Читать книгу Yes, Really! - Kate Turkington - Страница 4

I’m in my ninth decade and can still have multiple orgasms.

But more of that later.

I’ve had two husbands, four children, nine grandchildren and a clutch of lovers.

Recently, cleaning out some files, I found a bunch of old love letters. I had no idea I’d kept them – I mean, some of them are over 60 years old – but they got me to remembering and thinking about past loves, past happenings and my life so far.

There were letters – some of them very sexually graphic – from Malcolm and Alan, the two husbands; and then, somewhat mysteriously, with a perished rubber-band around them (I don’t do pink ribbon), there were four letters together in a separate bundle.

The first was written by a university don when I was eighteen and in my first year at university. He was a Scot, tall, blond and married. He thought I looked like Audrey Hepburn and fell helplessly in love. I flirted with him and led him on a bit, but when he finally got very serious and presented me with a gold watch, my eighteen-year-old morals (quite strong in those days of the 50s, not yet the rollicking 60s) kicked in and I refused him and the watch. His letter is morbid and morose (typically Scots after a few drams), saying his life was ruined.

The second non-spouse letter was from another academic, one from Nottingham whom I had met on an examining trip to West Africa when I was Chief Examiner for O Level English for the West African Examinations Board in Nigeria. He wrote me a quite wonderful Shakespearian sonnet.

I might let you read it later …

The third letter was from a racing yachtsman who described me as ‘a fast sloop that sailed in and out of his life’. Mmm.

The fourth love letter, however, was the most interesting of all.

It is written on the thin blue airmail paper that was still used in the 60s and 70s and, penned in beautiful copperplate handwriting, begins:

My Darling Kate

I can’t live without you. I can’t sleep, pace the room at night, go drinking till all hours at the club, and never for a moment stop thinking about you …

The letter continues in this anguished vein for three more pages.

Finally:

I am going to take you away from Alan and run off with you and we will be together always.

Alex

I have simply no idea who Alex is.