Chapter 7: Bereavement

On the morning of the 27th October I had a message to report to battalion HQ. On my arrival I was met by the news that Miriam's parents had been killed in a road accident the evening before. My travel documentation and air tickets were waiting and I left within the hour, and was in Plaistow by 4pm that same day. When it comes to welfare and families our regiment is the best.

I found Miriam absolutely devastated. I hadn't thought that she was that close to her parents, even though she had previously cited them as reason for not joining me on camp in the past. Naturally, she was shocked by their deaths, but I had never seen her so distraught and out of control. She wept buckets of tears and clung to me, shivering and shaking, practically incoherent with grief and despair, and I had to get the details of the accident from the next door neighbours.

It seems that the Hodges were travelling towards Birmingham in a self-drive hire car when it went out of control. It had left the road at high speed and smashed into a tree, killing the occupants instantly. Mr Hodge was a careful sort of bloke and I couldn't imagine him speeding or doing anything unlawful like drinking and driving.

For the next few days I was up to my eyes in arranging the funeral and such like. Martin Hodge, the odious brother, had turned up but spent most of the time closeted with his sister, who was by now a complete wreck and was swallowing handfuls of Valium. I tried to talk her out of taking so many pills, but she looked at me with dull glazed eyes as if I were a stranger. At the funeral service I had to hold her upright, and I more or less carried her from church to crematorium, and then back to the house for the 'wake'.

After all the guests had left I suggested to Miriam she should stay at my mother's but she just shook her head. She went up to bed and I joined her a few minutes later. I cuddled up to her to give her comfort. I wasn't expecting any shagging or anything; I'm not a complete bastard. As I snuggled up behind her she sat up, and in a voice I'd never heard her use before shouted,

"Get out of my bed, you bastard, it's your fault that they're dead!"

I was astonished, both by what she said and by the hate and vehemence in the voice she had used to say it. I knew it would be a waste of time to try talking to her, so I got out of bed and went downstairs and slept in an armchair in the sitting room. Occasionally I would creep up to the bedroom to see how she was; most of the time she was tossing and turning and sobbing fit to bust. As for the 'loving' son – well, he went down the pub after the wake and came in past midnight, smelling of booze and pussy juice. He ignored me and went up to his room.

Miriam was a bit more with it in the morning. I didn't mention what she had said the night before, I passed it off as a distressed daughter full of Valium talking bollocks. She agreed to spend the rest of the time of my leave with me at my mother's, and that night we made love.

Well, no, it wasn't love making; it was just Miriam fucking me. She climbed onto my semi erect prick, didn't even give it a sucking or a stroking, but just stuck me into her gash and proceeded to pump up and down on me. It was like the first time we had done it. I was just a piece of fuck meat that she used until she came; then she fell off me and went to sleep. No kissing, no endearments, no sounds of enjoyment, no nothing.

She fucked me again the next night, or at least she started to, but when I said that we should have some kissing and fore play she said,

"Suit yourself. It's either my way or no way."

I said I'd rather go without than have what was on offer, and she said,