Masters And Lovers 1-4
Chapter 67
*****
An hour later, we’ve made good progress. My brother is a strapping figure and between us we have made short work of the mess of brambles, thorns and aggressive undergrowth.
“Time for a break,” I say, mopping at my forehead.
Something delicious wafts by, and my nose turns the rest of me bodily around to follow the source.
“I thought you gentlemen might enjoy a break from all that.” It’s Sally, carrying two trays of something enormous. She passes one to me with a smile; the other to Ben, giving him a cool look as she does so. Sausage, bacon and eggs all in a bread bun big enough to play frisbee with. And two beer cans dripping condensation.
I love a woman who understands men….
“Ah, Sal. That’s perfect. Thanks.”
“Anytime, Michael. I’ll send someone out for the plates in a while.”
The gargantuan sandwich clutched in both hands, I take a huge bite, hastily wiping at my mouth as a yolk bursts, back-splashing me with yellow gunge.
It's delicious and just what I'm ready for. Ben is chewing just as happily. The sandwich poised double-handedly to stop it falling apart, I chew through enough calories to keep a family of four going for a week, washing it down with beer cold enough to freeze the throat.
Hard work, food and beer and, oddly enough, the company of my brother. We were never close, even as boys, and it feels good to…. To what? To make contact, I suppose.
Does it get any better?
…. The hairs on the back of my neck rise….
I'm not superstitious, but....
We're being watched….
I'm being foolish….
…. Surely?
All the worries flood back….
The spy?
Gulping down, I look left and right, trying to be casual about it.
Nothing….
I let my eyes roam the various windows above us: the back of the hotel. There shouldn't be anything there. All the glass at that angle is frosted: bathrooms and cloakrooms. But....
Still, I see nothing to raise that prickle on my neck.
But there is something on my radar….
Be rational….
something,
Something subliminal….
Ah….
of black button eyes looks up; a gimlet stare fixed on me. Scruffy's stump of a tail raises small dust
my attention, he grins and the stare drops, eyes and nose triangulating on
last time I saw that many teeth like that was in the mega-shark section at
and the flick of a dirty thumbnail, I flick a sausage from between and down. It moves through the air in a brief parabolic flight and
to be loyal, eh?” But there’s a rare twinkle
like him
a slice of bacon and drops it to him. “Thought you didn’t like the look of
us can help the way we’re made,
about it,”
supposed
has vanished, his usual morose expression morphing in and I think about how to lighten
say, “but he reminds me
right. It’s around the
what it is? Hair? I
kids and Mom took us shopping to that butchers. Archie saw that chicken hanging from the hook with about a dozen others and jumped for it. Took the whole lot down and she
it. We were eating
“Or that time there were those builders working in the place at the back and one of them
“…. SIT!”
both shout at the same time, pointing cans at each other, then burst out laughing. “And both bloody dogs
suck of his beer,
suddenly looks blue, a man carrying
the growing heat, he wipes sweat from his forehead on his sleeve then looks skywards. “Ah, I just wonder
have an uncomfortable feeling that
think you
Yeah, right….
His fixed-view outlook on the world and how things are supposed to
…. Charmless.
“Let me guess. Marie?”
feeling that would end
It’s not taken
I found out she's got
Crap….
he didn’t
the antics of his wife before he found
she
to me, can in hand, some of the contents slopping a little as he waves it at me…. “…. she couldn't wait to get her pants off. No romance at all.” He takes a swig. “And then afterwards she told me she'd only slept
Double-crap….