Later, as he was waiting at the pick up point for the free bus back, Sid had seen the two of them walk out of the shop together and make for a maroon coloured Ford Fiesta parked in the staff bays of the car park. Even at eighty years of age his eyesight was still remarkably good. He noted the time was around four-fifteen and deduced that they must be off home at the end of their shift. Was Lorraine a widow, he'd wondered? Could explain why her obviously still young son was obliged to work at the store too. As he'd watched another lady, also in the supermarket's uniform though not so tall as Lorraine, had joined them and the three had spoken by the car for a few minutes. Then as the other lady walked back to the store passing right by Sid, Lorraine and Scot had got in the Fiesta and driven off. The other lady, Sid had noted with mild surprise as she passed by him, bore a more than passing resemblence to Lorraine if clearly no where near as tall.

And so a day or two later he'd caught the bus into Ipswich and in the library there had looked up the name Lorraine. 'Old German: Where Lothar Dwells'. German? He'd not thought much of that! But fortunately he'd read on: 'French: From Lorraine. From Lothair's Kingdom. Lothair was the ruler of the region during the ninth century A.D.' Sid had never been to France, but he'd heard of the place there called Lorraine. He looked it up in a library atlas and discovered it to be a whole region in the east of the country near to the border with Luxembourg and Germany. It was a relief. The Huguenots were good French people who'd come to live in Britain, weren't they? To get away from the Germans maybe, like in 1940. He made his mind up.

Sid had never had contact with solicitors in his life, but at the Citizen's Advice Bureau they had explained that he could will his estate to whomever he chose and include a conditional clause about caring for Susie if necessary, but that the Will itself should preferably be drawn up by a solicitor, and the proposed beneficiary's full names and addresses would of course be needed for identification purposes. He'd thought that perhaps seventy-five percent of the estate going to Lorraine, and the remaining twenty-five percent to Scot would be appropriate? It would help her out and maybe then enable her son to quit his job in the store and go into college or something ...?

Wearily Sid came up to the Fiesta. He'd first spotted it parked across the runways a couple of weeks back whilst walking Susie, and had recognised it at once even at the distance. It seemed like some kind of divine signal, although Sid himself had never held any particular faith in religion. His old black Mac flapped about his frozen legs as he went up to the passenger side door.

What ...?

The coldness in his stomach seemed suddenly to well out into his entire being. The image he saw froze itself onto his mind. The lad Scot with the back of his brown, curly head hard up against the steamy window glass, and Lorraine leaning across from the drivers seat, only part of her face visible but her right hand, ringed fingers and thumb spread wide, seen clear as daylight despite the vapour up beside the side of his face. Sid became dimly aware of Susie starting to bark by his feet. Lorraine's head moved back a little and she seemed to look out and grin for an instant, then almost flowed back into the driver's seat. And almost at once the Fiesta began moving.

The passenger window dropped down, and Sid caught a clear glimpse of the son Scot looking at him as the car moved off. He shouted something about the dog, “Dog ...?” But Sid couldn't quite make it out properly. He was totally confused. He'd not had the chance to say anything to them about Susie yet, had he? With a crack Sid felt his frozen knee joints buckle, even as he continued to watch the back end of the maroon Fiesta hurtle away from him.

                                                                        *

“Scot! Shut that window, will you? Like now!” Despite the grin of a moment before, Lorraine's voice conveyed real anger. Scot only too well recognised the tone. The maroon Fiesta picked up speed across the wetly muddied runway. “How many times must I tell you? Do not, I repeat not, go drawing attention like that! That old git with the dog probably lives round here, and might even go in the shop!”

Scot pulled a hankie from his trouser pocket, and gave his lipstick tasting mouth a quick wipe. “No. Sorry, Rainey.” With his other hand he rapidly wound the window glass back up again.

Rainey could eat him for breakfast and spit the pips out after if she wanted, and well he knew it. Her position of Senior Supervisor carried real authority and indeed her first ever words to him along with the other two trainees starting that same day had been: 'There's going to be no messing about, 'cos I've got eyes and ears in the back of my head, yeah!' And that was without the additional fact of his mother making certain points crystal clear after he'd got himself sacked from his previous job! But a lustful affair with an attractive thirty-six year old married nymphomaniac who also happened to be his immediate boss, and was even a bit taller than himself into the bargain, that had to be every eighteen year old lad's ultimate older woman fantasy, didn't it? And here he was living it!

“What's happening again tomorrow?” he asked her.

Lorraine slowed the car down again on the treacherously slippery, concreted surface. “John has a long haul job up to Scotland. Be away all weekend. He's taking the kids over to his mum and dad's first.”

The first time they'd made love, which Scot calculated sixty days ago today, it had been standing up against the door in a cubicle in the Female staff toilets during a staff Christmas party. If for no other reason he remembered the date because of the prickly holly sprig she'd had in her uniform jacket lapel! After that the venue had been her marital bed during rest days, which in her capacity as supervisor she'd been able to arrange for them to coincide. Husband away driving, and the kids at school. Most of the other shop staff knew about it by now, but mindful of Rainey's seniority and temperament Scot was confident they'd keep their mouths shut. Her lorry driver husband seemed oblivious too, though Scot marvelled at how she managed to keep their liaisons unknown to him.

“You've not made it up with your parents-in-law yet?”

“I won't have them in my house! Not after what his mum's had to say about me! Me and you are going to my sister's. Till Sunday evening. Well, that is to say, they think I am! Don't worry, Liz won't be in the way. She's off somewhere with Andy so we'll have the double bed.”

Liz also worked at the supermarket, although in the warehouse department. She looked enough like Rainey for it to be apparent they were sisters, but was three years younger and lacked Rainey's unusual height. Scot liked her well enough. She and her on-off man friend, Andy, had joined him and Rainey in the pub a couple of times of late.

Lorraine steered the car in a sweeping left hand curve towards the main road. Scot stole a quick, unobserved glance across.

In bed Rainey changed. She became soft, loving almost. Although she certainly worked him every bit as hard there as she did in the shop! But she treated him differently. With warmth and, recently, he felt, some degree of respect. After one of their little marathons she'd shown him a pair of silk knickers that she'd had made up with 'Scot' printed across their front, and had assured him she'd be wearing them for work the next day. That had been a considerable confidence booster for him! A somewhat bigger surprise had been a week later when she'd called him up to the General Manager's office she'd had the use of for the day to go through his first quarterly appraisal and at the end of it had presented him with a valentine's card - and a nice one too - plus a pair of Ben Sherman shirts which his mother said must have cost her a good few quid.

The last time they'd slept together was different as well: 'Perk of the job! I can cherry pick the trainee lads anytime I want, I can ...!' 'That's gorgeous, Scot! ... keep that going, mate ... slow down slightly ...' And hours later, when they'd finally fallen into a sweat-stuck, semen dampened sleep together he'd dreamed vividly of her in a wedding dress! He'd been trying to work out what it all meant ever since.

Lorraine brought the Fiesta to a halt at the unofficial exit point from the airfield, and craned her head right seeking a gap in the solid line of oncoming traffic. A couple of teenage lads on the way in squeezed past the passenger side of the car riding miniture mini-motor motorcycles. Scot cast a surreptitious glance back in the direction he and Rainey had just come from. He couldn't be certain because the distance was quite great now, but wasn't that the old git in the raincoat lying on the deck with his dog stood dejectedly by his head? He was about to speak out when with a violent jerk Lorraine released the clutch and powered the old Fiesta into the line of traffic. There came at once a loud, angry blast on a car horn from very close behind.

Lorraine raised a fingered 'V' sign in the rear view mirror. Then she smiled over. “Know what? I'm starting to get quite fond of you! At least at Liz's this weekend we won't get interupted by some sad old dogger and his dog!”