Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

‘That makes it all right then doesn’t it? Blimey, Sidney Noggett, you’re the biggest snob I know. Anything is all right if you read about it in Nova .’

‘I don’t know what you’re on about. All I know is that the hotel is full and that none of them signed the register with X’s. That’s good enough for me.’

‘Well, I hope Rosie sees it like that.’ Then, at last, Sidney’s face registers a trace of disquiet.

I have a few hours off that evening so I slip into my dudes and nip out for a drink; I can’t afford the prices at the Cromby. As I sit in the snug at the Fisherman’s Arms and consider the design on the beer mats, it occurs to me that Sidney’s attitude may well be the right one. It also occurs to me that there is a lot of spare back at the hotel and that I do not have an old lady to worry about. I mean, I am all in favour of free love, but I can’t imagine my wife ever being ready for it. They take things so much more seriously than us, don’t they? Look at Rosie with Ricci Volare on the Isla de Amor. She still stiffens every time Jimmy Young plays Come Prima .

I knock back my drink and whip round to the hotel. It is five to ten and I just have time to squirt some after-shave down the front of my Y-fronts before joining the crowd pushing into the ballroom. None of the older generation of Cromby employees are on view but Dennis is firmly entrenched behind the bar, no doubt fiddling a small fortune for himself. He registers surprise when he sees me.

‘Mr Noggett asked me to mingle and see that everything was under control,’ I say reassuringly.

‘Funny. That’s what he told me he was doing.’ Dennis points across the room and there is Sidney with a large scotch in his hand chatting up a tall bird with butterfly glasses. Dirty old sod! You can’t trust anybody these days, can you? He looks up and sees me before I can duck into the crowd and the expression on his mug is not akin to delight. However, he is obviously making headway with the chick because he turns his back and leaves me to it.

‘Oh, I am sorry!’ The willowy redhead must have made a detour of about five yards to bump into me and is smelling like a fire in a perfume factory that has been put out with liquid supplied by the local brewery.

‘That’s all right.’ My smile would make Warren Beatty rush round to his dentist for a check-up. ‘It was my fault. Let me get you another drink.’

‘That’s very kind of you, but are you sure?’

‘What’s your pleasure?’

‘Now you’re asking.’ She rolls her eyes and gives her pendulum a swing. ‘Just a teeny gin and tonic. A small one. Really.’

Dennis looks up at the ceiling as I approach him and flaps his wrist. ‘All right for some, isn’t it?’

‘Keep watering the drinks.’

I return to my fair companion who is now chewing her gong temptingly.

‘Where’s your thing?’

‘I beg your pardon!’

‘Your pendulum, silly!’

‘Oh, that!’ I pat my chest absent-mindedly. ‘Must have left it in my room.’

‘Did you leave your wife in your room too?’

‘She wasn’t feeling so well. It must have been someone she ate.’ She does not seem to find that very funny. Maybe she’s right.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Er, Clapham.’ I hesitate because Mum has always taught us to say Wandsworth Common because she thinks it sounds better and I am only just breaking myself of the habit.

‘Oh, it’s lovely, isn’t it? We’ve got lots of friends who have just moved there. The Common is bliss.’

I don’t know if I would call Scraggs Lane lovely, and when I was a kid the tarts’ minders on the common used to keep warm by turning you over for your pocket money Still, I suppose it has changed a bit in the last few years.

‘It’s not bad.’

‘Have you lived there long?’

‘Quite a long time, yes.’ Like all my bleeding life, actually. It is obviously time I changed the subject.

‘What’s your name?’ She holds up her gong and I see that it has Penelope Brown engraved on it.

‘Call me Penny. What’s yours?’

‘Timothy Lea.’

‘Do you mind being called Tim?’

‘I don’t mind at all. How’s your glass?’

‘Fine. I don’t think I should have any more. I’m feeling a bit squiffy as it is. Tell me’–she tugs my sleeve, ‘are you fixed up yet?’ She looks around the assembled swingers and I follow her eyes.

‘You mean–?’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

‘Well,’–her hand slips into mine and she rests her head against my chest–’how about you and me …? I don’t want to put the key in.’ I should think not, it sounds dead uncomfortable. ‘The last time I ended up with a pervert–there’s no other word for it–a pervert who put. “These Boots are Made For Walking” on the record player and started unpacking a pair of Wellingtons. I mean, you can imagine how I felt.’ I nod sympathetically. ‘I don’t want to have to go through that again.’

‘No, of course not.’ I begin to see what she is talking about and my impression is confirmed when Sam the Ram makes with the vocal again.

‘Greetings, dream-fodder,’ he murmurs, swaying from side to side in such a way that his pendulum seems not to be moving. ‘I’m interrupting the Mellow Mingle because it is time for the Ceremony of the Keys. Gather round, those of you with a burning yearning for nude feels and postures new.’

‘He’s so cool,’ breathes Penny.

‘Who, Sam?’

‘ Big Sam,’ she gives an ecstatic little wriggle and I wince. ‘Come on, I want to watch this.’

We press forward to where a circle has formed in front of the Ram and what looks like a black velvet pillow case is lying on the ground. About twenty birds step forward and put their room keys into the bag and there is a feeling of excitement in the air. Quite a lot of straightforward feeling too.

‘Everybody done? Then let’s start swinging!’ Big S. whirls the bag about his head and a bunch of blokes press forward when he stops. Like kids with a lucky dip, they dive their hands into the bag and draw out a key. ‘Forty-seven’, ‘twenty-eight’, ‘sixty-nine’–that one gets a laugh. As the numbers are called out so the blokes pair off with the bird whose room key they have got. All except one man whose voice rises in cheated outrage:

‘Oih!’ he shouts, ‘I’ve got my wife.’ The unhappy accident is quickly remedied and couples drift back to the bar and off to amuse each other. Disgusting, isn’t it? Yeah, but a bit of all right as well, eh? I wonder what my Mum and Dad would have been like if they had gone in for this caper? They could not have been much worse off, I will wager that.

‘I didn’t think much of Christopher’s,’ says Penny as she takes my arm.

‘Christopher’s what–oh, you mean his bird.’ I don’t really want to know which one is Christopher. I am old fashioned like that. If I am knocking off the missus I don’t fancy a game of darts with hubby afterwards. I am more interested in seeing what has happened to Sid. Oh, dear! Sam the Ram is leading off Butterfly Specs, and Sid is looking like a kid who hid his lolly ice in a warm oven. I consider issuing a few words of good cheer, but decide against it. Sid can turn a bit funny sometimes. With this thought in mind I quicken my pace as we leave the ballroom, and study the key that Penny has thoughtfully pushed into my mitt.

‘It’s fantastic to meet someone new,’ she murmurs. ‘You get tired of all the old faces.’

At the very least, I think to myself. Blimey, how many couples in the hotel? Two hundred? She should write a book about it. Perhaps she has.

We pad along the corridor and there it is. Room number one-eight-two. I take a deep breath as I unlock it because I have a nasty feeling that Christopher is going to be on the other side with a shot gun. Sometimes I think I belong to another age. Every time I get my end away I think I am doing something naughty. Does make it more exciting though.