CHAPTER 28
I slept the sleep of the just that night, the just-ravished, for Larinda had been true to her word. She had lain on my shoulder, afterwards, while she went through options for William’s future, almost as if he were her own.

“What?” she demanded.

“Just, dunno, you seem to be taking charge, almost, with Will”

“Ah, just used to having to do everything on my own, innit? Sort of got into the habit of sorting things before they get out of hand. Never been anyone else about to do it for me, yeah?”

“Yeah, well, no taking over my life”

She giggled into my chest, then stroked it.

“Need a shave, love, or should I book you a waxing? Smooth….naughty Laz, put thoughts away, time to sleep. Changing subjects, yeah, we got that night out with your workmates?”

“Aye, three days from now. He’s arranged his do on the actual day he clears his desk, so hopefully once he’s out the door and off to the pub he’s picked it’ll be the last we see of him. I think Rach’s organising a table at the Raj for afters”

“Yeah, meant to say, what with all that Mexican crap we ate…”

“That was very nice crap, I thank you!”

“Yebbut, it’s also very fat Mexican crap, yeah, and if you are having a curry and beers then we need to get you cutting back. Not shopping for dresses in any size starting with a two or a three, yeah?”

“Shopping?”

She bit me very, very gently on the nipple. “Yeah, shopping. Sort of been thinking, yeah, and I was right. Not going to say I don’t care what you look like, how you dress and shit, cause I do, right? Just, what I said, it’s true. You don’t get away from me. Look, I’m not good with words, am I?”

I kissed the top of her head. “Not done so badly, as far as I can see, aye?”

“Yeah, well, I’m good at the straight stuff, right to the point. I know that. What I’m saying, like, is that you are more than this little bit down here…oh, not so little…where was I? You are you, and after you saw that shrink, yeah, I can see you better, and I still love you, cause it’s you, and not some stranger coming through a mask, yeah? That make sense?”

I lifted her face for a proper kiss. “Perfect sense, pet”

“Ta. Now, you going to use this, now it’s back? Mind if I do?”

Autonomic systems, automatic, hard-wired anatomical responses to arousal, and yet even though I wished I had never had the anatomy in question it just felt right, with Larinda, even while completely wrong. With every other woman, Jill had gradually pushed Rob out, and the response had failed. I still had no intention of keeping it, if I could manage the change, but for now it was by far the best I could do with her and, to be honest, it did feel more than pleasant. How confused was that?

I woke, of all things, to The Beatles, and realised suddenly that Larinda’s possessions were accumulating rather quickly in my house. We’d have to talk about that one, and I had a sudden urge to push the issue, after her words the night before. She appeared at the bedroom door, my old dressing gown around her and two mugs in her hands. After a kiss, I raised the idea.

“Larinda, how many of your CDs do we have here now?”

She blushed. “Er, most of them. Not got a lot, but that space rock stuff of yours, yeah, needs a bit padding out”

“Open the wardrobe, love”

She did so. “Got a lot of dresses here, inchya?”

“Yeah, and how many of them are yours?”

“Dunno”

“The answer is ‘not enough’, aye?”

She stared at me, and there was a care in the way she held her expression, as if she didn’t want any tells to leak, any thoughts to show.

“What do you mean, Jill?”

“What’s the rent on your old place? What could we spend it on?”

We were both late for work that morning. She started moving her stuff in the same night, and gave her notice the next morning. It was a big step for both of us, but now, just for once, I really felt my impulsive decision was exactly the right thing to do, for both of us. Damn the torpedoes.

Three days later, MAC called everyone into his office at three o’clock.

“Ladies, gents, this is it. Thirty-five years of the department, under various names, it’s up. As of five this evening, I am officially a free man, and to mark that, as you should all be aware, I will be in the Red Lion. There’s cash behind the bar, and sandwiches laid on, so I will see you all there!”

With that, he was straight out of the door, before anyone could say what a jolly nice chap he was, or similar lies, and Rachel held her hand up to keep the rest in the room.

“Now, we all need to celebrate Mr Wilkins’ departure, right? But–shush at the back–we sort of don’t feel like doing it anywhere he’s still infesting, am I clear?”

There were a few laughs, and a call of “Was that infesting or infecting, Rach?”

“Either will do! So, people, bring your drinking shoes, and be at the Home Cottage for half five, gives him time to piss off round the corner. Raj for curry after, yeah? Let’s give him a good send off, just, well, not have him there to spoil it!”

Right on time, MAC was out of the door, his cardboard box of possessions loaded into his car and then off home to change out of his manskin, let his scales breathe free for a while, finalise his invasion plans, whatever it was that people like him do when they are out of work, before heading back to the Red Lion. Other people slipped out half an hour later, MAC’s departure making that safer, to make their own preparations. At five ten, Rachel came into my little office and leant against the door jamb, smiling.

“That tart of yours coming?”

“Of course. She’s not got as far to travel, now”

“Fuck me, you moved her in?”

“We are now cohabiting, yes”

“Jill…you sure about things?”

I thought for a little while. Was I sure? No other answer could be given.

“Absolutely. We seem to click on so many levels, Rach. I know what you are going to ask, and, yeah, she has issues, but she says that I am leaking , now, leaking Jill round the edges, like, and she still likes me, and I’m Jill, and so…”

“And dressing up?”

“Oh, well, sort of getting there, though she hates it when I put tights on. Passion-killers, she says. Oh, and Rachel…”

“Yeah?”

“THIS is dressing up, what I am wearing now, not a skirt and top, yeah? But just, tonight, keep it as Rob, like”

She laughed, and came over for a hug, and as I felt her in my arms the thought came again: how could anyone hit someone like her? How could anyone ever believe she deserved hitting? Fucking men, I hated them. Well, perhaps not all. We sorted out what we needed, locked everything up, and made our way with various colleagues up the hill to our own pub, Larinda turning up at six and getting wolf whistles when she snogged me. She looked up at that, grinned that special grin, and went to hug Rachel hello. With a shock, I saw them line up for a passionate kiss of their own, and just for an instant the room fell absolutely silent in anticipation, till the two span round with a cry of “Gotcha!”

Larinda pecked Rachel on the cheek, and we settled down for beer and banter, and the reason for our night out made the atmosphere so much sweeter by his absence. At seven thirty, my next surprise came, with the arrival of Karen and Terry. I looked at Larinda with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, you mentioned them, yeah, so I sneaked a look at your phone’s address book, gave them a ring, and there you go!”

Karen nearly suffocated me, whispering “Name tonight?” into my ear.

“Rob, here and now. Where’s James?”

“With my parents tonight. He works OK with Dad. How is it going?”

“What’s Larinda told you?”

“Nothing, really. She said she was stretching things by calling us, so the rest had to be your business, your call. She’s switched on, Ji–Rob. I think you have a keeper, yeah?”

I hugged her back. “I don’t think so, I know so. I’ll introduce you round, yeah, but in essence, yeah, going better than I could ever have hoped for”

“Great. We love you, you know; never forget that. Now, Pimms, bottle there, got my name on it!”

Two and a half hours later, we were sitting at a long table in the Raj, trays of pickles around us, as we did the fun and traditional trick of breaking poppadums with a strike of the index finger, and I looked up and out the plate glass of the front window, as a slumped figure stared in, before walking slowly off. No longer the monkey on our backs, no longer the Old Man of the Sea of Sinbad fame, he was just a sad old man, who turned and walked off to a pension and an empty retirement. I almost felt sorry for him; but only almost.

Larinda handed me another bottle of Kingfisher, and I realised that nobody else had seen MAC at the window. I left it that way; we had already done what suddenly felt far too much.