Joe's second awakening was a lot less violent than the first but still fell well short of the ideal which included the warm memory of a good woman and the smell of frying bacon that said good woman had just got up to prepare.
A foot prodded at his ribs. He half opened one eye and looked at it. The foot prodded harder. He didn't mind too much because his first assessment had told him it wasn't a size-thirteen foot, therefore it did not belong to Jurassic George. This foot was shod in a size five or six sensible flat-heeled shoe, and it was attached to the end of a shapely leg wrapped in a black silk stocking. This was interesting. He followed the stocking up with his eyes till it reached the hem of a skirt which in turn led him to some kind of uniform blouse. A nurse. It was a nurse. Meaning the stocking wasn't silk but probably lisle or some such stuff. He must be in hospital. Well, that wasn't bad either. Except what sort of hospital even in the cash-strapped National Health expected its patients to sleep on the floor?
"You going to lie there all day, Joe Sixsmith?" said a voice. A familiar voice.
He opened both eyes fully and took in the face peering down at him.
"Beryl, that you?"
"Yes, it's me and I wish it wasn't. What the hell you playing at, Joe Sixsmith? I just had some gorilla beating on my door and waking all the neighbors, asking if I was your effing fiancee!"
"That would be Jurassic George."
"I know who it was. I read the sports pages too."
"So what did you say to him?" asked Joe, struggling to his feet.
"I said if he didn't turn the volume down and the language off I'd punch his lights out," said Beryl.
Joe looked at her with mingled admiration and sorrow, the first because she was clearly Wonder Woman, the second because he could see no way he could ever deserve her.
"So what did he say?" he asked.
"After he calmed down, he gave me some garbled story about him going to tear your head off because he'd heard you were balling his young and gorgeous girlfriend, and you saying he'd got it wrong 'cos I was your ever- loving fiancee and there was no way you could even look at another woman."
"And what did you say?"
"I said there was no way any young and gorgeous girl would let you ball her, but in any case you'd be too scared to even think about it 'cos, if you did, I'd be the one to tear your head off. After that he went away and I got dressed. I'm on early shift and I thought I'd better look in here first to find out just what the hell's been going on."
"Beryl, you are a real star!" said Joe.
He reached forward to give her a grateful hug. She started back, crying, "Don't even dream about it, not in that state!"
Only now did it occur to Joe that he was stark naked. It was funny, he'd been stark naked with Beryl before and she'd been in a similar condition and they'd both really enjoyed it. But now it was just plain embarrassing.
He moved past her into the living room in search of clothing. At least that was his intention, but Beryl mistook it and retreated before him. The back of the low settee caught her just behind the knees and she fell over it backwards, her legs kicking in the air. Joe rushed forward to help her.
At the same moment, King Rat's PA, the gorgeous Mimi, dressed as if she planned to step right from the plane into the wine-dark Med, rushed through the open door saying, "Joe, I'm sorry I'm a bit late, we'll need to rush… Oh my God!"
In such circumstances in a French farce or a British sit-com, the character in Joe's situation would probably have said, "It's not what it seems…" but Joe knew from his gumshoe guru, Endo Venera, that unless you were watching one of those Ag Christie shows on the telly, it was wise to assume a guy with a smoking gun standing over a bleeding corpse was guilty as hell. OK, maybe his gun wasn't smoking, but a naked man standing over a woman in a nurse's uniform with her legs kicking in the air was a situation it would take even that Aircool Parrot a couple of hours in the library to explain away.
He said, "Don't think I'm going to make it, Mimi."
She managed a grin and said, "Looks to me like you're halfway there, Joe," and left.
Beryl pulled herself upright.
"And who the hell was that?" she demanded. "Maybe I should have let Jurassic George tear your head off, after all!"
"No, no," protested Joe. "That wasn't Eloise. That was Mimi. We were flying off to Spain together… Hang about till I get dressed…"
He should have stuck to silence. Even that small beginning of explanation was a mistake. When he returned from his bedroom, fastening up his trousers, the living room was empty.
But not for long. Through the open door stepped Whitey. He looked around as if to say, I leave the place for a few hours and it's a tip! Then he moved purposefully into the kitchen.
He was right, thought Joe. Nothing so bad that a spot of breakfast wouldn't help.
From the kitchen came an imperious howl.
"I'm coming, I'm coming," said Joe.
An hour later, his belly distended by a Full English Breakfast (minus of course that percentage which Whitey felt was his due), Joe felt able to bring the full beam of his mental searchlight to bear on recent events and his best response to them.
Going back to bed was a distinct possibility till it occurred to him that at some point Jurassic George was going to approach Eloise with a view to telling her all was forgiven and folding her to his bosom.
Now Eloise he knew to be a girl of spirit, and while she might react by returning the embrace with an equal passion, she might also knee him in the crutch and tell him to get his big bear paws off her lily-white body which belonged to another, and take a hike. In which case the likely direction of the hike could be back to Rasselas.
He'd already taken the precaution of shutting, locking and bolting his front door, but when he looked at the devastated security chain, even this didn't make him feel secure. Best, he decided, to be out of here and on the move.
First, though, he stripped off again and got under a nice hot shower. The Full English had fortified the inner man, but the outer man was indicating by a network of twinges and bruises exactly where Jurassic's assault had left its mark. In the shower he sang, not to keep up his spirits, which were self-raising anyway, but because a singer needs to exercise his vocal cords and the shower was the only place he could do it in the flat at this hour of day without the neighbors banging on the walls. He did Vaughan Williams' Songs of Travel, which had won him plaudits at the last Luton Singfest, then he tried Bach's "Ich habe genug" with which he was hoping to impress Rev. Pot sufficiently to put him forward for the baritone solo in the Luton Combined Choirs' performance of the Christmas Oratorio at the end of the year. It still needed a bit of work, he judged, so for his finale he moved on to a selection more in favor on Entertainment Night at the Supporters' Club, building up to his show-stopping "Ol' Man River."
This usually left him as uplifted as his audience but as he stepped out of the shower, his thoughts moved naturally from the Supporters' Club to Sir Monty Wright and thence to Monty's cohort, Ratcliffe King, who had paid him good money to be on a plane to Spain at this very moment.
While King Rat wasn't a real and present danger- unlike Jurassic, whose battering ram of a shoulder might at any moment be applied to the door-he was in the long run a far more potent enemy.
Probably Mimi had already put him in the picture so it might be a wise move to try and take the sting out of his anger by ringing up to explain and apologize and offer atonement.
He went to the phone and saw the message light on the answer machine had come on while he was showering. He pressed play.
"Joe, hi! It's Mimi. Listen, I'm just boarding our flight. Now don't get your boxers in a twist worrying about missing it. We've all been there and I know how easy it is to lose track. Anyway, things are busy here and the next flight I could get you transferred to leaves at two p.m., OK? So I'll take care of things till you show; quite looking forward to doing a bit of the real PI stuff instead of just being your gofer! But, Joe, Mr. King wants me to report in soon as we get ourselves settled at the hotel and make contact with Tomlin. I can hold back till this evening, no problem, but if you haven't shown by then, he'll have to know. So don't let me down. Give me a ring to say you've got the message, OK? Cheers."
I am surrounded by wonderful women, thought Joe. Whoever said that stuff about a monstrous regiment got it wrong. Must have meant wondrous!
That dealt with the King Rat problem, and flying to Spain seemed a very good way of dealing with the Jurassic George problem.
He picked up the phone and rang Mimi's mobile number. He got the message service. Of course, she'd be switched off on the plane.
He said, "Hi, Mimi, got your message, I'll be on the two o'clock. And thanks a bunch. I owe you."
As he spoke he found himself thinking, What was it she'd said? We've all been there. Might be worth asking her about that when I get to Spain!
He shoved the unworthy thought out of his mind and rang Beryl's mobile. Her phone was off too, for which he was somewhat relieved.
"Hi," he said. "It's Joe. Listen, sorry about all that stuff this morning, but when you hear everything that's been happening, you'll understand. Main thing is, I'm still going to be away for a couple of days, well, four actually. So if you could do what you said about keeping an eye out for Whitey I'd be truly grateful. I expect you're up to your elbows in new-born babies or something now, so I'll ring you later, OK? Thanks a lot and I'm really sorry that moron George got you involved. Bye."
There. Nothing there to get her heating up again. You are the master of diplomacy, Sixsmith. Now show you are also the master of self-preservation and get the hell out of here!
He grabbed the bag he'd packed the previous night and headed down to his car.