‘Well, yes, I suppose so,’ I all-but stuttered.
‘It sounds like a good idea to me,’ Mr Harrap said. ‘I’m all in favour of anything that keeps you out of mischief while I’m away.’
Did it ever enter his head that the bridge might be just an excuse – no more than a thin cover?
I don’t think so. Nor, if I’m honest, did it ever enter mine. The Mrs Robinson scenario was one I’d often thought about, but then, since my willy had asserted its freedom, there were very few fantasy situations I had not contemplated. And fantasy is, after all, by definition, mere imaginings. So I took Mrs Harrap’s invitation at face value, and promised to go to her house the following Wednesday night.
Ah, the innocence of youth!
9
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ I told Mrs Cynthia Harrap in the hallway of her luxury stockbroker-style detached residence located at the better end of Norton, ‘but I was stopped by the police.’
‘Stopped by the police!’
Oh yes, Les Fliques had waved me down en route.
‘We’ll just make sure your machine’s in proper working order, shall we, Bobby?’ he’d asked.
‘It was a sergeant I know,’ I explained to Mrs Harrap. ‘He wanted to check my brake blocks.’
‘Hmm,’ Mrs Harrap said. ‘I must, say, it seems a very trivial matter for a sergeant to be bothering with.’
But then she didn’t know Les, did she? To him, a crime was a crime, be it murder or faulty brake blocks – and each and every one of them commanded his full attention.
‘I really am sorry,’ I said. ‘Especially since it’s the first time you’ve invited me round.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ Mrs Harrap assured me. ‘The girls and I have been having a really good natter.’ Her eyes flashed mischievously, as she led me into the lounge. ‘Women’s talk, you know – comparing our love lives and things like that. Isn’t that right, girls?’
The “girls”, Ms King and Mrs Zimmerman, who were both in their fifties, giggled. I, for my part, looked around me, open-mouthed. I’d had very little experience of visiting other people’s houses, and the open-plan lounge came as something of a shock. It had two long sofas in white leather, and a thick-pile carpet which – like the velvet curtains – was a deep claret colour. But it was the walls which really caught my attention. They were completely covered with artefacts – masks, beads, bracelets, spears, clubs and scores of objects I couldn’t even begin to identify.
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Mrs Harrap said. ‘See that straw doll? It’s a fertility fetish from Central Africa.’
I discovered that my hand, which seemed suddenly to have a will of its own, was pointing to a short, thick object which looked just like a … like a …
But surely, it couldn’t be.
‘What’s that?’ I asked before I could stop myself.
‘That,’ said Mrs Harrap, hooding her eyes, ‘plays a very important part in the coming-of-age ritual on certain South Sea islands.’
****
Ms King and Mrs Zimmerman played a fairly competent game of bridge, but by half-past ten Mrs Harrap and I had accumulated so many points on our side of the sheet that there seemed little to be gained by starting a fresh rubber.
‘Same time next week, girls?’ Mrs Harrap asked. Then, turning to me, she said, ‘You wouldn’t mind staying behind to help me tidy up, would you, Bobby?’
‘It would be my pleasure,’ I said like a little gentleman – like Mother’s little gentleman – but I couldn’t help noticing the sly looks that the three women exchanged.
While Mrs Harrap was showing her guests to the door, I replaced the cards in their boxes, emptied the ashtrays and loaded the glasses into the dishwasher. The whole operation took me perhaps a couple of minutes. And that was it. Try as I might, I couldn’t find another thing to tidy.
I walked over to the wall to re-examine the object which was so important in the coming-of-age ceremonies. It still looked like a penis to me.
‘Well, that’s that,’ said a voice behind me.
I turned to face Mrs Harrap – and my eyes nearly popped out of my head. She was wearing a green blouse with a revealing neckline that night, and somehow, in the time she’d been seeing her friends out, the top two buttons had come undone, thus revealing more of Mrs Harrap’s ample cleavage than I’d ever seen before. My eyes passed the image on to my brain, and my brain – with horrendous efficiency – dispatched it by express messenger to my groin.
‘You’re just like him,’ Aunt Peggy had said – meaning my father.
Well, maybe it was all in the genes. It was certainly all in my jeans. I sat down quickly – though I never usually did that in the presence of a lady – and placed my hands on my lap in an attempt to hide the volcano which was erupting under my zipper.
‘You remember my husband said he’d be away tonight?’ Mrs Harrap asked, sitting down opposite me.
‘Yes,’ I squeaked.
I cleared my throat and tried again.
‘Yes, I do remember that,’ I growled in a voice my pulsating penis should have been proud of.
‘The biggest brass novelties trade fair in Europe,’ Mrs Harrap said with contempt. ‘I sometimes think he should have himself cast in brass – or parts of him, anyway. At least then he might put up a decent showing in the bedroom.’
‘This isn’t happening,’ I told myself. ‘This can’t be happening.’
‘How old are you, Bobby?’ Mrs Harrap asked, sitting down and leaning forward, so that the edge of one large brown nipple was just visible.
‘Thirteen,’ I croaked.
‘You’re big for your age,’ Mrs Harrap said huskily. ‘Handsome, too. But I expect the girls at school have already told you that.’
‘Yes. No. I mean I …’
I searched the archives of my memory for guidance. If only Mother had anticipated this. If only, instead of advice on health and hygiene, she’d taken the time to give me a quick run-down on horniness.
‘Come upstairs with me,’ Mrs Harrap said. ‘I’ve got something I want to show you.’
‘Help me, Mother!’ I prayed silently. ‘To Hell with, “Honesty is always the best policy.” Screw, “Your lies will always catch you out.” What do I do now?’
Mrs Harrap stood up, took my hand, and pulled me reluctantly to my feet. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I promise you’ll enjoy it.’
I followed her upstairs, noticing, as I climbed, how short her skirt was and how inviting her legs looked.
‘Help me, Mother,’ I pleaded. ‘Tell me what to do.’
And then, a strange thing happened. Just when I thought she’d abandoned me, Mother came to the rescue after all.
It wasn’t with a direct message – a voice from Heaven.
It wasn’t even by planting an idea in my mind for me to find, as I felt she’d done so many times before.
No, it was vaguer than that. It was a little like the flashback I’d had when Aunt Jacqueline threatened to tell me how Mother died – but nowhere near as frightening.
****
There are no black figures to menace me this time, but merely the door to a room which I know – don’t ask me how – to be in the hotel in Cornwall where we spent that last tragic holiday.
The doorknob is within reach. I turn it, and the door starts to open.
‘I thought you’d locked that door, Jennie!’
A voice – a man’s voice – which I recognise, yet, in some strange way, do not associate with Mother’s bedroom.
The door is half-way open, but Mother is suddenly standing in the gap, hurriedly pulling her favourite silk dressing gown around her and blocking my view of the room.
‘Bobby, I thought you were asleep,’ she says. ‘Go back to your own room for a few minutes until Mother’s dressed, then we’ll go to the ice cream parlour.’
****
The picture dissolved, and I was back on the stairs of Chez Harr
ap – my heart beating furiously, Mrs Harrap’s rear end swaying suggestively before me.
Mother wouldn’t mind! I told myself joyfully. Cheating was wrong, and so was lying. But this was all right!
We entered the bedroom. Mrs Harrap closed the door behind us and stood with her back to it, cutting off my escape.
Not that I wanted to escape.
Not now I had received Mother’s message.
‘Yes, you’re a very handsome boy,’ Mrs Harrap said. ‘You know why we’re up here, in the bedroom, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I gasped.
‘I don’t want to force you to do anything you don’t want to,’ she said, ‘and if, at any point, you feel uncomfortable, we’ll stop immediately. Do you understand that, Bobby?’
I nodded.
Mrs Harrap stepped away from the door.
‘You can go now, if you want to,’ she said. ‘I won’t be angry if you do, I won’t hold it against you later, and I most definitely will not tell anyone else. No one is going to laugh at you and call you a sissy – because no one will ever know you’ve been up here.’
‘I … don’t … want … to go,’ I said in a strangled voice.
‘Then come here.’
She put her arms around my neck, and kissed me passionately.
My first real kiss – and at the lips of such an expert.
Stage One over, she pushed me gently away and walked to the bed.
‘I’m going to take my clothes off now,’ she announced calmly. ‘You want me to, don’t you?’
‘Gurg!’ I told her.
‘Does that mean yes?’
I nodded my head like a woodpecker on amphetamines.
The blouse came first, then the bra. Mrs Harrap’s breasts, released from their twin hammocks, swung free. She took off her skirt, and I saw that she had a small mole on the curve of her belly. She lowered her panties and revealed to me her exciting, jet-black pubic hair.
The pressure in my jeans was becoming unbearable. Mrs Harrap, completely naked now, lay down on the bed, and turned towards me.
‘Wouldn’t you like to get out of your clothes as well?’ she asked me.
Shoes, socks, shirt, jeans, were all discarded in a moment. I pulled down my shorts, liberating my penis from its prison of elastic and cotton and giving it the opportunity – at last – to slip into something more comfortable.
****
I took to sex as naturally as I’d taken to bridge. From the beginner’s class that night – missionary position – I soon advanced to complicated plays, many of them involving some of the more interesting objects displayed so prominently on the Harraps’ lounge wall.
I was never in love with Mrs Harrap, but she gave me more pleasure lying down – as well as sitting, hanging upside down, and standing on my head – than I’d ever imagined possible. And though I never really thought about it, I suppose I assumed we would go on like that for a considerable time into the future.
But Fate had other plans for me.
10
The Finger of Fate – or rather the Fist – came rapping on Aunt Peggy’s door one afternoon towards the end of the summer holidays.
‘Well, go and answer it, then,’ my aunt said, looking around the room for a cat to start stroking.
As I opened the front door, I was expecting to see the vicar or some family in search of a pet. Instead, I was confronted by a man with eyes as quick and mesmerising as a mongoose’s.
‘It’s round the back, Sergeant,’ I said.
‘What is?’ Fliques asked.
‘My bike.’
‘I’ll check that later. I’ve no time at the moment.’
What? Could this be true – Les Fliques with not enough time on his hands to persecute me for my failures in cycle maintenance?
‘Well, if there’s nothing else, Sergeant …’ I said hopefully, beginning to close the door.
‘It’s not you I’m after this time,’ Fliques barked, inserting his large boot into the decreasing gap between the door and the jamb. ‘I want to see your auntie.’
My auntie? What could he possibly want to talk to Aunt Peggy about?
Me! It had to be about me!
I wondered which of my numerous crimes – as defined by the Fliques Criminal Code – he’d uncovered. A couple of weeks earlier, I’d accidentally cycled through a red light. Just the night before, after a particularly steamy session with Mrs Cynthia Harrap, I’d smoked my first cigarette.
Oh, my God, Mrs Cynthia Harrap. Fliques had found out she was having it off with a minor, and she was already in custody. I felt so guilty.
‘Auntie Peggy’s in the front room,’ I stuttered.
‘Is she now?’ Fliques asked, as if that, in and of itself, was a crime. ‘You’d better take me to her then, hadn’t you?’
Aunt Peggy had had time to find a cat – a ginger tom who had earned the name Tennessee by spending most summer afternoons sleeping on the tin roof of the outside privy – and as we entered the room, she was lovingly stroking it.
‘This is Sergeant Fliques,’ I announced.
My aunt looked him up and down, from his shiny boots to the point of his bullet head.
‘You’re a policeman,’ she said unnecessarily.
‘That’s right, madam,’ Fliques agreed. ‘I’m a policeman. Or, if you would prefer it, I’m a copper, a pig, or the Filth. It’s whichever you feel more comfortable with.’
‘Comfortable with?’ Aunt Peggy repeated, obviously alarmed.
‘I should have thought, madam, given some of your known associates, that underworld slang would be what you’re most at home with,’ Fliques explained. ‘I’ve found that there’s not a great deal of respect for the forces of law and order among the criminal classes.’
‘Known associates?’ Aunt Peggy echoed, seemingly unable to do anything but repeat her visitor’s words. ‘Criminal classes?’
Fliques sat down, uninvited, in the chair opposite her.
‘You can go, Bobby,’ he said, and for once, he sounded almost friendly.
I didn’t go far – out of the kitchen door and then, on all fours like one of the moggies, round to the front of the house.
‘Do you know what cat burglars are, madam?’ I heard Fliques say through the open living room window.
‘Cat burglars?’ Aunt Peggy laughed, as though the whole idea was, of course, completely absurd.
‘Cat burglars,’ Fliques repeated flatly.
‘Those horrible people who go around stealing cats, do you mean?’ my aunt asked. She laughed again. ‘Or do they actually steal from the cats. Is that it?’
She was trying to charm him. She’d have had more success charming a king cobra with a hangover.
‘I mean neither of those things, madam,’ Fliques said. ‘By cat burglars I am referring to persons who engage in the act of forcible entry into properties not their own for the purpose of removing goods which also do not belong to them, thus contravening sections 9 and 10 of the Theft Act of 1968. Have I made my meaning clear?’
‘Well, yes,’ said Aunt Peggy, sounding much subdued.
‘And are you familiar with any such persons?’
‘Certainly not. How could I be? I hardly ever leave the farm. My pussies need me all the time.’
Oh yes, Auntie, the pussies need you, all right, I thought. You haven’t raised a hand to help them since I moved in.
‘The Manchester police picked up a well-known drainpipe artist yesterday,’ Fliques continued. ‘They caught him in flagrante delicto, as you might say. And do you know what he had in his pocket?’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ Aunt Peggy said haughtily.
‘No, madam,’ Fliques agreed. ‘How could you have? But you see, what we found in his pocket did give us a clue.’
Fliques fell silent. Having baited his trap, he was now content to wait until his prey went for it.
Secure in my hiding place under the windowsill, I pi
ctured my aunt nervously twisting the cat on her lap into knots. I was really quite enjoying myself.
‘What did you find in his pocket?’ my aunt asked, finally giving in to the inevitable.
‘Your address, madam.’
‘What does that prove?’ Aunt Peggy asked, not in her Cat Lady voice, but as she spoke to the Night Callers when she was arguing about money. ‘I mean, he might just have got it out of the telephone book, mightn’t he?’
‘Perhaps, madam. But we also found this.’
I wanted desperately to see what “this” was, but the risk of raising my head above the windowsill was just too great.
‘What does it look like to you, madam?’ Fliques asked.
‘Like a hand-drawn map,’ Aunt Peggy said, through gritted teeth.
‘A map of what?’
‘Of how to get to Cuddles Farm.’
‘And just what would a well-known jewel thief be doing with that in his possession?’ Fliques asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Aunt Peggy admitted. ‘I mean, I’ve always been such a respectable person, haven’t I? You’ve only to ask the vicar.’
‘If you’d collared as many clergymen as I have, you’d think twice before using one of them as a character witness,’ Fliques said. He paused for a moment. ‘I’ve been a policeman for a long time, and I’ve developed a nose for smelling out villains. And you, madam, are a real villain if I ever sniffed one.’
‘I think you’d better leave,’ Aunt Peggy said angrily.
‘Oh, I’ll leave,’ Fliques told her. ‘But I’ll be back – don’t have any doubts about that.’
11
The midnight raid was swift and sudden. One moment Aunt Peggy and I were alone in the front room, the next the place was full of evil-looking men wearing “bovver” boots and glowing with malicious intent.
‘You can’t come bursting in like this,’ Aunt Peggy protested, looking strangely vulnerable without a prop-cat on her knee. ‘I mean, an Englishman’s home is his castle, isn’t it?’
‘And castles sometimes get stormed,’ Sergeant Fliques pointed out.
A Conspiracy of Aunts Page 7
