Limp Dicks & Saggy Tits

by Tracie Podger

  “Oh, God,” I whispered again as he moaned a little louder.

  I wanted to cover my ears at the sound of slapping skin when his sleepwank got vigorous. I tried to sing in my head and the only, bizarrely, song that came to mind was The Wheels on the Bus. There was no way I wanted that running on constant in my head.

  “Oh, God,” I hissed, yet again.

  He mumbled, but I couldn’t make out what he’d said. I wasn’t sure I wanted to, either.

  I used my foot to push the wardrobe door as closed as I could and shifted to my knees. I piled the glass and scooted it under the bed for safety and then picked up the photograph that had fallen. As Ronan wanked in his sleep, and I was praying he was asleep, I stared at the image of him with the most beautiful smile directed at a redheaded woman. If love was visual, it was there in that image. She wasn’t his ex-wife, so I could only assume it was the one after. A tear pricked at one eye. I couldn’t ever recall, not even in my wedding album, a photograph of a man looking at me the way he looked at her.

  Ronan mumbled, skin was slapping skin, and I was crouched behind the end of the bed hoping he’d come soon and fall into his drunken coma so I could leave. I sighed and covered my ears again when the bed started to rock and bounce against me. I was being jolted forwards and back, but I couldn’t move out of the way, I’d be seen. I had no choice but to endure the pounding.

  Then it all stilled. I held my breath, hoping he was done. I counted to sixty and knowing one minute had passed, I gently peered over the edge of the bed. He was still on his back, and his cock was flaccid although his hand was still wrapped around it.

  I grabbed the duvet and crawled around the side of the bed that his head was facing away from. When I’d got halfway along the length of the bed, I paused to listen. The only sound was his heavy breaths. I rose and quickly threw the duvet over him and then ran. It wasn’t until I was back in my room that I realised I still carried the photograph.

  I placed it on my bed as I closed the curtains and then undressed, exchanging clothes for my PJs. I picked up the photograph and then climbed under the duvet. I turned it over in my hands and noticed writing on the back of the frame.

  No matter what, I’ll always love you, Demi. There could never be another that will come close.

  I could only assume it was written by Ronan. I opened the drawer of the bedside cabinet and placed it in. I’d put it back in the wardrobe the next day.

  I didn’t sleep well at all that night. I dozed and woke, tossed and turned. I checked my phone and played a word game, wishing I had a sleeping tablet to hand. I’d been given a low dose prescription from the doctor when I first found myself single. I’d rarely taken them and wondered if they’d even be in date.

  It was early hours when I’d finally fallen into a deep sleep.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Good morning,” I heard. I opened one eye, partly.

  Ronan was standing beside the bed with a mug in his hand. He placed it on the bedside cabinet, and I shot upwards into a sitting position. I had closed the drawer, hadn’t I?

  I looked over to check and hid the relieved sigh.

  “Thank you,” I said, picking up the tea and wondering why no one knocked on a bedroom door in this house. “You seem bright this morning,” I added.

  “Did you cover me over last night?” he asked.

  I shook my head as I sipped, and he frowned. “I must have been wasted. I don’t remember doing it myself.”

  “I wouldn’t have said you were wasted, but you sure weren’t totally sober.”

  “Anyway, the Aga man is downstairs, you’ll be pleased to know he thinks he can restore it, and I got a text to say the packing crates are being delivered at eleven fifty-seven precisely,” he said.

  “That’s great news about both.” I was hoping that, after he’d finished with his news, he’d depart the room.

  No matter what he said or did, my eyes focused on his hand, knowing where it had been the previous evening.

  “I’ll let you get dressed. See you downstairs?”

  I nodded and used sipping my tea as an excuse not to continue the conversation.

  Once Ronan had left, I threw back the duvet and ran for the bathroom. The only reason I ran was so my feet didn’t linger on the cold floor. I needed to pee and clean my teeth. I couldn’t face a shower. I dressed and brushed my hair and then reached inside the drawer for the photograph. Just as I grabbed it, I heard voices in the hallway. Ronan was instructing Charlie on some repairs. I placed the frame back in the drawer; I could hardly wander into Ronan’s bedroom with Charlie watching.

  I listened to the Aga man talking to Ronan; listening was about all I could do. Like Charlie, when he wanted, the man spoke so fast and with such a strong accent that I struggled to understand him. Judging by the smiles, however, I thought the conversation was a positive one. That was until he sat and wrote a quote. I winced at the four figures, but Ronan didn’t seem to be overly worried. Obviously, I had no idea what an Aga would cost if replaced, and I did have to smile when Ronan shook his hand, and they set a date for work to commence.

  I decided to help Maggie with some washing. She seemed to have a stack of linen that she’d taken off beds in rooms that hadn’t been used in years. They were stiff with dust. We took them out to the courtyard, shook them well for fear of clogging the machine, and then carried them into one of the small buildings where Maggie loaded one of two industrial sized washing machines.

  “Why the industrial machines?” I asked. It seemed overkill for the amount of residents in the house.

  “We used to have a ton of guests back in the day,” she said.

  “Ladies,” I heard in a heavy foreign accent, and I turned.

  Manuel held his hand out. His black hair and startling blue eyes did not confirm his heritage. I knew some Italians had blue eyes, but thought it highly possible he did have some Spanish in him.

  “Hello, I’m Lizzie,” I said, taking his hand.

  He shook lightly, limply. “I’m sorry not to have met you before now. We need to do accounts, yes?”

  I wracked my brain for who he reminded me of and the only thing that sprung to mind was a character from the TV show, Benidorm. Like Maggie, I wasn’t entirely convinced on the accent.

  “I offered to tidy up the office and get the files in order so they might make some sense to Ronan,” I said.

  He chuckled. “Yes, make sense to Ronan.” I thought his comment a little disingenuous.

  “Since he has to ensure the survival of the estate, or put everyone out of work, it might help to know exactly where he stands, financially, don’t you think?”

  He had no answer for me, and I felt an instant dislike to him. I was firmly on Maggie’s side that he was nothing more than a gigolo coming to the end of a free ride.

  Manuel—and I didn’t for one minute believe that to be his name—flounced from the washroom.

  “What a big prick,” I said, picking another sheet from the basket.

  “I saw him naked once—you’d never use those words where he was concerned.” Maggie waggled her pinkie at me.

  For a moment, I had no idea what she meant, but then it dawned on me, and my eyes grew wide. I knew they had because the cold hit my eyeballs and they watered.

  “You saw him naked?”

  She grinned. “Everyone is naked here at some point.”

  “You and…” I could not bring myself to ask if Charlie was ever naked.

  She placed her hand over her heart in feigned shock. “No, not us, we don’t do that art thing. But he was one of the models. It’s how he met Verity, and then she seemed to want to keep him around.”

  “Maybe it might be time for Ronan to rectify that. I mean, if he isn’t an estate manager, what’s the point of him now?”

  Maggie shrugged her shoulders. “And I bet his name is Mick,” she added.

  We had loaded more sheets into the second of the two washing machines, placed the woollen blankets to one side,
and piled the duvet covers up ready for a second load. We headed back into the kitchen.

  “Mick from Wales,” Maggie said, and then chuckled.

  “Who’s Mick?” Ronan asked, a frown of confusion crumpling his brow.

  “Manuel, we bet his name is Mick,” I replied with a giggle.

  Ronan’s features clouded. It seemed perhaps Mick-stroke-Manuel wasn’t up for discussion. Maggie raised her eyebrows at me, and I folded my lips inside my mouth as if to keep them shut. The rumble of a truck on the drive saved us from any further chat.

  “It’s the crates I think,” I said, looking out the window.

  Ronan and I walked to the front door to meet the delivery. Sure enough, five large wooden crates, a couple of large poster tubes, and bubble wrap were unloaded and carried into the art room. I’d never packed art before and thought the bubble wrap to be the best material for each piece, then we could stack a few in each crate. I hadn’t thought far enough ahead to know how we would then move the crates from the room to wherever they would end up, of course.

  We spent the rest of the afternoon sorting through the paintings and photographs. The more we did, the more I realised, even with my basic knowledge of what constituted art, they really were rather good. Ronan thought otherwise.

  I brushed dust from my jeans. “We’re going to need a trolley of some kind. And somewhere warm to store them.”

  “I was thinking about that. I’m going to let Manual go because we can’t get in that office and get the paperwork, he keeps blocking me.”

  “What do you mean, blocking you?”

  “It’s always mañana with him.”

  I placed my hands on my hips. “You own the place, Ronan. We’re done here so let’s go and do it. He can’t physically block you from the room.”

  Ronan scratched his chin. “I was hoping he’d work with us. There’s a lot I don’t know about estate management.”

  “Then right now you’re on a par with him. I doubt he knows anything about it, either. Google will be our best friend,” I said, smiling at him. How hard could it be, honestly?

  I also wondered why Ronan was so hesitant where Mick…Manuel was concerned.

  I grabbed a couple of black sacks from the kitchen, and we walked to the estate office. Manuel was sitting behind a desk with his booted feet on it and papers were scattered everywhere. He had his eyes closed.

  “Come to start clearing this office,” I called out, in an attempt to wake him.

  He startled. “What you mean?” he asked, in pigeon English.

  “She means, we have come to start work in this office. We need to make some sense of accounts for the estate and this, apparently, is where they are,” Ronan said, slowly.

  Manuel dragged his feet from the desk, scattering more papers, which he made no attempt to pick up. Then he stood and stomped from the room.

  “Have you seen Benidorm?” I asked as he passed me.

  He scowled. “Huh?”

  “Benidorm, the TV show?”

  He made a face like a snarling dog. “No, why would I?” he said, and I noticed the slight slip of the accent.

  “No reason, I just thought, being Spanish, you might have liked it.”

  He didn’t answer but continued his walk across the courtyard to the dog kennels.

  “Is he responsible for the dog breeding as well?” I asked Ronan.

  “No, we have a local farmer do that. We don’t farm any of our land anymore—we rent it all out. Somewhere in here should be all those details.”

  I was a little surprised at how far ‘off the ball’ Ronan had taken his eyes. He was a businessman, yet this business, which he had always stood to inherit, was a mess. I didn’t voice that, of course. I picked up the scattered papers and gathered everything on the desk into one neat pile. I wiped down the seat behind and then dragged another to the front. We sat.

  “First, we need to separate out all these papers in some sort of order. If we find one relating to the land, we put it here,” I said, tapping the desk. “The dogs can go here.” I found a pad of yellow Post-Its and wrote on each before sticking it to the desk so Ronan wouldn’t forget.

  “You start with that lot, and I’ll start with the filing cabinet. Then we’ll put it all in date order and decide what needs to be kept and what can be binned.”

  “This is going to take days,” he said despondently.

  “I know, but once we’ve done this, you’ll know exactly where you stand.”

  As I rifled through the filing cabinet, I found bills for the house as well as the estate. It seemed good ol’ Manuel was in charge of everything.

  A thought had begun to germinate in my brain, so I asked, “Do you think Manuel believed he’d be a recipient in your mum’s will?”

  “Yes, I’m sure he did. Why?”

  “Look at this,” I said, handing him a bank statement.

  Although the statement was old and screwed up, the account belonged to Manuel, and I was sad to see it was Manuel and not Mick, but the entries shouldn’t have been there in my opinion.

  Ronan stared intently at the paper. “That’s the butcher we sell the venison to. And that is one of the tenant farmers,” he said.

  “Manuel appears to have been stealing from the business. I wonder if your mum knew?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “The first thing I need to do is ring these people. I doubt they had any idea what was going on.”

  “What we’ll do is send a letter to everyone explaining that you are taking over the estate management until a suitable replacement can be found, and in the meantime you want all payments to go into a new account. You also need to find your real bank accounts and see what’s going in there. I can’t believe your bank wouldn’t have already been in touch.”

  “They have. I had a meeting with the new bank manager. The accounts are in credit, so I wasn’t overly worried. Some money is going in there, obviously, but not all I guess.”

  We worked in silence for a little while with just the sounds of shuffling paper until we had five piles on the desk and an empty filing cabinet. Ronan had started to write a list of the businesses that were associated with the estate and we made new files for those. We then started on the remaining pages.

  “A lot of this is junk mail and rubbish, to be honest,” I said, throwing some letters offering Costco membership.

  “I can’t believe how little I know about this place,” Ronan said with a deep sigh.

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” I said, gently.

  “I guess I haven’t spent enough time here. And therein lies the problem. I don’t know if I want to live here full time, but I also hate the thought of these houses being holiday homes. I don’t want to sell it, either.” He sighed in frustration. “I really need to make my mind up. Rich is going to start pushing soon for his money.”

  “Probate takes a while anyway, doesn’t it?”

  “There was a will and a trust in place, so it should all be fairly straight forward. I haven’t heard from the solicitors for a few days, I’ll chase them up.”

  By the time my back was aching from leaning over and my shoulder hurt from stretching from desk to filing cabinet, we had sorted everything into the correct piles. We were no clearer to understanding what was earning and what wasn’t, of course. That was stage two and for Ronan to deal with.

  “Why don’t you call your accountants? They must have the latest figures,” I said.

  “I have all those, but they don’t show it all. As we’ve discovered, not everything went through the books. What the accounts show as profitable might be overshadowed by another area of business. And I don’t particularly want to start highlighting income that hasn’t been declared. The fucking tax bill I’ve got coming is going to hurt enough,” he groaned.

  I didn’t really know enough about inheritance tax to help other than something like that should have been sorted years ago. In one way, I could envy Verity her life in as much as she didn’t appear to have a care in the w
orld, but I also wondered how she’d feel to know only one of her children was now in the unenviable position of having to make sense of the mess she’d left.

  Dogs howled outside the room, and I guessed Manuel was back from his walk.

  Ronan stood. “I think I’ll confront Manuel now.”

  “I’ll leave you to it. I’ll go and make a late lunch—we haven’t eaten. Do you fancy a sandwich?”

  He nodded, and I left the room as he called Manuel. The fake Spaniard sneered at me as he walked past, and he actually gave me the shudders. I wondered what on earth Verity saw in the man; her vibrancy would have been overshadowed by his coldness.

  I made a couple of sandwiches and wrapped Ronan’s in foil, then sat with my mobile at the kitchen table and decided to give Joe a call.

  “Hi, how’re things in freezing Scotland?” he asked when he answered.

  “Freezing. I didn’t pack very well,” I replied with a light laugh.

  I told him about the house, the paintings, the naked art sessions in the woods and how disappointed I was that Manuel wasn’t, in fact, Mick, even though I doubted his Spanish origins. Joe told me that he’d sold a house to my ex.

  “I’m pleased for him…them,” I said, trying to muster up the ‘pleased.’

  “I wanted to tell you because he’s splashed it all over social media,” Joe said.

  “I haven’t been on social media for yonks, and I deleted him as a friend anyway,” I replied.

  “You can still see things. There’s a photograph of him shaking my hand in the hall once the deal was done. I didn’t exactly get a say in whether I wanted my picture taken, and I’m pissed off it’s on social media as well.”

  Joe was a social media whore. He spent more time on Facebook and Twitter than any bored teenager. I highly doubted he was pissed off but trying to make me feel better about it.

  I smiled. “It’s perfectly okay, Joe. Honestly, I think everyone needs to believe me when I say I really am pleased for them, and I don’t care if they plaster photographs all over London.”

  “That’s great; they did invite me to their housewarming. I hope you don’t mind. I said yes only because they’re inviting all their neighbours and it might be good for business.”