9. MARMADUKE AND BED TIME.

The end of Marmaduke's first day as a married man.

Marmaduke Lauderdale was a man who despised wasting time when money might be lost, and this time he had to substitute comfort for money as he tried to work things out. He was stuck outside a hotel on the first night of his honeymoon to the dreadful (to him) Dragona despite having paid for three days in advance, and even if he had to share it with the dreadful creature his mother had thought might make a good wife for him, then he would.

So as quietly and as unobtrusively as he could he made his way back into the hotel and, trying to look as if nothing frivolous mattered in the entire world, went to its dining room hoping that she’d still be there because he didn’t think she was the sort to make a fuss in public.

He breathed a silent sigh of relief when he saw that Dragona was sitting at their table, but her shoulders were gently heaving. She was obviously weeping. Marmaduke couldn’t stand women who wept at the least provocation, but worse than that was the sight of his old school friend, the boy he’d probably had a soft spot for way back when he’d been too young to know what soft spots really were. He could have spat. Colin Fairfax friend had one arm round Dragona’s shoulder, comforting her in a way that bordered on the indecent.

There was nothing for it. He had to have the meal he’d paid for and make everything into someone else’s fault. That’s what the leader of his political party did all the time, was particularly adept at and earned him huge respect from all right-thinking men the world over. Or so Marmaduke thought.

So he fixed a smile on his face and almost ran back into the dining room. Then he ran up to the honeymooners table and tried to make his voice sound jolly and almost Christmassy despite the fact that it was only autumn.

“I’m back, angel eyes,” he got close to shouting with too much jollity and even less sincerity, “I was smitten by the beauty you radiated when you dragged that old skirt off and revealed your knickers for all to see and admire. I mean, revealed you tiny Scottish skirt underneath it that was far too small to hide your pretty undies! You clever old thing, you! How did you know about my Scottish ancestry and even more clever, how did you know my family tartan?”

Dragona looked up at him and forced a weak smile through a face that had been moistened by tears of misery for too many minutes.

“You’re a pig, and I was warned by everyone who knew I was marrying you,” she said quietly, but Colin Fairfax heard before he walked away and left them in peace. But he had one thought that dominated all others. I’ll have her before she leaves, he thought.

Back at the table, now minus a caring Colin, when Marmaduke thought it appropriate he ordered their meals from a sparse menu, together with a bottle of red wine.

“But not that piss you gave us when you popped in to welcome us,” he snarled quietly at Colin who had scurried back and who seemed to be the head waiter, the only waiter and the proprietor all in one.

“Only the best for my newly-weds,” he replied in a voice loud enough to be heard by other guests in the hope it would cheer the atmosphere up a little.

It didn’t.

Then meal itself was quite good, though Marmaduke, in not the quietest voice, described the steak as being overdone and the vegetables as being underdone.

“It’s nice,” hissed Dragona, “I bsay it is and I write nfood column for a national newspaper.”

She didn’t, but she realised that Marmaduke invented truths that were far from being true everywhere he went. And Marmaduke had no idea what she did for employment. He’d never bothered to ask because in their conversations he’d been only really been concerned with telling her about himself.

The meal over and the last dregs of what was an exceptionally good wine that Marmaduke described in his loud voice as piss, they chose to retired for the night.

As they walked down the corridor Dragona muttered “I hope you’re satisfied!”

“Of course I am,” he smirked.

“It’s not so many men who set themselves out to ruin what should be the happiest day of their wife’s life,” she snorted.

“Well, if you have to be a leftie you might accept a bit of well earned criticism,” he grated.

“We’ll see about that,” she replied.

Once they were back in their room Dragona set about her new husband. He had humiliated her, and he wasn’t ever going to do that again. She had heard enough about his political machinations to know about a few things he might, deep down, be ashamed of. Since their hasty marriage plans became public knowledge there was no shortage of friends willing to warn her what her chosen beau was like.

“We’re married, and remember what the old clergyman said,” she told him, “for better or for worse. That’s what he said and that’s what it’s going to be. I know you and your conservative values, the way you put yourself first and to hell with everyone else. Well, from now on you’re going to let me share that first position or I’ll make things damned uncomfortable for you.”

“What have I done?” he blabbered, “I know it took me by surprise, you showing that tiny skirt you’re wearing. I hadn’t seen anything like it before. And that whipping off your big skirt… I liked that skirt…”

“You what?” she asked. “It’s dreary and I only brought it as a joke! I wanted to see what you’d make of it! It’s one of my mum’s old ones and I replaced a button with a strip of Velcro!”

“Some joke,” he muttered, not sure how to react.

“Well it amused me, and awoman has every right to be amused on her wedding day!” she shouted, “I wonder if I’ll still be amused when you get udressed for bed!”

“And what does that mean?” he spluttered, and in all truth it was the sort of comment that had no leaning for him. How could getting into bed and going to sleep be remotely amusing?

“If you’re that tetchy about my skirt, what are you going to make of my nightie?” she asked, almost as if she was challenging him to a contest of some sort. “Here it is!”

And she carefully pulled what looked like no more than a scrap of feather-light material from the drawer where she’d put it when they’d unpacked, and held it up. There wasn’t a breath of a breeze in their room, but it semed to flutter anyway.

“I tell you what, I’ll put it on. Don’t worry, only you’ll see it and remember that you are my husband, so it’’s legal!”

And she carefully removed the tartan mini-skirt and her blouse and slipped the nightie on. It was tiny, though not so small that it failed to cover what she perceived as her important body parts. In actual fact it was decent enough and its main attraction was the sheer material it was made of and the way a man’s imagination might think he could almost see through it.

“You’ll catch your death!” he snorted.

“Why, don’t you like it?” she asked, and right there in front of him she slid her underclothes off.

It was then that a memory of his schooldays somehow made its way out of the ess of forgotten memories that lurked somewhere in the depth of his brain. It was the dormitory when he was pulling his pyjamas on and another boy, what was the scumbag’s name, giggled at him.

“See Lordy-pants,” he teased, “whoever wears P.J.’s like that any more? And look: I can see his willy!”

And he had felt his face turning red as he had scrambled to get under the blankets and hide his head in shame. Not that there was anything unusual about that partm of his body, but he didn’t know.

He never peeped at other boys in the shower after games, did he? And he always bathed alone. Somewhere along the lines he’d learned about modesty, decency, and keeping his body to himself. In his parents’ house such moral concepts had substituted for love.

And here was a woman, all right, his wife, wearing next to nothing and almost taunting him with her body. What would his boss in parliament say? Ah, he knew.

“There’s going to be rain tonight I shouldn’t wonder,” he said, “maybe you need to wear something more suited to inclement weather.”

© Peter Rogerson 26.05.22

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