2. CHIPS AND TENNIS

On their way

“We’ll take it easy,” Trayda told Angela as she drove down a twisty road rather than a motorway, “we’ll get there this afternoon, I promise you, but I know a nice little cafe where we can stop off for lunch.”

“You’re the driver,” Angela reminded her, “and tell the truth it would be nice not to have to find a meal when we get to this Sandy Shores place.”

“I used to go there with the b*****d,” Trayda said, grinning. B*****d was the name she used for her ex-husband, though it didn’t exactly resonate with what had happened to destroy her marriage. She knew the fault had been almost totally hers but had really expected to be forgiven over a glass of red wine and a few tears. But had she thought more about it she would have realised that Don Sibsey wasn’t the forgiving sort. He was possessive, expected loyalty above all things, and what she’d been caught out doing with Sergeant Crimpson had absolutely nothing to do with loyalty.

“Did the two of you go to Sandy Shores, then?” asked Angela.

Trayda shook her head. “Not there,” she said, “but I don’t want to go anywhere near the places we did use. Old memories, and all that, you know. I want somewhere new, and Sandy Shores is just that.”

“Don’t you know anything about the place we’re going to, then?” asked Angela.

“Not really. But it looks okay on-line if its web-site is anything to go by it quite a decent site,” murmured Trayda.

“Web site piccies can be most deceptive,” warned Angela, “last year, before my ex decided to engage in nefarious activities with everything that breathes we fell for a beautiful looking futon that was advertised on the Internet. The picture on the website made it look like a bargain, but when it arrived it was as ugly as sin, third rate and tatty, and we wouldn’t give it house-room. So we decided to send it back only to find that the outfit selling it had gone under and vanished from the face of the planet. It ended up in landfill, and all because of a tempting photo on the net.”

“Well, if we don’t like the place we can always move on,” murmured Trayda, “don’t forget that we’re mobile and I’ve only paid a deposit, so whatever the site’s like we can’t lose much if it’s not for us.”

“I wonder what that naturist place you mentioned is like,” said Angela, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “I’ll bet you’ve never been there!”

“I’ve never wanted to,” Trayda told her, frowning. “I’ve never actually met anyone who’s spent time in the nuddy in a public place!”

“Just think of it … tennis in the morning, old men with racquets poised and bits jangling in the breeze! What fun!”

“I don’t fancy old men,” protested Trayda, “randy sergeant Crimpson was old enough for me, and he was shy of fifty by several years!”

“Tell me what happened there, Tray,” urged Angela.

“It was simple really. A quiet night at the station, me finishing my paper work in overtime before going home, and old Crimpo eyeing me as if I was naked every time I went near him! Then he said something about checking on a prisoner and would I like to come and I nearly said no, but I noticed he was a bit, you know, excited, and thought it might be fun. And fun it was, only lasted about twenty minutes if that, and I went back to my paper work while he went off duty and homewards. Everything was jolly until next day we learned that a prisoner had cut himself and bled to death.”

“While you were at it?”

“Must have been. The pathologist gave a time of death that neatly coincided with old Crimp being ready to burst, and apparently we were slightly overheard. Most unprofessional, but Crimpo knew what he was doing with what he had, and you know how a girl can get carried away...”

“And they knew it was you?”

“Darned prisoners who’d eavesdropped knew who they’d heard doing what we’d been doing and weren’t shy about grassing us up.” muttered Trayda unhappily. “What about you and your ex, then? What went on there?”

“Oh, he’s a loser and thinks redheads in supermarkets are fair game for a superhero with less in his pants than he makes out he’s got,” said Angela, “You should have seen the disappointed look on her face! But hey, where’s that cafe of yours?”

“Half an hour and we’ll be there,” Trayda assured her, “I just fancy a few chips and grease. Haven’t had a healthy fry-up for yonks!”

“Me neither. I’ve spent too long being watchful of what I’ve eaten because a girl’s what she eats, they tell me. So I’m all boring veggie stuff and no fat.”

“I’ve been much the same,” sighed Trayda, “and I’m ready for a fry-up in a greasy spoon!”

“All those good intentions,” sighed Angela.

“You mean the ones that pave the road to Hell?”

Angela nodded. “They’re the ones,” she said.

oo0oo

Walter Tidy walked purposefully along the beach, past the caravan site that was the thing that most blighted his world with its little circus of fast food stands, Punch and Judy squawking twice a day and the detritus of a seaside holiday resort, caravans everywhere, the smell of cooking oozing from them, contrasting horribly with the burger van where people went to buy stomach bugs and diarrhoea. He’d heard about them and reckoned that the sick deserved it if they bought anything off scum like the burger van man.

His dog, a mongrel with a keen face and matted hair, ran off in front despite a plethora of signs saying dogs should be kept off the beach and on a lead.

Walter Tidy came this way every day, when it wasn’t raining or blowing a gale. Ostensibly it was to do two things: spot birds through his binoculars and exercise Max, his dog. But he knew that wasn’t anything like the whole story because fenced off, at the end of his walk, was Happy Valley Naturist camp. And in that camp was a cluster of trees from which birdsong could be heard by the highly imaginative. Which is why he carried his binoculars.

The camp-site was arranged with areas for caravans and tents, all discreetly privatised by well manicured hedges and the odd fence. The visitors to Happy valley may have liked living as nature intended, but they didn’t always want to be too obviously on show. There were areas for sports, too, tennis and bowling being the favourites, and other areas where comfortable seating in the form of old fashioned deck chairs allowed for sun bathing when the sun decided to grace the world with its presence.

Walter knew where to look. And it wasn’t the tree tops that received the lion’s share of his attention, but the social and sporting areas. It was then that he crouched down, as low as he could on the sand, and stared with rapt attention into his binoculars, occasionally having to adjust something uncomfortable in his shorts.

He particularly liked the tennis courts. Both sexes attracted his admiration because in all truth he wasn’t choosy which type of body to admire. There were the men, mostly in their middle ages, with very little to write home about but amusing enough in their own way, and the women, the busty, well-endowed, leaping women. And leaping is what they did, after this or that ball, their entire bodies reacting in a predictable way to every exaggerated leap. Walter loved watching them.

The campsite owner, William Hampton, knew all about Walter, and hated him. But what could he do? The beach wasn’t his or he would have fenced it off years ago. The beach was a public place and bird watchers were as entitled to walk on the part of it that was adjacent to his camping site as they were to walk anywhere. He’d even taken the matter to court, and lost, the deciding point being the presence of a rare kind of African tit in his cluster of trees. He was all for chopping them down but couldn’t on account of the presence of those damned tits.

So William Hampton tried to ignore Walter, but in all honesty he couldn’t. Walter, in William’s eyes, was a pervert and he didn’t like perverts going anywhere near his often robust and hyperactive bunch of naturists who enjoyed his facilities in all but the worst of weathers.

And Walter knew that all victories were his as he lay on the sand and gazed long and very hard at a long-haired blonde bird who was battling an overweight elderly man on the tennis court, and letting a huge part of her bounce along with the bouncing tennis balls as she did so.

© Peter Rogerson 19.03.19