‘They did have problems,’ says Nat sadly.
‘They did have. But they don’t any longer. When are you two birds going to wise up to the fact that everybody doesn’t want to get laid all the time?’
‘We could say he confessed to burning down the camp,’ says Nan.
‘Hey, wait a minute!’
‘That’s a good idea. Uncle Gilesy won’t like that, will he?’
‘Timmy will go to prison for arson. Poor Timmy.’
‘You do that and I’ll–’ I rack my brains for something I will do.
‘You’ll do what?’ says Nan. ‘There’s nothing you can tell Uncle Giles about us that he doesn’t know already.’
‘On the other hand, we might suggest some form of bonus as being in order. Nunky is very hot on rewarding loyal staff.’
‘And I’m just very hot,’ says Nat, beginning to pull down the blinds.
‘Just for Auld Lang Syne,’ says Nan, as she starts to undo my shirt buttons. ‘We may never see each other again.’
‘You’re dead right there,’ I say. ‘Once this bleeding thing stops, you’ll need running shoes to keep up with me.’
‘He’s beautiful when he’s mad, isn’t he?’ says Nat.
‘Beautiful. Come on, give us a little kiss.’
Outside the landscape is flashing past at about eighty miles an hour, otherwise I might try to throw myself through the window.
‘Somebody’s going to come,’ I gulp.
‘You never know your luck.’
‘I mean a ticket collector or somebody.’
‘Well, we’ve all got tickets, haven’t we? It just says don’t lean out of the window. And we’re not going to do it hanging out of the window, are we?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Nat thoughtfully. ‘It sounds rather fun. Supposing–’
‘No!’ I scream. ‘Oh my God. What am I going to do?’
‘We know you know the answer to that one,’ soothes Nan. ‘Remember how much fun it was on the beach?’
‘Yes. But there weren’t millions of people wandering about there.’
‘The train is empty, darling.’
‘We could go in one of the loos,’ says Nan, ‘but I hate stand-up quickies and it would be awfully cramping.’
I look at the pictures of some Scottish river on the wall and wish I could be there. The cool water closing over my head–
‘So, you’re going to say something good about me, are you?’ I say. I mean if there is going to be no escape, I might as well get the best deal I can.
‘I hope so, love-bunny,’ murmurs Nat into my half-nibbled ear. ‘Now, let’s see if you’re going to be a good boy.’
Her hand fondles the region of my thigh and finds what it is looking for. ‘Oh yes, I like that.’
‘Me too.’ Nan pops open the buttons of my jeans and slips her hand into the one-way system of my Y-fronts. ‘You shouldn’t wear these,’ she scolds. ‘You should let him breathe.’
‘He seems to be coming up for air now,’ says Nat with interest, as she starts yanking down my pants.
That’s the amazing thing about my John Thomas. It seems to lead an existence totally independent of the rest of me. My brain may be saying run for the hills but my J.T. never seems to hear it. Given the presence of a friendly lady it will lumber fitfully into an upright position and stand there waiting for the best to happen. At moments like this its touching eagerness to please is beyond price.
‘I’m on a bonus, then, am I?’
‘You should be doing this for love, not money,’ says Nat as she helps my jeans over my heels. ‘We really have failed with you, haven’t we?’
‘You’re blackmailing me, so you can’t talk.’
‘I don’t want to talk, angel. I want you to start probing me with your lovely instrument.’
‘You always go first,’ sniffs Nat.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Yes you do.’
‘Alright. We’ll toss for it. Which ball have I got in my hand?’
‘The left one.’
‘You looked.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Do you mind!’ I interrupt. ‘I’m not a bloody bumper car, you know.’
‘You give a much smoother ride, don’t you Timmy?–oh look!’
She is referring to the way my J.T. leaps into the air in sympathy when one of the blinds suddenly whips up. I am more engrossed by the faces of the two old ladies who are trotting down the corridor at the time. By the cringe! There are only about half a dozen people on the train and two of them have to be passing at a moment like this. One of them turns away so fast I think her nut is going to twist off. That must be it. A quick trip to the guard and I will be spending the next four months in the chokey for indecent exposure. What a bleeding marvellous way to arrive in the old country. Sir Giles is going to be really chuffed and I can just see the welcome I will get from Mum and Dad–not that their behaviour on the Isla de Amor was anything to write to the Archbishop of Canterbury about.
‘Pull it down!’ I yelp.
‘I’m moving as fast as I can, darling.’
‘I mean the blind!’
‘Look, no panties.’
‘I did notice.’
‘Isn’t Timmy lovely, Nat?’
‘Gollumptious, Nan.’
‘He looks good enough to eat.’
‘You took the words right out of my fevered imagination.’
‘Oh no,’ I gasp as they press me down under the combined weight of their bodies.
‘For God’s sake pull down the blind.’
At last one of them reaches behind her and does as I ask and I must confess that there are worse ways to travel. With those two birds browsing over my flesh I feel like an aniseed ball that has been chucked over the wall of Battersea Dog’s Home. Two hands are better than one–and four! Well, I will let your imagination develop muscles thinking of the merry tricks we get up to in that compartment. Would you believe that one girl could hang from the rack while the other–no, it sounds too far-fetched, doesn’t it? Not the kind of thing that a couple of refined tarts who went to Cheltenham Ladies’ College would get up to. But believe me, mateys, not every bird you meet with calluses on her hand got them from digging her old man’s vegetable patch.
‘Now do it to me, Timmy. Oh, Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. That’s heaven. I’d like to have my own private chuffer train so we could do this all the time.’
Do that and I will pray for a bleeding rail strike every week, I think to myself. I don’t know how I keep pace with them, really I don’t. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I don’t really fancy them. I mean, they are fantastic birds looks-wise, but there is something so brazen about them that it can never be anything more than a straightforward up and downer. I find it very easy to poke birds when I give my old man his head and let him get on with it–as I have said, he does that most of the time anyway. It is when my mind starts to reckon a bird as well that it begins to foul up my natural