I
She texted her manager Sheila "Soz cant make it 2day am well unwell LOL".
Monday was not a busy day for the spamming company so there would not be any major problems due to Grace's absence. Most of the spamming was automated but someone had to be there to answer the phone if a customer wanted to discuss their particular needs.
Grace stubbed out her fifth roll-up of the day and got out of bed, avoiding the takeaway cartons which littered the Batman rug.
She turned round to see if her partner Al was awake or indeed still alive. A loud fart confirmed that he was still amongst the living. Grace admired the tattoo of Tinky Winky holding a machine gun that she had recently completed on Al's scrawny chest.
She tweaked the novelty keyring in his right nipple. It was a blue dolphin from their visit to Marine World at King's Lynn.
Al immediately sat up and swore at Grace.
He would not need to make up an excuse for his employers; he was not wedded to the work ethic...indeed it would be true to say that he had never been in any kind of relationship with the work ethic in his twenty-eight year history.
Al had scraped a mediocre degree in Social Welfare Studies from the University of Catford several years ago. Unlike many graduates he was able to apply the knowledge gleaned there in his everyday life... he had an expert knowledge of the labyrinthine benefits system and was able to enjoy a moderately affluent lifestyle with a little help from Grace.
Grace stood naked in front of the bedroom mirror. For a 25 year old she was still in good shape, considering the demands of her lifestyle. She fanned her fingers through her dyed chestnut dreadlocks.
The roots were betraying the mousy brown colour which she loathed so much.
Soon she would have to get her friend Rachel to redo her dreads. Al was always on about her getting cornrows but they were too much like hard work.
Grace found an unopened can of White Lightning next to the cat litter tray. She pulled the ring with her teeth and glugged the first 90 mls in one go. She passed the can to Al who was busy scratching his balls by the window.
"The postman can see you with the curtains open you fuckwit" she gaily advised her lover.
Al gave one final scratch and waved his tiny todger in the direction of the garden gate, where the postal worker was clutching the latest batch of benefits cheques for the lucky pair.
Grace was on various benefits including Child Tax Credits for eight children which did not actually exist outside her and Al's vivid imaginations. They had named the virtual children after four famous couples; the youngest were Bonnie and Clyde, followed by Bill and Ben, Richard and Judy and the oldest were Barack and Michelle.
The Job-Seekers' Allowance came in handy too; all of the workers at the spamming company were on it.
She now had to decide which outfit to wear today. Since she was not going in to work the less formal options were available. Grace put on the Slippery When Wet t shirt that Al had given her the last time they went to Kavos.
Unfortunately there did not seem to be any fresh knickers in the cardboard box where her undergarments were stored so she had to choose between going Commando and recycling yesterday's trollies. After a brief discussion with Al she decided to go Commando. The weather was still fairly warm and her period was not due for another week. Al found the prospect inspiring and soon the happy couple were cementing their relationship with Grace bent over the dressing table and groaning with only partly-feigned pleasure.
The folding mirror on the dressing table allowed her to view Al's tattoos from several different directions. On his left shoulder was some Latin writing which she had copied from one of the cushions they had found in a skip near the seafront:
Mentula tam magna est, tantus tibi, Papyle, nasusut possis, quotiens arrigis, olfacere
Grace's school had not offered her the chance to study Latin so the meaning was obscure to her.
Al was equally lacking in classical erudition but thought the first part could mean
"Mental for Magner's"
which sounded cool.
On Al's right shoulder was a picture of Wayne Rooney in his bald phase. Grace wondered whether they should update it to reflect the recent changes in the footballer's barnet.
A cluster of infected pustules decorated the bald patch. Grace had squeezed one of them the previous evening and it had erupted in a satisfying mini-etna of pus.
Her outfit was completed with a torn pair of jeans from Tesco and a pair of green espadrilles.
In her left ear Grace sported an earring which her Geography teacher had made for her from a piece of the Berlin Wall during their brief relationship in year 10.
She had various other visible piercings not all of which were infected. Al particularly liked her septum piercing which was currently filled with a Vick's inhaler, but he liked to insert other similarly sized objects into the hole.
Before leaving the flat Grace emptied the used litter tray out of the back window onto the landlady's rosebed. She replenished the contents from a large sack on the landing, then opened a tin of Whiskas for their overweight tabby cat Vorderman.
Al sported his usual attire of jeans, t shirt and torn leather-look jacket. His perfunctory ablutions had done nothing to disguise the distinctive odour which preceded him. If he could bottle it then it would be marketed under the name "Eau de Failure"or "Désespoir"
As the pair of scroungers turned left towards the seafront they did not notice the battered Vauxhall Corsa parked opposite their flat. The passenger was able to take a clear set of photos with the powerful Canon camera without attracting their attention.
These were in addition to the previous set featuring Al exposing himself at the window.
The investigators from the DSS had been tipped off by the barman at the pub where Grace earned a few hundred pounds a month doing pole-dancing. He was annoyed that she had refused him a promised session in the bean-wrestling pool.
Grace was keen to put the bean-wrestling part of her career behind her. She never wanted to find another tomato-sauce covered pulse in her birth canal ever again. At least not for the money the pub was offering, which was basically £5 per hour plus a free cocktail and all the beans you can eat.
Once they reached the seafront Al and Grace headed for the pier. It had only recently re-opened after a suspicious fire two years earlier. They could see that Rachel and her partner Kate were already sitting on the bench outside the chip shop waiting for them to arrive.
After exchanging greetings the four work-shy young people entered the chip shop. The warm buzz of insects and the familiar tang of cigarette smoke and grease wrapped around them comfortingly.
The owner, a faded Cornishwoman, served them with their usual order of chips and a pasty with a can of IrnBru.
As usual they took their refreshments down the steep concrete steps which led to the pebbled beach and the complicated ironwork underneath the pier. After consuming the delicacies the conversation turned towards plans for the evening's entertainment.
Grace was booked to do two hours of pole-dancing at Gurney's nitespot further down the Esplanade. The others agreed to turn up there just before she finished to have a few drinks before moving on.
Al had scored some decent-quality weed the previous night from his mate J-Bob the bouncer at the Tavern on the Green. He offered some to Rachel and Kate, on the usual understanding that they would let him watch them in action together. They were quite happy with this arrangement; Grace tolerated it as long as Al kept his hands off the fragrant couple.
After a couple of fat ones the girls provided Al with his entertainment behind the large groyne next to the pier.
Grace scowled at her partner as he re-appeared from the seaweed-strewn lurve location with a satisfied smirk on his sallow face.
She stubbed out her doobie on a whelk shell and turned away. In the distance she could see the figure of a man walking purposefully along the beach towards the pier. He was of above average height and even at this distance she could tell that there was something special about him.
The others did not pay him any attention until he was nearly level with them. He turned towards the steps and briskly mounted them two at a time. At the top he leant against the railing and gazed out over the water.
Rachel nudged Grace and made an improper conjecture about the stranger's anatomy.
Grace did not reply but continued to contemplate the man from below.
He was not unaware of the attention he had aroused and smiled warmly at her.
"Do you know how to get to Cromer from here ?" he asked in an educated voice.
"Fuck off you ponce" suggested Al.
Grace was shocked at this unseemly outburst from her partner. It was unusual for him to take umbrage when another man showed any interest in her; usually he would treat it as a promising business opportunity.
"Please do not take any notice of Al; he is just having a laugh" she said with a smile.
"Cromer is about 12.6 miles from here on a bearing of 092 degrees" she continued.
"That is very kind of you Miss" replied the stranger. "Would you be able to show me the way as i do not have a compass with me ?".
Without understanding why Grace immediately agreed to accompany the man to Cromer.
She bade farewell to her three companions, saying that they would meet up as arranged later.
The man showed Grace where he had parked his powerful motorbike and handed her a helmet.
Soon they were speeding eastwards along the deserted coast road, the wind roaring in their ears.
After a few miles the man pulled off the road onto a sandy track which led towards the dunes.
He tore off his helmet and said in a breathless voice "I think we are being followed. Help me hide the bike behind that dune". Grace complied and the pair watched to see who was pursuing them from the safety of their sandy hiding-place.
The battered Corsa stopped a hundred yards past the turning. The occupants seemed to be arguing over which way to go. The passenger door was flung open and a fat white man with thinning hair clambered out waving an expensive-looking camera in the air.
The driver was thinner and of Asian appearance. He leant against the roof of the car and lit a cigarette with a gold lighter.
Fat-man was shouting into his mobile and they could hear snatches of the conversation;"lost the fuckers on the coast road....i'm not Superman....no Your Mum"
After a few more minutes the DSS snoops drove back towards King's Lynn.
The mystery motorcyclist did not seem to be in a great hurry to resume their journey. He cast an appreciative eye over Grace and suggested that she might like to see what was behind the dunes.
Grace was quite happy to spend some time with the tall stranger and followed him down the narrow path which led towards the sea.
Behind the last dune stood a disused pill-box, a relic of the second world war when invasion of the Norfolk coast was a real threat. Now the sturdy brick building was used by tramps and courting couples for their simple needs.
"My name is Roger Longman" the athletic stranger said. "Would you like to look inside the pill-box ?". Grace introduced herself and they carefully entered the wartime relic.
Roger had to stoop to avoid the low ceiling but Grace fitted neatly inside.
As they made themselves comfortable on a stained mattress which had seen much use from previous visitors Grace's phone rang. It was Al. "Yeah but no babes he dropped me off in Cromer and i will get the bus back. No of course i did not fancy him..."; Grace indicated to the stranger that he should bone her straight away. He complied willingly and pumped away whilst Grace continued talking to her cuckold "No Al you know that that does not matter when we are so much in love... only a very shallow woman would reject you for not having been in the front of the queue". Grace looked over her shoulder and made the one-inch sign with her fingers to Roger; he had been right at the front of the queue Grace gratefully realised.
Roger snatched the phone from her hand and threw it out of the narrow slit which served as a window in the pill-box. It landed on a pile of kelp.
Al seemed to hear Grace laughing before a puffin swooped down and took the phone far out to sea in its yellow and red beak. It dropped its catch onto a sandbank where a grey seal swallowed it in one gulp. Al could hear some strange gurgling sounds before the line went dead.
After an hour or so the exhausted couple lay back on the floor of the pillbox and shared a cigarette.
"Well Roger Longman, you certainly live up to your name !!" ejaculated Grace.
"Tell me what you do for a living "
Roger explained that he was a mountaineer who helped organise tourist trips to the summits of famous mountains.
He was taking a break after a tragic incident on his last trip to a mountain called Chumbawumba in Nepal.
Grace admired every inch of the climber's tanned body. There was not a spare ounce of fat on him. A white scar meandered across his left shoulder and down towards his right hip.
He had no tattoos or piercings. How different from Al !!
His bright blue eyes seemed to see deep inside her and she felt that she had known him for ever.
Grace realised that her life with Al was over and that her real life was beginning now.
II
Grace woke up and for a moment could not remember where she was. Then the memories of the previous night flooded back. She was in Roger's house just outside Cromer. It was a converted mackerel smokery. The blackened ceiling still gave off a pleasant tang of smoked fish.
The morning sun shone through the small windows high up in the wooden wall of the building,
revealing the maritime themed decor; fishing nets, glass floats, oars and so forth.
The large bed was covered with a duvet featuring starfish and lobsters.
Roger kept his climbing equipment in the bathroom. There were neatly arranged piles of crampons, ice axes, nylon ropes and pitons. Roger did not seem to be in the house so Grace ran a hot bath and helped herself to his shampoo ( teatree and banana, she noticed ) and soap.
As she was drying herself Roger entered the bathroom holding several bags of groceries and clutching a large baguette under his arm.
"Don't bother getting dressed darling; there is nobody here to spy on us. Help me get this stuff into the kitchen".
Grace complied and soon was helping Roger to prepare a feast of garlic bread, Asparagus soup with fresh samphire and a large basket of langoustines.
The wine was a tangy Picpoul de Pinet 2009, chilled to the bone.
Naked cookery was a novelty for Grace which she found very stimulating.
As the langoustines were simmering in salt water Roger resumed his vigorous lovemaking from behind whilst his partner kept an eye on the large saucepan. He finished just as the crustaceans were perfectly cooked. Roger wiped his hand between Grace's legs and flicked the sticky residue into the saucepan.
"Totally organic !!" he ejaculated.
Meanwhile the two DSS investigators had not been wasting their time. After tracking down Roger's address from the numberplate on his motorbike they had crept up to the smokery after hiding the Corsa nearby and managed to take some very detailed photographs of Grace and Roger through the top window. Fatman balanced precariously on his Asian colleague's narrow shoulders to reach the windowsill; after taking his snaps and enjoying a vigorous hand shandy he let his companion take over on top. Ten minutes later they departed, dislodging some loose shingles from the outside of the smokery.
Grace thought she could hear some rustling from the roof area but put it down to rats or the ghosts of mackerel past; Roger did not hear anything because his head was wedged between Grace's tanned thighs. "You should not eat between meals" Grace teased him. After some splendid orgasms they decided it was time for lunch.
They both were ravenously hungry and made short work of the garlic bread and soup. Grace was unfamiliar with the technique of eating langoustines. Roger showed her how to remove the heads and tails and scaly bits to leave a delicious meaty mouthful of pinky-orange flesh.
The Picpoul was the perfect accompaniment to the crustaceans and they were soon on the last glass.
Roger was tickling Grace's left ear with a strand of samphire when there was a sudden pounding at the wooden door of the smokery. Grace scrambled to cover herself with the tablecloth.
Roger opened the door after peering through the side window to see who was there.
Two tall tanned men of similar appearance to Roger strode into the room.
Roger introduced them "This rogue is Boris... and this is Kris. They are also mountain climbers."
Boris spoke with a strong German accent in fluent English. Kris was less fluent and seemed to be of Scandinavian origin. Boris explained that they had passed a suspicious looking pair of men with a camera in a battered Corsa at the end of the lane leading to the smokery. Roger suggested that they were pedos on their way to the beach to find some kiddies to photograph.
Grace found some beer in the fridge and soon the four of them were relaxing in front of a warm fire of driftwood which Roger had collected that morning. Grace let the tablecloth slip off her shoulders. Boris smiled encouragingly at her and Kurt gave her a thumbs-up sign. Roger explained that his friends were welcome to enjoy Grace's favours whenever she and they wanted. There was no jealousy between the hardened mountaineering brethren. They had to share everything ~ in the death zone above 8000 metres they had to rely totally on each other to survive. Grace took Roger at his word and soon Boris and Kurt were giving her a good seeing-to. They both had the spare muscular frame of the seasoned mountaineer. Between them they had seventeen and a half fingers and fifteen toes, due to the ravages of frostbite.
After they had finished Roger took over for half an hour. Then the serious business for which Boris and Kurt had arrived began. Roger spread out a map of Chumbawumba on the rug and the men examined it closely.
Over the course of the afternoon it became clear that Boris and Kris had been part of the expedition to Chumbawumba which had ended tragically. The details of the ill-fated climb gradually emerged. Roger had been employed by an American company to provide technical assistance to the party of wealthy but inexperienced climbers on the Himalayan ascent.
All would have been well but for a sudden deterioration in the weather just before reaching the summit.
The party had split up in the blinding snowstorm and despite the heroic efforts of Roger and the other guides five of the guests had perished, unable to find the ropes which led back to safety.
Officially no blame was apportioned to the guides but each one was living a daily hell of self-recrimination for the tragedy.
One of the guests who died was the glamorous pop-star Majolica who had enjoyed a brief fling with Roger at the base camp, before switching her affections to millionaire hedge-fund manager Shimon Feigenbaum, one of the other wealthy clients on the trip.
It became clear that Roger was planning a return trip to Chumbawumba with Boris and Kris to set up a memorial to the victims of the disaster. Although Grace had no experience with mountains beyond seeing The Sound of Music when she was twelve she felt that she would be a valuable addition to the team.
Roger at first dismissed the idea out of hand, but was gradually brought round when Grace pointed out that she could cook and do first aid as well as provide other services to the team.
Kurt and Boris were enthusiastic; it was difficult to find top-notch totty in the Himalayas. The local women resembled yaks ( or the yeti in extreme cases ) and were not encouraged by the sherpas to mingle with the Westerners.
So it was that three months later Grace was striding up the narrow arête which led up the south face of Chumbawumba. The name of the mountain means Great Thunder Mother in Nepalese.
It is notorious for vicious storms which can erupt without warning from the clearest skies.
On one side of the arête the slope plunged steeply into China. On the Nepalese side the slope was gentler but still fraught with danger.
Ahead the three men moved confidently with their long loping strides, roped together with the bright yellow nylon line which Grace had seen in the bathroom at Cromer.
Soon they reached the scene of the tragic accident, a small clearing just off the arête. Only three of the bodies had been recovered, huddled together in a frozen group hug.
The other two, namely the pop star Majolica and Mr Feigenbaum were still missing. It was not unusual for bodies to reappear years later as the snow and ice shifted with the seasons.
As agreed in advance Grace, Roger and Kris performed Majolica's last hit song "Love ain't fattening" whilst Boris filmed their performance.
Once the film was completed the group relaxed for a while before beginning the long descent back to the base camp far below.
After attending to the intimate needs of her companions Grace wandered to the edge of the clearing and peered over the edge. Something bright caught her eye. It looked like a scarf. A woman's scarf. Leaning even further over she could see that it was on the head of a dead body. Even after several months in the open it was still easy to make out the famous features of Majolica. A few metres away she could make out a man's broken body.
Suddenly a hand wrapped around Grace's face. She could hear a familiar voice shouting "No Grace, come back from the edge" as she was forced further over towards the void.
"Help please, she is trying to jump" were the last words she heard before she was launched off the rockface towards China by powerful arms.
As she span helplessly towards her death Grace realised in a moment of clarity that Roger had been responsible for the so-called accident to the five climbers. It had been his appalling revenge on Majolica for dumping him after their brief encounter at base camp.
EPILOGUE
The film featuring Grace just before her demise was a huge hit on YouTube.
Boris and Kurt released a cover of "Fingers and Toes" which did well in the singles charts.
Roger launched a charity for suicidal drug users on his return to England.
Al was prosecuted for benefit fraud, drug possession and indecent exposure and given two weeks' community service suspended for a year.
The DSS guys were promoted; their photos from the smokery were widely circulated on the internet.
THE END
