Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

“But for heaven’s sake, Timmy,” she warns me, “whatever you do, don’t use more than one at a time. I gave George two and they turned him into a ravening beast.” She smiles happily at the memory.

Well, of course, I promise I will be very careful and the next time I see her she slips me a small phial of what looks like saccharin tablets. I was expecting something the size of bantams’ eggs but you have only to take a butchers at Mrs. C. to see that, however small they are, they work. There is a comfortable, satisfied look about her and she hardly talks throughout the lesson. I throw in a hopeful reference to painting but she says that she has not been doing much lately and is spending her time getting ready to accompany George on a business trip he is making to Copenhagen. Bloody nice, isn’t it? A couple of love pills and a ‘live show’ and I reckon Python’s could say goodbye to both of them.

I pop the pills in my pocket and though I continue to do so every morning, after a while I almost forget they are there. Almost, that is, until the day of the Shermer Rugby Union Football Club seven-a-side tournament.

Winter has given very grudgingly to spring along the North Norfolk coast and Mrs. Carstairs has passed her test first time, as I always knew she would. Mrs. Dent has failed hers for the third time, as I also knew she would, because she likes getting poked by Garth. In fact, she is a first-rate driver, and if it was not for the fact that she would be jumping out every two minutes and trying to screw the other competitors I would enter her at Indianapolis. Mrs. C.’s success means that Cronky looks upon me as a second son and can hardly take his eyes off the door in case the Queen Mother comes in. Needless to say, the latter event does not take place and it is left to Garth Williams, six foot four of craggy Celt, to inject some excitement into our cold spring days.

“Ever played rugby, Timmy?” he says to me one morning.

In fact, I have played rugby netball, which is a game found nowhere else outside Clapham Common and too complicated to describe in detail here, but once I have told him about my shattered ankle he shifts his attention to Petal.

“You must be joking, luv. I don’t even like the shape of the ball. And all that physical contact with people you’ve never seen before in your life. I should coco!”

I don’t usually agree with Petal but I am on his side there. What kind of bloke is it that spends Saturday afternoon trying to push his head between two other blokes’ arses? And all that frisking about in the showers afterwards? And singing dirty songs in the ‘men only’ bar? It’s a bit strange, if you ask me. Would you want to spend Easter in a coach with thirty-two men? Of course you wouldn’t. I wonder The People haven’t exposed it.

“I’m trying to get a side up for the Shermer seven-a-sides,” says Garth. “They’re a bloody load of snobs and they win their own tournament every year, so it’s time somebody fixed them. Raymouth have gone off on tour and I’ve persuaded one or two of their blokes that couldn’t go to turn out for us, but I need a couple more class players if we aren’t going to look bloody stupid. Your friend Tony Sharp is their star, Timmy, if that’s any incentive.”

It very nearly is but I still get the odd twinge from my ankle and I reckon I’m ahead in the Lea v Sharp series, so I shake my head. “Sorry, mate, but my ankle isn’t up to it and I’d probably let you down anyway, but tell us when it is and we’ll come along and support, eh, Petal?”

“If I’m not in London, lovie, I’d adore to,” says Petal, totally without sincerity, “but I’m very heavily committed in the next few weeks. One of my friends is coming back from Australia and I haven’t seen him for years.”

“Worked his passage, did he?” says Garth.

“I beg your pardon?” says Petal. “Let’s have no more of that.”

So one Saturday afternoon, when the wind has dropped to gale force and a few super optimists in the High Street are beginning to scrape the flaking paint off signs saying ‘Olde Englishe Tea Roomes’ and ‘Ye Noshery’ in anticipation of the first rush of holidaymakers, I pick up Dawn and we take the coast road to Shermer. The rugby ground is tucked away in a corner of the golf course and the clubhouse is one of the new concrete type that looks like a public lavatory on two levels. From the moment we get there I can see what Garth means about the Shermer crowd being snobs. The two blokes selling programmes at the gate are both retired Indian Army and look a bit horrified when they see the E.C.D.S. sign on my car.

“Sure you’ve got the right place, old man?” says one of them condescendingly. “This is the Shermer Rugby Club, you know.”

I tell him I do know and we pay our 50p and go in past a crowd of blokes and birds leaning out of an old banger and shouting “You beast!” and “Oh, Rodney, don’t!” at each other.

I must confess that my unease is slightly heightened by Dawn’s clobber, which differs considerably from that on any other bint I can see. Her white high-heel shoes soon start sinking into the pool of mud outside the clubhouse and I don’t think that the stockings with two sailors climbing up a ladder pattern are being generally admired. Add to that a miniskirt, short fur coat, black patent leather handbag and the usual make-up counter of Woolworth’s plastered all over her mush and you can see that she would be a teeny bit overdressed for Raymouth Palais on fancy dress night. She does not help by rabbiting on about how cold and dirty it is and I wish I had left her at home, especially when I see some of the class talent lying about. I recognize the neat little dark-haired job that Sharp was with at the Y.C.s dance and give her a warm smile across the pile of sliced bread she is coating with sandwich spread, and she smiles back, which presumably means no more than that she thinks I am one of Tony’s friends. How wrong can you get? There is no sign of Sharp but I don’t have time to think about that because Garth comes bustling up.

“Thank God you’ve come,” he says. “One of the bloody Raymouth mob hasn’t turned up and we’re a man short.”

Now, normally I would have referred him to my wonky ankle but I don’t fancy being lumbered with Dawn for the whole afternoon and this might be a good opportunity to escape for a bit. We are certain to be knocked out in the first round so I shouldn’t come to any harm. Garth can see me weakening.

“Come on,” he says. “It’s only seven minutes each way and we’ve got a bye in the first round. You might even get a chance to kick Tony Sharp in the crutch. Have a go if only to give the rest of our blokes a game.”

“Oh, look,” says Dawn, “there’s a juke box over there. I think I’ll have a little dance to keep myself warm.”

“I’ll play,” I say.

It is half an hour before anyone starts playing and another half hour before we leave the crypt-like cold of the changing-room and start trotting towards a pitch which looks about half a mile away. ‘We’ are the Cromingham Crabs and, looking around my fellow team-mates, I wouldn’t back us against a day nursery when their best players were down with nappy rash.

Garth is all right, of course, his thighs sticking out of his shorts like sides of beef, but the rest of them! One long streak of piss with hair hanging down in front of his eyes like a Yorkshire Terrier, two small fat men and one big fat man who have to stop running before we even get to the pitch, and a bloke about my age who looks all right until he hands someone his glasses and then practically has to be led on to the field. The fact that only two members of the side are wearing the same coloured shirt also tends to convey the impression that we may be a bit short of teamwork.