Murder Most Fab (11 page)

The
summer holidays stretched before us, the whole glorious eight weeks.

‘My
parents are going to Scotland for the summer, to stay with relatives,’ Timothy
said. ‘And Regina is in the South of France where some friends of ours have a
villa. So, we’ll have the place to ourselves.’

That
was the start of what we called the ‘Summer of Love’. Practically every night
we experienced the hard vigour of youthful lust in exquisite combination with
the frail wonder of first love. It was carefree, spontaneous and of the moment.
Whatever was to happen later, no one could take this time away from us. Neither
of us had any agenda or expectations, we just devoured each other. Evening
after passionate evening, week after endless week, we would meet, our hunger
fuelled by the need for secrecy. Even though Tim’s family were away, we knew
that plenty of others could discover us — there were servants in the house and
gardeners outside. It was clandestine and dangerous — we understood that no
one else must know — but Tim and I were carried away on a tidal wave of
heightened emotion. I couldn’t imagine my life without him.

With
his family safely out of the way, we were able to extend our playground. Now,
when we weren’t in the summerhouse, Timothy took me up to the main house. He
showed me around, casual about the vast hallway lined with marble busts and
tapestries, the endless corridors, the grand rooms with their silk curtains,
antique furniture and oil paintings. I was open-mouthed.

‘I
don’t really like these rooms,’ he said, hurrying me out, although I wanted to
linger. ‘Let’s go to mine.’

His
bedroom was tucked away high in the house, in a turret where a spiral stone
staircase would give us plenty of warning if anyone approached. ‘This is more
like it,’ he said. There were bookshelves, paintings, a four-poster bed and a
small cast-iron fireplace. I thought it was enchanting, but I found Tim, pulling
me down on to the hard mattress, more enchanting still.

After
our initial bashfulness we soon felt comfortable and excited enough by each
other’s presence to waste no time on the build-up to sexual congress. The
politeness of our encounters in the fields or the flowerbeds was in direct
contrast to our animalistic inclinations in the summerhouse or in the exotic,
tent-like confines of Timothy’s four-poster bed and its green velvet curtains.
We leapt on each other as soon as we were alone, hungry but happy, like ravenous
arrivals at an overeater’s banquet. I lost all sense of time and all sense of
restraint. Sometimes I would come to, only to find Tim blinking at me in
wonder. ‘Welcome back to the planet, Johnny. I knew I was good but I didn’t
know I was that good …’

I had
never realized how extraordinarily sweet and transporting the pleasure could
be.

I often
got home after midnight and my mother would singsong-shout through a glass of Viña
Sol: ‘Yoo-hoo, precious, who’s a dirty stop-out?’ from the sofa, but I said
goodnight and hurried up to my room, where I would leap into bed as fast as I
could. There I would lie, exhausted but glowing. I was sore, bruised and
desperately tired but too ecstatic even to blink. To bring me down and envelop
my emotions in cotton wool, I recited a poem to myself, Sonnet XXX from
Spenser’s
Amoretti:

Such is the power of love in gentle mind

That it can alter all the course of kind.

‘Why don’t you invite your
new friend to tea?’ my mother asked one morning, as she handed me my
sandwiches.

‘What
new friend?’ I asked, blushing.

‘The
one you’re spending all your evenings with. The one who’s making you such a
happy boy. I’d like to meet this person.’ Her eyes flickered to the love bite
on my neck. ‘I’ll make crab sandwiches and a pavlova, if you like. What do you
say?’

‘Er,
I’ll ask. Thanks, Mum. I’d better go. I’m late.’ With that I trotted down the
lane towards Thornchurch House.

That
evening, during our post-coital chat in the priest’s hole, I told Tim of the
invitation.

‘I
expect she found a blond hair on you and put two and two together.’

‘Well,
romance is her specialist subject. She was bound to notice that something was
going on.’

‘Yes,
but she’ll have some milkmaid in mind, not young Master T. What will she say if
she finds out?’

‘My
mother’s unshockable. Trust me.’

‘I’d be
fascinated to meet her. From what you’ve said, she sounds quite a character.
Not at all like mine.

‘Would
your mother be horrified by me?’

‘She’d
have twenty-eight screaming blue fits. Her precious son fucking the gardening
boy in the summerhouse?’ Tim winced. ‘Doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘I
thought your lot were all at it.’

‘My
lot?’

‘Public-school
boys. Aristocrats. Posh people. I thought you couldn’t stay away from a
tradesman’s entrance.’

Tim laughed.
‘Perhaps you’re right. As long as it’s done in private and doesn’t interfere
with the business of getting married and having children, the upper classes
have no objection to buggery. It’s not like you’re doing anything unspeakable,
like using the wrong knife and fork.’

‘Nor do
the lower classes, I think you’ll find.’

‘Only
the middle class wouldn’t have the imagination. That’s what comes of living in
semi-detached houses.’

‘They’ve
only themselves to blame. So, will you come to tea, then? Tomorrow? The pavlova’s
dreamy.’

Tim
paused, then said decisively, ‘Yes. I will. Please tell your mother I’d be
delighted.’

‘How
funny!’ I propped myself on one elbow to look at him.

I was
curiously thrilled at the prospect. For all her peculiarities I loved my mother,
and part of me really wanted her to meet Tim.

I
didn’t like having a secret from her. ‘Just watch out, she may try to seduce
you. She won’t be able to help herself.’

‘Maybe
she’ll succeed.’

I
pushed him playfully. ‘Don’t you dare, Timothy Thornchurch!’

He
grinned and raised an eyebrow.

‘You
don’t really want to sleep with a girl, do you?’ I asked. The idea seemed
curious and rather repugnant.

Tim
brought his face close to mine and stared deeply into my eyes. ‘If I had to,
I’d think of you all the time.

‘I
don’t know if that’s a comforting thought or not,’ I said, unsure whether I was
being teased.

Tim
shrugged. ‘So don’t think about it. Mind you, I’ve heard that the female body
self-lubricates. Imagine!’

‘How
clever.’

‘Come
on, let’s go and get some of Mummy’s Russian cigarettes and smoke them out the
attic window.’

That night when I got in I
told my mother that my ‘friend’ would come to tea.

‘Goody!
What fun. And what should I call this “friend”?’ she asked.

‘Tim.
It’s Timothy Thornchurch.’

‘No
less!’ she said, having choked slightly, clearly surprised more by the breeding
than the sex. ‘And would it be wrong of me to serve toad-in-the-hole?’

She
didn’t wait for an answer but hurried off to the kitchen where she was soon
clattering saucepans and Pyrex dishes, humming, ‘Food, Glorious Food!’ as she
did so.

I knew
my mother well enough not to urge restraint: the table next day would be
heaving with an unseemly spread.

After a day of harvesting
beans and carrots from the vegetable garden, I was dirty and sweaty and left it
too late to bathe, so I went down to the end of the lane as I was. Tim met me
there all spruced up, his hair combed, wearing a smart blazer. We made an odd
couple.

‘Perhaps
I can give you a bath before tea?’ he joked. ‘And afterwards can we go to your
room to play Scrabble?’

Despite
the jovial banter I could tell he was nervous. ‘Does your mother know the
score?’ he asked, as we walked down Cherry Lane.

‘She
saw the love bite,’ I said.

‘An.
Oh, shit.’

‘Don’t
worry. She has no qualms about such things. I think she’s rather pleased that
I’m delving into an area of life that she’s spent so long investigating. She
understands these matters.’

‘Does
she have liberal views on abominable homosexual practices and licky-licky
lesbians too?’ For once Tim was wide-eyed.

‘Oh,
yes. No problem. She’s a bit of a hippie. All love is good love.’ It was nice
to be impressing him for once.

‘You
lucky bastard. My parents would have me hanged, drawn and quartered if they
knew what was going on.’ Tim looked troubled. I saw he wasn’t exaggerating. He
shuddered, which seemed to snap him out of his darkening mood. He pushed me
behind a hawthorn bush and began to kiss me, pulling at my clothes. ‘At least I
get to be a rebel.’

When we
made it to the cottage my mother had laid a lavish tea on a table in the
garden, in the shade of some hazel trees. As we walked down the side of the
house she was flapping a tea-towel at the branches.

‘Hello
there!’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’m trying to explain to Mr Squirrel and his wife
that the Waldorf salad is not for them on this occasion.’

I
realized at once that my mother was not speaking in her usual faux-country
burr. All trace of that was gone. She was speaking quite naturally in a posh
voice, not unlike my grandmother’s.

I could
only guess that she had reverted to it in honour of Tim’s presence in our
humble abode.

‘You
must be Timothy,’ she continued. ‘How do you do?’ She shook his hand and
glanced at me, eyebrows bobbing as if to indicate her approval of my
boyfriend. ‘Very nice,’ she said quietly.

‘How do
you do, Mrs Debonair?’

‘Oh,
please call me Alice,’ she said graciously. ‘I don’t qualify for the title of
“Mrs”, I’m afraid. Shocking, isn’t it?’ She gave a silvery laugh that I had
never heard before either, and held up her left hand to show she wore no
wedding ring, then she waved it in the direction of the trestle table piled
with goodies. ‘Sit down, boys, unless you need to make yourselves comfortable
first? No? Jolly good. Now then. Do tuck in.’ Mother handed him a plate. ‘So,
you’re the one who’s making my Johnny so happy, then?’

‘I
suppose I must be,’ said Tim. ‘Unless he’s seeing someone else on the side, but
I’d be surprised if he had the time or energy.’

‘I
haven’t,’ I put in.

‘Johnny’s
a darling, isn’t he?’ Mother gazed at me with undisguised pride.

‘Mother
…

‘Well,
you are, sweetheart! I’m only saying the truth. You’re my absolute rock and I
can’t imagine life without you. You must take care of my precious boy, Tim. Do
you promise?’

‘Of
course,’ Tim said.

‘Johnny’s
quite a catch, I’ll have you know. Not only are you getting first dibs at him,
in all his luscious, youthful glory, but he’s a kind of special breed.’

‘What
are you on about?’ I asked, worried about where this conversation was going.

‘Well,
just as Aberdeen Angus cattle are selectively bred for the supreme quality of
the steak they produce, Jacob’s sheep for their superlative wool, so it is with
you, Johnny.’

‘And
what, might I ask, was I bred for? Am I going to start laying eggs when I’m
twenty-one?’

‘No.
Don’t be silly. You were born for love. Top-of-the-range, vintage love.’

‘Is he
very rare?’ asked Tim, looking at me appreciatively.

‘Oh,
yes, dear. As rare as hens’ teeth.’

‘Here’s
to you, then,’ said Tim, raising a glass.

‘Cheers!’
said my mother. ‘Now, tell me all about yourself. Everything.’

‘I
think I was probably born to boogie,’ Tim began, but he didn’t get any further.

Just
then a burly figure in soiled dungarees and muddy boots appeared at the side of
the house. ‘Hi, Alice, are you busy?’ he said.

‘Ooh,
Frank!’ cried my mother. ‘I didn’t realize it was Thursday! Do excuse me, boys.
Needs must when the devil drives. ‘She got up. ‘Let’s go inside, Frank.’

A
moment later they had disappeared.

‘Well,
this all looks delicious,’ Tim said, helping himself to a crab sandwich. ‘Your
mother’s a good sort, isn’t she? I can’t imagine my folks being quite so
welcoming to you. And I’m absolutely staring …‘

I put
some food on my plate, trying to act normally, but I couldn’t help glancing up
at the house to where my mother’s bedroom window was open. I had seen the spark
in her eye and knew exactly what was about to happen. Sure enough, just as Tim
was sampling a piece of asparagus quiche, the sound of soft sighs, stifled
giggles and deep, manly moans wafted across the lawn. Before long, they were
accompanied by the squeezebox eeee-aww of my mother’s ancient mattress as it
was given a damn good pounding.

‘I know
our cottage must seem tiny to you, after Thornchurch House. It’s only eight
rooms, including the larder, if you can call that a room, but we’ve always
lived here and I’m very fond of it …’ I was talking loudly, hoping to cover
the noises emanating from the house, but Tim had already cocked an ear towards
the open window.