Keppelberg (8 page)

At eight o'clock that evening, Robert went to bed, leaving me alone with his mother. We talked generally although I avoided asking any awkward questions which I knew would bring me no cogent answers, We spoke as a man and a woman ready to court each other until an hour later Bridget yawned and looked slightly tired.

‘Are you going to sleep with me or on the couch,' she asked wearily.

I thought for a moment, wondering whether I would weaken, before I remembered that her husband had only just been buried.

‘Let me take the couch for tonight,' I uttered kicking myself for the missed opportunity.

‘I'll fetch you a blanket,' she offered. She left the room to return with one a few minutes later.

We stood staring at each other for a brief instant and I thought that she was going to kiss me but the moment quickly passed and neither of us moved to commitment. She was clearly in the forefront of my mind by now due mainly to both of us flirting with each other. It embarrassed me to feel so close to a woman who had just buried her husband but she told me it had been an arranged marriage... one which she resented.

I undressed, taking off all my clothes, and made myself as comfortable as possible on the couch. It seemed to me to be a size too small but beggars couldn't be choosers and it was far better than the flea-bitten straw mattress in the police cell I fell asleep and started to dream to be awoken at two-thirty in the morning. There was a slight rustle and, having been on alert in Basra for two -and-a-half years, I awoke in an instant pulling the blanket away and reaching for my nonexistent machine-gun. I looked up to see Bridget entered the room. She was wearing a dressing-gown and she moved towards me swiftly. As she opened the garment, I could see that she wasn't wearing anything beneath it. She flipped it off her shoulders and embraced me firmly. The slenderness of her body almost caused me to drool and the adrenalin surged rapidly through my body. I caressed her full soft breasts, rubbing my fingers slowly over her nipples. Her head went back in ecstasy and I stroked the back of her neck which seemed to be one of her erogenous zones. I ran my finger down her spine which tended to heighten her sensitivity. The foreplay continued for a while and I kept kissing her all over her body before her soft lips brushed against mine. Eventually, I moved my hand downwards between her legs, gently running my forefinger over her clitoris. She sighed and gasped as I did so and I continued the action which excited her greatly. After a short while, her hand came between my legs to hold me firmly, stroking me gently before placing me inside her. We moved up and down in harmony for quite some time, our passions rising to elevated heights, until mutual satisfaction occurred at the very same time. Bridget uttered a gasp of unholy euphoric emotion while, at the same moment, I felt a tremendous sensation of relief. We hugged each other warmly, basking in the moonlight of sensuality, continuing to kiss and embrace, staring at each other's silhouette in the darkness.

‘That was wonderful!' she gasped joyously. ‘Can we do it again?'

‘If you want to,' I told her hesitantly although I wasn't certain it would be quite as lasting or exciting as the first time. ‘You're very experienced for a young woman,' I muttered, kissing her on her ear. She laughed loudly. ‘And we're crazy to have unprotected sex. That session was so emotional, so perfect, you might have become pregnant.'

‘Pregnant!' she guffawed. ‘At my age!'

‘What do you mean? Everything she said was an enigma to me.

‘How old do you think I am?' She began to throw caution to the winds in her euphoria.

I paused briefly to reflect. ‘I'm pretty good at working out people's ages. I reckon you're about twenty-seven or twenty-eight.'

‘Well you'd better think again,' she revealed much to my horror. ‘I'm eighty-seven nearly eighty-eight.'

I began to laugh, hugging her even more tightly. ‘Now who's the funny one,' I joked easily. ‘I ought to spank your bottom for having me on. Now come on! Twenty-seven or twenty-eight?'

‘No,' she persisted shaking her head defiantly. ‘I'm eighty-seven.'

Her voice had the touch of certainty which sent shivers down my spine. I released her quickly so that she fell on to the floor, staring in the dim light at her face. I could see from her expression that she was telling the truth but I had difficulty in processing the information. She looked so young... so vibrant! And then I remembered that her son had told me he was forty-two years old. It was enough to make my hair turn white. What the hell was going on in this place? I had been in Basra facing death every day being shot at and in constant danger of being killed or maimed by a land mine. However it was nothing like the situation I was facing in this village, I stood up covering myself with the blanket. She could have been my grandmother. There was no way I could bring myself to make love with her again. Knowing that she was eighty-seven, I was certain not to be able to close my eyes and get to sleep again that night.

‘Why do you say you're that old,' I managed to say, hoping that she might withdraw the comment and tell me it was all a joke.

‘Because it's the truth. I was born almost eighty-eight years ago.' She seemed to be quite stunned at my reaction without understanding my concern. After all, her sexual activity was that of a young woman.

‘This is all a wind-up, isn't it?' I exclaimed with all the adrenalin draining out of my body. ‘I mean we made wild passionate love with each other. It was wonderful. The best performance of a twenty-seven year old woman. What's going on, Bridget?'

‘I can't tell you any more,' she insisted, becoming upset by my adverse attitude. ‘Please don't ask me. All I want is for you to make love to me again.'

After her declaration, making love to an eighty-seven year old woman was the last thing I wanted to do. Then she realised that she had been too audacious in revealing her age and, against her better judgement, she decided to retract the statement.

‘I was only kidding,' she laughed, pushing her hand across my chin playfully. ‘How could I be eighty-seven when I look like this? Look at my face, look at my skin!'

I looked at her suspiciously not knowing what to think. She had been so positive in her declaration that, now she had retracted the statement, I wondered whether she was telling the truth. She certainly looked no more than twenty-seven.

‘Come on!' she urged laying back on the couch seductively. ‘Come back to me again, handsome, I want you!'

I hesitated for a few moments to think the matter through. She couldn't really be an old woman. It was impossible! Perhaps it was the result of her strange sense of humour but it really threw me for a while. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and moved back to the couch. What the hell! Whatever her age, she still performed like a twenty-seven year old and I was in for the kill. As expected, our performance wasn't half as exciting like the first time but it was enjoyable nonetheless, tending us to become closer as our flesh pressed together and we became excited at each other's touch.

In due course, after we had made passionate love again, she took me by the hand and led me up to the bedroom. I shuddered to think that she had lain there with her late husband perhaps having numerous sexual sessions over the years. However I recognised that it was all in the past and that there was our future to consider. I crept into bed with her, fondling her breasts and kissing her all over her body. She cooed and sighed as our love-making progressed to higher levels and I felt the adrenalin flowing back into my body. I realised that she would wear me out by the light of day but the woman was insatiable and there was still some power left in my engine. In any case, resting in a comfortable warm bed, embracing her so that we were united as one, I didn't care what age she was. Making love to her was an emotional experience... magic for both of us because we were so compatible, and the relationship we had formed in such a short time was something I wished to continue. To my mind, she was lovely, beautiful, erotic, slender, vibrant, lithe... and furthermore she was in the nude in bed with me!

Chapter Six

Wayne Austen made his was back to the next village to retrieve his car. He sat in the driver's seat and was soon fast asleep. He was extremely annoyed with himself for losing his temper with me recognising that I was not a loose cannon but an independently-mind person who could do what I liked with my life. Just because Mary, my sister, was concerned about my safety was no reason for the junior detective to take me out of the strange village of Keppelberg. However, he had been given the task to do so by his partner and it was his duty to stick with it to its conclusion. He slept on through the night and on waking, he removed his mobile telephone from his pocket and rang my brother-in-law.

‘Tim,' he began hesitantly. I'm in the next village to Keppleberg. I can't get Sam to change his mind. He insists on staying here so I'm coming back to the office.'

‘You can't do that!' spat his partner angrily. ‘Mary will go wild if he doesn't return. She's waiting for him now. You've got to stay on and make him see sense!'

‘I've tried,' bleated Wayne sadly. ‘I've even been arrested and had to sign a paper to say I'd never return to the place.'

‘Who the hell do they think they are forcing you to do that?' yelled Tim vehemently. ‘You get back there and read them the Riot Act! You know the law... act on it!'

Wayne was about to continue the conversation but the communication ended sharply. He was now in a real fix. Tim was the senior partner in the business and he didn't suffer fools. He saw every case as a challenge and he didn't like the sound of Wayne's failure to extricate me from the village. The junior partner was caught in two minds. He didn't know whether to return to the village, facing punishment of an unknown kind if he was caught, or leave and face the wrath of his partner. It was a lose-lose situation and he knew that either way he was looking into the face of doom. In due course, after a great deal of personal torment, he climbed out of his car and walked towards the village, Shortly, he had gone up the sandy lane and reached the terraced road with his heart in his mouth. Honour was the better part of valour and he decided not to go down on record as a failure. He hid behind the same clump of trees not knowing what to do next because I had told him that I was staying. Perhaps he thought it was a war of attrition and that eventually he might be able to make me change my mind. Little did he know that I had spent the night with Bridget and had fast fallen in love with the woman. I couldn't get her face out of my mind and my body told me that she was the best thing since sliced bread. Nothing would wrest me away to venture back into the hell of humanity that existed outside the village. There was no miserable news broadcast every day, no crime situations to learn about, no sad television programmes with their constant game shows and commercials, no protest marches, no terrorists, no interference... simply peace, goodwill and harmony.

Nonetheless, the information about Bridget's age failed to go away. It continued to haunt me the more I thought about it. When she was in my arms, in our bed, she was twenty-seven but the fact that she was eighty-seven alarmed me... sixty years older. The whole idea of it was nonsensical yet it plagued my mind all day long mercilessly.

After finishing breakfast, and talking to Robert who had been swatting up for his lessons that day, there was a knock on the door. The giant frame of Townsend appeared and he entered, sitting down at the table. Bridget poured him a cup of tea and he related my schedule for the day.

‘How was it here last night?' he asked innocuously.

‘It was very fine and he's staying with me here,' cut in Bridget as if scared I might be taken away to live somewhere else. ‘He's to continue sleeping here every night.'

‘Right,' muttered Townsend thoughtfully before turning to me. ‘You're coming with me to the police station.'

‘What's it this time, Mr. Townsend?' I asked tiredly becoming angry at being moved here there and everywhere at his whim. I was yo-yoing through the village using the police station as a central point.

‘It's good news,' he related slowly. ‘We'll stop temporarily at the pharmacy to collect your tablets. Then we'll go on to the police station to fit you out.'

‘Fit me out?' I repeated perplexedly. ‘What for?' I couldn't even hazard a guess.

‘With a uniform of course,' he retorted staidly.

‘A uniform?' I gasped, stunned at the idea. ‘Don't tell me I'm going to join the police force of Keppelberg!'

‘Not quite,' he added. ‘You're going to be a security guard stationed at the edge of the village to ensure that no strangers are allowed to come in.'

I recalled him making a comment of that nature at the village hall but I had no idea that I would be the one appointed to the task.

‘Does this mean I've been accepted into the community?' I asked bluntly.

He snorted and then guffawed almost spilling his tea. ‘I don't think so,' he laughed loudly as though I had told him a funny joke. ‘It's a start but you've a long way to go before you can consider you're to be one of us. I haven't got a report from Mrs. McBain yet.'

‘You don't need one, Mr. Townsend,' she intervened. ‘He's one hundred per cent as far as I'm concerned. He's my man!'

‘I see,' returned the Chairman understanding her situation. ‘I'm glad to hear you get on so well. It'll be in your favour. The priest told me that you come from Cornwall. How long do you have to live in Cornwall to be accepted as a Cornishman... a lifetime I would suspect.'

I looked at Bridget who seemed to be delighted at the news. ‘How wonderful!' she said brightly. ‘You're going to be allowed to stay. You've made my day, Mr. Townsend'

The Chairman stared at her with an element of surprise. The woman was obviously taken by me and the fact that I had stayed the night with her was indicative of her passion.

‘I'm really pleased that you hit it off together, he went on. placing his tea cup down on the table. ‘It didn't take you two long, did, it?'

It didn't take a mind reader for him to realised what had happened between us during the night. Perhaps villagers were more promiscuous than their counterparts in the towns and cities. I doubted that I would ever know the answer. There was certainly no hesitation on the part of Bridget when it came to making love even though she was supposed to be grieving. But then I recalled that many people reacted differently when it came to mourning and grieving. I remembered a man who once was unable to stop himself laughing loudly and continually at a funeral. It took people in different ways. As far as Bridget was concerned, there were many questions I wanted to ask her about her relationship with her husband but this wasn't the time.

Townsend got to his feet. ‘Well,' he said stolidly, we've work to do, Mr. Ross. ‘We ought to be on our way.'

I went over to Bridget and kissed her fully on the lips warmly to which she responded, then she moved with us to the door. As I got there, Bridget place her hand on my arm.

‘You will come back, Sam, won't you?' she said in a final gesture, her eyes pleading me to answer affirmatively.

‘Wild horses wouldn't keep me away,' I returned lovingly. Just stay as beautiful... that's all I ask.'

We kissed again and then I left with Townsend. We walked along the paths deviating slightly to the left. Shortly we came to a large building that bore the sign ‘Pharmacy'. I was here at last arriving at the inner sanctum where I believed the secret of the villagers was held. We entered and I expected to see one or two chemists manufacturing the tablets. To my utter surprise, the place was bustling with workers... a beehive of activity. It was a very large room... exceedingly large... with long rows of solid tables set out in lines behind which there were at least fifty men and women making pills with long out-dated machines. Each person wore a white coat, a hat or bonnet, and they all used rubber gloves. Behind each row was a multitude of shelves containing enormous jars of white, green and yellow powders and every person in the room was employed in mashing up the powders in pestles and mortars to make the tablets. I had once seen a news item in the cinema where a major pharmaceutical company rolled out tablets by the million every minute. This operation was exactly the opposite with every tablet being personally hand-made. But then time and productivity had no place in Keppelberg. And then another thought hit me. Surely in a village of eleven hundred people there was no need for so many chemists or so many tablets!

Townsend allowed me to watch the procedure for a while and then he took me by the arm to lead me to a separate area where my tablets were waiting to be collected. I picked them up and he turned me towards the door.

‘Why are there so many people making tablets here?' I asked. ‘Surely there's not so much demand for medication.'

‘How long's a piece of string,' he replied enigmatically.

‘Why can't you answer my questions,' I demanded, angry at his casual attitude.

'Why do you have to ask them?' he snapped curtly. 'If you kept your mind on the hare and not on the hounds your life would be so much easier in the long run.'

I failed to understand what he meant but there was nothing more to say. He clearly refused to answer any of my questions to my satisfaction so I let the matter drop.

We went on to the police station where my new-found friend, the Desk Sergeant, welcomed me. He took me to a room and pointed to the dark-blue uniform I was expected to wear in my new capacity.

‘What do I get for doing this,' I asked him. ‘How much pay is there per week or per month?'

‘Pay?' he seemed surprised. ‘You'll get a voucher for food. You can spend it in the cafeteria.'

‘I haven't seen anyone using vouchers,' I retorted.

‘You haven't been here long enough,' he responded leaving me alone with my thoughts. I recalled a similar situation at school during one of the lessons to learn of the bartering system in some countries. Salt was paid as wages to Roman soldiers while paper, bones and all kinds of tokens were used elsewhere. The system was particularly rigid because one could only use them for goods of the same value. However, in general, it seemed to work.

I started to dress in the new uniform. It fitted me very well and after I had put it on, I preened myself in the mirror. Over the past twenty-four hours, I had exchanged khaki for Victorian clothes and now I was dressed in a security uniform... and I was to be paid with food vouchers. It all seemed to be so unreal. I walked out to the front desk of the police station into the view of the Desk Sergeant.

‘We need you to secure the point at the beginning of the village,' he commanded. ‘Stand at the bottom of the terraced road. No strangers are to be allowed to enter. Is that understood?'

‘What do I do if someone comes?' I requested earnestly.

‘You have two choices,' he replied sonorously. ‘Either you send them packing, telling them not to come back here, or you can tell them to stay where they are and report back here immediately. I'll send the constable out to do his duty. Is that clear?'

‘As crystal, sir!' I retorted standing to attention.

‘Right,' he said firmly. ‘What is it you've forgotten?' I stood there with a blank mind shrugging my shoulders aimlessly, unable to think of anything I needed. ‘Your truncheon!' he barked loudly. ‘How are you going to protect yourself and prove your authority. People tend to take fright when threatened with violence... even if it's only intimidation.' He handed me a small truncheon which I took readily. ‘Right! Off you go!'

Townsend nodded to me with a degree of satisfaction and I left the police station to walk along the path that led to the entrance of the village. It seemed as easy task fairly similar to the one I had in Basra although this time I wasn't carrying a machine-gun in my hands while the danger was negligible here. I wandered to and fro at the entrance of the village for a while, holding the truncheon in my hand, recognising that there was really no need for me to secure the area. However, as a newcomer to the village, this was a means of employment for me. Then, to my dismay, I heard a whistle from a short distance away. I turned to witness the figure of Wayne Austen who had come to haunt me in my new employ. I sauntered over to him not relishing the meeting.

‘What are you doing here?' I asked him, almost in a whisper.

‘I could ask the same of you,' he retaliated. ‘What's with the uniform and truncheon?'

‘This is what I do now. I'm the security guard for the village.'

‘Are you crazy!' he returned in amazement. ‘Come with me. My car's just down the road. I can get you back to Mary in twenty minutes.'

‘Get the hell away from here!' I snapped sharply. ‘Can't you see I'm busy!'

‘What's the matter with you, Sam. I can get you free.'

‘You do realise I'm being watched!'

‘Watched? By whom?' He looked around furtively,

‘They want to see whether I leave the village or stay. It's a test. Now... if you've nothing better to do then leave or I'll be forced to arrest you.'

He flinched at my comment and too a pace backwards. ‘Are you kidding! Stop messing about, Sam, and come with me.'

‘There are things you don't understand,' I went on. ‘Go!'

I waved the small truncheon as if to strike him and he crouched down like a coward covering his head with his hands.

‘Okay... okay!' he shouted out at the top of his voice. ‘I'll go! I'll go!'

He looked up to ensure that he was safe and almost ran away in the direction of his car. I wondered, at that moment, why my brother-in-law had taken him on as his partner. The man was a loser... a weak lily-livered coward who was only useful in determining bad behaviour by correspondents in divorce cases... nothing more! However, I had done my duty and he had gone!