Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

‘Take it or leave it.’

‘I’ll leave it.’

Rigby produces a card and drops it on the table in front of Sid. ‘When you’ve had time to reconsider, or talked it over with someone who knows the business, get in touch with me.’

‘The council won’t let you start pulling down the buildings next door.’

‘They’re all in favour of it. This end of town is going downhill so fast they’d like to put it on wheels and push it along the coast.’ He stands up. ‘Don’t leave it too long. I’ll start reducing my offer at the end of the week.’

‘Piss off.’ Sid’s words may be less than eloquent, but they sum up our feelings more than adequately.

‘No need to take that tone. I–’

‘PISS OFF!’ Sid jumps out of his chair and Rigby has his hand on the door knob quicker than Mary Whitehouse adjusting the picture control on her telly when a naughty bit comes along.

‘Jumped up little basket,’ snarls Sid when Rigby has disappeared.

‘Do you think he was bluffing, Sid?’

Sid walks over to the window and pulls back the curtain. Outside we can see Rigby climbing into a chauffeur-driven Rolls.

‘No,’ he says. He picks up Rigby’s card. ‘ “Rigram Property Company”. I’ve heard of them. I think Sir Giles had something to do with them at Funfrall.’

‘He’s done all right for himself, that bloke, hasn’t he? He didn’t look any older than me.’

‘Yeah. Makes you sick, doesn’t it?’

‘What are we going to do, Sid?’

Sid takes a deep breath. ‘I’m going to make a few enquiries at the Town Hall. And then I’m going to concentrate on getting things ready for the Pendulum Society. We must not be diverted from our purpose, Timmo. Rigby or no Rigby, I intend to make this place posh and profitable.’

‘Did you really pay more than he offered for this place?’

‘I exaggerated a bit, but it was still a pitiful price he came up with. You don’t know how much I put myself in hock to get this lot. Considering that we crept in just before the boom, he should have given me a much better deal. Anyhow,’ his face brightens, ‘don’t let’s look on the gloomy side any more. I’m really chuffed about this Pendulum scene. The family is coming down next weekend and I want them to see the place looking as if it’s got a bit of life about it.’

‘You mean Rosie and Jason?’

‘Your Mum and Dad, and all. I couldn’t leave them out, could I?’

I know what answer I would have given. Mum and Dad always spell trouble. I would have thought that Sid would have sussed that after his experiences on the Isla de Amor.

Sid is well pleased because the Pendulum mob want to have a dance on the Saturday night and he reckons that we stand to make a few bob from the catering. About half as much as Dennis, I reckon.

As Friday gets nearer, Sidney burns around the hotel getting up everybody’s bracket in a big effort to make the staff respond like Funfrall employees. In this endeavour he is wasting his time. All their get up and go got up and went years ago and only highly strung Sandra buckles to with a will–or, as I personally suspect, a willy. One afternoon, I notice a lot of burrs around Sid’s turnups and I reckon it is he who has been giving her a quick in and out behind the tennis courts. Better keep that lot under control when the family gets here.

Friday afternoon comes and the first delegates–as Sidney chooses to call them–begin to roll up. I notice that they all seem to be married couples, or sign in as married couples, and are a bit smarter and younger than our normal guests. Early middle-aged trendy with a fair sprinkling of love beads and the like on the men.

‘What is this Pendulum Club?’ I ask Miss Primstone who is watching the new arrivals disapprovingly.

‘I have no idea,’ she says coldly. ‘They are certainly not the kind of people I would have expected to find here in the old days. I don’t know what has come over Miss Ruperts. It must be the influence of your Mr Noggett.’ I would have thought it was the other way round myself, but I don’t say anything.

One thing I do notice about the Pendulum mob is that they seem very affectionate with each other. Lots of hugging and kissing on the cheek and long burning glances. It does not look like the Labour Party conference at all.

‘Sid, what is this Pendulum Club?’ I ask later on.

‘Dunno. Some kind of friendly society, I think.’

‘They’re friendly all right. They can hardly keep their hands off each other.’

This is nowhere truer than in relation to a bloke called Sam–Sam the Ram soon becomes our name for him. This geezer is about six and a half foot tall and has a silver goatee beard, enormous hooter and hands like seal’s flippers. He is constantly rubbing birds into his chest like embrocation and threatening to explode out of the front of his too-tight pink and white toreador pants. If he turned round quickly the weight of junk hanging round his neck could take your head off, and hair sprouts from the top of his open-necked shirt like black foam.

The birds seem to lap all this up and I notice that June and Audrey are not slow to show their appreciation.

‘Smashing,’ says June.

‘Smashing,’ says Audrey. ‘I bet he’s got a big one.’

By the time the gong goes for dinner, it takes a performance like the opening of a J. Arthur Rank film to break through the noise coming from the cocktail lounge. I have never seen the place so full.

‘What time are the family getting here?’ I ask Sid, thinking how impressed they would be to see the place jammed with gay fun-lovers.

Sid looks glum. ‘I’ve just had a telephone call from Rosie. Jason has been sick and they won’t be coming until tomorrow.’

‘That’s a pity. Still, they’ll be here for the dance won’t they?’

‘Yeah. That should be quite an affair if it goes anything like this.’ Never has Sidney spoken a truer word.

When we eventually get them in to supper I notice that a good many of the husbands and wives have split up and are not sitting together. I suppose they must have known each other before they got here. I notice, too, that they all have a gong-like medal strung round their necks. It must have something to do with the pendulum bit. At the end of the meal Sam the Ram scrapes back his chair and addresses the throng.

‘Get in tune with your surroundings, people,’ he intones. ‘The Mellow Mingle will begin at two hours before tomorrow. Keys please, to the ballroom where nightcaps will be served and friendships cemented.’ He flicks the gong round his neck so that it swings from side to side, and sits down as an interested murmur spreads around the room. Swings. Pendulum. Swings. Swingers! By the cringe! I take another good look around the nuzzling diners and there can be no doubt about it. They are wife-swappers to a man. Husband-swappers to a woman. Does Sidney know what he has let himself in for? Surely Miss Ruperts cannot have been party to this unsavoury flesh-trading. The diners began to drift away and I flee to Sidney’s side.

‘They’re all bleeding wife-swappers,’ I gasp. ‘Did you know that?’

‘Funny you should say that. The same thought was going through my mind.’ Sid does not sound very concerned.

‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘What do you expect me to do about it? Tell them all to leave? I don’t care what they get up to as long as it doesn’t frighten the staff.’

‘Or the residents.’

‘Oh, yes. I’d forgotten about them, well, they’re all so gaga they wouldn’t notice if Mrs Caitley started doing a striptease.’

‘Don’t be so disgusting! I bet the whale bone in her corsets was turning yellow when Moby Dick was a tadpole.’

‘Be your age, Timmo. You’re so old fashioned sometimes. Having a bit on the side isn’t the sin it used to be. A very nice class of person indulges these days, you know.’