Lady Chatterley's Lover

dog. Her heart beat, was it his dog, she stood on tiptoe, her ear cupped to listen for the traditional dog’s kick up the arse, but no! it was the white bull-terrier from Marchay 38 Farm. Mrs Flint the farmer’s wife ran out.
    ‘Why, it’s Lady Chatterley! Why.’ Yes, it was Lady Chatterley! Why! She shouted at the dog. ‘Down Brick Shithouse, down!’
    ‘He used to know me,’ said Constance shaking Mrs Flint’s hand.
    ‘Of course he knows you,’ she said. ‘He’s just showing off. He understands every word you say,’ she said.
    ‘Oh,’ said Constance. She turned to the dog and said, ‘six hundred bc was the golden age of Greece, during which time there was Socrates, Xenophanes and Euclid.’ She waited. ‘He doesn’t seem to understand,’ she said.
    ‘It’s a long time since you’ve been ‘ere,’ said Mrs Flint. ‘I do hope you’re better.’
    ‘Better?’ said Constance. ‘I haven’t been ill.’
    ‘Oh, that’s why you look better,’ said the farmer’s wife, voted Idiot of the Year on a show of hands at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, the same vote one day they would give the Governor General of the BBC.
    ‘We’ve hardly seen you allll winter,’ she said.
    ‘What a coincidence,’ said Constance. ‘We’ve hardly seen you allll winter.’
    ‘Will you come in and look at the baby?’ said Mrs Flint. Constance went in and looked at the baby. ‘Now what?’ she said. She remembered she had sent the child some celluloid ducks for Christmas. The Flints ate them.
    Mrs Flint picked up the baby. ‘There! Who’s come to see you? Who’s this? Lady Chatterley — you know Lady Chatterley, don’t you?’
    How right Gonville and Caius College were.
    ‘I was just going to have a rough cup of tea. Would you care for a cup? I don’t suppose it’s what you’re used to.’
    ‘No,’ said Constance. ‘I’m used to a blend of Lapsang Sou Chong and Lychee-Black.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Flint, who Gonville and Caius had also voted Ignoramus of the year.
    She started re-laying the table, the best tablecloth, best cups and the best teapot. It still looked bloody awful. Constance had a cup of tea; it was jet black, she sipped it, ran to the window and spat it out.
    ‘Don’t you like it?’ said the idiot of the year.
    ‘Oh yes, it was lovely, it’s just that I like spitting tea out of windows, it’s a family custom, it’s supposed to get rid of evil spirits.’
    ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Flint. ‘We know how to get rid of evil spirits. We drink ‘em. My husband makes them from sloes.’ Constance squirted another mouthful of tea out of the window.
    ‘It’s not much of a tea,’ said Mrs Flint.
    ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Constance. ‘I must go, my husband has no idea where I am.’
    ‘Tell him you were in England,’ said Mrs Flint.
    ‘He’ll be wondering all kinds of things,’ said Constance. Strangely, at that moment, Clifford was wondering all kinds of things. He was thinking of fire engines and elephants: the first could put out a fire quickly, and the second, could, given the time, mind you, it would be pointless to give an elephant the time.
    At last Constance rose and gradually came down again. ‘Goodbye,’ said Constance.
    Mrs Flint insisted on opening the locked, bolted and barred door, so did Constance. After two hours Mrs Flint said, ‘It’s no good, it’ll have to be the window.’
    Mrs Flint accompanied Lady Chatterley down the lane, for this she brought her banjo. They came to a little gate, Mrs Flint insisted Lady Chatterley opened it. On the other side stood an empty milk bottle.
    ‘Ah that’s our milk bottle,’ said Mrs Flint, ‘the dairy man fills it and leaves it there for us.’
    ‘When do you collect it?’ said Constance.
    ‘Oh, any time,’ said Mrs Flint, ‘May, September.’
    ‘Doesn’t the milk go off?’ said Constance.
    ‘No, it never goes off, it always stays where it is.’
    The Northern Echo reported the gate incident.

    LADY CHATTERLEY OPENS GATE
    FOR HUMBLE FARMER’S WIFE.
    ‘I can’t believe she did it,’
    says 52-year-old farmer’s wife.

    As Constance walked away she could hear the man calling up the last cows. Constance had never seen cows go up before or for that matter down, but she had seen them going along. Mrs Flint went running back across the pasture, in a sun-bonnet, because she was really a school-teacher. 39
    Constance thought of Mrs Flint’s baby. Yes, Mrs Flint, though only a poor farmer’s wife, had