by Timothy Lea
‘In a way,’ I say. ‘You know what it’s like.’ It is only then that I grab a butchers at the bottle and see that it has “Reisling” written on it. Ho, ho. What a comical caper to be sure. I missed a lot by not having a classical education. ‘Yes, a glass of wine would slip down a treat,’ I say.
Carole tilts the bottle and I take a good look at the front of her blouse. I can’t see any sign of a stain.
‘Your blouse looks as if it’s going to be all right,’ I say. A faint blush deepens the colour of Carole’s cheek. ‘Have some meringue,’ she says.
‘What happened to your shirt?’ Prudence is perking up and taking interest.
‘An attack of the Jeremy Rightberks.’ Carole shrugs her shoulders. ‘It’s not much but it’s better than catching up with the filing.’
‘Your in-trays are groaning, darling.’
‘They’re not the only ones.’
I take a large bite out of my meringue and cream squirts all over the front of my shirt. Knickers! Just when I wanted to come over all sophisticated in front of these emancipated birds.
‘Oh dear. Look what’s happened,’ says Prudence.
‘Have you got a cloth?’ I say. ‘It’s all right. I don’t think any of it has gone on the carpet.’
‘We don’t want to waste it.’
Before I can shout for help, Carole has dropped to her knees and slid her arms round my waist. Opening her mouth wide she begins to suck up the cream from my chest and dig her fingers into the small of my back. Down at crotch level, Percy stirs like a restless sea fanned by a wind of promise. Carole raises her head so that she can pluck open the buttons of my shirt and I draw her creamy mouth on to mine and wipe it against my lips. I don’t know much about nutrition but this isn’t half a good way to supplement your calorie intake.
Carole’s hands drop down between my legs and as I fondle beneath her skirt I peer up to where Prudence is looking down on us.
‘Let’s turn this into a gastronomic occasion,’ she says.
For a moment I think she means that she is going to be sick and then tugs up her T-shirt and rakes my minces with her bristols as she pulls the garment over her head. She is wearing a bra but this hits the deck faster than an Italian war hero hearing a car backfire.
‘You like cream, don’t you?’
Sensitive readers should stop right here. I wouldn’t believe it myself unless it was actually happening to me. Miss Packer picks up a carton of whipped cream and pops a couple of generous pats on to her paps. Without further ado or a pause for the weather forecast — gale force erections approaching from a southerly direction — she slaps one of her mammarial appurtenances up against my cakehole and awaits developments. Fortunately, I have been in enough sticky situations to know how to cloak my shock and when I open my mouth to protest and a cream coated knocker is thrust into it I am able to put a good face on it. This I do for several minutes whilst at crotch level, my action man kit gets up to tricks that would make a Bisto Kid turn in his gravy. Miss Gotcher has not been slow to learn the combination that holds up my trousers and has withdrawn my prize with every sign of satisfaction.
‘Gorgeous,’ she says, reaching behind her for the cream carton. ‘If there’s one thing I really fancy it’s a banana split.’
CHAPTER THREE
‘You all right?’ says Sid. ‘You look a bit pale.’
‘I think I must have eaten something that agreed with me,’ I say.
Sid shakes his head. ‘You mean that didn’t agree with you, you twerp.’
‘Have it your own way, Sid. How did you make out with the professor?’
Sid adopts his reverential expression, usually reserved for anybody who has made a lot of money. ‘A wonderful man,’ he says. ‘A bit eccentric but definitely a genius. That bed of his is really something. You know, he was fast asleep when we caught up with him. Once we solve the leakage problem I think we’ve got ourselves a winner.’
‘You mean, the leakage problem in relation to the bed?’
‘No. In relation to the room you put it in. Usually the water flows under the door and down the stairs. Even if you leave all the taps on it doesn’t seem to keep pace. Then there’s the problem with the electricity — and the neighbours —’
‘Sid,’ I interrupted him. ‘Does this mean that you’re seriously considering going in with these idiots? Why not just set fire to the money? That way you could warm your hands on it for a few moments and it wouldn’t be completely wasted.’
Sid puts on his misunderstood genius expression. ‘Ignoring with difficulty your tasteless sarcasm, I have to concede that there were moments when I wondered whether this proposition represented the apogee of investment potential. Nevertheless, upon due consideration of the facts as they have been placed before me I have come to the conclusion that the presence of Professor Nuttibarm is sufficient to outweigh the more deleterious aspects of the operation.’
‘When you put it like that I find it hard to disagree with you,’ I say. ‘What were you talking about?’
‘I was saying that old Nuttibarm is shit hot,’ says Sid. ‘You should see some of the things he’s come up with. There’s a special bed for fakirs. The nails are controlled by magnets so that they can rearrange them into whatever position makes them feel most uncomfortable.’
‘Hardly a mass market line,’ I say.
‘Then there’s the bed that’s suspended by chains from the ceiling. Very restful and dead easy for sweeping under. You have to be careful what you do in it, though. There was this couple who started having a bit of the other and battered their way through into the next door flat.’
‘I wouldn’t fancy that,’ I say. ‘Hasn’t he got anything a bit simpler?’
‘He’s not interested in simple things, Timmo. He’s after the bed of the future. For instance, you know what a blooming nuisance it is when you feel like a piss in the middle of the night and you’re tucked up all snug and comfortable?’
‘Only too well, Sid. When you get downstairs you find that someone has left the karsi window open and your knackers nearly freeze off.’
‘Exactly. Well, you want the Commodoor. You press a button in the side and it opens down the middle so that you can do your business without getting out of bed.’
‘You need to have special sheets, I suppose?’
‘Oh yes, and they haven’t quite ironed out all the bugs yet.’
‘Bed bugs, Sid?’
‘Watch it, Timmo! There’s one or two safety factors got to be built in. There was this other couple having a bit of the other — or it may have been the same one, I don’t know. Anyway, the tart gets a bit carried away and presses the button by mistake. WOMP! The bed opens and they end up on the floor.’
‘Very nasty, Sid. It could dent your confidence, couldn’t it?’
‘Not as nasty as the bloke who was actually using the thing when his old woman turned on the bedside lamp to find a pair of earplugs or something.’
‘What happened, Sid?’
‘She pressed the closure switch by mistake.’
‘No, Sid!’
‘I’m afraid so. The neighbours said they hadn’t heard a scream like it since the tom cat caught its tail in the mangle.’
‘Cut off in his prime, was he?’
‘No, but he’s got a long thin one and his voice is inclined to break after the second pint.’
Sid starts to tell me some more of Professor Nuttibarm’s wonderful ideas but I tell him I’ve had enough. I always thought bed was a nice gentle place. At U.I.B. it seems more like an extension of World War Two — and the BBC must have gone as far as you can go with that.
‘All right,’ says Sid. ‘You’ll be finding out for yourself soon enough. You start working your way through the departments tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow, Sid! That’s a bit sudden, isn’t it?’
‘No!’ shouts Sid. ‘You’ve got to plunge in and seize the bull by the short and curlies otherwise you might as well not bother. I’m starti
ng tomorrow.’
‘And what are you going to do?’
‘I’m going up to London with Jeremy to buy myself a set of golf clubs.’
‘Golf clubs!?’
‘It’s never worth sneering at things you don’t really understand.’ says Sid loftily. ‘Jeremy told me that most top level negotiations are done on the golf course. It’s a business convention. I owe it to my fellow employees to become effete with the game.’
‘“Au fait” not “effete”,’ I tell him. “Effete means washed out, feeble — I don’t know, though. Maybe you were right the first time.’
‘Anyway, I’m not going up just for the golf clubs,’ says Sid. ‘I’m signing a few papers and having luncheon — that’s what you call dinner.’
‘Oh Sid! I can see you being taken for a terrible ride if you’re not careful. What’s happened to all that shop floor stuff? I thought you wanted to be shoulder to shoulder with the workers?’
‘I am!’ says Sid bitterly. ‘In the mind. It’s not possible for me to get down there physically and at the same time oversee the whole operation. I’ve got to take the broad view. I’m going to be with you in spirit just as much as if I was toiling at a lathe.’
‘Sid. Before you sign anything. Are you sure that this is the right proposition?’ Nobody can say that I am not trying to save the poor mutt, can they?
Sidney taps his hooter. ‘Trust my conk,’ he says. ‘I’ve got an instinct for this kind of thing.’ That is rather like a lemming saying that it fancies itself as a long distance swimmer and I decide to give up. If Sid wants to chuck his money down the drain, that is his business.
I am told to clock in at eight the next morning so at ten to I am looking for my card in the rack and by five to I am ready for work. Mr Umbrage, who is foreman as well as shop steward, is going to look after me. By one minute to, nobody has shown up and when I hear eight o’clock striking I think that I must have arrived on a public holiday by mistake. I am just about to turn away when there is a rushing noise like the beating of hundreds of pairs of wings, and a mass of blokes and bints flood through the gateway. Shouting and cursing at each other they jostle for position around the clocking-in machine and the handle goes up and down like it is on the village pump. By one minute past eight, everybody has disappeared again.
What I find a bit surprising is that nobody has actually gone into the factory. Once they have clocked in, they do a smart about turn and cross the road in the direction of Alf’s Cafe. Not so much ‘in the direction of’, more straight through the front door. Oh well, if I want to avoid being lonely I had better follow them. Perhaps Mr Umbrage will be there.
Mr Umbrage is indeed there. Tucked in behind a cup of tea and the Daily Sun: “Convent girl confesses all in new, horror, shock, drama — exclusive!” I feel knackered just reading the headline. Mr U seems deeply engrossed in his paper so I deem it diplomatic to join the queue wending its way to the counter.
‘Are we on a go slow today?’ says the bloke in front of me to his mate.
‘I dunno. I get confused,’ says the bloke. ‘Better ask the Commissar.’ He nods towards Umbrage. ‘Not that it makes any bleeding difference. Last bleeding strike we had, it took bleeding management two bloody weeks to realise what had happened.’
I order a cup of cha and a wad and sit down opposite Umbrage who is still hidden behind his newspaper. After a few moments he makes a quiet chuckling noise and puts the paper down. I see that he has been looking at a photo of a naked tart wearing a sailor’s titfer. ‘The broad bosom of the ocean’ reads the caption.
The smile on Umbrage’s face dies when he sees me. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘It’s the nark. Where have you been?’
‘I was waiting by the clocking in machine,’ I say.
‘Eager to start clawing your way to the top, eh?’ sneers Umbrage.
‘No. I thought that’s where you’d expect to find me.’
‘Well, you were wrong!’ hisses Umbrage. ‘We fought and slaved for the privilege of preparing for our toil and it’s not something we intend to relinquish in a hurry. If they had their way —’ Umbrage waves an accusing finger towards the ceiling as if Rightberk and his ilk are squatting on the lamp bracket ‘— we’d be driven through those gates like sheep and lashed to the benches. You wouldn’t have time to take your cycle clips off.’ He pauses and glares at me as if daring me to say something. I note that the ends of his moustache are bedraggled where he dunked them in his tea. “I’m assigning you to the wharf with Lenny and Harry. And, don’t forget — I’ve got your number.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ I say, trying to sound pleased. ‘What is it? I thought that thing on my time card was my number.’
‘Don’t take the piss with me, Sonny!’ Umbrage waggles his finger under my nose. ‘I know what you’re up to. Reporting back to the bosses. Well, you watch it. We’ve had experience of your sort before. The last informer had a very nasty accident when the roof of a four poster fell on him.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ I say.
‘Never mind about that,’ says Umbrage. ‘You just do what you’re paid to do.’ With these words, he rises to his feet and strolls majestically towards the door. Before going out he has a word with a bloke playing dominoes and the man comes over to me.
‘I’m Lenny,’ he says. He indicates the man he is playing dominoes with. ‘He’s Harry. You’re with us.’
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘When do we start?’
‘Start what?’
‘Work,’ I say.
Immediately, an ugly silence falls over the room and Lenny looks embarrassed. ‘We have started,’ he says. ‘It’s twenty past eight.’
I am about to say something and then I think better of it. Obviously, there is something about this word that gives rise to deep-seated resentment.
‘Do you want me to do anything?’ I say.
‘Just sit there till we’ve finished. Then we’ll enrol you in the union and we can go over to the wharf.’
‘Do I have to join the union?’ I ask.
Lenny looks horrified. ‘Of course you do. It wouldn’t be right for you to take advantage of all the benefits won by the union if you didn’t pay your sub, would it?’
‘I take advantage of a lot of things in life that I personally haven’t been responsible for.’
The bloke behind the counter starts to move cups and saucers out of the way.
Lenny looks at Harry who shakes his head. ‘Are you saying that you don’t want to join the union?’ he asks.
‘I’m not quite certain,’ I say.
‘Let me put it this way,’ says Harry. ‘If you don’t join we’ll chuck you through that window.’
‘I’ll join,’ I say. ‘Nobody explained it to me properly before.’
I sign the necessary piece of paper and receive a yellow booklet which is a combination of my membership card and thousands of little spaces which are filled in whenever I pay my union dues. I hand over 20p, Lenny and Harry finish their game of dominoes, the clock strikes nine o’clock and we are ready to go. Lenny gives me a dignified nod and rises to his feet, Harry flicks his head towards the door, and I practically hear The Dambusters’ March. You don’t have to be a writhing mass of sentiment to respond at a moment like that — but it helps.
‘Watch out for the nut squidging!’ The voice at my side is so soft that it takes me a moment to hear what it is saying.
‘What —?’ I begin, but Lenny turns round and the slim beturbanned figure at my side drifts away. No, it is not Jungle Boy. It is clearly an attractive bint bent upon giving me a warning. Nut squidging? It does not ring a bell. I know that in the old days, apprentices were subjected to some pretty rough treatment when joining a firm, but surely —
‘We’ll take a short cut through the stuffing department. You might as well see what you’re going to be up against on Tolpuddle day.’ Lenny pushes open a door and I find myself amongst a bevy of birds who are engaged in manipulating long strips of foam rubber into mattress covers stretch
ed out on metal frames. For some reason it reminds me of stuffing chickens. Quite a few of the birds are a lot easier on the minces than a clench of digits and I notice that my appearance caused a ripple of what can only be called interest to pass through their ranks. Nice to know that the old animal magnetism is still coursing through my fortunate veins.
‘You want to watch yourself here, Tim,’ says Harry. ‘They’re a bit wild, some of these girls. All that stuffing goes to their heads.’
Whilst I am enlarging upon this interesting thought, I am clocking the little darling who tipped me the wink in Alf’s Cafe. She has just come into the room and her expression of impending disaster would feel at home on the mush of any expert examining Britain’s trade figures. She seems to be pushing me backwards with her eyes. Nut squidging? What could she have meant?
‘Never come in here with less than a couple of mates,’ says Lenny. ‘It’s the only place where the union can’t protect you.’
‘Especially at Christmas time,’ says Harry with a shudder. ‘Last year they stripped that Twitterton bloke naked and hung him up instead of mistletoe.’
It is funny to hear them talk like that because they look a nice bunch of girls. You wouldn’t think there was a blow job amongst them.
‘Do they just stuff the mattresses?’ I ask.
‘They assemble some of the beds,’ says Lenny. ‘See that bird over there with the mouthful of washers and nuts?’
‘The one looking at us?’
‘She’s looking at you, Tim. You must have made a hit there.’
‘Run for it!’ Harry obviously knows his way around the stuffing room.
‘Squidge his nuts!’
Upon consideration, I reckon that those three words could have brought an end to the dearth of British track gold medals at the last few Olympic Games. If they can have this effect on fifty-year-old men, just think what they could have done for a fully trained athlete. Lenny and Harry must touch 80 mph as they accelerate through the door at the far end of the work room. I try to follow them but the words obviously don’t have the same magic for me — not then, they don’t. Before I have fully appreciated what is happening, I have been surrounded by crumpet.
