Chapter Two

 

Business was always slack the week after Easter, which this year had occurred in the middle of April. Roger’s parents had gone away the day after Easter Monday, and were not due back until a week later, so he was solely in charge only for another couple of days, because Mrs. Walker had stayed the weekend after Easter. That gave him more time for studying for his final exams, which he could easily include with running the business. His favourite place was sitting at the desk in the lounge window, overlooking the seafront, watching the world go by, computer on, books strewn about, casually dressed in shorts and t-shirt, sandals without socks, unshaven, and head down in concentration.

‘I’m finished now Roger. Okay if I go home?’ asked Janice, the cleaner.

‘Yes, fine, off you go, thanks very much. Anything I should know?’

‘Just that everyone’s out, all the rooms have been serviced, and the laundry man isn’t coming until tomorrow.’

‘Okay, thanks, have a good day off tomorrow, and see you soon.’

Roger returned to his studies, and it was five o’clock when he realised that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast and was starving hungry. He hadn’t been to the gym for two days as well, so closed his books, went to the flat at the back, collected a towel and water bottle, changed into comfortable gym clothes and shoes, and went for a two mile run along the seafront. Roger was supremely fit, and thought nothing about running on the sand, which might drain the energy of other people, but energised him so he felt really good by the time that he arrived shortly after at the gym. Some people like to look good at the gym, but do nothing, just stand around and chat to others, but Roger wanted to gain the maximum benefit from his membership, and just nodded to two or three people he knew, and concentrated on his exercises. After twenty minutes on the running machine at a high resistance rate he was sweating, and then it was onto the weights. He had recently progressed to the 50 kilo bar, so he stood on the mat, legs slightly apart, with the heavy weight balanced in his hands. Five minutes of torture later he was ready for some water to accompany a quick breather, completely unaware of some of the askance looks he was getting from some of the younger, and older, ladies who were toiling on their machines. By the time he had finished with the machines an hour later he felt exhausted, but satisfied. He had a shower, and then ran back to the guest house via the fish and chip shop. They knew him well, and only lightly battered his fresh piece of cod. He had a small portion of chips, and when he got back relished the weekly treat. He wolfed it down, and it wasn’t long before he had placed his dirty crockery and cutlery in the dishwasher. It was still mid-evening, and he had some hours to go before he was ready for bed. It was a lovely evening, so he decided on a walk along the seafront to the bandstand. He had no idea who was performing, but it was a good excuse for a walk before turning in. The bandstand was a strange anachronism, somewhere for all ages to gather. His seaside resort was a rarity, as it appealed to the younger generation as well as the older, who arrived in coaches in vast numbers. The bandstand had a summer programme with something occurring every night of the week, from activities for youngsters, pop for the teenagers, and variety for all ages.

The bandstand was on two levels, both being open to the public when nothing was occurring, but roped off to stop people from listening without paying when in use. However, there was an observation area to one side on the top level where you could stand for free, not very comfortable, but with a view nonetheless. This was Roger’s destination.

As he walked closer to the bandstand he could hear the music getting louder, and his heart dropped, because it was only a silver band. These players were not particularly good, and could at best be described as gifted amateurs, and that would be by someone who was tone deaf. Rogers’ parents would say that the members of the silver band would take it in turns to play the bum notes, they were so bad, and they were into a medley of Rogers and Hammerstein’s best known numbers by the time that Roger was standing on the upper level, looking down at them attempting to play. Ten minutes later they looked exhausted at their efforts, and the meagre audience looked just as washed out at the effort of listening to such poor playing. Inevitably, his attention had wandered, and he had seen that the crowd, such as it was, were trickling away a few at a time back to their hotels. It was not a particularly warm evening, and it was obvious that most of the audience were visitors of the older variety, too polite to boo, content to go away quietly. Roger was a very well brought up young man, and even though he knew that they had not been good, he applauded for the sake of good manners.

There were about twenty members in the band, mostly older, but Roger had recognised one of the cornet players from his college. She was quite a good looking young lady, sitting there in her powder blue uniform, instrument polished, shoulder length hair trimmed neatly, and she certainly stood out from her colleagues, who mainly wore ill-fitting uniforms that were stained, frayed, and just looked old. One man in particular was obese, he was attempting to play a large instrument that Roger thought might be a euphonium but he wasn’t really sure and the man looked in danger of dropping off to sleep, let alone being competent enough to play anything that could entertain the public. Roger was pleased that he hadn’t paid admission, as he was standing in the free area. Pity those poor souls who were down below in the windy, paying seats.

The band leader was a tall, gaunt looking man who was wearing a dark Oxford blue jacket, completely bald, and with black patent shoes that were so badly scuffed that they could be noticed from so far away. He waved his baton with verve, attempting to give the impression that he knew what he was about, but from the persistent discordant sounds it was patently obvious that he was in charge of the awful orchestra. A little later the concert was mercifully over, and the remaining souls quickly applauded and left their seats, giving the leader and his band no chance to give an encore, let alone more encouragement to strangle another tune.

Roger’s eyes had returned frequently to the smart young lady he knew, as she was the only one worth looking at. She kept on looking at Roger as well, so he could see that she was interested. As his attention wandered away from the music, he found himself speculating what she looked like without that uniform on. Mind you, he could imagine her with JUST the uniform. That was sufficient to take his attention away from the terrible playing for quite some time. In his mind, he could see her standing in front of him, just within arms’ reach, a lovely little grin on her pretty little face, maybe licking her lips in anticipation of what might occur, as she stood there with nothing on, except for the uniform jacket. He could imagine it being buttoned, but not all the way, only perhaps the bottom two, so her bust was showing, with a hint of the nipples, which would be there, but not quite enough for him to see. The bottom of the jacket would come right to her crotch, so he would have to undo the buttons to find out exactly what was down there. He was certain however that whatever was there would be something they would both appreciate. He could then imagine her slowly, ever so slowly, turning round on her bare feet, showing her back to him, with the jacket covering her lovely pert behind. While all this imagination was going on, he realised that he had a huge erection, just thinking about the lovely young band member in the smart jacket. This was something to pursue, he was convinced.

Roger hung around at the exit, and was rewarded by her smile as she came through.

‘Thought I recognised you standing there’ she said.

‘Hi Sue,’ said Roger, ‘wondered if all that playing had made you thirsty.’

Sue placed her left arm through Roger’s, the other still holding her instrument in a black holdall bag. ‘Love to’, she said, leading him away from the bandstand, up the steps, and towards the entrance of the four star hotel opposite. Usually aware of his surroundings, Roger noticed the band leader staring intently at them as they walked across the road.

‘Your leader seemed interested in us’, commented Roger, as they sat at a window table overlooking the seafront. ‘Hope that I haven’t got you into trouble by dragging you away from him.’

‘That creep’ Sue replied. ‘I can’t stand him. I really don’t know what he’s doing in charge of us. He took over three months ago when our previous leader got ill with a serious tummy trouble, and he’s never come back. I have asked and asked about him, because he was no nice, but they’ve told me to belt up asking. They even had the cheek to tell me that I’m getting boring.’

‘Can’t imagine you being boring. You’re too good looking for that.’

‘Don’t be corny Roger.’

‘No, Sue, I mean it, there’s no-one worth looking at in your band apart from you’.

‘I don’t have much competition, now do I?’ she replied. ‘There’s twelve men, with only seven hairs between them, there’s eight women including me, and if I’m honest, which I usually am, if they didn’t all wear girdles then their stomachs would hide what they are playing. I don’t know how they get sufficient wind wearing their get-ups to make a note come out.’

‘Their playing is so bad that I wish they didn’t bother,’ he replied. ‘Changing the subject slightly, how far afield do you travel to play?

‘Until three months ago, twenty miles away was the furthest. But that changed when Mr. Thomas took over as leader. Since then, we’ve been to France twice, Germany once, and we have tours planned to Milan and the Gulf States.’

‘What,’ exclaimed Roger, ‘when hardly any of you can carry a tune, let alone play it?’

‘That’s very cruel.’

‘Sorry love, but, let’s be realistic, if you went on “Britain’s Got Talent” you’d be booed off within ten seconds, and that’s being kind with the band getting the sympathy vote.’

‘Okay, I’ll give you that we could be better with some practice, but we’re certainly going places these days.’

They carried on chatting about the band for the next half hour, and then progressed onto the college, studies, and what they were going to do when they had taken their upcoming final exams. The evening passed very quickly for both of them, with Roger noticing a lovely little trait that she didn’t even know that she had. When Sue concentrated on a particular subject, speaking about, say the band, she frowned as she spoke. He found this very attractive, sexy even, anticipating the frown when they had sex, because he knew that this was going to occur. A very confident young man.

They were both surprised when the barman came over and asked if they wanted anything else to drink as the bar was closing shortly.

‘No, thanks very much’ he replied.

Turning to Sue, he asked ‘how are you getting home?’

‘Cab.’

Roger took out his mobile, and rang the local taxi company. Within five minutes the car was there, and he waved her goodbye. Roger was quite reflective as he walked along the seafront back to the guest house. He had really enjoyed the evening, and Sue had been excellent company.