hope not. Howâd a man go trying to get on to a bird if he smelt like we do now, back home?â demands Harry, worried. âYouâd have no bloody hope against all those sweet-smelling bastards who cover themselves in aftershave every day, I can tell you now.â
âAnyway,â says Bung, âa lot of birds back home havenât got a great deal to rave about.â
âI wouldnât say that,â says Harry.
âShit, I would,â says Bung.
âWell in fuckâs name, tell me why?â says Harry, a look of annoyance on his face.
âOK. Prepare yourself for a lecture, my boy,â says Bung, walking over and leaning on the sandbags beside Harry. âIâd say that women, especially in the mornings, are the most shit-awful things a man can lay his eyes on.â
âGo on,â says Harry, amazed.
âThey belch and groan and fart and complain and half of them look nothing like they did the night before when you met them.â
âYeah, Iâll agree with you there,â says Harry his eyes full of interest.
âOn the other hand,â says Bung, now seating himself on the sandbag wall, âyou can take a bloke, roll him in the shit, jump on his head, get him pissed and so on, then shove him under a shower, give him a bit of a scrub and nine times out of ten heâll come up good as new.â
âYouâre right, you know,â answers Harry thoughtfully.
âThink youâll ever get married again, Harry?â asks Bung, his eyes fixed in the dirt.
âNot much chance.â
âWhyâs that?â
âWell, I could say that I got married when I was too young.â
âHow old were you?â
âAbout twenty. No, nineteen.â
âWhat happened, if you donât mind me asking?â
âWell I got married with the idea of settling down and looking after the woman. You know, Iâd been out rooting birds since I was sixteen, and going nowhere. So I think to myself, now hereâs one thatâs different, this one I can really do the right thing by, look after and all, so after a few bust-ups and a few things like an abortion, and her going out with other fellows, we finally get down to the business of getting married. Anyway, from there on in, well from about ten months after the event, she starts to ring up now and again saying sheâs working late, or at a work party or something, or one of her old girlfriends is in town.â
âWhat, was she in and out of the cot with other fellows?â
âDonât think so, well I donât know, but Iâm pretty sure she wasnât then. It just seemed like she didnât want to be with me.â
âShit.â
âYeah, thatâs what I thought. Anyway, one weekend, she rings up on the Friday night, it was our anniversary, and says sheâs been invited out by some people she works with.â
âChrist, what did you do?â
âWell, I cut up rough and yelled for a while. Then I started to plead with her.â
âSo what did she say?â
âShe just said sheâd been invited and that she wanted to go. Simple as that.â
âDidnât you ask her if youâd been invited as well?â
âYeah, and you know what she said?â
âWhat?â
âShe said that they werenât my sort of people and that I wasnât really the type that would fit in with them. So I hung up the phone, packed my case and put it in the wardrobe. I didnât really know if Iâd leave, until she came home about three in the morning rotten drunk. Well, she just collapsed on the couch and went to sleep.â
âWhat did you do?â
âWell, I got dressed, took the case from the wardrobe and went and stood at the end of the couch. You know, I stood there for about an hour just looking at her and wishing sheâd wake up and say that she was sorry. Anyway, she didnât. So I went up and kissed
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