‘Are you sure that’s the saying?’ Paris asked. Helen nodded. The couple stared up at the giant wooden horse that had appeared overnight outside the walls of Troy.
‘Absolutely,’ Helen said eventually. ‘Never look a gift horse in the arse.’
‘I thought it was mouth.’ Paris was a simple man, but to him it looked as if the rear end of the horse had an anus suspiciously like a closed trapdoor.
‘It’s definitely “arse”,’ said Helen, in the voice of a woman used to getting her own way. ‘Though to be on the safe side, don’t look in its mouth, either.’
Paris sighed. Helen was beautiful, it was true, but she had a lot of opinions. It was all very well being the envy of all men, but noone knew how much she bent his ear over trivial stuff, like no feet on the table, no chickens in the bedroom. No anything in the bedroom unless it was a full moon, and then only if he washed first.
No point in rocking the boat when tonight was the night.
‘So what you are saying, is although this horse turned up from nowhere, and although it’s large enough to house, I don’t know, a convey of elite soldiers, and although, if I looked closely at its arse I might see something suspiciously like a closed trap door, I shouldn’t because of some old saying, which you may or may not have accurately remembered’.
Helen smiled, and it was as if the sun had emerged from behind a cloud.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Now go and get yourself a bath.’
Paris gave the giant wooden horse another close look. It would wait until tomorrow, he thought. ‘Right you are, my love,’ he said, and went off in search of the soap.
Just waving 