Lettuces and Cream by John Evans Page B

still wasn’t happy about getting into debt but she was encouraged by Keith’s comment that pigs were paying well – they certainly seemed to be doing alright financially.
    ‘Of course,’ Mike added, ‘could get a job - just until the money comes in from the crops
    ‘But how would you have time to do the work here and work in a job? You work from dawn to dusk as it is.’
    ‘We’ll sort something out, lets see what the bank says first,’ he sensed that Jan was worried, he got up from the table and gave her a kiss on the cheek, ‘it will be okay love, cheer up, you’ve got a night out tonight.’
    ‘Oh yes, so I have.’ Jan perked up, she was looking forward to it, and it was a chance to dress up a bit for the first time in weeks. Nothing to over the top though, just in case all the members were farming types and turned up in wellies. Back home in town it would have been a case of, dress up or die of shame. Not too much make -up though, but then she never did. She didn’t think she needed it and Mike didn’t like the smell of make-up - or the taste of lipstick. He would joke that he liked to smell real woman, not powder and stuff.
    ‘And a chauffeur to drive you there, mind you, that van of theirs is a bit mucky if you’ re dressed up.’
    ‘They do have a tidy car as well, we’ll be going in that - I hope.’
    ‘Oo posh eh?’ Mike joked.
    The day, once again, passed in a busy blur of activity and with great speed Jan’s evening out was upon her.
    ‘What time is Chris calling for you?’
    ‘Not sure really, about seven, I think.’
    ‘I’ll sort the kids out, you go and get ready, you don’t want to be late.’
    ‘Thanks love, you’re so good to me,’ Jan mocked.
    ‘You can pay me back – later,’ Mike gave a suggestive leer.
    ‘Uh, typical,’ knowing what he meant, she a gave weak and rather sad little smile.
    That evening, with Jan out and the children settled, Mike sat by the fire having a leisurely cigarette and a cup of coffee –he drank a lot of coffee. He opened one of the boxes of books that were still unpacked and browsed through the contents. He missed the library of back home, and bookshops, the nearest for both was now twenty miles away and anyway he just didn’t have the time. Freud, Jung, Adler and others, had all been, and still were, grist to his mill. His reading was an attempt to rationalize his need for sex – with other women if Jan wasn’t interested, just like those ‘professional’ wife swappers in California that he had read about - and yet keep the love he had for Jan and the kids. At quiet moments such thoughts would unexpectedly pop into his mind and yet another analysis of their relationship would begin in his head. And despite all the other practical things he now had to consider in his new life, including the extremely unsexy emptying of the chemical toilet, he often returned to asking the same question. How could sex and love could be accommodated in a ‘nice’ and civilised way? He certainly wasn’t the sort of confident, indifferent man that would pay for sex, impersonal sex of that sort just wasn’t for him. But he didn’t think that he and Jan were so very different from other couples -like Keith and Chris for instance, and he assumed all couples had similar problems at some time or other.
    Perhaps what made Mike and Jan different was that the love element of their lives, the concern for each other’s well-being was stronger than the sexual side. Or was it that they were both too lazy to do anything so disruptive as permanently seek fresh horizons? He just wished that he could clarify his ideas once and for all. To file them, get them out of his mind. Either that, or have enough sex to satisfy him. The trouble with this idea was that his interest in the topic was continually being called up, as it were, into consciousness by the fact sex is an ongoing need, although maybe changing in some manner or another as time passes by. So it seemed that a