Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

“What about dancing. Tap or Modern Ballroom?”

“You know I don’t go for that kind of thing.” Rape, arson, murder, yes. But ballroom dancing? Do me a favour!

“And women. How do you reckon you would get on with our lady visitors?”

“Birds? Now you’re talking, Sid. All those love-lorn little darlings looking for a bit of slap and tickle. I’ll be in there like a vat of Enos. You know me Sid—I’ll—”

“Forget it!” Sidney bashes his hand down on his paper knife and bites back the pain.

“As a Holiday Host for Funfrall Enterprises, you would be the repository of a sacred trust. Your role is that of a happy holiday guide, counsellor and friend – not some sex-mad raver trying to shove his nasty up every bint on the camp.”

“Beautifully put, Sid,” I observe. “At least, the first part was. Straight out of the text book. But, how can you say it. I mean you of all people! Do you remember Liz and the toolshed. How you—”

“Yes, yes,” he gabbled, rising to his feet, “but things have changed since then. You’ve got to develop a sense of responsibility in this business, I’ve got a position to think of.”

“Quite a few of them, if I remember rightly,” I observe, “and by the way, your flies are undone.”

You don’t often see Sidney lost for words but his mouth gapes open like a serving hatch and he strikes sparks as he yanks his zip up.

“I bet she leaves the cover off her typewriter, too,” I say. For a second I think he is going to belt me but then he relaxes and the veins go underground again.

“Sit down and shut up,” he says. “Go on, sit down. I want to talk to you. Look, Timmy. I’m going to be honest with you.”

When Sidney says that, strong men start checking their wallets. “If it wasn’t for Rosie, I wouldn’t give you a job cleaning up after an elephant act. But I know that if I don’t, she’ll nag the bleeding arse off me.”

“Thank you, Sid,” I say, interpreting the way things are going.

“Don’t thank me. I’m only doing it because I like sleeping at night. And let me make it quite clear. You cock this one up, and Rosie or no Rosie, I’ll flog your balls to a driving range. Are you with me?”

“Yes, Sidney. How do you see me fitting in?”

Sidney snorts and fiddles in one of his drawers. “Don’t tempt me. I’ve got a job here for a Host at Melody Bay. The last one—oh, it doesn’t matter what happened to the last one.”

“Melody Bay? I’ve never heard of it.”

Sidney goes over to a wall map of the British Isles and jabs his finger at it.

“I didn’t know they had seaside up there.”

Sidney jabs again.

“This blue bit is sea and it stretches all round the country. That’s why we’re an island.”

“I knew that, Sidney. It’s just that I never—oh well, it doesn’t matter. What do I have to do?”

“I’ll give you a book about that and they’ll tell you when you get there. It’s what you don’t do that I’m interested in.”

“Yes, Sidney.”

“Lay off the campers. If you’re caught on the job with a guest, you’re out of one. Got it?”

“Yes, Sidney.”

“It isn’t always easy. By gawd it isn’t.”

Sidney gazes ceilingwards like a man who has had to withstand terrible temptations in his time.

“If you must indulge choose a Funfrall employee.”

“Like your secretary, Sid?”

Sidney momentarily closes his eyes as he controls himself.

“There are Funfrall Hostesses, and you are, of course, free to make such arrangements with them out of working hours as you may mutually deem fitting.”

“Where did you learn to speak like that?” I ask, because this is a new dimension to the Sid I used to know.

“We use all the latest training techniques from the States,” says Sid smugly.

“I’ve just come back from a Method in Management course and we pay a lot of attention to organisation and forward planning.”

“How did you get taken on in the first place?”

“I knew somebody.”

I have a lot more questions, like how much bread I am going to get, but suddenly Sidney’s telephone lets out a non-stop high-pitched shriek and a red light on the top starts flashing angrily. Sidney snatches it up like it might explode at any second and the expression on his phizog combines elements of fear and panic.

“Yes, Sir Giles,” he yelps. “Yes, yes—I have—nearly finished —it’s right—” He tears open another drawer and starts throwing files on to the floor until he finds what he wants.

“I was just completing the figures—interview—yes—no—yes—alright. I’ll just look it up.” He presses a buzzer on his desk and his secretary shoots through the door like from a catapult. “Is the Miss Globe file up to date?” he screeches, slamming his mit over the mouthpiece. The girl shakes her head and I am glad to see that the red flush on her neck has subsided, leaving only a couple of toothmarks. “I haven’t had time—I—”

“Oh my God!”

Sidney applies his quivering lips to the mouthpiece again. “Hello, Sir Giles. I’m afraid it’s not here. I lent it to Jefferson to have a look at. Yes. Yes. I know—Yes, yes—I know—I know—Yes, I know, I know.”

“Why doesn’t he come right out with it and say he knows?” I remark to the girl, “I hate people who are always beating around the bush.”

“Bugger,” says Sidney, slamming down the telephone.

“Have you got the up-to-date entry figures? Thank God. Add ’em up quick will you, darling, otherwise I’m up the schittenstrasse mitout ein paddle.” He turns back to me. “Right, I’ve got to go now.”

“So I gather.”

“We’ll send you a form to fill in, but that’s just a formality. Consider yourself hired.”

“Thanks, Sid—”

“Don’t thank me. Just don’t drop me in it, that’s all. I’ve got enough problems at the moment.” All the time he is talking, he is walking me to the door and the next moment I find myself alone in the corridor wondering which way it is to the lift. Poor Sid. I have never known him like this before. Big business has certainly taken its toll of Clapham’s answer to Paul Newman. If this is what Sir Giles and Funfrall Enterprises do for you I am not sure whether it is worth the fringe benefits.

The thought is still playing on my mind three weeks later as I stand at King’s Cross Station weighing up the paperback covers. Honestly, I have never seen so much tit in my life. It is getting so if you see a cover with five naked birds plastered across it, you know it is a reprint of “Little Women”.

I am supposed to be catching the 15.30 to Nowheresville and, as at all such moments of decision, my feet are colder than a penguin’s chuff. What with Sid’s list of ‘dont’s’ and the memory of his face when he was talking to Mr. Big on the telephone I feel like jacking it all in and sliding off home for a cup of tea and a wad. Trouble is that leprosy would be more welcome there than me at the moment. Mum has made it clear that she will never forgive the matted hairs on her fireside rug and Dad keeps throwing out offensive remarks about the stain on the sofa and making a great show of examining every chair in the place before he sits on it. All in all, it is more than a person of my sensitive nature can stand.

Luckily the path of duty is made smoother for me by the sight of a right little darling sweeping past and pausing only to totally ignore me. Sid always reckoned that when a bird really fancied you she went out of her way to treat you like air and I think he had something. I have known chicks who would cross the road when they saw me coming. Anyway, this particular specimen is carrying a suitcase and she gives a lift to my Y-fronts by getting into my train. Pausing only to slam down 30p for an epic entitled “Terrible Hard Says Alice” which I remember Sidney raving about, I slope in after her and wander down the corridor casually glancing into the compartments until I find her. My luck is in, because she has discovered an empty compartment and is just struggling to get her case on to the rack as I appear. Nice curve to her calves there is too as she teeters with the case at shoulder height. Nearly doing myself a nasty injury in my haste, I gallop through the door and prepare to show her how strong and gentlemanly I am.