Roger dropped back onto the soles of his shoes, the egg and bacon breakfast floating on a pool of grease making a sudden and unexpected bid for freedom. He sorely regretted not just having had toast, but his landlady was extremely large and persuasive and it being a B & B, a cooked breakfast was included in the price. Then there was the added consideration that he was supposed to be in Rotherham canvassing for trade and the fact that Norman the Nutter didn’t approve of being deceived by members of his sales team.
Roger swallowed hard and forced his breakfast back down. It didn’t taste any better second time round, but Butlins’ shoes, polished like crimson glass, were directly in the line of fire and the results of such an encounter were far less palatable than pre-digested fried egg. He leant back against the cold damp wall of the registry office and took a deep breath, optimism dissipating in a cloud of condensation. Surely it was inconceivable that Irene wouldn’t turn up to her own wedding? He had spent the previous evening languishing naked on her purple bedspread lost to the lingering warmth of passion, watching her cat throwing up hairballs on the rug, while she talked long and loud about their future gazing admiringly at his building society passbook.