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Anyway, I’m digressing. As I often do when on the subject of the selfishness of men. Well, let’s face it, there’s just so much scope. But as I was saying re the Primrose Hill bonk, I just have to give everything a try, it’s a matter of life and… Well, I don’t know what, life and no life, I suppose, which is a pretty terrible thought. And anyway who knows what strange and powerful forces there are in the world? I mean the moon does definitely affect people, we know that. You only have to look at dogs. They go potty at full moon. And as Drusilla has pointed out, even vaginal juices have a tidal flow and so, when one comes to think of it, does sperm. I mean it might all just be a case of never having done it when the tide’s in. As for ley lines, well I admit that it sounds pretty unlikely. On the other hand certain places do have a special energy. I can remember once feeling very strange during a walk in the Devil’s Punchbowl in Surrey, and that’s supposed to be a mystic place, I think, isn’t it? Sam claims it was the macaroni cheese I’d had for lunch in that pub, but I know it wasn’t.
And what’s more, apart from any spiritual and mystical considerations, I had hoped that Sam might find the whole idea a bit raunchy. After all, we are lovers, aren’t we? Besides being boring old marrieds? Surely we can see all this in the light of a naughty, saucy adventure?
No chance, I’m afraid. Sam didn’t get home until half an hour ago (last-minute preparations for the PM tomorrow), and he’s insisting that he still has some calls to make. I’m writing this while he whinges and whines about comedy in his study. This was supposed to be our time, a time of erotic and sensual reflection. I’ve had my bath (by candlelight with rose petals floating on the water) and used all the soaps. I was really begi
I bet Carl Phipps wouldn’t be in his study making calls about stupid comedy programmes while his lover lay damp and scented and naked upon their bed below.
No! I must not think that sort of thing. It’s wicked.
Sam has agreed to do it and that’s the main thing. I can’t expect him to suddenly turn into a romantic lead. All I need him to do is shag me at the appointed time and place.
T’will be dark in an hour. The moon is on the wax and the witching hour is nigh. Do you know, Pe
Dear Self
It’s four o’clock in the morning and we’ve just got back from the police station. They were quite nice about it in the end, once they let me put my trousers back on. I thought I handled the whole matter pretty well, actually.
Dear Pe
Sam was ridiculous tonight, quite bloody ridiculous. I mean you just do not give false names to the police, do you? Particularly “William Gladstone”. What chance is there of there being a man called William Gladstone having it off on the top of Primrose Hill in the middle of the night? I honestly think that if he hadn’t tried to give them a false name they would have let us go. I mean bonking isn’t illegal, is it? But of course when he claimed to be a nineteenth-century prime minister they asked for ID and immediately the game was up.
“Oh yes,” said Sam, “that’s it, I remember, my name’s Sam Bell just like it says on my credit card. Ha ha. Samuel Bell, William Gladstone; William Gladstone, Sam Bell. Easy mistake to make.”
When they asked him his occupation I said, “Prat,” which made them laugh and helped a bit, I think. He looked like one of those men who stand on the end of train platforms. Not much of a turn-on at all. I explained to him as patiently as I could that Drusilla had insisted that a steamy passionate atmosphere was essential. We must both be highly, throbbingly almost primevally sexually charged. Timeless animals of passion, caught up in the eternal spi
“Hmm,” he said and nodded in a kind of stu
Anyway, I made him go and put on his black tie and di
Lucy made me put on black tie, which quite frankly made us look like Gomez and Morticia, particularly since she’d really gone to town with the black eyeliner. I must admit, though, she did look fantastic. Like a beautiful model, I thought. I really did and I said so. “You look like a beautiful model,” I said and she said, “Oh yeah sure, I do not.” Odd, that, the way women react to compliments. They’ll expend any amount of energy telling you that you never say anything nice to them and that you don’t fancy them, but when you do pay them a compliment they say, “Oh yeah sure, I do not.” Nonetheless, I think she was pleased.
Sam suddenly started being rather sweet and I must say he looked very nice in his di
Actually I can scarcely credit it, but it was all begi
All in all, she’d really made an effort, which I loved her for. I myself had tried to enter into the spirit of things by putting on the silk boxer shorts I got last Christmas and had so far never worn.
I do wish Sam hadn’t put on those Donald Duck pants. I know he was trying to be nice but you don’t need Disney characters when you’re trying to be all pagan and ritualistic, even if they are silk.
Anyway, we got there and amazingly found a parking place almost immediately (were the Gods intervening on our behalf?). And having got over the usual car palaver (Sam set the alarm off, I don’t know how he manages to do that so often), we stood there together at the foot of the ancient hill. It was only eleven-thirty so we had a good half-hour to climb up it and get down to it, so to speak. I tried to hold Sam’s arm but his hands were full.
It probably was silly to take along a stepladder but I thought the gates would be locked and we’d have to climb over a fence. They lock Regent’s Park up, I know that. Lucy thought it made us look like burglars and told me to go back and put it on top of the car, which meant five more minutes wrestling with bendy bungies.
It was a very quiet night for London and I must say the hill looked fantastic against the moon. We seemed to have it to ourselves apart from the birds and squirrels and, of course, the spirits of the night. Drusilla had assured me that the spirits would definitely be about. Flitting hither and thither, bringing good fortune for some, a hex for others. I thought I saw one but it turned out to be an unconscious homeless alcoholic slumbering on a bench near the children’s playground.