Chapter 24: Emotion and promotion

Over the following months I got into a steady, but enjoyable, routine of doing my army duties, my academic work, and shagging Debbie. I kept out of trouble, visited Plaistow rarely, and generally kept my head down. Things changed in the November of 1997.

Company Sergeant Major (CSM) Bly shouted out from his office window as I was walking past Alpha Company HQ on my way to the cook house.

"Dewey! Get your arse over to the Adjutant's office at Battalion HQ, jildi!"

'Bounty' Bly was an army brat from way back and still used the same Hindi/Urdu terms and expressions that his father, who had also been a CSM, had used. I knew there was no point in asking why I was being summoned so I just replied.

"Right away, Sarn't Major." Then, under my breath, whispered 'aye aye, Cap'n'.

The battalion clerk, a very comely blonde female Sergeant, gave me a small smile as I entered the Orderly Room.

"Go straight to the Adjutant's Office, Corporal, he's expecting you."

I wondered what the hell I had done to get immediate access to the Adjutant. Most disciplinary offences were dealt with at company level and, as far as I knew, I'd not done anything to deserve the heavyweights of the battalion to come down on me. I knocked, and entered at the 'Come in' from inside. The Adjutant was Bunny Burroughs, who had been my platoon commander years ago, and sat next to him was the Padre. It was always bad news when the God Botherer was called in.

"Sit down, Dewey. I'm afraid there's no easy way to say this." Bunny cleared his throat. "It is my sad duty to inform you that your mother was found dead earlier this morning." He looked at me sympathetically. "Your wife contacted the regiment about midday, it seems your mother must have fallen down the stairs, knocked herself unconcious, and then succumbed to hypothermia. Your wife had been away at a seminar, and found your mother at the foot of the stairs when she arrived home this morning."

Both Bunny and the Padre expressed their condolences. The Padre had already got in touch with All Saints, West Ham Parish church, not that my mother had been there more than twice. Once when she got married and then again when my father was buried.

"Sergeant Lunn will have your travel and leave documents ready in the Orderly Room. You've been granted seven days compassionate leave, and if you need an extension then let Sergeant Lunn know. I am very sorry for your loss, Dewey, but your wife will need a lot of TLC, after coming home to find the bo ... your mother."

Sergeant Lunn, whose regimental name was Sally, but most of us called her 'Goldilocks' – and she could have slept in my bed and guzzled my porridge any time – had my documents ready.

"I'm sorry to hear about your mother, Dewey," she said as she handed over my papers. It might have been my imagination, but her fingers seemed to linger on mine for some time. I had never really thought of Sally Lunn as a likely shag partner; Debs supplied me with more than enough sex, and anyway relationships between squaddies, and females attached to the regiment, were frowned upon, and in fact with any females on the camp, but of course boys will be boys and girls will be girls.

"Thank you Go ... Sally." I took the envelope from her and she definitely gave my hand a squeeze – maybe it was her way of showing her support in my hour of need?

Debs was on the same train as me on the way up to London. This was not unusual, as over the time that we had been shag partners we both made separate, periodic, trips up to London.

I suppose I should explain the relationship between Ms Deborah Carter and myself? We were shag partners, but not shacked up together. Debs was quite up front about our status, after that first meeting in the college canteen. She had several other lovers, or shagging partners as she called them. I was just another, but as I was so close geographically, and met her in the college every Tuesday evening, I was probably getting more than my fair share of Debbie's tasty twat.

Sometimes I would stay over at hers after my Friday evening class, unless she was off with one of her other shag partners. Quite often I would spend the whole weekend with her, not just for the shagging, although I will admit we did plenty of that, but also going out as a couple, for meals or to the cinema, and occasionally we would spend a day up in London. Debs was good company; she had a great sense of humour and, as her degree told you, was a very intelligent young woman. She gave all the credit for her success in life to Wurzel/Alan, for getting her off the dope, the booze, and the fucking of all and sundry behaviour she was into as a young teenager. Although Wurzel had only been concerned with weaning Mandy away from that same dissolute lifestyle he had allowed Debbie to come over and do her homework with Mandy, and gradually the two of them had turned their backs on drugs, drink, and the unrestrained shagging. They both went to university; Mandy was now doing post graduate research at Oxford, while Debs had graduated a year ago and was now getting some experience in the National Health Service (NHS) before going into private practise.

You may be surprised that Debs would want me as one of her shag partners?

I was almost ten years older, and had nothing like her intelligence or intellect, nor lived the type of lifestyle that would normally attract such a trendy, modern, sexy young woman. It was certainly puzzling that she had taken up with me, but when I heard her explanation I was dead chuffed.

"You, Des, was the first man I had real, orgasmic, sex with. I used to fuck anything when Mands and I went clubbing, but I never remembered what it was like or who it was with. When I came off the booze and drugs I only seemed to meet boys who just fucked me without giving me any real pleasure. At Mandy's wedding you made me come - violently and explosively - and I realised then what it was that I had been missing. Since that time I only fuck men who look like they have the experience and skill to bring a girl to orgasm, although very few have made me climax so powerfully as you did that afternoon. I always compare the men I fuck with you, and few have come anywhere near you."

Music to my ears, and bags of confidence added to my self esteem.

When she had been at university in London she had met a cosmetic surgeon with a private practise in Harley Street. She became his mistress, or as she described it, 'his academic shag bunny'. He was still her lover – one of them – and Debbie was in the process of working her way into the firm of which he was a partner. It was an international beautician business, with cosmetic surgery, liposuction, breast enhancement, dietician advice, and all the other ingredients that keep rich women young and beautiful, and the owners of such businesses rich. Debs had a very clear view of what she wanted in life, and being the manager of a beauty and fitness clinic was her first target. Her cosmetic surgeon lover, Gerald, had introduced her to the other members of the board of directors, and they were impressed with her qualifications, but had advised her that she would need some business administration skills to become a manager. She was part way through a two year diploma course in Business Administration at Salisbury College, and kept her hand in, with the dietician advice, management training, and her lover's dick, at Gerald's Harley Street clinic a few days a month.

Thus we would often be on the same train on our separate ways to London; she to meet up with Gerald, and I to visit my mother and Miriam. My visits to Plaistow were fleeting and brief, and I usually only stayed one night, sleeping in the spare bedroom. My mother made plain what she thought of Miriam's and my sleeping arrangements.

"Bloody stupid! A married couple sleeping in separate beds an' rooms. You want yer 'eads read – or more like bashed together, to knock some sense into you both!"

Miriam and I said nothing. It was still too early from the last break up to move on from the formal politeness, that we were currently engaged in, to a full sexual relationship. From past experience it would be another six months or more before that phase was even considered.

Meantime, I had Debs to give me all the loving, well, all the sexual activity, required to keep me sane. She would stay in London at the Hilton – nothing but the best for Gerald's shag bunny - as Gerald had a wife, and a large house, in the stockbroker belt of Surrey. He could only manage one night between Debs thighs, and I would occupy that nexus of pleasure the other nights she spent at the Hilton. I have to admit that this taste of luxurious living, which I had only experienced, infrequently, as a gigolo - I mean as an escort - was enhanced when coupled – coupling – with a very attractive and athletic shag partner, rather than with an ageing granny type.

Debs was very sorry to hear of my mother's death. In fact she and I had experienced a similar upbringing. Both of us had absent fathers and alcoholic mothers, and we had both ran wild as youngsters before being given a chance to get out from that sort of life. Her mother was an out an out dipso', but no one could ever refer to my mother as that. In fact my mother very rarely appeared drunk – falling down drunk that is, which is why I wondered how she came to fall down the stairs. She may have been well above the limit, but she very rarely lost control.

"She could have just slipped on the stair carpet." Debs said. "Lots of completely sober people fall down stairs, especially old folk. How old was your mother?"

You know, I didn't really know how old she was. Her birthday was June the sixth, but she never had any birthday cards with the age on them. I worked it out and realised she must have been at least sixty five, which was in the same age group that I had been shagging in Reading – that pulled me up short, I can tell you. Did I have an incipient Oedipus complex?

At Waterloo station Debs hugged me before we went our separate ways.

"I'm going to be working at Gerald's clinic for the week, and staying in a suite at the Hilton. Gerald will only be staying tonight, and I would love it if you could stay the rest of the week with me."

It was a wonderful offer; Debbie offered life, and exquisite sexual pleasure. Plaistow offered me a lifeless mother and a loveless wife, but duty called me to the latter. Sadly, I shook my head. "I'm sorry Debs, but I will have to spend the week in Plaistow."

She smiled and gave me a sweet kiss. "Well, if you change your mind you know where I am."

She walked over to the taxi rank, and as I watched her pony tail of dark hair and her pleated, plaid skirt swinging in time with the sway her hips, I remembered what Professor Seymour Nicholls had said, way back when I had started dating Pippa Goddard. 'Duty is a hard master' – bloody right!

Miriam was pale and distressed, but under control, when I got home. In fact the Oldcastles, the next door neighbours, who had only arrived back that day from a trip to see Blackpool Illuminations, were in a worse state of shock. Miriam had been away at a team building exercise in Wales. She had left on Monday morning, and returned this morning (Friday), to find my mother's body at the bottom of the stairs. It must have been a terrible sight for Miriam to walk in on, and I marvelled that she was so collected.

The coroner estimated that my mother had died two nights previously. It had been a bitter cold November, and the night time temperature had fallen well below freezing since the beginning of the month. He was satisfied that her death was due to her slipping on the stair carpet, falling down the stairs and knocking herself unconscious, and then dying of hypothermia. The bruising on her face and arms was typical of those sustained during a fall. The police hadn't been called in, and the body could be released from the morgue as soon as a funeral director had been engaged.

Miriam insisted that she accompany me in doing all the legal stuff – visiting the registrar and the undertaker; then arranging the order of service with the Vicar of All Saint's. Miriam only passed on viewing 'the deceased' at the undertakers, and stayed in the funeral director's office while I went into the Chapel of Rest.

My mother was in an open coffin, dressed in her favourite summer dress and looking like a million dollars. In death her face had a serenity that I hadn't noticed during her life, and it came as something of a jolt of surprise when I realised that she had been a very attractive woman. I know that the undertakers had done their stuff, with cosmetics and paint and powder, but my mother had scarcely a wrinkle on her face, except around the eyes, and they looked more like laughter lines rather than the crow's feet of ageing.

This was the first time I had ever looked at her as a person - as a woman - and not just as my mother, someone always there in the background. Well, now she was in the foreground, and I felt waves of shame and self reproach wash over me as I remembered how I had disparaged her cooking, her drinking, and her casual affairs with the many 'uncles'.

We used the undertakers from the Co-operative Society; practically everyone in the borough got buried/cremated by the Co-op. My mother had paid so much a week into the funeral fund over many years, and had even chosen her hymns, and all that stuff – I hadn't realised she was so organised. She wanted her ashes scattered on the pitch at Upton Park, as she had been a lifelong supporter of West Ham United, and I know that most, if not all, of my 'uncles' had been 'Irons' – my mother had high standards when it came to men.

I found that my mother was held in high regard by many of the inhabitants of Plaistow and West Ham, and not just by the menfolk. I know it is customary to praise the dear departed, even if you couldn't stand the sight of them during their life, but I got the impression that the feelings expressed were genuine.

My mother's Christian name was Sonia, although many people referred to her by a nickname – Dee Dee – which I dimly remembered some of my 'uncles' using when addressing her.

It was Doris Oldcastle who explained the reason for the name. "Me an' yer mum worked in the parachute factory, in 'Enderson Road it was, when we left school at fourteen. It was on June the sixth, nineteen forty four, an' me an' your mum 'ad been working there two months, when it come over the Tannoy that the allies 'ad landed in Normandy. 'Today is D Day, the sixth of June, ' the man on the wireless said, an' yer mum pipes up, 'it's me birfday today'. All the other women come round and congratulated 'er, an' started to call 'er 'D Day', which soon become Dee Dee."

The funeral service was held at All Saints, the parish church. Her coffin was brought in on the shoulders of six strapping blokes, all from West Ham United Supporters Club; I had given a donation to the club, but I knew they would have done it anyway. The wreath was in the team's colours of claret and blue, with 'RIP Dee Dee' written in white carnations. Miriam started sobbing quietly, and I had a lump in my throat. After the church service the cortège drove to Plaistow Crematorium, and as the curtains drew across, hiding the coffin before it went into the incinerator; Miriam buried her face in my chest and wept. By the time we got to the Black Swan, where the wake was being held, she had recovered her composure, and both of us did the circulating and the handshaking, and I heard more tales of my mother, and had ladies of a certain age hugging and kissing me, and weeping over me. Eventually all the guests went home, and Miriam and I went wearily back to the house.