Two hours later we were in the kitchen, and I uncorked a bottle of red before tackling the pizzas, food I normally loathed — though every scrap went down.
Her arse against the still warm stove, she pulled the peignoir off her shoulder. “I’ve always fancied having it this way.”
So I took her as she wanted, her eyes closed and mine wide open, knee tremblers not the easiest of positions, but one had to fall in with those preferences no woman was shy these days of demanding. In my experience they’d rarely been lax in saying what was wanted, and it had never turned out a disappointment for me.
I reached for a roll of paper towelling to swab us dry. “I have an early start in the morning, so I’d better get back soon.”
She made coffee. “Where are you going?”
I was about to tell her. We worked for the same firm, after all. But I didn’t. Moggerhanger demanded button lips. “I’ll go to Upper Mayhem, and wait for further orders. There could be a consignment to pick up from Spleen Manor.”
“By a process of elimination,” she said, “I imagine you’re off to Doggerel Bank.”
“I’d rather storm Barclay’s Bank.” But I knew she knew. There was no harm in it, and even less for us when she said: “What I want is a nightcap on the bed before you go.”
At midnight it was all I could do to crawl up to the flat, and even Bill’s snoring, which sounded as if he was trying to saw his way out of Colditz and not doing badly either, didn’t stop me falling asleep after putting on the alarm for seven.
He was bulling up his boots when I woke, reeking of aftershave and holding each one aloft to see his inane reflection in the glisten. “I’ve shone yours up as well, old cock. I got up at five, so thought I might as well. Always go into action with your boots polished.”
“Stop trying to put the fear of God into me.” I reached for my towel. “We’re only going north to lift a few packets of lemonade powder.”
“That’s as may be, but smart soldiers are always the last to get shot. Scruffs just ask for it. That’s why so many in my gang survived, bar a scratch or two. They fought harder to get in my platoon than they did to get at the Gerries. When a man asked me to take him on I insisted on short hair, a clean shaven face, boots well buffed up, and fifty fags. So get yourself a shower then put your kit on so that we can go down to breakfast. I’m clambed to death.”
While we were eating our way through a Blemish special Moggerhanger came in puffing his early morning cigar. “Two won’t be enough. Kenny Dukes is coming with you.”
It was useless saying he would be superfluous to requirements, though Bill piped up: “Private Dukes, sir?”
“Not all that private,” the boss laughed. “He can never keep himself from himself. But I’m sure the pair of you can keep him in order, and he’ll have his uses, so do as I say, and take him.”
When Kenny presented himself at the bottom of the steps Bill looked him up and down, at longish hair, an earring, and suede shoes. “We’re going into rough country, lad, so go and put on a pair of good boots. Make sure they’ve got the regulation shine. And get rid of that earring: no identifying badges are to be worn in action. And stand up straight,” he bawled. “You might break your mother’s heart but you won’t break mine, you slovenly tike!”
Kenny turned to me. “Is he fucking mad, or what?”
“He’s serious,” I said, “so you’d better do exactly as he says. It’s an important operation we embarking on. In any case he’s Sidney Blood’s first cousin, and stands no nonsense. They were brought up in the same slaughterhouse.”
“Oh, well, I didn’t know, did I?”
He came back looking a little more purposeful, but when he climbed into the front with me Bill’s hand went in and tapped him on the shoulder: “Other ranks behind, and make it snappy, or you’ll be on a charge.”
Kenny looked vicious for a moment, then stunned, finally shrugging to obey. I flicked the engine into life, as Jock the handyman swung the gate. Every time I set off in the Rolls I felt young and irresponsible again. How was I to know that this was to be the last jaunt for Moggerhanger, though I would have been surprised had anyone hinted as much.
“O-nine-hundred-hours,” Bill said. “Dead on time.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“You’ve done the wrong turning for the A1 (M),” Kenny said sullenly.
“That’s because I’m heading for the A10, and into Cambridgeshire,” I told him snappily. “We’re taking on a passenger.”
“Lord Moggerhanger won’t like it.”
“He’ll have to lump it, then. I’m the captain of this ship. As long as we get to Doggerel Bank by lunchtime it won’t matter.”
“I still think he’ll be cross.”
“Silence before a commissioned officer!” Bill screamed, as if at the first stage of an apoplectic fit. He acted barmy, but I knew he wasn’t, so thought his reaction justified.
Kenny turned blood-crimson. “Oh, right, then.”
“You remember Upper Mayhem,” I said to him. “You trashed the place three years ago. I still haven’t forgiven you, but I’ll put that by for the moment.”
“You should have had him on the carpet,” Bill said. “Never forget a slight. You do more damage to the culprit than yourself if you do. It’s not human nature to forget.”
Kenny hung onto his sullenness. “I was only looking for things.”
“They weren’t there, were they?” I said. “In any case you can find things easier than by taking a place to pieces. Or someone more intelligent could. When Sidney Blood’s searching a house he does it so that nobody knows he’s done it.”
“I stand corrected.” He’d got back something of his bounce at the mention of his favourite fictional character. “Which reminds me, I was going to ask Mrs Drudge-Perkins out for lunch today, and now I can’t. Something always effing stops me.”
“Steer clear of her,” I said. “I expect the last time you took her to lunch she had a little tape recorder attached to her tie pin for taking down what you blabbed about Moggerhanger.”
His expression was hidden from me, but it couldn’t have been pretty. “I didn’t notice anything.”
“She’s Sidney Blood’s moll, don’t forget. Colonel Blaskin uses her to get material for his novels.”
He gave as close a laugh as his stomach could produce, visible in my mirror since I was now on a straight bit of road.
Roller and horsebox cornered well on the lanes, and in little more than an hour we drew into the confines of Upper Mayhem, where Clegg was repainting white marks along the platform edge. “I wish you would let me know you were coming so that I could have the kettle on.”
Dismal almost knocked me onto the line with his welcome, and I swear blind he knew I’d come to pick him up, with such a wagging of his muscular tail. “Another thing is that your mother and her friend are in the house,” Clegg said. “They got here last night, and when I said there was only one spare bed they just jumped into it. I’ll never understand women.”
I found her in the kitchen, holding Doris’s hands across the table, an enormous pot of tea close by. She wore a turban as in a wartime factory — though smoked a Marlborough Lite instead of a Park Drive — baggy purple slacks and a white shirt, and plastic glasses hiding most of her face. “Hello, duck,” she said. “Have you come back for some health giving walks across the fields?”
“I don’t need any.”
“You look as if you do. Your face gets too pasty these days.”
I gave the expected kiss, and even got a smile from Doris, whom my mother had dolled up like a Christmas tree — or an action girl — in sleek black pants, a white high-necked shirt, a red waistcoat, and such a long cigarette holder I had to watch out for it poking me in the eye.