Two young men in an advanced state of inebriation were staggering across a chilly moonlit field towards a run down cottage in the distance. One of them was holding forth at great volume to the other on a subject of great importance, to him anyway, while his companion appeared to be consumed by either drunken or frozen indifference plodding determinedly onwards, head down against the biting wind.
"If I see that silage heap prowling round here," the young man talking slurred, "I'll take the bastard axe to him!"
The other young man didn't reply, intent only on getting home and into bed. He knew his friend didn't really mean it, but of late he wasn't 100% sure. "A pity you can't take the bloody thing to the wood pile then," he muttered to himself. That rancid little shack would be stone cold when they got in, he just knew it, and he was damned if he was going to go grubbing for kindling again.
The speaker glared at his rapidly retreating back for a moment, then swung around and glowered out across the landscape. In the distance, bathed in silver by moonlight stretched a broad lake which seemed to shiver and flicker before his wavering gaze. Its chill beauty did little to soothe the young man's temper though. Clutching at a low stone wall in front of him the young man opened his mouth wide and bellowed as loud as he could:
"Bastards! You'll all suffer! I'M GOING TO BE A STAR!"
The last sentence echoed and rolled across the valley, loud enough to waken the dead.
A small voice drifted up from the other side of the wall.
"Oi, do you mind? Some of us are trying to get a bit of piece and quiet!"
The young man nearly jumped with fright, for a split second fearing that his nemesis, that ratty old poacher from the pub, had followed him and was about to spring out and make good his threat to do things to him with a dead fish. But the voice was softer, feminine and more cultured. He peered over the rim of the wall just as a face popped up from the other side. The face was soft and pretty and shone in the moonlight, and was surrounded by a long tousled mop of curly blonde hair. Casting his gaze further down, the young man noticed - and boy, did he notice - that the young woman was wearing an outfit of the very briefest in shimmering white plastic. She appeared oblivious to the cold, unless what he was looking down at were the biggest goosebumps there had ever been.
The pair boggled at each other for a moment, then the woman held up a stubby cigar.
"Got a light?"
"Er... er..."
"Oh dear," she sighed. She had this effect sometimes, especially on humanoid males. She used to find it flattering but it tended to kill serious conversation. "Don't be shy," she encouraged, offering him an engaging smile. "I only tend to bite people I like!"
The young man produced a tattered box of Swan Vestas from his disreputable overcoat and passed them across.
"Ta," she cooed, striking a match, then another, and another. "Corks. These are a bit damp, you know."
The young man wasn't surprised, though he didn't say so. The puddle of beer he'd found the matchbox floating in back at the pub was quite considerable. He gazed at her face, recognition sparking only slightly better than the matches. He dimly recalled a film poster, or was it a TV ad? The woman was incredibly familiar.
"I say, aren't you someone famous?"
The woman smiled modestly. "Well, I do try. Ah ha!" She finally got one to work, and pressed it to her cigar, but a gust of wind blew it out again. Her face fell. "Oh!"
"What are you doing here?" he persisted. He wished he could remember her name, and couldn't quite bring himself to ask.
"What are any of us doing here?" she replied enigmatically, arching a perfectly formed eyebrow. "Actually," she admitted, "I'm hiding from someone. You haven't seen a rather dopey looking young fellow in a brown duffel coat, have you? Only he thinks I'm giving these up." She held up her cigar. "I don't want him to know that my will is weak. Tell me," she said, leaning closer over the wall and threatening to flash more than just a smile at him, "do you ever find your will is weak?"
The young man took a hasty step backwards, a foot squelching unnoticed into something unmentionable. "I really ought to be getting after my friend," he stammered. "Chin chin!"
At that he turned and fled.
Iris Wildthyme shrugged. "Strange boy." She noticed she still had his soggy box of matches, and began to call after him. "Oi! You forgot your... oh, never mind. Maybe I'll find a better spot lower down. Thanks anyway!" she called.
But he was gone.
She turned and began to pick her way warily through the mud down towards the lake. She rattled the matchbox absent-mindedly. "Nice chap... I thought I recognised him for a moment there..." And as for his friend... definitely something familiar about him!
"I wonder who he was?"
Iris shrugged and carried on her way.
***
The young man breathlessly caught up with his friend just as he reached the old gate that led down into the farmyard. He leaned against the wooden barrier, panting. His friend looked at him with a measure of apprehension.
"What is it? The poacher?"
"No... not poacher..." He pointed a shaking finger back down the field, chest heaving as he forced cold air into his lungs.
"Who then?"
"Jane Fonda!" he finally managed to gasp, memory flooding back. "Back there, under that wall! Popped out - I mean up - in front of me and asked for a light!"
His friend looked at him for a long moment. "You didn't take anything with that last whisky, did you Withnail?" he asked carefully, suspicion forming in his mind.
"Of course not! I've nothing to take!" If that shag-sack Danny had been a little more forthcoming though...
"Right..." his friend replied slowly. "I see. Jane Fonda, eh?" He shook his head. He was worse than he thought. "G'night, Withnail."
He marched back to the farmhouse and disappeared inside.
Withnail glared after him. "It's true! I did see her!" He turned to look back over his shoulder towards the lake, and for a split second caught a glimpse of a white shape moving down the hillside. Then a cloud went over the Moon and darkness shrouded the landscape. Withnail shivered, then gulped, as a wave of dizziness swept over him.
"I feel strange," he muttered. "I need a drink."
Cheered up by that prospect, Withnail tottered towards the farmhouse and the dubious relief of alcoholic oblivion, where he'd be free from poachers, dead fish...
And Jane Fonda.
More from Iris in: The Pages of Sin
