needed, until he reached the normal climax to his story, which was one of the few points at which he agreed with the subsequently published Session 5(a).
‘… so Fellow-me-lad says to me, “Have you done it with a French lass yet?” and I say, “Give us time, only got off the boat yesterday!” ’
I would normally have feigned a run of dying chuckles, poured some more Scotch, and waited for Uncle Freddy’s next topic. This time, for some reason, I declined his ending.
‘So did you?’
‘Did I what?’
‘Do it with a French lass?’
I was breaking the rules, and his reply was a kind of rebuke; or at least, I took it as such. ‘Your Aunt Kate was as pure as driven snow,’ he announced with a hiccup. ‘The missing doesn’t get any the less, you know, for all the years. I can’t wait to join her.’
‘Never say die, Uncle Freddy.’ This is not the sort of expression I normally use. I practically added, ‘Life in the old dog yet’, such was the infectious, indeed pestiferous influence of my uncle. Instead, I repeated ‘So did you do it with a French lass?’
‘Thereby hangs a tale, my boy, and it’s one I’ve never told a living soul.’
I think if I’d shown genuine interest at this point, I might have scared him off, but I was slumped in the oppressive reflection that my uncle was not just an old bore, but a parody of an old bore. Why didn’t he strap on a peg-leg and start capering round some inglenooked pub waving a clay pipe? ‘Thereby hangs a tale, and it’s one I’ve never told a living soul’. People don’t say that any more. Except my uncle just had.
‘They fixed me up, you see.’
‘Who fixed you up?’
‘The Surrealist boys. My new-found chums.’
‘You mean, they found you a job?’
‘Are you stupid tonight or just normal? I’m not sure I can tell. They fixed me up with a woman. Well, two to be precise.’
I began to pay attention at this point. Needless to say, I did not believe my uncle. He was probably fed up with the lack of impact made by the umpteenth retelling of How IMet The Surrealists, and had been working up some new embellishment.
‘You see, in my considered opinion, those get-togethers … They all wanted to meet up and talk smut, but couldn’t admit it, so they said there was some scientific purpose behind it all. Fact is, they weren’t very good at talking smut. Inhibited, really, I suppose I’d say. Intellectuals. No fire in their veins, just ideas. Why, in my three years in the army…’
I will spare you this ritual diversion.
‘… so I could sense what they were after, but I wasn’t going to provide it. Almost like betraying your country, talking smut to a group of foreigners. Unpatriotic, don’t you think?’
‘Never tried it, Uncle.’
‘Ha. You’ve got a tongue on you tonight. Never tried it. That was just like them, wanting to know what I’d never tried. Trouble with their sort is, if you say you’ve never wanted to do so-and-so, they don’t believe you. In fact, just because you say you don’t want to do so-and-so, they assume that deep down this is what you’re busting to do. Cock-eyed, eh?’
‘Could be.’
‘So I thought it incumbent upon me to raise the tone of the gathering. Don’t laugh, I know what I’m saying. You wait till you find yourself sitting around with a lot of intellectuals all talking about John Thomas. So I said, “Here’s one to think about. What if there were two lasses who made love in the same way? Exactly the same way, so that if you closed your eyes you couldn’t tell the difference. Wouldn’t that be a thing?” I said. And with all their brains they hadn’t turnedup that conundrum before. It set them by the ears, I don’t mind telling you.’
I’m not surprised. It’s one of those questions you tend not to ask. Neither about yourself (is there somebody else out there who does it in a way indistinguishable from me?), nor about others. In sex, we observe distinctiveness not similarity.
‘… so Fellow-me-lad says to me, “Have you done it with a French lass yet?” and I say, “Give us time, only got off the boat yesterday!” ’
I would normally have feigned a run of dying chuckles, poured some more Scotch, and waited for Uncle Freddy’s next topic. This time, for some reason, I declined his ending.
‘So did you?’
‘Did I what?’
‘Do it with a French lass?’
I was breaking the rules, and his reply was a kind of rebuke; or at least, I took it as such. ‘Your Aunt Kate was as pure as driven snow,’ he announced with a hiccup. ‘The missing doesn’t get any the less, you know, for all the years. I can’t wait to join her.’
‘Never say die, Uncle Freddy.’ This is not the sort of expression I normally use. I practically added, ‘Life in the old dog yet’, such was the infectious, indeed pestiferous influence of my uncle. Instead, I repeated ‘So did you do it with a French lass?’
‘Thereby hangs a tale, my boy, and it’s one I’ve never told a living soul.’
I think if I’d shown genuine interest at this point, I might have scared him off, but I was slumped in the oppressive reflection that my uncle was not just an old bore, but a parody of an old bore. Why didn’t he strap on a peg-leg and start capering round some inglenooked pub waving a clay pipe? ‘Thereby hangs a tale, and it’s one I’ve never told a living soul’. People don’t say that any more. Except my uncle just had.
‘They fixed me up, you see.’
‘Who fixed you up?’
‘The Surrealist boys. My new-found chums.’
‘You mean, they found you a job?’
‘Are you stupid tonight or just normal? I’m not sure I can tell. They fixed me up with a woman. Well, two to be precise.’
I began to pay attention at this point. Needless to say, I did not believe my uncle. He was probably fed up with the lack of impact made by the umpteenth retelling of How IMet The Surrealists, and had been working up some new embellishment.
‘You see, in my considered opinion, those get-togethers … They all wanted to meet up and talk smut, but couldn’t admit it, so they said there was some scientific purpose behind it all. Fact is, they weren’t very good at talking smut. Inhibited, really, I suppose I’d say. Intellectuals. No fire in their veins, just ideas. Why, in my three years in the army…’
I will spare you this ritual diversion.
‘… so I could sense what they were after, but I wasn’t going to provide it. Almost like betraying your country, talking smut to a group of foreigners. Unpatriotic, don’t you think?’
‘Never tried it, Uncle.’
‘Ha. You’ve got a tongue on you tonight. Never tried it. That was just like them, wanting to know what I’d never tried. Trouble with their sort is, if you say you’ve never wanted to do so-and-so, they don’t believe you. In fact, just because you say you don’t want to do so-and-so, they assume that deep down this is what you’re busting to do. Cock-eyed, eh?’
‘Could be.’
‘So I thought it incumbent upon me to raise the tone of the gathering. Don’t laugh, I know what I’m saying. You wait till you find yourself sitting around with a lot of intellectuals all talking about John Thomas. So I said, “Here’s one to think about. What if there were two lasses who made love in the same way? Exactly the same way, so that if you closed your eyes you couldn’t tell the difference. Wouldn’t that be a thing?” I said. And with all their brains they hadn’t turnedup that conundrum before. It set them by the ears, I don’t mind telling you.’
I’m not surprised. It’s one of those questions you tend not to ask. Neither about yourself (is there somebody else out there who does it in a way indistinguishable from me?), nor about others. In sex, we observe distinctiveness not similarity.
Similar Books
