Peter Temple - Bad Debts

‘It doesn’t have to be fish.’

She bit her lower lip. ‘What else have you got?’

I wanted very much to bite her lower lip. ‘There’s some steak,’ I said. ‘Sirloin. Frozen.’

We had somehow got closer. I couldn’t remember moving. She put out her left hand and touched the hollow in my throat with one finger.

‘Sirloin,’ she said. She put her glass down on the counter and slowly folded her arms under her breasts. It was somehow a hugely erotic gesture. ‘Anything else?’

‘Dolmades?’

We looked at each other in silence. I wanted to move my erection to a more comfortable position but I was paralysed. She looked down at it.

‘Have you got a condom?’ she said.

I swallowed some wine with difficulty. ‘I suppose you’ll think I’m predatory if I say yes?’

She nodded. ‘Possibly.’

I put my glass on the counter. She put a fingertip against my lips. I kissed it. As her mouth came nearer I could smell the malt whisky. I put my hands on her buttocks and pulled her close. I could feel the elastic of her panties under my thumbs.

Our lips came together. Her right hand moved between us and cupped me. I thought I’d swoon.

‘I’m going to swoon.’

‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘you should lie down.’

I took her hand and led her into the bedroom. We undressed with the urgency of people shedding burning clothes.

‘Bugger buttons,’ she said thickly, pulling her shirt over her head. She shrugged out of her bra and, for a moment, stood there naked to the waist, big breasts over prominent ribs. Then she stripped off her grey flannels, pantyhose and white bikini pants. She was built for movement: long bones and long muscles that showed under the skin.

The sheets were like ice. But only for seconds.

Around midnight, we ate sirloin steak sandwiches and drank the rest of the Coldstream Hills. It was too late for fish.

‘Did you live here with your wife?’ Linda said in a neutral tone.

‘Yes. But we didn’t sleep in that bedroom. That was the spare room. I couldn’t bear to go into the bedroom for a long time.’

She said, ‘You knew what I was thinking. Do all the girls ask that?’

‘One hundred per cent of them.’

She looked at the ceiling, nodding.

‘One girl, one question. That’s a hundred per cent, isn’t it?’

She smiled. ‘I knew this would happen,’ she said. ‘When I saw you coming down the newsroom with that twerp Legge.’

We were on the sofa, backs against the arms, legs entwined, chewing. Linda was wearing a sort of kimono thing my daughter had left behind. She was about a foot taller than Claire, all of it leg. I was in my old towelling dressing gown.

‘I know what went through your mind,’ I said. ‘Here comes six foot two of solid erotic pleasure.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I thought, here comes exactly the kind of rumpled, predatory, middle-aged sleazebag I always end up fucking.’

‘I thought you said you wouldn’t think I was predatory.’

‘I said I possibly would. Anyway, that was tonight,’ she said. ‘You didn’t have to be predatory tonight. All you had to do was lie back.’

‘I liked the lying back bit,’ I said. ‘You’re born to the saddle.’

‘All it takes is a good pommel,’ she said and rubbed her instep down my right calf. ‘What’s that funny shaped scar on your stomach?’

‘I was hoping you’d ask. A man shot me.’

‘Why?’

‘Trespass,’ I said.

‘Trespass where?’

‘In Vietnam. How come you’ve got such strong legs?’

She put her head back and looked down her nose at me, eyes narrowed. ‘Is that a flattering question? Don’t answer. Think. Think about the proximity of my heel to your groin.’

I said, ‘Higher. A little higher. Gently.’

She moved her foot up my leg. ‘I was an athlete,’ she said. ‘From about ten to eighteen. Then I went to uni. One joint, one paper cup of cheap wine, one night in the sack. Ex-athlete.’

‘Ex-track athlete,’ I said. ‘There are other places to display athleticism.’

Linda put her plate on the floor and slid down the sofa. The kimono rode up above her pubic hair. She lifted one long, strong leg and rested it on my shoulder. ‘That is so,’ she said. ‘What do you know about the leather sofa half mile?’

‘It’ll leave a wet spot,’ I said.

‘Wet spot? It’ll float the sofa into the fucking kitchen.’

Later I told her about my trip to Paul Gilbert’s health spa.

‘Jesus Christ, Jack,’ she said. ‘How the fuck can you be so calm? You should have gone to the cops.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Too messy.’ But I was starting to have doubts about my decision.

Harry met Cam and me at the front door. He was wearing a hacking jacket in soft grey checks, grey flannels, a pale yellow brushed-cotton shirt, and a silk tie in shades of grey and lavender. We went through into the breakfast room. Rain misted the french doors on to the terrace but concealed lighting made the square room’s lemon walls glow and the whole house was warm enough for shirtsleeves.

We helped ourselves to muesli or porridge from the buffet. Harry and I had oatmeal porridge soaked with raisins overnight. Cam had a teaspoon of muesli. Then Mrs Aldridge brought in poached eggs, grilled ham, pencil-thin beef sausages, and grilled tomatoes. Harry once told us she had cooked for an English trainer. He said the man didn’t give him a ride for two years after he stole Mrs Aldridge by offering her five pounds a week more than she was getting. ‘Ate like a prince after that,’ he said. ‘Didn’t eat often but when I did, by Jesus.’

In the study after the first sip of Mrs Aldridge’s coffee, dark and viscous as mapping ink, Harry said, ‘Jack, this Dakota Dreamin. We’re thinkin of goin for a ride.’

‘From what we saw?’ I said.

Harry scratched inside an ear. ‘Tony Ericson won’t run the bugger in a proper trial. Don’t blame him. Too risky, history like that.’ He sniffed his cup. ‘He’s happy to see him take it easy on his first outin, though. But we know, there’s only a couple of nags runnin around in the mud now could show him a bum.’

I said, ‘If form’s a guide, this thing may never run like that again, never mind improve.’

‘Chance of that.’ Harry sipped his coffee. ‘Still, Ericson reckons he’ll take a race or two. Cam here likes him.’

I looked at Cam. He’d gone off with the boy, Tom, and the horse after the gallop.

‘The boy reckons he’s taken the horse around that 2400 in just on two-thirty,’ said Cam. ‘Didn’t tell his dad. Tony would have paddled his arse.’

I’d come to realise that Cam’s judgment was vital to Harry’s operations. Harry watched jockeys. Cam looked at horses. ‘Fella’s got the Eye,’ Harry said to me after my second photography mission. ‘Not one in a thousand around horses got it. Can’t learn it. Mystery.’

Harry held up the silver coffee pot inquiringly. ‘Two-thirty on that sheep paddock is hot stuff. Add a few seconds, it’s still smokin.’ He poured for Cam. ‘Still. Spring would’ve been best. But we can’t hold this thing together that long.’

‘Who’s inside so far?’ Cam said.

‘Ericson says it’s just Rex Tie,’ Harry said. ‘Might well be true. Told Rex, he says one word, in his sleep even, he’ll train polar bears in Siberia for a livin.’ He swivelled his chair, looked out into the dripping garden for a few seconds, completed the circuit. ‘I reckon we’ve got a better than usual chance to keep this thing tight. Not your whole stable and the connections in the know here. Just a few yokels.’ He looked thoughtful. ‘Fair few things to think about concernin this horse, though. Number one is: do we want to go first up?’