I didn’t tell you about that, did I? It wasn’t much. We never made love. I badgered him, friend to friend, to show me the kind of thing I might have to expect. I did it for a laugh, frankly, but I had Timon on that I was ignorant. I made Timon show me his glorious hard-on as we sat on the mucky sands down from the Pleasure Beach. In the moonlight it was like some weird crustacean that had wandered out of the sea. He breathed in little gasps as I took it in both hands like a microphone. Bless Timon. He could hardly get it back inside his pants when I decided I’d seen enough.
So when I went into David’s small room, sat on the bed, and watched him strip himself bare, I could look at him like an expert. I took his sticky, excitable cock and the soft bag of his balls in both hands and drew him down onto the unmade bed.
At six in the morning I led the sill-drowsy, dopey-sounding Colin on the walk back to the Royal Circus. He was terribly hung-over.
“You never fucked him,” he said, aghast.
I shook my head.
“I mean,” said Colin. “He’s a sweet, rough-looking boy, if that’s what you’re into...but...”
“We never fucked,” I said, through gritted teeth. “It all happened naturally. He licked my fanny for a while and came in his own hand. Then he fell asleep.”
“Marvellous,” said Colin scathingly.
When she lay on her bed it was nearly seven and too light to sleep. There was no blocking out the light in her room. She listened to Colin down in the kitchen, having a final, thoughtful cup of tea by himself, then pad off down the corridor and into his room.
Minutes later another bedroom door clicked pen. Someone was up early. Wendy closed her eyes. She heard two pairs of feet shushing into the kitchen. Then two voices, talking carefully to each other.
“It’s bad enough here,” said a man’s voice. “But it would be even worse downstairs.” It was Captain Simon, sounding grumpier than I’d ever heard him.
Aunty Anne was with him. I could just see her in that fake fur trimmed robe of hers, pulled to cover her bosom. “It’s like a French farce,” she yawned.
There was a peaceful lull.
Captain Simon said suddenly, “All the same, I think it would be better...for all concerned, kind of thing...if we didn’t get up to anything like this...ehm...anymore.”
Aunty Anne’s voice came out harsh. “What’s your problem?”
“No problem. I think what we’re doing is unwise.”
“Of course it’s unwise, you old fool. That’s the point, isn’t it?”
“It isn’t my point, Anne.”
“Love like this isn’t sensible,” she said. “It isn’t tameable or well-mannered. Of course it causes problems.”
“I’m not in love with you,” he said, affronted.
“Not love then,” she said. “Desire. Destructive passions.”
“Well, I can’t be doing with them anymore.”
“I see.”
“Pat is my friend. I sit with him, I drink his drink, enjoy his company. This is betraying him. And he’s ill, too. This is wicked.”
Aunty Anne didn’t reply for some time. “So I’m wicked, am I?”
“I think you’re a very...impressive woman, Anne. You’re glamorous and sexy...”
She made a bitter, dismissive noise. “You’re no special friend to Pat. He’s told me what he thinks.”
“About what?”
“He said, only the other day. About you. About you being a greedy old devil, hanging around, seeing what you can scrounge. He thinks you’re waiting for him to die, seeing what you can get. Don’t you think he gets enough begging letters?”
“That’s not what I’m here for.”
“You’re not here for me, either, are you?”
“No, Anne, I’m not. I’m afraid you’ve rather compromised me.”
“I’ve compromised you?”
“You’ve ambushed me. You’ve made things impossible for me.”
“That’s right. Blame the woman. The vile, ungovernable appetites of the woman.”
His chair legs scraped on stone as he stood up. “If that’s how you want to put it.”
“You misogynistic old bastard.”
“I love honest women. Good women.”
“Like your bonkers sister.”
“Don’t call Belinda. She’s twice the woman you are. Your niece is a good girl, too. No, it’s you, Anne. You’re a greedy woman. You don’t have a shred of fellow-feeling or compassion in your...”
There was a loud crack then, as she hit him. He received the blow silently. There was a second crack, as she hit him again. Then the doors banged and he was gone. He went downstairs to his own flat.
I lay, still unable to sleep, listening to Aunty Anne sob out her heart at the kitchen table.
NINETEEN
The next day—and maybe it was guilt—I went to Job Party for the first time. I was setting out, remarkably untired after the night I’d had, and Aunty Anne caught hold of me.
“You came in much too late last night.”
By now I knew it was best not to go on the offensive. “I know. We lost track.” I looked at her red-lined eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“You have to learn how to do the right things, Wendy. What’s right and what’s wrong. I’m sure your Uncle Pat doesn’t mind you getting out and enjoying yourself, but he’s in no fit state to worry about you.”
I nodded.
“There’s a right way and a wrong way,” she said. “And you can only push it so far.” She stared at me appraisingly. “You want to push it, don’t you? You want to find out how far you can go.”
I shrugged.
“All right,” she said. “You’re a good girl, I know.”
She let me go then. Colin hadn’t emerged from his room yet, but I felt sure he’d get a talking to as well.
Job Party consisted of six others who all looked up, surprised, when I arrived still wearing the blue cycling helmet Uncle Pat had bought me. I was the mysterious Wendy, who was meant to be languishing with glandular fever, or so my explanatory notes had told them.
They were an unpromising bunch. Most of them
