Читать книгу The Confessions Collection - Rosie Dixon, Timothy Lea - Страница 11

When I leave Mrs. Stanmore’s – that was Viv’s name because I saw an envelope with her address and a foreign stamp on it in the kitchen – I feel about a hundred feet tall. I’ve scored at last and I want to rush off and tell everybody about it. I am a bit disappointed that Viv seems so unaffected and is thumbing through the T.V. Times when I leave but you can’t have everything. The main thing was that I’ve got my end away, and on my first day too. I rolled my eyes at all the girls I passed and wonder if they knew what they are missing. And a married woman too. She must have been on the pill – or something. How should I tell Sid? For no reason that I can think of I terrify everybody waiting for a bus outside Balham Station by shouting ‘Up the Blues!’ and race myself home.

But I don’t have to tell Sid. A couple of hours later he comes in and chucks himself down in front of the telly. Mum was getting tea and Rosie is washing her hair. Dad is presumably down at the Linnet explaining to those who haven’t heard it before how he won the Second World War.

“How’s it go?” I say waiting for him to ask the same question.

“Much as usual. I brought your ladder back.”

That takes the wind out of my sails. Sid grins.

“Yeah, you start leaving those all over the place and its going to get expensive.”

“Sorry Sid, my mind just went blank.”

“Only just?”

I try and smile but I don’t really feel like it. What did Sid go back for? I don’t have to wait long to find out.

“Viv told me you had a little tussle. Very little I believe, You’ll have to do better than that with Viv, she’s a very greedy girl.”

It occurs to me that Sid has secretly been a bit jealous once he’s handed over his bird and hopped back smartish to see that everything is alright. His swagger suggests that he has been reassured that he is still Number One in the farm yard. Lucky old Viv. She’ll really be looking up when we take on a few partners. I can’t help feeling a bit choked about it but at the same time the fact that Sid might have been worried gives me confidence. I’ve never known him show any signs of flapping before.

“She didn’t seem overimpressed with you if you must know.” I lie.

Sid goes scarlet. “What did she say?”

“Oh, nothing really. It’s not worth talking about.”

“Go on. What did she say?”

“Well, she said – oh, no. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Sid.”

“She didn’t say anything. You’re lying.”

“That’s right Sid. I was just having a little joke.”

“She’s never complained to me.”

“No, of course not.”

Poor Sid. You can see him racking his mind to think of every single time he’s had it away with her.

“She said I was the best poke she’d ever had.”

“Well, there you are.”

“What did she say?”

“I told you Sid. It was nothing really.”

Sid is starting to speak again when Mum comes in with our tea.

“What you got lined up for me tomorrow?” I says to him all innocent like.

“You can get stuffed,” he snarls, and storms out, nearly knocking over Mum’s tray.

“What’s the matter with him,” she says. “You two haven’t been quarrelling have you? Not when you’ve only just started together. Oh, dear, that’s not very nice is it?”

“It’s alright Mum,” I say loud enough for Sid to hear before the front door closes, “he’s strained his groin and I was telling him to look after himself.”

That’s the last bit of spare I get from Sid and for the next few weeks our relationship is dead official. Every morning he gives me a list of addresses and tells me the area he wants me to cover and off we cycle in opposite directions.

My little adventure with Viv has totally changed my approach to women and I’m now a different person. It’s like learning to ride a bike. Once you find you can stay up there’s no holding you. In fact, looking back I think I overdid it a bit. I was all straining biceps and too-tight T-shirts; whistling through clenched teeth and bouncing about like the bloke who takes your money on the Giant Whip. I must have looked like the cover of ‘Butch Male’. Not that I didn’t realise there was room for improvement. I had sensed that Viv went off the boil pretty quickly, before Sid started riding me, and it was easy to tie this in with the fact that I’d been in and out of her faster than the Pope mistaking the local Synagogue for the Gents.

I went down the Junction and bought a book about it from one of those shops that you can never look in the window of without someone appearing beside you. I had exactly the right money and I threw it down and snatched up the book before the wet-lipped old pouf behind the counter had finished leering, “Do you need any other personal requisites?” at me.

It’s very interesting reading and I’m full of things I didn’t know, like birds taking longer to get warmed up than fellows. It occurs to me that if Viv was just getting into her stride she’d bloody kill you once she got going. Anyhow, I get the message that I’m supposed to stick around a bit longer and in this connection there is an interesting passage on something called ‘carezza’. With this you think about a subject totally unrelated to what you’re doing so you don’t boil over. In other words if you think you’re going to come, you immediately start concentrating on your grandmother’s budgerigar. It seems alright to me as long as you have a wide range of things to think about. I mean, I wouldn’t fancy getting a hard on every time I saw grandma’s budgie.

There’s also a lot of other stuff in the book which they say, to my relief, is quite normal. I had always thought I was kinky just thinking about it. At the back are some illustrations which are sealed so you can’t open them till you buy the book. I tear the pages open hungrily but there are only a couple of pictures of cocks and fannies with all their working parts and the posh names for them. Vas Deferens. It sounds like a pop singer.

Now, as you can imagine, all this fruity reading plus the taste I’ve had from Viv is making me keener than a new razor blade and I’m really keeping my eyes open. I don’t have long to wait.

“Don’t hang about out there,” she says, “You’ll catch your death.”

It’s turned a bit colder now and it’s a day that reminds you of what winter is going to be like. I’m standing under the only tree in her little back garden and I’m still getting wet.

“Rain is a nuisance isn’t it?” she says. “If it had started earlier I could have saved myself a few bob – I’m only joking of course.”

She touches my arm quickly to prove she means it. It’s a good sign that arm touching. Viv did it too. It’s like squeezing fruit in a greengrocers. It shows interest and concern. A desire to make contact.

“You’d better have a cup of tea now you’re here, hadn’t you? You know I’m quite glad you showed up. I’d been meaning to do something about the windows for ages. They’re a disgrace, aren’t they?”

She wasn’t one of the regulars on Sid’s list but a bird who had come darting out as I cycled past. A bit on the tall side but with big eyes and good legs. I like her.

“But it’s one of those things, like having the chimney swept. Somehow you can never bring yourself to do anything about it until the grate is full of soot.”

She’s rabbiting on as if she’s really glad to have someone to talk to. I suppose it must get a bit lonely when your old man is away all day and the children are at school and it’s pissing down with rain. The boozer’s shut and you’d get a few raised eyebrows if you went in there on your tod. You might go to the flicks but that’s like a morgue in the afternoon and some nutcase will probably start trying to touch you up. A cup of tea with one of your mates and a natter about the kids is the most you can look forward to. It’s not much is it?

“Sorry the place is in such a mess but I usually do the washing today. Could go down the launderette, I suppose, but I don’t fancy using the same machine as some coon. You know what I mean?”

It’s funny how after the first time I’m so relaxed. I’m letting her do all the talking and I’m thinking about her – not me.

“Still takes all sorts doesn’t it,” I say. “My old man can’t stand the Irish. Always on about the night they chucked one through the window of the Linnet. He’s dead funny like that.”

“Oh, don’t misunderstand me. I’ve nothing against them. There’s good and bad on all sides. It’s just that we got a few hard nuts round here.”

“Oh yeah, I’m not blaming you. I know what it’s like.”

We sip our tea and I look at her tits and don’t try to hide it. She notices because she sits back in her chair and sticks her chest out. There’s nothing there to give Sabrina a complex but at least she’s putting the goods on show.

“Still,” she says, “you don’t have to worry do you? Big, strong fellow like you knows how to look after himself.”

“Well, I try and keep fit. I play a bit of football and rugby netball.” I say modestly.

“I wish you could get my old man up there,” she says. “He’s gone off something rotten in the last few years. He used to be mad keen on sport but now he can hardly find the strength to turn the wrestling on.”

“Really,” I says, quite liking the way things are going, “that’s a pity. Why do you reckon that is?”

“Dunno. I think its the job. He works down the power station. I think the heat takes it out of him. He’s put on a lot of weight too.”

“You notice a difference?”

“Oh yeah, I notice a difference alright” she raises her eyes to the ceiling which is all flaky and curly like white wood shavings.

“I notice a difference. Look” – she glances round as if expecting someone else to be listening, “I shouldn’t be saying this to you, a perfect stranger—”

“I’m not perfect” I say.

“No, well – oh yes – very funny – well, where was I? – yes – our, what you might call, private life is non-existent these days.”

“You mean—”

“—Exactly. He just doesn’t want to know. Now, I read an article in the paper somewhere that most people do it at least twice a week – are you married?”

“No.”

“Well, twice a week that’s what they said.”

“Did you show the article to your husband?”

“That’s exactly what I did, I said ‘Arthur, you used to be quite a boy once. Now have a read of this’.”

“And did he?”

“Oh yeah! He glanced at it and then he threw it on the fire and said ‘I don’t want to know about all that rubbish, What’s on the telly?’”

“That’s diabolical, I mean its not as if you’re unattractive.”

“I’m not asking for compliments.”

“I wouldn’t say it unless I meant it. I think you’re a very handsome woman. Your old man doesn’t know how lucky he is.”

I can see she laps this up and it’s the first real lesson I learn about chatting up birds. If you’re stuck for something to say tell them they’re beautiful. They’ll always believe that. Even if you’re stuck with some right old slag, find something about her that doesn’t turn your stomach and say “Has anybody ever told you what smashing eyebrows you have?” or “Doreen, I never noticed your ears before, they’re beautiful”. Chances are they’ll be peering at themselves in the mirror for the rest of the evening and saying “He’s right, he’s right”, and they’ll be eternally grateful – or, at least if not eternally, you stand a good chance of getting your end away in the bus shelter on the way home.

Another thing to remember about married birds is that none of them reckon their old men appreciate them. Tell them this and you’re backing up their own judgement as well as flattering them, which can’t be bad. Anyhow, in this particular situation the bird’s hand is shaking with excitement as she pours me another cup of tea and I’m sitting back feeling I’ll soon have to start taking ugly pills.

“You know who you remind me of?” she says all intense like.

“Boris Karloff?” I say, modestly.

“No, stupid. Jackie Pallo.”

Jackie Pallo. I don’t reckon that very much. “Nobody’s ever told me that before.”

“It’s your body.”

“You haven’t seen my body.”

“I’ve seen enough of it to tell.”

“I don’t look a bit like Jackie Pallo.”

“Oh yes you do, look, I’ll show you.”

She pops out and comes back with a bloody great scrap book of male pin-ups going right back to people like Dana Andrews and John Payne. They must have been stuck in when she was a kid. Most of the up-to-date ones are telly stars and she certainly goes for beefcake. There’s hardly a bloke with a stitch on above the waist.

“There you are.” She points to a photo of Pallo standing on some poor berk’s chest with his hands clasped above his head.

“I don’t see it.”

“You must do.”

“I’m not very flattered.”

“You should be, I think he’s smashing. I go all – oh, I don’t know – when I see him.”

“Well, I am flattered then.” I puts my hand on her thigh and gives it a squeeze. She doesn’t touch my hand but looks right past me and her bottom lip starts trembling. I take my hand away.

“I’ve got another one somewhere. I think it’s upstairs.”

“I’ll help you look for it.”

“It’s a bit of a mess up there.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I think it may be in the kids room.”

“Let’s look there.”

She’s going up the dark stairs ahead of me and I can hear her stockings swishing against each other. Round the bend on the landing and I can see the line of her bra and the bulge of its clip against the small of her back. I’m getting so worked up I can hardly wait to get through the door.

“Now, where did I see it?”

It’s a small room with two kids’ beds close together and the walls covered with pictures of Chelsea Footballers flashing their muscles and looking sickeningly confident. I know how they feel.

She drops on one knee, between the beds, and I’m down there with her like her own shadow. She starts rummaging around a pile of comics and when she turns round I’m right on top of her. I try and kiss her but she pulls back and puts her hand on my arm.

“What are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to kiss you.”

“Oh, you mustn’t do that.”

This is another little performance you have to learn to get used to. A bird will sandbag you and drag you back to her place but once she gets you there she’ll suddenly start acting all coy and saying things like “do you really think this is a good idea?” or “you just want me for my body”. Bloody stupid, unnatural things that make you want to say “alright then” and piss off. But of course you never do because by that time you’d put a ring on her finger to get your end away.

“Oh, let me kiss you,” I bleat, “don’t be cruel. I think you’re smashing, I really do.”

She makes a bit of token resistance and then comes down on both knees to make herself more comfortable.

“Suppose my old man were to come home?” The minute she says that I know I’m in like Flynn.

“He couldn’t say anything could he. He neglects you.”

I put my hand up her skirt and start kissing her again. She’s good at that and allows herself a couple of satisfied moans.

“You can’t stay long, the kids will be back from school soon.”

We struggle onto the bed and I start fiddling for the hook on her skirt.

“Close the door first.”

I get up and close the door and she’s lying on the bed with her skirt up round her waist, and her face flushed. I sit down on the edge of the bed and start taking my shoes off. There’s a hair pin hanging down by her ear so I take it out and kiss her very gently.

One thing to remember when you’re undressing in front of a bird is to do it in the right order. Get your shoes and socks off first, then your shirt, trousers and pants, if you wear any. I can never understand all those jokers in dirty photographs running around with just a pair of socks on. Always seems very crude to me.

Anyway, I go through this palava until the bird, whose name I haven’t yet discovered, gets a spot of the full frontals without having to turn her telly on.

“He’s very naughty,” she says stretching out her hand, and it’s a fact that I’m standing to attention better than the brigade of guards. I settle down beside her and after a bit more cuddling, because I’ve been reading my book, remember? I unhook her skirt and start to pull it off.

“There’s a zip,” she says. I find that and we’re off again.

So are her pants and tights. I’m starting to unbutton her blouse when she grabs my hand.

“That’s enough,” she says.

It’s a funny thing that, and its one of the differences I find between upper and working class birds. Your upper class bints likes nothing better than to tear all her clothes off and run around starkers showing you everything she’s got, and proud of it, but most of the stuff I tumble with only take their knickers off. Flashers like Viv are the exception. I don’t know whether it’s because working class families live on top of each other and have to be more careful in case the kids suddenly come bouncing in, or because they reckon the whole thing is a bit dirty and least seen soonest mended. Anyway, this bird is dead typical.

“Go on,” I say, “you’ve got lovely breasts.” Notice I don’t say tits. It’s because I’m trying to be romantic and ‘breasts’ seem the right word to use, but I have since learnt that with an upper class bird you’d be much better telling her she had a nice pair of bristols. They go for it if you talk dirty to them, whilst a bird like this one will go spare if you say ‘cock’ when you’re on the job.

“No,” she says, “you mustn’t do that. You just be nice to me, that’s all.” I know what she means so I drop my hands down below and rummage around in her tea-cosy. It’s as slippery as a snail’s front doorstep and twice as inviting. The very feel of it sends electric currents racing round my old man.

“What’s that?” she says suddenly.

“It’s my hand.” I says.

“No, I meant that noise.”

She half sits up and I stop quivering with excitement and start trembling with fear. Our ears strain into the distance and I hold my breath waiting for the sound of footsteps on the stair.

“I can’t hear anything.”

“No, it must have been my imagination. The house creaks a bit sometimes.”

She drops back again and pulls me down to her.

“Sorry, put him in now. I can feel he’s ready for it.”

The habit of talking about my prick as if its something I take round with me on the end of a lead does not appeal very much but I don’t think this is the moment to point it out to her. She’s stroking me up a treat and she must use the right washing-up liquid because her fingers are soft as putty. I don’t need any more urging and I’m inside her easy as wanking. It’s all very pleasurable except for the creaking bed springs and the feeling that I’m going to come any moment. In fact the bedsprings are a help, because I’m so busy imagining someone creeping upstairs under cover of the noise that it quite takes my mind off sex which in turn stops me from boiling over. It’s a kind of enforced carezza but it can’t last for ever because the bird is becoming increasingly noisy and violent which excites me out of my tiny mind.

“Oh no – yes – go on, go on! oh no – stop! no – I can’t – oh yes, no!”

She rabbits on like this so if you was really trying to do what she wanted you’d go round the twist or jack it in in disgust. Experience has taught me that when a bint is sexed up you might as well forget anything she says. You’re better off just wacking away till you hear the old death rattle – if you stop that’s always wrong.

But I’m skating on a bit. On this particular afternoon in late September it’s me who’s hanging on for dear life. Like the book says I’m trying to think of everything under the sun to stop myself from coming – hobnail boots, Jimmy Young, bulldogs, old gramophone records – but it’s no good. I’m just on the point of surrendering to my baser emotions when the bird starts tugging at my arse as if she’s trying to get the whole bloody lot of me inside her and starts hollering ‘Now, now, now!’ Well that’s it. I accept her advice gratefully and a few moments later I’m lying on top of her damp blouse and struggling to get my breath back. It’s dead ungrateful, I know, but the moment I’ve come I wish I could press a button and make her disappear. I just don’t want to know anymore. It seems bloody ridiculous that I could have been so worked up just a few minutes before. Beneath me the bird gives a little wriggle to tell me that she wants me to move and when I don’t carefully eases herself into a more comfortable position.

“What’s your name?” she says softly.

“Timmy.”

“That was nice, Timmy. I’d almost forgotten what it was like.”

“Yeah, good.” I give her a little squeeze while I’m wondering how to get out. With Viv it was easy. I might have been in the Casualty Department of a hospital. She just gave me a plaster for my foot, we dressed and I went home. Dead simple. As it happens my latest turns out to be less of a problem than I imagined – at least in one way.

“My name’s Dorothy – what’s that?”

This time there is something. The front door slamming and the sound of feet pounding up the stairs – two of them. Kids voices shouting the odds.

“Oh yes I did!”

“You bleedin’ didn’t!”

“Get out,” hisses the bird. She’s off the bed like its white hot, and whipping on her skirt. She rolls up her drawers and tights and throws them on top of the cupboard. Quick thinking. I’d be impressed if I had time.

“Stop them,” I whisper while I fumble for my socks. She’s so red she might burst. She takes one look at me which hasn’t got an ounce of expression in it and goes out fast. I can sympathise with her. It can’t be much fun to have your kids find you on the job with the window cleaner.

“Look at that carpet. How many times have I told you to wipe your feet before you go upstairs.”

“But Mum—”

“Don’t ‘but Mum’ me. You can go right back and do it properly.” I hear her voice and the squeaks of protest descending to the hall. Now, how am I going to get out? I’ll have to pretend that I was cleaning the windows. I haven’t brought any of my stuff up with me so what am I going to use? In a flash of inspiration I remember Dorothy’s knicks and tights. I nip up on one of the beds and fish them down from the top of the wardrobe. There’s a toilet next door so I dip them in that and give the windows a quick rub over. Luckily it’s stopped raining about an hour before so it doesn’t look too stupid. There’s a nosy old bag opposite peering at me round a curtain but I don’t worry about her over much. She can’t possibly see what I’m cleaning the window with.

Downstairs and I shove the undies in the bottom of my bucket and smile at the kids. They look at me a bit old-fashioned though it’s probably my imagination.

“That’s it, lady, fifteen bob if you don’t mind. Thank you very much. Ta ta, be seeing you.”

I hop on my bike and start cycling down the street with the funny feeling that none of it really happened. Round the corner in front of me a bloke of about thirty-five is crossing the road. His hair is beginning to go and there’s a dead fag gummed between his lips. He’s fat and scruffy and looks like about ten million other blokes who have got one of their mates to clock out for them and shuffled home early for Bird’s Eye fish fingers and an evening in front of the telly. I know that if I turn round and watch he’ll go into the house I’ve just left. But I don’t turn round.