Читать книгу Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions - Timothy Lea - Страница 30

That little incident with Mrs. Carstairs is the start of a whole series of classical paintings we collaborate on, all of which seem to require a good deal of frisking about in the altogether! I am nothing loath, but I sometimes wonder what Mr. Carstairs makes of it all if he ever sees his wife’s work. Frankly, I reckon she is a lousy painter, but then I don’t know much about art. I just know what she likes.

On the Driving School side everything is going well for a change. I retake the written part of my Register Qualifying Examination and pass without breaking into a sweat. Now, all I am waiting for is a date to take the practical part at Norwich and if I pass that I will be a ‘Department of the Environment Approved Driving Instructor’ and small dogs will wag their tails at me and beautiful women swoon at my feet.

Needless to say, it is at this potentially happy time that an incident takes place which nearly puts the kibosh on everything. I am foolish enough to tell Garth about Mrs. Carstairs and he is very interested. Especially when he hears that her latest masterpiece is to be based on ‘The Rape of the Sabine Women’. I am quite happy to carry on raping by myself, but Garth’s relationship with Mrs. D. is going a bit flat and he suggests that their participation might pep things up in more than just an artistic sense. I try to forget the idea but he keeps on at me and eventually I mention it to Mrs. C. To my disgust she is quite keen and tells me to bring ‘my friends’ along at our next session. Frankly, I am not ecstatic about a foursome because I can see my John Thomas being thrown into competition with Garth’s and it is not a challenge I relish. Whatever crap you may hear to the contrary, most blokes do feel that their cocks are not big enough and most women agree with them but are too kind to say so. If Garth’s plumbing lives up to the rest of him, I might as well not bother to tug down my Y-fronts.

It is with this unwholesome thought nagging away at the back of my mind that I find myself standing on the doorstep of Cavenham Lodge one February afternoon with Garth and Mrs. D. giggling in the background. Mr. C. is in Oslo working on the problem of putting D.D.T. into the water supply, or something, so his missus feels that she is able to “take advantage of the light,” as she so delicately puts it. Frankly, I am becoming more and more disbelieving of her artistic integrity, especially since stumbling across a pile of half-finished canvases, showing some very athletic activity in which I had certainly played no part. I have a strong feeling that a few other blokes have been grappling with Mrs. C.’s problem.

“Come in, all of you,” she yodels as the door creaks open. “So good of you to come. You’ve no idea how much this means to me. Would you like a hot drink before we start? It must be bitterly cold out there.”

We work our way through a fairly standard range of pleasantries and then it comes to the crunch. Mrs. C. downs her last drop of coffee and gives us all her best beaming smile.

“Right. Into action we go. I thought it might be an idea to use the pool. At least it’s a bit warmer in there. You come with me, my dear, and we’ll leave the men to get on with it. Everything off, remember.”

She sweeps past with Mrs. D. following on behind and beginning to look a bit uneasy. No sooner is she out of the room than Garth digs me in the ribs.

“This is the life, eh, boyo?” (He is inclined to go a bit Welsh in moments of excitement.) “To tell you the truth, I thought you were having me on before we got here. I hope my bint isn’t going to let us down. She was looking a bit green behind the gills, wasn’t she? It’s a pity, because she can be as brazen as buggery when she likes, but then you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” He adds a wink to another nudge in the ribs. I smile weakly, wondering what Mrs. Dent has passed on concerning our adventures on the golf course and nearby; nothing very flattering, I’ll be bound.

“When do we change?” He is practically licking his lips—big randy sod.

“Change?”

“Well, take our clothes off, then. Don’t start mincing your words, boyo.”

I take him through to the swimming pool which has been built on to the end of one wing of the house and has a glass wall which slides back to give access to the garden in summer. Now the glass is all steamed up and even the climbing plants which straggle from pots around the walls are wilting a bit.

“Phew! It’s hot in here,” pants Garth. “You need to swim if you’re going to stick it for long.”

There is a room at the end full lof deckchairs and general poolside clobber and Garth has soon stripped down to the buff to reveal that my worst fears are justified. Like a donkey’s dongler it is, and faced with this competition I can feel my own equipment making a bolt for it between my legs. Maybe the humidity will coax it out a bit extra to save me from total humiliation.

As if he didn’t have enough natural advantages, Garth now proceeds to prove what a great swimmer he is and starts performing a one-man water ballet whilst I am doing a spot of crafty stretching behind the tropical undergrowth.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” he shouts, bouncing up and down on the springboard. “It would be worth coming without the extras.” He jets into the air, touches his toes and flashes into the pool like a steel blade. Honestly, it makes you sick to watch him.

“Bring on the dancing girls,” he bellows. “Come on. What’s happened to them?” “I think Mrs. Carstairs said something about them putting on costumes, didn’t she?” I say. Frankly, I wish I had never mentioned the whole bloody business. I recall the way Mrs. C.’s eyes rolled over Garth’s physique the first time she saw him and I shudder at what I have let myself in for. I will be lucky to end up washing out the paint brushes.

“Watch this one,” sings out Garth. He is on the diving board and facing inwards with only his toes on the board. “Tell me if I go in straight.”

I am wearily focusing my eyeballs on his heavily muscled back and thinking how much better it would look with about nine inches of carving knife sunk into it when I suddenly become aware of a figure standing in the doorway. And it is not Mesdames Carstairs or Dent. It is a tall, distinguished-looking geezer with horn-rimmed specs and a leather briefcase in his mitt. He looks as if he has just arrived from distant parts and I have a shrewd suspicion I know where he finds his toothbrush every morning.

“Here we go,” hollers Garth, all cheerful and unsuspecting, and propels himself into the air. The newcomer has not looked towards me yet, so I sink down behind a convenient pot of giant spinach and leave Garth to introduce himself. He disappears below the water with hardly a splash and rears up seconds later like a cheerful seal.

“That felt pretty good,” he begins and then sees our new friend, who puts down his briefcase and folds his arms menacingly.

Now, I have never thought of Garth as being particularly quick on the uptake, but his reactions in this situation are razor sharp, to put it mildly.

“Good afternoon,” says the stranger, pushing his specs up on his nose and making his voice sound about as welcoming as an icicle sticking out of the tap marked ‘hot’. “Might I be presumptuous enough to inquire what you think you are doing in my swimming pool?”

“I’ve been overhauling the filtration system, guv,” says Garth. “You know, your annual check-up that everything is functioning O.K. We don’t want your clunge outlets clogging up, do we?”

He pulls himself out in one easy, graceful movement and taps one of the grills in the wall. “I’d watch the temperature in here, if I were you. Too much humidity can fur up your spangers.”

He says it so naturally that he almost has me convinced.

“Very interesting,” says Mr. Carstairs in his best Nazi. “I’m glad my ‘spangers’ are in such good hands. But one thing puzzles me slightly: why it is necessary to perform the service in the nude?”

I would have refused to answer that one on the grounds that it might incriminate me, but it is underarm bowling to Garth in his present mood.

“Checking the chlorine level, guv’nor. I don’t really know how it works myself but over the years your skin works up an incredible sensitivity to the chlorine content of the water. It’s a bit like taking canaries down the mines.”

“Remarkable,” says Mr. Meany, all sarcastic-like. “And this amazing talent is denied its full expression if you are wearing a pair of bathing trunks?”

“Exactly, guv, the tactile stimuli are impeded by the presence of any form of clothing.”

Mr. Carstairs snorts and is obviously going to contribute something further to the conversation when Mrs. C. appears. I am glad to see that she is fully dressed and that there is no sign of Mrs. Dent. With a bit of luck we might still get away with our balls unsinged.

“Darling,” she squeals. “What a heavenly surprise. I had no idea you were going to be back before the weekend.” She gazes at Garth as if he had just floated out of the exit duct and flashes a quick glance round for me.

“Evidently,” says Mr. C., allowing himself to be kissed on the cheek. “I’m sorry to have spoiled your surprise.”

“Surprise, darling?”

“Having the ‘clunge outlets unclogged and the ‘spangers’—it is spangers, isn’t it?”; Garth nods—“having the spangers protected from furring up. It was very thoughtful of you. This sturdy servitor of aqua-hygiene has been telling me all about it.”

“Oh, well, yes.” Mrs. C. starts fingering a necklace she isn’t wearing and struggles for inspiration. “I thought it was about time somebody had a look at it.”

“Yes, indeed. Well, now you can tell me what you’ve been doing, while our friend here gets his clothes on.”

Thank God, I think, now they’ll piss off and I can slip out with Garth. But not a bit of it. The bastard sits right down on the edge of the springboard while Mrs. C. rabbits on about her painting and Garth slopes off to get dressed.

By now I am sweating like a pig and there is something crawling up my legs that feels as if it has come all the way from Africa with the undergrowth. Garth comes out of the changing-room and I can see my T-shirt sticking out of his hold-all.

“Goodbye,” says Mr. C. like a python talking to something that is already half-way down its throat. “I’d like to say I hope to see you again, but I’m certain that someone with your obvious talents will be moving on to bigger and better swimming-pools.”

Garth mumbles something cheerful and is half-way to the door when Mr. C.’s voice cuts in again.

“Oh, by the way, I believe my wife has been using a model who probably needs a lift back to town. Perhaps you can help her out?”

“Certainly, guv. It’ll be a pleasure.”

He bundles out and I wait hopefully for Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs to follow him. Mrs. C. doesn’t need any pushing, but Mr. C. suddenly starts loosening his tie.

“Are you coming, George?”

“No. I rather fancy a swim. I want to see if I can feel the chlorine level.”

“You what?”

“It doesn’t matter, dear. It was something the service man was talking to me about. I’ll see you later.”

He disappears into the changing-room and Mrs. C. gazes desperately round the room for me. She even looks into the pool as if she expects to find me holding my nose on the bottom. I have half a mind to make a run for the door, but before I can pull myself together Mr. C. has shot out of the changing-room sporting a pair of moth-eaten red woollen trunks. Why he bothers I can’t think.

“You go and get some supper, dear,” he says. “I feel like building up an appetite.”

And this is just what the bastard does. Up and down the pool he goes until the sweat is making a puddle at my feet and I have to lie on my stomach to get over the cramp in my legs.

He must have done about a hundred lengths before he clambers out and slowly towels himself down. It is now dark outside and I don’t relish exposing my body to the kind of weather Cromingham dishes out. I could eat a horse and the heat is giving me a headache. “Piss off out of it, Carstairs,” I murmur to myself and at last the bugger moves towards the door that leads into the house proper. A few more minutes and I will be able to escape while he is feeding his stupid face. I begin to move myself into a position from which I can get up when suddenly Carstairs pauses in the doorway and swivels his gaze to exactly where I am hiding.

“I must say you’re doing a most conscientious job checking those plants,” he says mockingly. “I’ll turn the heating up so that you don’t get too cold in case there’s a frost tonight. I know it may fur up the spangers but I’m certain your associate would understand.”

And with that he closes the door behind him and I hear the key turn in the lock. Bloody swine! He has known I was there all the time and been making me sweat it out—literally. Rage boils up inside me. I could probably sue him for the diabolical liberties he is taking. You can’t lock up people in your heated swimming-pool just because they might have been about to have an orgy with your old woman. This isn’t a police state yet, Mr. Carstairs! This and a few hundred other thoughts march through my mind as the humidity increases to a point where I can hardly breathe and snowflakes whirl down through the darkness outside.

What a carry-on! I might as well be spending the night in a Turkish bath; and if I do get out, other than in a sponge, I will probably freeze to death. Luckily I can crawl into the changing-room but, as I had suspected, the brilliant Garth has taken all my clobber. All I can find to wear is a pair of kid’s bathing trunks and a white coat such as worn by cricket umpires, doctors and ice-cream salesmen. Not much cop for the great outdoors. There is no outside door to the changing-room and the door to the house has been locked by creepy Carstairs. I try to slide open the sheet glass windows but they, too, appear to be locked. Apart from lifting the grille in the bath and chancing my luck down the outlet channel, there seems to be no alternative, other than smashing a window or waiting to be released. The destruction involved in the former is a bit monumental even by my standards and I decide to wait and see if Garth or Mrs. C. comes to the rescue.

Hours later I am still waiting and there is no sign of either of them. I have a pretty good idea where Garth is, and the very thought of it is more than I can bear in my condition. By this time I have returned to the changing-room, where it is slightly easier to breathe and am trying to sleep on one of the benches. I must have half dozed off when I hear a ‘click’ which sounds like a key turning in a lock. I listen for a moment but there is no other noise, and it is only desperation that makes me drag myself across to try the door. It opens! Either Mr. Carstairs has relented or Julia has managed to slip away and release me. Probably the latter. There is nobody on the other side of the door so I don’t hang about but tiptoe across the ankle-deep carpet and climb out by the first sash window I come to.

By the cringe, it is cold! It has stopped snowing and is now freezing hard and I almost wish I had hung on long enough to find a pair of shoes before doing a bunk. Unless I keep moving the soles of my feet stick to the ground and the wind cuts me like a knife. Luckily, I stop a bloke in a van at the end of the lane and scramble in before he has a chance to see my bare feet. He nearly jumps out of his skin when he does and drives like fury to the end of Mrs. B.’s road, where I thank him through chattering teeth and stagger the last hundred yards trying to keep my circulation going by swinging my arms.

Of course, I don’t have a front door key, so I have to steer a frozen finger to the bell-push and after a couple of rings a light goes on at the top of the stairs.

Mrs. B. pulls open the door and I practically fall into the hall before she can say anything. She has obviously been on the point of giving me the mother and father of all bollockings but my pitiful condition changes all that.

“Good heavens!” she gasps. “What on earth have you been up to? You look half dead.”

A glance in the hallstand mirror confirms her impression. There is a rim of frost across both eyebrows, my eyelashes look as if they had been dipped in sugar, and my hair is white. I might have been chipped out of a deep freeze.

“I b-b-b-b-b-b—” I croak and luckily the Florence Nightingale in Mrs. B. comes surging to the fore.

“Never mind,” she says urgently. “You can tell me later. If we don’t do something about you, you’re going to freeze to death. Can you get upstairs?”

I nod bravely and reach for the bannisters whilst she goes on ahead to run a bath. Can my body stand it, I ask myself. Boiled alive one moment, frozen the next; it reminds me of how we used to harden up conkers when I was a kid. Certainly my own personal set are in a pitiful condition, having shrunk to a size that would give a four-year-old boy an anxiety complex. But that is not one of my immediate problems. My body is so numb that you could drive nails through my feet without me feeling anything. But when I get into the bath—yeeow! The pain is excruciating and I groan away, hardly conscious that Mrs. B. is standing there watching my naked agony.

“Brandy and hot lemon. That’s what you need,” she says motheringly. “I think there’s some in the medicine cupboard.”

She pads off and slowly the pain is replaced by a kind of pleasant tiredness. I pull myself out of the bath and have just draped a large towel round my shoulders when she reappears, carrying a steaming mug. It must be one of the best drinks I have ever tasted and I gulp hungrily, trying to make grateful noises between mouthfuls.

“That’s all right, dear. Don’t talk. You’re not up to it.”

I become aware that Mrs. B.’s sensitive fingers have started towelling me down and that her warm, fragrant-smelling body is close to mine. She is wearing a long, white linen nightdress dropping low enough at the front for me to see her rich creamy boobs and this revelation coincides with the arrival of her healing fingers at the source of most of my great moments in sport.

“O-o-ooh, that’s good,” I moan.

She can take that any way she wants and I don’t think it is my imagination when the pressure round my John Thomas increases.

“You poor boy,” she murmurs. “You poor, poor boy.”

She is shivering more than me now and somehow our mouths just seem to collide. My towel drops to the floor and I am digging my fingers into her soft arse as her tongue fights to get past mine.

It’s funny, but sometimes when you are nearly out on your feet you really fancy a bit of the other, and tonight is no exception. I feel warm and cosy, but at the same time charged with a great desire to make love. I start to pull up Mrs. B.’s nightdress but she takes my hands and leads me down the corridor to where her bedroom door opens invitingly. I can see the outline of the big double bed and the eiderdown swollen like an over-pumped Lilo. The sheets are thrown back from when she got up to let me in and there is a soft white valley into which we collapse. Her hands help mine to pull the nightdress over her head and I reach out to support her freed breasts.

“Come down into the warm,” she murmurs and wriggles over on to her back, pulling me and the bedclothes with her. My fingers glide over her belly and down to the smooth luxury of her thighs, which part invitingly. Her hand reaches past mine and removes a hot water bottle which I hear thud against the floor.

“We won’t need that now,” she says, and, hugging me to her, she sets out to prove it.