and countered with an urgent invitation to pop up to the dump in Scotland as soon as he had a free day; and, in the second instance, several gigantic—gigantic—bills for his brand-new mobile phone. Then the bloody thing died on him when he was only as far as the Perkins N’s and so he used the phone at the local hotel which they used as their HQ. The landlady was amazed at the bill he’d run up, though not objecting to it, as such, so he did the woman to spite the whole world.

    Possibly as a punishment the Almighty did not produce Hattie for him. Then or later.

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