Chapter 46

The six of us, still in our three couples, dozed on the pile of quilts for a little longer; the frenzied release of our pent-up sexual desires during our pre-lunch frenzy, followed by the emotional and physical comfort of our more recent love-making, all combining to make us all feel content and satisfied. I think languid is the technical term! I could have stayed there for ever.

And, I have to admit it, I had a huge sense of relief that we had successfully got Hamish to join our group, so that there would be no more need to conceal from him what we were doing. I had been worrying about it on and off, and finding out that he would in fact be an enthusiastic participant certainly took a weight off my mind.

He also had a lot to contribute to our discoveries; I suddenly remembered something that Hamish had found out about, and that my sister and I had discussed at Easter.

"Jen, did you talk to Julie and Sheila about the Kegel exercises?"

"Blast! Sorry, big brother, I forgot!"

"Never mind, we can do it another time."

"What on earth are you two talking about?"

"Apparently some American bloke called Kegel worked out that you can strengthen certain internal muscles to have better control over when you pee, and a side effect is that you can then consciously move your vaginal muscles when you are making love. I'm trying to do the exercises, so that I will be able to give Hamish a very special massage when he's inside me!"

"And I'm doing similar exercises, so that I can control my ejaculation better, and give Jen even more pleasure!"

Sheila and Adrian were immediately interested. Being the owners and keepers of the copy of the now much-read 'The Joy of Sex', they felt that they should be the experts about any discoveries that any of us made about how to further improve our sexual pleasures.

"There's something about that in 'Joy of Sex', but we haven't got around to trying it. Does it work?"

"Too early to tell yet; I can certainly make Hamish know that I'm squeezing him, but from what he's heard, I should be able to milk him without actually moving our bodies, and I'm nowhere near being able to do that!"

"Sounds like a good idea! Let us know how you get on!"

We chatted a little more, and then Sheila kissed her twin, climbed off him and headed for the bathroom to clean herself up. The other two followed her, and we three men threw on some clothes and put the kettle on.

The lunch dishes washed up, and yet another pot of tea emptied, we thought that Jen and Hamish had better return to his home to spend some time with his parents.

As we all got fully dressed, Adrian and I thanked Hamish for his understanding, and for teaching us all the pinching-off technique, and Julie and Sheila gave both him and Jen very passionate kisses as they left the flat.

Julie opened a front window to wave to them from the balcony - it was a great idea because it also helped blow out the smell of sex from the living room. I nipped into the bedrooms and pushed up the lower sashes to get a breeze through.

Adrian and I picked up the quilts and towels and tidied the flat, while the girls went over the cooking to check that they hadn't forgotten anything for their dinner party.

We had rather a narrow escape with the coffee - as Adrian was getting his grandmother's old electric percolator down from the top of the cupboard, he suddenly realised that they hadn't actually got any coffee to be percolated.

With only minutes to spare before the food shops Saturday closing time of two o'clock, he dashed out to get a tin of Lyons' ready ground coffee from the grocer. He came back triumphant, still panting a little from running all the way to the shops, and showed it to Sheila.

"Right, Twin, we'd better start drinking coffee again - there's enough in this tin to keep us going for months!"

"Oh well, Mum will be happy next time she comes that she can have the proper stuff - she was very rude about that jar of instant coffee you bought, she said that she'd had better using the Camp Coffee liquid with chicory!"

"She's far too fussy. That's what a mis-spent youth sitting in Kardomah cafes in London does for you!"

The shin of beef required slow cooking at a very low heat for several hours; Sheila coated the chunks of meat in seasoned flour and seared them in a pan first before tipping them into a casserole dish, frying some chopped onion, and pouring the beer over the top.

Then she lit the gas in the oven, turned it as low as she could get it, and threatened us with dire consequences if we turned up the regulo dial.

We sat down and played cards for a while; we felt in no state for a walk, and much as we normally enjoyed making love when we had some time on our hands, the exertions of the last couple of hours ruled that out completely.

None of us played our hands especially skillfully; Sheila was worried about how her dinner party was going to go, and all of us were a little concerned that we wouldn't give away our new relationships to Hamish's parents.

We gave up on cards after a couple of particularly disastrous deals; I managed to deal so badly that I gave everyone a different number of cards, Sheila revoked by wrongly claiming that she couldn't play, and Julie accidentally dropped her cards face up so the hand was voided. Sheila packed the deck away and we just talked.

Adrian reckoned that Catriona Baxter didn't miss much, and her husband wasn't anywhere near as socially unaware as he pretended to be. We agreed with him; they were certainly a lot brighter than they made themselves out to be.

There was one huge relief that we all shared - not only was it now safe to have both Hamish and Julie at my home over Whitsun, but it was clear that there would be no problems from Hamish with the sleeping arrangements over the summer holidays.

There was just the little matter of Vee still to sort out - the twins agreed with our conclusion that her being on her own with us would be almost as bad as not inviting her to work with us over the summer. They knew from her visit to the flat that she would be climbing the walls if she wasn't getting any sex, and the rest of us were.

Sheila asked Julie about the various steps we were taking to try and get Vee matched up with a bloke we could all get on with; but she had no additional suggestions to offer. Adrian suggested a couple of names of their fellow students who were without a girlfriend, but the problems of getting them set up with Vee when they were in a different city seemed insuperable.

"Well, get Sian to phone me, and we'll see if we can think of anything else. Actually, come to think of it, get her to bring Malcolm over for lunch so that we can get to know him better, too!"

We promised to do that. I gave Malcolm another positive character reference, and Adrian told us again how pleased their Aunt and Uncle seemed to be with Sian's choice.

Then it was time to set the table and await our guests.

xxxxxxx

Sheila's first Dinner Party actually went very well indeed.

It was a cosy affair, with eight of us having to fit around a table meant to seat six. The twins' grandmother's six matching dining chairs were along the sides, the reclaimed Windsor chair from the bathroom was at one end, and the person at the other end would have to perch on the arm of one of the armchairs!

We gave everyone a glass of sherry to start with, while Alastair borrowed the twins' corkscrew and opened the bottles of wine he had brought. He had also carried up a basket containing a couple of plates with cheese, some cheese biscuits and a big bunch of celery.

Adrian sat Catriona against the wall in the middle of the table, flanked by he and I, with Jen on the Windsor chair at one end and Sheila at the other. Julie was opposite Catriona, with Hamish and Alastair either side of her. Sheila and Jen were able to do all the work, with Hamish and Adrian carrying as necessary. Sheila was absolutely determined that Catriona was going to just be a guest!

Adrian had arranged the rolled slices of ham on the plates beautifully, and Sheila very quickly cooked the asparagus and split in between the plates, while Jen added a pat of butter to the top of each pile of asparagus.

Mr Waite's advice had been spot on; the Herefordshire asparagus in season was utterly delicious, and we all ate every scrap.

We had a short pause after clearing the starter; after putting the kettle on to boil, Jen and Sheila washed up the small plates and cutlery so they would be available for the cheese course, and then they put the Jersey Royals on to cook.

"Hamish tells us that you've all got a summer job lined up - so we were thinking of taking a few weeks to walk in the Highlands, as long as you promise to keep him safe, and, more importantly, away from my food store cupboard?"

"Mum!"

"Remember my glace cherries and Dad's 'Epicure' tinned cashew nuts, Hamish?"

He had the grace to smile.

"Okay, guilty as charged, but I was a permanently hungry growing lad then!"

"And you haven't changed! At least you can cook yourself something more substantial these days, and not have to go after my delicacies. Sorry, Jon, I was asking about the summer jobs. Are you all going to be working together?"

"Yes, it's the same place where Jen and I had jobs last summer. The manager is a family friend and he's guaranteed us work and a place to live if we promise to do the whole season. The twins' cousin, Sian, is our flat mate, and she and her boyfriend will also be with us. It will be a lot of fun having our friends with us this time; it was all work and no play last year!"

"I can imagine! Jen told us that your Mum had to let you borrow her Mini last year because of the long days and late finishes, so it sounds like it will be better all round if you're living on site."

"I hope so! Mr Johnson seems very keen to have us, so I think it will be properly organised, as well as a chance to earn enough money to see us through the next year."

"Good. We'll miss not seeing Hamish for a few months, but we shan't have to drag him away from Jen when we go up to Scotland for our annual walking holiday."

"Where are you going?'

"Have you heard of the Munros?"

"No, I haven't. Who are they?"

"Actually, they're a what. They're mountain tops. An old boy called Munro made a list of all the Scottish peaks over 3,000 feet in altitude - there are about 280 of them but they're all being checked against modern maps to see if they still qualify - and it's quite fun seeing how many of them we can manage."

"How are you getting on?"

"Ninety-seven, isn't it, dear?"

"I think so, but they might downgrade two of them when they redo the Ordnance Survey maps to 1:50,000 rather than One Inch. They're both a bit close to the 3,000 foot mark, and they may be just under when they redo the triangulation. But at least we enjoyed climbing them anyway!"

"Well, let's hope that you get well into your second hundred this summer!"

Sheila served up the main course, which won genuine praise from all of us, and we continued chatting through the pud. With that cleared away, Adrian put on the coffee percolator while Sheila and Catriona sorted out the cheese and biscuits, and Alastair opened the promised bottle of port and filled eight sherry glasses.

The percolator finally finished its bubbling and hissing, and Sheila asked her guests how they took their coffee.

Catriona's reply was a straightforward 'Black, please.'

Alastair, on the other hand, put on a dreadful fake accent that purported to be from the American Deep South, but failed miserably.

"Ah like mah kawfee like ah like mah wimmin; hot, black, sweet and strong!"

"Alastair!"

"Yes dear?"

"Behave!"

"Me dear? What am I doing wrong? I was just answering Sheila's question!"

"You were being rude and pretentious!"

"Pretentious? Moi?"

We laughed at the old joke. Catriona rolled her eyes and addressed her hostess.

"I'm so sorry, Sheila! He's clearly hoping for a row, so we can enjoy the kissing and making up later. Alastair, as you are already in disgrace with me, you might as well get your funeral plans out in the open as well, and then I shan't be worrying about being embarrassed again tonight, because you'll have gone through all your party pieces!"

Adrian wasn't sure that he had heard her correctly.

"Funeral plans?"

"Oh, it's a long story. Because I'm on the committee of the Caledonian Society, I end up going to most of the funerals when the older members pop their clogs. They're pretty much the same, the lone piper walking in front of the coffin, an interminable sermon from the Presbyterian Minister promising hellfire and damnation, and then too much cheap blended grain whisky afterwards."

"You don't have to accept it!"

"Yes, dear, I do have to drink it, it would cause great offence to refuse a dram at a funeral. And the beggars DO tend to die in the winter-time and be buried on cold wet miserable days, and the whole reason that the Good Lord gave us whisky was to help us overcome days like that. Why else would the Gaelic for whisky, 'uisge beatha', translate as 'water of life'?"

Catriona snorted, but was still smiling lovingly at her husband.

"Anyway, during one of these aforementioned everlasting sermons, I closed my eyes for a few seconds, just to better appreciate the wisdom of his words, you understand, and I came up with a much better idea. I reckon that for my own funeral, I should make advance arrangements with the undertakers for a few beautiful young women to be scattered around the kirk, wearing full mourning dress with black hats and veils, sobbing their hearts out inconsolably into their onion-drenched handkerchiefs. I can't quite work out how many young women to request though, there need to be enough of them to make a real impression on my former colleagues, but anything above a dozen seems perhaps a tiny bit ostentatious."

There was a horror-struck pause while we considered what he had just said, - and then we noticed that he, Hamish and Catriona were all grinning widely.

It was a joke!

And we'd all fallen for it; hook, line and sinker.

We roared with relieved (if slightly embarrassed) laughter.