Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

The back of Sid’s neck turns red and when he swings round we all fall down the steps of the bungalow. He chokes a couple of times, shuts the door as an afterthought and fixes Ted with his eye.

“Right, Hotchkiss,” he says. “You’re in charge and your first job is going to be to get that bloody maniac off the island. Put him on an aeroplane. It doesn’t matter where it’s going. Anywhere. And as for those two—those—”

“You mean Sir Giles’ nieces?” I say hurriedly. Sidney wilts. “You’ll have to watch them,” he says weakly.

In the next few days we watch the Deadly Duo systematically work their way through every male on the Island. This is not bad going when you consider that these are the days on which we interview waiters and barmen, and an extra sixty Spaniards come over from the mainland. Poor devils. It is pathetic to see them change from arrogant males glorying in their Latin sensuality to shivering substitutes for men skulking behind rocks in order to avoid the merciless attentions of the flesh fiends.

“Poor sods,” said Ted. “They started off as bull-fighters and ended up fighting for their balls.”

You may think I exaggerate but you have never experienced those birds at first hand – at least I imagine you haven’t. Maybe by the time I write this—hey, why don’t you run down to the village store and buy a padlock, just to be on the safe side?

Sidney watches what is happening and tries to be philosophical – at least I think that was the word he meant to use. You never quite know with Sidney.

“Let ’em get on with it,” he says. “They’ll be shagged out by the time the paying customers get here.”

Us old hands shake our heads at that one. We know our girls. When you screw for peace you screw with the strength of ten. Not that Sid is less than smack on the ball in many ways. He gets all the huts repaired, stops the locals using the piss houses as goat pens and even gets some of the toilets working. I can vouch for this latter success because one of the workmen manages to flush his plastic false teeth down the loo and they bob up beside Ted off Palm Beach two minutes later.

“Bloody terrifying, it was,” he says. “I thought they were one of those tropical fish with nothing but teeth.”

This incident underlines one of the fundamental weaknesses of Love Island’s plumbing arrangements and you soon learn to swim a fair distance from the shore unless you want to meet a few old friends.

One disappointment is the failure to get Grunwald off the island. The sun must have affected him because when Ted goes to fetch him for the plane he tears all his clothes off and runs naked into the trees. He has only been seen occasionally since. At first, it was reckoned that hunger would drive him out, but now with only a couple of days left to the first guests arriving, Sid has ordered that pairs of shorts be left around the island in the hope that he will slip a pair on and not let down the tone of the place. It is much in Sid’s mind that some old Funfrall customers might wonder why their former Holiday Host is now frisking about in the altogether.

Ted is running around like a blue-arsed fly – of which there are still a great many to pick up hints from – and I am improving my sun tan and doing what I can to keep away from Carmen. The bloody woman won’t leave me alone and is always slipping another bottle into the medicine cabinet or her hand down the front of my trousers. Health and sex are the only two things she seems to think about. Not that I can complain too much because I have given up smoking and never said no to a spot of the other in my life.

Somebody else who seems to be getting his share is Sid. Our leader’s quarters are across the road from Marcia’s and Carmen informs me that the cobble stones between the two front doors are getting decidedly worn. What Sid gets up to is of course his own business and, despite the fact that he is married to my sister, I have never thought of questioning his behaviour. What makes me change my mind is when he calls me in to his office – the first thing Sid does when he gets onto the island is fix himself up with an office – and informs me that Mum, Dad and Rosie are going to be amongst the first batch of swingers to set foot on our fair shores. This news is nothing if not a bombshell and I stagger back temporarily stunned by its multiple implications.

“Blimey!” I gasp. “How did they get out here?”

“I paid for ’em. Of course, I managed to fiddle a pretty hefty reduction. It’s not going to bankrupt me.”

“But why, Sid?”

“Well, I thought your Mum and Dad – poor old sods – could do with a bit of a knees-up before they snuff it. I mean, you’re never going to send them anywhere, are you? A day trip to Southend on their Golden Wedding Anniversary would be about your mark.”

“But why here, Sid? I mean, Love Island. They’re a bit past it, aren’t they? Have you sent them a course of Phyllosan as well?”

“They don’t have to get involved in anything. They can just sit about in the sun and relax. Marcia can look after them.”

“Yeah, and what about Marcia? Rosie isn’t going to take too warmly to her being out here, is she?”

“Don’t be stupid. Rosie knows all about Marcia. She’s met her.”

“There’s a difference to meeting her in England, and finding her shacked up with you out here.”

“What do you mean ‘shacked up’? Are you suggesting I’m having it away with her?”

“The idea had flashed across my mind, Sid. Quite a few others too. Look, I don’t mind what you do, but I think you ought to be a bit careful about upsetting Rosie. Don’t make it too obvious. You know what I mean?”

Sidney does not like that because he starts tugging at his moustache as if he wants to tear it out of his mush and his face turns an ugly red colour.

“You’ve got a bloody cheek talking to me like that. You’re still an employee of Funfrall Enterprises, you know, not a bleeding marriage guidance counsellor. I know how to handle Rosie, don’t you worry about that.”

“I just think it’s bloody stupid having both of them out here.”

“I don’t see why I should deny Rosie a holiday just because Marcia’s here. She’s been on at me long enough about it. Look, Timmy. We’re in the nineteen seventies. Rosie and I have a modern marriage. If I fancy a quick fling with some bird, Rosie doesn’t mind. She knows I’ll still be mending the kid’s bike on Saturday morning. We’re grown-up people. All that faithfulness bit isn’t the B.O. and end-all, you know.”

“Supposing Rosie fancied a bit on the side?”

Sid swallows hard.

“Well, of course it’s not very likely to happen, is it? She’s got the house and the kid and—and me.”

“And supposing she did?”

“Well, it would be just the same. What’s sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander. The sex thing is pretty unimportant. We put too much emphasis on it. It’s what happens up here that keeps marriage alive.” Sid taps his nut.

“That’s very broad-minded, Sid.”

“Well, like I said. You’ve got to move with the times. Attitudes change. Now, don’t worry about Mum and Dad or Rosie. Everything is going to be alright. You leave it to me. If you want to do something useful, get out there and find that bleeder Grunwald.”

So I pad off with my mind full of the new Sidney and thinking how he has changed. When Sid used to live with us in Scraggs Road he and Dad were after each other’s guts, twenty four hours a day. Now he is giving the miserable old bleeder a free holiday. And as for all this free love stuff, I just don’t get it. I always thought Sid was the possessive type.

The sun is battering down out of a cloudless sky and, as the alternative is painting a white line round the edge of the ping pong table, I decide to take Sid at his word and go and look for Grunwald. Somebody has broken into the camp kitchen which, as Ted observes, is a clear indication of desperation, and it is generally reckoned to have been Grunwald. This notion is supported by the fact that all the pairs of shorts left out have been put through the mincing machine.