Hot Breath

by Hot Breath (retail) (epub)

  By the time we turned at the front door—where Mike, acting as invigilator, bounded round us, studying our technique—my joints were screaming in agony, but this was nothing beside my agonies of frustration. I reflected that this might well turn out to be the closest I ever came to unveiling the secrets of Constantine’s inner leg, for this ludicrous parody would probably put him off for good.

  ‘You won! Twenty-eight seconds! You won, you jammy buggers!’ cried Bernice, as we hurtled with a final turn of speed back into the sitting room.

  Then several things happened simultaneously. We collapsed on the floor, still locked in our position, my face now entirely smothered by Constantine’s crotch; the uncurtained windows were suddenly piled with staring faces, mostly young, male, and wearing expressions of astonished glee; and Damon was extravagantly sick.

  For a brief, half-stifled moment I twisted my head and rolled my eyes and took it all in. Then I closed my eyes once more and concentrated desperately on what was surely going to be my first and final clinch with the Greek doctor.

  Astonishing how quickly the euphoric effects of alcohol and lively social intercourse are dispelled by embarrassment. From a tableau which in its peculiar nastiness must have resembled a sort of white-collar gang-bang (or, given my position, gang-blow), we resumed our separate and relatively respectable identities with lightning speed. Constantine ministered to the gagging Damon (whose indisposition, it was all too luridly apparent, was attributable to the merging of pork scratchings, rum and coke, and ice-cold Pils); Bernice flew to the kitchen for detergent and cloth; Mike Channing changed the tape; and Linda poured cold coffee with a trembling hand. An imperious knock sounded on the front door, and the wall of grinning faces moved away from the window. I stuffed my tights behind the sofa cushion, slipped on my shoes and marched, with grim robotic calm, into the hall.

  On the doorstep were as unwelcome a group as in my wildest nightmares I could have envisaged. At the head of a tight phalanx of smirking lads in green shirts—the 2nd Basset Scout Troop—stood Glynis Makepeace, clad in the armour of light: badges, belt, beret, lanyard, whistle and woggle. Just behind her was Nita Nutkin in a broderie anglaise peasant blouse and red gingham pinafore. The contrast between the two was startling, but for one thing—they wore identical expressions of tight-lipped disapproval.

  ‘Well, hallo!’ I squeaked. ‘Hallo, Gareth!’

  ‘It’s unfortunate,’ said Akela, and I knew she considered the misfortune to be entirely hers, ‘that we have to disturb you when you’ve got company.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘We have a problem,’ she boomed, calling the meeting to order. ‘Baloo has come to grief.’

  A nervous tic fluttered in my right cheek. ‘Good heavens.’

  ‘He’s at our house, the poor thing,’ chittered Nita, getting in on the act. ‘ Stan’s got him on the sofa right now.’

  ‘I suspect it’s nothing but a wrench,’ said Glynis in an accusatory tone. God help Baloo if he was found to be malingering. ‘ We’ve taken all the usual first aid precautions, but it had best be looked at.’

  ‘Probably.’ I was beginning to get their drift.

  Glynis’s eyes swivelled alarmingly as she watched Bernice nip across behind me on her second journey to the sink with the bucket and the bottle of Kleeneze.

  ‘I believe,’ said Glynis, ‘ you have the doctor here? Dr Kikarse?’ She enunciated a version of Constantine’s name with elaborate distaste.

  This had to be a rhetorical question, since only minutes before she had seen Constantine and me intertwined in a kind of human sheepshank on the sitting room floor.

  ‘We rang the surgery exchange from my house,’ explained Nita, ‘and they gave this number for the doctor on call, and your Gareth said—’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Murderously, I scanned the faceless horde of scouts for my son. ‘ The doctor is here. Why don’t you come in for a moment?’

  They surged past. Akela, disfavour made flesh; Nita, bright-eyed and curious, hoping no doubt to stumble on a sparsely clad gigolo snorting cocaine from an apostle spoon; the scouts, all agog for a fresh glimpse of the sink of depravity which was my home; and after them a dozen or so tiny cubs who (I prayed) must have been far too short to see anything through the sitting room window.

  ‘If Dr Kikarse can spare a minute,’ said Akela, ‘Anita can escort him back to her house, and I will accompany the troop to my garden for refreshments. My husband,’ she added, ‘ has gone on to start a fire.’

  ‘Has he?’ I said. ‘Just hang on for a second, will you?’

  I went back to the sitting room and closed the door behind me. My guests, and Damon, had assumed a sort of studied casualness which would have fooled no one. The twin stenches of semi-digested alcohol and Kleeneze had combined to produce an atmosphere like one of the larger London Gents.

  Each clasped a cup of cold coffee and they were listening to Tom Lehrer. The screeches of appreciative laughter emanating from the sound centre contrasted sharply with their expressions of introspective gloom.

  ‘What’s up?’ enquired Mike, perking up no end at my arrival. ‘Anything we can do?’

  ‘Not really. Constantine, it’s you they want.’

  ‘What? Me?’ He stood up with indecent haste. ‘Who?’

  ‘There’s a patient for you at the Atkins’ House,’ I said.

  ‘What, another? Mr and Mrs Atkins? I was there last Saturday too.’

  ‘It’s not actually them—’

  ‘No, it wasn’t last time,’ he explained enthusiastically, ‘it was one of their guests. Got tangled in a lariat, and in struggling to free himself knocked over a pot of hot barbecue beans all down his legs. Fortunately he was wearing—’

  ‘They’re waiting for you in the hall,’ I said. ‘Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, and Akela.’

  ‘I’m coming. By the way,’ he added on the way out, ‘I don’t know how Damon got here this evening, but he certainly shouldn’t be in charge of anything on wheels.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll run my partner home,’ volunteered Bernice, slapping the whey-faced Damon on the knee. ‘One lift’s much like another, eh Damon?’

  He moaned weakly.

  Out in the hall Constantine was all practiced solicitude.

  ‘We meet again, Mrs Atkins. How is Mr Hickock?’

  ‘Oh fine, absolutely fine—we must stop meeting like this!’

  ‘Absolutely. Now what’s the trouble this time?’

  Akela stepped froward. ‘ My Baloo has incurred a wrench.’

  For a moment I could see Constantine mentally riffling through a hundred medical textbooks. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘One of the cub leaders,’ explained Nita. ‘His ankle.’

  ‘Take me to him, Mrs Atkins,’ said Constantine. Then Nita bore him, his bedside manner and his little black bag off into the night.

  ‘Work of moments,’ said Akela scornfully. The cubs and scouts had retired into the kitchen, and now she flung open the door to reveal them pre-empting the bangers and dampers with bowls of cereal.

  ‘Troop—out!’ she commanded, and they obeyed like lambs, adding at least ten bowls and spoons to the existing washing up.

  ‘Troop—to Jubilee Close—forward!’ rapped Akela. I watched with grudging admiration as the 2nd Bassets shuffled off. She certainly had the problem of discipline licked. I wondered if a tie and forage cap would help me, but concluded that without Glynis’s many natural advantages I should simply appear ludicrous.

  I closed the door after them, and leaned on it for a second, a broken woman, before going back to the others.

  It was eleven o’clock and my beautiful, well-planned dinner party now resembled nothing so much as a brisk evening at Vine Street Police Station—an uneasy melange of drunks, casualties, loose women and under-age offenders. And to top it all Constantine had been taken from me, carried away on a tide of malign circumstances against which it had been bootless to struggle.

  Someone had replaced Tom Lehrer with Clara’s
Badness album, the monotonous, sardonic flavour of which was perfectly suitable for the terminal stages of a disastrous social occasion.

  Bernice leapt to her feet, chest aquiver.

  ‘Right, I’m off! Damon, on your feet, your carriage awaits.’

  ‘Bernice!’ I wailed. ‘ Don’t go—I need you!’

  ‘No you don’t!’ she replied. ‘ Damon needs his kip a lot more, don’t you, Damon?’

  Damon responded with a damp, wavering snore. Bernice hauled him to his feet.

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘Scargill Cuttings, Basset Regis. You’ll have to ask him the number. I say Bernice, are you sure—’

  ‘Sure as eggs. Thank you, my dear,’ she kissed my cheek, supporting Damon on one arm, ‘for a gorgeous dinner. I shall be on the blower anon.’

  I saw them out, and watched them go, listing and tottering like a couple of amateur caber-throwers, through my front gate.

  Mike and Linda Channing had taken on the appearance of fixtures and fittings, blending in to the background to see what might transpire.

  I sank down in a chair with a groan.

  ‘Jolly enjoyable evening,’ said Mike. ‘Plenty to drink, bit of rough trade—’ I supposed he meant Bernice and Damon—‘ raided by scouts, next best thing to being raided by the Bill. Pity you’ve lost old Kildare, though.’

  ‘Yes.’ It was a pity all right. I’d almost certainly scared off the one person I wished to attract, and prematurely ruined my reputation in the process. Vividly I recalled Nita Nutkin’s smug, beady-eyed curiosity, and Akela’s formidable disapprobation as she shielded her tender charges from contamination.

  ‘I think I’ll shoot myself,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ said Linda. And added ‘How’s George?’, thus producing like a rabbit from a hat the one remaining topic guaranteed to speed my decline.

  ‘Don’t ask her that,’ said Mike, leaning over and poking his wife in the ribs. ‘She might tell you.’

  ‘What about the book?’ went on Linda, displaying the impervious tenacity which was such an asset in her work. ‘How’s that coming along?’

  ‘Slowly and painfully.’

  ‘If you want my opinion,’ said Linda, ‘which I’m sure you don’t, I think you’re due for a shake-up. A change of tack. A whole new thing.’ And as if she hadn’t mouthed enough banalities for one evening she added: ‘I reckon there’s a different Harriet in there somewhere, just struggling to get out!’

  I finally burst into shrill, hysterical laughter.

  By midnight it was apparent to me that Constantine was not going to reappear. Gareth had returned, blackened and dyspeptic, from his alfresco supper in Jubilee Close, and gone to bed. The Channings, sensing that the evening’s diversions were at an end, finally left.

  I went into the kitchen. Due to his forced participation in the game, Damon had done very little washing up. I was confronted by a greasy battlefield of leftovers and remains in the centre of which Fluffy crouched, licking the butter with his eyes closed.

  I opened the back door and lobbed him out. I then released Spot from the back yard, gave the guinea pigs some French bread and celery, and locked up.

  I took off the purple silk and replaced it with my towelling dressing-gown while I cleaned my face, but I was still too despondent to go to bed. Instead I went to the study and sat down at the tripewriter. As a seductress I might be a non-starter, but Maria Trevelyan was about to make up for all that.

  The plot of TRT was progressing smoothly along conventional lines. Now, nearly halfway into the book’s total length, it was time for Action. Civil war raged. Kersey House was under siege from the Parliamentarians. Maria, with her ‘low dark stature’ and tomboyish nature, was the obvious choice for an undercover job. Attired as a lad, she would slip out of the house during the hours of darkness, and carry a message to the King’s men at nearby—I glanced at my bookshelf—Bradbury. Without more ado I set the scene: Maria lit fitfully by candlelight as she struggled into the garb of a boy, assisted by the Hawkhursts’ faithful old nursemaid, Martha. No sweat.

  … with the breeches scarce half on, Maria heard a sound at the door. Before she could cover herself, it opened, and there stood the tall figure of Richard Hawkhurst. He was, as always, elegant, and in one hand he carried a goblet of wine. In the flickering candlelight she saw that his pale, aquiline features were animated by the sardonic smile she had come to hate.

  Martha would have gone at once, but Maria caught her arm.

  ‘No, goodwife, remain. What is the meaning of this intrusion, cousin? Is it not enough that we have the enemy at the gate, without there being no sanctity in a lady’s bedroom?’

  At this he threw back his golden head and laughed aloud, a hollow mirthless sound which bounced mockingly off the walls of the shadowy chamber and made the candle flame gutter.

  ‘Not so prim and shrewish, madam, it does not become you! Martha, you may leave us.’ Ignoring Maria’s protests he stood aside to let the old woman pass, and closed the heavy door behind her.

  Face aflame, Maria struggled with the stiff belt, painfully conscious of Richard’s amused gaze upon her as he leant lazily against the wall. Finally she had fastened the heavy buckle and stood, legs astride and hands on hips, her eyes sparkling with anger.

  ‘Well, Sir Richard?’ she enquired. ‘I hope that I pass muster as a boy?’

  At once she wished she had not spoken thus, for sarcasm was Richard Hawkhurst’s stock in trade, there were no words which he could not take and twist into a barb to wound his adversary.

  ‘Why yes, cousin,’ came the reply. ‘You make an excellent lad. The appearance you have achieved, and the manners you have from nature.’

  At this most piquant juncture I distinctly heard a knock at the front door. It was a very soft knock, but my visitor’s attempt at discretion was wrecked by Spot, who exploded from beneath my bed, hurtled scruff-first down the stairs and cannonaded into the front door on a rip tide of hysterical baying.

  I looked at my watch. Who on earth went around knocking on the doors of solitary females at one a.m.? Beasts, that was who.

  I went into Gareth’s room, the window of which afforded a view of the front door. My son stirred and groaned, his sleep troubled by Robbo’s bangers and dampers. He was the snoring refutation of the scouts’ motto. Be Prepared.

  I peeped out. Down below by the front door stood a tall figure in a broad-brimmed black hat, like an advertisement for Sandeman’s port. I could not think of a single person of my acquaintance who affected such a hat.

  I went back to my room, selected a high-heeled shoe and crept down the stairs. Spot’s baying had settled down into his impersonation of Hitler addressing a rally. Out in the yard the guinea pigs joined in, tooting and hooting, perhaps hoping for some Stilton with their celery. I caught sight of myself in the hall mirror. The shoulders of my dressing-gown were spattered with purplish spots from my last attempt to dye my hair. My face, wild-eyed, glistened with Grecian Dew. I looked like a wrapped leftover.

  ‘Who is it?’ I quavered.

  Well of course, my putative assailant would at once have identified himself: ‘It’s the Mad Beast of Magna, missus, come to dismember you and stuff the bits in the freezer. Mind if I I come in for a mo?’

  ‘It’s me!’ came the hissed reply.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Constantine! I just had to—’

  I opened the door. There stood Constantine Ghikas, beneath a black, wide-brimmed hat of the kind worn by the officers of the fifth cavalry, if film directors are to be believed.

  It was wonderful to see him. But not, I feared, so wonderful for him to see me. My earlier euphoria had been shed along with the purple silk and green cummerbund. I was now at a low ebb, both socially and sartorially.

  ‘Come in,’ I said. ‘Sorry I took so long, I saw the hat.’

  He removed it and dropped it on the hall chair. ‘Mrs Atkins gave it to me, you know what she is.’

  �
��I’m not sure that I do.’

  ‘You know, country and western and so on.’

  ‘Oh, that.’

  He took the shoe from my nerveless grasp. ‘Were you going to brain me with this? Nasty.’

  ‘I suppose it would have been.’

  ‘Look, I only dropped in to thank you for a pleasant evening, I’m so terribly sorry to have got you out of bed—’

  ‘You didn’t, I was working. A cup of tea, now you’re here? Or coffee?’

  I was getting back into gear. After all, I had Constantine to myself at last, in the small hours, and I was ‘ but scantly’ clad. Faint heart never won fair lay.

  We went into the kitchen. ‘Sorry about all this,’ I said airily. ‘But Damon was too poorly, and I decided to do it tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t apologise,’ he said. ‘ It’s I who am sorry for having to break up such a delightful evening.’

  ‘You couldn’t help that,’ I said, filling the kettle. ‘And there’s always a next time.’

  I set out mugs and spoons, jingling with suppressed lust. All of a sudden his hand came down over mine, pinning it to the melamine worktop. And I hadn’t even heard him coming up behind me.

  ‘I’m glad you said that,’ he murmured. His face was so close to mine that I could feel his warm breath drying the Grecian Dew. But in God’s name, what had I said?

  ‘About the next time,’ he supplied obligingly. ‘I should be very disappointed if there wasn’t one.’

  This remark was like a pint of neat alcohol pumped straight into my bloodstream. I went from wrapped leftover to Ginger Rogers in a single bound. This could well be it, girl, I told myself.

  I turned to look up at him, as steam from the kettle wreathed about us.

  ‘You’re so—’ he began.

  And then the phone rang.

  I was all set to ignore it in true movie-queen style, but Constantine leapt back and bounded across the kitchen as if subjected to a high-voltage electric shock. He was clearly programmed, good doctor that he was, to answer the phone immediately, especially in the wee small hours of the morning.