Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

“It’s a squeegee.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of those. I always thought it was some kind of mop.”

“I think it’s that, too.”

“Well, I’m glad we thrashed that out, you learn something new every day, don’t you? Do you want a cup of fabulous, taste-bud tickling Nescafé while you’re here?”

“Yes, ta.”

She has an accent which is a mixture of posh and working class so you can’t quite tell what it is but the vaguely piss-taking way she talks has a definite style to it.

She puts the kettle on and washes out a couple of mugs in the washbasin.

“The milk’s off. Do you mind it black?”

“No, that’s fine. What are you doing here?”

“You mean what’s a nice girl like me doing in a place like this? Well, I’m resting, dahling.”

She makes her voice go all husky.

“I’m a theatrical you see and at the moment no one wants to know about me.”

“But why here?”

“Well, I usually stay at the Ritz but when I heard the Aga Khan was staying there I thought it would be more diplomatic if I dossed down somewhere else. We were lovers for years, you know.”

“I hadn’t heard.”

“No, well you wouldn’t would you? It was a terribly well kept secret. I used to have a couple of fantail pigeons which carried messages backwards and forwards between us – “Be by the bandstand on Clapham Common at eight o’clock on Thursday. My private plane will collect you” – that kind of thing. Then we’d be off to Biarritz or Budleigh Salterton or wherever his exotic fancy took him, making mad passionate love until it was time for him to go off and be weighed in jewels or something. He was a slave to Islam you know.”

I don’t know what the hell she’s talking about but I’m impressed.

“You’re an actress then?”

“Brilliant. I could see you were a bright boy the moment I clapped eyes on you. Yes, sort of. Ooops – coffee time.”

She switches off the gas and hands me my coffee,

“What have you been in? Anything I’d have seen on the telly?”

She claps a hand to her heart and looks disgusted.

“Television? Oh! Goodness gracious me, no! I work in the live theatre – and besides, nobody has ever asked me.”

“So what have you been in?”

“You are persistent, aren’t you? Well, let me see. I was Becket in ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ – no, actually, the last thing I did was to stand next to a girl with a very personal problem in the chorus of “Babes in the Wood” at the Granada, Tooting. You may not have seen the show, but you probably smelt it. You know: two balloons up your jumper and a string of jokes about baked bean commercials.”

“When did that finish?”

“You’re not from the Inland Revenue, are you? My goodness, but you ask a lot of questions.”

“I’m sorry but I’ve never met an actress before.”

“Well, I misled you a little bit. I’m not really an actress, I’m a dancer. An acrobatic dancer – or I was. Now, I’ll do anything within reason, and provided I can keep my knickers on. Would you like to see my credentials? I was waiting for a fan to show up.”

She doesn’t stop for an answer but goes and gets this book of press cuttings I mentioned earlier.

“Come with me down memory lane,” she says and pats the bed beside her. I sit down and she takes me through the book. It’s a bit sad because all the big cuttings are from a newspaper in Baldock which is where she must have come from and which would probably make it a front page story if one of the locals farted outside Covent Garden Opera House.

“Who’s the bloke?”

In some of the pictures there’s a good looking dago dancing with her, wearing some kind of gypsy costume. His hair is slicked down and parted in the middle so the parting looks as if someone made it with a meat cleaver. He reminds me of Valentino who Mum is always going on about, and he’s probably meant to. A few photos later he’s wearing a turban and a lot of boot polish and then he disappears altogether.

“That’s the Great Fakir, if you’ll excuse my pronunciation.”

“The what?”

“That was what he called himself in the act – in that one anyway. He was also known as ‘The Sheik’ and my husband – he wasn’t very good at that though.”

“Is that his dressing gown?”

She smiles and pulls it closer around her. “Yes, I – yes. How observant of you. But then I suppose it’s unlikely that I’d go out and buy a man’s dressing gown, isn’t it?”

“You’re divorced now?”

“No, we were never married. I said he was ‘known’ as my husband. Roy was doing you a favour just to live with you. He was too bloody clever to get married. I was married, though, before I met him. God! But I made a wonderful botch of things. Still, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this; a complete stranger who suddenly appears on my window sill.”

“Probably because I ask so many questions.”

“Maybe. Perhaps it’s also – oh, it doesn’t matter. You’d better get back on the job, hadn’t you? – if you’ll excuse the expression. You’re losing money sitting here.”

“That’s alright. I like talking to you.”

I look into her eyes and she looks back at me very cool. I can feel her mind examining the same set of possibilities as mine.

Then there’s a knock on the door.

“To be continued,” she says, and tightening the sash round her waist she opens the door.

“Oh, it’s you, Miss er, Miss Hatchard?”

The voice belongs to the miserable berk who runs the place.

“That’s right. Who did you expect it to be?”

“Oh, no one, it’s just that I saw the ladder outside your window and I wanted to check that everything was alright. You know, I mean you’ve got to be careful these days, haven’t you? I thought you might have gone out and – you know?”

“That was very thoughtful of you Mr. Drake.”

“Well, I like my guests to feel that their welfare is at the forefront of my mind.”

Mealy-mouthed old shit bag. He obviously thought I was knocking off stuff from her room – or wanted to make her think I would do, if I got half the chance.

“Thank you Mr. Drake. I do appreciate that – oh, Mr. Drake,” her voice is soft as a kitten’s stomach.

“Yes, Miss Hatchard?”

“I feel I should tell you that I’ve got a long needle, and if I find you peeping through the bathroom keyhole again I’ll ram it straight through your eyeball.”

She slams the door and stalks back to the bed.

“Dirty little rat. He’s always pawing me with his eyes. Asked me if I’d like to come down and watch his telly the other night. Christ, can you imagine it. Two brown ales and his podgy wet hands creeping towards you. I’d rather be on the game.”

I can see that Drakey has smashed the nice little atmosphere of mutual sympathy and understanding that was building up between us, and that it would be a smart move to get back outside and arrange to see her later if I can. “I’d better get out of here,” I say. “Tell you what, let me buy you a drink later. You get dressed while I finish this place and I’ll take you round to the boozer. It’ll soon be dinner time anyway.”

She thinks about it for a minute and then nods.

“Yes, why not? Thank you very much. I can’t stay too long, though, because I’ve got to go to an audition this afternoon. I’m supposed to be there at two o’clock, though they’ll probably keep me hanging around for bloody hours as usual.”

So I hop outside again and she winks at me through the window, which is a promise of good things to come I carry with me round the rest of the job. Drakey pays up without a murmur, though he gets a bit tense when I ask him why one of his eyes is watering. I also enjoy his expression when Kismetta, or whatever her real name is sails out looking mean, moody and magnificent in a maxi skirt slashed to her navel and her hair practically straight down the front of her face.

I guide her round to the pub and I can see that the lads are impressed. With this in mind, I steer her into a corner and get her a lager and a cheese roll – fast. You can’t leave a bird like that alone for long without reckoning that some other bleeder will be chatting her up.

“Your real name isn’t Kismetta, is it?” I say as I shove the drink into her hand.

“You must be joking, dahling.” She blows smoke over her left shoulder and I can see her lapping up the way everybody is slopping the beer down their bibs because they can’t take their eyes off her.

“No, it’s Pat. Pat Hatchard. That other rubbish is just a stage name.”

“What are you trying for this afternoon?”

“I don’t really know. Theatre in the Round in Streatham or something. Doesn’t really matter; it’s always the same: Right Miss – um Miss Hatchard. Thank you. Very nice. Now there’s a chance that we’ll be playing ‘The Birthday Party’ in our birthday suits this season so I wonder if you’d mind taking off your knickers. You would? Too public, eh? Well, supposing you came round to my flat this evening, more informal you know. No? Thank you, Miss Hatchard. Next please.”

Now, everybody in the boozer hears her going on like this and I’m getting a bit embarrassed. I mean, women don’t say those kind of things round here. Not in the local, anyway. I’ve never heard anything like it since Sid’s mother told Dad to stop squeezing her tits; and that was on Christmas Eve, so there was some excuse. I mean Mum would have done more than just break a soda syphon over his head if there hadn’t been.

“It’s no good if it’s like that,” I say hurriedly. “Maybe you ought to think about doing some other job? Can you type?”

She knocks back her drink and pushes the empty glass toward me expectantly.

“Type? God no! I’d rather go on the streets. Much rather.”

She glances round to see if anybody agrees with her but now they’re shying away as if it costs you five bob to catch her eye. I buy her another lager and the barman looks at me as if I’m a ponce. This is not quite the image-building job I was after. I can’t stand women who are crude in public. Still, having made an investment of two lagers I’m not prepared to quit now.

“Tell you what,” I say to her all casual-like. “If you get the job why don’t we have a little celebration tonight – or even if you don’t get it? It’ll cheer you up either way.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Oh, I dunno. A few beers and then we might take one of those Chinese meals back to your place.”

“To my place?”

“Well, I live with my Mum and Dad.”

“Very nice. But, I mean why don’t we have the Chinese meal in a Chinese restaurant. You can do that, you know.”

“I thought it might be more cosy, more intimate,—”

“—more chance of getting your end away.”

She says that so loud that even the bloke playing darts down the other end of the public bar can hear her. I know because he nearly pins his mate’s ear to the board.

“Oh, come off it.”

“What do you mean, ‘come off it’? You come off it. I don’t mind. I just wish you’d be honest about it. Now, let’s get out of this place. It gives me the creeps. I’ve never seen such a load of fish-eyed old syphilitics in my life. Haven’t they ever seen a woman before?”

And she stalks out leaving half her lager behind. I’m tempted to finish it but my reputation has already suffered enough as it is so I follow her outside sharpish.

I should give it a miss then, but, as I’ve said before, the old bulldog spirit is half the battle in this game, so I eventually get her to agree that I should give her a ring around six so we can decide where to meet. She doesn’t seem all that wild about it but at least she doesn’t say she’s got to visit her grandmother or something.

So at six o’clock I ring the Fitz and – surprise, surprise – Pat has got the job and is as chuffed as a dog with two cocks. “Come on round,” she shouts – “and bring a little bottle with you.” She sounds so cheerful that I don’t mention the pub crawl and go ape with the after shave lotion before blowing 47p on a very nice Spanish Sauternes, which I am confident is a shrewd investment with a bird who’s obviously been around a bit. Six forty-five and I’m striding past Drakey who always pops out like a spider the moment he hears a footstep. The poor sod has opened the register before he recognises me. I put him in his place with a curt nod and sail upstairs.

Rat, tat, tat and – blimey! When Pat swings the door open I wonder why I’ve bothered with the Spanish Sauternes. She smells like a perfumed brewery and has obviously had a few to celebrate before I got there. “Dahling – hic!” she husks. “Come in and let me devour you. Oh! You’ve brought a bottle. How kind. Lovely Spanish Sauternes, as drunk by the Greek gods.” She giggles weakly and falls back on the bed.

Frankly, my feelings are mixed. Obviously it’s on with her, but she’s pissed out of her mind and could start slinging her goloshes out of the window at any moment. I don’t mind, but at the first sign of activity Drakey will be beating his tiny knuckles white against the door panelling.

I don’t have much time to think about it because Pat tears the wine from my hand, sucks out the cork – she must have, she did it so fast – and sloshes half the bottle into a couple of mugs so it’s slopping over the sides.

Her dress had buttons all down the front which I thought were just for show but I can see now they aren’t because the top fifteen or so are undone.

“Come here, you beautiful bastard,” she yodels and gives me a smacking kiss on the lips and half her Sauternes down the front of my trousers. She finds that very funny and starts chanting “Get ’em off! Get ’em off!” loud enough to get herself free membership of the Chelsea F.C. Supporters Club.

Now, I can see that the longer I leave things, the worse it’s going to get, so I grab hold of her and seal her mouth with my lips. This calms things down a lot and she wriggles into my body like she’s trying to find a way through it. She can certainly kiss can Pat and what with that and her fingers running up and down my spine and ruffling my hair it’s easy for the lower half of my body to suddenly decide it’s deeply in love with her.

“So you got the job?” I say when we come up for air.

“Fuck the job,” she says, “Wheeeeee!”

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever leaned against the wall and been kissed by a girl who has one foot on the floor and one on your shoulder, but it’s quite an experience, I can tell you. And what you can do with your hands is nobody’s business.

After we’ve tried that one for a few minutes, she goes through her whole repertoire. High kicks, the splits, everything. There’s buttons popping like Guy Fawkes night and her dress is open right down the front so I can see she’s only wearing a pair of black lace panties underneath – it’s fantastic. She whizzes round the room about five times and then collapses on the bed.

Well, there’s probably about three blokes in the world who would have tip-toed out to get her an ice pack at that moment but I’m not one of them. I’ve got my clothes off faster than a kid unwraps a Christmas present and in no time I’m guiding her knicks down over her knees while she starts grinding her arse into the bed and baring her teeth.

I would like to be able to say that we made love, but I’d be boasting.

She made love and I tried to keep up with her. What an experience!

Whatever you’ve heard about dancers and muscle control – it’s true. Every bloody word of it. All those ladies you see swinging about on ropes at the circus; I bet their old men are walking round with smiles on their faces. This girl can grip you like she’s got a second pair of hands – and as for what she does when she’s got you. Five minutes with Pat and you know how a table cloth feels when it’s being shaken out of the window. She can do the splits with you inside her so that she’s playing footsie and tickling your ear with her big toe at the same time.

Like I said, I’m just lying back and hoping she doesn’t break it off. The whole room is bouncing up and down in time with me and it occurs to me it might be a good idea to lock the door if only to spoil Drakey’s view, through the keyhole.

I am glancing towards it when I suddenly notice the cupboard door start to swing open and close again. It wouldn’t be a surprise if it fell right off it’s hinges but to open and close. That’s strange. Bloody strange. I watch closely and it actually clicks shut. That’s it!

I leap out of bed nearly leaving my cock behind, and tear open the cupboard door. A bloke I’ve never seen before in my life is cowering behind it with his fly buttons open. I won’t tell you what he’s been doing but, according to my Mum, it stands a good chance of stunting his growth if not actually leading to total blindness.

“You bastard!” I shout and I belt him so he goes down in a heap of shoes and coat hangers.

“I don’t think you two have met,” says Pat over my shoulder. “Timmy, this is Mr. Wiseman who is auditioning me today. Tell me, Mr. Wiseman, have I got the part?”

He doesn’t answer because I kick him in the goolies so hard it sprains my ankle.

“You dirty bitch,” I yell, turning on Pat. “I thought you were the girl who never let any bleeding theatrical monkey touch her?”

“I need the work,” she screams. “Do you think I want to spend the rest of my life in this crummy room? Do you think I wanted to do that? Why do you think I’m drunk? Oh, my God.” And she bursts into tears and throws herself on the bed.

She’s just done that when there’s a furious banging on the door and Drakey starts demanding to know what’s going on. I’m not really in the mood to tell him so I pull on my trousers while Pat’s screaming gets louder, the bloke in the cupboard is sick and somebody else starts thumping on the wall.

It’s getting a bit noisy for me so I pick up my jacket and open the door just as Drakey takes a run at it. He sails past me and ends up on the bed with Pat who fetches him a back hander in the mouth.

“Don’t move,” I say. “I always want to remember you like that.”

CHAPTER NINE

You may be thinking that I meet a lot of funny people – well I do. People are funny. When you get inside their homes you find out. How many times have you heard somebody say “ooh, I wish I could have been a fly on the wall.” Well, I am sometimes, just that. I spend my day looking into hundreds of little boxes, some of which have people in. Most of the time nothing is happening but, now and then, very occasionally, something is. Most people still make love indoors, and kill each other indoors, sometimes one after the other. I haven’t seen a murder yet, but I’ve been close to it. People get very worked up, and when they get worked up they look around for something to hit each other with. Once it was me.

Elvie was slim as a boy and flatter than a witches tit. Her hair was cropped close to her head and she had large soulful eyes with dark rings under them. She looked intelligent and intense and as if sex was the last thing she was interested in. She had a self contained flat in one of the big Victorian houses in Nightingale Lane and as it was right at the top I had to ring the bell to get in.

“Window cleaner.” I say cheerfully when she opens the door.

“Oh, yes,” she seems to be thinking about something else, and hardly glances at me. “You’d better come in.”

Inside, the flat is very light and well furnished. There’s a big round chinese lamp that lets down from the ceiling on a kind of pulley; built in bookshelves – some with books, some with ornaments, cream wall-to-wall carpeting and a huge double bed with a white bedspread on it and purple velvet cushions. The curtains match the cushions and are gathered with gold sashes. All in all it’s like something in one of those glossy magazines you find at the dentists. I would like to have a room like it one day. Especially that double bed. It would just about fill the whole of my pad at home.

There is another room leading off which I take to be the kitchen because I can hear the sound of something cooking.

“Excuse me,” she says unnecessarily, and goes into the kitchen. At least she trusts me which is something. You’d be amazed how many people are scared you will start nicking everything in sight the moment their back is turned. I’ve had birds hovering about me I was certain were hungry for a bit of the other, only to find out they were worried about their Post Office Savings book.

There’s a small balcony outside and I hop out and have a little wipe around with my mind idling happily in neutral. The sun is shining and there’s that faint hint of warmth in the air that reminds me of spring – for two pins I’d start whistling the score of Snow White.

In this mood, it is therefore a disappointment and a surprise to find the girl who opened the door kneeling by the bed and crying bitterly. In my simple way I imagine that she must have been trying some new recipe and made a cock of it, as opposed to the French version of the same thing.

I spring into the room and place a friendly hand on her shoulder and enquire what the matter is. From her reaction to my touch you would think I was the Beast from Fifty Thousand Fathoms or John Wayne in drag. She twists away from me and starts chewing on her knuckles.

“What’s the matter?” I say, feeling a bit of a tit. “I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what the trouble is.”

You can see what a bloody good child welfare officer I would have made can’t you? The girl still won’t answer so I am forced to continue with my kindly uncle Timmy routine.

“Is it something you’ve messed up in the kitchen? I know, you’ve just got married and you’ve burned the apple crumble. Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter.”

At the mention of the word marriage the bird redoubles her sobs and I decide to bury the kindly uncle Timmy routine. Also, and it’s a bit naughty to say this, I find women very sexy when they start crying. I love the way their bodies heave when they’re sobbing; and their wet little faces and moist lips; and the thought that beastly, rugged, brutish old me did it and is so masculine that he might have to kill himself. Terrible isn’t it? But there you are. So, I really have to watch myself when a bird starts crying. Luckily, I know the signs and I’m turning to leave when she suddenly rounds on me.

“Do you know what love is?” she says, and her voice is splintering like a piece of bamboo.

Now this is a very good question and one that I have thought of for myself. I am pretty certain that the answer is no, so my reply is a formality.

“Yes,” I say, “Of course I do. Why, is that what the trouble is?”

“Supposing you loved someone and they suddenly said they didn’t love you anymore and wanted to go off with someone else?”

“Well, I don’t know.” It’s the truth, I don’t know. You could do anything, couldn’t you? Kill him, kill her, kill yourself, shrug your shoulders and go off for a pint. I don’t know.

“Supposing they’d told you once that they would die without you and would never leave you. How would you feel then?”

“I’d feel terrible. I know I would. Look, this has happened to you, hasn’t it?” Notice how my radar mind homes immediately on the truth. “I probably sound callous but it happens to everybody sooner or later. You’ve just got to look at it as experience. In a few weeks you’ll wonder what you were getting so worked up about.”

Good advice isn’t it? If you didn’t know, you’d think I had some idea what I was talking about.

“You’ve never loved anbody,” she says.

“What makes you say that?”

“If you’d ever been in love, really in love, you couldn’t make that kind of glib, smug generalisation. Love invades you, it goes into you like a bullet, turns you over like a spade—”

Her voice dies away and she rests her head on the counterpane so I can see one wide-open shiny eye glinting like a diamond. Now I can smell her; that aroused, liberated smell like a patch of grass after rain. It works on me much better than any perfume ever invented. But, what am I thinking about. It’s like taking advantage of somebody lying on a hospital bed. I shouldn’t be thinking the things I’m thinking.