Chapter 6
Sally lay naked on the deck of the cabin cruiser, her tight breasts pointing to the sky and her legs apart. Beside her Eva lay on her stomach and looked downriver.
‘Oh God, this is divine,’ Sally murmured. I have this deep thing about the countryside.’
‘You’ve got this deep thing period,’ said Gaskell steering the cruiser erratically towards a lock. He was wearing a Captain’s cap and sunglasses.
‘Cliche baby,’ said Sally.
‘We’re coming to a lock,’ said Eva anxiously. ‘There are some men there.’
‘Men? Forget men, darling. There’s just you and me and G and G’s not a man, are you G baby?’
‘I have my moments,’ said Gaskell.
‘But so seldom, so awfully seldom,’ Sally said. ‘Anyway what does it matter? We’re here idyllicstyle, cruising down the river in the good old summertime.’
‘Shouldn’t we have cleared the house up before we left?’ Eva asked.
‘The secret of parties is not to clear up afterward but to clear off. We can do all that when we get back.’
Eva got up and went below. They were quite near the lock and she wasn’t going to be stared at in the nude by the two old men sitting on the bench beside it.
‘Jesus, Sally, can’t you do something about soulmate? She’s getting on my teats,’ said Gaskell.
‘Oh G baby, she’s never. If she did you’d Cheshire cat.’
‘Cheshire cat?’
‘Disappear with a smile, honey chil’, foetus first. She’s but positively gargantuanly uterine.’
‘She’s but positively gargantuanly boring.’
‘Time, lover, time. You’ve got to accentuate the liberated, eliminate the negative and not mess with Mister-in-between.’
‘Not mess with Misses-in-between. Operative word misses,’ said Gaskell bumping the boat into the lock.
‘But that’s the whole point’
‘What is?’ said Gaskell.
‘Messing with Misses-in-between. I mean it’s all ways with Eva and us. She does the housework. Gaskell baby can play ship’s captain and teatfeast on boobs and Sally sweetie can minotaur her labyrinthine mind.’
‘Mind?’ said Gaskell. ‘Polyunsaturated hasn’t got a mind. And talking of cretins, what about Mister-in-between?’
‘He’s got Judy to mess with. He’s probably screwing her now and tomorrow night he’ll sit up and watch Kojak with her. Who knows, he may even send her off to Mavis Contracuntal Mottram’s Flower Arrangement evening. I mean they’re suited. You can’t say he wasn’t hooked on her last night.’
‘You can say that again,’ said Gaskell, and closed the lock gates.
As the cruiser floated downwards the two old men sitting on the bench stared at Sally. She took off her sunglasses and glared at them.
‘Don’t blow your prostates, senior citizens,’ she said rudely. ‘Haven’t you seen a fanny before?’
‘You talking to me?’ said one of the men.
