Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

Unfortunately, his smile dries up on the morning of the carnival because Miss Frankcom rings in to say she has twisted her ankle and won’t be able to make it. He fumes and sulks but there is nothing he can do about it so we have to dig up a substitute. This proves no problem and Dawn, who is now back with us— and joining me in making no reference to the Shermer Sevens—soon gets a chap called Roper to agree to turn out.

He seems quite normal when you look at him. About fifty, with leather patches on his elbows and a white nylon shirt. His hands shake slightly but I don’t pay much attention to that—not then, anyway. We tell him what to do and he is perfectly relaxed about it all.

The procession forms up behind the bus station and the big scene there revolves around whether the M.S.M. should take precedence over the E.C.D.S. or the two of us should drive abreast. It is all so bloody petty, but in the end Minto and Cronky have to toss for it. Minto wins and with obvious satisfaction waves his bulled-up Ford in front of my equally gleaming Morris 1100. In order not to be upstaged by Minto, Cronky has lent his brand new private motor and had an E.C.D.S. sign mounted on its roof.

The instructor is Tony Sharp, who, for some reason best known to himself, has decided to wear a racing driver’s tunic. He looks a right berk, I can tell you. Rumour has it that blood samples taken from him at the hospital after the Sevens revealed signs of drugs, and there are differing schools of thought as to whether he was nobbled or took an overdose when trying to pep up his own performance. No prizes for guessing which version I am supporting.

“Take it nice and easy,” I say to Roper. “No need to get too close to him. Let the crowd have a good look at you.”

For once the Town Council have got their dates right and it is a nice day—the best I can remember in my six months at Cromingham. I wind down my window and savour the warm sunshine on my cheek. Behind us a party of six fishermen sit on a float, representing the sea-bed, and make unfunny jokes in order to hide their embarrassment. Beside the inevitable Neptune with a pitchfork for a trident there is a self-conscious mermaid sporting a fish-net brassiere and what looks like jodhpurs sticking out of the top of her silver foil tail. She is obviously not taking any chances with the weather.

At last the Town Cleric gives the signal and the procession lumbers off with all the proud patrons racing back to the middle of the town to watch their underlings make fools of themselves. Past the Methodist chapel we go and Roper is performing perfectly. Sharp’s ex-pupil is a middle-aged, middle-class woman dressed up as if for a Buckingham Palace garden party, and I watch her flowered hat practically obscuring the windscreen in front. The first part of the procession hits the High Street and I can hear the cheers beginning to build up. A policeman waves his arm officiously and I tell Roper to take up a position in the middle of the road. There it is, the High Street. Bunting and flags everywhere. Dear old Woolworth’s next to the new Marks & Spencer’s, the ‘Comeinside Cafe’ (called the ‘Semen’s Rest’ by Garth), the crab shop, ‘Cromingham Crafts’. I look at all the familiar landmarks and feel almost attached to the place. The Majestic Cinema—are they still showing ‘The Big Sleep’ or is it that they never change the posters?—and opposite, in all its shabby glory, the East Coast Driving School, with Dawn, Cronky, Lester, Petal and Garth all waving from the first-floor window.

I am wondering where Crippsy is when Sharp’s car suddenly back-fires. I have only just woken up to what the noise is when I am thrown back in my seat as Roper’s foot goes down on the accelerator.

“The swine’s firing at us,” he screams and rams the Ford up the backside.

“Stop it, you bloody fool!” I begin, but before I can grab the wheel he has done it again.

Crunch! The Ford shudders forward a few feet and the beautiful flowered hat is jerked over its wearer’s eyes.

“Fight fire with fire,” shouts Roper, who is quite clearly mad. “That’s the only thing the bastards understand.”

He gets in one more lunge just as Sharp is clambering out of the passenger seat and my rival is thrown into the gutter like an ejected cartridge.

“They’re abandoning ship! We’ve got ’em! Depth charge the survivors!”

I manage to turn the ignition off and Roper and I are wrestling over the front seats.

“Bloody Kraut-lover! Don’t you see, you fool? If you don’t get them, they’ll get you.”

It must be shell-shock or battle-fatigue or something, but why does it always have to happen to me?

Suddenly Roper changes tack.

“We’re sinking,” he howls. “Let me out of here. Let me out! Let me out!” He begins beating against the windscreen and pressing the horn as if he intends to push it out through the front of the car.

“Abandon ship! Abandon ship!”

Bugger you, I think, and start to open the door.

“Women and children first, you swine,” he hisses. “I’ve met your kind before.”

I can’t bring myself to say anything so I shake him off and climb out.

But my troubles are not over yet.

Sharp is coming for me, bristling like a fur jelly.

“What in God’s name are you playing at now, you fool—” he begins.

Sometimes it becomes painfully obvious that the gods intend to destroy you and that you are only delaying the inevitable by trying to deny them. This revelation comes to me with startling clarity when I see Sharp’s undershot jaw quivering invitingly eighteen inches away. I swing my fist into it so hard that his feet nearly leave the ground, and I stride across the road to resign.

Ten minutes later I am leaving Cronk’s office and my career with the East Coast Driving School is over. I have done most of the talking, but Cronk has been quick to agree that my particular streak of impetuosity and ability to attract questionable publicity makes me somewhat of a liability to any firm not registered purely as a tax loss.

As I come out, Gruntscomb of the Echo is lining up a photograph which captures both Cronk’s mangled Morris and the front of the office. He is working with swift relish and I shudder when I think of the headlines in the evening.

“Well, that’s it, lads,” I say to the assembled throng. “I’m off! Great to have worked with you all. I’m sorry it has to end like this and I hope this little lot doesn’t cause you too much embarrassment. I’ll probably see you if Sharp brings an assault charge—remember, it was self-defence—or maybe I’ll be back with my bucket, spade and icepick one day.”

“You can’t go just like that,” says Garth. “You’re staying for the Ball, aren’t you?”

I may not have mentioned that the day’s activities culminated in a Grand Fancy Dress Ball at the golf club with cabaret by an entertainer whose last recorded public appearance had been at Bow Street Magistrates Court on a charge of accosting males in a public lavatory—big deal!

“How can I?” I tell him. “I’m going to be a dead embarrassment, aren’t I, with Minto and all his mob there in force. It would probably end in another punch-up. Besides, I told Cronk I’d get out right away.”

“Well, have a drink before you go. I know a little place where we can knock back a couple undisturbed.”

So we all slope off and it develops into quite a session, I can tell you. One by one they drop out, starting with Dawn and working through Lester, Petal (“… look me up—and down—if you’re ever this way again, duckie … lovely working with you …”) to Crippsy, who we meet in the club, and finally Garth, who breathes a few emotionally charged words: “How are we going to win the Sevens next year without you, boyo?”—before we both stagger away, pissed out of our tiny minds.