snooty attitude I try to picture her with fishnet stockings and a curly mauve nylon wig. Flour-white breasts, firmly clamped into a deep cleavage and bulging out of a tight-laced patent-leather corset. I let her keep the white eyelashes and the stupid hairy wool hat with the toadstools on.
The image I’ve conjured up is so ridiculous that I suddenly find I’m sitting staring at her, grinning from ear to ear. She gives me another look and – before I can rearrange my features, she’s smiling back!
Can this really be her? The beige woman, who sits worshipping a chunk of old granite and pursing her pale lips, can she smile like this?
Like a child in the summer holidays, or a kid that’sjust got its first bike? The same happy, all-over grin as that little girl with the pink watering can over there by the other grave.
We’re stuck like that. We’ve both got our headlights on full beam and neither of us is giving way.
What the hell’s going on here?
Should I do something? Say, “Do you come here often? Busy in the cemetery today, isn’t it? What do you think of the chapel?” Or start pressing my knee against hers.
Then someone pulls the plug and we’re both staring straight ahead.
We sit there for a bit, stock-still as if the bench were mined. Then I start fiddling with my keys to stop myself exploding into little bits.
I can see out of the corner of my eye that she’s transfixed by my hand and trying not to show it. I’ve been practising for years not hiding it in my pocket as soon as people start staring. And I don’t now, either. Three-Finger Benny, that’s me, babe. Take it or leave it!
Ha, it turned out to be “leave it”. She gets up and stumbles off as if I’d been planning to grab her with my pathetic threesome. Why’s she looking so angry?
Yet another conquest for Smarmy Benny, I guess.
That was how things always turned out in the days when I was forever on the lookout for girls. I went the way my prick told me, and it always led me to girls, like a divining rod; all I had to do was hang on and follow it. To open air dances in the summer; to some place where there was a dance in the winter, even if it wassometimes a long journey. Big, dreary halls with fluorescent strip lighting, used by the local school for gym in the daytime and by the temperance society for meetings in the evening, and then on Fridays and Saturdays they’d put some crepe paper round the lights and hire in a dance band. I hardly ever drove into town to go to a disco, partly because I knew I’d lost touch with modern trends – I realised that when people started wearing their caps back to front – but also because to me there seemed no point standing apart and jiggling about. I wanted someone to hold. I thought it was great putting my arm around the waist of a new girl and steering her out onto the dance floor; it was like buying a raffle ticket and winning every time. They smelt so nice and I thought they were all so pretty. I was in love with every single one and didn’t want to let go of them when the dance was over. And I definitely didn’t want to try to speak over the band and have a conversation with them or anything. I just wanted to hold them and smell them and glide around with my eyes closed.
It never occurred to me that I couldn’t just take what I wanted – the last year at school I’d been one of those boys loads of girls fancied; my name was written on girls’ desks all over the place. But I hadn’t seen many girls since I took over the farm, and you don’t notice the years passing. I hadn’t realised how out of practice I was.
It all went well to start with. I traipsed around as the fancy took me, and most girls are good at keeping their feet out of the way. Sometimes they were better thanthat; they had such an irresistible way of moving in time to the music that we seemed to be dancing automatically , and that was great. When the dance finished, they started giving me sideways looks, and I’d
The image I’ve conjured up is so ridiculous that I suddenly find I’m sitting staring at her, grinning from ear to ear. She gives me another look and – before I can rearrange my features, she’s smiling back!
Can this really be her? The beige woman, who sits worshipping a chunk of old granite and pursing her pale lips, can she smile like this?
Like a child in the summer holidays, or a kid that’sjust got its first bike? The same happy, all-over grin as that little girl with the pink watering can over there by the other grave.
We’re stuck like that. We’ve both got our headlights on full beam and neither of us is giving way.
What the hell’s going on here?
Should I do something? Say, “Do you come here often? Busy in the cemetery today, isn’t it? What do you think of the chapel?” Or start pressing my knee against hers.
Then someone pulls the plug and we’re both staring straight ahead.
We sit there for a bit, stock-still as if the bench were mined. Then I start fiddling with my keys to stop myself exploding into little bits.
I can see out of the corner of my eye that she’s transfixed by my hand and trying not to show it. I’ve been practising for years not hiding it in my pocket as soon as people start staring. And I don’t now, either. Three-Finger Benny, that’s me, babe. Take it or leave it!
Ha, it turned out to be “leave it”. She gets up and stumbles off as if I’d been planning to grab her with my pathetic threesome. Why’s she looking so angry?
Yet another conquest for Smarmy Benny, I guess.
That was how things always turned out in the days when I was forever on the lookout for girls. I went the way my prick told me, and it always led me to girls, like a divining rod; all I had to do was hang on and follow it. To open air dances in the summer; to some place where there was a dance in the winter, even if it wassometimes a long journey. Big, dreary halls with fluorescent strip lighting, used by the local school for gym in the daytime and by the temperance society for meetings in the evening, and then on Fridays and Saturdays they’d put some crepe paper round the lights and hire in a dance band. I hardly ever drove into town to go to a disco, partly because I knew I’d lost touch with modern trends – I realised that when people started wearing their caps back to front – but also because to me there seemed no point standing apart and jiggling about. I wanted someone to hold. I thought it was great putting my arm around the waist of a new girl and steering her out onto the dance floor; it was like buying a raffle ticket and winning every time. They smelt so nice and I thought they were all so pretty. I was in love with every single one and didn’t want to let go of them when the dance was over. And I definitely didn’t want to try to speak over the band and have a conversation with them or anything. I just wanted to hold them and smell them and glide around with my eyes closed.
It never occurred to me that I couldn’t just take what I wanted – the last year at school I’d been one of those boys loads of girls fancied; my name was written on girls’ desks all over the place. But I hadn’t seen many girls since I took over the farm, and you don’t notice the years passing. I hadn’t realised how out of practice I was.
It all went well to start with. I traipsed around as the fancy took me, and most girls are good at keeping their feet out of the way. Sometimes they were better thanthat; they had such an irresistible way of moving in time to the music that we seemed to be dancing automatically , and that was great. When the dance finished, they started giving me sideways looks, and I’d
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