Burley Cross Postbox Theft (20 page)

Leave the burned remains where they lie. Do
not
touch them or move them.

Soon –
very
soon – The Object Of Your Desire will be beating a path to your door. Just sit back and wait. It
will
happen. On average, I find, it takes around forty-eight hours. When they finally do turn up (pulling off their clothes, gasping,
panting)
, the sex will be astonishing. Explosive. Filthy. Unconstrained. Orgiastic.

The only negative effect is that there can often be an unpleasant smell in the room during the act of copulation. I have been told that this aroma is something to do with the
power of the Early Purple Orchid which – while generally odourless – can exude a foul smell as dusk falls. For this reason I always tend to burn sweet orange oil in the room (if I’m
in
a room and can plan ahead) for the duration of the coition.

Occasionally the smell clings to your skin for a while. It’s not a terrible aroma – like burned butter. Quite acrid.

Another negative effect of the Sex Hex is that the Hex-ee will loathe you afterwards. They won’t understand what it was that compelled them to initiate a random act of sex with you. They’ll start off feeling dazed, then become slightly panicked and confused, then grow deeply resentful (but hey! Who cares? You’ve got what you wanted, so what the heck?!).

I have used the Hex twelve times now (and have yet another charming little Hex-ee lined up – unbeknownst to her – even as I type this!). It has worked like a dream each time – except once. I’d Hexed this sweet Danish nurse at work and she never showed up. It later transpired that she’d been knocked down by an ambulance while running across the road
directly adjacent to my office
(she broke both her legs, so was of no use to me then for several months. I don’t think the power of the Hex lasts indefinitely – and I couldn’t risk Hexing her again after that).

Do choose your ‘conquests’ carefully. I once made the mistake of using the Sex Hex on Sarah Jane’s geography teacher (gorgeous red-head, straight out of college. A real goer!) Once the Hex had been fulfilled (two rampant hours locked inside the school sick-bay) and she turned all sour and vengeful, she opted (unfairly) to take out her rage on SJ. The poor child came bottom of her class that year (which was a shame – geography was her favourite subject). It really knocked SJ’s confidence and finally put to rest all her ambitions of becoming Derby’s answer to Sir Ranulph Fiennes (a pretty silly dream for a girl to have, anyway, I suppose).

I also used it on Pleasance Rutler (the wife of Ilkley’s old Mayor – remember her? Blonde. Bossy. Great legs – ex-professional dancer. Thighs with the grip of a python).

She really, really bore a grudge. Nasty piece of work. Slashed the tyres on my car (well, it was Tamm’s car, as it happens – I’d taken her little black VW Golf convertible to work that day – my Range Rover was being MOT’d).

My first Hex was on a young Nigerian traffic warden who gave me a ticket while I was parked on a double-yellow outside the hospital (a ‘revenge fuck’, so to speak. Although – of course – I was able to claim the money back on the grounds of it being ‘a medical emergency’).

I banged her inside a bus shelter, then several more times back at her home. She was the mother of twins. Lived in a crummy flat (on a still crummier estate). Kids screamed in their cot as we screwed next door. Her caesarean scars were still pink, which was slightly off-putting, but hey-ho…

In case you’re interested, I was originally taught the Sex Hex by a heart surgeon I worked with in Derby. It was a teaching hospital. He’d been through half of the med. students there and I was desperate to know
how
… (can’t have been much under seventy, the frisky old dog!). I’m not entirely sure where it was that
he
learned it from, originally…

So… yes. I think that’s about the sum of it. Text me if you think I’ve left anything out. Good luck with it. Don’t be scared to give it a whirl. And remember: it might seem fiddly to start off with, but it’s foolproof, and a
hell
of a lot less trouble than the ‘other’ techniques we discussed.

Happy Christmas etc.

Bax

NOW BURN THIS, YOU HEAR?

Saint’s Kennels
Sharp Crag Farm
Nr Burley Cross

7 December, 2006

Hell’s Bells, Prue –

It’s been best part of a week –
longer
…

I scribbled the address on this damn thing
ten days
ago, and as God is my witness, I’ve not had so much as a minute to call my own since.

The fly strike’s taken out three of the Romneys! Poor Donal’s at his wits’ end. We never had it so late in the season before – it’s bitter out there (‘Cold as the north side of a gravestone in winter’ as me mam always liked to say). A very different story from Olonzac, eh?

Those filthy flies shouldn’t be
alive
, let alone breeding… Donal don’t know if he’s coming or going – me either (more to the point!).

Then – as if that wasn’t quite enough to be getting on with – the Coombes kid (our newest recruit, tho’ he’s about as much use on a farm as a chocolate teapot) has gone down with sodding
measles –
caught it off our Lawrie (Ta very much, Son!) who’s been fretting about a constant headache for nigh on a fortnight and won’t eat a thing (apart from fruit smoothies – home-made,
fresh
strawberry. Fussy little so-and-so… Oh, and he
will
force a soft-boiled duck egg down his gullet, but only if you ask him very nicely –
granary
soldiers, mind! Whenever I trudge down to the local shop they’ve run out, so then it’s a pesky drive to Ilkley Tesco’s to mollify the little sod).

Finally, to crown it all, Gayle’s gone and had herself a huge barney with Ryan (it would’ve been a year this Christmas; she must’ve told me all of – oh –
three hundred times)
so she’s
mooching about the place like a wet weekend, all heartbroke and love-lorn. ‘The weddin’s cancelled!’ she announces at table on Friday (over a glamorous bowl of microwaved carrot soup). ‘Weddin’?’ Donal growls (he’s been up best part of the night). ‘Who said owt about a bloody weddin’?!’

Now she’s hanging crape. Shooting him dark looks. Won’t utter so much as a
word
in his general orbit (not that our man’s noticed – he’s that knackered!). ‘Insensitive brute,’ she mutters this morning after he turfs her out the bathroom (get
her
, eh? All
hoity!)
. She’d been walled up in there over an hour – trimming her fringe (she’s cut it way too short – silly mare – and has spent the best part of the day yanking and pulling at the damn thing in the hope of making it grow back again).

I’m still running the kennels single-handed. No sign of that extra help Donal promised after the Guy Fawkes Night hullabaloo (would’ve called it a ‘debacle’, but can’t see my way to spelling it right… And we
still
haven’t seen hide nor hair of that bloody Setter – tho’ Arthur Wolf swore black is blue he saw the damn thing at Raven’s Peak atop Kex Gill last week).

We’re fully booked over New Year. Six months back I would’ve been made up about it – happy as Larry – but now? I dunno. I’m still not…

Sorry, Prue, love. Donal just hauled me down to the small paddock (Phew! Still short of breath, in fact!). Had to wrangle the ram as Donal teased about a million fly eggs out of the wool. The deeper he worked his way in, the worse things got. They’d hatched! An earlier infestation, Donal reckons. We finished up shearing the whole back end. It was far worse than we’d initially conceived of – they’d chewed through to the backbone, pretty much. Poor blighter was in agony! I just dashed back home to ring the veterinary (no mobile reception) …

Sorry, Prue – different pen – the veterinary turned up just as I was settling down. He said as how he thought we could save the poor blighter, but in the end it was too late (£94 too late!
Merry Christmas to you, too, Veterinary Crawford!). Donal shot him first thing (the ram – tho’ if the veterinary’d hung around a minute longer than it’d took the ink to dry on his blasted cheque…).

He’s been ashen all morning (it was Pye, the first Romney ram he ever got. Donal doted on the tusty old codger).

Even Gayle clocked how riled her dad were (through that thick stew of heartbreak!) and took him his mug of tea out at ten – a timely
rapprochement!
(Looked up the spelling in the dictionary! Double-checked
debacle!
Nowt’s too much trouble for you, Prue, love!)

I found mine (tea) nicely stewed on the kitchen table once I’d mucked out the stables –
her
job, coincidentally (Oh aye – and she was literally falling over herself to thank me, after… uh…
Not)
.

You won’t believe it: she’s only back to worrying at her bloody fringe again! Looks like a Trappist monk! Ryan
still
isn’t returning her texts (that was
some
row, eh?), but – like I keep telling her – he’s on a walking holiday in Wales with the Scouts, so what’s she expect? (I just thank God I’m not a teenager no more, Prue. All those new-fangled ways to feel rejected! ‘He di’n’t email, Mam! He di’n’t phone, Mam! He di’n’t text!’ It’s enough to send you do-bloody-lally!)

You’ll doubtless be delighted to hear as Billy’s in rare health. Still three bricks shy of a load, of course. Lawrie says he spent best part of an hour chasing his own tail in the yard yesterday, then collapsed – where he stood – and slept for three hours, solid. Wouldn’t move a muscle – not even when Donal sounded the horn on the tractor!

I’m only glad you didn’t risk taking him to Olonzac (what with the Gala virus running so rampant up in the hills there). He’s having a whale of a time here! Loves charging about the place – tho’ he’s crouched over my boots, shivering (fit to bust!) as I write this (I had to hose him down after he rolled in a cowpat. He’s
fine
. He’s been sat by the kitchen range. The
other Borders are all green with envy! Tarry and Rusty’ve had their noses pressed to the door throughout).

He just scoffed down all the cats’ food while someone dropped off a Labrador – beautiful chocolate-brown bitch, five months old, name of Tess – and left their bowls in all four corners of the room.

How’s your sister faring? Two broken arms, three kids, five months pregnant
and
a B&B to take care of? And there was me thinking as
I
was hard done by! You must be run ragged, poor sod! Bet you can’t wait to get back home! Talking of which – I went down to The Old Cavalry Yard and dug out that recipe you was hankering after (Stewed Pork and Puy Lentils? Was that it?)
and
your rosary (enclosed). Then there’s the seven cards I found on your doormat – and something you
won’t
so much like the look of: a lengthy epistle about the Promise Auction from the reverend’s good friend, Mr Sebastian St John (don’t fret – I double-checked the deadlock on your door so as to be sure that BC’s answer to David Dickinson couldn’t wriggle his way in there and start pricing up the cutlery!).

Anyway, that’s all my news for now – Oh, Lor! Apart from this month’s Book Group! How’d
that
slip my mind?!
Life of Pi!
Total catastrophe! Hadn’t had so much as a chance to look at the damn thing, but didn’t dare confess it – being as it’s my third book in a row I haven’t read (folk’ll start thinking I’m only in it for Sally Trident’s legendary Cheese and Olive Scone Bake! Your lower digestive tract must be in uproar having missed out on it all these long weeks!).

As luck would have it, nobody else could make head or tail of the book (so I passed off my ignorance as confusion: ‘But
why’d
they call the tiger Richard? Where’s the sense in that?!’). Discussion was just getting started, when, next thing we know, Tom Augustine and Robin Goff start going at it hammer and tongs! (Don’t have the first clue why the two of ’em turned up, quite frankly – I much prefer it when it’s only us girls.) Clash of the Titans, it was! Tom Augustine jumps to his feet and sends a
plate of bourbons flying. Robin’s all up in his face, ranting and raving (poor Brenda didn’t know where to put herself!).

I wouldn’t mind, but the row wasn’t even about the book! It was some pointless little dispute about ‘the proper definition of a Farmers’ Market’(!). Robin says as the produce has to come straight from the farm. Tom says summat to the contrary. The argument goes on for bloody hours, all manner of accusations flying hither and thither, the two of ’em crashing and butting like a pair of rutting stags!

Nobody else can get a word in (nor wants to, either!). Of course neither of ’em bothers asking me
my
thoughts on the matter (I’m just a farmer’s
wife
after all…). Jill Harpington’s down on the floor, meanwhile, gathering up the bourbons, trying to minimize the damage to her new cream Axminster (we’re all in our stockinged feet – Tom, for the record, has a large hole in his sock) when her contact lens falls out. ‘Don’t move!’ she’s wailing. ‘Don’t move!’

Next thing we know, Tammy Thorndyke stands up, throws her book on’t floor and commences mewling like a newborn! Sally Trident starts having a panic attack. ‘Jesus wept!’ she keeps panting (her glasses all steamy). ‘Jesus wept!’

I’ll tell you this for nowt, Prue: I don’t know what the heck they’ve chose to read next month, but I’ve already booked my front-row seat! Wouldn’t miss it for the world (am even thinking of taking young Lawrie along – you know how much he enjoys watching the WWF on the box)!

Donal nearly rolled off his chair laughing when I told him about it – first time he’d cracked a smile in weeks! I was only sorry you wasn’t there yourself…

Come home soon, kid!

Merry Christmas,

God Bless,

XXX

Helen

PS. If what follows looks ominous, at least thank your lucky stars you don’t have to tell Paula Coombes and her mob that the prefab in Lower Field’s just been designated ‘unfit for human habitation’ by the local council. I saw Thorndyke sniffing around it – during one of his infernal ‘rambles’ – not a fortnight since (muttered something to me, in passing, about ‘the strange angle of the chimney’) and now this! I could happily swing for him!