“Brandy and hot lemon. That’s what you need,” she says motheringly. “I think there’s some in the medicine cupboard.”
She pads off and slowly the pain is replaced by a kind of pleasant tiredness. I pull myself out of the bath and have just draped a large towel round my shoulders when she reappears, carrying a steaming mug. It must be one of the best drinks I have ever tasted and I gulp hungrily, trying to make grateful noises between mouthfuls.
“That’s all right, dear. Don’t talk. You’re not up to it.”
I become aware that Mrs. B.’s sensitive fingers have started towelling me down and that her warm, fragrant-smelling body is close to mine. She is wearing a long, white linen nightdress dropping low enough at the front for me to see her rich creamy boobs and this revelation coincides with the arrival of her healing fingers at the source of most of my great moments in sport.
“O-o-ooh, that’s good,” I moan.
She can take that any way she wants and I don’t think it is my imagination when the pressure round my John Thomas increases.
“You poor boy,” she murmurs. “You poor, poor boy.”
She is shivering more than me now and somehow our mouths just seem to collide. My towel drops to the floor and I am digging my fingers into her soft arse as her tongue fights to get past mine.
It’s funny, but sometimes when you are nearly out on your feet you really fancy a bit of the other, and tonight is no exception. I feel warm and cosy, but at the same time charged with a great desire to make love. I start to pull up Mrs. B.’s nightdress but she takes my hands and leads me down the corridor to where her bedroom door opens invitingly. I can see the outline of the big double bed and the eiderdown swollen like an over-pumped Lilo. The sheets are thrown back from when she got up to let me in and there is a soft white valley into which we collapse. Her hands help mine to pull the nightdress over her head and I reach out to support her freed breasts.
“Come down into the warm,” she murmurs and wriggles over on to her back, pulling me and the bedclothes with her. My fingers glide over her belly and down to the smooth luxury of her thighs, which part invitingly. Her hand reaches past mine and removes a hot water bottle which I hear thud against the floor.
“We won’t need that now,” she says, and, hugging me to her, she sets out to prove it.
Garth is very apologetic about not coming back, but says that Mrs. Dent had his old man out before they got to the crossroads and that one thing led to another and that he thought Mrs. C. would let me out anyway and that, yes, he knew I didn’t have any clothes but it would have been giving the game away to leave mine in the changing-room and he thought Mrs. C. would take care of that too.
I can’t really blame him because I don’t reckon I would have acted any differently in his position. Mrs. Dent, I know from experience, can be a very demanding lady.
I am pretty certain that I will never see Mrs. C. again and this worries me somewhat because Cronky thinks that the Department of the Environment shines out of her arsehole and is not likely to take kindly to the disappearance of his favourite pupil. But, to my surprise, she shows up per schedule, bright as an old penny, and starts gushing the moment we have got out of earshot of the E.C.D.S.
“Frightfully sorry … felt so awful … poor you … wasting away … what a shame … your divine friend … silly old George … can be so difficult … bee in the bonnet … had the most awful trouble … couldn’t get away … marvellous idea … new wonder pills … two in his brandy … mad lust … endless lovemaking … staggered down … hardly turn key … sorry too much.”
I get interested towards the end and make her take me through it again. It appears that she has got her hands on some tablets which are the ideal cure for wilting Willy. Not only that, but they are a winner on the old desire stakes as well. Given a couple of those in their Ovaltine, Lady Lewisham and Malcolm Muggeridge would have to be separated with a firehose. Quite where Mrs. C. got them from is a secret she keeps to herself but I have a suspicion she has been having it away with some boffin at Python’s Pesticides who specialises in that kind of thing. Certainly her old man didn’t give them to her—be a bloody fool to, wouldn’t he? They must work, because she is highly chuffed and makes no reference to another painting session. Bloody egg heads put the mockers on everything. But, I reason to myself, if science can work against me, it can work for me, and you never know when the deadly brewers’ droop is going to strike. One or two of those little fellows could come in very handy. I press Mrs. C. on the point and after a fair amount of dithering she promises to get me a few.
“But for heaven’s sake, Timmy,” she warns me, “whatever you do, don’t use more than one at a time. I gave George two and they turned him into a ravening beast.” She smiles happily at the memory.
Well, of course, I promise I will be very careful and the next time I see her she slips me a small phial of what looks like saccharin tablets. I was expecting something the size of bantams’ eggs but you have only to take a butchers at Mrs. C. to see that, however small they are, they work. There is a comfortable, satisfied look about her and she hardly talks throughout the lesson. I throw in a hopeful reference to painting but she says that she has not been doing much lately and is spending her time getting ready to accompany George on a business trip he is making to Copenhagen. Bloody nice, isn’t it? A couple of love pills and a ‘live show’ and I reckon Python’s could say goodbye to both of them.
I pop the pills in my pocket and though I continue to do so every morning, after a while I almost forget they are there. Almost, that is, until the day of the Shermer Rugby Union Football Club seven-a-side tournament.
Winter has given very grudgingly to spring along the North Norfolk coast and Mrs. Carstairs has passed her test first time, as I always knew she would. Mrs. Dent has failed hers for the third time, as I also knew she would, because she likes getting poked by Garth. In fact, she is a first-rate driver, and if it was not for the fact that she would be jumping out every two minutes and trying to screw the other competitors I would enter her at Indianapolis. Mrs. C.’s success means that Cronky looks upon me as a second son and can hardly take his eyes off the door in case the Queen Mother comes in. Needless to say, the latter event does not take place and it is left to Garth Williams, six foot four of craggy Celt, to inject some excitement into our cold spring days.
“Ever played rugby, Timmy?” he says to me one morning.
In fact, I have played rugby netball, which is a game found nowhere else outside Clapham Common and too complicated to describe in detail here, but once I have told him about my shattered ankle he shifts his attention to Petal.
“You must be joking, luv. I don’t even like the shape of the ball. And all that physical contact with people you’ve never seen before in your life. I should coco!”
I don’t usually agree with Petal but I am on his side there. What kind of bloke is it that spends Saturday afternoon trying to push his head between two other blokes’ arses? And all that frisking about in the showers afterwards? And singing dirty songs in the ‘men only’ bar? It’s a bit strange, if you ask me. Would you want to spend Easter in a coach with thirty-two men? Of course you wouldn’t. I wonder The People haven’t exposed it.
“I’m trying to get a side up for the Shermer seven-a-sides,” says Garth. “They’re a bloody load of snobs and they win their own tournament every year, so it’s time somebody fixed them. Raymouth have gone off on tour and I’ve persuaded one or two of their blokes that couldn’t go to turn out for us, but I need a couple more class players if we aren’t