The Reginald Perrin Omnibus by David Nobbs Read Free Book Online Page B

sternly.
    ‘Come off it, Che,’ he said. ‘You liked a bit yourself. It wasn’t revolution all the time.’
    Mick Jagger gazed down on him mercilessly.
    ‘The permissive society comes to Coleridge Close,’ said Reggie.
    It’s going to be all right. I’ll prove I’m not past it at fortysix.
    I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but I do love you just as much as ever.
    What’s she doing in there? Hurry up.
    Don’t tell me you never had any sexual troubles, Che.
    Already he couldn’t really remember what Joan looked like.
    He hoped she hadn’t taken off her tights. He needed to do that himself.
    Oh hell, he thought, I do believe I’m going to be shy.
    Truth is, Che, I’m a bit of a coward. Wouldn’t have been much shakes in a revolution. Senior sales executive, yes. Picking off the filthy Fascist pigs one by one, no.
    She came in, shyly. She hadn’t taken off her tights. They sat on the bed.
    Turn your head to the wall, Che, there’s a good chap.
    ‘Well,’ he said, awkward, unused to this sort of thing, ‘better get undressed.’
    He started to pull the tights off her. He bent down and kissed her thigh, rolled the tights off her knees, kissed her bony knees, her legs smelt of bracken, he caught Che’s eye, then unbuttoned his shirt, he was sweating, damn it, he was sweating again.
    They were naked. They stood together. He was five inches taller than her. Her breasts were magnificent. He wanted to praise them but didn’t know how to do it. ‘What beautiful breasts’ would sound stilted and ‘Christ, you’ve got a marvellous pair of Bristols on you’ would sound crude. So he just held them in his hands, and smiled foolishly.
    It was the hour for washing up the Sunday dinner things, as Reggie Perrin said awkwardly, ‘May as well get into bed.’
    The sheets were cold even on this hot day. They lay side by side and turned to look at each other very seriously.
    ‘To think it took me eight years,’ he said. ‘Hardly in the Owen Lewis class.’
    ‘Yes, but they all have to wear yellow oilskins with him.’
    The sun went behind a cloud. He pressed his body against Joan’s, and a series of fierce shudders ran through him. He could feel his forty-six years of existence streaming through his fingers and toes into the clammy summer air.
    In the dark cosy cave of Mark’s bed he put the knobble of her knee in his mouth and bit it, very gently, so as not to leave embarrassing toothmarks. Suddenly his fear of impotence started up, the joy began to ebb away.
    It was at this moment that the front door opened. Reggie thought, It can’t be the front door. It’s a projection of a subconscious fear. I fear Elizabeth will return, and I make myself hear her return. And then he heard the door slam shut very solidly, very physically, only one person slammed the door like that: Mark, his son, struggling actor and erstwhile admirer of Che Guevara. They should have insisted on taking Mark’s front door key when he left home.
    ‘It’s Mark,’ he whispered.
    ‘Oh God.’
    ‘Quick. Into the wardrobe.’
    ‘Hullo. Anyone at home?’ called out Mark.
    ‘He’ll come in here. Quick.’ Reggie practically pushed Joan into the wardrobe. He flung her clothes in after her and slammed the door. He began to dress, hurriedly, both legs in the same leg of his pants, hopping frantically, Che witnessing his humiliation, Mick Jagger laughing secretly.
    ‘Hullo,’ Mark called out again.
    Reggie went to the door.
    ‘Just coming. I was having forty winks,’ he shouted. ‘Get yourself a drink.’
    He hurriedly made the bed, opened the window wide, blew a kiss and an apology through the wardrobe door, and went downstairs.
    Mark was lounging in an armchair, drinking whisky. He was wearing suede shoes with huge buckles, Levis, and a ‘Wedgwood-Benn for King’ T-shirt.
    ‘Hullo, Pater, me old darling,’ he said.
    ‘Hullo old son.’ He was always liable to use awkward phrases when dealing with Mark. Mark unnerved him. Mark was shorter and