said an unusually articulate bricklayer, ‘I mean it’s natural isn’t it?’
‘So you think man is a naturally aggressive animal,’ said Wilt.
‘Course he is. That’s history for you, all them wars and things. It’s only bloody poofters don’t like violence.’
Wilt took this view of things along to the Staff Room for his free period and collected a cup of coffee from the vending machine. He was joined by Peter Braintree.
‘How did the party got’ Braintree asked.
‘It didn’t,’ said Wilt morosely.
‘Eva enjoy it?’
‘I wouldn’t know. She hadn’t come home by the time I got up this morning.’
‘Hadn’t come home?’
‘That’s what I said,’ said Wilt.
‘Well did you ring up and find out what had happened to her?’
‘No,’ said Wilt.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’d look a bit of a twit ringing up and being told she was shacked up with the Abyssinian ambassador, wouldn’t I?’
‘The Abyssinian ambassador? Was he there?’
‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know.’ The last I saw of her she was being chatted up by this big black bloke from Ethiopia. Something to do with the United Nations. She was making fruit salad and he was chopping bananas for her.’
‘Doesn’t sound a very compromising sort of activity to me,’ said Braintree.
‘No, I daresay it doesn’t. Only you weren’t there and don’t know what sort of party it was,’ said Wilt rapidly coming to the conclusion that an edited version of the night’s events was called for. ‘A whole lot of middle-aged with-it kids doing their withered thing.!
‘It sounds bloody awful. And you think Eva…’
‘I think Eva got pissed and somebody gave her a joint and she passed out,’ said Wilt, ‘that’s what I think. She’s probably sleeping it off in the downstairs loo.’
‘Doesn’t sound like Eva to me,’ said Braintree. Wilt drank his coffee and considered his strategy. If the story of his involvement with that fucking doll was going to come out, perhaps it would be better if he told it his way first. On the other hand…
‘What were you doing while all this was going on?’ Braintree asked.
‘Well’ said Wilt, ‘as a matter of fact…’ He hesitated. On second thoughts it might be better not to mention the doll at all. If Eva kept her trap shut…’I got a bit slewed myself.’
‘That sounds more like it,’ said Braintree, ‘I suppose you made a pass at another woman too.’
‘If you must know,’ said Wilt, ‘another woman made a pass at me. Mrs Pringsheim.’
‘Mrs Pringsheim made a pass at you?’
‘Well, we went upstairs to look at her husband’s toys…’
‘His toys? I thought you told me he was a biochemist.’
‘He is a biochemist. He just happens to like playing with toys. Model trains and Teddy Bears and things. She says he’s a case of arrested development. She would, though. She’s that sort of loyal wife.’
‘What happened then?’
‘Apart from her locking the door and lying on the bed with her legs wide open and asking me to screw her and threatening me with a blow job, nothing happened,’ said Wilt.
Peter Braintree looked at him sceptically. ‘Nothing?’ he said finally. ‘Nothing? I
