Timothy Lea - Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

I assign these to Mrs. Married and Else who I feel deserves something for all her trouble, but in the end, after the scrutineers have bustled to and fro, Henry has told a few terrible jokes and Francis described the problem of picking one bloom from a bunch of roses, it is Janet who gets second prize with Mrs. Married third. I am not really cut up about it, being comforted by the fact that the winner was such an obvious knock-out that neither Janet nor the dreaded Else could be surprised at losing out.

I am still thinking about her an hour later as I strip off and contemplate my ruckled bed. It is strange, but though I should be shagged out I am quite chirpy. With me, the more I get, the better I feel equipped to deal with it. Practice makes even more perfect, in fact.

I am just hanging my blazer over the back of a chair when there is a discreet tap on the front door. I wait for a moment and find my mind picturing three different female shapes on the doorstep. Gratitude, or a punch up the bracket? I ask myself, tucking a bath towel round my waist.

On the doorstep is Miss Melody Bay Week Number 26.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hello,” I say, not wanting to argue with her.

“I got your note.” She dangles a piece of paper between her fingers.

“Oh, yes.”

She pushes past me flicking the knot of my towel and I relieve her of the scrap of paper whilst trying to control my surprise.

“‘Dear June, I may be able to do you a bit of good in the contest,’ it says. ‘If I can, and you feel like saying thank you, why not pop round to my chalet for a drink later on? Ted.’”

Trouble with Ted is that his “ones” look very like “sevens” and my chalet is number seven. Tough luck, Ted, I think to myself as I chuck the piece of paper in the wastepaper basket and follow June into the bedroom, you really should do something about your handwriting.

June goes home the next day which is just as well because it leaves no time for Ted to find out why he was never called upon to ease the cork out of his Asti Spumante – I saw it standing pathetically in the wash basin when I went round to his chalet. Ted obviously believes in giving a girl a good time. June is no slouch at dishing out the good things of life, either. During the coarse of our night together – and I don’t mean course – I learn quite a bit about how to get on in the beauty business – fascinating! Only my natural sense of reticence and the fact that the paper would probably start curling at the edges, prevents me from putting it all down. But if there was one thing I learned from June, it was that you can never go by a bird’s outward appearance what she is like in the privacy of your own bed. June looked the kind of girl who would have got her biggest kick out of plaiting your kid sister’s pigtails, but I came away from a night with her feeling like a peeled prawn.

I am still thinking about some of the things she did and blushing quietly to myself when I sit in Francis’s office the next morning. Fortunately, I am not there to collect my stamp collection but to be addressed, with a selection of my fellow Hosts, on a matter of great importance and urgency.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” begins Francis – there are female Holiday Hosts who, in the main, look like retired traffic wardens treated with laughing gas – “There is no point in me beating about the bush. The Slat Twins have chosen to descend on us.” A gasp of dismay echoes round the room as mouths pop open like starting gates. “I have, of course, taken all the normal steps, but apart from saying that the camp is in quarantine after a cholera epidemic—” he pauses, waiting for us to acknowledge the joke— “I am powerless to do anything.”

“Who are—?” I begin whispering to Ted.

“For those of you who have not yet been exposed—” Francis winces— “to the Slat Twins, let me tell you that they are the nieces of our Company Chairman and renowned for their ability to disrupt the day to day life that prevails in Funfrall Camps throughout the length and breast – I mean breadth – of the country.” Francis blushes, clears his throat and continues. “Because of their connection with our Chairman, it is virtually impossible to bar them from our camps and we can only work together to try and keep them under control. I believe that if we can fully integrate them into the life of this camp we may well be able to channel their—their energies away from those morally destructive pursuits which have characterised other visits.”

“How long are they staying for?” asks Ted.

“I don’t know,” says Francis. “To my knowledge they have never stayed the full two weeks at any Funfrall camp.”

“It was three weeks when they started that Love-Peace commune at Skilton. You remember, when they barricaded themselves in the dining hall and the police had to storm the place with—”

“Yes, yes, Ted. I do remember.” Francis’s eyelids flicker and his hand jumps to his adam’s apple. “But let us try and think positively. That is not going to happen this time.” A hysterical edge leaps into his voice. “It must not happen this time.” Another pause in which it is clear that he has something more to deliver.

“Sir Giles is paying us a visit.”

“While they’re here? Oh my God!”

“You are quick to read my fears. Any grave disruption of camp life during that visit could prejudice all our futures.” Francis gives that time to sink in.

“Now, as I understand it, the Slat girls will be arriving on Saturday morning and Sir Giles in the afternoon. From the moment they step inside the gates, I want to involve those girls and, hopefully, totally immerse them in preparations for the Camp Concert on Saturday night. I do not want them confronted with Sir Giles because this might tend to inflame their exhibitionist tendencies. If we can put on a good show and Sir Giles afterwards learns that his nieces were behind scenes helping then I think the impression left will be a good one.”

“Yes, but—” begins Ted.

“I have had longer to think about this than any of you,” says Francis firmly. “And that is what we are going to do. Now for details. They will be housed in chalets number 1 and 397 respectively.”

Ten minutes later I am outside with Ted, tugging at his sleeve like a kid wanting to find out where babies come from.

“Have you heard of nymphomaniacs?” says Ted.

“Of course,” I say.

“Well, these two eat ’em for breakfast. They start where most other women reach for the bromide caddy.”

“I don’t get it.”

Ted snorts. “You would with these two. From both barrels. They hunt as a pair.”

He shudders like a man trying to scrape a nightmare off the back of his mind. “‘Screw for Peace’ – that’s their motto. They reckon they can unite the whole world by everybody having it away with each other. ‘Khaki Kidology’ – that’s what Francis calls it.”

“That’s very good.”

“It’s diabolical, mate, when you’re trying to run a holiday camp. Give those two twenty minutes and they’ll have every man in the place jostling to get to the head of the queue. It’s the way they wrap it up in all this peace-love rubbish that terrifies me. They make you feel like Hitler if you’re not spending all your time looking for a bun-hole to tuck your frankfurter in.”

“You know them, then, do you?”

“Know them? Have you seen my back? Most people think I served three years on The Bounty. And that was only one of them.”

“Where was the other one?”

“Kicking the front door in trying to get at me.”

“I thought you said they hunted as a pair.”

“Sometimes they can’t wait for the other one to get there.”