Dumped, Actually(36)
Nope. The big sods are still coming.
It’s probably time to run for it.
Bloody Wolf Moresby . . .
If I get out of this, I’m sending him an empty Belvita packet through the post.
What transpires next is not a high-speed chase through the forest. Far from it.
In actual fact, I only get about ten yards, with my arms flapping about like windsocks in a hurricane, before I realise that the deer aren’t following me.
I am oddly disappointed by this. If I’m going to run away from something in terror, I’d prefer it to make some kind of effort at pursuit, otherwise I just look silly.
I turn and stare back at the deer, who are already dispersing into the forest, having come to the conclusion that I’m not going to be supplying them with any more oaty breakfast snacks any time in the near future.
The last deer to take their leave of me is the doe who caught me masturbating. There’s still that disapproving look in her eyes, but it’s now mixed with what I’m sure is a degree of pity. At least that’s what it looks like in the fading light, from ten yards away. She could just be keying up for a poo, for all I know.
Still, at least I wasn’t actually attacked by any of the deer. Not that this was ever really likely. Deer are placid and happy creatures, by and large. Especially ones who are quite used to humans tramping over their foraging grounds. I was never in any real danger.
No. Fallow deer are quite harmless, unless you do something to annoy them.
Not like wasps.
Wasps will have a pop at you just for being alive.
Now, this might seem like an odd thing to say. Why on earth have I suddenly started talking about wasps? It’s deer we’ve been dealing with, so why the mental leap from large, foraging mammals to small buzzing insects?
Because I’m stood right under a wasp’s nest, that’s why.
Not two feet above my head – clamped to the branch of an overhanging oak tree is a nest about a foot long and a foot across.
And wasps don’t need any excuse to have a go at you. Not even when you flap your hands around your head like windsocks in a hurricane.
I feel the first sting on the back of my neck.
‘Oww! Bloody hell!’ I wail, one hand instantly going to the back of my head. I look up and see the nest, from which several pissed-off-looking wasps are erupting.
Not that there’s any other way to describe a wasp as anything other than ‘pissed-off-looking’. It’s kind of their raison d’être.
‘Oh . . . for the love of pernickety,’ I say in a tiny voice, as the buzzing maniacs fly straight at my head.
The next twenty minutes of Oliver Sweet’s life can be accurately chronicled just by relaying the sounds that accompany them. They are as follows:
Buzzing.
Two loud screams.
Bare feet running through a forest.
Three more screams.
More buzzing.
A zip being quickly pulled up.
Another scream.
The rustling of canvas.
The clanking of metal.
Lots of buzzing.
Yet another scream.
The unzipping of a large bag.
Scream.
More sounds of rustling canvas and clanking metal.
Buzzing.
Scream.
Heavy, fast footsteps.
A large bag being dragged across snapping twigs.
Buzzing.
A blood-curdling scream.
A car door slamming.
Another car door slamming.
A car door opening.
The sound of fast footsteps.
Buzzing.
The noise of a man rummaging around in a tall thicket of grass for a mobile phone.
Yet another scream.
Incredibly fast footsteps.
A car door opening and banging closed again.
A car engine revving loudly, before fading away.
The sound of buzzing growing distant.
The tweets of a single bird.
Silence for a moment.
The sound of a rough tongue licking a foil wrapper.
A small but satisfied mammalian grunt.
Of course, there’s no way I’m writing any of this up for ‘Dumped Actually’. What do you take me for? A bloody madman?
Can you actually imagine what the reaction would be to me telling people all about my experience of masturbating in front of a family of New Forest deer?
What on earth would people think of me?
What would Wolf Moresby think of me, specifically?
It was his suggestion to take myself off into nature to rediscover my happiness. If he were to know that I took his innocent suggestion, and twisted it into an event bordering on accidental bestiality, what would his reaction be?
And anyway, ‘Dumped Actually’ is supposed to be about my attempts to find things to help me get over the heartbreak of Samantha leaving me. People don’t need to hear about how much I am failing to do this, by nearly sending her a bloody text message. It’s not uplifting – or helpful in the slightest.
It just makes no sense whatsoever for me to go into the office on Monday morning, sit at my desk and write a feature for Actual Life about this weekend.
No.
I shall not write the truth about my camping experience. I will make something up that is a lot less embarrassing, and a lot more helpful to my reading audience.
There’s no way I’m mentioning the text message, the deer or the Belvitas.