Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

‘Don’t encourage him to stay, Paddy,’ says a large gentleman with a face like a plateful of boiled potatoes, ‘to his kind that’s a promise, not a threat.’

‘Throw him out!’

‘Murder him!’

‘Papist!’

It occurs to me, as my backside collides with the pavement, that this is one plan which I can forget about in a big way. I had formed a hazy idea of getting the micks so pissed that they would find it difficult to tell the difference between the Cromby, the apartment house next door, and a set of kids building bricks. With them swinging their big lead ball against the dining room windows, it might have been possible to alert the local press to another example of property developing vandalism. No such luck. Not content with inflicting injury on my precious person the surly sons of the sod are back after dinner bashing away twice as hard–but with no loss of accuracy. The building next door is falling apart before my eyes and the Cromby remains dusty but intact.

Awareness of the life-style of the Pendulum Society has not been slow to sweep through the ranks of the Cromby staff.

‘When I brought in the tea they asked for two extra cups,’ says June primly. ‘They were lined up across the bed.’

‘Four of them?’ says Carmen.

‘No, six. Two of them only drank coffee.’

‘There’s decadent for you,’ I say. ‘You sound as if you don’t approve?’

‘It’s not very nice, is it?’ drones Carmen.

‘How can you ravers have the gall to say that?’ I scold them. ‘You’ve never been fussed about hunting as a pack.’

‘But we’re not married,’ says Audrey reproachfully. ‘It’s different for them. They shouldn’t behave like that.’

‘It’s not nice,’ repeats Carmen.

‘You mean to tell me that when you get married you’re never going to have a bit on the side?’

‘No!’

‘The very idea!’

‘I should think not!’

Amazing, isn’t it? The ways of women never cease to amaze me. Take my sister, Rosie, for instance. There was a time when everybody used to. Yours for a tanner’s worth of chips and first shake with the vinegar bottle, they used to say around us. She got married to Sidney–very sudden it was–and after that butter would not melt between her thighs. The perfect wife and mother–until she gets a whiff of Ricci Volare. Then, pow! Right back to square one, or round one would be more appropriate. How she is going to react to the Pendulum Society I will be interested to find out. If I was Sid I would not be viewing her impending visit with enthusiasm. It is about half past four when the family arrive and Dad’s reaction is typical.

‘Hello,’ he says, ‘pulling it down already are they? Vermin, is it?’

‘It’s the place next door, Dad.’

‘Building an extension already, is he?’ says Mum, the super optimist.

‘Not yet Mum, though we’re pretty full at the moment.’

‘Nice class of person,’ says Mum, gazing admiringly at one of the Pendulum lot who is walking a poodle in a dramatic trouser suit–she has the trouser suit, not the poodle.

‘Yeah. What do you think, Rosie?’ But Rosie is gazing at Sam the Ram who flashes his evil lust-laden eyes at her as he brushes past her, looking as if he has got about one and a half foot of fire hose down the front of his trousers. Her expression is one I remember uncomfortably from the Isla de Amor: Rosie wants it. Really, one’s relations can be a terrible embarrassment sometimes. I said, ‘Jason has just stubbed his icecream out in your handbag, Rosie.’ That brings her round a bit sudden, and by the time little J., who looks more like his revolting father every day, gets past the reception area in a flood of tears, I reckon her mind may be on other things.

I hope it is, because Sidney chooses that moment to roll up, picking burrs out of his turn-ups. He has obviously been taking a spot of physical exercise with Sandra who wanders by a discreet few moments later looking redder than my Mum when she mistook the gents at Clapham Common for the entrance to the tube station. Sid, himself, is looking a bit flustered which Mum chooses to interpret as a sign of work strain. Now that Mum reckons Sid is worth a few bob he can do no wrong, while with Dad acute dislike has grown into seething hatred.

‘You haven’t been overdoing it, I hope, dear?’ says Mum. Sid avoids my eyes and smacks a couple of kisses on the Lea ladies.

‘No fear of that, Mum, you know me. Hello, Rosie love. I didn’t expect you so early. Hello Jason!’ Sid pops on his ‘I love kids’ expression but it does not cut any ice with little Lord Nausea.

‘S’cream! S’cream! S’cream!’ he wails. ‘I wanna s’cream, wanna s’cream.’

‘But he is screaming,’ says Sid, perplexed.

‘He wants an ice cream, you berk,’ I tell him. ‘Blimey, Sid, can’t you even understand your own kid?’

‘He never sees him long enough to be able to recognise him properly,’ says Rosie. ‘I tell you, if he saw him walking down the other side of the street he wouldn’t recognise him.’

‘Oh yes I would,’ says Sid, all indignant. ‘He’d be the one dressed like a two-year-old poofter.’

It is true that Rosie’s tastes do veer a little towards the Carnaby in toddler’s wear and I would not like to be left at nursery school in some of the clobber he gets landed with unless I had a flick knife hidden under my rompers. Nevertheless, Rosie is sensitive on the point.

‘I want the child to look nice, that’s all. If it was left to you, he’d still be wearing that thing they gave him at the hospital.’

‘He’ll be on the turn soon. You mark my words, that’s how they all start. If you want a girl let’s have another one. Don’t try and make him ambidextrous.’

‘Fine chance of that when we don’t even live together, isn’t there?’

All through this fairly typical Lea family reunion, Jason’s screams are getting louder and louder and it is perhaps fortunate that Miss Ruperts arrives on the scene to restore a little queenly decorum. She appears to be very good with children and my Mum, and takes them off for a cup of tea, a liquid which could float ma through a Martian invasion.

‘She is in one of her moods, I can tell that,’ says Sid, when Rosie has been led away to the Bridal Suite. ‘She can be very funny sometimes.’

He does not say any more, but I have a feeling that some sixth sense, or sexth sinse, is carrying his mind back to the Ricci Volare episode on one of Spain’s unsettled colonies. He never actually caught them on the job, but I think he suspected more than he rationalised, if you know what I mean.

It is just as well that he is not with me when Rosie comes back from the beach an hour later. She has taken Jason down for a paddle and, I reckon, as an excuse to get into her new multi-piece bathing costume. The one in which none of the pieces quite covers the bit it is supposed to be covering.

‘Ooh, he is nice,’ she says.

‘Who?’

‘That big fellow, Sam something. He had a bottle of spirit down the front of his trunks–’ I feel better already. ‘–got all the oil off Jason’s legs. It’s disgraceful, isn’t it? Sidney should complain to somebody.’

‘He can’t find Liberia on the map.’

‘No? Well, this fellow was so kind. He was marvellous with Jason. He asked me if I was going to the dance tonight.’

‘No!’ Maybe the words did come out a bit quick.

‘What do you mean “no”? It’s in the hotel isn’t it? I’m the owner’s wife.’

‘Yeah, but it’s private.’

‘Not if I’ve been invited by the President of the Society. That’s what he said he was.’

‘I don’t want her going anywhere near there! It’s disgusting!’ Sidney’s reaction when I tell him of Rosie’s plans is not totally unexpected.