Chapter 14
Rizzo walked for hours on the beaches below Black Venn. Black Venn is an unsettled range of cliffs that is continually shifting and has small rivulets of muddy slurry slopping onto the beach below. This erosion is mainly gradual, but occasionally dramatic, providing a renewing canvas for fossiler and geologist alike, combing the beaches with varying degrees of skill and knowledge, hoping for that one find that will set them up for life.
Anning Road, the home of Alan Bentley and his parents, had been named after Mary Anning. She was the young girl who had collected fossils to sell and, having discovered a plesiosaur, convinced middle England that fossils being millions of years old was a fact and not just a ruse put about by clever scientists. Rizzo was a bit of a snob and had already decided that Charles Riser Drive would not contain a row of, albeit it mainly ex-, council houses, but an exclusive development, interspersed with open spaces and tasteful landscaping.
At the moment, he gave more thought to the opening ceremony of his Drive than he did to his means of attaining it, and was beginning to wonder whether a change of career may be in order. If he were an architect, he could design his own houses. The psychology wasn’t going too well – perhaps utilising his imaginative bent was the way forward?
The beach is a potentially dangerous place to be as the relatively easy walk to neighbouring Charmouth can turn into a dash for life by those who have not heeded the signs or noted the tides. Great mudflows have slumped onto the sand and rocks and although the material is gradually removed by the tide, it is regularly replaced, leaving a large dangerous cowpat of grey mud, thick, clayey and capable of sucking the welly boot from a grown man in seconds.
Rizzo was well aware of these facts, but his weak point was his daydreaming and the ability to lose precious essay writing hours whilst he wondered about tapping rocks with his expensive range of fossiling hammers. His idea of paying his own way through college this way, when he and his father had fallen out, had petered out when two days of hard labour was transposed into five pounds fifty, a ten percent discount voucher and a dismissive look when he had presented his collection to the owner of Lyme Fossils.
“We don’t sell many of these, mate. Any muppet can just pick them off the beach. And, these’ll need cleaning up properly – you know, by someone who knows what he’s doing.” Seeing the look on Rizzo’s face, the owner softened, “See this chip here? Someone’s hit it too hard and therefore that’ll go for fifty pence, rather than a few quid for an intact one.”
Rizzo nodded knowledgeably, “Oh, right. I see, yes; I’ll tell him.” He bought himself a couple of crystals that promised peace and wellbeing and used up his meagre wages, his discount voucher and a bit more and then went home to phone his dad. But, like any good fossiler, Rizzo had not been deterred and still scoured the cliffs, looking for his very own plesiosaur, or suchlike, that would secure his name in fossil history, and if he found a little Fool’s Gold in the meantime, well, so be it.
However, on this particular day, Rizzo had only half an eye on the cliff face. His notebook was burning a hole in his pocket and he needed to get his dissertation moving. After his early victories, it had ground somewhat to a halt and he was in danger of letting the situation slide. He spotted a good rock that would serve as a fine perch for a thinker such as himself. The large hunk of sandstone was smooth from the years of pounding that it had endured at the mercy of the waves, but today, although the waves were fresh they were not a danger to its resting place. Rizzo settled comfortably, putting his sandwich in the little dip to his left that could have been specially carved for the purpose.
The wind was up and the waves beyond the beach were tipped by white horses that rose and fell in their rhythmic dance. Rizzo pulled up the collar of his bright red jacket, bought purposely for fossiling, so that he could be found if buried in the daring excavation of his plesiosaur.
The weak rays of the sun just managed to warm his face and he felt that it was too nice to be working and that perhaps he should have a little nap instead. But, as he shuffled to get more comfortable, the notebook shifted in his pocket and the corners of it jabbed his ribs, as if a little reminder of why he had combed the high street to buy such a robust book. He had felt that it would be needed to survive the pressure that his intensive flow of direction and ideas would surely put upon it. A mixture of his conscience and a vision of having to explain further delays to his tutor merged together and it was with reluctance that he took the book from his pocket and removed the lid of the silver pen that went so well with it. He had thought it worth buying the pen as well as he would be bound to wear it out in the process. He opened the front page and wrote in as authoritative lettering as possible, “Week Four”.
Week Four
Regular but subtle levels of interest have been directed at the Subject and these are the first such attentions that have been received in her mature life. Eye contact is sustained, acknowledgement of the female form given and an active interest paid to conversation and debate.
Results
Rizzo knew only too well the results that his work was producing. He had not only noticed but was genuinely surprised by the results of this work. His observations of the washing line that could be seen from his window showed that Lisa’s recent shopping trip to Exeter hadn’t been solely for new work blouses, and lace had replaced function in an almost extrovert manner. The off-duty ponytail was occasionally left upstairs and a yellowish sheet hung loose around Lisa’s shoulders, pushed back in a way that was almost seductive. The contents of the bathroom bin revealed evidence of feminine grooming and through the open crack of her bedroom door, he was sure he had seen Lisa hurling herself into sit-ups.
Feeling relieved to have started, he felt that perhaps his sandwich might further inspire the thought processes and started tucking into the concoction of granary bread, grated carrot, fresh lettuce and beetroot that it had taken him the other half of the morning foraging the town for.
Rizzo’s dilemma was that now Lisa had responded so remarkably well to his method of inspiring and self-esteem, he was able to consider changing the goalposts slightly. If the confident wearing of new underwear, lower cuts to her blouses and even the beginnings of a fitness regime had been inspired by such simple actions as the occasional, albeit well-timed, comment and a level of interest taken in what she was saying and her life in general, what would be the outcome of still greater efforts? Rizzo hardly dared to think, but think he did, sat on the beach, with dogs being walked around him, and children peering into rock pools alongside parents who vowed silently to continue the levels of family interaction when they returned home at the end of their holiday. Of Lisa.
He imagined her sat astride him as he reclined into the deep pillows. He had an attractive pair of boxer shorts on – probably the red and blue checks – and she had a lacy white bra and a matching pair of white French knickers that flattered what he knew would be large, accommodating hips.
“Do you know, Charles,” she would say coyly, “no one has ever made me feel this way before.” And he would rise up gently onto his elbows, gently stroking her upper thighs with his fingertips and thus intimating his complete acceptance of her problem areas and inspiring further confidence in herself. “I just feel, so, well, comfortable with you. In fact,” and she would unclip the large slide that held her neat chignon in place and shake her tresses free and drag them seductively over his face, persuading him to drop back down into the cool linen-covered pillows. Looking him straight and mischievously in the eye, she would reach behind her and release the wonderful breasts from the structured, but delicately lacy, bra and they would bounce down in doubly slow time under gravity, replacing the golden hair as the tool to tickle his face.
Hearing a noise, Rizzo opened his eyes to see a small child standing in front of him, holding out a bucket.
“Look, I caught crabs,” he said and tipped it forward for Rizzo to see.
“Yeah. Lucky you,” said Rizzo and stood up, adjusting his trousers before the proud parent got the wrong idea, and walked away smiling as he wondered whether he was the only person on his course whose dissertation was able to inspire an admirable erection…