Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

‘Everybody done? Then let’s start swinging!’ Big S. whirls the bag about his head and a bunch of blokes press forward when he stops. Like kids with a lucky dip, they dive their hands into the bag and draw out a key. ‘Forty-seven’, ‘twenty-eight’, ‘sixty-nine’–that one gets a laugh. As the numbers are called out so the blokes pair off with the bird whose room key they have got. All except one man whose voice rises in cheated outrage:

‘Oih!’ he shouts, ‘I’ve got my wife.’ The unhappy accident is quickly remedied and couples drift back to the bar and off to amuse each other. Disgusting, isn’t it? Yeah, but a bit of all right as well, eh? I wonder what my Mum and Dad would have been like if they had gone in for this caper? They could not have been much worse off, I will wager that.

‘I didn’t think much of Christopher’s,’ says Penny as she takes my arm.

‘Christopher’s what–oh, you mean his bird.’ I don’t really want to know which one is Christopher. I am old fashioned like that. If I am knocking off the missus I don’t fancy a game of darts with hubby afterwards. I am more interested in seeing what has happened to Sid. Oh, dear! Sam the Ram is leading off Butterfly Specs, and Sid is looking like a kid who hid his lolly ice in a warm oven. I consider issuing a few words of good cheer, but decide against it. Sid can turn a bit funny sometimes. With this thought in mind I quicken my pace as we leave the ballroom, and study the key that Penny has thoughtfully pushed into my mitt.

‘It’s fantastic to meet someone new,’ she murmurs. ‘You get tired of all the old faces.’

At the very least, I think to myself. Blimey, how many couples in the hotel? Two hundred? She should write a book about it. Perhaps she has.

We pad along the corridor and there it is. Room number one-eight-two. I take a deep breath as I unlock it because I have a nasty feeling that Christopher is going to be on the other side with a shot gun. Sometimes I think I belong to another age. Every time I get my end away I think I am doing something naughty. Does make it more exciting though.

‘Nobody here,’ I say, my voice sounding a bit strained.

‘Of course not, darling. You weren’t expecting a gangers, were you?’

‘A what?’

‘Gangers bangers, darling.’

‘Oh, yes. Of course not.’

‘Tomorrow night. Now, that’s another story. You weren’t with us at Bournemouth, were you? We united with a working sub-committee of the British Foundrymen’s Association–and I mean united.’

‘Sounds a great scene,’ I say, trying to appear as if I experience it every day of the week before the Epilogue. ‘Christopher won’t come barging in, will he?’

‘Good heavens, no. We won’t see him till kipper-time. We have eight hours to amuse each other.’ She sways towards me and I wonder if eight hours is going to be long enough. I have always been partial to a bit of tit myself and this bird is not particularly well favoured in that direction, but she has a slinky quality that more than makes up for it. Her body ripples like a flag in a hurricane and she plants herself against my body like she is trying to turn herself into a laminate. I push the door shut with my foot and immediately feel able to deal with the situation. At least I think I do. I allow Penny the access to my lips she so obviously demands and rub my hands gently over her curvy hind-quarters. No need to hurry things. Mrs Brown has other ideas. Her fingernails dig into me like she is probing for a 50p piece that has slipped down the lining of my jacket and her mouth performs as if it is trying to douse a forest fire. ‘Come on, oh no, baby! Please! No, yes. Oh–o-o-o-h! Do it to me. Please! Ple-e-e-ase!’ Well, you don’t have to be a boy scout to respond to a plea like that and I set to unzipping her like a starving cannibal welcoming a new missionary. Her own hands are not idle and her assault on the front of my trousers would qualify for the finals of the World Turnip-Picking Championships. Once again, I wish I had the services of Ejecta pants as I try and struggle free from the clinging embrace of my jealous underwear. These fits of passion can be murder on a young trendy’s wardrobe for the modern satins and velvets are not well-equipped for displays of sexual violence. Sit down a bit sudden and you could rip the seat out of seven quids worth of flare-bottomed invitation to sensual mayhem. Get down to a real bit of sweaty slap and tickle and you might as well resign yourself to five quids worth of invisible mending or a quick conversion to faded denim.

‘Gr-r-r-h!’ Mrs B. is now making growling noises. Her bra and panties set is really something. Midnight blue with little red flowers scattered everywhere. You can see she has chosen her wardrobe with real care. I am now naked except for my socks and so look like a refugee from a dirty photograph. I always feel a right berk in this condition and attempt to cater for Mrs B.’s increasingly excited demands while hopping from one leg to another trying to hook off my Wolsey grip-tops. Only a mountain goat–and I have seen very few of them about tonight–could achieve the necessary standard of footwork and it is seconds before I crash back across the bed with Penny on top of me. Luckily my equipment is wangy enough to withstand the impact and I lie back as my excitable friend struggles to her feet and whips off her bra and panties.

‘Don’t move, Lancelot,’ she yodels, giving a long ecstatic wriggle that makes me think she is trying to shed her skin. ‘That’s just the way I want you.’ I have no plans to cross-index my stamp collection, so I continue to lie back and wait for her to vault into the saddle. But not a bit of it.

While I watch in amazement she gets a large cardboard box and starts emptying some white powder into the washbasin. What is this? Is she going to rinse out her smalls or is it some kind of Ajax demonstration? Is a fast-talker with a microphone and forty-two Birmingham housewives going to appear from behind the curtains?

‘I’m going to add you to my collection,’ she says, turning on the cold tap. ‘Did you see W.R. Mysteries of the Orgasm?’

‘No!’ I say indignantly. I mean, it does not sound very nice does it? What is she on about?

‘You should do. It’s a marvellous movie.’ She is clearly mixing something in the washbasin. What is it? Bread? She wipes her hands on a towel and comes over to the bed.

‘Now,’ she says gently, ‘let’s get him ready.’ She sits down on the edge of the bed and starts running her fingers gently along my hampton. My friend laps this up and I stretch out my finger to perform a similar service.

‘Later,’ she murmurs, crossing one leg over the other, ‘let me do this first.’ It occurs to me that her tone has changed a bit from the first moments of careless rapture–and near rupture, and that her efforts were directed towards achieving the fine specimen her fingers are now feasting on. I do not like being manipulated in this way, but on the other hand–or perhaps in the other hand–I do, if you know what I mean.

‘Like a sword, isn’t it?’ she observes cheerfully. ‘Now, just a little–’ Her mouth drops and I have to hold onto the edge of the bed. Oh, my goodness me! All part of life’s rich varied tapestry, as my old school master used to say–though not about what Mrs Brown is doing to me. There must be worse ways of spending Friday night.

‘Right,’ says Mrs B., climbing to her feet. ‘He’s ready.’ She can say that again. You could fire my hampton through the side of a Centurion tank without denting it. ‘No, don’t move.’

Before I can grab her she has nipped over to the washbasin and return with two handfuls of white gunge which she slaps on top of my throbbing J.T.! Talk about surprised! I am speechless.

‘Hey! What the–’

‘Plaster of paris, Lancelot. I’m taking a cast of your virility.’ She slaps some more gunk over puzzled Percy and smiles down at me. ‘It won’t take a second. This stuff dries very fast.’

‘But, why? What are you going to use it for?’

‘Just a souvenir. I’m not going to turn it into a dildo. Though that’s quite a good idea, isn’t it? Dildos of the famous. You could sign up all the sexiest showbiz personalities and even royalty. Comfort yourself with the Duke of–’

‘Hold on a minute,’ I croak. ‘Are you sure this isn’t going to damage my equipment?’

‘Darlingest, would I perform such a disservice to my baser interests?’ She squeezes the plaster of paris tightly round my hampton and kisses me lightly on the lips. ‘I’ll send you one if you like. You can use it as a paper weight.’

‘Thanks. My Mum would like that.’

‘You don’t have to show it to her. I keep my collection in the bureau.’

The bureau of missing persons, I think to myself. Blimey. What a carry on. There are a lot of funny people about, aren’t there?’

‘It’s hardened up nicely,’ she says. ‘Now, where’s my hammer?’

‘Good evening!’ Those of you who have ever tried to leap off a bed with half a pound of plaster of paris round your chopper will sympathise with my predicament.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she says. ‘It’s only a little tap.’

‘I know, but I’ve grown fond of it over the years.’

‘I mean it’s only a little tap with the hammer. You won’t feel a thing.’

‘That’s what my dentist used to say.’

She produces a small hammer, like the ones you get in a kid’s carpentry set and advances towards the bed,

‘You’d better know what you’re doing with that thing.’

‘Darling, it’s easy as breaking an egg.’ My balls don’t go for that much, I can tell you. Tap, tap. ‘There you are.’ I make a ‘let’s wait and see’ noise and watch my happy hampton burst out into the light again like a friendly moggy that has been locked up in a dark room. Mrs B. takes the two halves of the cast and puts them together carefully.

‘I’ll deal with these later,’ she says, popping them into the top drawers of the dressing table.

‘Yeah, now you can start dealing with this.’ I grab her by the arm and yank her onto the bed.

‘Darling, I really ought to put something on it first.’

‘I’ll tell you what to put on it!’ I am not interested in garnish. I am interested in action. I have waited a long time and my equipment has been sorely misused. ‘Come on top of me.’ Mrs B. straddles me on her knees and I plunge Percy into darkness again–this time in surroundings to which he is more accustomed. ‘Come here.’ I am not usually rough with ladies but at this moment I need a little agro to rekindle my lapsed enthusiasm. I pull Penny down so that her breasts rub against my chest and her hair tickles my cheeks. I brush it aside and feast on her mouth, stroking her cheeks as if coaxing out her tongue from a hiding place. Her body begins to rise and fall across my hips and I time the flexing of my muscles to coincide with hers. Beautiful! And such good exercise too. I am certain this must be better for you than all those bloody stupid exercises they print in women’s magazines.

‘Put your knees up,’ she says, ‘I want to lean back.’ I let her go and watch the expression on her face as she settles herself in the position to achieve maxiMum satisfaction. Her eyes are half-closed and she breathes in little pockets of air almost as if she is in pain. Slowly her tongue extends to be held gingerly between her teeth and her mouth broadens into the beginnings of a smile.

‘Go on,’ she whispers, ‘go on, go on!’ Pressing her hands down against the bed she pushes her body up and down in time with the flexing of my hips. ‘Oh, darling, that’s heaven.’ I read somewhere–I don’t think it was in the Women’s Institute Year Book–that birds have been known to faint with ecstasy in such a position. I don’t blame them. I am feeling a bit giddy myself.

‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ Is it her or me calling out? I close my eyes and open my mouth and what happens after that is Ike and Tina Turner destroying the volume control on the greatest stereo set on earth. That and some miserable old git banging on the ceiling with an artificial limb. You can’t please everybody, I suppose.

I don’t know what the time is when we eventually get to sleep but I feel as though I have been run through a combine harvester a couple of times. Talk about knackered! I close my eyes and when I open them the sunlight is streaming through the windows. Blimey! I should be somewhere else fast. I leap out of bed and land on something soft. Something soft that groans. It is a man stretched out on the bedside rug.

‘Sorry,’ says the creature, still half asleep but sounding genuinely apologetic. ‘I couldn’t stand the woman’s snoring.’ I presume he means the bird he was shacked up with. This must be Christopher. I don’t wait to introduce myself but pull on my trousers and leave him clambering wearily into bed to take my place beside Mrs B. who is still out for the count.

So endeth the first night that the Pendulum Society spend at the Cromby. It is a taste of things to come.

CHAPTER SEVEN

As luck would have it, Sidney is standing just inside the dining room as I try and sneak to my place and the expression on his face could not be interpreted as welcoming even by an Icelandic Trade Delegation.

‘Where have you been?’ he says.

‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ I say, trying to swallow a yawn.

‘You look bloody awful.’

‘I got a bit plastered last night,’ I say wittily.

‘Well, you’d better get on with it. I’ll talk to you later.’

‘Yes, Sidney.’

I am hoping that Christopher and Penny will be too knackered to come down to breakfast but, of course, they are the first couple I see, staring at their packet of Rice Krispies as if it has the meaning of life scrawled on the back.

‘Morning!’ I say brightly. Mrs Brown’s face registers surprise but this is soon replaced by an expression not far distant from outrage.

‘You’re a waiter!’ she says.

‘That’s right.’ I could explain that I stand on the right hand side of Sid the All-nighty, but what is the point?

‘You’re not one of us?’

‘An imposter.’

‘How dare you! You took advantage of me.’

‘Get stuffed.’ The last words are mine. I mean, it’s a bit much isn’t it? Ruthlessly exploited all night and then rejected because my credentials do not come up to par. How middle class. I wonder she did not ask for a blood sample.

My little outburst raises a few eyebrows around us but most of these are drooping like they have lead weights sewed at the corners. The night was obviously one of nonstop pelvic-bashing. I change tables with one of the other waiters and leave the Browns to splutter over their kipper fillets. My cock-cast is never going to see the inside of Mrs B.’s bureau. Too bad. I was thinking there might be a few bob in flogging them as alternatives to garden gnomes.

Out in the vestibule a sign directs club members to an address by one Professor Mordecai Hucklejohn entitled ‘Marriage–Whither or Wither?’ and quite a few of them troop into the ballroom after breakfast. They must regret it because no sooner has Professor Hucklejohn asked for a glass of iced water than a gang of micks roll up and start tearing down the building next door. They have obviously been concentrating on the Liffywater or given orders to make as much noise as possible because the Prof’s instructive words are soon drowned by the din of falling masonry and language that would make a Billingsgate fish porter blush. Added to that clouds of dust drift in through every window in the place. Rigby’s war has begun.

‘It’s a bugger, isn’t it?’ says Sid, ‘but there’s nothing I can do about it, short of dumping him out to sea with a weighing machine tied to his ankles. I’ve been to the Town Hall but, like he said, they don’t want to know. We’ll just have to plough on regardless. I’m not giving in.’

‘Has he been in touch with you?’

‘Yes, he rang up last night. Cocky bastard. I told him what he could do with himself. Oh dear, here comes trouble.’ He refers to Sam the Ram who is approaching, shaking his head ruefully.

‘Nobody can hear a word in there, man,’ he says. ‘How long before they start on this place and we can all go home?’

‘I’m very sorry about that, Sir, but I am afraid the whole situation is caused by circumstances beyond my control–’ Sid sounds as if he is reading a bulletin fixed to the gates of Buckingham Palace, but my thoughts are elsewhere. Supposing Riley’s mob did start trying to knock down the Cromby? That could well spark off enough scandal to force weasel-features to halt his dastardly plans for a bit.

I potter about until lunch-time and then pop round to the local boozer. As anticipated the sons of Eire are tucking into a well-earned glass of lunch and I salute them cheerfully.

‘Hello there, me boyos,’ I chant, trying to get a lilt into my voice, ‘the top of the morning to you. And a fine day it is for a drop of the hard stuff.’

‘Bugger off!’

Attempts to get alongside these lusty lads are obviously going to have to be handled with a bit more subtlety.

‘Sure, and I’m having the divil’s own trouble with this dratted crossword,’ I continue. ‘Could you be tickling my memory with the information as to the longest river in the dear old Emerald Isle?’

‘I’ll be tickling your back passage with the toe of my boot if you don’t fuck off!’ Unpleasantly dirty fingers close round my throat and I get a Cinerama Holiday view of half a dozen blackened stumps which might just once have been teeth. The owner of this gross affront to the British Dental Association sprays my mug with saliva and a whiff of rotting vegetation which could be used to gas rats. ‘We’ve had enough of youse perverts,’ he continues, moving my head around with his hand as if trying to find a crack in the wall which might fit it. ‘If you don’t get your backside out of this bar in the next two minutes, you’ll get my drill up it.’

‘Don’t encourage him to stay, Paddy,’ says a large gentleman with a face like a plateful of boiled potatoes, ‘to his kind that’s a promise, not a threat.’

‘Throw him out!’

‘Murder him!’

‘Papist!’

It occurs to me, as my backside collides with the pavement, that this is one plan which I can forget about in a big way. I had formed a hazy idea of getting the micks so pissed that they would find it difficult to tell the difference between the Cromby, the apartment house next door, and a set of kids building bricks. With them swinging their big lead ball against the dining room windows, it might have been possible to alert the local press to another example of property developing vandalism. No such luck. Not content with inflicting injury on my precious person the surly sons of the sod are back after dinner bashing away twice as hard–but with no loss of accuracy. The building next door is falling apart before my eyes and the Cromby remains dusty but intact.

Awareness of the life-style of the Pendulum Society has not been slow to sweep through the ranks of the Cromby staff.

‘When I brought in the tea they asked for two extra cups,’ says June primly. ‘They were lined up across the bed.’

‘Four of them?’ says Carmen.

‘No, six. Two of them only drank coffee.’

‘There’s decadent for you,’ I say. ‘You sound as if you don’t approve?’

‘It’s not very nice, is it?’ drones Carmen.

‘How can you ravers have the gall to say that?’ I scold them. ‘You’ve never been fussed about hunting as a pack.’

‘But we’re not married,’ says Audrey reproachfully. ‘It’s different for them. They shouldn’t behave like that.’

‘It’s not nice,’ repeats Carmen.

‘You mean to tell me that when you get married you’re never going to have a bit on the side?’

‘No!’

‘The very idea!’

‘I should think not!’

Amazing, isn’t it? The ways of women never cease to amaze me. Take my sister, Rosie, for instance. There was a time when everybody used to. Yours for a tanner’s worth of chips and first shake with the vinegar bottle, they used to say around us. She got married to Sidney–very sudden it was–and after that butter would not melt between her thighs. The perfect wife and mother–until she gets a whiff of Ricci Volare. Then, pow! Right back to square one, or round one would be more appropriate. How she is going to react to the Pendulum Society I will be interested to find out. If I was Sid I would not be viewing her impending visit with enthusiasm. It is about half past four when the family arrive and Dad’s reaction is typical.

‘Hello,’ he says, ‘pulling it down already are they? Vermin, is it?’

‘It’s the place next door, Dad.’

‘Building an extension already, is he?’ says Mum, the super optimist.

‘Not yet Mum, though we’re pretty full at the moment.’

‘Nice class of person,’ says Mum, gazing admiringly at one of the Pendulum lot who is walking a poodle in a dramatic trouser suit–she has the trouser suit, not the poodle.

‘Yeah. What do you think, Rosie?’ But Rosie is gazing at Sam the Ram who flashes his evil lust-laden eyes at her as he brushes past her, looking as if he has got about one and a half foot of fire hose down the front of his trousers. Her expression is one I remember uncomfortably from the Isla de Amor: Rosie wants it. Really, one’s relations can be a terrible embarrassment sometimes. I said, ‘Jason has just stubbed his icecream out in your handbag, Rosie.’ That brings her round a bit sudden, and by the time little J., who looks more like his revolting father every day, gets past the reception area in a flood of tears, I reckon her mind may be on other things.

I hope it is, because Sidney chooses that moment to roll up, picking burrs out of his turn-ups. He has obviously been taking a spot of physical exercise with Sandra who wanders by a discreet few moments later looking redder than my Mum when she mistook the gents at Clapham Common for the entrance to the tube station. Sid, himself, is looking a bit flustered which Mum chooses to interpret as a sign of work strain. Now that Mum reckons Sid is worth a few bob he can do no wrong, while with Dad acute dislike has grown into seething hatred.

‘You haven’t been overdoing it, I hope, dear?’ says Mum. Sid avoids my eyes and smacks a couple of kisses on the Lea ladies.

‘No fear of that, Mum, you know me. Hello, Rosie love. I didn’t expect you so early. Hello Jason!’ Sid pops on his ‘I love kids’ expression but it does not cut any ice with little Lord Nausea.

‘S’cream! S’cream! S’cream!’ he wails. ‘I wanna s’cream, wanna s’cream.’

‘But he is screaming,’ says Sid, perplexed.

‘He wants an ice cream, you berk,’ I tell him. ‘Blimey, Sid, can’t you even understand your own kid?’

‘He never sees him long enough to be able to recognise him properly,’ says Rosie. ‘I tell you, if he saw him walking down the other side of the street he wouldn’t recognise him.’

‘Oh yes I would,’ says Sid, all indignant. ‘He’d be the one dressed like a two-year-old poofter.’

It is true that Rosie’s tastes do veer a little towards the Carnaby in toddler’s wear and I would not like to be left at nursery school in some of the clobber he gets landed with unless I had a flick knife hidden under my rompers. Nevertheless, Rosie is sensitive on the point.

‘I want the child to look nice, that’s all. If it was left to you, he’d still be wearing that thing they gave him at the hospital.’

‘He’ll be on the turn soon. You mark my words, that’s how they all start. If you want a girl let’s have another one. Don’t try and make him ambidextrous.’

‘Fine chance of that when we don’t even live together, isn’t there?’

All through this fairly typical Lea family reunion, Jason’s screams are getting louder and louder and it is perhaps fortunate that Miss Ruperts arrives on the scene to restore a little queenly decorum. She appears to be very good with children and my Mum, and takes them off for a cup of tea, a liquid which could float ma through a Martian invasion.

‘She is in one of her moods, I can tell that,’ says Sid, when Rosie has been led away to the Bridal Suite. ‘She can be very funny sometimes.’

He does not say any more, but I have a feeling that some sixth sense, or sexth sinse, is carrying his mind back to the Ricci Volare episode on one of Spain’s unsettled colonies. He never actually caught them on the job, but I think he suspected more than he rationalised, if you know what I mean.