Lady Chatterley's Lover

said. ‘Lady Jane at her wedding with John Thomas.’
    He hadn’t finished. He stuck flowers in the hair of his own body, he wound a creeping-jenny round and around his penis, he stuck a single bell of hyacinth in his navel, he pushed a campion flower in his moustache and two up his nose.
    At Buckingham Palace King George V and Queen Mary were just finishing dessert.
    Constance was tiring of the floral arrangements.
    ‘I really must go,’ she said.
    They started to dress.
    ‘Say good-night to John Thomas,’ he said, looking at his penis. ‘He’s safe in the arms of creeping-jenny!’
    He was getting worse. He started talking as though to a wall, actually it was.
    ‘Ay, I’ll say nowt an’ ha’ done wi’t. But tha mun dress thysen an’ ga’ back to a stately home.’
    Oh dear, he was in the vernacular again. She never understood a word of vernac.
    Halfway home Constance was met by a scarlet, puffing, perspiring Mrs Bolton, expending heat from every orifice. She was like a long-distance train arriving at Victoria.
    ‘Sir Clifford thought you’d been killed by lightning, he was sending Field and Betts to find the body.’
    They’d have found the body all right under another body fucking in the rain.
    ‘How foolish of Clifford to make such a fuss,’ said her ladyship.
    ‘Oh, you know what men are,’ said Mrs Bolton.
    Yes, she knew what men were: she’d just left one.
    ‘They like working themselves up,’ said Mrs Bolton.
    Constance knew that, she knew one who’d been working himself up her. She knew that Mrs Bolton knew, and Mrs Bolton knew that Constance knew that she knew. They both knew that each other knew. She could not pretend there was nothing between herself and the gamekeeper, only their clothes and they weren’t on for long.
    ‘Why, you’re all right my lady! You’ve only been sheltering in the hut,’ suggested Mrs Bolton. And pigs can fly!

SIXTEEN
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    T HEY WENT ON into the house. Constance was furious with Clifford, furious with his pale face, his pale ears, furious with his prominent eyes, furious at his dead legs, furious at his prominent trousers, even his prominent brown shoes.
    ‘I must say, I don’t think you need send servants after me.’
    ‘Very well, dear,’ he replied, ‘say it.’
    She felt silly as she said, ‘I don’t think you need send servants after me.’
    He berated her, he was an excellent barrator.
    ‘Where have you been, woman?’ he berated. ‘What have you been up to?’ He paused in his beration, then began berating again, it’s hours since the rain stopped. Do you know what time it is?’
    Why did he suddenly want to know the time? it’s twenty past eight,’ she said.
    Seeing him so distressed, she felt a sudden qualm, she always kept a small qualm in her handbag, which she gave a quick feel.
    ‘I’ve only been sheltering in the hut from the storm.’ If you tell a lie, tell a big one.
    ‘And look at your hair,’ he berated. ‘Look at yourself.’ She tried, she ran in circle after concentric circle trying to get a glimpse of herself; once or twice she saw her back briefly, seeing ‘the nicest arse of anybody’. That done, she confessed to her barrator that she had run naked in the rain, but omitted to mention forget-me-nots on the fanny.
    He couldn’t come to terms with what he’d heard. She offered him reasonable terms but he refused.
    ‘You must be mad!’ he said.
    ‘Why? What’s wrong with a shower in the rain?!’
    ‘Look! We have a perfectly good bath and shower here. Do you have to wait until there’s a thunderstorm before you have a bath? My God, in the dry weather you’ll go lousy!’
    His blood pressure was one sixty over one hundred and ten. They waited till it came down to one hundred and forty over ninety. To assist, Mrs Bolton threw a bucket of water over him.
    In a calm dripping voice he said, ‘At least you’ll be lucky if you go off without a severe cold.’
    ‘Oh, I haven’t got a cold,’ she replied.
    Far from it, she had the ‘hots’. Those magic words of the gamekeeper kept going through her mind. ‘Tha’s got nicest woman’s arse of anybody.’ But how did Mellors know she had the nicest woman’s arse of anybody? He had told Berth Coutts the same thing! He’d only ever seen five women’s arses in his life; there must have been thousands and thousands of women’s arses out there better than Lady Chatterley’s. His comments on Lady Chatterley’s arse were completely unfounded;