11.35 pm
‘So then they have a bonk – in a swamp-coloured beanbag of all places – and anyway it’s all very pleasant and then she goes home and doesn’t see him for a few days. Although he does send some flowers and try to call, but anyway she only sees him on the Thursday and they’re just having a little chat, when you’ll never guess what.’
‘What?’
‘His fiancée turns up in the driveway! And then he takes her out for tea – the fiancée, that is – and hasn’t been seen since! What do you think of that?’
‘Bastard!’ Fergus twists around to look at me sympathetically. ‘Camilla – may I be calling you Camilla? Well, Camilla, that is what I call really low-life boorish behaviour.’
‘Yes! That’s exactly what I said!’ Terry grabs the scotch bottle and leans over (and that top of hers was definitely not designed for the angle she is now at – or maybe it was) to refill Fergus’s glass. ‘You can add the coke. So now of course they’ll be moving next door to her and she’ll have to see him – them – every single day!’
‘Thanks for reminding me,’ I say dryly as I reach for the bottle and tip a bit of scotch into my own glass. ‘And thanks for refilling my glass too.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Terry passes the coke over. ‘So anyway, what would you do?’
‘Well . . .’ Fergus runs his fingers through his oddly coloured blond hair. ‘That’d be an interesting question. I need to be having a thought.’
The champagne ran out some time ago and both Terry and Fergus have moved on to my scotch, which is fast doing a disappearing act of its own – and this time it’s not me doing most of the drinking. Terry is looking decidedly flushed, and every so often her words run together and trip over each other in their haste to exit her mouth. Ben got home at about two minutes past ten, stuck his head around the corner to say goodnight and spotted the bowl of chips, which he promptly spirited away to his room. I assume he has gone to sleep by now. And Fergus joined us over an hour ago and has been offering sage advice ever since. He is sitting on the floor and leaning against the couch – next to Terry. Who, judging by her adolescent attempts at looking flirtatious, appears to have forgotten her original objection to his unconventional sex life.
And, since the bathroom door has been closed with all his paraphernalia piled against it, I have no idea whether my bathroom has a floor yet or not.
‘Fergus?’ I look at him pointedly. ‘Has my bathroom got a floor?’
‘To be sure! Would I be sitting here drinking your wonderful scotch if it didn’t?’ He looks at me with an offended expression on his face.
‘Oh – sorry.’
‘Yes, it’s been working my fingers to the bone this evening, I have. And didn’t I even straighten out your peephole in your front door so that you’ll be seeing your visitors from now on? As for your bathroom floor, isn’t it only a few hours that I’ll have to be coming back to finish the grouting off?’
‘What?’
‘So probably best if you don’t use it till then, or else watch your step.’
‘What?’
‘Now on to your wee problem, Camilla my love. Yer man doesn’t sound as if he’d be worth the loss of sleep. Anyone who’d be stringing one lass along while he’s making promises to another is a bounder – and isn’t that all that there is to it?’
‘I know that – in theory,’ I wail pathetically, ‘but it doesn’t really help the way I feel.’
‘So you’re in love with him?’ asks Terry with considerable interest as she reaches for the bottle of scotch again. ‘Do you want another?’
‘No, I’m not in love with him, you twit. And why would I want another when I’m still trying to unravel this mess?’
‘Dork! I meant another scotch!’ Terry seems to be having a remarkable amount of difficulty unscrewing the cap of the bottle. Fergus reaches out and takes the bottle, unscrews the cap and puts a dribble in the bottom of her glass before topping it up with coke. He holds the bottle out to me questioningly.
‘No thanks.’ I put my hand over the top of my glass. ‘I’ll sit on this one for a while.’
‘But, if you’re not in love with him,’ continues Terry, with all the intuition of the truly inebriated, ‘then why’d you keep his flowers?’
‘How did you know –’ I follow her gaze up to the top of the television set where the camellias are squatting in all their glory. ‘Oh. Well, I like flowers, that’s all. But I am not in love with him. Seriously – I’m not.’
‘Well then, I think you have to be putting it into perspective,’ Fergus says as he helps himself to a handful of pretzels, ‘and don’t be agonising over what’s done.’
‘That’s easy for you to say,’ I mumble.
‘To be sure – but, firstly, was it good?’
‘Was what good?’
‘The sex – was it good?’
‘That’s a bit personal, isn’t it?’ I reply, trying to decide whether to take umbrage.
‘Surely but it’s not a score I’m wanting.’ Fergus grins unabashedly at me. ‘A simple yes or no will do.’
‘Go on.’ Terry pinches a pretzel from Fergus’s hand and looks at me with considerable interest. ‘I forgot to ask that before.’
‘Well . . . yes, then – it was good.’
‘Super,’ says Terry, ‘that’s super.’
‘Super?’ I look at her in amazement. ‘Since when do you say things are super?’
‘I don’t know,’ Terry replies as she takes a sip of her scotch, ‘but perhaps it’s about time I started doing a few things I don’t normally do.’
‘And why not indeed?’ agrees Fergus as he gazes up at Terry in admiration. ‘Isn’t that the sort of attitude that I like in a lass?’
Terry gives me a very irritatingly superior smile, flips her ponytail back over her shoulder, and then turns to grin down at her admirer. I watch from the sidelines as they continue to smile at each other for a few very long minutes.
‘Excuse me?’ I say eventually.
‘Yes?’ says Terry still gazing at Fergus like a lovesick calf.
‘Was there any point asking me whether the sex was super for me? Or were you two merely passing the time?’
‘Oh!’ Fergus drags his eyes away from Terry’s and looks at me. ‘No, I did have a point – I just can’t quite be remembering it at the moment. It’s just a second I need.’
‘Well.’ Terry unfolds her legs and stands up with only a slight wobble (and that is mainly around the chest region). ‘Save it for when I get back – I’m going to spend a penny. Back soon.’
‘Don’t go being too long,’ calls Fergus after her in a sickening saccharine voice and then, as soon as she leaves the room, he turns to me and speaks in his normal tone: ‘Tell me, what’s the story? Is she attached?’
‘Only to a mental asylum,’ I say wittily. Spend a penny indeed.
‘Really?’ he says with such a look of disappointment on his face that I relent.
‘No, only joking.’
‘Oh, thank the sweet lord,’ says Fergus with a sigh of relief. ‘Though I would still be interested, you know. It’s just a wee bit easier if she hasn’t got a mental problem, is all.’
‘Yeah, I bet.’ I can’t help but laugh.
‘It’s not funny!’ Fergus looks at me with a frown on his elfin features. ‘To be sure, I’m totally smitten! So, tell me quick before she gets back. Is there anyone else in the picture and do you think I’d be having a chance?’
‘Okay. Well, she’s been divorced for years. Her ex is a dentist, and has always fancied himself as a bit of a playboy. Before the marriage, during and after. She’s got one adult daughter. Works in a library, loves tennis and is a bit of a neat freak. No boyfriends and I have no idea about your chances. You do realise she’s a bit drunk tonight, don’t you? Because she’s not usually quite this giggly.’
‘Giggly? I think she’s perfect. And to be sure I can’t believe nobody has snapped up such a vision of loveliness. She’s like a . . . a goddess! Her face! Her figure!’ Fergus probably would have continued in this vein for quite some time but fortunately the goddess staggers back into the room, lurches her way across to the couch, and collapses onto it with a sigh of relief.
‘Ah, that’s better,’ she grunts, displaying a remarkable lack of class, mortal or otherwise. ‘What’ve you two been talking about?’
‘Oh, nothing, nothing,’ mumbles Fergus, his eyes once more transfixed on his vision of loveliness, who is adjusting her crop top so that his vision of her loveliness will be a trifle restricted. Better late than never.
‘Okay then, you still haven’t told me why you asked me about the sex.’
‘And I’ve remembered as well!’ Fergus turns to me with his customary grin back in place. ‘Hasn’t it all got something to do with perspective?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say coolly with my eyebrows raised. ‘You’re the one telling the story.’
‘Yes – perspective. You see, you can’t be changing the past, so it’s a help to put what’s happened into perspective. Correct me if I’m wrong but you don’t know whether you’d be wanting him anyway, right?’
‘Right,’ I answer slowly, wondering where this is heading.
‘Well, you can’t be having him now so that’s that.’
‘Thanks for letting me down gently,’ I say in a voice dripping with sarcasm.
‘Well, you can’t. And even if the engagement broke up and you could be having him – would you really be wanting a bounder such as this fellow?’
‘Well . . . ’
‘No, she wouldn’t,’ Terry answers firmly for me. ‘Defi-nitely not.’
‘To be sure, they’re my thoughts exactly.’ Fergus exchanges besotted looks with his goddess yet again before turning to face me and the business in hand. ‘So forget about that side of things – but there was something you were getting out of the whole thing because the sex was good, see?’
‘They’re your words of wisdom?’
‘Those and the fact that won’t you be the one thinking, whenever you see those two together, “well, I had him when he was engaged to you”,’ says Fergus reaching out for a handful of pretzels. ‘And you can even drop wee little references to swamp-coloured beanbags into the conversation if you like, and then be watching him squirm.’
‘Now you’re talking!’ Terry grins at him happily. ‘I like the way you think.’
‘And I’m very glad you like it.’ He looks back at her adoringly, and once again I’m totally forgotten.
‘Tell us more,’ Terry drawls in what she probably thinks is a sensual voice as she reaches out and takes a few pretzels from Fergus’s hand and lets her fingers linger on his palm. Without taking her eyes off his face she slowly raises the pretzels up to her mouth and attempts to shovel them all in at once. Of course, and couldn’t I see this coming, she succeeds only in breaking the majority of them into little pieces which cascade straight down into her cleavage.
‘Oh, shit.’
‘Can I be getting those for you?’ asks Fergus with a leer.
Terry answers with a grating little flirtatious giggle and then, unbelievably, proceeds to lick one finger, tug her top forward with the other hand and insert the damp finger into the valley between her breasts – much to Fergus’s very evident delight. With a grin of triumph, she pulls the wet digit out and holds it up to show us that the crumbs have obligingly adhered themselves to it. I sigh heavily and hold my head in one hand.
‘Are you sure I can’t be helping?’ Fergus is totally entranced with the proceedings.
Instead of answering verbally, Terry holds out the crumbed digit to him and, while giving her a very meaningful look, Fergus opens his mouth and –
‘I’m going to the bathroom.’ I jump up, moving so quickly that I almost topple over the coffee table, and leave the room with considerable haste. Somehow I really don’t think that I’m going to be missed.
And I’m not.
Henry J. Byron 1834–1884