A Little Bit on the Side (28 page)

‘My apologies,’ said Martindale.

‘No, my fault,’ said Jack. ‘Breathtaking performance!’

‘Quite outstanding.’

Jack squeezed his way back to Josie who stood sipping her drink for a few moments looking around the crowded room.

‘Who was it you spoke to at the bar Jack? He seems to have been looking this way ever since.’

‘Oh just another opera enthusiast Josie. Quite a few other men have been looking this way too, and I can’t say I blame then.’

It was a mild, still night when they left after more curtain calls than Jack had ever heard in straight theatre. Once away from the throng of taxis at the entrance the roads were quieter, but the pavements still busy with theatre-goers on their way home. Up Drury Lane and Museum Street they strolled hand in hand into the silent streets leading to the hotel, where George was still on duty to open the door and welcome them.

‘Good performance Miss Adams?’

‘Wonderful George. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight miss. Goodnight sir.’

Jack rather hoped that it would be.

The suite was softly lit by two bedside lamps. On a side-table in the sitting-room stood two glasses and a covered plate of sandwiches. A bottle of Champagne was chilling in a bucket of ice alongside. Jack added another percentage to his total, but considered that the return was going to be worth it. Josie lifted the bottle from the bucket and inspected the ice.

‘I think we can afford to leave this for quite a while yet,’ she said, and walked through into the bathroom.

Wondering what on earth that remark signified, Jack followed her into the bedroom, hung up his jacket, removed his tie, and slipped on the bedroom slippers provide courtesy of the management.

He had recognised for some time that he had been assigned the principal male lead in an elegantly designed, romantic French farce: plot, costumes, direction and management all by Josie Adams. It was one of that popular, but totally unrealistic genre where everything ends in blissfully happy reconciliation, despite the many serious marital misdemeanours along the way.

They were midway through the last act Jack decided, and he was in the wings, straining upon the start of the seduction scene: the scene that takes place off-stage prior to the denouement, and is only reported, can only be reported, as the seduction (his seduction) will be carried to consummation. Dialogue and action, as throughout, would be improvisational, with Josie leading the way. Jack was very happy with his role, and had absolutely no uncertainty about his motivation.

After a few minutes Josie reappeared from the bathroom trailing a slightly heavier, more provocative fragrance behind her.

‘It’s all yours Jack,’ she said, and sat down at the vanity unit to brush her hair.

When Jack returned Josie was already half-undressed, and stood placing a neatly-folded slip with her other clothes on the bedside chair. He could see no sign of a nightdress, and had his first uncertainty about the action. Apart from two misconceived undergraduate encounters, Jack had always been a one-woman man. With Kate, apart from a few occasions which all seemed to have occurred when they were on holiday, there had always been what they saw as respect for the other’s privacy. Nightclothes were worn, and sex took place between the sheets, with nightclothes removed or not, as the occasion demanded or their inclination took them. Sex en plein air, so to speak, had not featured in his calculations, but his pyjama trousers, which fortunately he had not taken from his case, clearly did not feature in Josie’s scenario.

These thoughts led him instinctively to half-turn away as he undressed, and his inability to take his eyes off Josie had slowed him down rather, so that he was only starting to unbutton his shirt as Josie stepped out of her last, lacy stitch with a little movement of her legs that Jack found desperately provocative.

Despite exercising regularly he knew that since giving up sport more than ten years earlier he had accumulated a little slack around the waist. If Josie has any slack, he thought, it’s in the right places, in precisely the right amounts and looks delightful. Everywhere else is firm, smooth, youthful and utterly seductive. She was rising forty, looked less than thirty, and could be as fascinatingly irritating as an over-confident undergraduate. He was irredeemably besotted, and wondered, not for the first time, why me?

Meanwhile Josie stood quietly smiling at him, and without thinking he had paused in his unbuttoning.

‘Why Jack Manning, I do believe you’re shy. You’re not worried about your image are you?’

‘Oh God,’ groaned Jack. ‘So Brandy told you about that!’

‘Here let me do that,’ she said, as he fumbled with the last few buttons. With the shirt removed, she took his hands, and holding him at arm’s length looked him over approvingly, but in such a way that despite his best endeavour he couldn’t withhold a blush. Dear God, he thought, I haven’t blushed since I was a teenager.

‘No problem at all about your image Jack,’ she said. ‘A fine, upstanding figure of a taxman, if I may say so. Now come with me Mr Inspector.’ And pulling him towards her, they toppled over onto the bed.

Now Jack understood completely. This was sex as a saucy bedroom romp, with no strings attached. The game was entirely new to him, but Josie seemed to know the rules, and he was eager to learn.

‘Some refreshment now I think Jack. Will you open the champagne while I pop into the bathroom?’

As Josie slipped from his arms Jack rolled over to look at his watch. About forty-five minutes had passed since they dropped together onto the bed. It seemed longer to Jack, but even that was about three times longer than his occasional engagements with Kate had been taking. He suspected that had been his fault, as Josie, with the greatest of tact, had managed to restrain his enthusiasm until she was ready to join him.

The affair had opened conventionally enough, but as far as Jack was concerned, Josie seemed to imbue even the conventional with a new and exciting dimension, and as the conventional evolved into something beyond Jack’s previous experience he might perhaps have understood what Kate meant in her letter. But Jack was far too involved with the matter in hand, Josie, to give a thought to anything but the enjoyment of the moment.

Slipping into his robe, he walked through to the sitting-room, where he opened and poured the champagne. He was sitting gazing dreamily at the bubbles in his glass and reflecting, with some satisfaction, on the way the evening had proceeded, when Josie walked through, naked as she had left the bed, picked up her glass, and stood before him slowly sipping the champagne.

‘Josie!’

‘Jack?’

‘If we’re going to have time to enjoy our refreshments please, please slip into the robe provided.’

As she pouted and turned towards the bedroom for her robe, Jack gazed in admiration at the seductive movements of her retreating buttocks, but overwhelmed by another thought, was unable to suppress a giggle.

‘And what was the giggle about,’ she asked when she returned. ‘You weren’t laughing at my bum were you?’

‘Perish the thought Josie. I think it’s a lovely bum -classical perfection in fact, just like the rest of you. No it was another thought. One of my apparent failings: quotation incontinence. An inclination to live my life through the thoughts of others.’

‘And what was the quotation that came to mind as you sat admiring my classical perfection Jack?’

‘A little later perhaps Josie. When I can turn it to my advantage.’

‘All right then. What about opera? Are you now sold on it?’

‘Was tonight typical?’

‘Sadly not Jack. Tonight was perhaps the best of the best, performed by the best. You don’t get many nights like tonight — I mean the opera. I don’t really see you as a Wagner man, but perhaps we could try some Puccini or Mozart later on.’

Jack liked the implications of ‘we.’

With an appetite sharpened by opera and exercise they did a pretty fair demolition job on the sandwiches, and the champagne bottle was empty when Josie came over to Jack and sat on his lap.

‘Now Jack. I’m going to bite your ear lobes until you let me hear that quotation.’

‘Very well, then listen carefully. It’s seventeenth century, and anonymous.

My love in her attire doth show her wit,

It doth so well become her.’

Jack kissed the back of her neck.

‘For every season she hath dressings fit,

For winter, spring and summer.’

He slipped a hand under the top of her robe, which Josie removed.

‘No beauty she doth miss

When all her robes are on;’

Jack slipped a hand onto her thigh, and this time encountered no resistance.

‘But Beauty’s self she is

When all her robes are gone.’

Jack’s hand slipped a little further, and Josie’s robe fell from her shoulders on to the floor, as she settled herself more comfortably on his lap.

Almost half-an-hour elapsed before Josie led Jack back to the bedroom.

‘Mr Manning,’ she said. ‘You’re a very remarkable man and full of surprises. And now bed, and sleep. But before we do, you told me earlier that quotation incontinence, as you put it, was alleged to be one of your failings. Well that hardly seems to me to be grounds for divorce, so now that we know one another a little better,’ (what a lovely understatement thought Jack) ‘perhaps you’ll tell me about the others.’

‘Ah,’ said Jack. ‘There was a time when I would have found that question a little too embarrassing to answer, but after our evening together I think I can tell you. It was alleged, now how can I put it? It was alleged that I was not attentive enough as a husband.’

‘I don’t believe you Jack, not after tonight.’

‘I think it was the frequency of my attentions that was the particular ground of complaint Josie, or rather the lack of it’

She thought about that for a moment or two.

‘I’ve always believed that with clothes and shoes it was always the quality not the quantity that counted, and I think it’s the same with sex. I’ve decided that Kate, after all, must have been a very silly woman.’

Slipping into a bed which was described in the hotel literature as ‘California King — Special Import,’ Jack negotiated his way across a wasteland of sheet to slip his arm around Josie, and cuddle up to sleep his way through what was left of the night — that had been standard procedure with Kate.

‘Jack darling,’ said Josie. ‘I don’t want you to feel rejected, but I do like to have plenty of my own space when I’m sleeping. It’s just the habit of many years I’m afraid.’

Jack regretted the loss of his cuddles, but giving Josie a goodnight kiss between the shoulder blades he made his retreat to the other side of the bed, where he began to sing softly.

‘Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light,

Like a little candle burning in the night.

In this world of darkness, so let us shine,

You in my small corner, and I in mine.’

He hadn’t quite completed the final line before Josie’s leg reached out across the bed and delivered a firm kick to his rump.

‘Well you just remember to keep to your small corner until morning young man — and no marauding.’

For the rest of the night Jack slept the dreamless sleep of a man who had already seen all his dreams come true, and would have slept longer had he not been shaken gently by Josie.

‘This is your early morning call sir, and I’m just about to take a shower. It’ll be a tight squeeze, but I wondered whether you would like to join me.’

‘Can’t think of a better way to start the day than another tight squeeze with you Josie, but isn’t it rather early for that.’

‘That’s enough Jack. This is strictly showering only, although I might allow you to soap me down a little if you can control yourself

With the events of the previous night in mind, and his own performance in particular, the Duke of Marlborough was very much in Jack’s mind that morning, and he couldn’t resist telling Josie the story, as he indulged himself, as far as he was allowed, during the soaping operation. But her permissiveness had its limits, and willy-nilly Jack had to curb his enthusiasm, and he was eventually left alone in the shower when Josie slipped out to dry. He was still towelling down when she returned wrapped in her bathrobe.

‘I’m just going to ring down for breakfast Jack. After last night will it be the high energy breakfast you’re wanting, or just toast and water to do penance for an evening of such gross self-indulgence?’

‘Oh Josie, but that was just foreplay. We have another whole day ahead of us.’

‘Now you’re bragging.’

The whole of the morning was devoted to shopping, as Josie led Jack on a trail around her favoured sources for clothes and shoes, an experience which surprisingly did not induce the onset of deep boredom as was usually the case. He was quite content to sit, admire Josie, and smile approvingly at whatever she paraded in front of him. But by the end of the morning, having applied her quality controls for clothes, shoes and sex strictly throughout, she sat in the taxi with just two outfits, one pair of shoes and two sets of underwear. Giving the taxi driver an address she turned to Jack.

‘And now Jack you’re taking me to my favourite Turkish restaurant for lunch. It’s very select, and it was difficult to get a reservation at short notice, so best table manners please, and no outrageous flirting.’

‘Yes miss. Understood miss, and rewards for good behaviour later in the day please miss.’

The Caravanserai was an intimate little place tucked away in a courtyard off Shepherd Street. Not more than fifty covers Jack estimated, and despite its cuisine more French than Turkish in style. Unfamiliar with the dishes, he suggested that Josie give a lead.

‘Well, we have the whole of the afternoon ahead of us, so I think just a light lunch and a glass of wine. The desserts are too sweet for me, so I’m just going to pick at an anchovy pilaf and start with my favourite, Imam Bayildi.’

‘Translation please.’

‘It means the Imam fainted, the dish was so delicious. And it really is: eggplant stuffed with all sorts of goodies and simmered in olive oil.’