Timothy Lea - Confessions of an Ice Cream Man

Tina is kneeling in front of Clare and leaning forward threateningly and I sense that aggro is but just split seconds away. In such an explosive situation a man has to stay cool, I think fast, and arrive at a split-second decision. I reach for my y-fronts and start to pull them on. If you start by saving yourself that’s always one life on the credit side.

‘You ! ! ! ! –’

‘Now girls,’ I say. ‘You musn’t –’ I reach for my trousers and turn round to see – blimey!

CONTENTS

Title Page CONFESSIONS OF AN ICE CREAM MAN Timothy Lea

Chapter One

In which Valentina, an Italian ice cream lady, nearly garrots brother-in-law Sid and proffers exquisite retribution to Timmy after an unpromising beginning.

Chapter Two

In which Valentina’s mum arrives and an unexpected love idyll is rudely interrupted.

Chapter Three

In which Timmy goes to buy some ice cream tricycles and meets dissatisfied, passionate Pam.

Chapter Four

In which Sid unveils his unique vehicle for selling ice cream and the family attend a taste test of the first batch of Mum’s ice cream.

Chapter Five

In which Timmy goes down to the library to get some Italian ice cream leaflets translated and becomes involved with Tina and Clare who have come under the Italian influence.

Chapter Six

In which Timmy prepares to go out on his first sales foray.

Chapter Seven

In which Timmy bumps into Mrs Betty Gregson on the job and is forced to do naughty things with her by a kinky and mistrustful husband.

Chapter Eight

In which Timmy makes an ice cream action painting with an uninhibited lady called Sybil who has an artistic bent and a desire to experiment.

Chapter Nine

In which Sid gets the ice cream concession at the Clapham Open Tennis Tournament and things start to go wrong.

Chapter Ten

In which things continue to go wrong and get even worse when Sid and Timmy find themselves closely involved with Mrs Brewer and her sensitive daughter, Henrietta.

Chapter Eleven

In which Sid prepares to exhibit at The International Ice Cream Manufacturers’ Great Exhibition

Chapter Twelve

In which everything hinges on the result of the competition for the best ice cream.

Also Available in the Confessions Ebook Series

Copyright

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‘Fifty thousand quid a year,’ says Sid.

‘You what?’ I say. I thought he had dropped off over his pint but this is clearly not the case.

‘I’ve just worked it out,’ he says, nodding towards the ice cream van barely visible beneath a pall of kids. ‘That’s what that Frascati geezer is taking home to his old lady and the bambinos. Three a minute at an average of ten pence a time. That’s eighteen quid an hour – make it twenty to keep to round figures. Start around ten and finish at six. That’s a hundred and sixty quid a day. Six-day week. That’s nine hundred and sixty nicker a week. Fifty-two weeks in a year. That’s fifty thousand quid near as damn it.’

‘He’s not working flat out all the time,’ I say. ‘There’s no market in the winter.’

‘He switches to hot dogs and field dressings during the football season,’ says Sid. ‘Even if he was only working half the year that’s twenty-five thousand quid. Can’t be bad. I’ve always said you can’t go wrong flogging nosh – provided you work for yourself, of course.’

‘I never remember you saying that,’ I observe.

‘That’s because you never listen,’ says Sid. ‘You just sit there wondering how long you can hang onto that pint so that you don’t have to buy another one.’

‘I bought the last one!’ I tell him.

‘What does it matter?’ says Sid. ‘You’re so petty. I don’t pay attention to things like that.’

‘That’s what I’m complaining about,’ I say. ‘You’re as tight as a french letter on a bollard.’

‘What a disgusting way to talk,’ says Sid. ‘I don’t know what your bleeding mother would say if she could hear you.’ He drains his pint and sighs. ‘Oh dear, it’s always the foreigners, isn’t it? They’re the only people making any money in this country at the moment. If the Arabs haven’t bought it, it’s only because the Pakistanis and the Chinese won’t sell. You have to go the other side of Thornton Heath to see an Englishman.’

‘I don’t understand it,’ I say. ‘If we’re in such desperate schtuck why are they rushing to get in?’

‘Because their standards are much lower than ours,’ says Sid. ‘They’ll accept things no Britisher would tolerate. Cold beer, that kind of thing. What they put up with at home makes this country seem like paradise.’

We watch an Alfa Romeo glide to a halt beside the ice cream van and a slim, dark girl get out and shake back her tawny black hair. She is wearing black satin trousers that cling to her high-hitched arse the way the outer skin of an onion is moulded to the inner layers. The pencil line of her panties runs round the curves like a contour line. She bends to get something out of the car and a parched cry of need breaks from Sid’s throat.

‘Blimey,’ he breathes. ‘She could have a lick of my cornet any day of the week.’

‘She looks foreign,’ I say.

‘They’re not all bad,’ says Sid ‘It’s the men that make the trouble.’

As we watch, the bird goes to the back of the van and opens the door. ‘One of the family,’ I say. ‘You’re right, Sid. They must be doing all right if she can afford an Alfa.’

‘It’s just a question of whipping up some powder and that,’ muses Sid. ‘We could do it at home. Your mum could do it.’ His face clouds over. ‘No, probably not. I haven’t got over the caraway seeds on that sundae turning out to be mouse droppings.’

‘It was the tiny footprints gave it away, wasn’t it?’ I say. ‘Taste-wise it was like everything else Mum dishes up.’

The bird comes down the steps of the van and she has a movement that would make a Swiss watch envious. She wafts along like she is dancing to a tune nobody else can hear. ‘I wonder if they do a recipe leaflet?’ I say.

‘No harm in asking,’ says Sid. He gets up and squares his enormous shoulders and I can see that Clapham’s answer to Paul Newman is about to strike again.

‘Be gentle with her,’ I say.

‘Piss off!’ says my brother-in-law. He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and moves purposefully towards the Alfa. The bird has just closed the door as he approaches and he spreads his arms wide against the coachwork and bends down so that his head is nearly inside the car. It does not stay there long because there is a whirring noise and the automatic window nearly gives Sid a cleft palate. He starts back and then stops dead. I never fancied Sid’s cowpoke tie – two bits of string threaded through a brass bull’s head and decorated with metal spurs on the ends – and this instrument of sartorial torture nearly proves to be his undoing. The metal spurs get snagged inside the window and when the bird drives off Sid is forced to run along beside the car or indent for a smaller collar size. The bird does not immediately cotton on to what is happening and thinking that Sid is giving chase she accelerates. This is definitely not good news for Sid’s windpipe and it is a good job that the string snaps before his neck does. When I get to his side his adam’s apple is squatting on the brass bull like it is a golf tee. I don’t know if blue is his favourite colour but only the bloodshot eyes break the monotony of his bloated ultra-marine mug – it is like the flesh tints on a cheap colour tele. If I had a knife I could cut the string away but on the other hand there would be the danger of slitting his throat which I know he would not like. Decisions, decisions: I always wanted to find out what I would be like in an emergency and now I know – useless. ‘EEEurgh!!’ Sid plucks the string from his throat and lies writhing in the grass. For a moment I think he is going to be Uncle Dick but then he sits up and grabs me by the trouser leg. ‘Uuugh!’ he says.