What was it the sign had said? Let the bunny twins rub your bumpers? Greg shuddered. Have a hand job for only a fiver.

He thought that his wife had lost her mind. This was the woman who swaddled herself in a sarong on the beach on holiday so that no one would see her in her bikini, the one who wore thick, fleecy pyjamas in bed and didn’t possess one shred of sexy lingerie. Now she was skinny-dipping in the North Sea and prancing up and down their own drive in a Bunny Girl outfit. What would the neighbours think? What did he think?

Greg had packed in fishing early yesterday not just because he was feeling terrible with his cold, but because he was feeling terrible in general. He hated them falling out. They’d never been the sort of couple who thrived on regular fisticuffs, like some did. He’d wanted to go home early so that he could see Annie, eat some humble pie or whatever it took to try to get them back on track.

He had no idea that their relationship would be so summarily derailed when he got there. Would she even have mentioned her escapades at all if he hadn’t happened upon them in flagrante delicto? He’d even called in at the garage on the way home to buy her some flowers on Ray’s advice, but they’d run out. Thank God for small mercies. He’d have probably felt like ramming them down the throat of one of the guys who were queuing up to ogle Annie and her twin bunny.

‘Are you sure that she’s not got another man?’ Ray said into his dark musings. ‘Even taking into account the unbalanced hormones of a woman of a certain age, she’s behaving very strangely.’

‘Another man?’ It was something that had crossed Greg’s mind, but he hadn’t seriously considered it as a possibility. Annie wouldn’t do that. Not his Annie. No way.

‘I’d keep an eye on her if I was you,’ his friend advised sagely. ‘Take it from one who knows.’

Ray should know. He was much married, much divorced and, through bitter experience, was much wiser in the ways of the world than Greg ever hoped to be.

The tip of Greg’s rod dipped and he watched as his float bobbed and a circle of telltale bubbles puttered around it. His heart raced. A tench – he was sure. He made a strike and hooked the fish. Definitely a tench. They might look like placid fish, but when push came to shove they could be powerful fighters. Greg wondered whether, if push came to shove, he’d be the same.

Chapter 61

Chapter 61