Read Online The Wilt Alternative by Tom Sharpe - Free Book Online

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for chastity beyond the call of duty.'
    'Well we've all had to go through that phase,' said Braintree.
    'And what exactly do you mean by "that phase"?' asked Wilt stiffly.
    'The body beautiful, boobs, bottoms, the occasional glimpse of thigh. I remember once...'
    'I prefer not to hear your loathsome fantasies,' said Wilt. 'Some other time perhaps. With

Irmgard it's different. I am not talking about the merely physical. We relate.'
    'Good God, Henry...' said Braintree, flabbergasted.
    'Exactly. When did you hear me use that dreaded word before?'
    'Never.'
    'You're hearing it now. And if that doesn't indicate the fearful predicament I'm in, nothing

will.'
    'It does,' said Braintree. 'You're...'
    'In love,' said Wilt.
    'I was going to say out of your mind.'
    'It amounts to the same thing. I am caught in the horns of a dilemma. I use that cliché

advisedly, though to be perfectly frank horns don't come into it. I am married to a formidable,

frenetic and basically insensitive wife...'
    'Who doesn't understand you. We've heard all this before.'
    'Who does understand me. And you haven't,' said Wilt and drank some more beer bitterly.
    'Henry, someone has been putting stuff in your tea,' said Braintree.
    'Yes, and we all know who that is. Mrs Crippen.'
    'Mrs Crippen? What the hell are you talking about?'
    'Has it ever occurred to you,' said Wilt pointedly shoving the pork pie down the counter,

'what would have happened if Mrs Crippen, instead of being childless and bullying her husband and

generally being in the way, had had quads? I can see it hasn't. Well, it has to me. Ever since I

taught that course on Orwell and the Art of the English Murder, I have gone into the subject

deeply on my way home to an Alternative Supper consisting of uncooked soya sausage and homegrown

sorrel washed down with dandelion coffee and I've come to certain conclusions.'
    'Henry, this is verging on paranoia,' said Braintree sternly.
    'Is it? Then answer my question. If Mrs Crippen had had quads who would have ended up under

the cellar floor? Dr Crippen. No, don't interrupt. You are not aware of the change that maternity

has brought to Eva. I am. I live in an oversize house with an oversize mother and four daughters

and I can tell you that I have had an insight into the female of the species which is denied more

fortunate men and I know when I'm not wanted.'
    'What the hell are you on about now?
    'Two more pints please,' Wilt told the barman, 'and kindly return that pie to its cage.'
    'Now look here, Henry, you're letting your imagination run away with you,' said Braintree.

'You're not seriously suggesting that Eva is setting out to poison you?'
    'I won't go quite that far,' said Wilt, 'though the thought did cross my mind when Eva moved

into Alternative Fungi. I soon put a stop to that by getting Samantha to taste them first. I may

be redundant but the quads aren't. Not in Eva's opinion anyway. She sees her litter as being

potential geniuses. Samantha is Einstein, Penelope's handiwork with a felt-pen on the

sitting-room wall suggested she was a feminine Michelangelo, Josephine hardly needs an

introduction with a name like that. Need I go on?'
    Braintree shook his head.
    'Right,' continued Wilt, despondently helping himself to the fresh beer. 'As a male I have

performed my biological function and just when I was settling down relatively happily to

premature senility Eva, with an infallible intuition, which I might add I never suspected, brings

to live under the same roof a woman who possesses all those remarkable qualities, intelligence,

beauty, a spiritual sensitivity and a radiance... all I can say is that Irmgard is the epitome of

the woman I should have married.'
    'And didn't,' said Braintree emerging from the beer-mug where he had taken refuge from Wilt's

ghastly catalogue. 'You are lumbered with Eva and...'
    'Lumbered is exact,' said Wilt. 'When Eva gets into bed... I'll spare you the sordid