John Thomas & Lady Jane

not
suggestive. There was no sexual end in view. She was amazed how they responded
to her, kind and warm and glad, really, not to have to force the sexual game.
But several went away with swollen balls and bent double with erections.
    At last, however, they crossed the
frontier and came to the Villa Natividad. Their host was an elderly Scotchman
who had made a decent fortune in Spain before the war, he just held up banks
and bribed the police. His wife was a governess who had a long, sharp nose and
used it to open letters.
    Then came a letter from Clifford
containing an unexpected blow. Apparently Soames’s wife had returned and wished
to take up residence in the cottage and he was hiding under his mother’s
kitchen table from her. He ended his letter with: ‘To be immortal requires some
effort.’
    That was the end of the letter. The
way to immortality is to stay alive.
    Constance retired early and sat silent and motionless at
her window looking out at the mountain. It didn’t do much for her.
    Hilda retired to leave her to the
mountain. Constance couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned in her bed, at one
time she revolved completely.
    Constance found a certain sympathy with Archie Blood, the
grey-faced little musician with a humpty back. He earned his keep playing
occasionally to the other guests.
    ‘This place is awful!’ he said moving
his hump up a notch. ‘These rich, made-over villas! I’m going perfectly mad,
from staying in them.’
    ‘Why do you stay in them?’
    ‘What on earth can I do to escape?’
    ‘You can jump off a ten-storey
building.’
    ‘But’, he said, ‘you don’t get rich
jumping off buildings.’
    ‘Then take money with you.’
    A letter from Mrs Bolton told the
story of Bertha Coutts who had got into Soames’s cottage, got in his bed; he
had had her evicted and she had gone to Sir Clifford to ask him to make Soames
take her back but he threw her out. Since then she’s been more quiet, but she
spends her time at the Three Tuns, and does nothing but talk and get the men to
sympathize with her. I think some of them go home with her. Many come back with
swollen balls and bent double with erections.
    As for Constance, as far as she could
make out, her name had not been suggested in the scandal. There was no mention
of the torn nightdress that he had inside his trousers between his legs.
    Bertha Coutts could hate Soames like
a mad dog. Even now the woman was frothing at the mouth and biting him on the
legs. Why had Bertha Coutts lost his love? Because he was no longer getting
any. There was nothing but death and madness for her ahead. Bertha didn’t see
it like that. She was in the Castle Arms downing her third gin and very merry.
    Constance wanted to keep Clifford and Wragby and ‘her
ladyship’ which she liked, but Soames would not be the cream on the pudding. At
that moment he was having a beer in front of the fire and had no idea that he
was not to be the cream on the pudding.
    She wrote to Soames: ‘I hope you want
me to stay in your life always. I want you to stay in my life until I die and I
want to stay in your life until you die. We must try not to die. Incidentally
you are not the cream on the pudding. I trust this will not affect our
relationship.’
    There was a letter from Clifford. ‘I
verily believe the air we normally breathe is a form of water, deep-sea water
at that. But our immortal destiny is to escape, once we have swallowed our
catch, up to the bright ether, bursting out from the surface tension of old
Ocean, into real light.’
    Mrs Bolton had attached a note to
Clifford’s letter. ‘Your ladyship, the doctor has recommended we take Lord
Clifford to the local asylum. It will not be for long.’
    What Mrs Bolton did not mention was
the fight between Dan Coutts, Bertha Coutts’s brother, who was a giant six foot
four inches. He had been drinking when he stopped Soames and told him to take
his jacket off as he was going to give him a dusting. It was very strange as
Soames did not have a speck of dust on him. Dan Coutts started to punch Soames,
Sergeant Bower tried to stop the fight. The fight continued when it seems
Soames started retching and vomiting. So Sergeant Bower sent for the doctor. It
seems there was a slight concussion of the brain and they decided to take him
home.
    The next day, Constance was leaving.
She waited for the mail to come in. And it brought her a note, the handwriting
inside was ill-formed and aslant. ‘My mother opened your