Timothy Lea - Confessions from a Nudist Colony

The copper looks a bit embarrassed. ‘They couldn’t be separated,’ he says. He turns round and shouts through a door behind him. ‘Millie! Have you found the keys to those blooming handcuffs, yet?’

It is pissing with rain most of the way up to the Norfolk coast but I don’t allow my spirits to flag. A couple of days out of the Smoke with Sid footing the bills is not to be sniffed at and I wonder where he has it in mind for us to stay, I hope we don’t have to share the same bedroom. You always get a few funny glances and one of the waiters rubbing his knee against you when he ladles out the brown windsor.

‘I’m looking forward to a bit of grub,’ I say, trying to raise the subject discreetly.

‘There should be some chocolate in the glove compartment,’ says Sid. ‘That’s if Jason hasn’t eaten it.’

‘I’m not quite certain whether he has or not,’ I say, examining the stomach-turning mess sticking to the 1955 AA Book.

‘Don’t throw it out of the window,’ says Sid. ‘It’s perfectly eatable once it’s firmed up again. You just want to make sure you don’t get a bit of silver paper against your fillings.’

‘I see there’s a hotel at Great Crumbling,’ I say. ‘Got a couple of rosettes and a lift for invalid chairs.’

‘Yes,’ says Sid. ‘We should be turning off about here. Do you notice how the air has changed?’

‘I think they must be spraying that field,’ I say.

‘I didn’t mean that!’ says Sid. ‘I was referring to the fact that it’s fresh. No smoke, no diesel fumes. We’re going to become new men out here. You know how healthy people look when they come back from their holidays? We’re going to be like that all the time.’

‘They’re skint when they come back from their holidays, too,’ I say.

Sid waves his arms into the air and nearly drives into a field of sugar beet. ‘There you go again. Money! That’s all you bleeding think about. Why don’t you put it behind you and look at the skyline?’

‘I’m sorry, Sid,’ I say. ‘I’ll probably feel better when we’ve checked in at the hotel.’ I wait hopefully but Sid tightens his grip on the wheel and gazes through the windscreen with a new sense of purpose.

‘Did you see that signpost?’ he says. ‘Little Crumbling two and a half miles. It was two miles at the signpost before that. You can tell we’re in the country.’

‘I think I’ll have a bath,’ I say. ‘Then a pot of tea in my room. And maybe a few rounds of hot buttered toast.’

Sid shoves on the anchors. ‘That sounds handy,’ he says.

‘Oh good,’ I say. ‘Maybe I’ll have a few teacakes as well.’

‘I meant that,’ says Sid.

I follow his nod and tilt my head to read a lop-sided sign which says ‘Bitter Vetch Farm. Visitors taken in. No travellers’. Beyond the sign is a muddy track leading to a cluster of dilapidated barns surrounding a building with a moulting thatched roof.

‘I don’t think they still do it,’ I say. ‘It looks deserted.’

‘It can’t be,’ says Sid. ‘There’s smoke coming from the roof.’

‘Maybe it’s on fire?’ I say hopefully.

‘Looks very authentic to me,’ says Sid. ‘You’ll get your food straight off the land there. It was just what you were talking about.’

‘Should be cheap as well,’ I say.

‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ says Sid.

‘No, of course not,’ I say. ‘I wonder you didn’t bring a sleeping bag.’

Sid’s eyes narrow thoughtfully and I wish I had kept my mouth shut. ‘You could stretch out in the back underneath the tiger skin rug,’ he says. ‘Mind your feet on the upholstery and don’t try and pee out of the window.’

‘Sounds very tempting, Sid.’ I say. ‘But I’ll give it a miss if you don’t mind.’

The farmyard has half a dozen bedraggled chickens picking their way round it and if their condition is an example of the fare available at Bitter Vetch Farm it is difficult to see why they should want to hang around, let alone us. Sid however does not seem to notice that they look like long-necked canaries and knocks boldly on the door. There is a moment’s pause and the door is opened by a comfortable Mum-type lady with flour all over her hands. These she wipes on the sheep which is lying on the kitchen table.

‘Good afternoon, madam,’ says Sid briskly. ‘I believe you take people in?’

The woman’s face hardens. ‘If you’m from the Milk Marketing Board you can take your long snouts off our farm! The water in them churns came through the roof. My Dan would never knowingly cheat anyone. He ain’t got the sense.’

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