Sex in the Shires

CHAPTER 1

I woke up this morning feeling like a defrosted mammoth, looked in the mirror, saw the head of Medusa and recoiled in horror. Last night was a not-to-be-repeated event where a favour for a friend resulted in me soaking up enough duty free to compete with a trifle sponge.
It’s no consolation that my malady is the result of an altruistic gesture and maybe, I have to concede, a teensy weensy little bit because I was lured out, against my better judgement, to meet a man. It’s not as if I indulged that much, but when you get to a certain age you have to grapple with the realisation that carnal sin is cumulative. Once, in the first flush of youth, you could stuff your face with chips, go from one year to the next without so much as a sliver of fruit or vegetable passing between your teeth, stay up till dawn and still operate like a human being. But, eventually, it all catches up with you. Hit forty and lick a biscuit, and your face breaks out in pustulating sores whilst a layer of fat in the shape of a rubber ring suddenly appears beneath your ribs. Sniff a whisky and you look as if you’ve spent a hard night hanging round King’s Cross touting for business.
That reminds me, I must remember to avoid going near a naked flame because one spark from a lighted match in a public place and I’d be turned into an incendiary device and a suspected suicide bomber. Am I crazy or what? I have within my sights one of the most eligible men in Ruddlesex who isn’t old, impotent or gay and I go and reduce my chances of success by helping a friend get their leg over, how ironic is that? I am offered a rare window of opportunity and I slam it shut on my own little paws. So ungrateful. Last night I should have been sorting out my slap and waxing my bikini line for a potentially steamy session with Charles Smythe-Bothum Wethem (pronounced Bottom Wettum) - he’s got 2,000 Rutland acres and a pied-à-terre in Hampstead and he’s coming here for dinner tonight - with moi!
Delia says he’s an awful snob and makes Prince Charles sound like an old lag off a sink estate. But she’s just jealous. He’s got everything a girl could want except hair and a chin, but let’s face it, at my age I can’t afford to be picky.
Or blasé for that matter. Goodness only knows what he’d think if he caught sight of me now, a sozzled slattern sitting at my kitchen table obscured by packets of Co-op own brand and the floor littered with tat. I must remember to push all the pot noodles to the back of the pantry, buy some sun dried tomatoes, avocados for the fruit bowl, put a few strategically placed country magazines around the place and sling some jodhpurs over the back of the sofa.
If only I didn’t feel quite so depressed that I feel the urge to eat an industrial supply of Smarties to raise my serotonin levels. It’s all the fault of Delia and her toy boy. Gorgeous Delia - fit, 50 and rich, asked me out on a blind date to amuse Toy Boy’s cousin Mervin, a loss adjuster from Leicester. She drools over Toy Boy. Says he’s the must-have accessory for every woman. He’s got low mileage, runs on one brain cell and comes complete with a 40-year guarantee. So how come I got Mervin?
We decided to meet in a pub in the nearby town of Broadmarket. I set off fired up with a sense of optimism, driving dreamily all the way there with romantic visions of Mervin in my head. I imagined our first encounter, eyes meeting across a crowded room, a frisson of sexual chemistry as our hands touched and the delightful discovery that we share common ground about music, politics, religion, child-rearing and the best way to save the world.
I parked the car in one of Broadmarket’s beautiful, ancient, tree-lined streets and headed for the Cock and Bull, a once venerable chapel recently converted into a trendy bar where hopeful people congregate, eager to meet potential partners for nocturnal fornication fests. I could hear the thump, thump, thump of house music 100 yards before I reached the door, which, on opening revealed a tightly packed throng bathed in a kaleidoscope of coloured lights which swirled swiftly around the room before leaping up and arching across the chapel’s lofty vaulted ceiling, visible through a haze of cigarette smoke.
My eyes expertly searched the crowds with more precision than a barcode scanner at a supermarket checkout, for any noticeably decent men. I immediately eliminated the usual native male crew of spotty teenagers, red necked invaders from the Fens and the gorgeous groups of fit, 20-something guys eyeing up equally gorgeous gaggles of strikingly pretty girls.
My eyes skimmed fleetingly over a solitary figure standing at the bar with one hand nursing a pint of beer while his other was vainly trying to block out the din by poking a fat finger very firmly inside one of his not inconsiderably-sized ears. I immediately thought of an elephant. My attention was riveted by a pair of gruesome ‘easy rider’ specs circa 1970 which shrieked ‘loser’ and his polyester clothes in various shades of drab, from beige shirt to dog-shit brown slacks confirmed that he was a stylistic dodo. Bless. My gaze drifted down his body until they reached his feet clad in those weird faux walking boots with eyelet holes that you see advertised in Sunday supplements. Sheer heresy in such a trendy joint. I almost instinctively genuflected at his complete crucifixion of decency and taste.
Then I spotted Delia who was waving in the general direction of this person and I realised with mounting horror that it could only be Mervin. My dreams of romantic harmony were dispelled in an instant. Here was a classic case of Spam Man. Just like junk mail, guys like this are ubiquitous, popping up all the time in singles clubs, internet dating rooms, newspaper lonely heart columns and on blind dates. Your hopes get raised in anticipation only to have them dashed to the ground when you see what’s on offer.
Beer in one hand, he raised his arms above his head and moved like a circular saw through the tightly packed crowds which melted apart like the Red Sea for the children of Israel, as his sweaty armpits passed them uncomfortably close by at sniffing range.
“Pleased to meet you Rebecca,” he said, as he executed a final turn to stop directly in front of me, extending his free hand and enveloping mine in a flabby, sweaty grip. Definitely no sexual frisson there, it was like shaking hands with a dead haddock.
“You too,” I lied as I bleakly assessed the merchandise at close quarters with ‘bargain basement big time’ registering instantly in my mind.
Every atom in his body had gone south including his stomach and moustache. His hair, apart from the bald patch, was so frizzy it looked as if it had been wired up to the National Grid. Delia whispered in my ear: “He’s got nice eyes,” and I replied through stiff lips: “Yes - for a walrus.”
Laughing, she sauntered off and attached herself around Toy Boy like a boa constrictor and left me to it. We managed to find two spare seats in a dingy corner. Realising my chances of coming into snogging range of anyone half decent was virtually nil, I tucked into a massive ‘Big Bag’ of cheese and onion crisps and resigned myself to my fate over half of Guinness.
“And how do you know Delia?” asked Mervin politely.
“We met on an Access Course at Broadmarket College of FE,” I explained. I took a sip of Guinness, hoping to go on and tell him how it had transformed our lives from bored, depressed housewives, to liberated, well educated women. But I never got the chance. As far as Mervin was concerned I’d had my say and now it was his turn.
I spent the whole evening hearing how loss adjusters use psychology to convince distraught housewives that their charred burnt-out kitchens will brush up as good as new with a squirt of Mr Sheen and a bit of elbow grease.
I said witheringly: “ I never get taken in by cheap sales routines,” only to realise later that I ended up buying all his drinks.
He then proceeded to deliver a character assassination on his ex-wife, who it transpired had a shoe shopping habit that made Imelda Marcos seem frugal by comparison, and she was heavily into tantric sex - with her personal trainer. Finishing my bag of crisps I managed to stifle a yawn only to sniff vestiges of Mervin’s earwax on my fingers. I thought the crisps had tasted extra spicy. I felt sick, not only at the thought of earwax flavoured crisps, but also with envy at Delia as she disentangled herself from Toy Boy and sauntered over to skewer my foot with her Jimmy Choo stiletto to say they’d love to meet back at my place for coffee. I poked her viciously in the ribs as we left and hissed: “Don’t you dare abandon me with Merv.”
Smiling she arched one perfectly plucked eyebrow and said half reprovingly: “Now would I?”
“Yes,” I replied through gritted teeth.
I got home first with Mervin. And, as I had suspected, minutes turned to hours. No Delia and no Toy Boy. Mervin decided to elaborate further on his ex-wife’s foibles and when he’d put her thoroughly through the metaphorical mincer moved on to her mother, then a daughter by her first marriage and a menagerie of pet dogs and cats who were all part of a conspiracy to part him from his wallet. Fat chance, I thought, as I reached for the duty-free in despair to stop my brain from turning into a cabbage as he droned on and on and on ad nauseum.
I never, for one nanosecond, thought Delia and Toy Boy had got lost or been mangled in some gruesome pile-up as Spam Man kept fretting on and on about at various intervals in his narrative about Mervin versus the rest of the bloody world. No. They’d probably found a convenient lay-by and Delia was being deliciously and vigourously rogered by Toy Boy. And here I sat in a sex-free zone with a lump of worried lard - with bristles.
I couldn’t tell him that Delia was married, could I? Metaphysics and ethics was never my strongest point, especially at 2am in the morning entertaining an emotional cretin. I’ll rephrase that - a completely sexless, physically amorphous, emotional cretin. Not even shaggable when utterly and irredeemably rat-arsed.
When Delia did eventually turn up with Toy Boy her face was so red it looked as if she'd had a close encounter with an industrial sander. Their excuse, was as far-fetched as it was ingenious. Delia, waving one hand airily while squeezing Toy Boy’s buttocks affectionately with the other, said blithely: “Oh, we took a two-hour detour to settle a dispute over whether a house in Adlesbourgh was roofed in Collyweston or Welsh slate.”
She relinquished her grip on Toy Boy’s arse for a split second, to slap him across the head for grinning and saying it actually turned out to be ’thatched.’
I eventually managed to get rid of them all after a heated and fantastical debate on genetic engineering. Delia and I thought it had potential, zapping out unsavoury male characteristics such as an inability to differentiate between the threat of World War III and England being knocked out of the rugby World Cup. Toy Boy thought it could revolutionise the mental health of the male population by eliminating unsightly chest and back hair and the trauma of de-fuzzing, while Mervin thought it could wipe-out an inbuilt default mechanism to mistrust men who built model railways. He’s got one as big as Clapham Junction in his shed apparently. Yawn.
Warning bells began to ring as they left and Mervin casually said: “I’ll call you.”
Throwing my arms theatrically wide above my head I slurred: “Well, why not when you’re such a nice spam?” Then I started to titter convulsively. Delia flashed me a warning look before Mervin bent to kiss me. I engaged the infallible trick of leaning forward to wipe a non-existent speck of dirt off the light switch. Even so, the whiskers of his moustache brushed past my ear - sufficient contact to shrivel my libido like a man’s bits suddenly being immersed in liquid nitrogen. Not nice.
I meandered my wobbly way back to the kitchen which looked like squatters had moved in and out while my back was turned. I put my hands over my eyes to blot out the devastation before making my way, with great difficulty, upstairs to bed. I only remembered to remove my hands from my eyes when my body made painful contact with the bedroom door.
The sheets were cold like my heart and my cheeks were hot like my fanny which suddenly revved into gear due to a combination of intoxicating liquor and neglect. One of these days, raced the thoughts in my fuddled mind, it will go into overdrive like the car and stall, never to start again without help from a nice AA man with a big spanner. And with that pleasant thought I fell soundly asleep like a baby.

Five hours later and I look like a raddled old hag, I’ve got a splitting headache and worse of all - stale onion breath. This is the price I’m paying for my altruistic gesture to a friend in need and my inability to deal decisively with a member of the opposite sex who can bore for England, Europe and the universe. Let’s face it, last night a man in my place faced with a female equivalent of Mervin would have yawned - said: “Sorry luv, I’m bushed,” and beetled off to bed leaving them alone with the TV remote control. But women haven’t yet mastered the fine art of bludgeoning other people’s feelings into a mash until the pips squeak while congratulating themselves on their magnanimity in condescending to speak to them in the first place. Except perhaps for Maggie Thatch. And Anne Robinson.
Well, all this musing and ruminating like a toothless camel isn’t going to get any housework done or the meal organised for my tête-à-tête with Charles. If I want to get more than the table laid tonight I’ve got to get motivated, sparkle, and sweep away the cobwebs of obfuscation and procrastination from my mind and then get my fat arse in gear. Yes. Just one more cuppa and then it’s action stations.