Excuse me ? Stone the crows feet around my eyes, it’s almost funny ! Some kamaki just shot me a heat-seeking stare, but I yielded him nothing to lock on to. Obviously took my open expanse of flesh as a sign of hot blood. Whereas the bikini accoutrement is merely an adaptive response to the extrinsic temperature. I’m not really one for basking, since I’m more used to subterranean habitats. Seated in so many dark interiors back home, hugging my permafrosted self deep within the eviscerated embrace of an animal pelt. Stomaching the reverberating vitreous humour of fanciful alcholic elixirs, in an attempt to rekindle my waning embers. Stilettos, Silk Stockings, a little of whatever you fancy. Lipstick Kiss on the rim of the tall glass of Passion Daiquiri, chased by a Slow Comfortable Screw. Presently, any cranked-up concoction in my hand, is a chaser away of morbid thoughts. Measurable in terms of percentage proof of fugue inducement. Back then, the little cocktail parasols were supposed to suggest something exotic. Exotic but one day attainable. And here I am, in this faraway clime and it’s altogether more prosaic. A swizzle stick swizz. The parasols keep the flies off your liquid analgesia. But not the human insects buzzing around your trough of misery. A Maiden’s Prayer pledge, raised to a Widower’s Kiss. Damon, I salute you. Damn your eyes and double damn the weather.

I think, at my age and level of experience, I’m entitled to a ladies’ excuse-me rather than still be at the behest of the blokes. That’s how much things have moved on during my ostracism. For, in the not too remote past, if I had even dared try and mirror back that Grecian gaze, mine would have been the body refluxed into a pool of steaming ethanol. Filtering down through the lattice work of my chair, like channeled irrigation, yet for all that, too pitiful to puddle the parched dust. Even a Greek would have to take that as a no, but the recoil wouldn’t be attendant on his sexual artillery. Simply on Damon’s ordnance. The face of any man could have been that of my executioner. All men want to murder me. All men and one man. The alpha and omega. Damon. Petrification freezes a man’s waters, but evaporates those of a woman. A stock seething, regulated as if by a turn of a dial. Another difference that makes it difficult for me to see through Damon’s basilisk eyes.

It doesn’t pay to look back when you bolt. Just ask Eurydice. No poor example. Orpheus was the one vying with fear and love in that instance. Let’s consider say, Lots’ wife and she didn’t have a name of her own either ! Still, at least she left her mark. A scale of body salts on the rim of the landscape. Ironically seasoning her clan’s cultivation of arid desert life. Maybe she just couldn’t face the ennui. The simmering loneliness. If you were fleeing Sodom and Gomorrah, well just Gomorrah perhaps, wouldn’t you cast one last glance back at what you were relinquishing ? Maybe she saw herself as a pillar of the community. I shall christen her Margarita. Here’s to you sodium chloride girl. For no matter how often I turn back to look, Damon’s still there. Poised between me and the sun. Thwarting the depth necessary to augment me, from anything but an adumbral existence.

Everyday after I was first beached here, I would read the copies of the English newspapers as soon as they were shipped over from the airport. Dreaming that they would afford me the reverse journey. Desperate to clap eyes on an item reporting Damon’s arrest, impending lifetime incarceration and the end of my own. At least, I would try to read, but I was so jumpy, so palsied, I spent most of the time scouring anywhere but the print. Scoping and being scoped. Over my shoulder, the other tables, every face that jagged past the bar. Any sexual courser must have taken one look, scented crazy old English lady and strode on. And they weren’t wrong. I would look at the pictures but see only the dots. I would frame the letters, but could not track the words. Took me all day just to squint my way through one lousy redtop and you know how thin the export copies used to be. Flimsy and cheap. My sweat would blight the newsprint, which in turn smirched my fingers black and with each reflexive response to every nervous itch, my peccancy was writ larger on my skin. Crazy English lady indeed. Bleeding demented ! Well, that’s what living with the sword of Damoncles dangling over your head can do to a person.

I changed bars everyday so as not to build up a routine. I didn’t like the openness of an outside table, with the sea of faces lapping up and down. So I withdrew to the shrouded recesses of taverna interiors. All alone inside on boiling hot days, I felt even more exposed. Besides, parasols in the gloom twirled me home full circle. When death is coming for you from somewhere out of the shadows, Factor 57 protective screening ain’t going to prevent you from 57 varieties of incineration. The vernacular of home, where a different climate of fear pertains. With an alternative meaning to tanning one’s hide.

Comprehensively jarred, I soon beat a hasty retreat back out to the alfresco tables. By and by I managed to imbibe more of the content of the newspapers without convulsing. No herald of my desired despatch, Damon never warranted a mention at all. Unlike a myriad of his peers, who had all raised themselves well above the parapet, in order to launder themselves as writers or televisual talking heads. I guess despite his relish for all things celebrity, he was just too canny to display himself. Besides, the bloody Fuzz couldn’t catch Chlamydia, even if they were stationed out here.

No, I knew I could never go back. Sentenced to life on this rock. But with that realisation, much of my fetters of fear fell away. Life was still life. Damon hadn’t expunged my lights. Terry must have done a fine job covering up the cover-up, of the non-crime, of my fake-murder. If you see what I mean. I soon stopped reading the papers altogether. After all, I could hardly keep up with the soaps any more. What with the way you couldn’t tell if a story in the tabloid was about the character, or the real life actor. It all got too confusing. And too poignant. Some of them used to be my friends. Before I was written out, by Damon. It was natural that twin fawners should gravitate towards one another. Both had tabloid form. The ones who played, and thus also liked to think of themselves as, mad, bad and dangerous to know, were attracted to the darkness of my husband’s soul. While he was drawn to their glittery lights. Both were repulsed by the other’s craven stewarding through their own world, while adopting a restive embrace of the mores demanded in the new. Me, I’ve cancelled my subscription to both. Apart from the regulation sporting of sunglasses indoors as well as out.

***

My first winter here, still in my fleapit crashlanding pad of a hotel. Off-peak and off-colour, having been struck down with a calenture. Since at that time my mind was still swaddled in layer upon layer of anxiety and threat, my feverish brow fermented a heady cocktail of paranoia and hallucination. Not to put too fine a point on it, I lost my marbles. The bed mattress became an Aegean Sea of perspiration. The Cressida at the end of my nose, maintaining a seaward vigil for Troilius in wetsuit, dagger between his teeth. The third eye of phantasms, kept leaping ahead of itself for something to fix on in the vast ocean of nothingness. Til it tilted and fell over at the horizon and the tableau slid down sideways like a cascade of dripping wet paint. So now I became the one in the wetsuit, merged and submerged there in my bed. Forever frantic to come up for air. Urgghh ! Doubled up with the bends. My decompression chamber had betrayed me. Blood bubbling away in sweltering grease, feeling just like an addict amid the assault of cold turkey. Finally sunk at the battle of Salamis. Perigee moon spotlighting me through tiffany curtains unseamed by unremitting sunlight. A sniper’s sight. The devil’s theophany.

And in the midst of all my mania, a blinding moment of clarity; I would never face the likes of this alone again. Wing south to Kavos and a sheaf of bright young touristy flings during the summer. Then float back up to Corfu Town for the winter and buttonhole some indigenous marshmallow for toasting by a nice log-fire. My recuperation was complete. Phoenix-like, the keel righted and degaussed, now to launch into ramming, boarding and properly engage in sinking the salamis. The denizens here, autochthonous or migratory, posed me no threat. Trust in place of trussed. Banish the banshee woman of delerium. (Cassandra my dear, you just needed to get laid). My marble frieze restored, the ice maiden was reborn by parthenogenesis. This time, I was to be my own creation.

For all my pyretic imaginings of slit throats and poisoned cloaks, it was evident, that since Damon seemed not to have contested the fact of my cremation, I was therefore indubitably very much alive. After an interminable interim holding my breath, finally now I could exhale. Time to move back into the light and project something more substantial of myself. Rather than the paper-thin silhouette, perpetually pressed up against platonic cave walls. Envelop myself and overlap the catenations of self spread so impoverishedly while maintaining a watching brief. Now that my body was integral once again, occasion to heal the lesions of the mind. So, for my edification I started to visit the bibliotheca in town. For some reason it has a large English book section. The cradle of civilisation’s misplaced faith in the barbarian hoardes all around.

Now my countryfolk’s brains might be their sole untoned muscle out here, but I like to blow the dust from my own otiose upper story every now and then. Bibliotheca, from the, well uh Greek, meaning a book receptacle. Receptacle, yeah nice word. To receive and receive again. And then again. Aw, who am I kidding ? A healthy mind is a healthy body. My first ever Greek worked in that library. So you can imagine, how it holds a special place for me. Not as hermitage, some sanctuary from the febrile republic of sexual ravenings outside its cool faux-marble walls. Rather quite the converse, as omphalos site of my readmittance into the world of sensation. Theo his name was. More gent than scholar even, our mutual tentativeness entailed I didn’t burn-up on re-entry. Theo: ‘of the gods’. Despite being my resurrection, the intercourse simply weren’t divine though Theo. Sure wasn’t transported to any numinous heights. But I did get a nose bleed. No, no. That wasn’t down to him. Just don’t think my body was prepared for the recommencement of the impulse of blood. Theo he-retical it may be, but I came to treat him as a sort of preliminary access course. Back to browsing the shelves and more course work. For learned Greeks were not the only persuasion on offer. A library of congress if you will (and you will, if you were anything like the natives). Some came in just to skirt the external heat. Some sought out the free local gazettes. Soon I was a word-of-mouth local notice, disseminating from the foreign language, non-fiction (can’t believe your luck) section. But you need some sort of classification system to help you nail exactly what you’re after.

My taxonomy is still work in progress. Goodness knows, George was evidence enough of that. Before then, I had a more pressing problem. It was in the library where I first dared ruminate upon the Gordian knot of my death. Bruits of which had been somewhat deliberately, nay brutally, exaggerated. Taxidermy, the padding and embalming of a deceit. (Taxpayer’s next in my daily dictionary consumption and I’m no longer one of those either). Did Damon stage a lavish funeral, white horses pulling a carriage laden with flowers picking out a suitable epithet for me, such as ‘harlot’ ? If not, what had people back home been told to explain my absence ? How did they take it, not that it was of any consequence, since those who might have mourned my passing, could not possibly remain my friends any longer. Maybe he didn’t bother. But then did no one raise a hue and cry ? There one day, I was no longer padding about the footpad’s manor, yet no one bats an eyebrow ? What about when the Fuzz next stomp up to the front door, did they not notice that Damon’s right-hand harridan was not next to him screeching blue murder through the letter box at their navels ? Or did they just put it down to staff turnover ? I didn’t expect any of the gung holsters to dare query Damon’s altered domestic arrangements, but what of their consorts back home on the pillow when I failed to show for a show, or host a party ? What about the few friends I had from BD, before the Damon era ? I thought they cared about me. Well, I suppose they did in reality. Cared enough to advise me not to comport with the devil. Grim faced when I ignored their counsel, but they maintained their position. Only broken-hearted when I left them far behind in my new social whirl of vetted friends. Do they really credit that I have since ceased to exist ? They knew my soul was in hell a long time ago. I have just tumbled to that fact. The singular property of whatever the declared version of events, now has to be impermeability. Otherwise I’m dead in the water.

Obviously I’m apprised of what was tacked together, in the limo on the way to the airport, between Terry, Lawrence and I. (Thinking about it, just Terry and I really, since Lawrence’s passenger-seat gibbering bespoke an unravelling, despite Terry’s one-handed clamping of his neck). But since seepage was clear for all to see, the stitching, or should I say suturing, would be insufficient to stem the likely haemorrhaging of blood. The craft of tailoring bespoke falsehood, fell upon Terry. Which was fair enough since he’d chosen to smuggle us out abroad, rather than excise us inside Mother England. To dislocate us from home soil, rather than comminute us into fertilising a small plot within it. But he’d only have the duration of the drive back from Stanstead, to summon up a credible account to satisfy Damon’s blood-debt. He’d have to have the yarn down pat and be ready with snappy retorts, when Damon demanded some patterned shades of red for his artiste’s palette.

Despite a thief’s tendency towards furtiveness,  Terry’s always struck me, as a pretty straight-down-the-line-in-a-bent-sort-of-way, unimaginative type. Yet the fact that I’m still breathing here, attests to some interiority. I have spent countless days praising him to the heavens in reverential gratitude for that, but yet more time in invoking his spirit as to how he pulled it off.  An attempt to penetrate the empathic matrix of two minds, that could chronicle precise acts of violence and reorient their world accordingly. If I could get inside that, then I may discover precisely where I currently stand for the rest of my afterlife. Oh, and like them, I can get off on fantasies of my own mortal agonies. With the added resonance of cheating them. Ladies and not-so gentlefolk, I present for your delectation and mine - (but sadly not for the couch casting theatre producer, or at least that’s what he told me he was, after I post-coitally transcribed all this out on a wad of paper towels liberated from the communal bathroom of his hotel, from which he checked out while I lay asleep after my all-night endeavours) - A one act, pre-Hellenic, post-Jacobean tragedy, here in the open air hearth of Classical Greece. I couldn’t quite swing a boulevard theatre in Paris for what is, I’m sure you’ll agree, more like a French Farce. Or a Grand Guignol. It depends on your point of view. Where your sympathies lie. I’ve called it ‘The Ring Cycle’. Oh god, now I’ve transposed it to bloody Bavaria. Ring up the curtain. Or ruffle the nets at least. Let us sit in judgement upon the immortals as they legislate our lesser fates.

The whole scene is framed at torso-level, so the faces are unseen. Enter  an ill-fitting chauffeur’s grey suit, the torso threatening to burst out at any one of several rucks and bulges. This torso narrows the space between itself and an expensively cut suit, the colour of bordello silk, muscularly well filled, but perfectly fitted. TERRY is in the chauffeurs’s uniform, DAMON in the silk. The tensing and relaxing of the musculature conveys the emotion that would normally be held by the face. Actions described are through viewed consequence, eg a sip of a drink is discernible by the glass being less full than before when it returns to body level.

TERRY            I’d like to ...

TERRY takes hold of DAMON’s wedding finger and works at the ring.

DAMON         Allegiance or forgiveness?

TERRY works off the ring.

TERRY            Funny, thought it would be harder to pull off than that

TERRY places ring on floor.                                        

TERRY            ... for the position you see

DAMON pours himself a drink.

DAMON         Refresh my memory. Which position would that be ?

TERRY            Anterior, posterior, lateral. If the Dutch cap fits-                       

TERRY removes his peaked cap and punches its heart.

TERRY            The position that til recently was being filled every fucking whichway, but has now become suddenly vacant

TERRY peels off leather gloves and drops them into cap.

DAMON reaches down to pick up the ring.         

DAMON         Decree nisi?

TERRY            Decree abso-fuckin-lute

TERRY drops the cap to the floor, as his hands manically strum an imaginary lute.

TERRY            (as George Formby) When I’m cleanin’ car windows!

                                    Lute playing changes into a
                                    mimed shamois wiping, which
                                    then abruptly freezes and the
                                    fingers curl into a vicious claw.

DAMON         Decree’s a passionless word. Too much juris-bloody-prudence. Know what I mean? Legal. Habeas corpus. I tend to find the towelhead term fatwa more copiously delicti

DAMON brings his foot down on the cap.

TERRY’s body flinches.

CHORUS(unseen)  Oh woe corpus luteum!

DAMON         Don’t got no vodka. Scotch do you ? Should be champagne really. Didn’t think ahead.

TERRY            Yeah, well. Whole thing blew up so quick

DAMON         Not too quick I hope?

TERRY            Scotch’s fine. Ice and water

DAMON         Watered down and on the rocks ...? That’s not how you usually take it Tel. Oh I get it, very droll. People have drowned for less

DAMON swigs from his glass, so that he ingests the ring. His speech accordingly affected.

DAMON         Your hand’s shaking. Sure you want it diluting ? Better off with a stiff one as you always say

DAMON spits ring back into his glass.

TERRY            Was she less, or more ? I trust it was more. It better have been more. To risk everything, for what could have been said with a slap

DAMON         What are you a man or a stuffed scarecrow ? Never hit a woman in me life. She was bleedin’ everything to me. So anything less she gave me, meant a complete dereliction

TERRY            Alright, alright. Keep your hair on

DAMON         Ain’t got none. Number one for number one. Besides, she didn’t show me no respect did she?

TERRY            Not gonna get any now from six feet under are you?

DAMON         Six feet under? You said you’d burn her body in the Merc. Fucking involuntary suttee, with you to sweep up the ashes for me to piss on-

TERRY            Listen Damon, it’s no way to operate. An overly firm handshake, fail enough. That’s business. That’s the power of suggestion -

DAMON takes swig and again ingests ring.

DAMON         Word gets around she’s cheating on me, what’s that going to do for business ... ? No, okay, you’re right. It’s weren’t business. Just personal. Very, very personal

TERRY            So personal, you got me to do it for you
           
DAMON         Tel, Tel, Tel. She might have pricked my emotions, but I haven’t entirely taken leave of me senses. Bluebottles’ll be over me like a rash. Prime suspect. So how could I be the one to do the deed ? They’ll never place you with her now will they ? I’d do the same for you. Anyone in your personal life you want ... chaste-tising, and I’m your man

TERRY            I haven’t got a personal life. It’s all devoted to you and the business

DAMON spits ring into his hand and offers it to TERRY in unreciprocated handshake.

DAMON         Exactly as it should be. Always has been and always will be, just like brothers. Blood brothers

TERRY            Uh-uh. We’re both single children. Orphaned single children

DAMON         Jesus Tel ! I think you’re starting to lose it. Getting a bit flabby around the gills. Bit long in the tooth maybe

TERRY            No. I don’t have a taste for doing women if that’s what you mean

DAMON         What you complaining about ? I gave you the driver an’ all. For symmetry like

TERRY            Fuck him ! It’s not about him ! I done him quick, cos I needed his threads. To get close to her

DAMON         Seems to me anyone could get close to her

TERRY            You said she’d have to grasp the reason why, from the very nature of her premature ejaculation from this world. So I needed to get close enough to perform it

DAMON         You didn’t whip it out, did you Terry ? I bet that made you choke more than her. I almost feel sorry for you, you poor bent bastard ! Still, there’s a certain piquancy in eliminating her in such a way, that the last overriding stench in her nostrils would be that of elimination. See, you squared the circle. I said you were the man for the job. Find the symmetry in everything. Hope you made it linger. Gave her a chance to reflect on the irony of it all

TERRY            Don’t be daft. It wasn’t like that

DAMON         No, how exactly was it like then ?

TERRY            I’d seen them do it. In the limo like. She’d be sat turned round in the back, on one of those flip-up seats you reckon establishes status, but to me makes your high-powered limo more of a glorified ‘ackney. Anyway, he’d slide open the partition glass, lean over from the
front seat and plant his peaked cap on her head. Then he’d put his arm through and start pawing her neck with the old leather mitt. She’d arch up and back in response, so he’d bring his other arm across her tits. This bothering you?

DAMON         Less than you probably

TERRY           Well I sees she’s got her eyes shut. Never clocks who’s behind her

DAMON         He was fucking her up the shitter ? She nev-     

OR
(director’s cut)

                        She had her fuckin’ eyes closed ? She nev-
(producer’s preferred option)

TERRY            Don’t be stupid ! How could he ? There was     polished leather upholstery between them. It was all going off in her head like. This was just what I believe you handicappers call foreplay. Or is it matchplay? I can never remember

DAMON         Yeah, I think I got some knock-off of that four-ply down one of the lock-ups

TERRY            So that was how I did it. Can’t see nothing from outside with the tint, so she slides into the rear seat all unexpecting. Dressed in the gear, she only sees the back of my neck and most of that’s cased in the cap. I hear the swish as she vacates the plush leather and the squelch of the cheap seat being flipped down. Now I know she’s got her back to me, so I give her the cap and it’s like I’ve popped her champagne bottle. Made me half jump out of my skin. But she hasn’t cottoned on to me. So I do what I saw Loz do, stroke for stroke, then callous my fingers. She arches back, really into it, like she’s trying to help me finish the job, but when my second hand clamps her throat and not her tits, the eyes flash open

DAMON         Oh man, I wish I could have been there

TERRY            No you don’t. Those eyes never once showed terror. Damon. At first they were just blazing angry

DAMON         She didn’t have no right to be angry!??

TERRY            It was only for a split second like. Then I don’t know what they registered. Couldn’t make out nothing written on her face. She weren’t resigned or knowing or anything really. I’d say they were just empty, except for the way she kept them trained on me til the end. I just know she wasn’t afraid.

DAMON         I didn’t expect her to show fear Tel. I knew she was a good’un when I picked her. I knew she would never crack. That’s what makes what the stupid bitch did even more mystifying. I never thought it would end up me being the one having to try and crack her

TERRY points at himself, before turning his finger to jab at DAMON.

TERRY         Me Damon. I was actually the one remember?And I ain’t doing it again for you neither. Rips up the rulebook. People don’t know where they stand if you can do this to your own flesh.      

DAMON throws up his ring and snatches it out of the air. He then takes TERRY’s finger and addresses the adorning gold signet ring. He swaps them over, so that TERRY has his wedding ring and he wears TERRY’s signet ring. He ends by patting TERRY's hand.

DAMON      Yeah, yeah. You got it Tel. Blood’s thicker than water and you and me waded through plenty in our time. You’re my only kin. Let’s go back to exactly how things used to be. See TD, you never went in for this ... hollowness. Remained true to yourself. Only have to look at the gold rockface to remember, the heights scaled to get up there. The company seal of disapproval.   Twenty-four carat, diamond geezer justice. Branded into the flesh of weaker men. Bosh ! How does it feel Tel ? It doesn’t quite carry the same weight does it ? Unmans yer. She drove me to it Terry, just keep telling yourself that and don’t lose any sleep over it. ‘Rife’ is inlaid in ‘strife’ and ‘riven’ is wholly contained within ‘striven’. Now get out of that ridiculous outfit. You’re starting to come apart at the seams

They exit stage sinister.
                       
BLACKOUT  (from alcohol probably)
           
CURTAIN FALLS on the person I used to be, the plush life I used to own.

There, I think that encapsulates the crux of it. Do you think I can return home now ? No, me neither. A mite too tough negotiating the terms of re-endearment. Back from a position of the other half’s desirousness to piss on your still smouldering ashes. Fucking hell Tel ! You really murdered me when you saved my life. Still, as I live and breathe, methinks think you enjoyed it all just a little too much Terry. Even though this is my dreamt up version of events. (Christ, I even made the pair of you quasi-literate). Why’d you do it eh ? Why did you betray Damon when you two were as thick as, well, thieves and after all you’d built up together ? I spose that’s why you’re named Terry rather than Pythias. I’ve often pondered on what was in it for you. Taken all possible parallaxes into account.

The doctrinal wisdom of your world, was and presumably still is, that like diving into the Spring of Salmacis, taking a wife gelds the bloke. Considered opinion was merely divided, as to whether this was actually a bad thing for business or not; since there were some who valued the removal of a burr or two of brutality from calculated menace. But you Terry, I wasn’t even a factor to you. Never entered your equations at all, like I didn’t exist. But the problem for you now is that I most distinctly do. I could veer up very large in your life at any moment. A bikini avenger. My manifestation, is your destiny. A grim rea(p)pear-ance back in the bosom of home, cos my life here, the life that you condemned me to, is just too grim to bear. Who cares that I’d be signing my own death warrant too ? No one out here that’s for sure. See, that’s what you should have to live with, both the threat of Damon finding out and the dismal knowledge of my splendid isolation. But I bet neither ever even percolate your glacial alluvium. Well now out here, I’ve etched my own relief. That disembodied voice from the epicentre of your past, a seismic tremor emanating all the way to your spine. A before, during and after-shock, all wrapped up in one. See, in the postscript, it would be my hands around your neck. The garrulous garotte, of one single ghostly word breathed down a telephone cord, enough to tighten it around your throat. Only the ubiquity of fucking mobile phones denies me the carnality of that exquisite image. I’ll have to settle for scaring the shit out of you ! Brrr-ring, brrr-ring, (or you’d probably have ‘The Funeral March’ for your ringtone). ‘Tel ? I can’t stand it here a moment longer. I’m coming back to Blighty to blight all our lives.’ Uh-uh, no protests now my whining shite knight. Cos I’ve figured out exactly why you did it.

I understand now why you put everything you had on the line. Why you went out on a wilted limb for me. Nothing at all to do with protecting the business. And there’s the rub of it. I am so tempted to go back over and drop you right in it Terence Doolan. Just to see Damon’s reaction. But I don’t have to, I know in my heart of hearts exactly what it would be. He’d find it in his heart to forgive you. (Once he’d located his heart, pickled in an unlabelled jar at the bottom of the deep freeze in Scotland Yard’s Black Museum). Damon would forgive you your betrayal, but not me mine. That’s what I was always up against. That’s what I could never stand. Cos you two go way back. All the way to the dinosaurs. Did time together. Buggered each other, or maybe didn’t. Watched out for one another’s backs, or even saved their life. It all amounts to the same thing. Some formative rite of passage, melding the pair of you to face front for ever. Shoulder to shoulder. Yet despite your chilled draughtsman’s elevation TD, something stirred you to go behind his back. Some audible pulse floated around the echo chambers of your heart. Now I know it wasn’t me you did it for. It was the same old scenario I’d always had to contend with. The female gooseberry. Just a younger model. It was Lawrence the chauffeur’s life you were after saving. Not mine.

I don’t know if that tart was fucking you as well, (I mean Lawrence didn’t exactly hang around here long enough for me to put my drafted findings to him), but I know it was him you were really watching. His hands moving over my body and imagining it was yours. No wonder I had you getting off recounting the details of my despatch, christ, whose fantasy was that anyway ? Don’t think for one moment that I wouldn’t have immediately clocked the difference in your neck under the cap from his ... I always speculated why he had to wear a uniform when nobody else did. It seemed so banal and starchy, for such a go-ahead group of cro-magnons. Surely Lawrence wasn’t the only one they wanted to keep aware of his place in the scheme of things ? (They would have been right though, seeing that I turned him). Out here, profanity of profanities, I believe my Cup Final playmate might have inadvertently tipped me to it. He explained why the goalkeeper was in a different, (displeasingly garish) colour to the rest of the team. Could it be that Damon always required some lodestar to orient himself back to the bullet-proof car if the shit hit the fan ? But no, now I appreciate it’s something far more humdrum than that. A queer bloke’s hackneyed fantasy, to see his cockshy done up in a uniform. Lamb dressed up as mutton.