Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

‘There, that’s better.’ Suddenly, I am doing all the talking.

‘Thank you.’

We sit in silence for a moment and then something not entirely unrelated to nooky-craving makes me kiss her gently on the lips. Oh, the taste of tears and the smell of booze. A very stirring combination.

‘Are you going to go?’

‘I’ll think about it’.

Slowly I slide my arm about her and draw her into the hollow of my shoulder. Our mouths get better acquainted and my greedy fingers plunder her bristols. She slips her hand inside my shirt and grabs hold of any spare flesh she can find. Luckily there is some, otherwise I would not be able to bend down and tie up my shoe laces. We continue like this for a few happy minutes and then my restless fingers are on the move again. Five stubby soldiers of fortune heading into the great known. Under cover of her skirt they set to with a will while Sadie responds to their advances with delighted moans. You have to work long hours in this job, but it does have its fringe benefits. Mrs B. sighs and sends down a pandy to check on my own movements.

‘Aren’t those pants a bit tight for you?’ she observes.

She is dead right and they are getting tighter every minute.

‘Let’s go next door. It’s more comfortable.’

We uncouple and, when I throw open the bedroom door, the bed is illuminated in a pool of light. Standing beside it, we help each other off with our clothes, smacking our lips at the thought of what is to come. Sadie wriggles against my chest and gently tugs down my pants while I unhook her bra.

‘Don’t put the light on,’ she murmurs. ‘I’m an old woman. I don’t want you to see my body.’

‘An older woman,’ I reassure her. ‘There’s a lot of difference.’

She falls back across the bed and I lie down beside her feeling the cool satin counterpane against my back. She is a very curvy lady.

‘Can we get inside the bed?’ she says. ‘Please. It’s cold.’

She is right. The central heating which makes a noise like a tank regiment advancing through wooded country has been turned off from just before the cold spell in May. One thing about the Cromby, they do a very nice bed. Eiderdowns, counterpanes, the lot. Very snug you feel with that on top of you. That and Mrs Beecham pressing in on you like an inspirational new hot water bottle design.

‘Oh, baby,’ she breathes. ‘Baby, baby, baby!’

I think I have mentioned before that some of my happiest moments have been spent in the company of those ladies who have taken advantage of the advancing years to gather a rich harvest of experience and Mrs B. is no exception. She also has a great deal of typical Yank enthusiasm. A high-spirited ‘get up and go’ approach which I have to prevent matching with a ‘get up and come’. I am also conscious that I am performing for England and to a lesser extent, Mr Beecham. Also that this is Mrs B.’s wedding night. Quite a weight of responsibility for young shoulders to bear but fortunately I find myself more than equal to the task.

‘Oh baby,’ she breathes. ‘I feel beautiful.’

‘You’re right, you’re right,’ I echo. We thunder on, forging Anglo-American relations with every hammer blow, until Mrs B. starts fizzing like a catherine wheel and we both break out into what seems like the end piece of a Fourth of July firework display.

It is while I am gulping in mouthfuls of air and listening to my heart thumping as if it is being played in stereo with the bass turned up that I become aware that someone is banging on the door of the apartment. Mrs Beecham has also heard, because her giant knockers loom above me as she sits up in bed.

‘Oh, F-f-fuxbridge.’

‘Don’t worry,’ says Mrs B., sliding out of bed and grabbing a robe. ‘I’ll see who it is.’

‘Tell them I nipped out to buy some aspirins,’ I call after her. I snuggle back in the sheets, pleasantly exhausted and look forward to Sadie’s return. It is very satisfying to turn someone on like that. Not bad on the strictly personal level, either. I hear Mrs B. drawling away to someone and then the door closing. Good. Then a male voice approaching. Bad! I am halfway under the sheets when the bedroom door is pushed open.

‘Henry,’ calls Mrs B. ‘Oh, Henry, I’ve got a surprise for you.’ Whoever she means, she can’t be kidding. Before I can do anything, a big guy with a crewcut is walking towards the bed with his hand outstretched. I examine it closely to see if there is a gun nestling in it. Luckily it is empty.

‘You could probably kill me for bursting in at a moment like this.’ He is right. ‘But I was passing through on my way back to the States and I bumped into one of Sadie’s buddies at the airport. You could have knocked me down with a feather.’ I would prefer to use a sledgehammer and do the job properly. ‘I put my flight back a few hours, hired a car and here I am. Couldn’t miss the opportunity to pay my respects to dear old Sadie and her new Mr Right. Put it there, pardner.’

‘Pleased to meet you. Ouch!’ I say as the Yank crushes my knuckles in his giant mitt.

‘I hear you’re some kind of noble?’

‘Um, well in a manner of speaking I–er,’ I Mumble trying to move my accent up three social classes. Sadie comes to the rescue swiftly.

‘Hiram! You just don’t ask questions like that over here. It’s bad enough pushing me out of the way and rushing into the bedroom on our wedding night.’

‘I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean no offence. It’s just that I feel I have some special rights as far as you’re concerned. After all, we were married.’

‘But only for five weeks, Hiram. It doesn’t give you the right to rush in here like it’s a press show.’

‘Don’t get mad at me, honey. And, you sir, please forgive me. I only wanted to say howdy do and bring you your present.’ He dives into his pocket and produces what looks like a handful of silver fire.

‘Hiram! It’s beautiful.’

‘I got it back from my fifth wife last week and I don’t really want it. I’d like you to have it. You were my favourite, Sadie. Too bad we married too young.’

‘But you were forty-two, Hiram.’

‘I was slow maturing. Anyhow, I’m glad you like it.’ He turns back to me. ‘Delighted to have made your acquaintance, sir. I hope I weather half as well as you. I was expecting you to be much older.’

‘I’m working at it.’

‘Very amusing, sir. Well, I must be off. I’m still living in the old place, Sadie. So when you’re both in New York you must look me up.’

‘That’s real nice of you, Hiram.’

‘Absolutely topping,’ I say, deciding he deserves a slice of genuine upper class lingo,

‘So long.’

‘ ’Bye.’

‘Toodle pip!’

The great toilet brush goes out and gives an Oliver Hardy wave as he closes the door gently behind him.

‘Blimey, I hope he doesn’t bump into your Henry.’

‘It’s very unlikely, sweetheart. If he does, he’ll think you were another husband.’

She fastens the necklace round her neck and studies herself in the wardrobe mirror. It hangs down in layers like chain mail.

‘Do you think it suits me?’

I come up behind her and ease the robe off her shoulder so that she is naked again. ‘I think you set it off a treat.’

She turns and her big, warm body presses against mine. Her hands start to go up to her neck but I pull them down again.

‘Keep it on,’ I say. ‘And get on to that bed.’

‘Alright, Henry. Anything you say.’

CHAPTER SIX

‘Hey, you. Where can I find Noggett?’

It is a week after the Beechams have left–he looking a bit worse than when he went into hospital; God knows what she was doing to the poor old sod–and I am standing in for Sandra who is having a bash on the tennis court–or more likely–in the long grass behind it! Every time she comes back she is covered in burrs. Everywhere but on her knickers, as I found out once when she bent down. Funny, that.

The bloke who is addressing me is about my age and has shoulder-length hair worn over the collar of his smart suit. He is carrying a pig-skin attaché case. Apart from his manner I don’t like his shifty eyes which are darting round the foyer as if trying to memorise every feature.

‘Do you mean “Mr Noggett”?’ I say primly.

‘There’s only one, isn’t there?’ The tone is only slightly less than a snarl.

‘I’ll see if he is available. Who shall I say wants to see him?’

‘Edward Rigby.’ The bloke is now tapping the walls. ‘And hurry up, will you? I’m a busy man. I haven’t got time to hang around this morgue.’

When I find Sidney he is in Miss Ruperts’ office cocking his little finger over a cup of tea.

‘Miss Ruperts has surpassed herself,’ he pipes. ‘The Pendulum Society are going to hold their convention here. Every room in the hotel booked Friday to Sunday. Isn’t she a clever girl?’

Sidney coming the smarmer makes me want to puke, but I manage to control myself. ‘Great,’ I say. ‘There’s a nasty looking Herbert in the foyer who wants to speak to you. He didn’t say what it was about.’

‘Oh, well, better see him, I suppose.’

I notice, as we leave, that Miss Ruperts has a bottle of brandy under the tea cosy. She does not change.

When we get into the foyer, Rigby looks Sid up and down like he is measuring him for a coffin.

‘Mr Noggett?’

‘That’s right. What can I do for you?’

‘I’d like to have a few words with you–in private.’

He looks at me like I came off the bottom of his shoe after a walk around Battersea Dogs’ Home.

‘Mr Lea is my personal assistant. You can speak freely in front of him.’

Blimey! It is a long time since Sidney referred to me like that. He must obviously find this cove as unlovable as I do.

Rigby shrugs and we go into Sid’s office.

‘Let me come to the point at once,’ says Rigby, hardly waiting till his arse has hit the chair before he starts speaking. ‘I’ve come round here to offer you a fair price for this place. I’m in property and I want to develop this site. I’ve bought the freeholds on either side of you and I hope we can come to a sensible arrangement.’

‘What if we can’t?’ says Sid.

‘I don’t think there’s a lot of alternative. I’m going to start demolishing both the buildings on either side of you in a few weeks and I’ll be surprised if that does anything for your business–if you have any.’ This guy’s money obviously ran out half way through charm school.

‘What kind of figure were you thinking of?’

Rigby mentions a figure which makes me want to scream ‘Grab it and run!’ but Sid does not bat an eyelid.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ he says. ‘It cost me more than that.’

‘Take it or leave it.’

‘I’ll leave it.’

Rigby produces a card and drops it on the table in front of Sid. ‘When you’ve had time to reconsider, or talked it over with someone who knows the business, get in touch with me.’

‘The council won’t let you start pulling down the buildings next door.’

‘They’re all in favour of it. This end of town is going downhill so fast they’d like to put it on wheels and push it along the coast.’ He stands up. ‘Don’t leave it too long. I’ll start reducing my offer at the end of the week.’

‘Piss off.’ Sid’s words may be less than eloquent, but they sum up our feelings more than adequately.

‘No need to take that tone. I–’

‘PISS OFF!’ Sid jumps out of his chair and Rigby has his hand on the door knob quicker than Mary Whitehouse adjusting the picture control on her telly when a naughty bit comes along.

‘Jumped up little basket,’ snarls Sid when Rigby has disappeared.

‘Do you think he was bluffing, Sid?’

Sid walks over to the window and pulls back the curtain. Outside we can see Rigby climbing into a chauffeur-driven Rolls.

‘No,’ he says. He picks up Rigby’s card. ‘ “Rigram Property Company”. I’ve heard of them. I think Sir Giles had something to do with them at Funfrall.’

‘He’s done all right for himself, that bloke, hasn’t he? He didn’t look any older than me.’

‘Yeah. Makes you sick, doesn’t it?’

‘What are we going to do, Sid?’

Sid takes a deep breath. ‘I’m going to make a few enquiries at the Town Hall. And then I’m going to concentrate on getting things ready for the Pendulum Society. We must not be diverted from our purpose, Timmo. Rigby or no Rigby, I intend to make this place posh and profitable.’

‘Did you really pay more than he offered for this place?’

‘I exaggerated a bit, but it was still a pitiful price he came up with. You don’t know how much I put myself in hock to get this lot. Considering that we crept in just before the boom, he should have given me a much better deal. Anyhow,’ his face brightens, ‘don’t let’s look on the gloomy side any more. I’m really chuffed about this Pendulum scene. The family is coming down next weekend and I want them to see the place looking as if it’s got a bit of life about it.’

‘You mean Rosie and Jason?’

‘Your Mum and Dad, and all. I couldn’t leave them out, could I?’

I know what answer I would have given. Mum and Dad always spell trouble. I would have thought that Sid would have sussed that after his experiences on the Isla de Amor.

Sid is well pleased because the Pendulum mob want to have a dance on the Saturday night and he reckons that we stand to make a few bob from the catering. About half as much as Dennis, I reckon.

As Friday gets nearer, Sidney burns around the hotel getting up everybody’s bracket in a big effort to make the staff respond like Funfrall employees. In this endeavour he is wasting his time. All their get up and go got up and went years ago and only highly strung Sandra buckles to with a will–or, as I personally suspect, a willy. One afternoon, I notice a lot of burrs around Sid’s turnups and I reckon it is he who has been giving her a quick in and out behind the tennis courts. Better keep that lot under control when the family gets here.

Friday afternoon comes and the first delegates–as Sidney chooses to call them–begin to roll up. I notice that they all seem to be married couples, or sign in as married couples, and are a bit smarter and younger than our normal guests. Early middle-aged trendy with a fair sprinkling of love beads and the like on the men.

‘What is this Pendulum Club?’ I ask Miss Primstone who is watching the new arrivals disapprovingly.

‘I have no idea,’ she says coldly. ‘They are certainly not the kind of people I would have expected to find here in the old days. I don’t know what has come over Miss Ruperts. It must be the influence of your Mr Noggett.’ I would have thought it was the other way round myself, but I don’t say anything.

One thing I do notice about the Pendulum mob is that they seem very affectionate with each other. Lots of hugging and kissing on the cheek and long burning glances. It does not look like the Labour Party conference at all.

‘Sid, what is this Pendulum Club?’ I ask later on.

‘Dunno. Some kind of friendly society, I think.’

‘They’re friendly all right. They can hardly keep their hands off each other.’

This is nowhere truer than in relation to a bloke called Sam–Sam the Ram soon becomes our name for him. This geezer is about six and a half foot tall and has a silver goatee beard, enormous hooter and hands like seal’s flippers. He is constantly rubbing birds into his chest like embrocation and threatening to explode out of the front of his too-tight pink and white toreador pants. If he turned round quickly the weight of junk hanging round his neck could take your head off, and hair sprouts from the top of his open-necked shirt like black foam.

The birds seem to lap all this up and I notice that June and Audrey are not slow to show their appreciation.

‘Smashing,’ says June.

‘Smashing,’ says Audrey. ‘I bet he’s got a big one.’

By the time the gong goes for dinner, it takes a performance like the opening of a J. Arthur Rank film to break through the noise coming from the cocktail lounge. I have never seen the place so full.

‘What time are the family getting here?’ I ask Sid, thinking how impressed they would be to see the place jammed with gay fun-lovers.

Sid looks glum. ‘I’ve just had a telephone call from Rosie. Jason has been sick and they won’t be coming until tomorrow.’

‘That’s a pity. Still, they’ll be here for the dance won’t they?’

‘Yeah. That should be quite an affair if it goes anything like this.’ Never has Sidney spoken a truer word.

When we eventually get them in to supper I notice that a good many of the husbands and wives have split up and are not sitting together. I suppose they must have known each other before they got here. I notice, too, that they all have a gong-like medal strung round their necks. It must have something to do with the pendulum bit. At the end of the meal Sam the Ram scrapes back his chair and addresses the throng.

‘Get in tune with your surroundings, people,’ he intones. ‘The Mellow Mingle will begin at two hours before tomorrow. Keys please, to the ballroom where nightcaps will be served and friendships cemented.’ He flicks the gong round his neck so that it swings from side to side, and sits down as an interested murmur spreads around the room. Swings. Pendulum. Swings. Swingers! By the cringe! I take another good look around the nuzzling diners and there can be no doubt about it. They are wife-swappers to a man. Husband-swappers to a woman. Does Sidney know what he has let himself in for? Surely Miss Ruperts cannot have been party to this unsavoury flesh-trading. The diners began to drift away and I flee to Sidney’s side.

‘They’re all bleeding wife-swappers,’ I gasp. ‘Did you know that?’

‘Funny you should say that. The same thought was going through my mind.’ Sid does not sound very concerned.

‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘What do you expect me to do about it? Tell them all to leave? I don’t care what they get up to as long as it doesn’t frighten the staff.’

‘Or the residents.’

‘Oh, yes. I’d forgotten about them, well, they’re all so gaga they wouldn’t notice if Mrs Caitley started doing a striptease.’

‘Don’t be so disgusting! I bet the whale bone in her corsets was turning yellow when Moby Dick was a tadpole.’

‘Be your age, Timmo. You’re so old fashioned sometimes. Having a bit on the side isn’t the sin it used to be. A very nice class of person indulges these days, you know.’

‘That makes it all right then doesn’t it? Blimey, Sidney Noggett, you’re the biggest snob I know. Anything is all right if you read about it in Nova.’

‘I don’t know what you’re on about. All I know is that the hotel is full and that none of them signed the register with X’s. That’s good enough for me.’

‘Well, I hope Rosie sees it like that.’ Then, at last, Sidney’s face registers a trace of disquiet.

I have a few hours off that evening so I slip into my dudes and nip out for a drink; I can’t afford the prices at the Cromby. As I sit in the snug at the Fisherman’s Arms and consider the design on the beer mats, it occurs to me that Sidney’s attitude may well be the right one. It also occurs to me that there is a lot of spare back at the hotel and that I do not have an old lady to worry about. I mean, I am all in favour of free love, but I can’t imagine my wife ever being ready for it. They take things so much more seriously than us, don’t they? Look at Rosie with Ricci Volare on the Isla de Amor. She still stiffens every time Jimmy Young plays Come Prima.

I knock back my drink and whip round to the hotel. It is five to ten and I just have time to squirt some after-shave down the front of my Y-fronts before joining the crowd pushing into the ballroom. None of the older generation of Cromby employees are on view but Dennis is firmly entrenched behind the bar, no doubt fiddling a small fortune for himself. He registers surprise when he sees me.

‘Mr Noggett asked me to mingle and see that everything was under control,’ I say reassuringly.

‘Funny. That’s what he told me he was doing.’ Dennis points across the room and there is Sidney with a large scotch in his hand chatting up a tall bird with butterfly glasses. Dirty old sod! You can’t trust anybody these days, can you? He looks up and sees me before I can duck into the crowd and the expression on his mug is not akin to delight. However, he is obviously making headway with the chick because he turns his back and leaves me to it.

‘Oh, I am sorry!’ The willowy redhead must have made a detour of about five yards to bump into me and is smelling like a fire in a perfume factory that has been put out with liquid supplied by the local brewery.

‘That’s all right.’ My smile would make Warren Beatty rush round to his dentist for a check-up. ‘It was my fault. Let me get you another drink.’

‘That’s very kind of you, but are you sure?’

‘What’s your pleasure?’

‘Now you’re asking.’ She rolls her eyes and gives her pendulum a swing. ‘Just a teeny gin and tonic. A small one. Really.’

Dennis looks up at the ceiling as I approach him and flaps his wrist. ‘All right for some, isn’t it?’

‘Keep watering the drinks.’

I return to my fair companion who is now chewing her gong temptingly.

‘Where’s your thing?’

‘I beg your pardon!’

‘Your pendulum, silly!’

‘Oh, that!’ I pat my chest absent-mindedly. ‘Must have left it in my room.’

‘Did you leave your wife in your room too?’

‘She wasn’t feeling so well. It must have been someone she ate.’ She does not seem to find that very funny. Maybe she’s right.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Er, Clapham.’ I hesitate because Mum has always taught us to say Wandsworth Common because she thinks it sounds better and I am only just breaking myself of the habit.

‘Oh, it’s lovely, isn’t it? We’ve got lots of friends who have just moved there. The Common is bliss.’

I don’t know if I would call Scraggs Lane lovely, and when I was a kid the tarts’ minders on the common used to keep warm by turning you over for your pocket money Still, I suppose it has changed a bit in the last few years.

‘It’s not bad.’

‘Have you lived there long?’

‘Quite a long time, yes.’ Like all my bleeding life, actually. It is obviously time I changed the subject.

‘What’s your name?’ She holds up her gong and I see that it has Penelope Brown engraved on it.

‘Call me Penny. What’s yours?’

‘Timothy Lea.’

‘Do you mind being called Tim?’

‘I don’t mind at all. How’s your glass?’

‘Fine. I don’t think I should have any more. I’m feeling a bit squiffy as it is. Tell me’–she tugs my sleeve, ‘are you fixed up yet?’ She looks around the assembled swingers and I follow her eyes.

‘You mean–?’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

‘Well,’–her hand slips into mine and she rests her head against my chest–’how about you and me …? I don’t want to put the key in.’ I should think not, it sounds dead uncomfortable. ‘The last time I ended up with a pervert–there’s no other word for it–a pervert who put. “These Boots are Made For Walking” on the record player and started unpacking a pair of Wellingtons. I mean, you can imagine how I felt.’ I nod sympathetically. ‘I don’t want to have to go through that again.’

‘No, of course not.’ I begin to see what she is talking about and my impression is confirmed when Sam the Ram makes with the vocal again.

‘Greetings, dream-fodder,’ he murmurs, swaying from side to side in such a way that his pendulum seems not to be moving. ‘I’m interrupting the Mellow Mingle because it is time for the Ceremony of the Keys. Gather round, those of you with a burning yearning for nude feels and postures new.’

‘He’s so cool,’ breathes Penny.

‘Who, Sam?’

‘Big Sam,’ she gives an ecstatic little wriggle and I wince. ‘Come on, I want to watch this.’

We press forward to where a circle has formed in front of the Ram and what looks like a black velvet pillow case is lying on the ground. About twenty birds step forward and put their room keys into the bag and there is a feeling of excitement in the air. Quite a lot of straightforward feeling too.