Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

We get to the door of the apartment and I fling it open–or rather, I try and fling it open, the hinges are a bit rusty.

‘Gee,’ says Mrs B. sarcastically. ‘What a pretty shade of brown. Who told you it was my favourite colour?’ She collects some more dust on the fingers of her white glove. ‘And, do you know, Henry. I think they’ve left everything just as it was from the time Queen Elizabeth slept here.’

She turns to me. ‘Have you got a telephone? I think I’ll try and ring the Grand.’

I am busy looking round the room to see if the three jokers have been up to anything, but nothing seems to have been tampered with. The flowers must be in the bedroom.

‘The telephone is in the bedroom, modom,’ I say and open the door.

Mrs B. peers inside. ‘The bed is more like it,’ she says, perking up. ‘Room for Henry the Eighth and all his wives, huh?’ The bed is indeed built on the grand scale and I am relieved to find it flanked by two vases of flowers.

Hubby is also relieved. ‘There we are, my dear. I knew you wouldn’t be disappointed.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ says the new Mrs B. pointedly. ‘Where did those flowers come from? I think somebody thought we were getting buried, not married.’

Now she comes to mention it, there do seem to be a lot of lilies and other funereal blooms.

‘It’s the thought that counts,’ murmurs Mr B.

‘That’s what worries me. I bet they came from your first wife.’

I am about to explain about the three gentlemen when Mr Beecham decides to sit on the bed. He tests its softness with his hand, gives it a pat, then turns and sits down. I remember the smile of premature satisfaction on his face as he sinks down–and down. The jokers have unscrewed the bedstead and the poor old geezer lands up on the floor with his legs in the air. There is the sound of a chamber pot shattering and a cloud of dust fills the room.

‘My God,’ says Mrs B springing back. ‘What did I tell you? It folds into an instant coffin.’

Before she can say any more, Mr B.’s groans alert us to the fact that he really has hurt himself and, eventually, when we have prised Dr McDonald away from his bottle of Scotch, we discover that the poor bloke has a badly slipped disc and must go to hospital. On his wedding night, too. What a tragedy!

At first Mrs B. threatens to sue everybody up to the Duke of Edinburgh but we quieten her down and explain what happened and she decides to concentrate her wrath on the three blokes concerned, one of whom, of course, turns out to be the bridegroom’s best man. They nicked the flowers from a local graveyard. Oh well, I expect it seemed a good idea at the time.

On her return from the hospital Mrs B., or Sadie as I learn she is called, tries to book in at the Grand and the Imperial but they are both full. Thwarted in her attempt to escape, she retires to her apartment and orders a bottle of Bourbon to be sent up.

‘And send the cute one,’ she says, meaning me.

When I get there she has taken her jacket off and is revealing a shapely pair of bristols lunging against a halter neck jumper.

‘Put it down there,’ she says meaning the tray. ‘Boy, I wasn’t expecting too much, but I was hoping for better than this.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ I say. ‘The bed is all right now, isn’t it?’

‘Do you think we should check it? No, don’t look so alarmed. I was only joking. Tell me, what’s a good-looking boy like you doing in a place like this?’

‘It belongs to my brother-in-law. He’s just taken it over.’

‘He should try taking it over the side of a cliff. I wouldn’t put up my last husband in a dump like this.’

I don’t have an answer for that and she pulls a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag.

‘I expect you’re asking yourself what a beautiful dame like me is doing getting hitched to Beecham when I could have my pick of any man in the world.’ She watches my adam’s apple as I swallow. ‘You’re right. I’m lonely. Nobody wants to marry people of my age. Take them out, sleep with them, sure. But I want someone to talk to in the long winter evenings. In a few years I’m going to have problems finding three clean old ladies to play bridge with. Do you know how many times I’ve been married?’

I shake my head.

‘This is the fourth. Four times. The only one I loved gave me one night of heaven and the next morning there was just a hole in the bed where he had been. I never saw him again. He took everything I had–even my clothes–I loved that bastard.’ She glugs some more Bourbon into her tumbler. ‘You don’t know what to say, do you? Have a drink, it’ll loosen your tongue.’

‘No thanks. I think I’d better be getting along.’

‘You’re a shy boy, aren’t you?’ The truth is that with her I am. Give me some innocent little scrubber who says ‘Oh, Timmy you’re smashing. I don’t half fancy you’ and I am all over her. But this bird has had four husbands–well, three and a half, anyway–and talks as if she could eat three of me for breakfast. I feel Percy slinking away with his tail between my legs, and make for the door.

‘I’ll take dinner in the apartment,’ she says grandly. ‘And you’d better bring it up.’

Just as long as you don’t, I think to myself as I go downstairs. It is Mrs Caitley’s night off and the bloke who stands in would be pushed to win a cooking contest against my Mum. I have seen him turning over an egg in his hand as if looking for the instructions.

That afternoon I have a swim and report back to the hotel about six-thirty. Sure enough, Sadie has phoned down her order and asked for it to be brought to her room by me at eight o’clock sharp.

‘I theenk mybe I shoulda handle theez one myself,’ says the new Head Waiter who is (would you believe?) Italian and obviously very hot on the frippet.

‘No, no, Senor Luigi,’ I lie. ‘I promised her old man I would see she was all right. I’d better do as she says.’

‘But I have much experience of American ladies.’

I bet you do, mate, I think to myself. Three coins in the fountain–and about forty-eight pairs of knickers.

In the end I practically have to wrench the tray away from him. I mean, I don’t reckon anything is going to happen, but if by chance it does, I want it to happen to me and not to some blooming Eyetie.

I run a moist finger along my eyebrows and tap on the door. I have a feeling that Sadie will be spread out on the bed wearing a long frilly negligee, but I am wrong. She is standing by the repaired bed and gazing down at a long frilly negligee that is lying on top of it.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ she says as I cough discreetly in the doorway. ‘Too bad he isn’t going to see it for a few days. I suppose I could wear it round to the hospital under a long coat. Whip it open and whee! They don’t have lady flashers, do they?’

I shake my head. ‘I’ve never seen one. Where are you going to eat?’

‘Oh, put it down over there. It’s not going to get cold, is it?’ She is right there because everything she has ordered is from the cold plate. A wise choice as I have already indicated. ‘Now–what’s your name?’

‘Lea–Timothy Lea.’

‘Well, Tim … I’d like you to join me in a drink. You do have a few moments, don’t you? It’s my wedding night and I want to have a good time!’ She looks away and bites her lip and for a moment I think I am going to have to whip out the handkerchief again. Blimey, but you need to be a man of many parts in this game. Guide, philosopher and fiend, as Ted Hotchkiss used to say at Melody Bay.

‘That’s very kind of you. Thanks.’

A glance at the liquid left in the bourbon bottle tells me that it has been sinking faster than the country’s gold reserves. Mrs Beecham has obviously been drinking to forget her sorrows. Not that I blame her. A wedding night with Mr B. would not be my idea of the first prize on the back of a cornflakes packet, but it is better than being on your tod.