Chapter 6: A Christmas Story

The flight back to the UK was uneventful, other than that Harry Ledbetter wasn't on board the plane. Captain Miles Shepard had turned up at the airport with my leave pass and my movement orders, and informed me that Harry was doing the rounds of the embassies, talking to military and political attachés about the Somalia situation. Harry was going to stay in Nairobi over the Christmas period, in case any other developments occurred in Somalia.

I hoped he managed to evade the clutches of She Who Must be Obeyed, who would not be in the best of moods after being rebuffed by yours truly.

My movement orders were as follows: Acting Sergeant D.P Desmond will depart Kenya at 1400 hrs. 23–12–92, and will revert to the rank of Rifleman on arrival in the UK. Rifleman D.P Desmond is granted leave until 0800 hrs. on 27–12–92.He will report to Training Team Kilo at Kirkee barracks Colchester no later than 1200 27–12–92.

After handing over my instructions Bo Shepard held out his hand.

"Harry sends his apologies; it all blew up too late to contact you this morning. Safe journey, Dave. It has been a pleasure to meet you."

"Same goes for me, Bo." We shook hands, and it wasn't until the flight was half way home that I remembered that Harry had shaken my hand the night before. He must have known he wouldn't be seeing me at the airport the next day.

I got to Plaistow in the early evening, and found that my mother had a new bloke – nothing new there then – and that Miriam was in Spain. She was spending the Christmas and the New Year with relatives; her mother's family from Birmingham, in a villa owned by that scum bag brother of hers.

"Didn't she get my letter?" I asked my mother. I was fuming; if Bo Shepard had cocked up and hadn't posted my letter I would go back to Nairobi and pull his fucking head off.

"Yes, she got your letter, but she couldn't cancel the arrangements. The flight was booked and paid for, besides which she needed a n'olidy. She 'as been working up to twelve hours a day; you don't begrudge the girl 'aving a n'oliday do yer?"

"She could have bloody wrote and said. She knew how important it was that we spent Christmas together. I can't believe she threw the future of our marriage in the shit for the sake of a few quid." I was winding myself up into the sort of rage that only Miriam can induce into me.

I was that incensed that if she had been stood in front of me I would have given her a slap – don't be so bloody stupid Dewey, if she had been here you wouldn't be in such a two and eight. Sodding hell, I must be doolally; I turned down a shag from She Who Must Be Obeyed for fuck all.

"She did write, you must 'ave left before the letter arrived. Anyway she's not 'ere, an' me an' Vivian are going away for Christmas." My mother said trenchantly.

"Vivienne? Who the fuck is Vivienne – you've not started to shag birds as well have you?"

"Don't you dare use such language, David Desmond. An' don't be so bloody rude. Vivian is a bloke's name as well as a girl's. As it 'appens 'e's very manly; you'll meet 'im later on. 'E's staying over tonight as we're leaving early next morning."

I didn't meet Vivian that night because I went down the pub and got rat faced, but I heard him and my mother going at it like demented weasels all sodding night – bloody disgusting, acting like that at their age. I heard the headboard of my mother's bed banging against the wall for hours, until I fell into an exhausted sleep.

When I got up next day they'd gone. My mother had left a note, which basically told me that I would have to fend for myself over the festering season as they were away until New Year's Eve.

Merry bloody Christmas, Dewey.

It was the sound of bells that woke me – no wonder Quasimodo got the hump with all the sodding noise they make. Given me a blinding headache they had. The bells eventually stopped, but my head continued pounding, and I realised it was more than just bells that had induced it. My mouth felt like the inside of a Turkish wrestler's jock strap, and I ached in every muscle and joint I possessed.

At first I thought myself in bed at Plaistow, but my room – or rather the large cupboard –at home, to where I had been banished, didn't have a bow window, nor a king size bed. This room had both. Where the fuck was I? How the fuck did I get here? And who the fuck is the black girl in bed with me?

I would have asked her that last question but she was sound asleep, and looked like the sort who would not take too kindly to be rudely awakened. Anyway I was busting for a piss so I got out the bed –nearly fell over arse over tit when doing so – and looked for some clothes to put on. Clothing was strewn all over the floor, most of it tarty, Ann Summers type, sexy underwear, which I supposed belonged to the girl in the bed, but in the state I was in I wouldn't bet on it.

I finally unearthed what looked to be my trousers – I checked, and it was my wallet in the back pocket, but I couldn't find the expensive shreddies – Emporio Armani – that Ffion Probert had bought for my birthday. There was a pair of gents Y fronts, and a pair of M&S knickers, thrown in a corner, and in another corner were a gent and a lady, who I assumed belonged to the underwear. They were intertwined, wrapped in a duvet on top of a mattress on the floor. In fact, although I didn't look too closely, I think they were joined, if not at the hip then certainly at the groin.

I opened the bedroom door and looked around for bog. There were several doors along a short corridor; none of the doors had numbers so it didn't look as if I was booked into some sleazy shagging hotel. Maybe I was in a knocking shop? The carpet was quite expensive looking, and the general décor indicated that I could be in a high-class brothel.

I found a very palatial bathroom, with a pedestal, a bidet and a walk-in shower. I emptied my bladder and then decided to take a shower. Until now I hadn't put any lights on, as I didn't think my head could stand the noise of the switch engaging, but the pull switch in the bathroom seemed a better bet. By the state of my body, when I saw myself in the mirror, it looked like I'd been mauled by a tiger.

Love bites and teeth marks were all over my neck and chest, and even on my thighs. There was lipstick smeared all over my prick, with a couple of love bites on my bollocks as well. My back was scored with nail marks, which I discovered when under the shower – newly acquired scratches don't half sting under high pressure water. I slowly came back to life; my head stopped its persistent pounding and merely thumped, although my eyes still looked like piss holes in the snow.

I went back to 'my' room, opening several wrong doors on the way back as I hadn't remembered which room I had come out from. There were more bodies in beds, more discarded undergarments, and in fact one room there were no beds, but just sofas and cushions, with bodies, some still writhing together, on them. It looked like a set from 'Caligula'.

I finally reached the room, and picked up other items of my clothing, except for the expensive, missing, shreddies. I got dressed, minus my undergarments, and made my way down the stairs.

There was an aroma of fresh coffee coming from what I took to be the kitchen, which I entered, and saw a young girl sitting at a large farmhouse type table. She looked up, and then put down the mug she was drinking from.

"Hello Des. Merry Christmas." She got from her chair and came and kissed me.

A soft warm kiss, on my lips, and I could taste peppermint toothpaste and Mocha. She was young, about twenty, and must have just come from the shower as she smelled fresh and clean. Her fair hair was tied back in a ponytail and she had the unblemished, cosmetic free, look of a school girl. She was of slight build but well-formed, and wore a short pleated skirt and a polo necked jumper. She looked wholesome and pure, and I wondered what she was doing in this brothel.

"I'll get you some coffee; you look hung over – not surprising, considering what you put away last night." Her voice had no accent that I could place, but sounded well educated. I tried to remember where I had seen her; the voice was familiar but not the face. She handed me a cup of hot sweet coffee, and I gratefully sipped the life-reviving brew.

"Err – this may sound rude – but do I know you?" I was a bit embarrassed to ask; she obviously knew me, so how come I couldn't remember her?

She pouted, but I saw her eyes smile. "You certainly do know me, especially in the Biblical sense. I'm devastated that you don't remember what we did last night."

I shook my head. "I can't remember a damn thing, except returning home from Kenya, and going down the pub."

"I thought you must have been on something last night – you certainly had an over abundance of stamina, which in my experience is usually due to chemical enhancement."

Oh, bloody marvellous – that's all I need, to have done drugs. We get tested at regular, but unspecified, intervals in the Army, and if any traces of banned substances are found you are out on your ear.

"Try to remember what you can; as you go through the memories you may get full recall. To start you off my name is Julia – does that ring any bells?"

It didn't, but I started with what I remembered, and tried to get past that.

"I went down the pub yesterday at lunch time – there was sod all to eat in the house – and I had a pie and a pint."

Julia nodded. "Yesterday was Christmas Eve; can you remember the name of the pub?"

"It was the mucky duck, or the Black Swan to give it proper name. I met Baz Butcher up at the bar and agreed to meet him in the same pub that evening."

Baz had been one of the street beaters in the gang I ran with before I joined the army. He was the archetypical Cockney, although like me he had been born in Plaistow. He looked like the Artful Dodger, and had spent his whole life ducking and diving, and wheeling and dealing. He had a barrow down Petticoat Lane, and could get you anything you wanted from 'a geezer I know'. He dabbled in drugs, pimped a couple of working girls, and fenced a bit of dodgy tomfoolery - jewelry. He had never had his collar felt -arrested- and had never done any porridge - time in jail.

"What can you remember from that evening?" Julia prompted me again.

"When I met Baz he had a couple of right scrubbers with him; tattoos all over their bodies, and metal all over their boats ... err ... faces – Baz likes bikers' slags, his wife is as rough as a bear's arse. One of the slags, Cheryl, was trying to get into my shreddies all bloody evening. We spent some time in the mucky duck, with me fending off Cheryl the Peril, then a bunch of us went on to Lorenzo's."

Lorenzo's was down by the river, in what had been a real rough part of Plaistow. Of course all the back-to-back houses, and the drinking dens, had gone. Where Lorenzo's now stands used to be a pub called the Sailor's Return, a real dive, full of low life gangsters and poxed up whores. Now it is filled with yuppie merchant bankers and their posh tarts. Plus ça change...

"I remember going into Lorenzo's, but then it starts to get hazy. There was a red headed girl, no, she was an older woman, sexy with it, and she came onto me. I seem to remember us kissing."

In fact it was full on shagging, in the ladies bog. One minute I was sat at the bar, and the next thing I knew I was fucking like a jack rabbit with a very fit red head; my trousers round my ankles and her legs around my waist.

After that I recollect being in a car with her, and some other women, and having my prick well and truly gobbled.

"Can you remember anything else?"

"We left Lorenzo's, well I left Lorenzo's, I don't remember if Baz and the two Ugly Slappers were with me, and went to another pub. There was this tarty piece there, and I seem to remember a snooker table."

Julia laughed delightedly. "That was me! The pub was The World Turned Upside Down, and you came in with Louise, Louise Tyndall. She had been on a treasure hunt to find guests for the party, or rather the sex orgy, she throws at Christmas; she must have picked you up in Lorenzo's, liked what she saw, and carried you off. This is her house; I live just around the corner."

"But you're not a tarty piece, you're very sweet and demure, nothing like the girl I met yesterday."

"I had been to a Vicars and Tarts Dance. All the vicars were tarts, and all the tarts were vicars. I was done up with mascara, garish lipstick, skirt up around my bum, black stockings and suspenders, and my boobs hanging out of my blouse. Even my mother wouldn't have recognised me."

"Did we... ?"

"We certainly did!"

"Was it on the snooker table in the pub?"

"No, our first ... umm ... assignation was over the bonnet of Louise's car in the pub car park; very cold, and very hot at the same time. The snooker table that you remember is here, down stairs in the besement."

She smiled sweetly. "You have a very impressive cueing technique; you potted my pink at least four times, and you also potted my brown twice."

"What about reds?"

"That was after you had potted my pink so many times."

She got up, took her mug over to the sink and washed it out. "Look Des, I have to go to work, but maybe we can hook up later today? I shall come back to Louise's house after work, it's practically my second home. I even keep my own personal coffee mug here."

"Where do you work? There's nowhere open on Christmas Day, other than Mr Patel's corner shop, and churches of course."

"The Church of St Stephen of the Sepulchre."

I suddenly remembered that she had said something about vicars and tarts.

"Bugger me! Have I been shagging a Vicar?"

She laughed loudly. "Good gracious no. I'm the assistant organist at St Stephen's, and it's my turn to play the organ this Christmas. I'm very good at handling organs."

I suddenly had a flash back of eager hands and mouths working on my organ, and smiled. She saw the smile and said. "You seemed to have remembered some of the stuff we did last night, but I'll fill you in with the rest."

She grinned. "In return I hope you will fill me in later. The black girl you woke up with is Kate; Crazy Kate we call her. Any teeth marks on your body are due to her."

"I thought we spent all night on a snooker table. How come I woke up in a bed with Crazy Kate?"

"Kate and I share everything, and we shared you in the bed. In fact I only left that bed half an hour before you did. Most of your potting was carried out in bed, including several blacks, much to Kate's delight, hence the teeth marks. Most of the love bites I gave you, although, if you have any on your testicles, they will be from Louise. She joined in for a time, and she loves tea bagging." "What about the scratch marks on my back, did she do those as well."

Julia looked a bit apologetic "No, I'm afraid that was me. I did a couple of lines last night, and it always makes me exceptionally vigorous and passionate, especially when being bonked by an expert like you."