Читать книгу Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions - Timothy Lea - Страница 55

‘Hey, you. Where can I find Noggett?’

It is a week after the Beechams have left–he looking a bit worse than when he went into hospital; God knows what she was doing to the poor old sod–and I am standing in for Sandra who is having a bash on the tennis court–or more likely–in the long grass behind it! Every time she comes back she is covered in burrs. Everywhere but on her knickers, as I found out once when she bent down. Funny, that.

The bloke who is addressing me is about my age and has shoulder-length hair worn over the collar of his smart suit. He is carrying a pig-skin attaché case. Apart from his manner I don’t like his shifty eyes which are darting round the foyer as if trying to memorise every feature.

‘Do you mean “Mr Noggett”?’ I say primly.

‘There’s only one, isn’t there?’ The tone is only slightly less than a snarl.

‘I’ll see if he is available. Who shall I say wants to see him?’

‘Edward Rigby.’ The bloke is now tapping the walls. ‘And hurry up, will you? I’m a busy man. I haven’t got time to hang around this morgue.’

When I find Sidney he is in Miss Ruperts’ office cocking his little finger over a cup of tea.

‘Miss Ruperts has surpassed herself,’ he pipes. ‘The Pendulum Society are going to hold their convention here. Every room in the hotel booked Friday to Sunday. Isn’t she a clever girl?’

Sidney coming the smarmer makes me want to puke, but I manage to control myself. ‘Great,’ I say. ‘There’s a nasty looking Herbert in the foyer who wants to speak to you. He didn’t say what it was about.’

‘Oh, well, better see him, I suppose.’

I notice, as we leave, that Miss Ruperts has a bottle of brandy under the tea cosy. She does not change.

When we get into the foyer, Rigby looks Sid up and down like he is measuring him for a coffin.

‘Mr Noggett?’

‘That’s right. What can I do for you?’

‘I’d like to have a few words with you–in private.’

He looks at me like I came off the bottom of his shoe after a walk around Battersea Dogs’ Home.

‘Mr Lea is my personal assistant. You can speak freely in front of him.’

Blimey! It is a long time since Sidney referred to me like that. He must obviously find this cove as unlovable as I do.

Rigby shrugs and we go into Sid’s office.

‘Let me come to the point at once,’ says Rigby, hardly waiting till his arse has hit the chair before he starts speaking. ‘I’ve come round here to offer you a fair price for this place. I’m in property and I want to develop this site. I’ve bought the freeholds on either side of you and I hope we can come to a sensible arrangement.’

‘What if we can’t?’ says Sid.

‘I don’t think there’s a lot of alternative. I’m going to start demolishing both the buildings on either side of you in a few weeks and I’ll be surprised if that does anything for your business–if you have any.’ This guy’s money obviously ran out half way through charm school.

‘What kind of figure were you thinking of?’

Rigby mentions a figure which makes me want to scream ‘Grab it and run!’ but Sid does not bat an eyelid.

‘That’s ridiculous,’ he says. ‘It cost me more than that.’

‘Take it or leave it.’

‘I’ll leave it.’

Rigby produces a card and drops it on the table in front of Sid. ‘When you’ve had time to reconsider, or talked it over with someone who knows the business, get in touch with me.’

‘The council won’t let you start pulling down the buildings next door.’

‘They’re all in favour of it. This end of town is going downhill so fast they’d like to put it on wheels and push it along the coast.’ He stands up. ‘Don’t leave it too long. I’ll start reducing my offer at the end of the week.’

‘Piss off.’ Sid’s words may be less than eloquent, but they sum up our feelings more than adequately.

‘No need to take that tone. I–’

‘PISS OFF!’ Sid jumps out of his chair and Rigby has his hand on the door knob quicker than Mary Whitehouse adjusting the picture control on her telly when a naughty bit comes along.

‘Jumped up little basket,’ snarls Sid when Rigby has disappeared.

‘Do you think he was bluffing, Sid?’

Sid walks over to the window and pulls back the curtain. Outside we can see Rigby climbing into a chauffeur-driven Rolls.

‘No,’ he says. He picks up Rigby’s card. ‘ “Rigram Property Company”. I’ve heard of them. I think Sir Giles had something to do with them at Funfrall.’

‘He’s done all right for himself, that bloke, hasn’t he? He didn’t look any older than me.’

‘Yeah. Makes you sick, doesn’t it?’

‘What are we going to do, Sid?’

Sid takes a deep breath. ‘I’m going to make a few enquiries at the Town Hall. And then I’m going to concentrate on getting things ready for the Pendulum Society. We must not be diverted from our purpose, Timmo. Rigby or no Rigby, I intend to make this place posh and profitable.’

‘Did you really pay more than he offered for this place?’

‘I exaggerated a bit, but it was still a pitiful price he came up with. You don’t know how much I put myself in hock to get this lot. Considering that we crept in just before the boom, he should have given me a much better deal. Anyhow,’ his face brightens, ‘don’t let’s look on the gloomy side any more. I’m really chuffed about this Pendulum scene. The family is coming down next weekend and I want them to see the place looking as if it’s got a bit of life about it.’

‘You mean Rosie and Jason?’

‘Your Mum and Dad, and all. I couldn’t leave them out, could I?’

I know what answer I would have given. Mum and Dad always spell trouble. I would have thought that Sid would have sussed that after his experiences on the Isla de Amor.

Sid is well pleased because the Pendulum mob want to have a dance on the Saturday night and he reckons that we stand to make a few bob from the catering. About half as much as Dennis, I reckon.

As Friday gets nearer, Sidney burns around the hotel getting up everybody’s bracket in a big effort to make the staff respond like Funfrall employees. In this endeavour he is wasting his time. All their get up and go got up and went years ago and only highly strung Sandra buckles to with a will–or, as I personally suspect, a willy. One afternoon, I notice a lot of burrs around Sid’s turnups and I reckon it is he who has been giving her a quick in and out behind the tennis courts. Better keep that lot under control when the family gets here.

Friday afternoon comes and the first delegates–as Sidney chooses to call them–begin to roll up. I notice that they all seem to be married couples, or sign in as married couples, and are a bit smarter and younger than our normal guests. Early middle-aged trendy with a fair sprinkling of love beads and the like on the men.

‘What is this Pendulum Club?’ I ask Miss Primstone who is watching the new arrivals disapprovingly.

‘I have no idea,’ she says coldly. ‘They are certainly not the kind of people I would have expected to find here in the old days. I don’t know what has come over Miss Ruperts. It must be the influence of your Mr Noggett.’ I would have thought it was the other way round myself, but I don’t say anything.

One thing I do notice about the Pendulum mob is that they seem very affectionate with each other. Lots of hugging and kissing on the cheek and long burning glances. It does not look like the Labour Party conference at all.

‘Sid, what is this Pendulum Club?’ I ask later on.

‘Dunno. Some kind of friendly society, I think.’

‘They’re friendly all right. They can hardly keep their hands off each other.’

This is nowhere truer than in relation to a bloke called Sam–Sam the Ram soon becomes our name for him. This geezer is about six and a half foot tall and has a silver goatee beard, enormous hooter and hands like seal’s flippers. He is constantly rubbing birds into his chest like embrocation and threatening to explode out of the front of his too-tight pink and white toreador pants. If he turned round quickly the weight of junk hanging round his neck could take your head off, and hair sprouts from the top of his open-necked shirt like black foam.

The birds seem to lap all this up and I notice that June and Audrey are not slow to show their appreciation.

‘Smashing,’ says June.

‘Smashing,’ says Audrey. ‘I bet he’s got a big one.’

By the time the gong goes for dinner, it takes a performance like the opening of a J. Arthur Rank film to break through the noise coming from the cocktail lounge. I have never seen the place so full.

‘What time are the family getting here?’ I ask Sid, thinking how impressed they would be to see the place jammed with gay fun-lovers.

Sid looks glum. ‘I’ve just had a telephone call from Rosie. Jason has been sick and they won’t be coming until tomorrow.’

‘That’s a pity. Still, they’ll be here for the dance won’t they?’

‘Yeah. That should be quite an affair if it goes anything like this.’ Never has Sidney spoken a truer word.

When we eventually get them in to supper I notice that a good many of the husbands and wives have split up and are not sitting together. I suppose they must have known each other before they got here. I notice, too, that they all have a gong-like medal strung round their necks. It must have something to do with the pendulum bit. At the end of the meal Sam the Ram scrapes back his chair and addresses the throng.

‘Get in tune with your surroundings, people,’ he intones. ‘The Mellow Mingle will begin at two hours before tomorrow. Keys please, to the ballroom where nightcaps will be served and friendships cemented.’ He flicks the gong round his neck so that it swings from side to side, and sits down as an interested murmur spreads around the room. Swings. Pendulum. Swings. Swingers! By the cringe! I take another good look around the nuzzling diners and there can be no doubt about it. They are wife-swappers to a man. Husband-swappers to a woman. Does Sidney know what he has let himself in for? Surely Miss Ruperts cannot have been party to this unsavoury flesh-trading. The diners began to drift away and I flee to Sidney’s side.

‘They’re all bleeding wife-swappers,’ I gasp. ‘Did you know that?’

‘Funny you should say that. The same thought was going through my mind.’ Sid does not sound very concerned.

‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘What do you expect me to do about it? Tell them all to leave? I don’t care what they get up to as long as it doesn’t frighten the staff.’

‘Or the residents.’

‘Oh, yes. I’d forgotten about them, well, they’re all so gaga they wouldn’t notice if Mrs Caitley started doing a striptease.’

‘Don’t be so disgusting! I bet the whale bone in her corsets was turning yellow when Moby Dick was a tadpole.’

‘Be your age, Timmo. You’re so old fashioned sometimes. Having a bit on the side isn’t the sin it used to be. A very nice class of person indulges these days, you know.’

‘That makes it all right then doesn’t it? Blimey, Sidney Noggett, you’re the biggest snob I know. Anything is all right if you read about it in Nova.’

‘I don’t know what you’re on about. All I know is that the hotel is full and that none of them signed the register with X’s. That’s good enough for me.’

‘Well, I hope Rosie sees it like that.’ Then, at last, Sidney’s face registers a trace of disquiet.

I have a few hours off that evening so I slip into my dudes and nip out for a drink; I can’t afford the prices at the Cromby. As I sit in the snug at the Fisherman’s Arms and consider the design on the beer mats, it occurs to me that Sidney’s attitude may well be the right one. It also occurs to me that there is a lot of spare back at the hotel and that I do not have an old lady to worry about. I mean, I am all in favour of free love, but I can’t imagine my wife ever being ready for it. They take things so much more seriously than us, don’t they? Look at Rosie with Ricci Volare on the Isla de Amor. She still stiffens every time Jimmy Young plays Come Prima.

I knock back my drink and whip round to the hotel. It is five to ten and I just have time to squirt some after-shave down the front of my Y-fronts before joining the crowd pushing into the ballroom. None of the older generation of Cromby employees are on view but Dennis is firmly entrenched behind the bar, no doubt fiddling a small fortune for himself. He registers surprise when he sees me.

‘Mr Noggett asked me to mingle and see that everything was under control,’ I say reassuringly.

‘Funny. That’s what he told me he was doing.’ Dennis points across the room and there is Sidney with a large scotch in his hand chatting up a tall bird with butterfly glasses. Dirty old sod! You can’t trust anybody these days, can you? He looks up and sees me before I can duck into the crowd and the expression on his mug is not akin to delight. However, he is obviously making headway with the chick because he turns his back and leaves me to it.

‘Oh, I am sorry!’ The willowy redhead must have made a detour of about five yards to bump into me and is smelling like a fire in a perfume factory that has been put out with liquid supplied by the local brewery.

‘That’s all right.’ My smile would make Warren Beatty rush round to his dentist for a check-up. ‘It was my fault. Let me get you another drink.’

‘That’s very kind of you, but are you sure?’

‘What’s your pleasure?’

‘Now you’re asking.’ She rolls her eyes and gives her pendulum a swing. ‘Just a teeny gin and tonic. A small one. Really.’

Dennis looks up at the ceiling as I approach him and flaps his wrist. ‘All right for some, isn’t it?’

‘Keep watering the drinks.’

I return to my fair companion who is now chewing her gong temptingly.

‘Where’s your thing?’

‘I beg your pardon!’

‘Your pendulum, silly!’

‘Oh, that!’ I pat my chest absent-mindedly. ‘Must have left it in my room.’

‘Did you leave your wife in your room too?’

‘She wasn’t feeling so well. It must have been someone she ate.’ She does not seem to find that very funny. Maybe she’s right.

‘Where are you from?’

‘Er, Clapham.’ I hesitate because Mum has always taught us to say Wandsworth Common because she thinks it sounds better and I am only just breaking myself of the habit.

‘Oh, it’s lovely, isn’t it? We’ve got lots of friends who have just moved there. The Common is bliss.’

I don’t know if I would call Scraggs Lane lovely, and when I was a kid the tarts’ minders on the common used to keep warm by turning you over for your pocket money Still, I suppose it has changed a bit in the last few years.

‘It’s not bad.’

‘Have you lived there long?’

‘Quite a long time, yes.’ Like all my bleeding life, actually. It is obviously time I changed the subject.

‘What’s your name?’ She holds up her gong and I see that it has Penelope Brown engraved on it.

‘Call me Penny. What’s yours?’

‘Timothy Lea.’

‘Do you mind being called Tim?’

‘I don’t mind at all. How’s your glass?’

‘Fine. I don’t think I should have any more. I’m feeling a bit squiffy as it is. Tell me’–she tugs my sleeve, ‘are you fixed up yet?’ She looks around the assembled swingers and I follow her eyes.

‘You mean–?’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

‘Well,’–her hand slips into mine and she rests her head against my chest–’how about you and me …? I don’t want to put the key in.’ I should think not, it sounds dead uncomfortable. ‘The last time I ended up with a pervert–there’s no other word for it–a pervert who put. “These Boots are Made For Walking” on the record player and started unpacking a pair of Wellingtons. I mean, you can imagine how I felt.’ I nod sympathetically. ‘I don’t want to have to go through that again.’

‘No, of course not.’ I begin to see what she is talking about and my impression is confirmed when Sam the Ram makes with the vocal again.

‘Greetings, dream-fodder,’ he murmurs, swaying from side to side in such a way that his pendulum seems not to be moving. ‘I’m interrupting the Mellow Mingle because it is time for the Ceremony of the Keys. Gather round, those of you with a burning yearning for nude feels and postures new.’

‘He’s so cool,’ breathes Penny.

‘Who, Sam?’

‘Big Sam,’ she gives an ecstatic little wriggle and I wince. ‘Come on, I want to watch this.’

We press forward to where a circle has formed in front of the Ram and what looks like a black velvet pillow case is lying on the ground. About twenty birds step forward and put their room keys into the bag and there is a feeling of excitement in the air. Quite a lot of straightforward feeling too.

‘Everybody done? Then let’s start swinging!’ Big S. whirls the bag about his head and a bunch of blokes press forward when he stops. Like kids with a lucky dip, they dive their hands into the bag and draw out a key. ‘Forty-seven’, ‘twenty-eight’, ‘sixty-nine’–that one gets a laugh. As the numbers are called out so the blokes pair off with the bird whose room key they have got. All except one man whose voice rises in cheated outrage:

‘Oih!’ he shouts, ‘I’ve got my wife.’ The unhappy accident is quickly remedied and couples drift back to the bar and off to amuse each other. Disgusting, isn’t it? Yeah, but a bit of all right as well, eh? I wonder what my Mum and Dad would have been like if they had gone in for this caper? They could not have been much worse off, I will wager that.

‘I didn’t think much of Christopher’s,’ says Penny as she takes my arm.

‘Christopher’s what–oh, you mean his bird.’ I don’t really want to know which one is Christopher. I am old fashioned like that. If I am knocking off the missus I don’t fancy a game of darts with hubby afterwards. I am more interested in seeing what has happened to Sid. Oh, dear! Sam the Ram is leading off Butterfly Specs, and Sid is looking like a kid who hid his lolly ice in a warm oven. I consider issuing a few words of good cheer, but decide against it. Sid can turn a bit funny sometimes. With this thought in mind I quicken my pace as we leave the ballroom, and study the key that Penny has thoughtfully pushed into my mitt.

‘It’s fantastic to meet someone new,’ she murmurs. ‘You get tired of all the old faces.’

At the very least, I think to myself. Blimey, how many couples in the hotel? Two hundred? She should write a book about it. Perhaps she has.

We pad along the corridor and there it is. Room number one-eight-two. I take a deep breath as I unlock it because I have a nasty feeling that Christopher is going to be on the other side with a shot gun. Sometimes I think I belong to another age. Every time I get my end away I think I am doing something naughty. Does make it more exciting though.

‘Nobody here,’ I say, my voice sounding a bit strained.

‘Of course not, darling. You weren’t expecting a gangers, were you?’

‘A what?’

‘Gangers bangers, darling.’

‘Oh, yes. Of course not.’

‘Tomorrow night. Now, that’s another story. You weren’t with us at Bournemouth, were you? We united with a working sub-committee of the British Foundrymen’s Association–and I mean united.’

‘Sounds a great scene,’ I say, trying to appear as if I experience it every day of the week before the Epilogue. ‘Christopher won’t come barging in, will he?’

‘Good heavens, no. We won’t see him till kipper-time. We have eight hours to amuse each other.’ She sways towards me and I wonder if eight hours is going to be long enough. I have always been partial to a bit of tit myself and this bird is not particularly well favoured in that direction, but she has a slinky quality that more than makes up for it. Her body ripples like a flag in a hurricane and she plants herself against my body like she is trying to turn herself into a laminate. I push the door shut with my foot and immediately feel able to deal with the situation. At least I think I do. I allow Penny the access to my lips she so obviously demands and rub my hands gently over her curvy hind-quarters. No need to hurry things. Mrs Brown has other ideas. Her fingernails dig into me like she is probing for a 50p piece that has slipped down the lining of my jacket and her mouth performs as if it is trying to douse a forest fire. ‘Come on, oh no, baby! Please! No, yes. Oh–o-o-o-h! Do it to me. Please! Ple-e-e-ase!’ Well, you don’t have to be a boy scout to respond to a plea like that and I set to unzipping her like a starving cannibal welcoming a new missionary. Her own hands are not idle and her assault on the front of my trousers would qualify for the finals of the World Turnip-Picking Championships. Once again, I wish I had the services of Ejecta pants as I try and struggle free from the clinging embrace of my jealous underwear. These fits of passion can be murder on a young trendy’s wardrobe for the modern satins and velvets are not well-equipped for displays of sexual violence. Sit down a bit sudden and you could rip the seat out of seven quids worth of flare-bottomed invitation to sensual mayhem. Get down to a real bit of sweaty slap and tickle and you might as well resign yourself to five quids worth of invisible mending or a quick conversion to faded denim.

‘Gr-r-r-h!’ Mrs B. is now making growling noises. Her bra and panties set is really something. Midnight blue with little red flowers scattered everywhere. You can see she has chosen her wardrobe with real care. I am now naked except for my socks and so look like a refugee from a dirty photograph. I always feel a right berk in this condition and attempt to cater for Mrs B.’s increasingly excited demands while hopping from one leg to another trying to hook off my Wolsey grip-tops. Only a mountain goat–and I have seen very few of them about tonight–could achieve the necessary standard of footwork and it is seconds before I crash back across the bed with Penny on top of me. Luckily my equipment is wangy enough to withstand the impact and I lie back as my excitable friend struggles to her feet and whips off her bra and panties.

‘Don’t move, Lancelot,’ she yodels, giving a long ecstatic wriggle that makes me think she is trying to shed her skin. ‘That’s just the way I want you.’ I have no plans to cross-index my stamp collection, so I continue to lie back and wait for her to vault into the saddle. But not a bit of it.

While I watch in amazement she gets a large cardboard box and starts emptying some white powder into the washbasin. What is this? Is she going to rinse out her smalls or is it some kind of Ajax demonstration? Is a fast-talker with a microphone and forty-two Birmingham housewives going to appear from behind the curtains?

‘I’m going to add you to my collection,’ she says, turning on the cold tap. ‘Did you see W.R. Mysteries of the Orgasm?’

‘No!’ I say indignantly. I mean, it does not sound very nice does it? What is she on about?

‘You should do. It’s a marvellous movie.’ She is clearly mixing something in the washbasin. What is it? Bread? She wipes her hands on a towel and comes over to the bed.

‘Now,’ she says gently, ‘let’s get him ready.’ She sits down on the edge of the bed and starts running her fingers gently along my hampton. My friend laps this up and I stretch out my finger to perform a similar service.

‘Later,’ she murmurs, crossing one leg over the other, ‘let me do this first.’ It occurs to me that her tone has changed a bit from the first moments of careless rapture–and near rupture, and that her efforts were directed towards achieving the fine specimen her fingers are now feasting on. I do not like being manipulated in this way, but on the other hand–or perhaps in the other hand–I do, if you know what I mean.

‘Like a sword, isn’t it?’ she observes cheerfully. ‘Now, just a little–’ Her mouth drops and I have to hold onto the edge of the bed. Oh, my goodness me! All part of life’s rich varied tapestry, as my old school master used to say–though not about what Mrs Brown is doing to me. There must be worse ways of spending Friday night.

‘Right,’ says Mrs B., climbing to her feet. ‘He’s ready.’ She can say that again. You could fire my hampton through the side of a Centurion tank without denting it. ‘No, don’t move.’

Before I can grab her she has nipped over to the washbasin and return with two handfuls of white gunge which she slaps on top of my throbbing J.T.! Talk about surprised! I am speechless.

‘Hey! What the–’

‘Plaster of paris, Lancelot. I’m taking a cast of your virility.’ She slaps some more gunk over puzzled Percy and smiles down at me. ‘It won’t take a second. This stuff dries very fast.’

‘But, why? What are you going to use it for?’

‘Just a souvenir. I’m not going to turn it into a dildo. Though that’s quite a good idea, isn’t it? Dildos of the famous. You could sign up all the sexiest showbiz personalities and even royalty. Comfort yourself with the Duke of–’

‘Hold on a minute,’ I croak. ‘Are you sure this isn’t going to damage my equipment?’

‘Darlingest, would I perform such a disservice to my baser interests?’ She squeezes the plaster of paris tightly round my hampton and kisses me lightly on the lips. ‘I’ll send you one if you like. You can use it as a paper weight.’

‘Thanks. My Mum would like that.’

‘You don’t have to show it to her. I keep my collection in the bureau.’

The bureau of missing persons, I think to myself. Blimey. What a carry on. There are a lot of funny people about, aren’t there?’

‘It’s hardened up nicely,’ she says. ‘Now, where’s my hammer?’

‘Good evening!’ Those of you who have ever tried to leap off a bed with half a pound of plaster of paris round your chopper will sympathise with my predicament.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she says. ‘It’s only a little tap.’

‘I know, but I’ve grown fond of it over the years.’

‘I mean it’s only a little tap with the hammer. You won’t feel a thing.’

‘That’s what my dentist used to say.’

She produces a small hammer, like the ones you get in a kid’s carpentry set and advances towards the bed,

‘You’d better know what you’re doing with that thing.’

‘Darling, it’s easy as breaking an egg.’ My balls don’t go for that much, I can tell you. Tap, tap. ‘There you are.’ I make a ‘let’s wait and see’ noise and watch my happy hampton burst out into the light again like a friendly moggy that has been locked up in a dark room. Mrs B. takes the two halves of the cast and puts them together carefully.

‘I’ll deal with these later,’ she says, popping them into the top drawers of the dressing table.

‘Yeah, now you can start dealing with this.’ I grab her by the arm and yank her onto the bed.

‘Darling, I really ought to put something on it first.’

‘I’ll tell you what to put on it!’ I am not interested in garnish. I am interested in action. I have waited a long time and my equipment has been sorely misused. ‘Come on top of me.’ Mrs B. straddles me on her knees and I plunge Percy into darkness again–this time in surroundings to which he is more accustomed. ‘Come here.’ I am not usually rough with ladies but at this moment I need a little agro to rekindle my lapsed enthusiasm. I pull Penny down so that her breasts rub against my chest and her hair tickles my cheeks. I brush it aside and feast on her mouth, stroking her cheeks as if coaxing out her tongue from a hiding place. Her body begins to rise and fall across my hips and I time the flexing of my muscles to coincide with hers. Beautiful! And such good exercise too. I am certain this must be better for you than all those bloody stupid exercises they print in women’s magazines.

‘Put your knees up,’ she says, ‘I want to lean back.’ I let her go and watch the expression on her face as she settles herself in the position to achieve maxiMum satisfaction. Her eyes are half-closed and she breathes in little pockets of air almost as if she is in pain. Slowly her tongue extends to be held gingerly between her teeth and her mouth broadens into the beginnings of a smile.

‘Go on,’ she whispers, ‘go on, go on!’ Pressing her hands down against the bed she pushes her body up and down in time with the flexing of my hips. ‘Oh, darling, that’s heaven.’ I read somewhere–I don’t think it was in the Women’s Institute Year Book–that birds have been known to faint with ecstasy in such a position. I don’t blame them. I am feeling a bit giddy myself.

‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ Is it her or me calling out? I close my eyes and open my mouth and what happens after that is Ike and Tina Turner destroying the volume control on the greatest stereo set on earth. That and some miserable old git banging on the ceiling with an artificial limb. You can’t please everybody, I suppose.

I don’t know what the time is when we eventually get to sleep but I feel as though I have been run through a combine harvester a couple of times. Talk about knackered! I close my eyes and when I open them the sunlight is streaming through the windows. Blimey! I should be somewhere else fast. I leap out of bed and land on something soft. Something soft that groans. It is a man stretched out on the bedside rug.

‘Sorry,’ says the creature, still half asleep but sounding genuinely apologetic. ‘I couldn’t stand the woman’s snoring.’ I presume he means the bird he was shacked up with. This must be Christopher. I don’t wait to introduce myself but pull on my trousers and leave him clambering wearily into bed to take my place beside Mrs B. who is still out for the count.

So endeth the first night that the Pendulum Society spend at the Cromby. It is a taste of things to come.