Moggerhanger

Chapter Eleven

Beer splashed, and glass between me and the sun turned into purple and carmine dust above the table, showering me so completely I was lucky not to be blinded, which I supposed was what they hoped for. Here I was, all set for a deserved rest, and there was this big blond bastard coming towards me with no less than murder in his eyes, but as yet too far off to know there was murder in mine as well, though I wondered what good it would do, because when I stood to go for him I saw that his companion — nowhere as tall — looked equally menacing and determined to kill. I could have cried at such a balls up, yet where had I gone wrong? And where had they come from? The fact that I had no time for answers was, however, right up my street.

You’d think they’d been picking up suitable stones all the way from Milan, because after the first one missed by a few inches another skimmed from a hundred yards off, grazing my left temple. Such a form of combat was hardly sporting, nor could I admire the expertise as I zig-zagged the distance to baffle their aim, which Bill Straw had once shown me how to do. My only thought was to let fists decide, but on the way another heavy stone hit me at the kneecap and almost brought me down.

The shock did a fine job in turning me wild. I felt part of a show put on for an English couple at a table by the water’s edge, and wondered whether any applause would come at my collision with the big one, getting such a punch at his dumkopf — so fast was I running — that he skidded and went down.

While waiting to give him some more as soon as he got up — I disdained to boot him on the ground as he deserved — a rabbit chop from his sidekick nearly sent me the same way, and before I could properly recover, the big swine, though no bigger than me, put his arms around my waist and tried dragging me to the deck.

My open finger found his eyes, and I swung away, fighting for a life I’d never had any complaints about, and with my guard well up, and fencing blows from him, I got in another hefty thump at his clock. Turning to deal with his dark-haired assistant, though not liking to fight on two fronts, I saw him coming — from between the black hatchback and a powder blue Corsa parking nearby — holding a monkey wrench almost as big as his arm.

I leapt away from both but kept my fists up, well knowing I ought to be sensible and scarper at my best speed, though not caring to, since I would disappoint the couple looking boggle-eyed at the show from the next table to mine. I was aware in any case that running away would be more perilous than staying to fight, that I had no option but to hold them off, and in the process deal out enough of a pasting to both, eventually discouraging any further intent at molestation, or at least pursuit.

I went for the blond one first, his face a grimace of rage, as much blood out of his nose as, I knew, was coming from mine, because my tongue and throat said so. But I wondered if I wasn’t dead already, or on the way there, or delirious, at seeing someone unthread himself from the Corsa who was the spitten image of Bill Straw even while I couldn’t yet see his mug.

Was I unconscious from the punishment coming my way, and having a last dream before the lights went finally out? I didn’t know anyone able to clone people like Bill in Greece, though supposed everyone had their doppelganger lurking around to do them an injury by raising hope, and I thought no more about it in my peril, knuckling for advantage in mutually pounding away.

The chap who resembled Bill Straw tapped my second antagonist on the shoulder and, with some deft unarmed combat when he turned, snapped the monkey wrench away, then kicked the poor bloke square in the bollocks and, while he was doubled up in the kind of anguish I didn’t want to know about, gave an uppercut that flaked him clean out.

I had to concentrate on the no longer handsome features of the other, noticing for the first time that the scruff needed a shave. Not that I wasn’t getting blows back that I could hardly take. When hoping he wouldn’t have the stamina to go on much longer against those I was giving he staged a spectacular collapse because Bill — no more doubt it was he — gave a kick that brought him so quickly down I had to move away in case he dragged me to the ground with him. Pole-axed was hardly the word.

Bill held the monkey wrench over him who, fearing to lose what brains he had, pleaded that he’d had enough. I was too elated to speculate on how it was that the mate of my life had dropped from the sky, but my heart went cold and fearful when he took a gleaming cutthroat razor of the best Sheffield steel from the inside pocket of his jacket, and opened it with too much like alacrity. “It’s time I dealt with them properly, Michael, as such scum deserves. We must teach them a lesson.”

“For fuck’s sake!” I cried. “Don’t use that.”

Shades of disappointment and frustration crossed his clock. “I’m only going to put the frighteners on them so’s they won’t bother us anymore. You know I wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s just not in me.”

“We don’t want the police involved,” I said, with what seemed my dying breath after all the exertion, and while getting my spine back to straight.

“They’ll only think it’s a bust up among a few savage Brits,” he grinned, wiping the weapon along his sleeve as if he’d used it already. “They must be used to that, at a hotel like this.” He shook the smaller one into opening his eyes, and the razor going close to his face proved he was English right enough: “No, mate, not that. Don’t do that. For fuck’s sake, please!”

“Got some manners, have you, tosh? Get up and walk, then get back to where you came from. If I see you around us making trouble again I’ll slice your privates off. And I mean it.” He winked at me as if to say he might not, slid the razor back to where I was glad to see it go, and came to the other man under my observation: “Get that hatchback out of here, before we trundle it into the briny. Hey, haven’t I seen you somewhere before? Of course I have. You’re one of Oscar Cross’s lot, you six-foot slab of jailbait. Just slive, off, and take Joe Tucklis with you. I know him, as well.”

As they struggled to get themselves back into the world according to Straw, he went to give their car a search, and I noticed him putting various articles into his pockets. Then he motioned them to come and drive away.

Walking to the hotel, he laughed at the red trickling from my nose and down my cheeks. “You look like Major Blaskin did the other day. Must run in the family. I’ll tell you about that later. But you shouldn’t have got into such an untenable situation back there, Michael. I’m surprised at you. I thought you had more experience.”

“Shut up,” I said, perhaps showing more anger than was warranted. “You aren’t writing another Sidney Blood.”

He laughed. “I might be soon enough. Major Blaskin’s always on at me to do him one or two. But is that all the thanks and appreciation I get for delivering you out of the shadow of the valley of death? Anyway, let’s get a wash and brush up so that we can have our little talk.”

A thousand bees seemed to have left their stings in my face, and trying to wash them away with a wet cloth hardly eased matters. I didn’t know whether to cry out as my body demanded, or faint and go flat on my face, which was called for just as urgently. In my room I taxed Bill about his thieving from the hatchback, and he showed me a sheaf of what looked like money from a monopoly game, as well as a smart little handgun. “They’ll know I’ve got it, which makes us safer than safe.”

“You can’t take it on the plane,” I said.

“Then I expect I’ll drop it somewhere by the roadside.”

I neither fainted nor fell flat, but with a towel around my neck sat by a forest of beer bottles at the waterside, hearing how it was that Bill had been on hand to save me from being pounded into a basket case, which is how I might have ended up for jacking their car off the road in Jugoslavia. I vowed never to get close to such a near run thing again.

He turned his shameless gaze on the woman of the couple at the next table, and I noticed that she was eyeing him as well. “I’d like to slip her a length,” he whispered, so loud I was sure she heard. “I always feel randy after a set-to like that.”

“If you try anything with her you’ll have another fight on your hands. She’s got a husband, you daft nit.”

“That’s not necessarily her fault. Things like that happen to a woman. Anyway, let’s talk about tomorrow. We’ll look at your instruction sheets, and I’ll follow you to Athens, to make sure you’re safe while you do the handover and stow whatever you’re to take home into the boot. Moggerhanger may have sent you on a forlorn hope, but he’ll be glad when you float the Roller between his gateposts playing ‘Lullabalero’ on the hooter. Take my word on it, he’ll reward you accordingly.”

The knocks I’d been dealt gave me gyp. “I’ll kill the bastard before he can reach for his wallet. He’s done this once too often. I’ve had enough of being the dupe of his forlorn hopes.”

He gave that wild Nottinghamshire hee-haw berserker laugh, as was usual on hearing such sentiments from someone he considered too naive to live. “Michael,”—he drained half a bottle by the spout, though his glass on the table was still three-quarters full — “life is one long forlorn hope, but it behoves us to keep smiling, and go on living come what may.”

“Bollocks,” seemed the only reasonable response.

“Granted, but watch your language. There’s a lady within earshot. The fact is, you’re nearing forty, and though you’re still undoubtedly in your prime, you must learn to act responsibly. Murder is not part of your experience, so don’t think about it. Lord Moggerhanger sent you to Greece because you were the only man of his who could do the job. You’ve still got to finish it, by the way, and come out in one piece. That you’d be crippled for life, or turned into peanut butter was neither here nor there to him. You may be a diversion in the whole scheme of things but he also wants you to bring back what he sent you for. When I drove up an hour ago you were doing quite well for yourself, in any case. Two onto one aren’t impossible odds. I’ve faced worse and come out all right. In fact for a moment or two I thought I’d let you get on with it alone and watch the fun, but when I saw Joe Tucklis pick up a monkey wrench I knew I had to step in, because he was about to do something which isn’t in the rule book. But murder Moggerhanger? You came out on top just now, so it would be a waste of resources to try and kill him. In any case, murder is serious, and you’ve got to remember the Good Book’s commandment: ‘Thou shalt not kill’, and never forget it. I only killed in the War, but that was for a righteous cause, and I’m glad it was, because I never had to feel guilty. Since then I’ve been in some tight corners, but I haven’t tried to kill, or wanted to. I’ve had to injure now and again to save myself, and I was careful to ration that.”

“Stop your preaching,” I broke in. “I’m angry at him, that’s all I know, and the fact that you wouldn’t be is neither here nor there.”

He waved at the boy for more beer. “Angry, are you? Well, let me tell you that anger’s no good, either. You can’t think clearly when you’re angry. You make mistakes when the blood is up. You aren’t yourself, and that can be a lot more dangerous for you than for those you’re angry at.” He leaned forward to whisper: “What did I tell you? She’s looking at me.”

If she was it could only be because he was staring so brazenly at her. She was slender, with short dark curly hair, in her thirties perhaps, small features until a smile showed the sort of eagerness for life that appealed to Bill.

Having witnessed our conflict with the hatchback men she had taken note of his abilities, and had probably heard every word of our subsequent talk, as he no doubt had intended her to. I told him to keep his big mouth shut, while taking another look at her.

Her husband, a bald and overweight man with a pointed grey beard, stood up. “Muriel, I must get some shut-eye. That long drive tired me out.” She nodded her permission, and scornfully (I thought) watched his unsteady walk to the hotel.

As soon as he was through the door Bill rubbed his large hands, as if ready for some after battle fraternisation: “Will you join us? Me and my pal are having a much needed drink together, and would be delighted to have you that bit closer.”

She didn’t hesitate, said thank you, moved over, and sat between us. Her thin orange dress had strings for shoulder straps, and sufficient cleavage to show she wore no bra, her delightful breasts shifting slightly whenever she moved her arms.

Bill leaned forward. “I know it might sound a bit cheeky, Muriel, but I hope you don’t mind me saying that you’re very beautiful. I fell in love as soon as I saw you. In fact I noticed you even before we had that bit of bother. Those two fellows had been spoiling for a fight all last week. I happened to mention at a hotel in Jugoslavia that we backed a football team that they hated. They’d been trying to run us off the road ever since, so I had to take them out at last, especially since they attacked us first.” He nodded at me. “This is my friend Michael. It was all his fault, for opening his mouth. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but he’d been chatting to one of their wives, and they didn’t like it. They had it in for us. I only came to his assistance because friends must stick together. Don’t you think so?”

I cringed at his spiel, that any woman of her sort would laugh into scorn but, so much for my smug assumption, it was obvious from her look of interest that she believed every word. “It seemed a pretty serious argument to me,” she said.

He couldn’t take his gaze from her breasts, and neither could I. “I’m glad you think so,” he said, “but I only put the performance on for your benefit. ‘I can beat these lads in two seconds,’ I said to myself, ‘but I’ll deal with them more severely than they deserve just to give that beautiful woman the sort of show she can never see on television.’ In fact they’d done nothing to us at all, and I paid them a few akkers each to pretend to attack my pal so that I could help him, and show off in front of you.”

She opened her mouth and laughed. “Oh, you didn’t!”

“I did, Muriel, but I wouldn’t have done it for anybody else. ‘Now there’s a personable woman,’ I thought. ‘I’d go to hell and back for her. She’s got something I’ve never seen in a woman before. It’s in the face, and I’m finding it deeply interesting?’”

Such uninhibited chat was touching, yet she was amused. “Now stop it,” she said, her tone suggesting a desire for him to continue, for she blushed as far down — and maybe even further — than her unharnessed bosom. “You must be having me on.”

I pressured his foot under the table, but there was no stopping him. “I’m sure your husband makes the same compliments,” he said, “and tells you funny little stories like I do.”

Everything being calculated, he must have expected the shadow that crossed her face. “Not on your life.”

“You mean to say he doesn’t entertain you as you deserve? He must know that the best sound in the world is a woman’s laughter.” Her too plain expression said that the poor bloody husband knew no such thing, that he didn’t, or couldn’t, or even wouldn’t make her laugh, at which Bill went on: “If you can’t make a woman laugh you don’t deserve her. I learned that very early, though it wasn’t something I had to learn. It was part of me. I was born like that. I had my mother and five sisters in stitches all the time. The things I came out with! The old man didn’t like it, the miserable swine. He never even got a smile out of them, and turned ratty whenever I did. I grew up knowing it was best never to take life too seriously, and let the serious part of life take care of itself.”

Every word she took in was a nail in her husband’s coffin, though he’d looked a miserable old get, and was probably dead asleep already, when he should have been out here fighting her away from Bill, who I’d always known to be a charmer, though at the moment he was going a bit over the top. The recent agro must have got him going.

He asked where she lived in Blighty (his word) and she told him. She’d tell him anything. He wanted to know what work she did, and she said she was a journalist and free lance writer. He asked if she knew Sidney Blood. She didn’t. “What about the famous novelist Gilbert Blaskin? Do you know him?” No, but she’d read one or two of his books, and they weren’t bad.

“We know Blaskin,” he said, “so you’re in luck. He’s a special friend of mine. I’m going to let my pal here meet him when we get back home. If you like I’ll introduce you as well. I can arrange for you to interview him about his life and work.”

His technique dumbstruck me. He was already setting up a meeting with her in England. “Sounds a brilliant idea,” she said. “I’d love to do something on him.”

Bill leaned back, a posture that brought on an even wider grin. “Seems you’ve met the right people on your trip abroad then, Muriel. But tell me what your hubby does.”

The touch of bitterness played even more into his immoral scheme. “He worked in insurance, but took early retirement a year ago.”

“He’s lucky to be retired, but I’ll never be able to in my job.”

“And what’s that?”

“Bodyguard, Bouncer, Mercenary soldier. Ladies’ masseur.” He looked at me. “We’ve smuggled as well, haven’t we, Michael? Do you know how much a single bar of gold weighs, Muriel? No, I didn’t think you would. How could you? We had to go through special training to carry a briefcase full of gold bars, as if it was only paper inside, but it weighed a ton. I was in Rome once on my way to deliver a load, walking along the pavement, and two young thieves on a Vespa came up and snatched the briefcase, thinking it only had a bit of cash and some travellers’ cheques inside. They got fifty yards, and their caboodle capsized from a weight they didn’t expect, and I ran up and gave them a kicking they’d never forget. People were cheering on the pavement as I picked up what was mine and walked away with the ash still on my cigar.”

More laughter. “What a wonderful story. Is it true, though?”

“It’s true enough. Stories aren’t worth telling unless they are. I’ve been through so much in my life I don’t need to make them up. I’ll tell you more, anytime you like.” He took a long pull at his beer. “But how does your husband pass his time now he’s not working?”

He was stepping on dangerous ground, but had light enough feet to trip through any minefield unscathed. “It must be boring, being retired,” he went on, lighting a cigarette. “I knew a man who left his job at fifty. He collected model trains as a hobby, but he soon got fed up with that, and took to walking the streets, not knowing what to do with himself. Then he met a woman. Well, you know what men are. She was a cheeky-daft little slut from a highrise housing estate. One day he was doing what a man’s got to do in her scuffy flat, and went out like a light. Heart attack. Best thing that ever happened, for the wife anyway, who was glad to get rid of him, after she’d cried a bit for the benefit of a couple of his friends he used to work with.”

He waved away a seagull from trying to get its beak into his glass of ale. “The trouble was he came back to haunt her. While she was cleaning the house he’d tell her not to do this or that. It was unnerving. If she did what he told her it was always the wrong thing. She was afraid of having an accident. He was trying to get at her, as he’d done all his life. There are men like that, though I can’t think why.

“She got rid of the ghost, though. He was standing by the bath while she was taking a shower, and she turned the water on him. He couldn’t stand that. Maybe all ghosts can’t. But he vanished, and never showed up again. So if a hubby ever comes back as a ghost, Muriel, you’ll know what to do.”

We were startled when her laugh ended in a weird scream. “Men! I can’t believe the things that happen when Ernest tries to help me in the house.”

“Surely you appreciate his assistance?” I caught Bill’s wink, hidden from Muriel by the splatting of a mosquito on his forehead. “It must be useful.”

“Ah yes,” she said, “he tries, I’ll say that for him. But you’ll never believe what happened a few weeks ago.”

“I’ll believe anything you tell me, darling. Won’t we, Michael?”

“I had so much work to do, stories and articles to finish, that he volunteered to help me by vacuuming the flat. It was getting towards filthy, and time someone did it, so I let him try his hand, the sort of simple job he’d often seen me or the cleaning woman do. Anyway, I thought he’d feel wanted if I let him help mummy. I needed the time it would take me to do it. ‘I’ll vacuum your study,’ he crowed. ‘I’ll do the hallway as well. Every room will be so clean you won’t know them afterwards.’ How marvellous, I thought, he’s not so useless after all.

“He got going, while I went through some papers in the living room. The whine of the busy little bee pulling the machine all over the floors, as if he was doing a very thorough job, lulled me into thinking life was improving. He can turn into a dependable house husband, I told myself, and can go on doing it whenever the cleaning woman goes on holiday to Jamaica for two months. I might not even need her anymore. In half an hour his task was over. He moved me out of the living room so that he could do that as well. Then I went back to work in my study.

“I almost died. I shrieked. I frothed at the mouth. Do you know what he’d done? To plug the vacuum cleaner in he’d pulled all the plugs from my computer system and sent a month’s work down the chute. I hadn’t done the back up had I? But even so, he rushed in at my screams, thinking I’d put my fingers into a live socket and electrocuted myself. I wished I had, or I wished I’d done it to him, finger by finger. ‘I’ll kill you,’ I raved, as his not so pretty face went red with guilt and chagrin. ‘You godforsaken idiot, what did you do that for?’

“‘I had to plug it in somewhere,’ he said. ‘Oh did you?’ I cried. ‘Well, what’s this, and this? And bloody this?’ I did widdershins, pointing out all the plugs he could have used with nothing attached. How I didn’t murder him with the breadknife I’ll never know.”

“What an awful thing to happen,” Bill said smarmily. “Yet you’ve got to have a bit of sympathy. Everybody makes mistakes.”

“Not like that,” she said.

He passed my packet across. “Have a fag, duck.” After she’d lit up from his match with a shaking hand he reached to stroke her bare arm. “Don’t let it bother you. I’d do a lot better than that, though, if it was me who had the job of looking after you. I’d even sweep under your carpets.”

My battered face was still giving schtuck, but life was pleasant again, sitting by the blue water, an afternoon breeze cooling me as I listened to their billing and cooing. Her look was unmistakable as she pressed his hand: “I wish it had been you.”

“I’ll leave you two lovebirds, while I take a stroll along the strand.”

He let rip with his top of the world hee-haw laugh: “Don’t get like that, Michael!”

My knee wasn’t as badly hurt as I’d expected, though it might have been worse if I hadn’t walked. A couple of lovely French women were lying almost nude on the beach, but with my face so botched I didn’t see any point trying to chat them up. Cars on the quay were being loaded onto a ferry, and seeing little else of interest I went back to the hotel tables.

Bill and Muriel had gone to fuck their arses off in his room, and good luck to them, I thought, hoping to do the same with Sophie in a few days. Life seemed pointless after my fight, and the days of playing snakes-and-ladders with the black hatchback. Having got shot of my pursuers all I had to do was deliver and receive Moggerhanger’s goods which, having a one-man battalion of the British Army as my backup force, should go according to plan.

I was interested on seeing Muriel’s morose husband come out of the hotel with a towel over his shoulders. He sat by me. “You don’t know where my wife is, by any chance? I’ve been looking everywhere, and can’t find her.”

“She’s in my mate’s room,” I said, “having a very enjoyable experience. I expect he’s already slipped it in a few times.”

Thick smoke seemed to shift over his eyes. They closed, hoping to get rid of it. Then they opened, wide, looking at me again as if he hadn’t heard right. He tugged at his natty beard. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Take it as you like.”

“And if I do believe it, do you suppose I’ll go in, find them, and humiliate myself still further by getting into a fight with a man like that?”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Dogs aren’t noted for loyalty,” he said. “You can never do anything about a bitch on heat.”

“If you say so.”

“She’s only getting her own back because I bedded the au pair three years ago.”

“Life can be a can of worms,” I said.

“So I knew this had to happen, sooner or later.”

The throbbing bites at my face kept me in an unkind mood. “It probably happened sooner than you think.”

“You may be right.” The twist of his unpleasant lips wasn’t hidden by the beard. “A bitch always finds her dog.”

“Steady on,” I said, “you’re talking about my best friend. Why not just go into his room, get them unstuck, and give them a pasting? My old pal Bill loves a fight.”

“Short of entertainment, are you?”

“Not necessarily.” I couldn’t have cared less. “But she entertained us right enough when she told us about how you’d busted all her computers when you were using the vacuum cleaner. Had us in stitches.”

The revelation knocked him about a bit. “She did, did she? Well, all I can do in return is explain myself.” He filled a Peterson pipe, puffed it into life as if setting fire to a haystack, and wiped away a tear with a corner of the towel around his neck. To call the boy for a couple of brandies was the least I could do for him. “The trouble is,” he said, not blenching at the first scorching touch of firewater, “I’m split in two.”

“Only two?”

“I’ll explain further. You have the time?”

I nodded, willing to let Bill have plenty of leeway, in exchange for the help he’d given me. “The thing is,” he went on, “one side of me is pragmatic and easygoing.”

“Pragmatic?”

“Practical. Taking things as they come.”

“Sounds Greek to me.”

“It is.” He smiled at my lack of education, though I’d know what it meant, only wanting to push him on a bit. “But,” he said, a tad wanly, “there’s another side of me that’s rigid and authoritarian.”

“Oh yes? Sounds interesting.”

“I can only suppose the pragmatical traits were uppermost when my wife fell in love with me, but unfortunately the longer we were together the more the rigid and authoritarian traits came out, which didn’t make things easy. In the beginning I never quite realised that I was so pragmatic and easygoing. In fact the phrase didn’t come to me till it was far too late for me to do anything about it. And when rigid authoritarianism had me in its grip I felt like committing murder for even the smallest of her faults.”

“That doesn’t sound like a very accommodating attitude.”

He didn’t hear me, and leaned closer. “The pragmatic and easygoing part of my nature must have come from my mother, while the rigid and authoritarian part of me was obviously from my father. Or so I read in a book on psychology. Anyway, I married Muriel when I was pragmatic and easygoing, didn’t I? But after a few years the rigid and authoritarian part of me clicked into place, at which we realised that something had gone too wrong to repair.”

I thought I’d rather be tangling with the hatchback on the killer highways of Jugoslavia than bending my ear to this rigmarole, but my heart wasn’t stony enough to stop him.

“It’s the pragmatic and easygoing half that’s letting me talk to you, while the rigid and authoritarian side tells me to button my lip. The advantage is that by talking in this way I feel it doesn’t matter what the bitch does, though when we drive up the coast of Italy on the way home, if the rigid and authoritarian side of me comes back, I’ll push her out of the car and kill her. Or I’ll get up to two hundred kilometres an hour on the motorway and put an end to us both in one of the tunnels.”

“If,” I said, in as pleasant a tone as could be mustered during such a fraught confession, “you use the words pragmatic and easygoing, and rigid and authoritarian once more, I’ll take you apart, which will be the least I can do for my sanity, and possibly for yours as well. As for killing Muriel, what would be the point of that? She’s doing it on you, but people survive worse.”

There were so many tears in his eyes he’d soon need another towel. “When you talk about killing her,” I said, “it must be the rigid and authoritarian side of you coming out.” I had caught the virus myself. “Why don’t you get back to your pragmatic and easygoing self, forgive her, and go into the hotel to fuck one of the waitresses? Show a bit of easygoing authoritarianism or pragmatic rigidity. Maybe the waitress’s boyfriend will kill you but, failing that, why not try it on with one of those gorgeous French women up the beach?”

It wasn’t easy for such a man to straighten his back. “That’s not my way. Revenge is the father of progress, so I’ll just have to murder her.”

“Stop harping on that. I could understand you killing her if you get hanged afterwards, but the law doesn’t even oblige you with a length of rope these days. Meanwhile, have another brandy.”

I ordered two more, and before I could stop him he’d thrown both into himself as if they were water. “You can certainly take the booze,” I observed.

His smile was no smile. “What else have I to live for?”

“Don’t get like that.” I put a hand on his shoulder, but only for a second. “While you’re alive you have everything.”

He found my remark encouraging, proving that with such an idiot the more banal you were the better. “I’m glad I met you, for saying such wise words. God often puts wisdom into the mouth of the inexperienced.”

“Thank you very much.” He didn’t know I was the son of Gilbert Blaskin. I wouldn’t care if he stood up, did a belly flop into the water, and drowned himself. I had enough cares of my own, though realised his were bigger, especially when the lovers of Verona came arm in arm out of the hotel, Muriel’s laughter a decibel or two higher than Bill’s. He had changed from his suit into stylish shorts, a dazzlingly colourful shirt, and sandals. I wanted them to come to us and spin a few picturesque untruths, but they walked up the beach as if we were invisible. Maybe Ernest would call them back, or go after them for the satisfaction of being knocked down but, mouth open with loss, he stayed where he was and said: “What a bloody cheek.”

I could only agree, and take another swig at the firewater just put down. “You know what I would do if I was in your place?”

Disagreement already shaped his lips. “No, I don’t.”

“I’d pack my gear, pay the hotel (no, maybe not pay. Leave her to do it, especially if she doesn’t have enough money) get in the car, and drive away.” I rubbed it in. “They’re like two schoolkids in love. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

His mardy lips turned truculent. “I don’t think I’ll do that. I want to see where it ends. I’ll settle with her when I’ve got all the time in the world to do what I want to do.” The ugly bastard laughed. “She’ll live to regret what she’s done, believe you me.”

“Look,” I said, if only to find out how he would respond, “I’m going home up the Italian coast, and if I see you laying into her I’ll stop the car and give you a bloody good hiding. I wear heavy boots when I’m at the wheel.”

His eyes looked troubled. “I don’t mean it, do I? And if I did kill her neither you nor anybody else would be there to see it.”

“You wicked bastard,” I said, in a friendly manner, though ready to clock him. “A man should never hit a woman, no matter what she’s done. The only response is to have an affair yourself. See how she enjoys the sight of you getting your own back.”

“Who’d want an old sod like me?”

He had a point. “Look,” I said, “a man of experience like yourself, who’s cunning and cheerful, can always get what he wants. Go into W.H. Smith’s, buy a book of jokes, memorise them, and make a young woman laugh. That’s all you need. You’ll be drinking cocoa in her bedsitter in no time.”

I don’t know why I was trying, but I had to be right. That old roué Blaskin, who fucked every girl who came into his sight, wouldn’t die with his boots on, and that was a fact. My mother, who was about the same age as him, and grabbed any male or female she fancied, wouldn’t die with her knickers on, either. It didn’t bear thinking about, though I debated mentioning their antics to Ernest in the hope of elevating his morale, but had to look close at him instead and say: “I don’t know where my friend Bill’s got to, but here comes your wife.”

I wondered long before Ernest why she was in such a hurry, more tears pearling out of her than I’d seen on his cheeks. Her lips were twisted with a distress that could only have been from justifiable chagrin. I offered my chair, but she grabbed Ernest’s hands: “We’re going,” she said. “Come on, we’re getting out of this awful place.”

He was already standing. “What is it, dear? What’s wrong?”

She looked at me as if I’d been the cause of whatever her trouble was. “Nothing you’d want to hear about. Just pay the bill. We shan’t be staying here. At least I won’t. Not for another minute. Oh, hurry. You’re so bloody slow.” She all but dragged him into the hotel, and even from my chair I could hear her screaming at him to get a move on.

Blaskin would have used the word flabbergasted. I certainly was. Ten minutes later their Rover 2000 shot towards the main road as such speed I couldn’t imagine where they were going and why. Either pragmatism or authoritarianism would take him over, but if his feeble mind kept switching from one to the other, as it had while talking to me, nothing less than a catastrophe would be on the cards, and I wondered why everyone couldn’t be as straightforward as I was, though I felt myself blink at such a daft question.

Not unnaturally I was scorching to know what had gone wrong, but not till Bill came back from the beach half an hour later with a young woman on each arm, did I find out. The three of them were heading for the hotel door, and when I called him over he delayed my game of twenty questions by asking: “Have you seen that hot-headed Muriel?”

“Gone. They booked out. Fled. What happened?”

A furrow of self-satisfaction went across his brow. “All I did was get into conversation with those two beauties at the door waiting to go into the hotel with me. On the beach I just happened to put a finger near one of the girls breasts to scare a mosquito. Muriel didn’t see it, so took my gallant action the wrong way. I mean, I wasn’t married to her, was I? She lost her temper when I kissed one of them. It was only a bit of fun. She said she’d never seen anything like it. But what had I been doing with her in my room? I told her if that was how she felt she could get lost. But I’ve got her address in England, so I’ll make it up when I see her again.”

“I don’t think you will. It must have been the shortest affair in history.”

“I doubt it. But just because I started chatting up those two girls! By the way, I’ve promised them a ride to Athens in the morning. They’ve never been in a Rolls Royce before.”

“Over my dead body,” I shouted. “I’m on Moggerhanger’s official business, and you know his rule that there are to be no hitchhikers in the Roller.”

“Michael, you occasionally manifest yourself as something that I have never been in my life, and that is uncharitable. All I can say is that it behoves you to listen to me, and give me a fair hearing. You talk as if Moggerhanger is the be all and end all of our existence, but he’s not, and shouldn’t be allowed to be. Regarding his so-called golden rule about hitchhikers, he’s got to be wrong in this particular instance, and I’ll tell you why. I’ve got my wits about me, and know that it’ll be tactically sound to have a bevy of beauties in the back, because if any of the Green Toe Gang are still lurking around to check us out they’ll think you’re only a middle-aged gent on pleasure bent when they see our girls waving arms and legs out of the windows. The master planner — me — has thought it all out.”

“Let them travel in your car.”

“Michael, it’s only a small favour, and I ask you to recall the big one I did for you not more than a couple of hours ago. If it hadn’t been for me you’d have been served up already as meat pies in some canteen by the roadside, or sliced up in a kebab joint and swilled down with a few gallons of that porcupine wine they drink out here. I don’t like to harp on it, but the fact is, you owe me. Anyway, don’t take it so hard. As a quid pro quo I’ll let you have one of the girls. I’m not greedy.” He finished my brandy. “Come on, they’re waving to us. We can’t let them down.”

They were teachers from a village in the Languedoc, Janine a bit spinsterish with short fair hair and a mousey little face. Marie, who was mine, had a fringe of dark hair and looked about nineteen, though I learned she was thirty. They seemed too nice and respectable to be attached to the likes of us, but they were good sports, and spoke perfect English, so what could I do?

They wanted a bit of fun, and good luck to them, because so did we. Judging by noise from Bill’s room next door it seemed as if he and Janine were having it off on the ceiling. As for Marie, when she came it was force nine on the Richter Scale. I hadn’t made love since being with Sophie, so flooded out as much as would have set the alarm bells ringing in Holland.

At supper Bill wanted champagne for the four of us. “We can’t afford it,” I told him.

“Of course you can. Doesn’t Moggerhanger pay?”

“Not for that. I’ve got to keep an itemised account. What about Blaskin’s expense sheet?”

“He told me to bring receipts back as well, and I don’t want to be writing Sidney Bloods for the rest of my life, do I? He only allows beer for the sergeants’ mess.”

It was lucky, because my heart was softening and I was about to give in, that the proprietor had no champagne in stock, so we settled for ordinary red, drinking in a way that didn’t fit well with any hanky-panky later.

The girls were on a cultural tour of Greece, and that day had done an excursion to the Vale of Tempe. Tomorrow they were off to Athens, then Thebes, Corinth and Delphi. Bill winked that we should all go around the sites together, to see how thorough the RAF had been in the rest of the country, but I turned the idea down. “It’s business only from now on. The sooner I get back to London and report in the better.”

“It’s a lot more convenient to tour in a Rolls Royce.” He put on a show of moodiness, as Janine stroked his arm. “The girls will be disappointed after they see what it can do on the road to Athens in the morning, won’t you, my darlings?”

They let us argue, and I was tempted to do as he and the girls wanted, but more than anything I hankered to be on my own again, away from Bill’s baleful influence and unpredictable behaviour which would bring nothing but trouble. I had of course appreciated his assistance that afternoon, and would be sorry to see him go.

When like a true gentleman he passed the reckoning for the merry supper to me I was too tired to protest, and too proud to argue in front of Marie and Janine. Gluttonous and amicable to the end, at eleven we went slap and tickle to our rooms. On the way upstairs Bill suggested, in a whisper, that we change the girls over, but I said no, telling him that they’d be shocked, or hoping they would be, and I was right when he hinted at it with them.

I had put three hundred miles under the wheels since my half sleep in the Macedonian fleapit, survived a fight for life on reaching Greece, and gone through the shock of meeting up with Bill, who I had last seen begging at Liverpool Street station. After that was the nursing of daft Ernest through a nervous breakdown, or I hoped so, and then a pleasant though exhausting hour or two in bed with Marie, finally drinking more at supper than I could calculate.

I felt that another such day would see me in the knackers’ yard, but the excess certainly helped me speedily into oblivion.