by Timothy Lea
“No, dear. I was trying to look at the one on the dashboard and one of the spokes of the driving wheel was in the way.”
“So you moved it?”
“That’s right, dear. I suppose it was rather silly of me, wasn’t it?”
I watch the water slurping against the hub caps and nod my head slowly.
“Yeah. I think it probably was.”
I get out slamming the door rather harder than is necessary to shut it and look back along the tyre tracks to where a posse of lucky-to-be-alive bystanders and side-leapers is beginning to close in on us. The tracks directly behind the vehicle have now disappeared and the Morris is settling comfortably into the sand like an old lady into a bath-chair.
Thinking of old ladies reminds me of Miss Frankcom and I wade round to the driver’s seat and suggest that she gets out.
“But it’s wet,” she exclaims in horror. “I’m not stepping into that. You’ll have to carry me.”
Either that or wait for a boat to take her off. The sea doesn’t mess about round here when it decides to do something and already the occasional wave is smacking against the side of the door. So, adding insult to injury, I have to stagger up the beach with this monstrous old rat bag threatening to ruin my marriage prospects with every stride. I dump her beside the first aid post—closed of course—and look around desperately for a telephone. If I don’t find a garage soon, I will need an underwater salvage team.
Luckily this isn’t necessary because the fishermen have a contraption which winches their boats up the slipway and moving at a speed not normally associated with East Anglians they have secured a wire to the back axle and are dragging the Morris up the beach.
But not quite fast enough. Across the beach wings Gruntscomb of the Echo, waving his arms and pausing every few strides to unleash another volley of camera shots at this newshound’s dream. I attempt to hide behind a boat but Gruntscomb’s eyes don’t miss much.
“Mr. Lea, isn’t it? Good heavens. Don’t tell me you were in this one as well. Fantastic! What happened? You what? Unbelievable! Quite unbelievable! Lucky to be alive, eh? What about your passenger? Miss Frankcom? Oh, her! I’ve heard about her. Taken the test fifty times, hasn’t she? Thirteen. Oh, I thought it was more than that. Oh well, it doesn’t matter.” Click, click, click. “You like water, don’t you? No, I’m sorry. Of course it isn’t funny. Yes, I’m sorry you didn’t like our last story. Most people thought it was very good, but there you are. Oh, is that Miss Frankcom? I must have a word with her. Miss Frankcom, Miss Frankcom!” And he pisses off across the beach to where Miss F. has foolishly revealed herself. Apart from jumping on him and his camera and burying them both in the sand, there is very little I can do, so I return to the Morris which looks like a boiled sweet some toddler has spat out into an ash can and imagine Cronk’s face when he opens his morning paper or the Norfolk Mafia get on the blower to him.
To my amazement the engine fires first time which is either a credit to British engineering or an indication that it is getting used to working on a mixture of petrol and water. I dish out some silver to my fishermen friends: “You be lucky there, bor” and pull alongside Miss Frankcom who is clearly relishing Gruntscomb’s greasy attentions.
“No, I haven’t tried the Major School,” she is saying. “After so long with the East Coast I feel I should see the thing through with them. To change now would be an admission of failure. Almost like giving up.”
“Touting for business, are you?” I snarl.
Gruntscomb looks aggrieved. “No, I was just trying to get the whole story. I wondered if this incident would have any effect on Miss Frankcom’s future plans.”
“No, dear,” says Miss Frankcom considerately, “it was an accident and I don’t blame Mr. Lea for anything.”
That’s enough for me and I bundle her into the Morris before she can say anything else more quotable.
“You must be shaken after that,” I say comfortingly, “let me run you home.”
“Aren’t we going to finish the lesson?” she says.
Somehow I manage to resist strangling her—mainly because I don’t reckon my hands will fit round her bloody great throat—and dump her outside her bungalow. I am so choked that I could easily drive the Morris over the nearest cliff but I know Gruntscomb would be waiting there with his crummy little camera poised for action so there is no point. Why should I give the bastard any more free material?
Determined to make a clean breast of it I give the Morris a wipe down and return to the E.C.D.S. where Dawn, presumably wearing dark glasses to celebrate it being the coldest day of the year, looks up as I come in.
“Where’s Miss Frankcom?” she says.
“Good question, I filled her knickers with paving stones and pushed her off the end of the pier.”
“Did she sink?”
“Not her. She was running up the beach thirty seconds later shaking like a golden retriever. Where’s Cronky?”
“He’s out playing golf. Where is she, really?”
“You mean you haven’t heard yet? I thought the telephone would have been ringing all afternoon. I could hear the drums beating outside the coast guard station.”
“You haven’t had another accident? I don’t believe it!”
So I tell her what happened and I must say she is quite sympathetic in a “well I never” “ooh er, you didn’t” sort of way. It is the first time I have ever known her show any emotion apart from when she spilt nail varnish on her new tights and in my present mood her interest is most welcome.
“What are you going to do?” she asks eventually.
“Go out and get pissed … the minute the pubs open,” I say, “do you want to keep me company?”
To my surprise she takes the invitation seriously and I can see her little mind ticking over.
“I don’t fancy sitting in a pub all night,” she says, “but there’s a dance at the Shermer Young Conservatives—” her voice tails away temptingly.
“Will they let me in? I haven’t brought my passport with me.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s nice. They’ve got a good band up there.”
So a few hours later I am building up my confidence with a few pints in the “Three Jolly Rapists” or whatever Mrs. Bendon’s local is called and thinking of the reproachful look in her eyes as I slid out of the house in my zoot suit. A frilly blouse she had on and when you look down her cleavage it’s a poor reason to be leaving home on a cold night.
Luckily Dawn, running down the concrete path of her council house looks a very reasonable alternative even if it is by lamplight. Not the kind of girl you would take home to mother perhaps, but dad would be very grateful. She smells like homage to “California Poppy” and has bloody great curtain rings hanging down from her ears, but her tits stick out where tits ought to stick out and her mouth looks a bit more exciting than the slit in a pillar box—not much smaller, mind you, but more inviting. I feel the dark glasses could be dispensed with but I don’t want to pick a fight with her at this stage of the evening.
“You look fabulous!” I say, and from my waist down I mean it.
Shermer Y.C.s hold their dances at the tennis club and from the “Shermerlins” to the cider cup the festivities live down to my expectations so completely as to be not worth describing, but luckily I have taken steps to make good the foreseen absence of strong liquor by bringing my own half bottle of scotch. With this, I lace every drink sipped by the fair Dawn until she is snuggling up to me as if I am her favourite teddy. I do nothing to disillusion her and am awaiting the right moment to suggest we hit the trail when I notice a familiar face propped up by the doorway.
It belongs to the long blond streak of piss that drove me off the road. Tony Fart-features or whatever his name was supposed to be. As I see him so he recognises me and our eyes meet with not enough love left over for a parish funeral. He sneers and turns away and my fists contract. My first reaction is to belt the living daylights out of him, but there are other consider
ations. Am I going to risk leaving this gorgeous half-cut hunk of mammal sleepily kneeding my thigh for a mere affair of honour? Am I buggery! I can catch up with shag-nasty any day of the week. Tonight I intend to be up at the crack of Dawn.
“Come on, gorgeous,” I murmur into one of her stretched ears—those earrings really are heavy—“time to go home.”
She doesn’t argue and I half carry her to ‘Ladies Cloaks’ and hope she doesn’t fall asleep inside.
While I’m waiting I take another look around the dance floor and watch. Tony Sharp waltzing with a pert little brunette who he seems to be massaging into his body like embrocation. Whoever it is, she obviously fancies him, which, I guess, makes two of them. I try to catch his eye for a further staring match but he is too busy to notice and they disappear into a scrum of bodies.
Behind me the door opens and my dream girl lurches out. She has left her dark glasses behind but I don’t care because it gives me my first opportunity of the evening to admire the acres of mascara plastered round her eyes.
“You look fabulous,” I say pulling her towards me by the lapels of her synthetic fur coat. I may have said this before, but I can’t say it often enough: always tell them they look great. You will never find a woman who will think any less of you for it.
I kiss her gently on the side of the cheek—it’s like kissing a flourbag—and steer her outside. In the car park, it is as cold as an eskimo’s chuff and that is a real passion-killer. I can see Dawn coming round faster than if I had poured a bucket of cold water over her. This is obviously death to my plans so I push her into the car and turn the heater up to full before remarking casually that I think I may have a drop of whisky somewhere and would she care for a reviving sip. “Never touch the stuff,” she says primly, which shows how much she knows. I take a quick shot and making a low grunting noise, which is meant to indicate that I can’t resist the pull of her overpowering, female magnetism any longer, attempt to take her in my arms.
“Not here, you fool,” she says as if we had been sitting on the high altar in Westminster Abbey and, in fairness, I suppose that to someone like Dawn, a mixture of the Y.C.s and the Tennis Club is a bit overpowering.
“Sorry,” I say gazing moodily into her virtually invisible face, “but you’re looking marvellous.”
I am cheered by her “not here” because it obviously means that it will be alright somewhere else, and this is where I intend to take her as quickly as possible. Back along the coast road we spin with me humming “I’m in the mood for love” and her head dropping down against my shoulder in a gesture I first interpret as affection and then—when I hear the snores—realise means she is falling asleep. I adjust the heater to spark her up a bit and pull off the road on to a parking area affording a view of two large concrete litter bins and the North Sea—in that order.
I switch off the ignition and Dawn shakes herself awake.
“Ooh, I was just dropping off. Where are we?”
“Somewhere where I can kiss you,” I say. “You really are fantastic.”
With all the trouble and expense I have put into this evening I have really got to believe it and I sweep down on the mouth she thoughtfully offers like a hot avalanche. “Fantastic breasts,” I murmur, inserting my hand into her coat and running my fingers over them gently. Normally I might pursue this line a bit longer, but as I get older I get more impatient and my evil little fingers soon drop down to floor level and start climbing up again.
This is the moment when any great artist holds his breath. Will the thighs slam shut? Will steel-grip fingers close round my wrist? Will her body stiffen and her head jerk back?”
“You don’t waste any time, do you?” she says, opening her legs a little wider to make it easier for me, “you might have warmed your hands up first!” Once my fingers are strolling round that delicious, honeyed moisture, I feel like a flat battery that has been plugged into a generator. A charge of lust floods through my system and I have her knicks and tights in the glove compartment before you can say Mary Whitehouse. Dawn hangs on to my arms and makes a few moaning noises but she is not a great contributor—more the lie-back-and-enjoy-it-while-you-get-on-with-it type.
In my present mood of animal rapture I can put up with this and I drop between her legs and start trying to get to grips with it. My efforts are crowned with something less than success because the gear stick gets stuck up the back of my belt and the room I have to work in makes a changing cubicle in a London boutique seem like the stateroom of Queen Mary. Of course, we could go outside but this might lead to frostbite of the hampton and even the detour to the back seat could be dangerous.
I am now reckless with desire and drag the protesting Dawn over into the back seat and manoeuvre her into a position across my thighs. By this time the whole adventure has no chance of becoming a follow-up to “The Sound of Music” and sweat is pouring down the inside of the windows. Nevertheless, I am not a man who is put off by his surroundings and I bring the episode to a noisy and successful—for me at least—conclusion with a few dynamic thrusts which I could swear—when I step outside to rearrange my clothing—have moved the Morris a few feet nearer another trip to the beach. Just in case you should think me careless, I should add that she has breathed those words every man yearns to hear—“It’s alright, I’m on the pill.”
The journey home is inevitably an anticlimax with Dawn struggling into her tights and grumbling about feeling sick and me wishing I had punched Sharp on the nose when I had the chance. It’s sad how all the romance evaporates so quickly, isn’t it?
I drop Dawn off, telling her I will see her in the morning which doesn’t surprise her much, and nip back to Mrs. B’s. Maybe it is because I am tired or pissed, or both, but I am a bit careless and stagger in through the door with half Dawn’s make-up smeared across my face. Mrs. B has obviously been waiting up for me and when she sees me, an expression close to pain flashes across her face. I start to say something but her nostrils flare like a fish’s gills and I am left with the swish of her nightgown as she turns and sweeps upstairs. Bang! goes the bedroom door and I have a nasty suspicion that relations are going to be a bit strained from now on.
CHAPTER SIX
Breakfast the next morning has as much snap, crackle and pop as a damp cornflake and I am relieved when I can escape from the brooding Mrs. B. and head for the E.C.D.S. At least my reception there won’t be silent. If Mrs. B. goes on like this, I will have to change my lodgings, though probably after my latest episode, that will be taken care of for me.
I am working out my best approach to Cronk when I notice a primrose Rolls Royce pull up alongside me at the traffic lights. It is cleaner than a choirboy’s foreskin and has a venetian blind at the back and a few magenta cushions scattered along the width of the rear window. The driver is about fifty, with close-cropped hair, a small waxed moustache and a pillar box red complexion. He is wearing a camel hair overcoat and backless driving gloves and tapping the wheel impatiently whilst peering fixedly at the red light. Even before I see Sharp sitting by his side I feel positive it must be Major Minto. Neither of them takes any notice of me and as the amber comes up, the car leaps forward and roars out of sight. Nobody at M.S.M. seems to like driving slowly.
I get to the E.C.D.S. before nine o’clock but it is not early enough to beat Garth, Crippsy, Lester and Petal who are all hovering like expectant vultures and waving their morning papers.
“Ooh, but you’ve had it this time, ducky,” squeals Petal, “front page news on half the nationals. Cronky is going to go out of his tiny mind.”
Sure enough “The Sun” carries one of Gruntscomb’s poxy photographs with “How Miss Frankcom was driven to the drink” plastered above it and the “Express” combines that with a picture of the duckpond incident under the headlines “How to make a splash as a driving instructor”. Very funny. Gruntscomb has obviously done a world-class job.
I have no more time to sample the wit of the British press because Cronk sweeps through wi
th an expression on his face like a man who has had his “Special K” laced with cement. He says nothing but merely jerks his thumb at me to follow him into his office.
“Is it going to be like this every day?” says Petal. “I can’t wait to see tomorrow’s papers.”
I tell him to get his roots tinted and pad after Cronk.
“Now—” he starts, but then the telephone rings. He lets it ring for a few moments and then snatches it up. “Where the hell is that girl? She’s never on—. Hello, East Coast Driving School. Oh, I was just beginning to wonder where you were. Yes, I’m sorry to hear that. O.K. Well get in when you can. Goodbye.” He slams down the ’phone. “She’s got ’flu and won’t be in today. Now—” His ’phone rings again. “Good morning, East Coast Driving School, Cronk speaking. Oh yes. Did you—wait a minute. I’m afraid my girl’s away, I’ll have to get the book.” He turns to me. “Get the appointment book from Dawn’s desk.” I hand it to him and he flips through the pages. “Yes, we can manage tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock. You know where we are? And the fees? Good. Oh did you? But then things do get exaggerated a bit you know. Yes, well, goodbye. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” He puts down the ’phone and turns back to me.
“The dual control packed in,” I say desperately. “You can check it yourself if you like.”
“I will do that. Now perhaps you can explain how the Echo seems to be following you about everywhere you go. This publicity could ruin us.”
The telephone goes again. “Good morning. East Coast Driving School. Yes, yes. Yes I think we can.” He flips through the book again. “Mrs. Dobson? Fine. Right, we’ll see you then. Oh, did you? Yes, I know what you mean. I’m talking to the young man now. Do you? Well, we’ll have to see about that, Mrs. Dobson. It all depends on our rotation schedules. Goodbye.” He puts the ’phone down and shakes his head. “Woman must be mad, quite me-add! Now, where was I—oh yes, I was talking about all this rubbish in the papers. It’s making us a laughing stock. At your current rate of progress, we’ll be out of business in a few weeks if I go on employing you.” The ’phone rings again.
