by Timothy Lea
‘Come here!’ The urgency in her voice surprises me.
‘I’ve brought the Bangos,’ I say, wondering why I am lowering my voice.
‘In here!’ she hisses.
I don’t argue with her but go into the shed. There are potatoes everywhere – well, not quite everywhere. Some of the room is taken up by a couple of birds. They are smoking snouts and wearing wellington boots, jeans and anoraks. Despite that, they look not unappealing. Especially the larger one. She reminds me of Silvana Big-knockers or whatever that earthy Italian bird was called. I remember seeing her in a season of continental films they had on at the Classic, Tooting. In every one of them she was standing up to her generation gap in the rice fields and getting gang banged by half a dozen blokes on a bit of wasteland behind a large block of flats. The films were pretty boring really, though I don’t think the subtitles helped. I mean, she was never saying ‘Be careful of my religious relics’ when the big geezer humped her through the wall of the shack.
‘You’re new, aren’t you?’ says the smaller one of the two birds.
‘Sort of,’ I say. ‘I haven’t done this before.’
The birds look at each other. ‘Really?’
‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘Where do you want it?’
The big bird stubs out her cigarette and blows the smoke out of her mouth like she can’t wait to get rid of it. ‘No need to rush it, ducks. We’re desperate, but not that desperate. What’s your name?’
‘Timmy Lea.’
‘I’m Noreen and this is Avril.’
‘That’s French for April,’ says the smaller charmer, helpfully.
I consider the ways in which this piece of information could change my life and make with the introductory nod. ‘You all muck in together, do you?’ I ask looking round at the shelves of potatoes presumably laid out to dry.
‘We take it in turns to slip off,’ says Noreen. ‘Anyway, there’s never enough fellas for a team scene.’ While I digest this remark she starts running her hand up my arm and fondling my biceps – yes, I do have them. ‘And you’ve never done it before,’ she says with a sense of wonder invading her voice. ‘Well, that will make a change.’
‘I’ve always wanted to initiate a young boy,’ says Avril.
‘I’ve always wanted to be able to pronounce “initiate”,’ says Noreen.
With these words, she buries her head in my shoulder and sinks her Teds into my bushel. Quite amazing behaviour, I am certain you will agree! And it is not only her fangs that are dishing out the aggression. Her left hand runs over my action man kit like it is trying to use it as Polyfilla to block up the crack between my thighs.
‘What about the Bangos?’ I say desperately.
‘All in good time, you cock-happy son of the sod!’ With these confusing words, Avril launches herself on to my cakehole and steals a march on Noreen’s fingers by sliding her mitt down the inside of my trousers. Percy is not slow to notice that living conditions are becoming crowded and lunges upwards. The girls grab for him like he is an escaped bar of soap.
It is becoming evident to me that, in many respects, the behaviour of these two bints is much different to that which you would expect to find at the average royal investiture or vicar’s induction ceremony. A certain frenzy characterises their actions and seems at odds with my impression of the Hai Bali Tabernacle as being a reservoir of sexual freedom. Those birds don’t appear to have tasted the fruit of the Y-front in many a long day.
‘Me first!’
‘No, me!’
Their combined weight pushes me behind a pile of potato-filled sacks and I find myself sinking floorwards into a nest of sacking clearly arranged for an occasion such as the one which – with any luck – is about to take place.
‘Give me a hand with my wellies.’
‘Only if I can go first.’
‘All right, greedy guts!’
Noreen lies down beside me and Avril tugs off her boots and wipes her muddy hands on the nearest sack.
I have seen some unveiling ceremonies in my time but the speed with which Noreen sheds her slacks is a natural for the Guinness Book of Records. What a pity Ross and Truss aren’t interested in things like that.
‘Right, ducks,’ says Noreen, lying back and smoothing her hands over her thighs. ‘Come on, there’s nothing to be frightened of.’
‘I’m not frightened,’ I say.
Noreen cocks her head to one side as I head my cock to the other. ‘No, I can see you’re not,’ she says.
I can’t help wishing that she would take her anorak off but the way things are rushing along it is obvious that a few of the refinements are going to have to be dispensed with.
‘Come between my legs,’ she says.
Immediately there is a squeak of protest from Avril. ‘Don’t put ideas in his head!’
‘I mean, kneel between my legs. That’s right, now—’
‘Like this?’ I say innocently.
‘That’s right. Very good!’
‘Beginner’s luck – oops! Sorry.’
‘Oh no!’ says Avril. ‘Don’t say he’s—’
‘It slipped out,’ says Noreen. ‘Do stop jumping up and down. You’ll spoil it for everyone. Come on, Timmy, you’re a right little riveter. Isn’t he doing well, Avril?’
‘Amazing,’ says Avril. ‘He’s taken to it like a dick to water.’
‘I suppose it is a natural instinct,’ says Noreen. ‘Oooh! That is nice.’
I tune out their voices and abandon myself to enjoying the strawberry ripples that are yo-yoing down to my toes and back again, each one bouncing higher so that I can eventually deflect them from my shoulder blades down to my kneading finger tips. Noreen’s back bollocks are willowing through my fingers like a couple of understuffed cushions and I try and concentrate them into a tighter target for my funny gun.
Avril has now shed her threads and crept up behind me. Whilst I deliver my message of good cheer to Noreen’s nether regions her saucy fingers collide with my cobblers and start ringing a graceful peal or two. Sensitive readers will be glad to learn that the skills learned in the potato fields are not easily transmitted to the amorous couch and that there is no danger of my knackers joining the pile of King Edwards over her left shoulder. Noreen, however, is obviously sensitive about sharing her toys.
‘Stop messing him about!’ she scolds.
‘Oh, do give over! He likes it, don’t you, love?’
‘Not bad,’ I say. The bird clearly does not spend a fortune on hand cream but I have known worse.
‘He’s only saying that to be polite,’ says Noreen.
‘It’s my turn, anyway,’ says Avril. ‘Let him go. You’ve had quite long enough.’
‘Oh no I haven’t,’ says Noreen, kicking one of her gumboots out of the way. ‘Some of us are sensitive. I can’t be turned on like a tap. I have to be wooed.’
‘What you’re doing now is rude,’ says Avril.
While the girls continue their argument I decide that it is time to stamp my personality on the proceedings. Unless I start to sort Noreen out I am going to be stuck on this pile of sacks till the cows come home – and you can imagine how nasty that could be. Crushing the lusty lady to me like she is a roll of carpet I am carrying up a steep flight of stairs, I proceed to pulverise her with my pelvis until a railway enthusiast would expect to see steam coming out of her navel and the two of us chugging off towards New Street Station. She begins to shudder like a small vessel about to break up in a heavy sea and I brace myself for the warning note of orgasmic yodel. I am always in danger of unloading myself when a bird starts her sperm wail and it occurs to me that, with Avril literally breathing down my neck, this would be a bad moment to lose my deposit. Today of all days, I don’t want to disappoint anybody. If the members of the Hai Bali Tabernacle like to keep themselves to themselves behind guarded gates and enjoy screwing visiting deliverymen then that is their affair. I am not here to pass moral judgements.
Thinking hard of h
ob-nailed boots and Anthony Wedgwood Benn’s chest expander I weather out the storm that is now raging beneath me. Noreen is so carried away that she has clawed her way into the sacks of potatoes stacked behind her and is throwing handfuls of spuds against the corrugated iron walls of the shed.
‘Have you left anything for me?’ Noreen does not reply to Avril’s self-interested question so the next candidate for my jolly lolly turns hopefully to the man himself. ‘Are you all right, love?’
I declutch from Noreen’s crutch and Avril’s greedy eyes plunder my loins. ‘Not bad,’ I breathe modestly.
‘Just lie back,’ says Avril gratefully. ‘I’ll do all the work.’
Before I can say ta she has hopped across my hips and is slotting away my pork bayonet like she fears it might catch cold if left out in the open for too long. She places both her hands on my chest and begins to rock backwards and forwards making soft cooing noises.
‘That’s nice,’ I say, indulging in a spot of pancake tossing with my thighs.
‘He’s getting the hang of it, fast, isn’t he?’ says Avril. Quite why these birds think that I am a stranger to pally alley I do not know but it is not a feature of our relationship that is going to worry me overmuch.
‘Yes,’ says Noreen looking down at me thoughtfully. ‘I think he’s ready for the next lesson, don’t you? How would you like to try a love yodel, ducks?’
Before I have had time to consider fully what kind of vocal treat this quaintly named pursuit might entail there is the sound of jostling bodies approaching with no little haste. I tilt my head back to see half a dozen tousled birds peering over the sacks at us.
‘Anything left?’ says one of them.
‘Push off!’ snaps Avril. ‘It’s our turn. Get back to the field or you’ll have the screws round here.’
The screws? The phrase is not unknown to me as anybody who has shared my experiences in one of Her Majesty’s Prisons – or had any of their own – will know. (See Confessions from the Clink for harrowing details.) A screw is a warder. Why should they have warders at the Hai Bali Tabernacle?
‘He’s new, isn’t he?’ says another of the newcomers.
‘Go away! You’ll frighten him.’ Avril pumps her hips up and down a few times as if keeping pace with a slow leak in a lilo.
‘There’s no harm in us watching.’
‘Why don’t you go and harvest a few turnips?’ says Noreen cattily. ‘I want to show Timmy how to pamper pussy.’ She bends her eyes on me. ‘The lap of the gods it’s called, ducky.’
She scrambles on to my chest and I begin to feel like a dugout canoe with Avril controlling the rudder arrangement. Noreen wriggles forward and presses her knees down on my shoulder blades. There seems to be no doubt about it: I am in for a muff-mugging – ah well, worse things happen at sea.
‘What’s going on here? How many times do I have to tell you girls about smoking in here? You take a break when I tell you—’
‘Good afternoon,’ I say. The face is upside down but I can recognise it as belonging to a man wearing a military style peaked cap. I can also recognise it as wearing a very puzzled expression.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ says the face.
‘I’m delivering the Bangos,’ I say.
The face turns scarlet. ‘Get off that man, Noakes!’
Noreen clambers off my chest. ‘I was only trying to hold him down in case he turned ugly,’ she says meekly.
‘Don’t give me that! I know what you were up to. Alderton!! Stop it this instant!’ Avril has closed her eyes and sucked in her lower lip like she is trying to swallow her chin. While the man in the peaked cap bellows, she ricochets up and down on my action man kit like she is trying to light a fire with it. It is all highly confusing but, as the poet says, if you can’t lick them, join them. I clench my minces and let the vats of warm honey flow over me –
‘AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!’
‘Stop it, you disgusting little animals!’ Peak cap tries to get to us round the sacks of potatoes but the girls get in his way and Noreen tips his hat over his eyes. By the time he has fought his way free, the worst – or more like, the best – is over. Avril shivers above me like the sail of a clipper that has been caught in a squall and I feel percy sinking earthwards like a kid that has banged the doorknocker a couple of times and is making a bunk for it round the corner.
‘Get off him!!’ Peak cap yanks Avril to her feet nearly taking me with her. There is a sympathetic gasp from those standing about us and a yelp from someone who is no longer standing – me.
‘Why don’t you mind your own business?!’ I say. I always feel a bit grumpy after a spot of in and out, don’t you?
Peak cap looks meaner than a Sid Noggett tip. ‘You watch it!’ he says. ‘I’ll have you put away.’
‘I’ve just been put away,’ I tell him. ‘Listen, this is Hai Bali, isn’t it?’
‘High barley!?’ says the bloke. ‘These are potatoes.’
‘I mean the Hai Barley Tabernacle,’ I explain patiently. Honestly, it is amazing how stupid people can be, isn’t it?
‘Are you trying to be funny?’ says the bloke. ‘That’s down the road. This is The Count Moriarty Country Home for Girls in Need of Care and Protection.’ He leans towards me menacingly. ‘In need of care and protection from scum like you! I saw what you were doing! Teaching these susceptible girls acts of shameless immorality. Pandering to the whims of their sensation-crazed bodies.’ He starts fumbling with the buttons of his tunic. ‘Supposing we all gave way to our natural impulses?’ – there are murmurs of ‘Right on!’ and ‘Let it all hang out, Big Daddy!’ – ‘Where would we be then? It would be disgusting, wouldn’t it? Fannyfuckingtastic but disgusting!’ so saying, he tears off his shirt and tunic and pulls down his trousers to gaiter level. He is still wearing a pair of long johns but this seems likely to be a temporary state of affairs as a wave of girls bears him floorwards.
What a carry-on! It does seem that I have made a foolish error. There was a big sign by the gate but I did not bother to look at it. Oh, foolish Timothy. Fortunately, all is not lost. I will recover my composure and my vehicle and flash round to the Hai Bali Whatsits. I hope they are not in the mood for any hai jinks because I feel that I have donated enough for one day.
I cross to the door and peer out. Enid is there but – oh no! ! On the back of the lorry sits a confused tumble of empty boxes. What has happened to the Bango fish? I gaze out to the open fields and see a tractor drawing a contraption which is spraying some substance over the freshly ploughed earth. Some substance that has a particularly strong and familiar smell. What was it the man on the gate said? Fertiliser? Oh no! Sid is going to do his nut! What am I going to tell him?
‘Would you like to come inside again?’
The bird at my elbow is small and wicked with eyes that glow like coals in the heart of a furnace. Her blouse is open to her navel and there is a smudge of dried earth pointing downwards from the cleft between her snow white breasts. She has a damp curl peeping over the edge of one of her ears and I tuck it out of sight while considering what to do. Possibly, I should go and see the people at the Hai Bali Tabernacle and tell them that the Bango fish were a bit far gone anyway. Maybe I should ring Sid. Either way there is not a lot of cause for urgent action. I turn away from the flock of gulls throwing up behind the tractor and close the door of the shed.
‘Come and help me find my Y-fronts,’ I say.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘You should never have taken delivery of them,’ says Sid.
‘Now I’m responsible for the cost to the Hai Bali geezers. None-eaten, that’s appropriate, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Sid. Very good,’ I say.
‘It’s not very good! It’s bleeding awful!!’ screeched my highly strung brother-in-law.
‘Now then, Sidney. You’re not in your own home now, you know.’
That is Dad speaking. Nature’s over-time ban. The only man who has been known to fall asleep with hi
s hand on the lever of the clocking-in machine.
‘Fancy a nice kipper fillet?’ says Mum.
I suppress a shudder. ‘No thanks, Mum. I’m a bit off fish at the moment.’
‘They’re blooming tough,’ grumbles Dad, scraping his knife backwards and forwards across the plate.
‘You haven’t taken the cellophane off them,’ says Mum.
‘You’re supposed to take it off before you serve them!’ says Sid. ‘Gordon Bennett! Where did you learn to cook?’
‘Watch it, Smart Alec!’ says Dad. ‘Your mother-in-law has been to evening classes.’
‘What in? Vehicle maintenance?’ says Sid, unkindly.
‘It was no good to me,’ sniffs Mum. ‘They didn’t touch on any of the stuff you can buy down at the supermarket. It was all herbs and that. I’d have to shop at one of those delicate essences – and I’m too old to learn Polish at my age.’
‘What is she on about?’ says Sid. ‘Honestly, sometimes I think the whole lot of you are cracked.’
‘Watch it!’ says Dad. ‘We don’t need you to tell us we’re cracked.’
‘Mum’s talking about delicatessens,’ I say.
‘That’s what I said,’ says Mum.
‘Look, it’s all sticking to the celluloid. Disgusting!’ Dad waves his kipper about between finger and thumb.
‘Now look what you’ve done! It’s covered in fluff.’ Mum retrieves Dad’s kipper from the cat basket.
‘Should keep it warm for you,’ says Sid.
‘I don’t want it now,’ says Dad. ‘Not after it’s been in there. You might as well leave it.’
‘No, let Mum have it,’ I say. ‘You know what they say: Finders kippers.’
I reckon that is a dead funny remark by any standards – witty too. But does it get a laugh? Not on your nelly. The silence reminds me of when I farted at Jerome’s christening. Some people have no sense of humour.
I am still cast down when Sid takes me into the front room for a chat. Despite the agrochat that took place earlier he seems in good spirits. ‘I’ve got a real big one,’ he says, practically hugging himself.
