Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

“Don’t be so rude, Dad,” minces Rosie. “The gentleman is only trying to help.”

“Yes, help,” beams Hairy.

I notice that he has the letters R.V. and a semi-quaver embroidered on the breast pocket of his blazer and that a number of similarly clothed swarthy blokes are loading musical instruments on to the back of one of the coaches.

“Ricci Volare?” I say.

“And his Angels of the Sun,” says the man himself, waving his hand expansively towards the other geezers. “You have come from the Island of Love, and you—” he turns to Rosie “—are going there. It is very right. I will sing many boughtiful songs only for you.”

“Oh,” says Rosie. “That will be nice.”

“First of all you can help us get these bleeding cases on the bus,” says Dad. “Plenty of time for singing later.”

So Ricci staggers off with Dad’s cases and I get the rest of the party aboard the two coaches. I am a bit surprised, because most of those sitting tired and weary before me are typical “Funfrall Folk” as Francis would say. One or two honeymoon couples but very few obvious “hanky panky” addicts. Still, you never can tell, can you?

I travel in the same coach as the family and it is no surprise to find Ricci sitting next to, and virtually on top of Rosie. He is whispering in her lughole the whole bleeding way, and the stupid cow sits there with a glazed look in her eyes, beaming up at him. How Sid is going to react to this little lot I don’t know.

Luckily the ferry is at the Jetty, the paintwork seems to have dried, and, since neither of the coaches broke down, the trip to the island has been an unparalleled success. Our luck can’t hold, I tell myself, but we get across to the Island without being torpedoed and there is Sidney and the welcoming Committee with their wreaths of plastic flowers. This is another great Funfrall idea stolen from those Polynesian birds who stick garlands of flowers round your neck. Of course, their flowers are real but, as Sidney says, it is cheaper and more hygienic to use plastic wreaths which can be washed and used again and again. Also, no flowers will grow on the island. Also, as Ted says, the wreaths will come in very handy if anyone dies of food poisoning.

Dad, who has been very niggly ever since Mum would not let him take off his stiff collar in the coach, does not take kindly to having a wreath hung round his neck.

“Bring me all this bloody way to play hoop-la with me,” he says. “I’d be better off at home in front of the tele.”

“I wish you were,” says Rosie. “You’ve never stopped bloody moaning since you got off the plane.”

I was looking forward to seeing Sidney and Ricci weighing each other up but Mr. Volare and his merry men melt away the minute we get off the boat. Maybe Rosie has said something to him.

“Good to see you, Rosie, love,” says Sid with convincing enthusiasm. “That’s a nice little number you’re wearing. I bet that cost me a few bob.”

“You’re looking tired, Sid,” says Rosie tenderly. “You haven’t been overdoing it, have you?”

“Oh, he’s been going at it really hard,” I say, fixing Sidney with my beady eye, “he hasn’t spared himself. Twenty four hours a day, he’s been—”

“Alright, alright, Timmy,” says Sid firmly. “Rosie’s got the idea. Don’t make me out to be some kind of martyr. There was a job of work to be done and I got on with it, that’s all.”

“Sidney got on the job alright,” I say. “Nobody could argue with that.”

“Right. Let’s show everybody to their quarters, shall we?” says Sid through clenched teeth. “Then they can change their money to the island currency.”

This money-changing is another Funfrall dodge to rake in the ackers. The island currency is Tokens – Love Tokens, get it? – and these have to be used to buy anything that is sold on the island. Of course the exchange rate is fiddled so that a bottle of Coke costs twice as much as if you were paying for it in real money. It is a beautiful racket because no one understands the exchange rate and no one likes to worry about money on holiday anyway. You just find yourself spending twice as much of the stuff as you intended to. Your Tokens are worn round your neck like beads, and this too, encourages you to have millions of them so you can impress the other poor jerks.

Dad does not like having to change his money into “pistaccios” as he calls them and is even less enthusiastic about Tokens: “like a bloody Co-op divi” he says, “I wouldn’t use ’em for washers.”

Neither does the living accommodation appeal: “I’ve heard about rude mud huts,” he says, “but this is past a bleeding joke. You don’t expect your mother and me to sleep in that, do you? I’d need to shove a bone through my hooter first. It may be alright for your darkies, but not for me.”

“What did I tell you?” I say to Sidney. “You tied a millstone round your neck when you brought him out here.”

“Ungrateful old sod,” rants Sidney. “Doesn’t he realise he’s getting everything for free. You lot are all the same. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. You swallow the whole bleeding arm.”

Poor old Sid is obviously under pressure and in the next few days it does not get any better.

First of all there are the little things that go wrong. The shit house that collapses with the quantity surveyor from Penge inside it – jokes about the quantity he surveyed are considered in very bad taste. The discovery of ravenous insectlife lurking in the walls of the huts. The lady from Chippenham Sodbury who is horrified to discover that what she thought was a shoal of basking fish is in fact evidence of the extra strain being put on the plumbing arrangements. All these things are problems but they are not as disturbing as the failure of people to “inter-act” as Sidney calls it. Despite all the mood muzack being relayed over the loud speaker system, the efforts of the Fiesta Bunnies and Sun Senors, and the fact that everything in the place has a name that shouts sex, nobody seems to want to know. It is as if, when it is so easily available, nobody needs it, or maybe we have all underestimated how long it will take people to thaw out.

With nearly all the love-bites on the island coming from insects, Sidney is a worried man and his state of mind is not made any easier by the fact that the one blossoming romance involves his wife and Senor Volare. Every night Rosie can be found in the Candlelight Casino whilst Hairy belts out a stream of tuneless dirges that all sound the same and contain more groaning and sobbing than you’ve heard since Johnny Ray hung his handkerchief in the airing cupboard. Rosie gazes at him like his mush is the tele screen back home and it is obvious that she isn’t thinking about what to buy little Jason as a going home present.

The rest of Volare’s group are also settling in nicely and I have noticed that Carmen has not been hanging around so much since they got here. I should be pleased but of course I am not. Bloody wops! I mutter to myself, what can she see in that bunch of dagos? Whatever it is, Nan and Nat see it too, because they are also never far away from the Candlelight Casino when Ricci is delivering the goods. All very nice for the staff but what about the paying customers? A few of them gamble a bit, but their number does not include Dad.

“Blackjack and Craps,” he says. “They’re bleeding nice names, aren’t they? Very refined. You won’t catch me getting mixed up with that lot.” And so he joins the silent majority who just sit around and peel the skin off their sunburn. Of course Dad does not go so far as to take his clothes off. He rolls his trousers up to the knee, unbuttons his shirt to the level of the top of his vest and plonks a knotted handkerchief over his bonce. Very trendy. He makes Norman Wisdom look like Cecil Beaton. Mum isn’t much better. She sticks a piece of newspaper under her sunglasses to protect her nose and keeps slapping suntan cream all over her mush until she looks like a greasy penguin. Anyhow, she is definitely enjoying the holiday which is more than can be said for Dad. She even likes the food.