John Thomas & Lady Jane

moonlight but ah, that gamekeeper’s body.
    As for sex, what she had known of it
— and she had had brief experience of other men, about thirty — not a bad
score, before Clifford. Some had big ones but Clifford didn’t have one at all.
Even her father knew that.
    The man’s body — ooooh! It seemed to
live in itself — ooooh! Some people’s bodies live in the Dorchester. He found
his body more economical living in a cottage. Perfect, powerful, hidden, godly,
apart from the man who was vulgar and shot cats. The man’s mind and his spirit
were crude, uninformed, vulgar. His body alone was a lovely plunging thing,
divinely living on — oooooh knickers! It was beauty that rippled and made quick
movements — oohhh knickers! and was dangerously alive, no cat was safe near
him, curving in the white arch of life. Oh, Oh, Oh, God help me! Clean
knickers, please.
    She listened to Clifford reading. He
had found an old copy of the second part of Hajji Baba. When Constance went to bed she did something she hadn’t done for some years. She took off all
her things and looked at herself naked. She did it almost without thinking and
without knowing what she was looking for. She soon found it smothered in pubic
hair, she knew she was supposed to have a good figure — £10,000. She had a
certain fluid proportion, she leaked. Her limbs were rather soft and slow. She
had to wait for them. In the ripening of the warm fullness, her body was like a
fruit, still greenish like unripe bananas. Yes, that was it, her body looked
like an unripe banana. Her breasts were sinking. Should she call out the
lifeboat? She twisted to look at her back. She looked at the beautiful sloping
hips and buttocks. Like long yellow grapes! Like hillocks of sand as the Arabs
say, long, soft and downward slipping. God help her! Her body was slipping
down. She struggled to hold it up. Was the bloom gone and the delicate contour,
while still it was a green fruit? No, no no, it was like unripe bananas. She
went to bed in despair. She wept the first tears she had for many a long time.
She had to wring out the pillow.

Chapter V
    ----------
     
     
     
    C HRISTMAS WAS near, the day of dread. It
was on that day in the war that Clifford had suffered his wounds. A choir came
to the door and sang ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ and ‘The
Twelve Days of Christmas’. To all this he shouted, ‘Fuck off’. ‘Merry
Christmas,’ they shouted to him. ‘Fuck Christmas,’ he said.
    Constance sent word for the keeper to bring a few
branches to the house along with a few brace of pheasants. Constance went down
with her unripe banana body and there was a huge black and scarlet bunch of
holly and long brown-gold lines of pheasants’ tails. It gave her a sense of
ripeness and wildness, the latter having been specially killed for Christmas,
and full of lead shot which would poison the guests.
    ‘Splendid,’ said Constance.
‘Splendid. That is beautiful.’
    She bent to stroke his dog; it bit
her. He gave a quick salute and seemed to melt from the kitchen.
    There were only five guests: her
husband’s aunt, Lady Eva, Olive Strangeways and her husband Jack, Tommy Dukes
and Harry Winterslow. Olive and Jack had come for Clifford’s sake. Olive had
always had a tendre for Clifford and dozens of other men. Lady Eva
belonged to one of the very titled families, but was slightly in disrepute because
of her gambling and her brandy. Tommy Dukes, the Brigadier General, who ordered
a three-mile retreat when in fact the troops were advancing. He was fond of
Clifford, and he was very good company. Witty, amusing, dry, original, he spoke
fluent Arabic. It was a complete waste of time because no one else did.
Everyone else spoke a second language of German, a third language of Czech and
a fourth language of Swahili. Nobody understood each other for the whole
evening.
    Harry Winterslow was the General’s friend.
He used to help him get his cat out of the tree. It was very simple — he shot
it. He wrote poetry that Constance could not understand.
     
    High cobalt sky
    The rooks caw
    Oh how the night throbs
    I must feed the wolves.
     
    In fact, nobody understood it.
    This left Jack Strangeways more or
less alone. They did this by locking him in his room. So Jack made up to Connie
through the keyhole. He was like many young people after the war. He was a
neo-conservative and a neo-aristocrat and skint.
    Suddenly Clifford said, ‘My God, if
ever we get a