Lady Chatterley's Lover

coughed it came through his ear. The doctors pronounced him better but, alas, from the waist down he was paralysed for ever with a dead willy.
    Clifford and Constance made home in Wragby Hall, the family seat, there was also a family table and family wardrobe. Clifford’s father had been killed in the Boer War during the siege of Ladysmith. He was hiding in the naafi when a tea urn fell on his head. Clifford was now a Baronet, Constance was Lady Chatterley. To keep up tradition they dressed for dinner and undressed for bed. Lady Chatterley now knew about Lord Chatterley’s dead willy; at unexpected moments she found herself singing, ‘Close the shutters, willy’s dead.’ It preyed on her mind, but more on her body. They started housekeeping on the three pounds his father had left them in his will. They had to scrimp, every day they were scrimping, by the end of a week of scrimping Lady Chatterley was exhausted.
    Clifford had a sister, but she had departed, that is, she caught the ten-twenty from Victoria and was never seen again. He had an elder brother but he had been killed in the War: a tea urn fell on his head. Crippled for ever, with a dead willy, and knowing he could never have children, he was not really downcast — pissed-off, yes — but not downcast. He could wheel himself about in a wheelchair and whistle ‘The Trout’ by Schubert. Having suffered so much, even now he could hear his wife scrimping in the kitchen; he remained cheerful, very chirpy: he liked imitating bird songs. ‘Cuckoo, cuckoo,’ he’d go. His shoulders were broad, his hands were strong, his nose was strong, even his ears were strong. He was expensively dressed, a cloak of scarlet velvet trimmed with ermine and a gold crown; hidden were underpants from Marks and Spencer’s — what he had to put in them wasn’t much.
    Lady Chatterley was a ruddy country-looking girl with soft brown hair, a sturdy body (big tits). She was full of unusual 1 energy, that is, without any warning she would tuck her skirt into her bloomers, then taking up a sprinter’s start position, shout bang!, then race out the back door to return hours later, exhausted. She had big wonderful eyes. By her demeanour she seemed to come from a village; not so, she came from East Ham. Her father was Sir Malcolm Reid, once a well known RA but only once. Her mother was a cultivated woman — she was born in a greenhouse, brought up in France and brought down in London; she joined the Fabians with people like Bernard Shaw. It was amazing, in her lodge there were eighteen people who looked like Bernard Shaw, while Bernard Shaw didn’t look like anybody else.
    Lady Chatterley had had what might be called an aesthetic upbringing, taken to Paris, Florence, Rome to breathe in art; she breathed in ten Leonardo da Vincis, six Van Goghs and three van drivers, then she was taken in another direction roughly NorNorEast, to The Hague and Berlin to great National Socialist conventions, to hear Adolph Schitz sing ‘The Trout’ in fluent German. She and her sister, therefore, were never daunted by art or politics: attending a political rally they would shout at the speaker, ‘We are not daunted.’ The same at the National Gallery seeing a painting by Turner, Constance said quite loudly, ‘Turner doesn’t daunt me.’ They had been sent to Dresden for music, among other things, like the pole-vault, arm-wrestling and weaving. They had a good time there, they often pointed to a bed and said, ‘I had a good time there.’ They mixed freely with Cherman students, members of the Hitler Jungen; they argued with them, among other things like pole-vaulting, arm-wrestling and weaving. They tramped off to the Black Forest, and the brown and grey forests with sturdy thigh-slapping youths playing guitars and screwing, they sang the Wandervogel songs and screwed. It was freedom. Free! that was the word. Screwing! that was another word. Out in the open world, out in the forests of the morning and with lusty and splendid-throated 2 fellows free to do as they liked, pole-vaulting, arm-wrestling, weaving, river-drinking, fucking, and free to say what they like, and what they liked voz ‘zer fuckink’. It was the talk that mattered; the impassioned interchange of talk.

    adolph : ‘Vould you like ein fuck darlink?’
    constance : ‘Oh, what wonderful interchange of talk.’

    Love was only a minor accompaniment, as was banjo-playing in coitus. Constance and her sister had had their