CHAPTER 18
I watched the two of them dancing round each other, and felt my worries start to ease. Jacky had timed her visit to coincide with Mary’s summer break, and I would have two weeks in the middle of it, but it had still been a worry, leaving them together without me there to moderate, or perhaps shush one of them when I could see a secret about to be divulged that I would rather keep private. A bit like having your parents to stay, knowing that as soon as you leave them alone, they’ll be looking for your more embarrassing possessions.

Not that I had any secrets, of course, at least, not now. I realised I had never been as completely open with anyone as I now was with my wife, and it struck me that it was exactly as such things should be in a marriage. That phrase came up again in my mind: I was hers, and she was mine.

I was grinning as we went into the Angry Hamster, as I had nicknamed it one very drunk evening, and the grin moved on to actual laughter, which left both of my companions staring at me. I found a table, and tried to explain.

“Look, it’s just that my mind went back to Albany, and I just thought that even with us dressed like this, we’re still wearing more clothing than some of the girls were in that brew pub over there”

Jacky called out, “Truth!”, and I carried on.

“Then there was the weird bit. Drinks first, though”

Each of us picked a different brew, so we could try three different brews at once by passing them round, and the barman handed us the menu cards. Once we were seated again, Mary looked at me and asked, “And?”

“Oh, one of the things that got me over there, Jacky will remember this, was that it was really a small, pretty isolated town, which thought it was a metropolis. So you’ve got road trains passing through, and at the same time there are women in Office Smart and heels sitting at pavement tables and having Business Conversations over smartphones while tiptapping away at laptops”

Mary was nodding and simultaneously making that winding gesture with her hand.

“I remember you saying. Get to the point”

“Well, I just had a vision of whatever gammon left those cans. You know: pavement seat, refreshment, random one-sided conversations, just without the laptop. Or half the clothing”

Mary smirked.

“He could have been scratching, rather than tapping---No! Do not go there, Ellison! Either bloody Ellison! Not when we’re about to eat. You, love, have ruined my mind. I hope you’re satisfied with yourself”

We went for chicken wings followed by pizza, shelving the idea of moving on based on the simple fact that we had seats, they were comfortable, and Jacky was almost out of energy. It wasn’t a long session, simply enough time to break the sleep barrier.

“When I flew into Perth, I’d had all the advice about not going to bed, but did I listen? I ended up putting my bike back together, wide awake in the middle of the night, then going out for a ride”

Jacky shook her head,

“Not this girl. When I hit that bed, it will be zonk, lights out. You two got plans for tomorrow?”

Mary waved at me with a slice of pizza.

“Ellie’s off to work for the next two days, so it’s just me. Anything you want to do or see?”

“Well, loads, but from here, it would be Oxford or London”

“Oxford is a doddle, but London is huge. You really need to pick something as a target for today thingy, go more than once with a different target each time. Otherwise it’s just a quick look and gone”

“Well, I got a list. Museums, mostly, not just big building hits”

Mary laughed at that.

You know, there three museums near each other in Kensington: Science, V and A, Natural History”

“The dinosaur place”

“Yes. Each one, you could spend all day in. Then there’s the British Museum, and there, you need a day just to see one of the sections. Look: what we can do, either or both of us, is take you in a couple of times, show you how things like the transport work, then you can plan your own trips. I did have one thought, though, and I think Ellie will like it too”

“What’s that?”

“Bath, but by way of Stonehenge and Salisbury. I’d want to do an overnight there, not drive out and back in a day”

I nodded my agreement.

“That sounds like a weekend plan. I had another idea, if Jacky is interested, and it also involves beer”

My wife sniffed.

“It would do”

“Not like that, love. Belgium. That hotel we used years ago”

“Oh! You’re talking about Bruges!”

“No, Brugge. They’re Flemish, not Walloon”

“Pedant!”

“Teacher! Anyway, we could either take a ferry to Calais, train to Lille and then local lines through Belgium, or we could take Eurostar straight to Brussels, another train up to Brugge”

I showed her my phone.

Jacky’s eyes were round.

“That the Channel Tunnel train?”

“Yup”

“Ooh! My treat, then”

Mary started to protest, and Jacky just waved her away.

“Got most of my settlement from the asshole, sweetie. I’ve got money, and, then am I right? You looking to go see Carly next year?”

I looked at Mary yet again for an answer, and she nodded. Jacky looked smug.

“Well, you’ll need to save for tickets, then. I’ve heard of that place. And they don’t just do beer, they do chocolate, so we’ll have everything we need”

I was indeed off to work the next morning, so we caught a bus home in the evening sunshine, talked Jacky through the house amenities, and then left her to zonk properly. Mary was pensive in bed.

“She’s very eager to please, isn’t she?”

“I think that’s a product of the abuse, love. Coercive whatsits”

“I think so too. This is probably the first time in her life, at least since marriage, she’s been allowed to choose how to spend her own money. We’ll need to watch that”

“I do have a plan, if you agree”

“Go on”

“If we do the Bath trip, we book and pay for a hotel, for all of us. Can’t stop her doing the Brugge train tickets, but we know where that hotel is, so once we get a date, we sneak that one in as well. You okay with that?”

“I am. At least this Jerome bloke sounds switched on, so he should be able to keep the brakes on at his end. Now, you’ve got work tomorrow, so roll over so I can feel a right tit”

I did indeed have my wife back.

The ride into work was a little frantic, but at least it was dry, and the sun was to one side of my route rather than in my eyes. The office was quieter, as many people were now rotating through their summer holidays, and I spent much of the day on a rather boring, if absorbing, expenses apportionment spreadsheet for a partially-exempt client’s VAT return. At least that particular job comes with occasional light relief, when the client includes some notes about clever accounting ideas that probably came to him at three in the morning while his mind was pharmaceutically enhanced.

I took my lunch break at a local café with pavement tables, chuckling at the fact that while I had a frothy coffee, and a smartphone in my handbag, I had neither heels nor laptop.

That reminded me of something important, and once my coffee and prawn sandwich were finished, I headed for the Post Office and picked up a passport application form. Doc Kumar had done his bit, and I had a nice little letter to show the appropriate people. If we were going travelling, my passport needed that little amendment, and they did an ‘on the day’ service by appointment. Terry would give me a day off, no doubt, especially given the time of year, and I could avoid an awful lot of shit just by paying a bit more. Well, a lot more, but bugger it. They had a photo place in the supermarket, so my momentum took me there, and to my pleased surprise, they actually did it with a net link that went straight to the Passport Office. No more cutting up strips of photos and getting someone deemed reputable enough to sign their backs.

I finally locked everything away at a little after five, and did the quick-change game in reverse, absently wondering how much bigger my bosom was likely to grow now I was on the properly-managed dose of hormones. Mary was getting rather forward as my chest did did the same, and I idly mused about getting a push-up bra to flash her some cleavage, but, well, it might also freak her completely. One step at a time, Ellie.

Shit!

A van had just left-hooked me while I was away with the bosom fairies, and my panic braking had left me sideways on to following traffic.

“Get out of the fucking way, you stupid tart!”

Back to England, with a bump. I took a while on the footpath to centre myself before getting back onto my bike for the last leg home, where it turned out that Jacky had offered to cook something from her own ‘cuisine’, and I was presented with what looked like a plate. of cat vomit. With lumps in it