Timothy Lea - Confessions of a Plumber’s Mate

‘I’m certain Timothy doesn’t want to take me home,’ she says – is it my imagination or is that a pout at the corner of that delectable mouth?

‘It would be a pleasure,’ I say. ‘I mean – I wouldn’t mind at all.’ I tone my response down when I see the way Crispin is looking at me. Wary might be one way of describing it.

‘I think, maybe I’d better –’

‘That’s settled then,’ says Sid breezily. ‘I hope you feel better soon, Imogen. I’m sorry about my father-in-law. He becomes prone to these bouts of over-tiredness.’

There is a lot more ‘lovely evening!’ and ‘don’t mention it’ while Rosie fetches Imogen’s coat. Crispin has grudgingly given me his car keys and is staring at the jumbo-sized brandy Sid has just shoved in his mitt. ‘The reverse is up and away from you,’ he says.

‘Your wife knows the – yes, of course, she must do,’ I say, glad that I have prevented myself from asking if Imogen knows the way to her own home.

‘I’m ready,’ she calls to me from the front door. Her handbag clicks shut like a trap closing on its prey and she delivers a minute flare of the nostrils as she catches my eye. ‘Goodnight, Crispin,’ she says. ‘I’m going to take one of my pills, so I won’t be awake when you get home.’ Crispin says something sympathetic and blows her a kiss. They don’t have a proper Swiss Miss.

‘How do you feel?’ I say, once we are in the car and I am trying to find out how the lights work.

‘Tense,’ she says. She feels in her bag and brings out a packet of fags. ‘Do you use these?’

‘No,’ I say. I am wondering whether to do any more apologizing for the family. In the circumstances, it seems best to leave the subject alone. It could sound a bit like a German apologizing for Hitler. ‘Tell me where you want me to go, will you?’

‘Down the end of the street and turn left. It’s very near. I could have walked.’

‘Better not to, these days.’ I say in my best Dixon of Dock Green voice. ‘You might bump into a spot of bother.’

‘You mean, I might be raped?’ She drags in a lungful of smoke and blows it out so hard that I expect it to splinter the windscreen. ‘I should be so lucky.’

‘There’s one or two nutcases about,’ I say.

‘Lead me to them!’ Mrs Fletcher grits her teeth and rakes her finger nails down my thigh. I manage to keep the car off the pavement, but only just. ‘Poor Timothy,’ says my volatile passenger. ‘You must think I’m mad.’

‘Of course, I don’t,’ I say soothingly. ‘You’re just a bit unsettled, that’s all. The cheese on the ice-cubes and all that.’

‘You think it’s giving me nightmares?’ Imogen laughs. ‘Cheese is supposed to give you mightmares, isn’t it?’

‘You didn’t eat any, did you?’ I say soothingly.

Lovely Imogen Fletcher brushes some hair from her eye. ‘It’s often the things you don’t have that give the most trouble, isn’t it?’

‘I suppose it is,’ I say. I don’t have to get out my crystal balls to see that there is something troubling the lady. Something apart from Dad and the rest of the aggrochat. ‘Your family wear their hearts on their sleeves, don’t they?’ She gives a short laugh. ‘That father of yours practically wears his parts on his sleeve!’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I –’

Imogen touches my sleeve. ‘Turn right at the level crossing and it’s the third house on the right. Don’t apologise for your father. At least he comes out with what he thinks. Crispin and I are less honest.’

I take the car round the corner and pull up outside the third house. It is half a large semi-detached, painted white. I notice that they have new dustbins. ‘Here we are,’ I say.

Imogen pulls her coat across her Manchesters. ‘Come in and have a drink,’ she says. ‘A coffee, something like that.’ The way she says it, she sounds as if she means it. ‘You weren’t particularly enjoying the party, were you?’

‘I was enjoying being with you.’

Imogen waves a hand like a conjuror producing a handkerchief from her sleeve. ‘If you come in, you’ll continue to be with me.’

I hesitate for a moment while I think what her old man is going to say. Is he going to cut up rough if I don’t show up in a couple of minutes? Sid and Rosie haven’t exactly been responsible for the party of the year, so far. Am I going to put the kibosh on it even further?

‘Nobody will notice if you’re away for a few minutes.’ She is right, of course. When you’re pissed – and everybody at Rosie’s was pretty pissed – people can disappear for hours and it seems like minutes. I remember when Sid had it off with Gabriella Duke at Sandy Ponder’s party. I thought he’s only just gone into the karsi, yet, when they broke the door down they were both starkers and she was – it doesn’t really matter what she was doing. That has nothing to do with the time element. It didn’t half surprise me, though. Mainly because I was younger, I suppose.

‘Are you coming?’ Love Goddess is getting out of the car and tilting her flawless nut in my direction. It’s meeting a bird like this that makes me wish I’d been to Oxford University. It may seem a funny thing to come out with but it’s true. It’s all a question of communication. You have to have the same terms of reference if you are going to sustain a relationship. I don’t mean having money and talking posh. I mean approaching things in the same way. Having the same attitude of mind. If you don’t have that in common then you’re never going to get much further than humping the sack together. It doesn’t normally worry me overmuch. Only sometimes. Very rarely. Occasionally.

‘Crispin’s lucky,’ she says as she opens the front door. ‘He’s got his work. He finds that fulfilling,’ She waits for a moment in the darkness and then turns on the light. ‘I need something more.’

When I think about it, it seems that she was waiting for me to do something. She couldn’t have been – could she? I mean, if it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But being her, all cool and refined and unattainable, the thought never entered my mind until the moment had gone.

‘You get involved in his work, don’t you?’ I say.

‘Only peripherally. I admire it. I give advice when I’m asked for it. But on the whole, Crispin keeps his work to himself. He keeps everything to himself.’

‘You don’t do anything?’

Mrs Fletcher runs one of her long fingers up my arm. ‘Tea or coffee? Oh, or there’s some Ovaltine if you’d prefer it?’

‘Tea, thanks,’ I say. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, I think you ought to find something to do. Look at Rosie. You’ve no idea what she was like when she first married Sid. It wasn’t until she got bored and opened a boutique that she really started developing as a person.’

‘Developing what?’

The question throws me for a minute. ‘Well – er, self confidence and all that kind of thing. I hardly know her now.’

Mrs Fletcher gives another of her short laughs. ‘Crispin hardly knows me now. I don’t want the situation to get any worse.’

We have gone through to the mod kitchen and Mrs F throws off her coat and gets down to the teapot in a blaze of spotlights. It reminds me of one of those ads in the women’s monthly glossies. Birds always seem to be doing the housework in evening dresses.

Some might be surprised by the turn of events but it is amazing how people, especially women, suddenly start telling you their life history after a few moments’ acquaintance. I find it difficult to believe my ears sometimes.

‘I don’t think Crispin is very interested in women,’ continues Imogen, reaching for a very ancient-looking biscuit tin – blimey! I hope the biscuits aren’t that old. ‘Not sexually, I mean. Has your brother-in-law said anything to you about it?’