Lady Chatterley's Lover

fits and starts,’ said Constance triumphantly. ‘Yes,’ said Clifford. ‘He was invalided out during an attack by the Mad Mullah and his Pathans, he and his battalion were charging uphill with the bayonet, he was leading them with his sword raised when he was wounded.’
    ‘What happened?’ said Constance.
    ‘The Pathans rolled a naafi tea urn over him,’ said Clifford.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ said Constance with a hint of distress in her voice.
    ‘I thought it would distress you to hear of him and his delicate white loins being run over by a naafi tea urn.’ Standing on one leg with one leg raised behind her she poured Clifford a cup of tea. ‘Is that Earl Grey?’ said Clifford.
    ‘No,’ said Constance, ‘it’s a cup of tea. How could you mistake it for Earl Grey? Earl Grey is in Burma on ambassadorial duty, even as I speak he is in Rangoon at the Court of King Thay Baw.’
    Clifford sipped his tea. ‘I tell you this is Earl Grey.’
    It was a fine day, so Clifford took to his motor chair. He set off at forty miles an hour with Constance belting along behind to keep up.
    ‘How different one feels when it’s a fresh day,’ she grasped. ‘Usually one feels the air is half dead. People are killing the very air.’
    Clifford looked around but could see no sign of people killing the air. ‘I see no people killing the air,’ he said.
    ‘I do,’ said Constance. ‘The steam of so much boredom kills the air,’ she gasped.
    Again Clifford cast around looking for any steam of boredom rising in the area. ‘I can’t see any steam of boredom,’ he said. ‘Are you sure people steam when they’re bored?’
    She didn’t answer because, dear reader, she was a hundred yards behind lying face down gasping for air. Clifford waited for her to catch up, all the while looking for the steam of boredom. She caught up and the chair puffed on; en route she gave Clifford some wild catkins.
    ‘Thou still ravished bride of quietness,’ he said.
    ‘Ravished is a horrid word,’ she said. ‘Some things can’t be ravished. You can’t ravish a tin of sardines. And so many women are like that.’
    ‘Like what?’ said Clifford.
    ‘Like unravished tins of sardines,’ she said angrily.
    ‘Oh, said Clifford in a puzzled voice. ‘I’ve never seen a woman who looked like an unravished tin of sardines.’
    The walk with Clifford wasn’t turning out a success. She could walk, he couldn’t; even then she had to run up to speeds of forty miles an hour. She wanted to be rid of him, his obsession with himself, and his own words, words like ‘trulge, driick, frottle, grynculatez’.
    The next day she went out again, a wet brown dog came running out towards her, he didn’t bark because he’d have had his arse kicked. The man followed in a wet oilskin jacket.
    ‘Did ‘ee bark at ‘eee?’ he said.
    ‘No,’ said Constance.
    ‘Oh,’ disappointedly said the man, who was looking forward to kicking his arse. He saluted her without speaking. Alone he had practised saluting and speaking, followed by a quick saluting and not speaking. This time he chose the latter.
    The smell of Anzora haircream and Sunlight soap were too much for Constance, holding her nose she began to withdraw. She walked backwards for sixty yards before she spoke to him. ‘I’m just going,’ she shouted.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You must be nearly there,’ he shouted back.
    Constance nodded.
    ‘Look,’ he shouted, ‘you don’t have to stand back there holding your nose. Come here and you can use this clothes peg.’ She came forward and accepted the offer.
    ‘Was yer waitin’ to get in,’ he asked, looking at the hut but not at her, noting that whereas the hut was bigger she was the more attractive of the two.
    ‘Doe,’ said Constance. ‘I only sad a few binutes in the shelder.’
    He looked a her. She looked cold. Should he light a fire under her?
    ‘Sir Clifford ‘adn’t got another key then?’ he asked.
    ‘Doe, bud it doesn’t batter.’
    She looked at him. He looked hot, about eighty degrees Fahrenheit. Funny, she felt cold.
    ‘‘Appen yer’d better ‘ave dis key an’ ah min fend for t’bods some other rud.’ 25
    ‘Wod do you bean?’ she said.
    "Appen yer’d better ‘ave dis key an’ ah min fend for t’bods some other rud.’
    She removed the clothes peg. ‘I still don’t know what you mean.’ She hated his excess of vernacular. He had an excessive vernacular which he used at parties.