The Fowler and His Net – Chapter 3

The refurbishment of the largest municipal pool in town ate up nearly all of his time in the intervening three days between Gary Fowler’s night of strange sex with Samantha Barton and the next time he would have access to his buxom new lover. The team his father put on the job did not ignore his oddly changed mental state.

‘Pass t’square over please lover boy,’ Paul, one of his father’s foremen asked earlier. He took it all in good humour and gave out just as bad. ‘Aye,’ he had replied, ‘if you let me shag your missus’ an all.’ .

Lunch in the greasy spoon cafe had brought more questions about the attractive young widow. Gary wasn’t evasive about his answers. ‘Aye, right there next t’ pool, slappin’ her arse wi’t putty trowel. Aye, she wants me to invite all yous’ lot n’all.’ The table laughed.

‘Really?’ Jake, the young apprentice piped. Silence; and then more howling laughter. Paul, the foreman cuffed him around the head. ‘No, not really, you bloody young spunker.’

‘How’s it you get that job then Gazza, when there’s so’s many more deservin?’ Asked Wayne, one of his mates on the job.

‘Look on’t side o’t van Wayno!’ he replied. ‘Mi Dad’s not gonna want your seed spread in’t aristocracy now is he. No, s’got to be a Fowler ain’t it.’

Gary wasn’t up to much intellectually, but he did know evasion played the work of truth in the close knit world of the working class. His hyperbole did it’s job. Unbeknownst to him though, this new society around which he was now skirting the fringes, played the war very differently. For those inhabitants, truth and lies had a blurred hinterland and those same evasions, indirect or non-committal responses were just part of a wide arsenal of weapons that shifted the front line in one direction or another. Samantha Burton’s interest in him should, if he had been an indigenous member of this new world, have raised suspicions. But, coming from the place he did, that interest was as simple as himself being a good looking lad and having a fit and strong body and her being lonely and bored.

His tame submission to Samantha’s skillful experience played no part in his thoughts as he walked to the Plough with Tracey that Friday night. They found a table in the busy lounge, local folk had become used to seeing them there together.

‘Aye, I got a bit of a look around. Didn’t seem like there was much worth takin’’ he said to her.

‘Oh, that is a relief Gary I tell you, I keep hearin’ all kinds of tales I tell yer.’

‘Oh, aye.’

‘Aye,’ Tracey leant forward. ‘This ain’t from Mrs. Abel this, It’s from som’un else, but remember that stuck up piano teacher, you know the one that used to come in ‘ere?’

Gary remembered. ‘Aye, he weren’t much of a tap room lad, were he; weren’t he found in South America or somewhere like that; wouldn’t have thought he were’t type ta’ be dealing drugs, but ya’ can’t tell wi’ folk.’

‘Well, I heard it right, that him and that Mrs. Barton were at it!’

Gary interjected. ‘Who teld ya that?’ Tracey eyed him suspiciously, he had been a bit too forthright in his response. ‘I mean she didn’t seem like his type at all, his missus’ were a right shadow.’

‘Oh, he were packin’ though.’ Tracey smiled at him.

‘’Ow d’you know that?’

‘Bloody ‘ell, all ya’ need to do is look.’

‘Blokes don’t look at other blokes tackle!’

‘Well, maybe you should?’ laughed Tracey. She looked directly at Gary and sat back in her chair. ‘Did you two get up to any shaggin’ Gary?’ Tracy asked. She never minced her words.

He knew she had rumbled him. ‘What me and that John bloke, no, never really liked ‘im that much.’ His witticism only bought him a few seconds of time.

‘You know who I mean’!

Gary looked pained, he squirmed and finally confessed. ‘A blow job. A bloody good one actually.’

‘Gary!’

‘What? She’s single, I’m single what’s t’problem?’

‘Don’t you listen to me Gary? She’s no bloody good! She could get on’t phone and have two bloody dozen of them posh rugby players scramblin’ over her front wall tryin’ to get to ‘er. What’s she seeing in you, yer great thick lump!’

Gary was rather offended by this wise council. ‘Ow d’you know I’m not in’t driving seat eh?’ he complained.

‘Gary, you might be able to drive a Ford Transit but that’s about it. I married t’clever ‘un.’

He had to admit the truth in this, Darren had done well at school and it was only his own influence that had led them both into petty crime. It had not only been Captain Barton who had persuaded them both to join the Sherwood Foresters, Darren saw the sense in it too, considering the alternative, and had prospered in the service, making sergeant while he had just managed to get his one chevron at lance corporal.

‘This kid has really bin’ making me think Gary.’ She stared glumly at her shandy. ‘About t’stuff we used to get up to.’

‘That’s bloody years ago’ he said dismissively.

‘Is it? I’ve bin listenin’ to you for’t last month like we were fifteen again. I feel bloody stupid.’

He was at last beginning to agree with her. ‘It do make sense n’all Tracey, I mean we’ve all got good jobs now like. I just wanted a bit o’ fun.’

‘Aye, me too. But let’s call it a day eh? With this Barton woman.’

He wasn’t sure how much of a promise he made, nor how much he would keep but Tracey left the pub more reassured; before they went home to their own beds.

The next day, Saturday, he was at the Grange working on the next section of tiling. Samantha had greeted him when he arrived in the middle of the afternoon three hours before, but he had seen no sight or sound of her since. There was though, the movement of the upstairs curtain to show that he was being continually watched.

He had, naturally, removed his shirt and today there was more need to do so as the sun blazed down on a warm muggy day.