Free Love Doesn't Work by Henning Koch Page A

bloody awful. Like going to bed with a broomstick.”
    “His new wife seemed happy enough.”
    “How do you know? Did you fuck her as well?”
    “No, Jimmy said he’d never let me near her.”
    She paused, rubbed her eyes, and said, “So in the end we gave up sex. I wanted to save the marriage so I came up with mental sex. Jimmy went for it, or played along with it, more likely.”
    “Shame. I thought it was an interesting concept.”
    “It would have been interesting if it had worked. I guess Jimmy felt divorce would have been too expensive. Anyway we only saw each other for a few days now and then. He must have been seeing other women.” She nodded to herself. “He probably just found me totally repugnant.”
    “I doubt that, Archie. You’re gorgeous.”
    “I don’t need bolstering,” she said. “But thanks all the same.”
    “Then I came along. And I liked you, didn’t I?”
    “Yes, that’s when I saw my chance to stir things up.”
    “Did it?”
    “You’ve no idea. Jimmy was more or less deranged. Poor guy, it must be hard not to be able to get your cock up. It’s the revenge of all women, isn’t it? First no orgasms, then childbirth.”
    I stood up, and started putting on yesterday’s clothes. “Think I’ll go and buy some breakfast things.”
    “Nothing’s open yet. Come and have stale bread. We can toast it. And I think there’s tea. No fresh milk though, only UHT.”
    “Delicious.”
    “When you do go out, if you see a scruffy guy with a beard following you, don’t speak to him.”
    “Who is he?”
    “Some guy I met in India at the ashram.”
    “Is he dangerous?”
    “No, just mad. And he loves me. Avoid him, please.”
    She stood up and left the room. I shuffled along behind her, slightly disgruntled and wondering why I had come. Why had I come, why had I come? Was it just the sex we’d had, the intimacy? If so, I had been an utter fool. This woman was so over me she might as well be a cloud drifting above, oblivious to my pathetic longings.
     
    XII
    Archie’s warning was apt. When I got to the place known locally as the supermarket, which was about the size of a London tobacconist’s, there was a man following me, or at least watching me from the deli counter: a bearded, emaciated ginger-nut with dirty long hair and anxious, pale-blue eyes. He looked like a nervous stork in a wig and sandals.
    I confronted him politely. “May I help you?”
    He stepped back, as if I’d assaulted him. Then said, in a Pythonesque manner, “What? Help me? Do you want to help me?”
    “I asked you a question. I said, may I help you?”
    “That’s just Pom for fuck off. I know that much.” His eyes were watering so profusely they looked in danger of dissolving.
    “Who are you? Why are you following Archie?”
    “Why do you care? And what’s it got to do with you?” He was puffing himself up now, hostile and self-righteous.
    “I’m her friend and I am here to help her.”
    “Oh, that sounds like me! She needs help, conniving bitch! You’ll see for yourself.” His unwashed face loomed close, whispering, “If I run into you again I won’t be so understanding, old chap!”
    “Is that a threat?”
    He smiled, showing a set of yellow fangs. “Oh dear, not so big now, are you! Want me to get you some nappies?” Then he walked out.
    Nervously I bought eggs, prosciutto, pecorino cheese, green tomatoes, olives, espresso coffee, tea, semi-skimmed milk, cheap table wine, a bottle of good Grappa, three loaves of bread, pasta, biscuits, toilet rolls, sponges and a few other items, then, keeping my eyes open for assailants with blunt weapons, headed back to the Bond pod.
    Archie was waiting by the front door when I walked in.
    “He was there, wasn’t he?” she said. “You spoke to him.”
    “How did you know?”
    “He came steaming down the road about ten minutes ago, stood below in the lane shouting obscenities, then threw a stone.”
    “Something about this house makes people want to