CHAPTER 20
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Arthur put his arms around her and moved them slowly downwards.
“I don’t think it can be your bottom,” he said after a while,” there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with that at all.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my bottom.”
They kissed for so long that eventually the piper went and practised on the other side of the tree.
“I’ll tell you a story,” said Arthur.
“Good.”
They found a patch of grass which was relatively free of couples actually lying on top of each other and sat and watched the stunning ducks and the low sunlight rippling on the water which ran beneath the stunning ducks.
“A story,” said Fenchurch, cuddling his arm to her.
“Which will tell you something of the sort of things that happen to me. It’s absolutely true.”
“You know sometimes people tell you stories that are supposed to be something that happened to their wife’s cousin’s best friend, but actually probably got made up somewhere along the line.”
“Well, it’s like one of those stories, except that it actually happened, and I know it actually happened, because the person it actually happened to was me.”
“Like the raffle ticket.”
Arthur laughed. “Yes. I had a train to catch,” he went on. “I arrived at the station. . . ”
“Did I ever tell you,” interrupted Fenchurch, “what happened to my parents in a station?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “you did.”
“Just checking.”
Arthur glanced at his watch. “I suppose we could think of getting back,”
he said.
“Tell me the story,” said Fenchurch firmly. “You arrived at the station.”
“I was about twenty minutes early. I’d got the time of the train wrong. I suppose it is at least equally possible,” he added after a moment’s reflection,
“that British Rail had got the time of the train wrong. Hadn’t occurred to me before.”
“Get on with it.” Fenchurch laughed.
“So I bought a newspaper, to do the crossword, and went to the buffet to get a cup of coffee.”
“You do the crossword?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“The Guardian usually.”
“I think it tries to be too cute. I prefer the Times. Did you solve it?”
“What?”
“The crossword in the Guardian.”
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