After a few seconds he left the bed by creeping carefully to the foot. By the glowing calendar on a screen he saw Myoo and Myow roll into the space he had left and embrace each other without wakening. He softly tapped a message regretting his poor response to their welcome and asking if one of their children would return his pony to Dryhope common. Then he dressed and left by a door onto the veranda.
After a few steps on the shore path under the trees his foot struck something soft. He stopped and peered. There was not much light in the sky but the path was pale enough to show a small black body near the toe of his right sandal and two or three others irregularly placed on the path ahead: booby traps? Stooping down he saw the nearest body thrust a limb backward and lurch an inch forward.
“Have more fun than I did,” he told it and walked on taking care where he placed his feet. A minute later he said, “Whoever hears me may like to know that my last remark was addressed to a puddock. This is the night of the year when puddocks trek to the nearest fresh water for their annual nooky fair; but I doubt if natural history interests you Ms. Bitch. Are you listening? No need to speak; a tiny tinkle will do for yes, silence for no.”
He listened and heard only leaves and water stirred by the pre-dawn breeze. The anger which had come to him on that path four hours earlier returned. In a sing-song voice he said, “I think I’ll tell my friend Archie that someone’s using a vast amount of public energy for a private seduction.”
His wristcom worked as usual while he dialled the first Crook Cot digits, then it buzzed briefly like an angry wasp and the soft English voice said quickly, “What’s a puddock?”
“I’ve forgotten the English word but the French is crapaud,” said Wat, looking at a row of zeroes on the dial where the source of a message was usually indicated, “You sound like a woman who’s just been wakened. There must be at least two of you listening.”
“You are being tracked,” said the voice, yawning slightly, “By a sensor beam linked to my wristcom. It shocked me awake with the first word you spoke.”
“When will we meet?”
“Before you leave the path. Meanwhile I’ll amuse you with a suggestive poem.
The times are racked with birth pangs. Every hour
Brings forth some gasping Truth,
But Truth new born oft looks misshapen,
The terror of the household and its shame —
A Monster coiling in the mother’s lap
That she would starve or strangle,
yet it breathes,
And suckled at a hundred half-clad breasts
Comes slowly to its form, staggers erect,
Smooths the rough ridges of its Dragon scales,
Changes to shining locks its snaky hair,
And moves transfigured into angel guise,
Welcomed by all who cursed its hour of birth.
— What do you think of that?”
“Not much. The stale imagery suggests the nineteenth century. Was it written by someone heralding socialism?”
“It was written by an American judge heralding fascism.”
“Isms are the dullest bits of the historical midden. Why resurrect them?”
“Because we are about to give birth to the future and I am an agent of Shigalyovism which is organizing a political renaissance. But since sex comes before politics here is a wee song to cheer ye on your way, dearie.”
He heard a burst of orchestral music and a Scottish male voice from the start of the twentieth century sang —
Keep right on to the end of the road,
Keep right on to the end!
Though the way be long
Let your heart be strong,
Keep right on round the bend!
Though you’re tired, and weary,
Still journey on
Till you come to your happy abode,
Where all you love, you’ve been dreaming of,
Will be there — at the end — of the …”
“You’re scaring the puddocks!” yelled Wat, vainly trying to switch off his wristcom and walk faster at the same time. He could see an orange brightness low down among the trees ahead. The voice went huskily seductive: “You’re a mean old daddy but you’re out of sight Wat honeyprick, come to momma you sweetcocking motherfucker, come into me you big bad world beater, I am the shining cunt at the end of your personal tunnel.”
The orange light came from the glowing dome of a small tent with the shadow of a reclining, beckoning figure inside. He stooped and crawled in through an opening at the edge of the path. She lay on a bank of pillows in the rape-inviting position imposed on Jane Russell by a millionaire who had owned some of 1944 Hollywood. She moaned, “Don’t look at me like that you piece-a-shit!”
Two minutes later he lay gasping beside her after the fastest fuck of his life.
She said, “Do you know me now?”
He stared. Under the cosmetics (smudged now) of her archaic sexual mask he saw a young, very boyish face regard him alertly. He shook his head. She sighed and said, “I thought I was famous but of course you don’t use public eyes.”
He was too near to see her long body, slender waist, big breasts, but he felt them and was so disconcerted by her intense gaze (one blue eye, one brown) that he tried to lose it by again kissing and embracing but, “That’s all for now,” she said sitting upright, “Short brutish sex is the only sort revolutionaries have time for. When the present state withers away nobody will have time for the other sort either. A drink.” Sitting cross-legged on the pillows she lifted a box from under one and took out a bottle of champagne and a glass. She said, “You still prohibit yourself alcohol?”
“Aye.”
“Drink this.”
She handed him a thermos flask which proved to contain scalding black coffee. He poured a cupful into the cap and let it cool, watching her closely and puzzling over what she had said about sex. Was she mad? She astonished him by how easily and quickly she fired the champagne cork out through the low doorway, and caught a fuming jet of liquor in the glass, and sipped it while putting the bottle back in the box and taking out a cigarette case. Nan’s domestic actions had the same deft composure but not this alarming speed. He felt a thrumming in his blood, an expansion of breathing which were his usual reactions to danger. With relief he decided that his bodily chemistry was making him as alert as she. He was careful not to change his expression. He decided to say little and listen hard, yet she sat watching him and smiling at him and sipping champagne in such perfect silence that he was the first to speak.