The Life and Loves of Gringo Greene (7 page)

   ‘I can’t. You’re pinning me to the sofa.’

   Gringo peeled himself off and stood aside.

   ‘My room’s at the top of the house.’

   She kicked her legs round and stood up and giggled, before running to the stairs. ‘The top of the house,’ she squealed. ‘The very top of the house,’ and in the next moment she ran up the staircase as if her life depended on it. Gringo moved to the stairs just in time to see her rear end disappearing around the top of the banister. He heard her giggling and more frantic footsteps as she ran up the next flight.    

He licked his lips. His mouth was as dry as an old deckchair in high summer. He returned to the coffee and drained the mug. It made no difference. He shrugged off his jacket, threw it to one side, and followed her up.     

The bedroom door was ajar. He eased it open. She’d removed the dress. There was no sign of it anywhere. She was standing beside the bed, facing him, staring at him, hands on hips, legs apart. He’d been right all along. Stockings and suspenders. Black. Everything black. She looked like a siren from some fantasy movie, or one of those vamp-like characters you see in teenage graphic novels. He licked the inside of his mouth and made to move toward her.

   Mel threw up her hand.

   ‘Stop,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Stay!’

   Gringo stood still, feasting his eyes.

   What a woman. What a body.

   She turned toward the bed and kicked up her right leg, placing her tiny foot on the black silk sheet, undid the stocking, and rolled it down. Every few seconds she would check he was watching. His tongue was showing. She wasn’t surprised.

   She threw the stocking on the carpet and turned and removed the other, then unhooked the suspender belt. It fell to the floor. She reached behind her back and unhooked the straining low cut bra. She did that cross over motion with her hands as she eased it off and threw it in front of him. Gringo wanted to go to her, and she knew it.

   ‘No!’ she said again, ‘Not yet!’

   She licked both index fingers and inserted them beneath the elastic of her knickers, flexing it several times, before easing them down, then stood before him, no hint of self-consciousness, naked, her hands clasped together behind her back.

   Gringo gawped. His mouth had never been so dry.

   ‘So Gringo, how do you want me?’

   ‘On the bed! On your back!’

   He was surprised he’d managed to speak at all.

   She sat gently on the side of the bed, knees together, and swivelled around, like a lady getting into a sports car, as she settled into the centre of the bed.

   ‘You don’t need to wear anything. I’m on the pill.’

   It was just as well. Gringo had no intention of wearing anything. He didn’t believe in things that reduced his pleasure. If the girl fell pregnant, well wasn’t that what was supposed to happen? And another thought dropped into his mind. It was something that Glen had said on their last date. Melanie won’t be getting pregnant for a long time yet because apparently Brian is firing blanks.

  
Brian is firing blanks.

  
How Glen knew about that, he had no idea, and right there, he didn’t care, but if that was the case, why was Melanie on the pill at all? It didn’t make much sense, but thinking about it, maybe it had something to do with why Brian was such a bad tempered bastard.

   Melanie opened her legs.

   Gringo gasped.

   His eyes gazed down, transfixed on the ultimate prize.

   She saw the electric shock that flickered across his pupils, and detected that fleeting animalistic look in his eyes, and she liked it. She liked him. She always had. Gringo knew she’d detected it, that recognisance. He couldn’t help himself.

   ‘Well, Gringo,’ she said. ‘What are you waiting for?’

   He moved to the foot of the bed and unzipped his trousers.

   ‘You need taking in hand, my girl.’

   ‘And I suppose you’re the man to do it.’

   ‘Damned right!’

   He dropped his pants and leapt on the bed, onto Melanie Harris, also known as Mrs Melanie Tucker.

   He held her head firmly in his hands, forcing her to stare into his eyes, into his soul. They kissed again, gently, then firmer still, harder, until their heads were swimming, and when they came apart Gringo nibbled her ear,
no biting,
and then he whispered: ‘All you have to do, darling, is concentrate.’

   ‘Concentrate on what, Gringo?’ she said breathlessly.

   ‘On me, of course.’ 

He woke at 9.24am. He was lying on his back. His head was to one side, and he was staring at the pulsing red digital clock. But it wasn’t the alarm that had woken him. It was Melanie. She had been up since 8.30. She’d borrowed Gringo’s snazzy black, satin dressing gown, and had sneaked downstairs to make herself breakfast, toast and marmalade and coffee. She’d still found time to take a quick shower and now she was back, washed and ready, on the bed, with him.

   Gringo groaned.

   She didn’t speak. She couldn’t, she was too busy with him.

   9.41am. She rose and sat astride him, smiling down, the black gown open, draped down her body, her still wet hair plastered to her head and shoulders.

   ‘And how are you this morning,’ she said, smirking, as she rocked to and fro.

   ‘I’m good.’

   ‘I should jolly well think you are, after all the fabulous treats you’ve enjoyed over the last twelve hours.’

    Gringo rolled his eyebrows as if treats were only to be expected.

   ‘Don’t take me for granted, Gringo.’

   ‘I’m not, I was just thinking.’

   She eased herself up and down.

   ‘Thinking about what?’

   ‘When am I going to see you again?’

   ‘I don’t know, Gringo. Brian doesn’t go away that much. It won’t be easy. He must never find out.’

   ‘But you want to, don’t you?’

   She smiled coyly and said: ‘That’s for me to know, and you to find out.’  

   ‘We’ll just have to make the time. That’s all there is to it.’

   She shuddered and shook her head as a bead of sweat made its way down the canyon between her breasts.

   ‘I can’t stay all day, just in case he comes home early.’

   ‘I’ll drive you home.’

   ‘No! Just drop me in the city. I’ll jump a bus. That’ll be fine.’

   ‘Whatever you want.’

   ‘Brian’ll be very hungry when he gets in, that’s for sure.’

   ‘What are you going to feed him?’

   ‘Not for food, stupid! For me! He won’t be in the house more than ten minutes before he rips my knickers off.’

   That was too much information, so far as Gringo was concerned. It didn’t seem right somehow, him sharing this fabulous girl with that thick bastard.  The thought of him, and her together…

   ‘I’ll have a long soak when I get in.’

   ‘Yeah, I see.’

   ‘So Gringo, in the meantime, all you have to do is concentrate…’ she teased. ‘On me, Gringo, on me.’

   Touché girl, touché.

On Sunday afternoon at half past two he dropped her in the city centre outside White’s Bookshop. He’d noticed that as soon as they’d entered the city limits she’d sat lower in her seat, the collar turned up on her crappy old Mac. She seemed nervous, perhaps a little guilty, he imagined, and he guessed she was frightened of being seen with him, or maybe she was just terrified of Brian, or perhaps both.

   He pulled the car to a standstill before the bookshop window, all bedecked out with posters for the new Lee Child thriller. He left the engine running and leant across to kiss her farewell. She turned away.

   ‘When am I going to see you again?’

   ‘You will see me tomorrow, Gringo, at nine o’clock sharp in the office. We work together, remember,’ and before he could say another word she’d jumped from the car and was hurrying away towards a red single decker bus that had pulled up in front of them.

   He watched her smile up at the driver, before stepping onto the bus. Gringo guessed it would make the bus driver’s day. It would make anyone’s day, being smiled at by Melanie Harris in that wicked, comely way of hers.

Official tea and coffee breaks had long since disappeared from the office of Dryden Engineering, but old habits die hard. At 11am most mornings many of the staff would down tools, look away from their screens, and amble down to the kitchen for a drink.

   Gringo was thinking of doing precisely that when Melanie came into his office. She smiled down at him, just an ordinary girl-to-boss type smile they had exchanged many times before, certainly not a knowing smile.

   ‘Thought you might like a coffee,’ she said, setting it down on his All Nippon Steel coaster. ‘And this,’ she added, placing a twice folded piece of paper beside the mug. ‘One good turn deserves another.’

   ‘What is it?’

   ‘No idea; and you didn’t get it from me.’

   ‘Everything all right at home?’

   ‘Everything’s fine, Gringo. Please don’t ask again.’

   He glanced up at her as if to check the look on her face, but couldn’t because she’d already turned about and was heading rapidly away down toward the accounts department. There was a panic on down there, apparently, he’d heard that much, something to do with VAT, and Gringo had no wish to be seen anywhere close to that.

   He picked up the piece of blue vellum paper and unfolded it. Just five short lines of writing, blue ball pen, backward sloping handwriting, so obviously Mel’s. It was an address in Manhattan. He stared hard at the information.

   Lincoln Heights

   2605 West End Avenue

   Upper West Side

   Manhattan

   New York 10023.

   It was Glen’s address. It had to be. Once more he knew where she was. Now he could write to her, though whether he would was another thing entirely. As he was thinking of that the cream phone before him began burbling, breaking his train of thought. He snatched it up.

   ‘Dryden Engineering. Management. Gringo Greene speaking.’

   ‘Reach for the sky, man! Reach for the sky!’

   It was Paul Shepperton, his occasional drinking pal, better known as the
reach for the sky man.

   ‘How are you doing, bud?’ asked Paul.

   ‘Not so bad.’

   ‘I was wondering if you fancy a beer some time.’

   ‘I’m cool, can’t do tonight.’ Gringo still had that address in his mind; he might yet have an urge to write something. ‘Maybe tomorrow?’

   ‘Tomorrow’s fine. Naughton’s at seven?’

   ‘See you there.’

   ‘Yeah, you will.’

   Short and sweet, and Paul was gone.

   After work, Gringo stopped off at the local stationers and bought the best quality blue writing pad he could find, unlined, only a peasant uses lined paper, together with matching envelopes. Cost a bloody fortune, but didn’t everything? He cursed and headed back to the car and jumped in and hurried home. Once inside, he flipped the phone off the hook for he had no wish to be disturbed, and especially not by the demanding and super heavyweight, Brenda.

   He tossed a curry into the microwave and after the
Ping!
bolted it down in minutes, burning his mouth. He closed the curtains and sat at the table, fountain pen poised, pad open, envelopes to one side, the address that had taken so much energy to obtain, carefully placed on the other.

   For some minutes he sat in silence and stared at the white wall. Miss Glenda Martin, I need to write to you, but what to say? Where do you start? At the beginning, his mother always used to say about letters, you always start at the beginning, and see where the adventure takes you. Then again, his mother saw adventures everywhere, but she was right about that, the letters. She often was.

  
Dearest Glen.

   Stop!

   Too soppy!