She pushed the straps of her dress off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. Her slip followed.
‘You don’t want to help me with this?’ she asked. She reached behind her back to unhook the straps of her bra.
I closed the distance between us, and took over, always the gentleman. With the clasps undone I slipped my hands underneath the cups, caressing her breasts.
‘You’re quite an infuriating woman, you know.’
‘I think you like infuriating women,’ she said, as she turned to undo my belt.
‘You’ve been misinformed.’
She kissed me, lightly at first.
‘Let’s put this conversation on ice until tomorrow,’ she said. ‘That wine’s got me feeling quite racy. See if you can keep up.’
21
Mrs Leckie was on her knees in her front garden, a large sunhat her only concession to the heatwave. There was a breeze up on the hilltop, and she had the hat tied under her chin with a scarf. I’d never seen her without a heavy cardigan and this morning was no exception. She had a punnet full of strawberries, and was busy pulling out runners, tutting at each one, as if it were a naughty schoolchild.
‘You turn your back on these for one minute,’ she said, pulling up a long chain of plants, linked by thin tendrils. She shook the soil off and dropped the offending plants in a trug by her side.
‘Had any more trouble from your landlord?’ I asked, standing politely on the other side of the garden wall.
‘No, I don’t think they’ll be back, do you? You were very effective,’ she said. ‘Glad you found your métier. Certainly wasn’t schoolwork.’
‘I was a late bloomer.’
‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘We’re not all cut out to be poets. Someone’s got to do the dirty work.’
She looked across the road.
‘Where’s your van?’ she asked. ‘Don’t want to leave it on the road. Those lorries don’t slow down for love nor money.’
‘I walked. Wanted to stretch my legs.’
‘I’m surprised they let you through,’ she said. ‘They’re meant to be on the lookout for suspicious-looking men.’
‘Had to go the long way round. Came around past Underhill.’
The shortest route would have taken me through Maresfield, but what was normally a sleepy hamlet was fast turning into a no-go area, fenced off and guarded by clipboard-wielding sentries. A large contingent of Canadian troops had been barracked there, and rumours in town said an additional camp was being built for prisoners of war.
‘I was worried about you,’ I said. ‘I heard rumours of a parachutist.’
‘You don’t strike me as the kind of man who listens to fishwives’ gossip,’ she said, giving me a piercing stare.
‘You haven’t seen anyone suspicious?’ I asked. ‘Heard any German voices coming out of the ether?’
‘If Hitler wants to send someone to spy on me, that’s his lookout,’ she said. ‘Can’t imagine it’ll do him much good.’
‘What about those lorries?’ I asked.
She shuffled along on the grass to the next section of the combined flower and vegetable bed, grabbed the trug and pulled it closer, and set to work again.
‘Some kind of works,’ she said, ‘all very hush hush.’
‘What do they do there?’ I asked.
She shook her head.
