CHAPTER 13
I make my crackling the old-fashioned way. Ish. After scoring and soaking the skin, I pat it dry and then rub it with olive oil. Sea salt is then rubbed into it, and the oven turned up high for the last twenty minutes of cooking. The result is a lovely brown crispness that rises clear away from the meat and just screams “Eat me!”
The meal was a good one, as I will insist on claiming, but it wasn’t just my cooking. I was glowing with what had happened, even though it had not involved any actual…well, I have to be a little blunt here. I had pleased Tony, with results that had been very obvious to both of us, but there was nothing much he could do to me, or rather that I would allow him to. That was what I had thought.
What he had done was both romantic and sensual. Please do not expect a blow-by-blow description, and try hard not to raise a dirty laugh at those words. Tony had been gentle, sensual, loving and very simply nice to me in ways that were not what most people think of as sexual. He made me safe, he made me warm, he made me feel desired, and any girl will tell you that all that, especially combined with some exquisite teasing of areas of my chest, is what is really wanted. I felt real, for the first time, and I felt hope.
End of description. Live with it.
Jim seemed to have relaxed after watching various episodes of the videos Arris had found, and the adults were in that odd state where conversation starts and stops as flavours hit and wine is sipped. I realised that two friends were leaving me the next day, not just one, and that was another dose of warmth. I had work the next day, and for once I was looking further ahead than the next track day at Lydden.
Tony was talking to Jim, and I let him finish before asking my question. Too many adults think that children can be turned off for their own conversation, and then wonder why their kids grow up lacking social skills.
“Tone, have you still got the Duke?”
“Oh god yes. Got two more as well, now, sort of got silly a bit after the house got emptier. “
“I got silly as well, but I kept it down to 600cc. ZZR Kwak, goes ok.”
“Well….as you can guess, taking Jim on the Ducati would not exactly meet with Mum’s approval”
“Dead bloody right” came the interjection. Tony continued,
“Never been fond of Jap stuff, so I got a Guzzi Cali with a chair, and then I got my dream bike…..”
He was zoned out, in a world of bliss all of his own. Enid sighed.
“Every time he mentions that old thing he gets all silly”
“Earth and Sar to Tony…what is it?”
“Wideline with the bottom tubes splayed, and a Black Shadow. Double leading shoe front, with air scoops, and clip ons, Venom seat retailored to remove the cut out, decent Avon boots, proper electrics….”
My heart surged. As a woman, especially one who had just made love, my heart was filled. As a biker, hearing that my beloved had a Norvin, I was smitten with lust.
Rewind. ‘Beloved’?
Yes. He was. I realised that with the same certainty that I knew I was female. And he not only had two classic Italian V-twins, but a Norvin. How could a girl not love him?
Sorry, I should explain a few things to the cage-bound readers here. A Mike Hailwood Replica is a classic Ducati race bike, a 900 cc V-twin. A Moto Guzzi California is another Italian V-twin, in this case attached to a sidecar for safe transportation of kids, dogs and mothers.
But a Norvin….is a wideline Norton ‘featherbed’ frame, with the bottom tubes spread apart with a jack so that the sump of the HRD Vincent Black Shadow one litre V-twin engine can drop down to lower the centre of gravity and thus improve the handling. The world’s fastest bike of its day, shoehorned into the best handling frame. Sex on wheels, and he had it.
Where did he hide the keys?
Tony was grinning. “I am not telling you where I hide the keys”
Enid just smiled. Arris had to clear wine from her nose. Jim looked serious.
“Daddy, when are we going to go on the bike with the tent again?”
I looked at Tony. “You still rally?”
“Whenever I can. Jim here was a rally virgin when he was three”
I laughed, “Arris was one when you met her!”
“Oooooh, lucky escape! Remember the naked man?”
“Tone, you know I didn’t remember some of that first night, but, if I can find ways to speak past small folk, I remember and have remembered every day, every other minute of that weekend. Do you remember that quarry, looking over the fields from the hilltop? We had dinner after, at the pub, the four of us”
“Bloody hell, girl, you have a good memory”
“For things that are important, yes. Do you remember that day?”
“Every minute. Remember dancing in front of me to the band?”
“Tone, I could tell you things about that, but I can’t decide who it is more important to keep the details from, your saintly mother, your innocent child, or Arris the gob here”
Enid started to laugh. “You know, I think we might just have started breaking down some silly old walls here. Tony, why don’t you have a chat with Alison and Steve about a get together?”
I suddenly realised where this might go.
“How many seats in the chair, Tone?”
“Double adult”
“So…two kids in the chair, another pillion, the eldest pillion with Steve, Arris and me on our own bikes….how does that sound?”
Enid raised a hand. “What about me? I was a girl guide, I know how to camp”
“How do you feel about naked men?”
“With my hands, usually!”
Oh dear, I could see exactly where Tony came from, and as I looked at Arris chuckling, I wondered if there had been some odd genetic transfer coast-to-coast.
I decided to lay down a few rules. “OK, I’ll crank up the ‘puter after we clear up, and we’ll look to see what’s on. Not too far away, so the kids don’t get bored, between here and Reading so we equalise travel, and it needs to be an MCC do, small, with a pub attached so we have somewhere dry.”
For those, once again, unfamiliar with life, MCC stands for ‘Motorcycle Club’, and is a local social club for people who ride bikes. Generally speaking, they wear an embroidered club badge on the upper left of their chest, a ‘front patch’. MC, on the other hand, stands for ‘Motorcycle Club’, but they wear a much larger cloth patch on their backs and are a completely different sort of group, including such people as Satan’s Slaves and the Angels. Not people I wanted to expose the kids to, but for an instant I did wonder what Enid would do to them.
And there, on the internet, was exactly the sort of thing I was after, in a couple of week’s time. Based on a farm near Crawley, with a pub next door, the Sussex Borderers MCC were having their tenth rally. There was a phone number…Arris began a long call to Steve. And yes, he was up for it, and the girls were very up for it, and once he got the lad off the games console he was sure that he would say yes. I looked at Enid again.
“No, my dear, this is a time for the elders to take a step back. You take my boys, and you bring them back happy and well, is all I ask”
We were on. Now…did I still have a tent in any fit state?
http://www.cravencollection.co.uk/files/cravencollection.co....
http://static.blogo.it/motoblog/ncr-mike-hailwood-tt/big_NCR...
Comments
Such discretion!
I loved the description of the intimacy. Yes, can't fault it, it's all between the ears anyway. And that's where it should remain!
Don't much get the bike stuff but I've never had much to do with bikes. I owned a Zundapp 50cc moped for a few months before I passed my driving test so bikes never really featured in my life after that. Though it helped me learn to consider bikers and the additional hazards they face. I remember seeing a Vincent HRD in Lloc, near Holywell in North Wales. That's the only Vincent I ever saw.
It's all bicycles for me now and my new tranny van (Watch it!)
Good story, liked it.
Bev.
Cold Feet 13
Love the talk about motorbikes and the links.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
So are you still in the saddle ?
I still take mine out every now and then, when the weathers nice.
So much to read, so little time and only one of me :)
The English Teacher
So much to read, so little time and only one of me :)
The English Teacher
A good story,
ALISON
'again, and I loved the links on the bikes,great photos. Riding bikes terrifies me but I love the engineering of bikes and bike racing to me is still the purest form of motor sport,bar none.
ALISON
feeling real
"Tony had been gentle, sensual, loving and very simply nice to me in ways that were not what most people think of as sexual. He made me safe, he made me warm, he made me feel desired, and any girl will tell you that all that, especially combined with some exquisite teasing of areas of my chest, is what is really wanted. I felt real, for the first time, and I felt hope." very nice description hon
Thank you
It's a girl thing....
Seems Like Centuries Ago
When I was a teenager a friend who had a lot more money than me owned a Vincent 1000 with a really stiff clutch. While I envied the bike, to tell the truth it scared me half to death.
I was riding pillion on one occasion when we parked in the main street in town. Returning to the bike he started it just as I climbed aboard and let the clutch out before I was settled. There I was sitting on my bum in the road while he was fifty yards down the street, with the front wheel still in the air. That beast could go.
I am totally amazed that a story of this quality is getting so few reads. It would seem to have all the ingredients for a BC success...at least to me.... TG heroine with great supporting characters, all extremely well depicted, a very believable story line with drama and good times...and the bikes!
If It registered I would keep on pressing the "kudos" thingy. As it is I can only urge you to keep going. There's a loyal core (corps?) of fans out here,
Joanne
Been through that one
I would, of course, be lying if I said I didn't care about reader numbers. Then again, I write for myself, to lay ghosts and fill the spaces. What has been said before, perhaps a little unkindly, is that I don't have high schools, cheerleaders or superheroes in my stuff. Well, I know sod all about the US school system, cheerleaders simply sound silly and elitist to me,and superheroes, in the main, leave me cold. I have to feel some sort of connection with my people, even if it is a negative one, such as the Ansteys in'Uniforms' and 'Something to Declare'
Perhaps because they are a select few (tee hee, flattery is easy) I value my readers. I am sitting here at 0730 my time, looking out at a gorgeous pink sunrise,and preparing to spend a few hours writing before braving what that sunrise ispredictng, on my bike to work.
In reply to another question, no, I got rid of my motorbikes a few years ago. I both miss them and not, if you can follow that.
Your Sidecar is on the Wrong Side!
I mean, if over here we put the sidecar on the right side, then putting it on the other side must have it on the wrong side, eh? (I know, I know -- I'm just having some fun!)
Yours from the Great White North,
Jenny Grier (Mrs.)
x
Yours from the Great White North,
Jenny Grier (Mrs.)
Rally moment
Still see it in colour too, it was my first.
Lizard Point Café, Easter 1978, sitting outside eating crab sandwiches and watching gulls drift by, no sounds but the birds and the sea. The sun was baking hot, riding jacket and helmet a real discomfort so I just sat there at the café instead of riding the country lanes or boozing at the rally.
You have brought back a few other memories from the bikes.
Teri Ann
"Reach for the sun."
The Lizard!
Used to meet up with the club who ran that one. Mad and older chap always crashing race-style two-stroke 500s.