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  Chapter Twenty

  Back home from London, Magee found himself aimlessly drifting around his sitting room, inches behind his wife who was vacuuming the carpet.

  ‘For Heavens sake, Jack! Whatever’s come over you?’ Jenny asked, displeased at the unwanted attention she was getting. ‘You’ve been in a very odd mood this afternoon.’

  ‘I’m on gardening leave, love,’ Magee replied. ‘I feel relaxed and I just want to enjoy the rest of the day.’

  ‘Well, get out of my way! It’s worse than having the kids around my feet. What’s got into you, for heaven’s sake?’

  Magee shrugged in response and continued shadowing his wife. Inwardly, he was still very much on a high. ‘Will you be cleaning upstairs soon . . . in the bedroom?’

  ‘Of course I will. What . . .?’

  Magee looked at his wife suggestively, eyeing the lounge door.

  ‘Stop that, Jack, it’s putting me off my work.’

  ‘The kids are out,’ Magee said with a wicked gleam in his eye. ‘They won’t be home until six at the earliest. We’ve got a whole hour of uninterrupted freedom.’

  Jenny stopped the vacuum cleaner and stared her husband squarely in the eye. ‘Are you joking, Jack?’

  ‘No, not at all. It’s just that I’ve nothing to do.’

  ‘Well I have.’

  Magee pulled a face and murmured like a lecherous old man. It was part of a silly game they hadn’t played for years.

  Jenny broke into a laugh. ‘No, don’t make that noise, Jack!’

  Magee grabbed his wife’s buttocks and whispered into her ear. She turned and ran upstairs giggling, shouting at him to stop his antics.

  By the time Magee reached the top of the stairs, he was seriously aroused, whilst his wife was almost hysterical with laughter. He gently pushed her onto their bed and slowly took his clothes off, whistling “The Stripper”, leaving his socks on until last. That was always guaranteed to get a laugh, he knew. For the first time in nearly a decade, Magee made love as though he was still a teenager.

  Afterwards, he lingered in bed cuddling his wife for as long as possible, knowing that the moment would soon be over.

  Jenny turned to her husband, a pink tinge on her cheeks. ‘What will the neighbours think, Jack? They must have been able to hear everything through the walls.’

  ‘Sod them! They can provide their own amusement. Damn! There goes the front door.’

  Carolyn, their daughter, had slammed the front door. She shouted at the top of her voice, ‘Mum! I'm starving! Jane’s Mum gave us macaroni cheese for lunch.’

  Magee looked into Jenny's eyes and chuckled. ‘How on earth did we finish up with more than one?’

  ‘Quick, Jack, get dressed. We don't want to be caught. Carolyn will be disgusted with us!’

  Magee threw himself at the pile of clothes on the floor in a panic and frantically dressed, a task made almost impossible due to a tide of hysterical giggles rising from his stomach. ‘You look like a teenager caught in the act,’ he said on seeing his wife fumbling with her bra strap.

  Jenny tutted in her husband’s direction. ‘This is the last time you come near me while I'm cleaning, Jack.’

  ‘I was only trying to give you a hand.’

  ‘Well, keep your hands to yourself next time! Now look, you’ve . . . you’ve . . .’ Jenny burst out in laughter. ‘Well just look at yourself!’

  Magee turned to face the mirror and guffawed at the sight of himself with his Y-fronts on the wrong way around. He turned around to catch sight of his bum as he’d never seen it before. ‘Rather fetching, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh, for heavens sake, Jack,’ Jenny said in a fit of giggles. ‘Never again! Do you hear me?’ She gave her hair the briefest of swipes with a hairbrush and stumbled downstairs to feed Carolyn's hungry stomach.

  Magee stayed upstairs for a while and sat at his wife's dressing table staring at his reflection. Well, he might have a couple of grey hairs at the edges, he reflected, but at least he wasn't past it. He hadn't performed like that in years. Perhaps he should have more holidays to perk him up, he thought. But then he felt a low coming on, as he realized from his reflection that his face was gradually turning into his father’s.