Читать книгу The Confessions Collection - Rosie Dixon, Timothy Lea - Страница 26

The next morning finds me outside the East Coast Driving School, which is situated in a small glass-fronted shop next to the Majestic Cinema and sllightly larger than it. The cinema is showing ‘The Big Sleep’ and the familiar faces of Bogart and Bacall, sneering at me from the faded stills, are comforting. “Yeah, he’s the kind of guy who would bat all your teeth out, then kick you in the stomach for mumbling.” “O.K., blue eyes, where’s Schultzy? Talk or I’ll give you a row of lead waistcoat buttons.” I turn up my coat collar, stuff my hands deep into the pockets and walk past the E.C.D.S. offices again. I have done this about six times now and the shapely blonde manicuring her nails behind a desk marked RECEPTION is beginning to notice me. She is wearing a silk blouse unbuttoned provocatively so the top of her bra cups show and she is either chewing gum or trying to ease out a stubborn piece of breakfast that doesn’t want to say goodbye to her teeth. She looks a greedy girl and I am prepared to bet that her appetite covers more than a taste for Black Magic chocolates. Besides her, the room contains half-a-dozen chairs and a test-your-eyesight wall chart. It looks like a doctor’s waiting-room.

It is five past nine so I square my enormous shoulders and stroll nonchalantly into the reception area, pausing only to remove the doormat which has hooked itself over one of my shoes.

“Yes?” says the girl, looking at me as if I am something the cat has brought up. “Can I help you?” She manages to make it sound like it is the last thing in the world she wants to do.

“I hope so,” I say. “My name is Lea and I have an appointment with Mr. Cronk at nine o’clock.”

“And you’re five minutes late for it, aren’t you, lad?” The voice belongs to an enormous man with a moustache like one of those things used for cleaning toilets.

He has appeared through a door marked PRIVATE and his bloodshot eyes are going up and down my body like they’ve been caught up in the zip of my fly.

“One thing I can’t abide is unpunctuality,” he goes on. “I saw you slouching up and down outside. Having second thoughts, were you? Or was it the lure of the moving picture house? No joy there, because it’s bingo two-knee-ite.” His voice rises to a shrill screech at the end of the sentence and the word ‘night’ is pronounced as in ‘knee height to a grasshopper.’ His inflection is about as army as a set of mess tins and my steel trap mind springs to a conclusion.

“Mr. Cronk?”

“Key-rect, Lea. Step into my office.”

I go through the door marked PRIVATE and into a neat little rooms which contains a desk, empty except for a set of ‘in’, ‘out’ and ‘pending’ trays, all of which are also empty. On the wall is a picture of Montgomery and a few other geezers who have cleaned up, selling their memoirs to the Sunday Times. Slightly to the left of them is a photograph of Cronk amongst a group of regimental hard nuts posed under a palm tree as if they have just won something—probably World War II.

“Right, lad,” says Cronk, sitting down behind his desk, but making no gesture towards waving me into a seat. “Welcome to the East Coast Driving School. You will find us a happy band united behind the resolve to make this the most successful driving school in the whole of East Anglia. I think I can safely say that already our reputation has spread far and wide and we intend to build on success. That is why you are fortunate to be joining us at a moment when the future looms wide with opportunities. With your assistance, we will take them.”

“Thank you,” I say earnestly. “You can rely on me to do my best.”

“I hope so, lad. I know nothing about you apart from what your brother-in-law wrote to me.” I look questioningly into his face but it doesn’t tell me anything. “I expect you heard that we were involved in a little altercation?”

I nod. “You got him thrown out of the army.”

“Yes, indeed. Terrible business. Mistake. Awful.”

“You don’t want to worry about it,” I reassure him. “Sid was dead chuffed to be out.”

“Nevertheless,” Cronk winces at such blasphemy, “it was a bad business and I hold myself responsible. The least I can do is to extend a helping hand to you as some kind of reparation. But, and let me make this most clear, this is not a charitable organisation. You will be expected to pull your weight and if you do not come up to our standards—high standards, I might add—we will be forced to dispense with your services. Understood?” I nod again. “Now, as I expect you know, one-fifth of all your instructing time must be spent with an A.D.I. until you pass your examination and I’ve asked our Mr. Cripps to accompany you on your first few lessons. He’ll take you out for a tour of the most used test circuits after our little chat.”

‘Chat’ is the wrong word, for Cronk doesn’t give me the chance to say anything. He rabbits on about the importance of not compromising myself and the penalty for ignoring his advice—instant dismissal. Though disturbed by his attitude, I’m cheered to find that there obviously is the chance of a bit of nooky if you keep your eyes open.

I keep nodding and wish I could get a bit of activity into my facial muscles to relieve the monotony, but I can feel my features setting like cement.

“… and so, now that you know a little about us …” I can tell that he is winding up for the big finale, “… and in the weeks to come you’re obviously going to know a great deal more. If there is anything you’re not happy about, anything you want to know, come and see me; that’s what I’m here for. Understood? Good. Any questions?”

“Yes,” I think to myself. “One. Why do you wear that bloody great moustache when you have a small, turned-up nose with a red blob on the end of it like Coco the clown? That moustache needs a great big hooter with a beard in the middle of it.”

“Not at the moment, thank you.” I shake my head and unravel my fingers.

“Right. I’ll introduce you to Mr. Cripps.”

He presses a button in the middle of his desk and nothing happens. He does this twice more and then stalks to the door and siezes the knob as if intent on tearing it from its mooring. Seconds later I realise that this was not his intention because he is looking at the knob in his hand with something akin to surprise. Cursing crudely he seeks the spindle, but this has dropped through to the other side. I find the whole situation a mild giggle but Cronk has turned scarlet and dropping to his knees begins to bellow instructions through the keyhole. These are speedily complied with—possibly too speedily because the returning spindle makes violent contact with Cronk’s eyeball causing him to cry out with pain and anger.

“Are you trying to blind me?” he howls, as the door is opened. “Do you realise there could have been a very serious accident? When is somebody going to do something about that bleeper? I’d be better off with a megaphone. Oh my God, this place is going to the dogs.”

“The man said he’d come yesterday,” says the receptionist who is totally unmoved by the outburst. “Do you want me to see if he can fix the door handle as well?”

“Yes, please,” says Cronk making an obvious effort to control himself. “I’d be very grateful if you would. Now, can you ask Mr. Cripps if he would be kind enough to step inside my office as I’d like to introduce him to Mr. Lea.”

Cronk sits down behind his desk and applies a spotless white handkerchief to his weeping eye. Everything about him is immaculate in a square sort of way. His shirt looks as if it is part of a new set of tennis kit and you feel that the creases in his trousers must score grooves in the underside of his desk. The contrast between him and the figure that stumbles through the door is remarkable.

Mr. Cripps, whom I assume it to be, looks as if he keeps a moulting polar bear as a suit press and the layer of dandruff on his shoulders would come up to a moth’s knees. He wears a grey nylon shirt, darkening to black at neck level and a frayed tie with so much dirt engrained round the knot that one supposes it is never untied but merely loosened to afford a passage over its owner’s head. The face is that of a life-battered fifty-year-old and everything sags, mouth, eyes and even a sparse moustache that looks as if a strong gust of wind would snatch it away across the North Sea. The total effect of flabby incompetence is cemented by the footwear—yellow plastic sandals worn over holed grey socks.

I was expecting a Nazi stormtrooper to bound through the door after Cronk’s pep talk and the reality is a bit of an anti-climax. Not that I am complaining, mind you. Seeing Mr. Cripps makes me feel much happier.

Cronk can obviously read my mind because his eyes travel over Cripps without looking as if they are enjoying the trip very much.

“Good morning, Arthur,” he says. “This is Timothy Lea who I told you about. He’s joining us under licence and I’d like you to take him round the town this morning. Show him the ropes.” He turns to me almost apologetically. “Mr. Cripps looks after our more mature learners. He’s a veritable font of patience to those who aren’t as quick as they might be.”

Mr. Cripps extends a damp hand and looks patient. “Pleased to meet you,” he says.

“Likewise,” I murmur. “When will I start instructing?”

“If everything goes alright today, it could be tomorrow,” says Cronk. “We’ll see.” We go out and I smile at the receptionist but she looks through me as if I am the most boring thing since rubber spaghetti and goes on inspecting her nails. I could shaft her on the spot.

“What’s she like?” I ask Cripps as we climb into a scruffy Morris Minor with a large red and white sign across the top.

“Dawn? Oh, she’s not a bad girl. A little flighty and impertinent but it’s mostly high spirits I believe.”

“She does a turn, does she?” I ask eagerly.

Cripps blushes. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he says primly, “perhaps you would care to drive.” His voice sounds as if its coming from half way down his throat and when he speaks his lips don’t move. He would make a marvellous ventriloquist, only it would be impossible to hear him if you weren’t sitting in the front two rows and no self-respecting dummy would want to work with him. I reject the thought as being unkind and peer back through the window of the driving school where I catch one of Dawn’s heavily made-up eyes. I stick my tongue out at her but she merely directs her gaze towards the ceiling and my rapist fantasies become homicidal.

This is probably why I nearly clip a milk float as I pull out. There is a screech of brakes and a crate of milk shatters all over the road.

“Dammit, boy,” shouts the enraged driver, “how many lessons you had to come swinging out like that before giving any signals?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you,” I say.

A small crowd has gathered and Cronk and Dawn are watching through the window. Not one of my best starts.

“Didn’t see me!” snorts the yokel. “You better have your eyes tested, boy. You want to watch it, Arthur. You should have taken him up to the golf course before you let him have a go. He won’t pass his test if he can’t see proper.”

I could belt the bleeder, but after a few more insults we help him kick the broken glass into the gutter and can get on our way. Cronk’s face is a picture but he stays inside. For the first time since I have been there, Dawn is smiling. What really gets my goat is that Cripps does take the wheel and drive up to the golf course before he lets me have a go. I feel like accelerating to the cliff edge and slamming on the anchors inches from the brink but the poor sod can’t help being like he is so I don’t do anything and meekly drive towards the club house as instructed.

It is about ten o’clock when we get there and he flashes inside mumbling something about “call of nature”. I don’t know what kind of piss house they have in there but when he comes back there is a new spring in his gait and a faint whiff of Scotch around his chops. I don’t pay much attention but not more than half an hour later it is the side entrance of the Metropole and he has disappeared again. I am therefore not surprised when eleven o’clock finds us outside the Admiral Nelson and Cripps asks casually if I would fancy a quiet half of shandy or something. His “something” turns out to be a large Scotch and you don’t have to have an I.Q. of 150 to guess what he spends all his pocket money on.

Marvellous, isn’t it? After all that bullshit from Cronk, I’m driving round with a chronic boozer who can’t last half an hour without having a snifter. Not that it seems to affect him. He looks just as docile and disinterested as he did when I first saw him.

“You have to be a bit careful with the stuff, don’t you?” I ask him.

“Oh yes. But it’s no problem with me. I just have a quick snort occasionally to keep my spirits up.”

“How long have you been with Cronk?”

“Oh, let me see, I suppose about five years. I knew him in the army, you know. He used to work for me then. Very conscientious chap, and behind the gruff exterior, exceptionally kind-hearted.”

“What made you leave the army?”

I can sense that this is a question he would have preferred me not to ask and for a second I wish I wasn’t such a nosey sod.

“Oh, a number of reasons. I was getting a bit old for it. I felt I needed a change, one or two other things. You know how it is.”

I don’t, but I hold back from telling him and we go on to talk about our respective digs and how his landlady’s coughing keeps him awake at nights and her cat gives him hay fever. All in all he is a bit of a sad case is Arthur Cripps.

Lunch is taken in the Red Mullett and is mostly liquid as far as Arthur is concerned and by four o’clock I feel I know the pubs of Cromingham better than the test circuits we have been driving round.

For all the booze he has put away he still seems his normal unexciting self but I am glad when he suggests that we call it a day and I drop him behind the Grand Hotel where no doubt another bar stool is waiting for his arse to polish it.

A small seaside resort out of season is like an empty house. It goes to seed pretty quickly. The paint starts peeling, the signs start drooping, the waste paper baskets look as if they haven’t been emptied since the last visitor pulled out and the dirty postcards begin to turn yellow and peel at the edges. In another five months, the residents will probably start soaking their paint brushes in turps, but it seems a long time to wait.

I park the car and wander around for a bit learning how to lean into the wind like the locals and comforting myself that the air is probably doing me a lot of good. Once you get away from the sea front and the centre of the town, the streets fall into orderly rows of detached bungalows with names like “Shangrila” and “Trade Winds” and they are shooting up like bean stalks. The turves have no sooner been laid in the gardens of Seaview Close than the developers are levelling the foundations for Cromingham Heights. Most of the residents that I can see look like newcomers to the district. Retired, a lot of them, but a few middle executive type families with dad probably working for “Python’s Pesticides” whose “factory in a country garden” is just outside the town. Good fodder for the E.C.D.S. all of them.

I walk back past the closed cafes with their whitewashed windows, and dead bluebottles who never made it to the door in time, and take a turn round the pier. The old geezer who grabs my money looks surprised and irritated to see me and says they close in ten minutes. Through the rusty salt-eroded turnstiles and I listen to my footsteps thudding against the planks and watch the greeny brown water swirling thirty feet below me. It is difficult to imagine anyone coming here for a holiday. At the end of the pier is the lifeboat station and two or three anglers wrapped up like Egyptian Mummys and gazing unemotionally at the spots where their lines disappear beneath a choppy sea. I look round hopefully for some sign of a catch but there is only a tin of rather frayed-looking worms. It is funny, but though I don’t fish because I find it boring, I watch fishermen for hours. It’s the same with cricket.

The wind is now blowing so hard that I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole pier broke away from its moorings and started to drift out to sea. I watch with child-like excitement as one of the fishermen reels in his line, but there is nothing on any of the five hooks—not even a worm. He glares at me if he suspects I might have had a hand in nicking them and I push off back towards the turnstiles. In the centre of the pier is—would you believe it?—the Pier Pavilion, which has apparently been entertaining the masses with Eddy Seago’s Summer Follies, produced by Arnold Begstein, in collaboration with Lew and Sidney Godspeed for Wonderworld Enterprises in conjunction with Mash International. This starred, not unnaturally, laugh-a-line Eddy Seago—star of T.V., stage and screen—which probably means he once appeared in a dog food commercial—Conny Mara, Ireland’s little leprechaun of song, and the “Three Rudolphos” Jugglers Extraordinary. They were supported by Lady Lititia and her talking dogs, a group called “Armpit”, which I recall once having a record that got into the top thirty when you could still fix the charts and “that maestro of melody, the ever popular Harvy Pitts at the electric organ.”

Looking through the glass I can see the chairs lying just where they must have been left since the last audience stampeded for the exits. I wonder where they all are now, Eddy, Conny and the rest of them. Rehearsing for “Babes in the Wood” at Darlington probably, or working their fingers to the bone ringing their agents.

Looking along the coast I can see the lights of another resort beginning to multiply in the fast-falling darkness. This must be Shermer and it occurs to me to have a quick look at it before finding out what special delicacy Ma Bendon is whipping up for supper. I don’t hold any hopes that Shermer is going to be any more exciting than Cromingham but you never know.

Unfortunately, I never find out. Not then, anyway. I’m in the Morris and just pulling up at the junction with the coast road when a Viva screams up from nowhere and draws alongside. You must be in a hurry, I think to myself and I take a cool look at the bloke who is driving. From what I can see in the lamp light he is a good looking bloke with blond curly hair and neat, regular features. He looks like a college boy in an Amercian movie and has the same spoilt, arrogant expression playing round his chops. I take an immediate dislike to him and it must be mutual because he sneers back at me and edges his car into the main road before pulling away towards Shermer with tyres screeching.

Once he is ahead I notice the sign on the roof: “The Major School of Motoring”. So! Someone in the same line of business and not over-friendly with it. Having cut me up at the road junction I expect him to zoom off but the berk now proceeds to dawdle along in front doing about 25 mph. There is a bend about sixty yards ahead but with nothing coming towards me it is perfectly safe to overtake so I put my foot down and pull out alongside the Viva. Immediately blondy accelerates to keep pace with me. At first I think it’s just my imagination but when I put my foot hard down he is still purring along inside me.

Just at that moment a car’s headlights come stabbing round the bend towards me. I immediately step on the brakes but, like it’s my shadow, the Viva slows down too. The bastard is obviously trying to wipe me out. I am screaming curses which are nine tenths sheer bloody funk and the headlights are bearing down on me like the Empire State Building on wheels. The road is not wide enough for the three of us so I throw the wheel over and swing across the road, just missing the oncoming vehicle’s near side wing. I am so close I can smell what the driver had for dinner. I don’t have time to think it though, because the Morris smashes against the verge, bashing my head against the roof. There is a crack of splintering wood and a spray of water lashes the windscreen as my forehead jerks forward to meet it. To my horror I feel myself sinking.

I am panicking, trying to remember whether you let the car sink to the bottom and then open a door, or open a window first, or do neither, when the sinking stops. I raise my head, still mumbling with terror, and find that I am tyre-top deep in what seems to be a duck pond. The six white ducks hurriedly climbing out the other side would agree with me, anyway.

Both the other cars have disappeared and I am alone with the darkness and what passes for silence in these parts, i.e. the sound of a fifty mile an hour gale tearing through the treeless wastes. I manage to get one of the doors open and scramble to the bank to find that I have crashed straight through a wooden fence. This feat does little to cheer me when I consider what damage has probably been done to the car. Now that I have proved to myself that I am definitely alive, fear is being replaced by a homicidal desire to get my hands on the blond bomber in the Viva and bash his face in. My job with the E.C.D.S. is probably up the spout and only revenge is left.

Filled with this warming thought I hook my thumb viciously at a few passing cars but either they can’t see me, or they don’t want to know and I’m forced to squelch back to the nearest garage where I manage to chivvy up a breakdown van. I also take the opportunity to phone the police and report my version of the attempt on my life but when we get back to the scene of what they laughingly call the accident, I am surprised to find a Mini parked there and a man with a flashlight camera hovering expectantly.

“Excuse me, but were you driving this vehicle?” he asks clicking away before I can say anything.

“Yes I was. Who are you?”

He is a nervy little sod hopping around like a jack rabbit and his eyes never stop moving.

“Gruntscomb. East Coast Echo. You’re an instructor, are you? I don’t think I’ve seen you before?”

“I’ve only just arrived. Look, I was driven off the road you know. Some bastard from the Major School of Motoring. At least, he was in one of their cars.”

“Really? Very lucky to be alive, aren’t you? Have you been instructing long?”

“I’ve just started. I’m under licence.”

“Oh.” Gruntscomb scribbles something in a little black note book. “Got your L-plates up have you?”

“You could put it like that.”

“Look, would you mind getting back in the car again. It would make a great photograph.”

“No.”

“Oh, good. Hop in then and—”

“I mean yes, I would mind. It’s embarrassing enough as it is.”

I wish I had not said that because Gruntscomb writes something else in his little black book.

“O.K. Just as you like. Well, thanks. See you around.”

He snaps his notebook shut and is gone.

It takes about ten minutes to winch out the Morris and in all of that time I’m waiting for the police to show up and even wondering if I shouldn’t have left the car where it was until they got there. But the boys in blue don’t put in an appearance, and I am back inside the Morris trying to make the engine turn over. It must be wetter than a mother of the bride’s handkerchief because it splutters a bit and then refuses to make a sound.

“It’ll be dried out by the morning,” says the breakdown man, cheerfully. “You don’t want to drive it now, anyway, because you don’t know what else might be wrong with it. It needs a thorough overhaul.”

So I’m forced to sit beside him and listen to his harrowing tales of limbs strewn across the road and cars full of courting couples plunging over cliffs whilst the Morris bobs along behind like a fat minnow on the end of a fishing line. My mind is working overtime on what Cronk is going to say and I can see his face swelling up and exploding like a big red balloon.

I hope to God there isn’t too much damage.

I tell the breakdown man that there will be a few bob in it for him if he can get the garage working on the car first thing in the morning and push off back to my lodging with my tail between my legs like a barrel bung.

It is half past nine when I get there and Mrs. Bendon is showing signs of both alarm and irritation.

“There you are!” she exclaims. “I was getting quite worried about you. Been having a few drinks, have you? I suppose you realise your supper is quite ruined. Lovely piece of fresh mackerel, too. I’d be grateful if you could let me know if you’re going to be in late for meals. I did say half past seven and it’s not easy keeping food hot without it drying up. I hope you understand. I don’t want to start laying down rules, but—”

“I had an accident,” I say. “Someone forced me off the road.”

“You were driving?”

“Yes. I wasn’t instructing. I was going to have a look at Shermer.”

“Well, that was something. Is the car all right?”

“I don’t know. It went straight through a fence and into a pond. It doesn’t look too bad.”

“Gracious me. You’re lucky to have escaped alive. You are all right, are you?”

After that, she can’t do enough and I gobble down her mackerel while her eyes roam over me as if expecting parts of me to start dropping off. It’s like being watched by a cat when you are opening a tin of salmon.

“That was very nice,” I say, wiping my mouth on the patterned paper serviette she has thoughtfully provided.

“Thank you, dear. I’m afraid there’s not much to follow, but I’ve got some nice crisp Coxes.”

“An apple would be very nice.”

“Would you like some coffee afterwards?”

“No, thanks, don’t bother.”

“It’s no bother.”

‘No, thanks. It might keep me awake.”

“That’s right. You don’t want to lose your beauty sleep. Though you’ve got nothing to worry about. Not like me. I need every second.”

I am obviously expected to say something and I don’t disappoint her.

“Come off it! You’re a very handsome woman. I bet you’ve got every bloke in town chasing you.”

“A few as shouldn’t, but not everyone by a long chalk. You sure about that coffee?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“There’s one of those ‘Plays for Today’ on the telly if you’d like to look at that.”

The truth is that I am thinking about that heap of twisted metal sitting in the garage and I am finding it difficult to concentrate on anything else. Even the sight of Mrs. B.’s rich, ripe, round arse rearing up at me as she rummages at the bottom of the linen basket is hardly enough to divert my thoughts from the wrath to come tomorrow.

“I think I’ll turn in,” I say. “I am feeling a bit shaky. Is it all right if I take a bath?”

“Of course, dear. The blue towel is yours.” She stands up and smooths down the front of her sweater so that her breasts lunge out towards me like they are on springs. Such is my pitiful condition that I hardly notice them.

“Thanks.”

I pad upstairs and savour the unaccustomed luxury of a bath. This was one feature of gracious living that Scraggs Road did not offer, and I supplement the ecstasy by covering myself in Mrs. B.’s talcum powder.

No sooner am I tucked up in bed than there is a knock on the door and Mrs. B. comes in before I can say “Get your knickers off”—not that I feel like saying it, anyway. She is carrying a tray and wearing a pink fluffy dressing-gown which presumably has a nightdress underneath it. I say ‘presumably’ because all I can see are the Bendon boobs lurching towards me again like a flesh Etna erupting.

“I thought you might like a mug of Ovaltine,” she says. “It helps you sleep, you know.” She is wearing that perfume again and it doesn’t take any prisoners, I can tell you! By the cringe! When she sits down on the edge of the bed, I feel I am being anaesthetised.

“You shouldn’t have bothered, really you shouldn’t,” I say—and then I notice she has started sniffing. It must be her talc she can smell. God knows how, with the pong she is giving out.

“You naughty boy,” she says, all skittish like. “You’ve been at my Rose Blossom, haven’t you?”

Before I can say anything she leans forward and flicks open the front of my pyjamas. “Where have you put it all?” she says, running her finger down my chest. Most of it is between my toes and at her present rate of progress it won’t take her long to get there. Normally I would have her into bed quicker than you can say ‘Eric Robinson’ but tonight I just don’t feel like it. I can’t forget the bloody Morris and what I am going to say to Cronk in the morning.

“Sorry,” I say. “I won’t do it again.” I spring back against the pillow and pull my pyjama jacket together. “I’ll buy you some more talc.”

Mrs. B. takes her rebuff coolly and shakes her head.

“You’re a funny boy,” she says. “Don’t bother about the talc. There’s plenty more where that came from.” She stands up and puts the tray down on the bedroom table. “Make sure you put the mug back on the tray. It leaves a ring otherwise. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight. And thanks.”

She goes out and I am left listening to the sea and the wind. They don’t sound so loud tonight. Maybe I am getting used to them.