Chapter 1

“Life is shit, and then you die” That’s what my Granda used to say, he wasn’t so much a pessimist as a realist, he had fought in WW2 and seen a lot of stuff he didn’t talk about. But his nightmares told a story. His philosophy was ‘if you don’t expect anything good, then you won’t be disappointed’. His son, my dad, was embarrassed by his robust turn of phrase on occasion. It did me and my brother good to see Dad being embarrassed.

Granda would watch Top of The Pops and comment about the bloody stupid singers. Oddly, he liked David Bowie “Fuckin’ weirdo, but he’s got talent” was his succinct verdict. He would have improved Britain’s Got Talent, or X-Factor with comments like that. I loved Granda. He died though, when I was ten. Even that was an education. Adults being upset. Dad, who had never got on well with Granda, was devastated. As Granda said to me - about my Nan, who had died before I was born - “We all die sometime, why does it surprise people?”. But that misses the point doesn’t it? It isn’t that it surprises people; what surprises them is the hole that is left; the void that used to be filled by a personality, a life, a person. Granda was a personality, I still miss him; a man who came through world wars and saw death in all its horrible glory, and still took time to put an arm round me when my guinea pig died.

None of this is relevant to the story, except “Life is shit”. It was that kind of day. I was away, school was over, hoping for university. I was walking along the west Wales coast, alone. I wasn’t gregarious. I’d rung home, as a dutiful son. Mum had said I had to ring every night and, of course, once you start doing that, you have to carry on else she will think I’ve fallen over the cliff. She was a nosey cow (IS a nosey cow, just I cope better now); my letter about exam results had arrived and, she had opened it! It was addressed to me! Bad news, not 3 ‘A’s, not even one ‘A’; a C and two Ds. Good enough to get into fourth choice: Mid-Thruxton Poly. It would have been better to fail and retake for a proper university. Instead I was doomed from now on to have a mediocre/crap degree from a mediocre/crap place and have a mediocre/crap job as a result. The worst of it was Mum couldn’t see the problem, she was all “Well done” and “Aren’t you clever?”. I mean I tried to explain, but she wasn’t having it. She was keen to get me out of the way, I’m sure I’m adopted; she’s never loved me as much as Steve, my brother. And the very, very, worst of it was I was sure Tracey would pass with flying colours, she always did, and would go to Posh College, Oxford and meet Tristram Fucking-No-Chin and he’d be up her arse in no time and she be living in somewhere middle class like Ealing and have three little Tristrams before she was twenty two ... and I fucking loved Tracey! And the very, very, very worst of it was, she just liked me and only let me put my hands down her pants once, and hadn’t let me do it again! Okay, I was feeling sorry for myself. I mean having your hand down Tracey’s knickers once was one more than most of the geeks, freeks and no-hopers that seemed to make up our year could possibly hope for except in their little masturbatory dreams alone in their rooms.

I was pissed off with this walking trip, but if I went back I’d face the Gestapo asking “Didn’t you like it? Got tired? Couldn’t understand the Welsh? Homesick?” on and on and fucking on! And the forecast was rain! And I had a blister! I mean it’s not like that guy who had his face burned off in the Falklands, but it bloody hurt! Yeah, life is shit, and then you die.

I was just saying this to myself – out loud – for the third time as I rounded a low point on some cliffs above a sandy beach. A girl, no, two, no ... four! Sunbathing on the grass. “Sorry? Were you talking to us?” one said as she looked up. She remembered, just in time (for her, just too early for me), that her bra was unclipped at the back to avoid a tan line.

“Oh, no, sorry, talking to myself”

“First sign of madn-”

“Madness, yeah, I know. I think I’m on about the third sign by now” I smiled back

“Are you staying near here? It’s so boring, it would be nice to talk to someone new...” said Pale Blue Bikini girl. She had clipped her bra back and sat up. The others did the same. I wondered if they thought the mere act of unclipping the strap was enough to make me have naughty ideas about them. If they did think that, then they were as shallow as I was, since I was actually thinking how little separated me from seeing their lovely breasts

“Well, I’m just passing through. I’m on a walking tour. But can I sit here and eat my sandwiches? Why boring?”

“We’re here with our grandparents, we’re cousins, well, sisters and cousins; and the idea is to get us to know each other more. Which is nice, and we like each other, and we get on well, and we all agree, that West Wales is boring.

I suppose I sound like an ungrateful old sourpuss”

She looked at me with big, fluttery eyes. She was clearly used to doing this to get her way with any male she came across. It was working on me. “Not really, I suppose you want the bright lights of Blackpool?”

“London more like; the nearest thing to entertainment here is the social they took us to last week. Us four reduced the average age to about a hundred and three I should think. Before that it had been a hundred and fifty. Some of them really did know Lloyd George!” The song was ‘Lloyd George knew my father’ but I didn’t interrupt, I was too busy not looking at the hint of a crack at the top of Yellow Bikini’s bikini bottom. Actually less of a hint and more of a clear and inviting cave between her two little hillocks. I missed Tracey, but more, I missed sticking my tongue down Tracey’s throat and pawing her tits (outside clothing) and jacking off to the thought of what was down the trousers I wasn’t allowed to undo. I was missing sex with myself! If you stay in six room dormitories in YHAs, you can’t be seen to be stroking that particular puppy.

We sat and talked; I offered to share my peanut butter and beetroot sandwiches; which they politely declined, though without the grimace I usually got. As we talked, it clouded over, got darker and generally returned to traditional Welsh weather. It was going to rain.

“Time to go, I think” I said, I had another ten miles to the next YHA. The four girls had a five minute walk (ten at most) back to their grandparents house. It began to spit with rain.

“Come and stay with us, at least come down and wait for it to stop raining.” said Orange Bikini. Orange had clearly defined nipples and a low cut bra which gave her a very attractive cleavage. I looked away before she saw me staring.

“Yes, Gran won’t mind, she’s cool.” My general impression is that cool parents and grandparents are often less cool if you bring back a stray with you, but it was raining, and I was willing to let my hormones do the choosing – a cold walk in the rain for two hours, or a walk down the hill to a dry house with four pretty girls? No real contest, even if the bottom of the hill contained a dragon or two. It might stop raining whilst I waited?

We walked down the hill, away from the coast, into a valley. A road curled along the valley towards us, and ended as a tarmac road about a mile away, turning into a track from there. Just before the track became two ruts in a grassy field, a large house was located, surrounded by trees. A large dog ran out and up towards us, barking furiously “Oh, don’t worry about Johnny, his bark is worse than his bite” said White Bikini (I still didn’t even know their names), my worry was that even if his bite was 50% of his bark, it looked like it could tear off my leg for a snack. He ran to each girl, then to me, stopped and sniffed my hand, then my groin, then my bag. Then he started snuffling at my bag again. I had an inspiration, took out a peanut butter and beetroot sandwich and offered it to him. He wolfed it down, and was my friend for life!