Free The Wilt Alternative by Tom Sharpe Page B

shut out the conversation. The bloody woman was

doing it again, lying through her teeth to four damned girls who spent so much of their time

trying to deceive one another they could spot a lie a mile off. And harping on about Miss Oates

was calculated to make them compete to see who could be the first to tell the old bag and

twenty-five other toddlers that daddy spent the night with his penis in a toothmug. By the time

that story had been disseminated through the neighbourhood it would be common knowledge that the

notorious Mr Wilt was some sort of toothmug fetishist.
    He was just cursing Eva for her stupidity and himself for having drunk too much beer when the

further consequences of too much beer made themselves felt. He needed a pee and badly. Wilt

clambered out of the sleeping-bag. In the hall Eva could be heard hustling the quads into their

coats. Wilt waited until the front door had closed behind them and then hobbled across the hall

to the downstairs toilet. It was only then that the full magnitude of his predicament became

apparent. Wilt stared down at a large and extremely tenacious piece of sticking-plaster.
    'Damn,' said Wilt. 'I must have been drunker than I thought. When the hell did I put that on?'

There was a gap in his memory. He sat down on the toilet and wondered how on earth to get the

bloody thing off without doing himself any more injury. From past experience of sticking-plaster

he knew the best method was to wrench the stuff off with one jerk. It didn't seem advisable

now.
    'Might pull the whole bloody lot off,' he muttered. The safest thing would be to find a pair

of scissors. Wilt emerged cautiously from the toilet and peered over the banisters. Just so long

as he didn't meet Irmgard coming down from the flat in the attic. Considering the hour she had

got back it was extremely unlikely. She was probably still in bed with some beastly boyfriend.

Wilt went upstairs and into the bedroom. Eva kept some nail-scissors in the dressing table. He

found them and was sitting on the edge of the bed when Eva returned. She headed upstairs,

hesitated a moment on the landing and then entered the bedroom.
    'I thought I'd find you here,' she said crossing the room to the curtains. 'I knew the moment

my back was turned you'd sneak into the house. Well don't think you can worm your way out of this

one because you can't. I've made up my mind.'
    'What mind?' said Wilt.
    'That's right. Insult me,' said Eva, pulling the curtains back and flooding the room with

sunshine.
    'I am not insulting you,' snarled Wilt, 'I am merely asking a question. Since I can't get it

into your empty head that I am not a raving arse-bandit '
    'Language, language,' said Eva.
    'Yes, language. It's a means of communication, not just a series of moos, coos and bleats the

way you use it.'
    But Eva was no longer listening. Her attention was riveted on the scissors 'That's right. Cut

the horrid thing off,' she squawked and promptly burst into tears. 'To think that you had to go

and...'
    'Shut up,' yelled Wilt. 'Here I am in imminent danger of bursting and you have to start

howling like a banshee. If you had used your bloody head instead of a perverted imagination last

night I wouldn't have been in this predicament.
    'What predicament?' asked Eva between sobs.
    'This,' shouted Wilt waving his agonized organ.
    Eva glanced at it curiously. 'What did you do that for?' she asked.
    'To stop the damned thing from bleeding. I have told you repeatedly that I caught it on a

rosebush but you had to jump to idiotic conclusions. Now I can't get this bloody sticking-plaster

off and I've got a gallon of beer backed up behind it.'
    'You really meant it about the rose bush then?'
    'Of course I did. I spend my life telling the truth and nothing but the truth and nobody ever

believes me. For the last time I was having a pee next to a rosebush and I got snagged in the

fucking thing. That is the simple truth,