Poor Player

A POOR PLAYER

by Paul Diamond

The girl was dead. Instead of horror or fear, Peter felt only
curiosity. There
was no sign on her of how she had met her death. She seemed unmarked,
lying as if
asleep on the sheaves of new-mown hay. It was warm still and the little
wind that
ruffled the trees was warm. She was no more than twenty. Afterwards he
could
never have said why he did it, what impelled him to perform so strange
an act, but
he knelt down beside her and bending over, kissed her mouth. She was
still quite
warm and this made him more frightened than if the lips under his lips
had been
cold as stone. He jumped up and ran.

He was an eight year old boy; the woolly shirt with a round striped
collar,
short grey trousers held up by a yellow canvas belt with an S hook
shaped like a
snake, knee length socks which had fallen and lay wrinkled over the
ankles of heavy
black boots. His face was freckled and dirty, brown hair short in a
pudding basin
haircut, knees permanently grazed. He ran trying to lick and bite the
impression of
the kiss from his lips.

His mother was kneeling, putting a pie into the coal fired oven.

"Ma! Ma! There's a dead body in the far hayfield Ma! It's a lady and
she's
got no clothes on."

She stood upright and stretched.

"Peter Price you naughty boy. What sort of a story is that?"

"No Ma. Honest Ma. She looks as if she's asleep but she's
a dead body."

"We'll tell Mr. James and he'll go and look. But if you're making
this up your father will give you a good hiding. You'll see."

They went to George James the village Constable. The body was found
and
identified as a kitchen maid up at the Manor House. In due course one
of the
grooms was arrested, charged, tried and eventually hanged. It was a
very minor
murder. The slaying of poor young women who got themselves pregnant by
poor
young men was so commonplace as to merit only a brief mention on the
inside
pages. There was no glamour or scandal, no high life and very little
blood. Nobody
bothered to get up a petition for his reprieve and only Mrs. Van der
Elst and a few
of her dedicated followers were outside the jail when he dropped
screaming through
the trapdoor

Eight years later the murder had almost been forgotten. It did not
warrant
publication in Notable British Trials. The Sunday papers never recalled
it in their
regular series on sex ridden crimes. The groom had been a Barnardo's
boy with no
family to mourn his passing. The only person who remembered was Peter
Price.
Even his parents had almost forgotten the incident but Peter still felt
the impress of
those dead lips and he often dreamed of the swelling breasts and the
unexpected
triangle of hair at the groin.

When he was sixteen his contemporaries had begun to explore the
delights of
sex but Peter never took part in these games. You never saw him walking
with a girl
in Mill Lane and he always went to the movies at the Rialto alone. He
was a well set
up young man, tall, muscular and with an unusually clear skin for a lad
at that stage
of adolescence. Plenty of girls would have been happy to introduce him
to the local
courting rituals but none had ever been successful.

There was a bit of a fuss when he was invited to a party one Christmas.
The
adults had gone to the pub and the youngsters had started a kissing
game. One girl,
who was said to be no better than she ought to be, had secretly
arranged with the
others not to continue with the usual changing of partners which these
games
involve if she found herself on Peter's lap. She had already undone her
bra at the
back in anticipation. She hugged and kissed him in the darkness for
several minutes
with no discernible response. In desperation she tried to force her
tongue between
his teeth at the same time taking his hand and pushing it under her
blouse. Peter
jumped up and rushed from the house throwing the girl to the floor with
a bump.

As a result of this unnatural behaviour some said that Peter was a
Nancy boy
but most thought this unlikely. He was a good cricketer and footballer
and, more to
the point, a star member of the youth club boxing team.

Peter did well at school. He was sent to the local Tech. for 'A' levels
and
eventually to the Poly where he got a degree in engineering. After he
had worked
for a few years for a small but innovative firm a local business man
set him up in a
consultancy. With hard work it flourished and by the time he was thirty
he
presided over a growing concern employing twenty five people. He lived
alone in
Chelsea. A man came in every day to do his domestic chores and to cook
the
occasional meal. Mostly he ate out in restaurants. He had given up
cricket and
football and played golf at the weekend.

There was no woman in his life. When the call of the hormones became
too
urgent he paid to be serviced by a charming, discreet and expensive
courtesan who
relieved his tensions with sensitivity and skill and who would have
laughed at any
suggestion of emotional attachment.

Peter Price led what seemed to be a comfortable life. He was
moderately
wealthy. He had an interesting profession. He was relieved of domestic
chores and
responsibilities and he was not sexually frustrated. His few male
friends labelled
him a confirmed bachelor. None thought he was gay and they assumed he
had a
mistress tucked away somewhere. In fact he was unhappy and unfulfilled.
Even
thirty years later he felt guilty at having stared at the dead girl's
nakedness and at
having stolen a kiss. He still had the dream, two or three times a
month , and went
into the office next day tired and bad tempered.

Then he met Cynthia. He had negotiated a lucrative contract with
Scallions,
the big armaments manufacturers. The end of the cold war had affected
their
profitability and they wanted to diversify into other branches of
engineering now
that defence orders were becoming scarce. Peter's firm was engaged to
survey the
market for opportunities and redesign their factory floor for the new
work. One of
Scallions' design engineers was to join him for a few months as
liaison. Mrs.
Schwartz, his middle-aged PA called him one morning on the
intercom.

"Miss Bowen is here Mr. Price. Do you want to see her?"

"Miss Bowen? Who's Miss Bowen?"

"The engineer from Scallions. They've sent her for liaison."

"You mean they've sent a woman?"

The voice came back with a slightly acid tone. "Yes Mr. Price. They've
sent a woman."

"Give her a cup of coffee and show her round. I'll see her in half an
hour."

Eventually there was a tap on his door and Cynthia Bowen came in. She
was
a personable young woman in her mid twenties dressed in the uniform of
the female
middle manager, a grey worsted suit with a crisp white blouse. Her
light brown hair
was cut short. Her shapely legs were encased in sheer flesh coloured
tights fitted
into neat grey moccasins with a small heel. She wore no jewellery
either on her
clothes or her fingers. She stood for a few moments her brown eyes
looking
puzzled. Peter Price was staring at her as if he had seen a ghost. She
was the image
of his dream, the dead girl he had kissed all those years ago. He
recovered quickly,
asked her to sit down and plunged straight into a survey of the work in
hand. After
a brief discussion of her role in the firm he showed her to the office
which had been
set aside for her.

Peter tried to avoid her but he could not get her out of his mind. Even
the
dream changed. The dead girl no longer looked as if she were asleep but
lay in the
hay staring at him with large brown eyes and when he bent to kiss her
kissed him
back. He seemed to find reasons for constant visits to Cynthia's
office. The clerks
and typists noticed and laughed about it in the cloakrooms. Cynthia
noticed too.
She knew she was attractive and she could see that he was interested in
her. She
knew he was unmarried and expected him to ask her to dinner or to the
theatre but
he only ever talked about work and seemed very tense in her
presence.

One evening they had to complete an interim report together and
were
staying late at the office. They had not finished at nine o clock when
she yawned
and stretched.

"I'm tired and I'm very hungry. D'you think we could break for
some food?"

"I'm terribly sorry Miss Bowen. I didn't notice how late it was.

Let's go and have some dinner."

He took her to a small Italian restaurant nearby and they had pasta
and
shared a half bottle of wine. Relaxing over coffee he learned something
about her.
She was bright and amusing but serious about her job with interesting
ideas on the
progress of their joint task . They both went back to the office in
good humour to
finish the report.

After such a pleasant social interlude she thought he would want to
repeat
the experience but he did not ask her out and continued to address her
formally as
Miss Bowen. It was several weeks later that he approached her shyly and
said that
he was going to a rather splendid trade dinner, that most of his
colleagues would
have partners and would she care to accompany him. She agreed on
condition that
he gave up the 'Miss Bowen' business. Her name was Cynthia and her
friends
called her Cynee.

She enjoyed the dinner, the food was good, the cabaret excellent
and
although Peter did not dance several of the other men at their table
were happy to
take her round the floor. They left at midnight and walked up Park Lane
looking
for a taxi. She quite naturally tucked her hand in the crook of his
elbow as they
strolled and was disconcerted when he fell silent and stiffened his arm
to his side so
that her hand fell away. He saw her to her door and she invited him in
for a night-
cap but he refused, raised his hat politely and was gone.

About a fortnight after this he said that he had tickets for the first
night of a new
and heavily publicised play asking if she would care to go. Again she
enjoyed the play
and the dinner which followed but again he seemed very friendly but
uninvolved as if he
were with a man and not a young and attractive woman. Cynthia was not a
libertine
but like most young women she had had love affairs. At college she had
lived with
another student in her final year and she had responded to other men
since. She had
never been short of male company and expected to be admired, even
propositioned.
Peter never touched her, never flirted, was solicitous and charming but
never seemed to
notice that she was female.

He was having the dream more often now but instead of it disturbing him
he
almost welcomed it looking forward to the naked figure gazing at him
tenderly and
responding to his kiss. They began to go out regularly but he still did
not touch her.
One night when he left her she stood on tiptoe and pecked him on the
cheek. She
felt him stiffen and flinch. She did not understand it. She was pretty
sure he was
not gay . She tried old gambits. At the cinema she moved her hand on
the arm of
the seat so that the back of her hand touched his. He moved his hand
into his lap.
She pressed her knee into his. He crossed his legs so as to avoid it.
'My God' she
thought 'What am I doing? I'm acting like a fourteen year old on her
first date,
trying to hold hands in the movies.'

The trouble was she had become very fond of Peter. He was
handsome,
intelligent, and amusing . She could imagine herself in a long term
loving
relationship with him but it seemed she would not even get a start. He
spent a lot of
money on her, the best restaurants, the best seats at the theatre, but
seemed to want
only companionship in return.

After several months her secondment came to an end and she was due
to
return to Scallions' main factory in the North of England. It was to be
their last
outing together. She persuaded him to come to her rented flat so that
she could
cook a meal for him as a parting gesture. There was no way that he
could refuse.
She took immense trouble over the meal. She cleaned the flat, set
candles on the
table, decanted the wine. When he arrived at eight everything was set
for a
romantic evening.

The dinner was a great success. Peter was something of a gourmet
and
appreciated good food. When it was over they had their coffee sitting
in low chairs
on either side of the gas fire. He was sipping a glass of port which he
rested on the
glass topped coffee table and was glancing at a book on Brunel when she
excused
herself. She intended to have one last try at getting him to respond to
her.

She came back dressed in a blue silk wrap, sat herself on his knee ,
put her
arms around his neck and whispered "Peter, you've been so nice to me,
let me be
nice to you. Stay the night darling." and she kissed him open mouthed.
He felt that
she was naked under the silk. He pushed her off him roaring "Don't
touch me you
filthy little whore!"

Her head crashed into the heavy plate glass of the table as she fell.
A trickle
of blood ran from her ear and clotted. Her eyes were open and gazed at
him puzzled
and shocked. The silk wrap had opened and she lay exposed. He stared at
her for some time.

The image came back to him of an eight year old boy hiding behind a
tree at
the edge of a hayfield watching a naked man and a naked woman clinging
together
on a pile of hay in the warm sunshine. He heard the grunting and
gasping as they
pushed against each other in their passion. The man dressed and left
and the girl
lay sunbathing. She heard him move and called out to him. He came from
behind
the tree, shamefaced, and she laughed. "Want to have a look sonny?" and
she
opened her legs. "Go on. Have a good look." He ran, her laughter
following him.

Later he peeped again from behind the tree. She was fast asleep. He
took out his scout knife. It had two sharp blades, a screwdriver, a tin
opener and a spike for taking stones out of horses' hooves. He opened
the spike, crept up to the sleeping girl and pushed it as hard as he
could between her breasts. She jerked and lay still. It was then that
he kissed her.

The image faded. He got out of the chair and telephoned the
police.
Waiting for them to arrive he knelt beside Cynthia's body and kissed
her on the still
warm lips, his tears falling on to her face.