The woodland floor was crisp, carpeted as it was with the browned leaves of autumn still lying on the ground, preserved thus far by the insatiable frost of a deeply penetrating winter, more ruthless and pounding with snow blizzards and early morning frosts than any in years. Miss Tuesday’s memory was wistfully emboldened with recollections from 5 years previous, seated somewhat snugly up front downstairs on an old red London Routemaster bus, the kind with the doorless rear and winding stair, just turning the corner onto Stoke Newington Church Street, slip-sliding on black ice and twisting around the roundabout next to the Rose and Crown Pub, dreamily tucked inside an all consuming crimson scarf watching the interlocking neon shopfronts and dark residential streets flash by. And for a moment nosing hungrily in through the window of the Fox Reformed at its warm red faced occupants sitting at wooden tables, sipping wine, a few playing quiet games of draughts, the rest animatedly discussing the season, literature and the oppressing cold, balanced it seemed with the joy of a wondrous blanket of snow which for years even then had not fallen this far south. Her memory glided back further, a recollection from within a recollection, a time towards the end of childhood, leaping into crunchy layers of ice atop frozen streams in rural Wales and one morning a fox, snout deep in the rubbish bin and the hunters on horseback and gang of beagles in pursuit only minutes behind.
The one memory slipped back into the first and as the bus pulled away her eye caught the little brown plaque above the broad front windows of the Fox Reformed that read, ‘Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849, Writer and poet was a pupil at the Manor House School (1817-1820) which stood on this site'. With this in mind the Forest took on a creepier more mysterious tone. She pulled her long coat in about her breast, in defence against the lucid fear of her own imagination and tighter yet against the cold. There had been no snowfall for a few days, the sky was bright, the land dry but the frost bit deep into the topsoil, set in with its mosaic of brown leaves, mummified elegantly as if part of some indestructible swirling marble grain.
Despite the cold and fresh dark mystery of the wood a sense of wild freedom crept up inside our rambling heroine. She was free and alone and with her imagination ignited she began to smile, relishing the season, her cheeks glowing red with the icy air and a slight blush of self-consciousness. She turned about to check if she was alone and true enough it seemed she was. Conrad had stood her up quite cruelly. For a half hour she had waited at the turnstile but he had not shown up. The wilderness excited her, no one was around, an open and wild opportunity seemed at hand. Booby became restless and overheated in her heavy and beautiful white winter coat and with her quickened pace and reeling among the trees she slipped on the icy ground and slumped at the foot of a great tree, in a pile of leaves between two large roots. The leaves crunched and flattened beneath her and her coat fanned out creating a spontaneous eider down absorbing much of the impact of the fall and a comfortable place to lie and conjure up romantic and frankly obscene scenarios involving her absent lover. Her pale winter hands delved between the warm layers of clothing, frosty but soon warming up squeezed within the context of the radiating hearth of her tender bosom. Thus defrosted they slipped eagerly south, beneath silk to a perfect feeling of ravenous rapture, fast building pleasure rushing home to the centre of her divine hips.
Drifting along in a harlequin daze stomping on leaves and twigs and rebounding off tree boughs a bloody claw relented its grim power and retreated back into a less furry keen elegant human hand. A crimson glaze peeled back to reveal natural colour once more as if an optometrists lense had been slipped out of its clunky glasses frame during an eye exam. With the precision of an oft studied ritual the hand proceeded to do up the buttons of the fine purple coat, concealing the rips and tatters of the shirt beneath. The sudden cold closed in as a foot below snapped a small tree branch. The crack rang out loudly among the trees and the rosy passionate gasps and moans of a thoroughly absorbed woman revealed themselves in the instant of their ceasing. Conrad had been flung back to reality. He peered in the direction of the most exquisite tell tale sign of secret wild abandon. He remembered an appointment he could not keep and dared not as his profession dictated that afternoon that he drink of the elixir that was both bane and secret weapon to his existence. Through a red mist of remembrance it seemed the beast had uncovered the meeting from beneath a heavy rock in Conrad's private schedule and was on its way to keep it. Timely thus was his metamorphosis and now upon a new case was he, unbound by any bond to the contrary. A pang of excited fear blew through him as a figure ducked behind a tree in the middle distance. He convened with the fear, observed his surroundings then composed himself and addressed his energetic observer.
'Seasons Greetings to you, Sir or Madam, though far more likely madam I should think.'
Nothing stirred.
'I assure you I wish you no harm... none at all.'
There was no response but for a slight rustle of leaves. Then, seemingly from beyond…
'Would that be, by any chance, a gentleman going by the name of Mr Conrad Savage?'
'Ahh young Miss Tuesday. I see you have kept our appointment even though I could not.'
'Could not, as opposed to would not?'
'Yes my profession intervened and tweezered me away to a much less delightful meeting.'
'Yes, you left me standing in the cold you fiend!'
'Indeed.'
'You stood me up, almost.'
'Au contraire Miss Tuesday. I was unable to be here on time, a violent incident at work waylaid me, but now I am at your service.'
'mmm. You're timing could be better than I may have led you to believe.'
'And yet I am with you on that point. I shudder to mention it but clear and sharp it came to my senses, as indeed I did at exactly the same moment.
'Yes...' said Booby retreating guiltily up against a tree, turning up her word at the end as if it were a question.
' I heard the most excessive sounds of a young woman in the grips of either distress or dare I say it...joy.'
Booby flushed instantly with shame then with a second thought tossed it away vigorously. She reached out and dragged him, by the tie, towards her in order to sandwich her inflamed self between man and tree. Her slow hard kisses consumed Conrad who stepped up beyond traditional etiquette and dived headfirst into her love. They sank together onto the leaves and into her perfect nook between the tree roots and wrapped themselves around each other, as a hot burning heart in a cold frigid forest of bleak midwinter. Miss Tuesday rose up from beneath Conrad, cast off her woollen coat and, exposed and bullet-nippled she saddled up and rode them both home, gazing up at the clear sunny winter sky and the tree that dominated her vision. She exploded and as she did so her eyes closed as if in slow motion while her accelerated perception connected with the giant overgrown mistletoe tree that towered above her.
Finally she slumped down onto Conrad, divine and dirty as the shortest, coldest, darkest day of the year set-in to pass into night. The winter solstice evening spent under a mighty tree of endless kisses and fornication, worthy of worship by the ancient ones.
...And a Partridge in a Pear Tree...
