Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

“You must be joking. That’s what you’d pay up the West End. For family it comes a bit more expensive. Twenty-five nicker.”

“Nice bleeder, aren’t you? You’d make a good ponce.”

“Thanks. It takes one to know one. Just take it as being damages for breach of promise.”

“I never promised anything.”

“O.K. Well, consider yourself an unofficial co-respondent.”

“It’s more like bloody blackmail.”

“It is bloody blackmail and you’re bloody lucky to get off with twenty-five nicker and a bunch of fives up the bracket.”

“O.K. Well, I suppose it was worth it.”

“Don’t push it.”

And so on those pleasant terms we part with Sid lighter by the weight of five crisp fivers which he counts three times in case an extra one might have got stuck to them.

It is shortly after this event that, much to my father’s surprise and mother’s sorrow, Sid makes good his promise and moves Rosie and Jason into the wonderful new world of a Span flat, overlooking the common. Dad congratulates himself that it is his non-stop rabbiting that has done the trick but I have a shrewd suspicion that it is the threat of me blurting out a few home truths to Rosie—plus the not inconsequential demands I am making upon his surplus funds. Some might feel the odd pang of guilt, but I console myself with the thought that I am feathering my beloved sister’s nest as well as my own.

With the departure of the Boggetts (that was Sid’s name, poor sod) I move my photographs of the Chelsea football team (F.A. and European Cup winners: ‘We are the champions’) down to their bedroom and prepare to lord it a bit. But things don’t work out the way I’ve hoped. Mum is distraught about losing ‘her little Jason’ and keeps going on about all his lovable little habits like pissing in the coal bucket, and Dad misses having Sid to whine at and starts taking it out on me. Between the two of them, they are beginning to make me feel quite nostalgic for the old days. What I would have done next I’ll never know because at that moment fate intervenes and the whole course of my life is changed at one stroke. Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it? Oh, well, please yourself.

I have already mentioned that I shared a window cleaning business with Sid and readers of the previous volume of my memoirs (Confessions of a Window Cleaner—Sphere 1971. Ed.) will recall that this led to the odd entanglement with what my old schoolmaster used to call members of the opposite sex. It was such an occasion that led to my eventual, and literal, downfall.

I remember the day well because it was late summer and very hot in a way that only happens in the week after everyone has come back from their August bank holiday. Dogs panted in shadowy doorways and the heat seemed to muffle the noises of the street so that I might have been working in a dream as I lazily swept my squeegee over the top floor windows. I was operating in the front garden of a row of comfortable middle-class semi-detacheds behind Nightingale Lane and was stripped to the waist, not because I wanted to give any bird the come-on, but because I wanted to improve my suntan—though the two things are not entirely unconnected. Most of the windows round here are thicker with net curtains than Dracula’s wedding veil, but Mrs. Dunbar must have had hers in the wash because I can see straight through into her kiddies’ nursery.

Mrs. D. is on her hands and knees behind a rocking horse, and I note with satisfaction the pattern of her knickers showing through her skirt as her delicious little arse bulges over her haunches. Mrs. D. is a regular client of mine but I’ve never had an inkling that there might be anything there for me. To be honest, I find her a bit upper-class and self-confident. I prefer a bird who is more dithery and unsure of herself. Nevertheless, in my sun-sated mood and with a couple of pints from the wood inside me, there are a lot worse things to look at. She has the horse’s tail in her hand and turns towards me and shrugs her shoulder. This is a gesture she could repeat to advantage because she isn’t wearing a bra and her breasts give a little jump like startled kittens. I can see the kittens’ noses, too, pressing temptingly out towards me. Cruel Mrs. D. No animal lover should be so frustrated. The no-bra look has been slow to penetrate into the Clapham and Wandsworth Common area and is another indication of upper-class sophistication and decadence which leaves me trembling with a mixture of desire and impotence—two bedfellows that seldom give each other much pleasure.

Mrs. D.’s gesture is meant to indicate that she doesn’t know what to do with the rocking horse’s tail and a number of tempting alternatives flash across my mind. I reject them and take the opportunity to close the distance between us.

“Let me give you a hand,” I say gallantly, and I’m over the sill before she can say ‘Piss off.’

“Oh, that’s kind of you,” she says breezily. “I’m afraid he’s seen better days.” She isn’t joking because most of the leather-work is hanging off and the screws that hold the horse to its frame all need tightening up. I make a few tut-tutting noises and send her off for the tools to do the job. The way her eyes flit lightly across my pectorals does not escape me. When she comes back I’m tapping in tacks and she asks me if I’ve got any children.

“Don’t think so. What makes you ask?”

“You seem to know how to mend toys.”

“My sister and her husband used to live with us. The kid smashed everything it could get its hands on. I got plenty of practice. You know what kids are like. They enjoy taking things to pieces but they don’t want to put them together again.”

She nods.

“So you’re not married?”

“No. I was thinking about it, but things didn’t work out. You must be, though. How many kids have you got.”

“Two. They’re with their father at the moment. We’re separated.”

“Oh, I am sorry.” In fact, I’m chuffed to NAAFI breaks because there is nothing more likely to put the mockers on a beautiful romance than the threat of a couple of kids bundling in on you at any moment.

“Don’t be. I’m not.” She rubs her hands together lightly and pats her hair. “You’re a fabulous colour.”

“It’s easy on this job.”

“I envy you when it’s like this.”

“Well, you haven’t got far to go yourself.”

“I have to think of the neighbours. Would you like a beer? I think there’s some in the ’fridge.”

Another sign of class. Mostly it’s a cup of tea with my customers. But whatever it is, any form of refreshment is a favourable omen. Many is the pot of cha I’ve known to go cold with only the two cups out of it.

“That’s very kind of you.”

A few moments later she’s back just as I’ve finished the rocking horse.

“Oh, that’s much better. I’d hardly recognise him. The children will be pleased. I hope this is all right. It’s lager.”

“Smashing! Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

I’m down on the floor so I lean back against my handiwork and rub the cool glass against my cheek. She is standing above me pulling at the horse’s bridle as if it is real. I can see up her skirt but not as far as I’d like to. I feel keyed up the way I do just before going out to play football. The sunlight is coming through the window in chunks so you can see thousands of particles of dust dancing in it.

“You said you were nearly married once, didn’t you?”

“Did I?”

“Yes. You implied it, anyway. What went wrong? Forgive me asking, but it’s a subject I’m particularly interested in at the moment.”

“I found the bird I fancied having it away with my brother-in-law.”

“The one that lives at home with your sister?”

“He used to. They’ve got a flat up by the common now.”

“You didn’t like that? I mean, him sleeping with your girlfriend?”

“Not very much. I mean, it doesn’t seem the best recommendation for your future wife, does it?”

“I don’t know. At least you know where you stand with her.”

“It’s who else is standing with her I’d be worried about.”

“You’re the jealous type?”

“You could put it like that.”

“Jealousy is a very self-destructive emotion.”

“Not with me, it isn’t. I’m the last person that gets destroyed.”

“Surely the concept of sexual faithfulness is a bit out of date, isn’t it? Are you seriously going to tell me you will remain faithful to your wife when you do get married? The opportunities you must have in a job like this.”

I try to look as if the thought had never occurred to me.

“I reckon it’s difficult for me.”

I know this remark is going to get her all worked up, but there is no point in putting off saying it. I’m all for complete sexual freedom for women in theory, but the moment some horny bastard gets near my bird a phial of sulphuric acid explodes in my stomach and little green bells start ringing as I look around for an axe. That’s the way I am and I can’t see myself changing.

“Oh God! Even my far from successful marriage had progressed beyond that hoary old male chestnut.” Mrs. D.’s tone is as contemptuous as I had expected it to be. “Why should you have complete freedom to take sex just whenever you want it, whilst your little woman is supposed to sit at home and keep your supper warm?”

I have now decided that the kittens look more like small, fretful tigers jostling each other to escape and get at me. I am prepared for this eventuality.

“You mean to tell me,” I say seriously, borrowing one of J.C.’s successful argumentative devices, “that if your old man came in now and saw us—um, er—” (the indecision is intentional; I don’t want to sound too sure of myself) “making love, he wouldn’t mind?”

“No, of course not. No more than if he found me enjoying a bit of quiche lorraine.” (I don’t understand what she’s on about, but I imagine it must be French for a muff job. Outspoken lady, isn’t she?) “It’s no more than an appetite and as such, it can be controlled.”

“And if it was the other way round, you wouldn’t get annoyed?”

“Good heavens, no.”

“Then what went wrong with your marriage?”

“I found out I didn’t love him any more. It had nothing to do with sex. I was seven years younger than him and I changed—he didn’t. Suddenly I found we had nothing in common.”

I can sense that I have to get things moving pretty quickly, otherwise we’re going to end up having a natter that only needs Adam Faith and the Archbishop of Woolwich to get it on Sunday evening telly. I am still lying down and I want to bring her down to my level. It’s no good with her leaning against the bedroom door. I can’t just get up and grab her, because that is not my style. There is still some lager in my glass so I put it down beside me and then promptly knock it over.

“Oh, sorry. I am a clumsy berk.”

“It doesn’t matter; there’s a cloth in the bathroom.”

She goes out and I dab ineffectually at the stain with my handkerchief until she comes back. Then she’s on her hands and knees beside me and her delicious tits bounce up and down whilst I ache to close my hands around them. Her vest hangs open, and it is like looking into a sackful of apples. “Do something!” shouts the voice inside me. The soft down of hairs on her forearm glistens gold and matches the curls gently caressing the smooth, white valleys behind her ears. “Do something!” She gives one last stain-dispersing rub and sits back on her haunches. The outline of her pants now runs across her stretched skirt like an extra seam. She takes a deep breath and there’s no doubt about it, she’s a real knock-out. “Do something!” The message gets home to me and I lean forward for what is intended to be a gentle, respectful kiss, capable of interpretation as mute admiration rather than slow rape. Trouble is that she suddenly leans forward at the vital moment and nudges me in the mouth with her temple. I taste blood immediately and she doesn’t make things any better by laughing. Nothing bright and breezy leaps to my lips and, sensing my discomfiture, she gives me a light kiss on the cheek.

“I’m sorry—” she begins, but when a Lea’s passions are roused and his pride stung, tidal waves are like a kid’s widdle. I grab her above the elbows and pull her on to my mouth. She struggles a bit and then goes limp so that I can release the pressure on her arms and send my finger up to stroke her cheeks. I suck her lips and her tongue darts against mine. She is rubbing those fantastic tits against my chest and her fingers claw underneath the belt of my jeans. I may have misread the signs but I don’t think she is going to start hollering for a cop.

I kiss her eyelids and with the delicacy of a master surgeon run my fingers along her backbone, dwelling momentarily on each firm protuberance. Her vest is cramping our style and I tug it upwards until the delicious breasts bound into my eager hands and I can soothe the fretting nipples with my kindly caress. Such a shape they have, and so firm. The vest must go and she writhes rhythmically like an athlete winding up to throw the discus, before slipping it over her shoulders. Unimpeded, I now drop my mouth and browse between her breasts, near suffocating in their rich, firm fullness. My hands scout for the hook on her skirt and tug it open, down with the zip, and I can feel the soft sheen of her pants. Her fingers are not idle and she fumbles with my belt, grumbling under her breath. I flip over on my back and slip down my trousers, pants, shoes and socks like a snake shedding its skin. She lies across my chest and her hand tip-toes down to explore between my legs. Deliciously naked and warm in the sun-filled room, I kiss her hard and send my tongue deep into her mouth so that her hand tightens around my fullness and her body squirms against mine. I have had enough of games and even vein and muscle in my body throbs to be at her.

“I want you inside me.”

She tears the words from my mouth and slowly turns on to her back like a frivolous cat, her half-parted lips hinting at the pleasure to come. For a second I savour her and then I am between her legs, pulling down her skirt and slowly removing her pants—women love having their knickers taken off—before softly gauging her readiness with my fingers. She gives a little gasp and stretches out her hand imploringly.

“Please,” she says. “Please put it in.”

Maybe it is an hour later, maybe longer. I don’t know. All I do know is that the sun is still shining, the room is still warm and I have been asleep. Mrs. D. is dozing beside me and I am looking straight into the eyes—or rather eye—of a scruffy teddy bear.

“Penny!”

The voice is loud and male and does not belong to the teddy bear—not that it is coming from much further away.

“Penny! Where the hell are you?”

Mrs. D.’s eyes open and then open a whole lot more. Her head bounces off the floor and she swallows half the air in the room.

Now, at this moment, I should have remembered that Mrs. D. and her husband were separated and that he wasn’t the jealous type anyway. I should have lain back and called out, “We’re in here, old chap. Won’t be a sec. Why don’t you fix yourself a gin and T. and we’ll be right down?” and he would have coughed apologetically and said, “Gosh, I’m most awfully sorry. Hope I didn’t disturb you, what? See you in a few mins.” Then I could have had Mrs. D. again and gone downstairs to talk about how the soil around here was lousy for lupins.

But, of course, I don’t do any of those things. Maybe it’s the look in Mrs. D.’s eyes or maybe it’s the size of the voice outside, or maybe it’s just instinct; but anyway, I’m half way across the room as the door knob starts turning. I pause pathetically, considering snatching up a few clothes, and then launch myself on to the ladder. As I swivel round, my eye captures the scene like a camera. Door flung open, bloody great rugby type filling the space it occupies, Mrs. D. cowering with her pants in one hand and the other draped across her tits. Mr. D. (I have no reason to suppose it is anyone else) sinks the scene in one gulp and bounces Mrs. D. across the room with a belt round the side of the bonce which would have stopped Joe Frazier.

I feel like telling him that I agree with him entirely and that he has all my sympathy, but I don’t think he wants to talk to me. His eyes flash towards the window and as my head drops out of sight I see him reaching for something. This turns out to be a hobby horse, as I find when he swings it at my head like a mace. The expression on his face would scar your dreams for years.

“I’ll kill you, you bastard,” he screams, and he doesn’t have to go on about it—I’m convinced. I’ve hardly had time to rejoice that I’m out of range than he changes his tactics. I’ve got the extension on and there’s a long drop to the ground. Mr. D. decides to speed up my journey and, jamming the hobby horse against the ladder, starts to push it away from the house. Like a prick, I hang on for grim death and scream at him instead of sliding. What a way to go! Stark bollock naked in the middle of Thurston Road! I see Dunbar’s face contorted in a self-satisfied effort and for a moment the ladder trembles. Then I’m going backwards, paralysed with fear, and the house is growing in front of me.

I try to jump and the next thing I know is this god-awful pain in my ankle and the feeling that all the breath has been dug out of my body with a spade.

I’m sprawled across the centre of the road, screaming with pain and fear, Mrs. D. is howling, the neighbours’ windows are slamming open, cars are squealing to a halt, and suddenly a quiet residential street seems like Trafalgar Square on Guy Fawkes night. I’m glad to see everyone, because any second I’m expecting Mr. D. to come bursting through his front door to finish the job. It’s amazing how the great British public react at a moment like this. They are interested all right, but not one of the bastards makes a move to help me. I might be a tailor’s dummy for all they care.

To my surprise, Mrs. D. is first to my side, and she’s alone, thank God. She drapes a blanket over me and that encourages a few helpmates to get me on to the pavement.

“What a load of crap about your husband,” I snarl. “If that was your husband.”

“Yes, yes,” she says, beaming round at the neighbours, who, observing her black eye, are no doubt putting two and two together and scoring well. “I’m sorry about that. He’s phoning for an ambulance now.”

“Sure it isn’t the morgue?”

“No, no.” She pats my arm and smiles again. “I’m sorry. I really am.” I close my eyes because I’m feeling sick, dizzy and knackered. Bugger the lot of them. When I open them again, it’s as I’m being lifted into the ambulance. Mrs. D. follows me in and gives my hand an affectionate squeeze.

“It was wonderful,” she says.

I won’t tell you what my reply was, but the ambulance man nearly dropped me on the floor.

CHAPTER TWO

It turns out that my ankle is broken in more places than a Foreign Secretary’s promises and they keep me in hospital for three days. I have a private room, which surprises me at first until I find out that it is courtesy of a certain Dr. Dunbar—small world, isn’t it? I make a few inquiries and it seems that this party has taken his wife and kids on a camping holiday to the South of France, so he isn’t around to be thanked. You could knock me down with a feather—or half a brick, if you had one handy. So Cupid Lea strikes again! What a carve-up! Why wasn’t I in the marriage guidance business? I might not be able to do myself any good, but I was obviously the kiss of death to the permissive society.

One of the advantages of a private room, apart from the fact that the other buggers couldn’t nosh your fruit, was that it gave you an uninterrupted crack at the nurses, and some were little darlings. I’ve always been kinky about black stockings and Florence Nightingale, and with one pert red-head the very presence of her thermometer under my tongue was enough to raise the bedclothes a couple of inches. There is nothing more randy-making than lying in bed with sod-all else to do but fiddle about under the bedclothes and by the end of my time, the nurses had to come into the room in pairs and my arm had grown half a foot grabbing at them. It didn’t do me any good, although I did corner the red head in the linen cupboard on my last morning and pin her against a pile of pillow cases with my crutch (the one you prop under your arm). I had just got one hand into that delicious no-man’s-land between stocking top and knickers (I hate tights) when Sister came in looking like a scraped beetroot and I had to say goodbye quickly. All very sad but life is full of little might-have-beens.

Eight weeks later it was time to take the plaster off and I was bloody grateful because every berk in the neighbourhood had used it as a scribbling pad to demonstrate his pathetic sense of humour. Word of my escapade had got around and there were a lot of cracks about ‘Batman’ and ‘Peter Pan’ which I found pretty childish.

I hate going to the Doctor because the waiting room smells of sick people and most of the magazines are older than I am. It is cold and badly lit and the stuffed owl in a glass case looks as if you’d only have to give it a nudge for all its feathers to fall out. Everybody seems healthy enough but I have a nasty feeling that underneath the clothes their bodies are erupting in a series of disgusting sores covering limbs held together by sellotape. Behind the serving hatch a parched slag of about 182 dispenses pills and indifference. In such an atmosphere I wonder why the N.H.S. doesn’t dispense a do-it-yourself knotting kit and have done with it.

When I get in to his surgery, Doctor Murdoch attacks my plaster as if gutting a fish that has done him a personal injury. From the look of him one would guess that he had just returned from a meths drinkers’ stag party. The sight of my ankle causes his prim lips to contract into walnuts and I can sympathise with him. The object we are both staring at looks like a swollen inner tube painted the colour of a gangrenous sunset.

“What do you do?” he barks.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean if you’re a ballroom dancer, you’d better get down to the labour exchange.”

“It’s going to be alright, isn’t it?” I whine. I mean, what with heart transplants and artificial kidneys you expect them to be able to mend a bloody broken ankle, don’t you?

“You’ll be able to walk on it, but I won’t make any promises about the next Olympic Games,” says Murdoch who must be a laugh riot at his medical school reunions.

“I’m a window cleaner,” I pipe.

“You were,” says Murdoch. “That ankle has been very badly broken. You can’t risk any antics on it. I’m amazed we’ve got it together as well as we have.” I’m speechless for a moment. All those windows, all those birds. I could weep just thinking about it. What are they going to do without me? What am I going to do without them?

Added to that, there is the money.

“Are you positive?” I gulp.

“Absolutely. Of course, you don’t have to take my advice but you’d be a damn fool to get on a ladder again.”

So there I am, redundant at 22. Lots of blokes would envy me but there is a crazy streak of ambition in the Leas and I’m too patriotic to go on National Assistance—at least for a few years yet. What am I going to do?

Broken-hearted, I manage to get pissed and return to the family home. As I have already indicated relations with Dad have been strained since Sid’s departure and my accident has not drawn forth the sympathy one could expect from a father figure. I suspect that this may be due to some of the rumours that have been circulating. “Look Mother,” he sings out as I come through the door. “It’s the Birdman of Alcatraz!”

This is really witty for Dad and besides confirming my suspicions is an unkind allusion to a few months I once spent at reform school.

“Shutup, you miserable old git!” I say.

“Don’t raise your voice to me, sonny,” says Dad, “otherwise I’ll start asking you when you first began to clean windows in the all-together. Got a nudist camp on the rounds, I suppose?”

Dad and Doctor Murdoch would make a wonderful comedy team, and I’m wondering what Hughie Green’s telephone number is when Mum chips in.