Truth or Consequences
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Truth Or Consequences Part 1 free porn video
"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty" - Billy Wilder
The clink of cutlery and the rhythmic staccato of 'Cool For Cats' drift up
from the kitchen, rousing me from a long, satisfying sleep. In Rosie
Cooper's 1930s three-bedroom semi-detached house on the side of Portsdown
Hill the day is up and running.
I push myself to a sitting position, rake back my fringe and watch my tits
barge free from my pyjama top in their usual indecorous fashion. I put it
on back-to-front before I pad along the landing to the bathroom; I was too
tired last night to notice what kind of impression I made on my host, but
I don't think it'll be improved if she walks upstairs and sees my bare
breasts bouncing around simply because I'm too lazy to sew a couple of
buttons back on.
After I've relieved myself, showered, brushed my teeth and combed my
tangled locks into some sort of order I pick out clean underwear from my
holdall and proceed to the dressing table for my daily quota of powder and
paint. I'm careful not to overdo things - just some foundation, eyeliner
and pale pink lipstick to prove I've made an effort. Then I pull on my
jeans and a plain white T-shirt, slip into my ankle boots, stuff my
cigarettes and matches inside my shoulder bag and treat myself to a fairly
critical appraisal in the mirror.
Not bad, babe - but you might want to think about doing something with
that hair now that the warmer weather's on its way.
Rosie is grilling slices of streaky bacon and beating eggs when I walk in
on her. She's a slim, good-looking woman in her middle forties, wearing a
white short-sleeved cardigan over a pink gingham dress. Her dark hair is
flecked with blonde highlights, parted on the left and cropped neatly
above her ears, the kind of style you'd expect the assistant manager of a
temping agency to have adopted. She greets me with a warm if practised
smile.
"No need to ask if you had a good night's rest," she says, her voice
enriched by a distinct south Hampshire burr. "I hope you're not one of
these people who doesn't eat breakfast. My mother always says, and I agree
with her, that if you take care of the inner girl first thing in the
morning she'll look after the outer girl for the rest of the day. She's
what in times gone by would have been called a 'wise woman'. We don't
respect the older generation enough in my opinion. They have so much to
teach us. But you're too young to know what I'm talking about. So, there's
fruit juice over on the table. Help yourself to cereal and coffee. Kerrie
should be joining us in a few minutes. She usually pops in on Saturdays
around half-past nine, a quarter to ten-ish."
I'd have been happy with 'good morning'. It would've done.
"I'm just going outside for a smoke," I tell her, trying hard not to lick
my lips at the delectable smells coming from the cooker.
"Well, you know my thoughts on that, dear."
After the lecture I received when I asked if there was an ashtray in my
room? I think I do.
I open the back door and find myself on a tidy but underused patio. The
lawn and its borders, sloping steeply upwards to end in front of a low
wooden fence beyond which stretch the wide chalky acres of the hill, are
similarly bereft of imagination. It's a divorcee's garden, well kept yet
pining for the loving touch of the man who abandoned it.
A few slabs of crazy paving take me through to number 113. The houses in
this part of Woodford Road are all built with their main doors at the
side; they give onto stairwells that separate the living rooms from
kitchens large enough to double as dining areas. Rosie's red Ford Escort
is perched rather precariously at the top of her portion of the shared
drive; beside it sits the white van belonging to Kerrie's boyfriend.
I stroll round to the back, where she's putting washing out to dry - this
having taken precedence over her need to dress in anything more becoming
than a robe and a pair of fluffy slippers.
"You're up early," she remarks, her mouth pinched and drawn without her
top teeth, the creases around it made more prominent by the strong
sunshine.
"Rosie's making breakfast. I thought I'd have a fag first. Want one?"
"Light it for me, would you thweetheart?" she says, placing two pegs
between her lips.
"How are you feeling after yesterday's exertions?" I ask once I've passed
her the cigarette.
"A lot better for waking up with a gorgeouth man bethide me. Don't you
mith that?"
"Now and again," I murmur, pushing away the picture it's created of the
couple making love. In fact I quite like the guy; in the hour and a half
between him picking us up from the railway station and me being billeted
on Rosie I found David Compton to be amiable, courteous and understanding
as well as a knowledgeable, erudite communicator. Anyone less
representative of your average self-employed painter and decorator would
be hard to imagine.
"Jutht now and again?"
I look back down the hill towards Farlington marshes, which merge
seamlessly into the brackish Langstone Harbour. To the west, a line of
trees marks the shore of Hayling Island; in the other direction, five or
six miles distant, the centre of Portsmouth is a hazy blur.
"It's lovely here..."
"Thorry. Thore point, I know."
I turn and force myself to smile.
"Don't apologise. It's just that I had to talk to Rosie about him last
night. She kept me up till nearly midnight."
"Ooh, you poor thing!"
She drapes an arm around my shoulder and escorts me into her kitchen. Dave
is at the table in his work overalls, sipping coffee and reading the
Guardian. He's several years younger than Kerrie, and has both the
appearance and attitude of someone who hasn't quite given up on the hippy
movement.
"Hello Ruth," he says brightly, warmth pouring from his soft brown eyes.
"Hello there," I reply with due diffidence.
I may have a libido that shows as much sign of life as a plague pit, but
even to me it's obvious what Kerrie sees in him. When I ignore the
somewhat inconvenient fact that he's a bloke with a dick and a pair of
hairy bollocks, I have to admit I'm looking at a pretty exquisite
specimen. It takes a concerted effort not to stare too admiringly at that
broad, muscular chest, those powerful shoulders, that strong chin with its
Kirk Douglas dimple, that silky torrent of dark brown hair...
After two or three minutes of inconsequential chit-chat he gets up to
leave. Kerrie sees him to the door, sending him on his way with a clinch
that would have animated a mummified Pharaoh. I can't put my hand on my
heart and say I'm not the tiniest bit curious as to what it would feel
like to be in her place.
When she returns it's to lead me straight back to her neighbour's. Over
breakfast the conversation bends towards Rosie's daughter Nina, whose
eldest child's behaviour is causing his teachers some concern.
"I warned her about spoiling him," she complains. "Didn't I warn her,
Kay?"
"You did, Ro," agrees Kerrie as she spoons mushy cereal and warm milk into
her mouth.
"I mean he's come to that age, hasn't he? She has to make rules and set
boundaries, as you and I did for our own children. I've told her this till
I'm blue in the face. And now she accuses me of interfering. I said I'm
only passing on the benefit of my experience. But will she listen?"
"They won't. Siobhan'th the thame."
"You understand, of course you do. You're a grandmother yourself."
Kerrie nods sagely as she sets aside her bowl. She licks her gum clean,
then gets to grips with a plate of scrambled egg while she outlines her
plans for the next few days: in addition to tomorrow's visit to the Isle
of Wight, where Cathryn lives with her invalid mother, they include the
rearranged meeting with her sisters in Reading before she makes the
journey north to collect her car. Rosie's attitude to the 'vandalism'
visited on the Beetle outside the Gladstone is as inflexible as it was
last night.
"Flogging's too good for them, that's what I say. Maggie'll sort it out,
she's exactly the kind of strong personality this country's been looking
for. I hope you intend to charge the hotel, after all it happened on their
property so they're liable for any damage. I'll check with Gerald when I
see him this evening, but I'm sure I'm right. No reflection on you, dear,"
she adds, patting my hand.
"Who's Gerald?" I whisper to Kerrie when Rosie gets up to make a start on
the dishes.
"I'll tell you later," she replies with a conspiratorial grin.
The Latimer household has come to life by the time we break free from
Rosie's clutches. Kerrie's twin sons are in the living room watching
Saturday morning television; she introduces me to them - they were out
with friends when Dave brought us back last night - and leaves us to get
acquainted while she ousts her daughters from the bathroom. Padraig, who
has nicer eyes, slightly darker hair and is plainly the more loquacious of
the pair, explains that they're both in their first year studying
Mechanical Engineering at UMIST. Neither he nor his brother seem
particularly upset that their mother has arrived home with a busty redhead
in tow, which makes it a matter of some urgency to douse their enthusiasm
by explaining that I'm married, and down here to explore the possibility
of a reconciliation with my estranged husband - a story Kerrie and I
hammered out for their benefit during the tedious couple of hours we spent
on the slow train from Waterloo.
The girls know this already, and waste little time in coaxing me away from
their half-brothers so they can resume the previous evening's
interrogation. Niamh, at fourteen the younger by just under a year, is
blessed with pixie charm and a glossy cascade of copper-coloured hair she
continually sweeps back from her face. Sinead is thoughtful and a little
more reserved, her flawless heart-shaped features all but hidden by thick
strawberry blonde tendrils. The questions rain down on me: did I watch
Grease, is that Charley I'm wearing, do I prefer disco, rockabilly or
powerpop, will I go glam this summer? (To which the answers are no, yes,
none of them and possibly.)
Just before half-past ten Rosie sweeps into the room.
"You're wanted upstairs," she informs me, rolling her eyes at the
stereophonic groan the summons elicits. "Right, you two. You've got ten
minutes, then I'm off. With or without you. So unless you fancy catching
the bus all the way into Pompey I'd suggest you get a move on."
I follow Sinead and Niamh as far as the landing, where I'm pointed towards
Kerrie's bedroom. The door is ajar; I knock and wait to be invited inside.
She's at the dressing table, naked apart from her bra, panties and tights.
I take the chair she indicates, crossing one thigh over the other as I
watch her fish her denture from the tumbler where it spent the night. She
shakes off the excess water, uses a spatula to smear adhesive across the
back of the plate and slides it into her mouth, making a few final
adjustments with her fingers and tongue.
"Mmm...well, that'sh about ash comfy as it's ever going to be," she says.
"Now I'm used to wearing false teeth I should really get round to having
the rest of them whipped out. Both my sisters lost theirs before they were
forty, and they say it hasn't affected their sex lives one little bit.
Then again, being all gummy when you're making love certainly has its
selling points."
It's a second or two before I figure out what she means. Then I feel my
jaws fall open.
"You don't..."
"You must've led a very sheltered life if that shocks you, sweetheart."
She walks over to the wardrobe and picks out a pale green short-sleeved
top and a full-length wrap-around patterned skirt. "A bit suburban
housewifey, but it's only to get the groceries in."
"You were going to tell me about Gerald," I remind her.
"Oh yes! He's Rosie's ex-husband. They still see each other, although it's
me he's interested in, not her. I think she knows that, she just won't
admit it to herself."
"What's he like?"
"Just what you might expect from a former army officer. Well groomed,
articulate, respectful of tradition, morally upright. Distinguished rather
than what you'd normally consider handsome. He runs a picture-framing
business in Hamble. Built it up from practically nothing."
How did I guess that he would sound just like Richard's stepdad? Perhaps
you aren't born with that name, you have to earn it by proving yourself to
be a proper stick-in-the-mud.
"He's aware that you're spoken for?"
She combs out her rainbow hair and steps into a pair of slip-on shoes.
"David's thirty-one. I shall be thirty-nine before the end of the year. He
won't be with me for ever. That's Gerry's way of thinking."
"What's yours?"
"For all that he represents everything I've always hated, Gerald Cooper is
one of the kindest, most dependable men you could meet. Rosie was the one
who strayed, not him. That's something a woman my age has to bear in
mind." She returns to the mirror and dabs at one of the embryonic wrinkles
above her upper lip. "Takes longer every day, keeping the ravages of time
at arm's length. Don't laugh, sweetheart. You've got all this to come."
I glance at the bag resting on the edge of her bed, wondering if Helen
Sutton's notebook is still inside or it's been locked away somewhere. I
decide not to bring the subject up; my encounter with Egerton has given me
enough to worry about.
That goes for the photographs as well. You might consider getting them
back for us.
And put on the line all the trust Kerrie has shown in me?
No thanks.
But that isn't what keeps circling the fringes of my consciousness like a
ravenous vulture.
"Come on, shake a leg!" Kerrie is saying to me from the doorway. "I'm
having Siobhan and Terry over for tea, and until we've been shopping all I
can offer them is a choice between crispy pancakes and fish fingers."
She was taken in by the MoD. What they did with her I dread to think.
What of the woman whose body Yvette de Monnier appropriated before she
stole mine? Did there come a time when she resigned herself to the loss of
her youth, much as I accepted becoming female? Or does she continue to
hope that the technology the MoD must still be working on may yet present
her with the opportunity to snatch back the years de Monnier took from
her?
That against all the odds she might one day resume her life as Ruth
Hansford-Jones?
Yvette would like you on her side.
Sorry darling, I'm not in the mood to nail my colours to anyone's mast but
my own.
That doesn't mean I won't have a change of heart.
Because I'm not swapping bodies again. She can wait till kingdom come.
*
Dave Compton sits up in his chair, a forkful of chicken curry paused in
front of his mouth. He sends an expression of friendly dismay at the
sandy-haired young man on the other side of the table.
"Is that what you really think?" he laughs. "Funny, I didn't have you down
as a Tory."
"I'm not. At least I wasn't." Terry Haynes leans back in his chair and
pats his stomach. Siobhan's boyfriend is a beefy figure with a build that
suggests he knows his way around a rugby pitch and is equally familiar
with the layout of the clubhouse bar. "But you've got to agree, Labour
isn't working."
"Yeah, we've all seen the posters," Eamonn chips in.
"That queue of unemployed stretching from London to Inverness," grunts
Padraig. "If you got them to bunch up a bit it'd probably only reach
Berwick."
"Only?" cries Terry, prompting a loud "sssh!" from Siobhan as she tries to
rock her little boy to sleep.
"Where's Berwick?" Niamh hisses at me.
"Somewhere in Scotland," answers Sinead.
"It's on the border, but it's actually in England," I correct her.
"That's the trouble with propaganda," Padraig continues. "It sounds bad,
but you're given nothing to compare it with. What about the line of people
in work? On the same scale it'd go three-quarters of the way round the
globe."
"Did you sit and work that out?" asks Dave.
"No, it was a mate of ours up in Manchester," says Eamonn.
"Bob Nobbs," nods his brother.
Sinead and Niamh start giggling, and I can't help joining in.
"Is that his real name?" wonders Kerrie, nibbling at a spicy pastry I've
learned is called a samosa.
"No, it's Brian. He never goes to the pub, so everyone calls him Boring
Old Brian. The initials B, O, B spell--"
"I get it, sweetheart."
Kerrie takes Liam from Siobhan, who's a walking contradiction of spiky
peroxide blonde hair, Monroe lips, grungy leather jacket and virgin white
frock. Every inch her mother's daughter, in other words.
"That's right, my darling," she whispers into his ear. "You stay with
grandma while mummy goes for a cigarette."
"I thought you'd given up?" says Kerrie.
"She did," sighs Terry. "Then we had my mum and dad over for a few days."
"Enough said," grins Dave.
The meal comes to an end with Kerrie announcing that the boys are in
charge of the washing up. There isn't a murmur of dissent. We girls retire
to the front room with the baby, and if I can't bring myself to bill and
coo over him like the others, the smile that brightens my face when it's
my turn to hold him and he grabs at my boob is entirely unrehearsed.
Strangely, my recently awakened maternal instincts go straight back to
sleep when Siobhan begins changing her son's nappy.
After a quarter of an hour or so, Kerrie embarks on an inspection of the
kitchen. As satisfied as it's possible for a woman to be when other people
have been working in her domain, she ushers me outside for a smoke.
"It's all a bit different from yesterday," she remarks as we light up.
"You can say that again," I concur, brushing a particularly obstinate
flake of pastry from the front of my jeans. "I don't know if I'm all that
keen on being chased around London by thieves."
I make no further reference to the circumstances that brought me here.
There'll be plenty of time for that when we meet Kerrie's friend tomorrow.
Until then I'm happy to wallow in cosy domesticity.
"David and I will be going out for a drink later on. Just as far as the
Sundial - the pub I pointed out when we were at the shops, remember? It's
nice in there, and they have live music most Saturdays. Eamonn and Padraig
are heading down at about eight. They say you're more than welcome to join
them."
"Sinead and Niamh have plans as well, am I right? It's okay, message
received and understood."
"You can't blame me for wanting to spend some time alone with him."
"God no!" I laugh. "You fell on your feet with that one! He's just the
sort of guy I'd..."
I'd what exactly?
It's all very well to admire a man's physique or daydream about sliding my
fingers across his firm, taut skin, but there's a person inside - and that
person will want to paw me, breathe erotic suggestions into my ear and
climb all over me whenever the mood takes him. Although I might come to
enjoy such attention, the suitor I can imagine wining and dining me,
sending me chocolates and flowers, saying I look nice in my new dress,
whirling me around the dance floor, or even pulling me down on top of him,
unzipping and unhooking me before I know what's going on, is a generic
figure with no more personality than a mannequin in a shop window. Give
him a face or a voice, and even if he's as attractive as Dave Compton the
fantasy evaporates at once.
"So there's life after Tim?" smiles Kerrie, nudging me in the side.
"There will be. I'll have to meet him first. But let's not talk about my
non-existent love life. Come on, tell me: how did you two get together?"
"Through Rosie. Indirectly, anyway. When Gerry moved out she decided to
have the house re-decorated from top to bottom. Well, as you know we're in
and out of one another's kitchens all the time..."
"Hmm...then he was the hunky workman and you were the sexy neighbour who
popped in to offer him a mug of tea? And maybe more besides?"
"It wasn't like that at all," she protests. "What d'you take me for? It
was coffee."
She goes on to tell me that the relationship only really got going in the
run-up to Christmas, when Dave's landlady decided to sell the house he'd
been renting from her to a property company rather than fork out the ?1300
it would have taken to pay for the repairs a local government inspector
had instructed her to carry out. Although the new owners were obliged by
law to find him temporary accommodation, when Kerrie saw the conditions
her new boyfriend would have to put up with she immediately invited him to
move in with her.
"It won't last for ever, I know that," she admits. "He dotes on my
children nearly as much as I do, but one day he'll want his own. And I'm
not the woman to give him them."
I have the best part of an hour before I need to get ready, so I pass it
in front of the television exchanging frivolous observations on a variety
of topics with whoever happens to be in the room. The utter mundanity of
the occasion helps me sink all the more deeply into my new persona. I dole
out snippets of my invented past, each sounding less fraudulent than the
one before.
If you tell a lie often enough...
But sometimes the truth can be an encumbrance.
What good has it done me to learn what really happened that night in
Northcroft? How can it possibly have an impact on my future? What do I
have to gain by listening to any more talk of conspiracies and cover-ups?
Wouldn't it be better to make myself believe - really believe - that the
authorities acted properly, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is
delusional?
The coroner's verdict at the inquest into Bob Hodgson's death was indeed
the correct one. Helen Sutton died of natural causes. Richard Brookbank
was killed in a car accident. Bob's was the only body washed up on Carr
House Sands.
And Ruth Hansford-Jones has no interest whatsoever in any of those events.
That's the way it has to be.
That's the way it is.
*
Closing the bedroom door behind me, I proceed to the dressing table to
remove my make-up and review a surprisingly enjoyable end to an extremely
relaxing day.
To most people, the three hours I spent in the Sundial with Padraig,
Eamonn and their friends - Kerrie and Dave didn't show up until half-past
ten - would have seemed wholly unremarkable. To me, experiencing a night
out from a female point of view for the first time since Christmas, every
moment was heavy with significance.
It went all the more smoothly for me being aware of the ground rules as
taught to me by this body's former owner. I didn't drink alcohol for the
first three rounds, and limited my intake to two halves of lager and lime
after that. I was careful not to say too much, and took great pains to
avoid being seen paying undue attention to any one member of the group.
When one of the girls - I think her name was Lorraine - whispered to me
that she was off to visit the Ladies, I recognised it as an invitation to
join her, one it would have been impolite to ignore. And I sized up the
competition as if I really did see them as rivals.
The overtly sexual looks I drew from a large proportion of the male
customers proved harder to deal with. I had to remind myself that when I'm
in full make-up I attract stares, and lots of them. The tousled gingery
blonde hair, the prominence of my bust, the swimmer's shoulders, the way I
fill out my jeans, none of those features will ever belong to a
wallflower. The trick, of course, is to cultivate an air of feigned
indifference. You're telling these men that their interest in you has been
noted, but that's all.
The evening also provided ample confirmation - in truth, little was needed
- that any attraction I once felt for the female form has disappeared.
Whatever the future holds for me, it is not a romantic relationship with
another woman. The idea of moving between Olivia Newton John's outspread
thighs is as unappealing as the thought of John Travolta thrusting away
between mine. In fact if I was forced to choose one or the other I'd open
my legs for John every time. Less work for me, and he'd be the one paying
for the Champagne.
I use a swab to clean my skin, making sure I rub it into all the little
folds and indentations around my eyes and mouth. Although Sylvia has
assured me I've the type of skin that won't age prematurely, I'd rather
instil my routine with good practice now than have to take it up when the
first intimations of mortality appear in the looking glass.
I'm reaching back to unhook my bra when I hear a rustling noise outside. I
turn off the light, then kneel on the bed to peer through the curtains.
The room is at the rear of the house, giving me a clear view of Rosie's
garden once my vision has adjusted to the darkness.
There's a shadow on Kerrie's side of the fence, not far from the shed at
the top of her lawn.
And that's a torch!
Egerton.
He must have obtained Kerrie's address from the hotel register.
But I thought he wanted me to do his dirty work for him? And shouldn't he
have more sense than to go creeping around in people's gardens less than
an hour after the pubs have shut?
I can't disturb Rosie. She'd insist on being told everything. As for
Kerrie, the way she was all over her boyfriend after two or three rum and
Cokes I'd be astonished if she isn't being humped within an inch of her
life at this very moment.
I retrieve my T-shirt and jeans from my holdall and pull them on. Shoes in
hand, I steal downstairs. I remember that the back door key is in the
kitchen, on a ring suspended from a hook between the fridge and the
washing machine. It's stiff, but it turns in the lock with a barely
audible click.
Now for the hard part.
I sit on the step to slide my feet into my shoes. Lifting myself up, I
inch my way along the crazy paving towards Kerrie's patio and crane my
neck to see around the end of the fence. The prowler is now inside the
shed, shining his torch every which way as he conducts his illicit search.
I make a dash for the corner to the right of the door, pressing my back
against the wall as if I'm playing some nocturnal game of hide-and-seek.
Very slowly, I slither around to a position where I can look through the
grimy, cobweb-covered window.
The beam illuminates Helen Sutton's notebook, which is open at the
photograph of the mosque. A hand turns the page, and I can hear a muffled
snigger as the portrait of a bizarrely transformed Sarah-Jane Collingwood
is revealed.
To my amazement, the intruder doesn't stuff the notebook into his jacket
but places it behind the paint pot on the shelf where Kerrie had evidently
concealed it.
And that's not the only thing lifting my hand to my mouth before I dart
back into the shadows.
Locking the door after him, Dave Compton switches off his torch and
marches purposefully across the grass to the house.
Now what am I supposed to make of that?
More to the point, what can I do about it?
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