The Wheeling Dipping Seagull, Brian Doswell [learn to read books TXT] 📗

she struggled, the more the dress came apart. I have to admit, the desire to stand back and enjoy the scene was truly difficult to resist but that would have been really unfair.

In the end she stood close to the boot lid clutching the cloth around her while I searched for the key. It was nowhere. I honestly looked everywhere, inside, outside, underneath and in every pocket. The key had disappeared.


ooooo

I have to say that David is a real gent. I knew that he was desperately close to bursting into laughter but he managed to keep a straight face while he crawled around the car park looking for the key while I could only stand and watch.

I had the key in my hand when I opened the boot to get the spare tyre out. I searched the depths of my memory . . . .

- Key in hand.

- Key in lock.

- Key back in handbag.

- Handbag in boot.

- Oh shit!


“David, I think I know where the key is.”


+++++

I could just about hear her voice from under the car. I tried hard to avoid the sharp edges of the exhaust pipe as I slid out from under the Clio.

“Thank goodness, where is it?”

Her face turned towards the locked boot, she did not need to say the words.

I stayed where I was, spread out in the dust on the concrete surface of the car park, collapsed in uncontrollable fits of laughter. The whole thing had such a total air of farce about it; no script writer could have planned such total mayhem. I suppose she had expected me to be cross and when I wasn’t, she relaxed and saw the funny side of it too.

Our first thought was to bundle her into my car, go back to her apartment to fetch a spare key but, her door key was on the same key-ring. Not our best idea. The only solution was for her to slip out of what was left of her dress and hide in my car while I tried to take the back seat out of the Clio and retrieve her handbag from inside the car.

If I had been a real gentleman I would have turned my back while she made the dash to my car, but then, it was all a bit too late to change the pattern of our brief relationship. I have to say that matching underwear, as skimpy as that, looks so much better on a real body than it does in shop windows.

Fortunately the Clio is built to come apart if required. A screwdriver and bit of a yank on the rear headrests and the seat back folded down revealing the handbag, exactly as promised. I pushed the seat back into place and strolled over to my car. There was no point in being coy. I slid into my seat and passed Sylvie her handbag. It seemed pretty obvious that we were going nowhere tonight, me in my oily, blood-stained clothes and Sylvie in almost no clothes at all.

“I suggest that I retrieve what’s left of your dress. We drive in convoy to your place. You get something else to wear and then we go and get a pizza.”


ooooo

“Why don’t we pick up a pizza on the way to my place, and stay there.”


+++++

Feeling like a schoolboy about to lose his virginity, I drove diagonally across the neatly painted lines of the car park towards the exit barrier where a seagull sat, perched on the red and white striped barrier. Unafraid of the car, the bird simply paraded up and down the length of the barrier, its head tilted at an angle. The machine swallowed my parking ticket but the barrier refused to open.

I opened the car window and keyed the help button on the pillar beside the barrier. A tired metallic voice asked if we needed help.

I explained.

The voice suggested that I give the barrier a push, “. . . because it sometimes sticks.”

I got out of the car and pushed the barrier as directed. As if by magic, it moved and the seagull squawked as it hopped off the pole onto an adjacent bush. I swear, the damn bird was laughing at me.


ooooo

I would like to say I felt safe in the confines of my own little Clio but there was virtually no way I could keep the remnants of my dress around my body and drive at the same time. The strappy top still hung from my shoulders but the rest of my dress insisted on falling apart in every direction. Hey ho! It was too late now, I’d stepped over the line, I’d invited David to my place, knowing I was about to arrive there in my underwear. Somehow the thought began to excite me as I followed his car across the car park to the barrier.

I waved to him in the hope that he would see me in his rear-view mirror but the back window of his car was so dirty I suppose he couldn’t see out at all.

It occurred to me that he did not know where I lived so at some point I would have to overtake his car and take the lead. He seemed to be waiting ages for the barrier to open and I was about to get out to tell him about me leading when he leapt out of his car and attacked the seagull that was sitting on the barrier. He had seemed such a nice guy, could I have been mistaken, was he really the violent type?


+++++

I pulled in on the side of the road to wait for Sylvie’s car to emerge from the car park. I occurred to me that I had no idea where she lived but, as we planned to pick up a pizza on the way, we could sort that out when we stopped. I checked my rear-view mirror but the window was still smeared with seagull splat, so I could see nothing at all. I did see my own oil-smeared face in the glass. I looked like a mechanic after a hard day in the garage. I couldn’t resist the temptation to scrub at the greasy smear on my forehead and while scrubbing, from the corner of my eye, I noticed a green flash pass me at a hundred miles per hour. Like a fool, I gunned my throttle intending to catch her and stalled the engine. By the time I restarted the engine she was gone, and I had no idea where.

There are five pizza places in town. It can’t be that difficult. I would do a slow tour of each one and our paths would be bound to cross somewhere along the way. I’d know that green colour anywhere.


ooooo
I can’t imagine where I missed him. As I drove round the bushes beside the car-park exit, the road was empty. How could he do this to me? Perhaps he thought I was too forward. After all, I had wound my near-naked sun-oiled body all over him on the beach and then virtually stripped off in the car-park. I guess I could forgive him for thinking that I was verging on desperate. I drove round the block twice but there was no sign of his car. I was certain that I knew what I was looking for, it was a silver grey Mercedes, or it might have been an Audi. But it was definitely silver and covered in seagull splat.

My stomach rumbled reminding me that I was hungry. I remembered the pizza idea and it occurred to me that there are only five pizza places in town. It can’t be that difficult. I would do a slow tour of each one and our paths would be bound to cross somewhere along the way. I’d know that silver grey colour anywhere.


+++++

The three most popular pizza shops are all on the same ‘down-town’ end of the beach road. One is in the centre of town and the last one is out by the junction of the dual carriageway. The round trip takes seven minutes, I know I’ve done it four times already without a sign of a green Clio anywhere. I did get a passing glimpse of a green Clio on the opposite lane of the dual carriageway but it was gone too quickly to be sure if it was her.

I guess she has given up on me. She must be thinking that I’m too old for her. Not her type, perhaps? Perhaps she thinks it’s my fault that her clothes get ripped off every time I meet her.

It’s past nine o’clock and I’m getting hungry. I cruise slowly along the beach road aware that the “working girls” who hang out on the strip are beginning to arrive for their evening shift. I have passed some of them three times now and I dare not do it again in case I get arrested for kerb-crawling.

I stop at my favourite pizza place and order a medium Hawaiian with extra pineapple. It is a sticky topping but I like the fruity chunks.

I wait by the open door while the pizza cooks, hoping to spot the Clio, reluctant to give up on the evening but resigned to eating alone.

The pizza man calls out my name and I pay at the desk before carrying the box to my car. I’m starving and the warm smell of pineapple juice is too much to resist. I set the open box on the passenger seat and tuck into the first slice. Stringy cheese clings to my chin and I wipe it off with the back of my hand. There’s a handkerchief in my trouser pocket but it’s difficult to extract while sitting in the car. I twist round to give myself more room and a chunk of pineapple slides off the pizza onto my shirt front, and I really don’t care. I scrape it off and shovel it into my mouth ignoring the dribble of juice that stays on my cheek.


ooooo

I stop on the beach road outside my favourite pizza shop and do the best I can to restore the tattered remains of my dress before getting out of my car. It’s getting late and I’m grateful that the light is fading, I don’t want to be confused with the young girls who work the streets around here, getting arrested for soliciting would be the last straw after the evening so far.

I love the rich tomato topping on pizza. It reminds me of warm sunny days on the beaches in Italy. I order anchovy with extra tomato and wait in a quiet booth for it to be ready. I keep my arms folded across my chest to keep my dress together and I manage quite well until it’s time to pay and then I don’t have enough hands to cope with everything at once.