Timothy Lea - Confessions from a Nudist Colony

‘You’ve heard rumours, have you?’ I say, beginning to get interested. ‘Don’t tell me that nice Antonia Fraser’s daddy has done something untoward.’

‘Of course not!’ says Sid. ‘I didn’t mean “up to” in the slap and tickle sense. I was referring to their stand against the corrupting influence of books like the ones your Dad keeps in the hallstand.’

‘He doesn’t any more,’ I say. ‘They’re in the cistern.’

‘Blimey, I wondered why he was in there for so long. Dirty old sod! How did you find out?’

‘I pulled the chain one day and nothing happened–’

‘You have to pull it quickly and then give it one long pull,’ interrupts Sid.

‘Do you mind?’ I tell him. ‘It is my home. I ought to know how to use the karsi. Why don’t you belt up and let me finish?’ I pause for a censorial moment – good word that, isn’t it? – and then continue. ‘When I climbed up on the seat I found that a couple of mags had slipped underneath the ballcock.’

‘How very appropriate,’ says Sid. ‘They must have been a bit soggy.’

‘They were,’ I say. ‘But it didn’t spoil the effect. The photos on the reverse side of the page showed through so you had one bird on top of the other.’

‘You had that anyway,’ says Sid. ‘Oh dear. How sad it all is. Your Dad has grown old without achieving maturity. I’d feel sorry for him if he wasn’t such a miserable old git. Lend us a quid.’

I had hoped to talk Sid out of his insane impulse to help Madame Necroma towards a new set of frilly curtains for her caravan but once he gets an idea into his crust it can be very hard to budge. We are still arguing when one of the curtains is pulled aside and a bird with a beauty spot and a lot of makeup snatches a gander at us. She looks a bit ruffled, as does the geezer who appears when the caravan door opens. His knees are practically the first thing to hit the top step and he staggers down the rest of them like he has both feet through the slit of his Y-fronts.

‘Find it all right, did you?’ asks Sid.

The bloke looks not a little taken aback. ‘What do you mean?’ he says suspiciously.

‘You know,’ says Sid, jerking his head towards the window. ‘Does she know her stuff?’

The bloke gives a little shiver and pulls his mac around him. ‘Unbelievable,’ he says.

Sid turns to me. ‘There you are! Come on, don’t be a berk. Maybe she’ll take something off for the two of us.’

‘She won’t take anything off,’ says the bloke. ‘I asked her specially.’

‘Well, we’ll have a go anyway,’ says Sid. ‘Come on, Timmo! Don’t you want to know what the future holds in store?’

The bloke gives Sid another funny look and hurries away muttering. ‘Nice chap,’ says Sid. ‘He clearly found it a moving experience. Did you notice that glazed look in his eyes?’

‘I was concentrating on the way his knees bashed together,’ I say. ‘Do you really want to go through with this, Sid?’

‘Definitely,’ says my diabolical brother-in-law. And he bounds up the steps like a jack rabbit.

No sooner is his Oliver Twist poised in front of the Rory than it whips open and the bird in the window nearly clocks him one with one of her enormous earrings. They are so big that you could sit a parrot on them – provided you did not mind running the risk of it doing its business in your earhole. She is now wearing a head scarf tied tightly round her nut and her generous knockers heave beneath an embroidered shawl.

‘Madame Necroma?’ says Sid. ‘Good afternoon, madame. My friend and I would like to avail ourselves of your service.’

‘Both of you?’ says the bird.

‘Exactly,’ says Sid. ‘You have perceived my meaning to the T. We were wondering if there was a possibility of you making a reduction in our case?’

‘I’ll reduce anything you show me,’ says Madame Necroma. ‘Come in, boys. You don’t want to hang about. There’s narks everywhere. It’s getting impossible to turn over a couple of bob without finding a copper.’

She closes the door behind us and we take a gander round the inside of the caravan. ‘Blimey,’ says Sid. ‘I never seen one with a double bed in it before.’

‘It folds away to make a couple of work surfaces,’ says Madame. ‘Now, what can I do to accommodate you? Both together? Or, one at a time? Or one watching? – it’s amazing how popular watching has become lately. I suppose it’s the telly?’

‘What’s the cheapest?’ I ask quickly.

‘One at a time, flat rate,’ says Madame. ‘A quid each.’

‘You go ahead,’ I say to Sid. ‘I’ll give it a miss. I’m not all that keen.’

‘Charming!’ says Madame Necroma.

‘Don’t take it to heart,’ says Sid. ‘It’s a question of bees, not doubting your professional integrity. We’re both the same sign anyway. Scorpio: brooding, sensual, possessive–’

‘Skint!’ says Madame Necroma.

‘I’ll wait for you outside,’ I say to Sid.

‘Right,’ says Sid. ‘Don’t fret. Whatever I learn will be to our mutual advantage. This might be the turning point, Timmo. It could be the best quid you’ve ever spent.’

I am still trying to tell him that I only lent him the money when Madame Necroma pushes me down the steps. She certainly seems in a hurry to get on with it. I suppose Sid’s stars could be on the point of moving into a different quarter. I believe it is a very precise science.

When I get outside I have a quick shufti round the fair and then take a butcher’s at the couples on the common. I soon give this up because the other people who are clocking them are such a disgusting lot. It’s like pornography. There is nothing wrong with it except the kind of person it attracts. It makes you feel dirty to be associated with them.

About ten minutes have gone by and I reckon that Madame Necroma must have finished with Sid. She did not look the type to hang about. I wander back to the caravan and am slightly surprised that there is no sign of Clapham’s answer to Paul Newman. Nor is there any sound from the caravan. Madame must still be gazing intently into her crystal ball. Best to leave them at it rather than interrupt the seance, or whatever it is. Sid would be furious if I spoilt his big moment.

I have just started counting the china alsatians in the caravan windows when I turn and see a female copper surveying me with what would pass for interest in any other bird. I don’t know what it is but I immediately start feeling guilty. My palms get hot and sweaty and when I move it is as if I expected a jemmy to drop out of my trouser leg. I turn away but I am conscious that the bird is still watching me. Perhaps she thinks I am casing the caravans prior to a spot of B. and E.

‘Psssst!’ Do my senses deceive me or is it her making that noise? I turn and she waggles a finger at me and retires behind a trailer. What can she want? Perhaps it is a new way of arresting people. You nip round the corner after PC Niceparts and a blooming great bule bashes you over the nut with his truncheon. Still, what have I got to worry about? I haven’t done anything. I take a deep breath and trip round the side of the trailer – some twit has left an electric cable stretched across the grass. The Bluebird is waiting for me and, I must say, she could take me in charge any day of the week. Neat as a guardsman’s sewing kit and eyes like warm toffee. She has a delicate dust of freckles on her face and her eyelashes flop about like they have just been washed and she can’t do a thing with them. All in all, she looks as if she would find it difficult to straighten a seam in her stocking, let alone arrest anyone.

‘CID?’ she murmurs. She is nodding over my shoulder when she speaks and I am so busy clocking the plus features that for some reason I think she is referring to Sid – we often call him El Cid, anyway.