Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

Sidney slides off early saying that he must get some sleep, and maybe it is as well that he does because Rosie’s demented passion for Italy’s answer to Tom Jones is horrible to see. She sits there in her turquoise crimplene, hugging her rum and coke to her not insignificant bosom and sending him messages with her eyes which need to be read through dark glasses.

“She’s got the hots for him alright, hasn’t she?” says Ted at my elbow. “What are we going to do about it?”

“Mind your language,” I say, “that’s my sister, remember. I’m not certain I want to do anything. She’s a big girl now.”

“Yeah, but remember what Sidney said.”

“Oh stop flapping. Just because you’re senior cringer it doesn’t mean you have to run along behind Sid with a roll of bog paper. You’ve been a real pain ever since you tasted power.”

“It’s alright for you to go on like that. You’re his brother-in-law. You’re fireproof, whatever happens.”

Pathetic, isn’t it? You can see we are all on edge. The entertainments business is murder on your nerves, I can tell you.

“Belt up, will you? Look, they’re dancing.”

“Blimey! He’s holding her close isn’t he? She’s practically out the other side of him.”

“I want to hear what they’re saying. We’d better dance.”

“It’s going to look a bit conspicuous, isn’t it?”

“Not with each other, you berk!”

I grab some grateful bird and steer her out into the middle of the sweaty darkness to where Ricci and Rosie are locked in each other’s arms and totally unaware of the existence of anyone else. Ricci’s liver lips are an inch away from Rosie’s lughole and he is making with the honeyed words as usual.

“Cara mia,” he yuks. “I toucha you and I am inflatable. My body bursts with love. I wanta to kiss your little pink toes, to nobble your finger tips, to do everything to you that a man can do to the body of the woman he loves.”

And he dives on her mouth so that for a moment I think he is trying to swallow her head. Blimey but it is torrid – horrid too.

Eventually he has to come up for air and they separate with a noise like someone unstopping a blocked up sink.

“My darleeng,” he breathes. “I am very much enamelled with you. I musta maka lova to you. Eeza impossible to wait. I am a volcano. I pour all over you.”

He is pawing all over her alright. Good job Sid is not a finger-print expert.

“But my husband,” says Rosie unconvincingly.

“Where eeza he? He does not lova you like me. He cannot lova you like me. I am fire and he is water. Come to my hut. You must. You must.”

“But—”

“No! Do not but me. Come, say nothing. Come.”

And before you can say “Anthony Cheetham” he has taken her by the hand and is pounding towards the sign marked “Egxit”.

Without quite knowing what I am doing I dump my surprised partner and spring after them. I don’t really give a monkey about Sidney’s feelings but on the other hand I don’t trust Hairy further than I can throw him, and after all, he is a wop, isn’t he? I mean, it is not as if he was one of our blokes.

I follow about twenty yards behind and have to stop every few minutes while they go into another clinch. They just don’t care do they? God help them if Sidney pops out to water the cactus.

I have a vague idea of where Ricci’s hut is from when I left the pieces of paper for the game. As I recall it, the pong of the muck he uses on his hair was stronger than that of the disinfectant.

Love’s young nightmare has just moved through the first row of huts and I am about to follow when suddenly there is a terrible scream from just beside me and a fat woman wearing curlers and nothing else shoots out of a hut.

“Ooh, you pig,” she yells. “You filthy, dirty old man.”

Somehow, I know what I am going to see even before I look into the hut. Dad standing there in his socks and his plastic mac, looking confused.

“I thought it was the piss-house,” he says in a slightly narky voice. “They all look the same to me. I said I was sorry. That ugly old slag doesn’t think I was trying to come it with her, does she? I’m not that bleeding desperate.”

The ugly old slag starts to scream twice as loud after that and I can see that I have another problem on my hands. Dad’s breath smells strongly of the medicine we have been giving him and he is well pissed.

“I know this old man,” I say. “He’s quite harmless, really. I think he’s a bit overtired and made a genuine mistake.”

“Dirty old devil. Do you know what he did?”

“He hasn’t been very well lately. Now, please try and calm yourself. Shouting won’t do any good. I’ll get him to bed and come back to help tidy up.”

“You want to watch it if you do, son,” says Dad. “There’s a merry widow there, mark my words. You’re just what she’s looking for. A young, fit man to gratify her disgusting old body.”

“I’m not standing for that,” shouts Lady Shagnasty. “I’m going to report this whole incident to the camp authorities.”

“You do and I’ll say you invited me in to your hut,” leers Dad. “I’ll say you begged me to do a tinkle so you could watch.”

“O-o-oh!!”

Somehow, I manage to drag the dirty old sod away and I am half wondering whether it really was an accident by the time I get him back to his hut. There is no sign of Mum and I am about to ask where she is when she comes through the door opening.

“Thank God you’re back, Mum—” I begin, and then I stop. Mum is looking quite incredible. About ten years younger and with an “over the hills and faraway” expression in her eyes. She is wearing no make-up and seems to be in some kind of trance.

“Mum,” I say quietly. “Mum, are you alright?”

“What dear?” She looks at Dad and me as if she has only just seen us. “Yes, dear. What is it?”

“You’d better be prepared for a few cold looks tomorrow morning. Dad went out to the toilet and blundered into some woman’s hut by mistake.”

I wait for the explosion but Mum just smiles and pats Dad absentmindedly on the head.

“That’s alright, dear,” she says calmly. “We all make mistakes. You’re back now.” And that is all. I go out into the night wondering what has happened to Mum. What a pity Norman and Henry Bones the boy detectives are not with us.

But, fascinated as I am by Mum, I now have to turn my attention back to Ricci and Rosie, the star-crossed lovers of Isla de Amor. I pad through the huts hearing the occasional naughty noise seeping out of the thatch until I come to a hut with an Eyetie pennant hung over the doorway. Am I too late to save a fair English rose from a fate worse than National Health glasses?

“Oh, Ricci, angel, that was fantastic,” gasps an exhausted and familiar voice. “Do it again, pl-e-e-ase!”

By the cringe, I think, as I stride swiftly away into the darkness. The Leas are really getting amongst it tonight.

The next morning finds me in Sidney’s office, but I am listening not squealing. An unhealthy shade of grey is breaking through our leader’s sun tan and he is brandishing a telegram.

“This afternoon,” he groans, “he’s coming this afternoon with the next intake. In the coach. He says he wants to be treated like an ordinary holidaymaker.”

“Taking his life in his hands, isn’t he?” I say in my normal jokey fashion.

“Piss off,” says Sidney wearily. “Don’t start being funny at this time of the morning. What are we going to do?”

“I thought you’d never ask. We’re going to have a Fasching.”

“A what?”

“A Fasching. It’s a kraut idea Ted told me about. They have a big carnival just before they give everything up for Lent. They all get pissed and have it away with each other’s wives.”