Clifford Thurlow

He took a deep breath. The air tasted untamed and ancient, seafood baked in garlic, oven warm bread, bitter lemons. As the goats moved into the distance the sound of their bells grew sad and mournful, a death knell for some part of himself, an ideal, perhaps. He'd never killed anything bigger than an insect before. The cloying heat of the afternoon had waned to congenial warmth. Mosquitoes were waking famished from their slumber and hummed about his ears. He reached a junction where he was unable to read the signpost, but the turn promised a destination in two kilometres.

My inlaws are waiting for us beneath the Gothic porch with mouths unfurling pennants of vapour. Dennis, ex-Squadron Leader, wears a grandiose moustache, tweeds, the pipe he carries a constant reminder of campaign rooms filled with pin-laden maps and old shag, the Battle of Britain, his finest hour. Diana, in plaid skirt and cashmere, kisses me on both cheeks, the consequence of a year at finishing school in Switzerland. Diana is the daughter of a Scottish baronet; Dennis is proud of his wife's pedigree, her imported ways. That good blood had pushed her up an inch more than Miriam could manage, sharpened her hipbones, deepened the blue in her eyes. I have often imagined seducing Diana, a key part of the fantasy being that she is a willing participant. I could bugger Dennis, kill my progeny, turn the humdrum into Oedipal drama.