Читать книгу The Confessions Collection - Rosie Dixon, Timothy Lea - Страница 68

‘This is it,’ says Sid enthusiastically. ‘Open your lungs and smell that soot.’

We have just emerged from the railway station and every building seems to have been carved out of charcoal.

‘Why don’t you stop rabbiting, and give Moon Flower a hand with the suitcases, Sid,’ I tell him. ‘They’re bigger than she is.’

‘She likes doing it.’

‘Maybe, but I don’t like the way people are looking at us.’

‘Well, you should do. It’s all good publicity. I can’t think where that bloke from the Sentinel got to. I’d have thought we’d have been the biggest news in this place since the last Clog Dancing Championships.’

It’s always the same with Sidney. He is such a blooming optimist. I look around the teeming streets and wish I was back at Scraggs Lane with mum and dad. Dad will just be coming back from the Lost Property office – if he bothered to clock in in the first place – and mum will be wondering whether to open a tin of pineapple slices for supper and deciding to scrape the mould off the bread pudding instead. She has a tin of pineapple slices she has been hanging onto since the war.

They both seem a long way away as we wait for a taxi. Sid, the Daughters of the Cherry Blossom, and me.

‘I find them a bit difficult to understand, don’t you?’ says Sid. ‘That porter fellow for instance.’

‘“Tight wad” was the only word I understood. It took him a bit of time to realise you only wanted to borrow his barrow, didn’t it?’

We nearly have some more agro when Sid tries to get all twelve girls into one taxi.

‘You’re breaking no world record in my taxi, gaffer,’ says the driver. ‘I’ll take four, five at a pinch – provided I can do the pinching.’

‘Everybody wants to be a comedian,’ sniffs Sid when we have eventually been forced to settle for three taxis. ‘Grand Hotel please, driver.’

Grand Hotel! That sounds alright, doesn’t it? I can practically see the palms tickling the second violinist’s lughole. Maybe this little caper is not going to be so bad after all. We whip down a series of grimy streets and, there it is. Big pillars and a flight of steps. I stretch out my arm to open the door but Sidney stops me. ‘You stay here,’ he says.

‘I’d like to drop my luggage off.’

‘Why? You’re going to need it, aren’t you?’

‘What do you mean? Aren’t we putting up here?’

‘Of course not. I’m not made of money. The girls are, Mr. Ishowi insisted. We’re in digs.’

‘I should have guessed. Don’t you want me to get out here and walk the rest of the way.’

‘You can if you like, but you’re going to find it a bit difficult with all those cleaners, aren’t you?’

I may not have mentioned that Sidney has lumbered me with lugging half a dozen ‘Nuggets’ all the way from Hoverton so we can get out into the field with some demonstration stock. Needless to say this has not made the trip north anymore enjoyable, despite the assistance of the shapely nippons.

When Sidney returns to the taxi his next instructions to the driver are somewhat less pulse-quickening.

‘Seventeen Canal Street,’ he says.

‘Oh, very nice, Sid,’ I say mockingly. ‘We have separate suites, I suppose?’

‘Don’t take the piss, Timothy. There’s always the Y.M.C.A. if you don’t fancy it.’

‘Thanks for reminding me. It just seems a bit ridiculous, that’s all. I mean, we won the war, didn’t we? Why aren’t we in the Grand?’

‘No racialism, please, Timmo. It’s a simple question of economics. Once we’ve flogged a few Nuggets it will be the best hotel in town every night.’

‘How many is “a few”, Sidney?’

But Sidney does not have to answer that question because the taxi pulls up outside 17 Canal Street. Yes, there is a canal and I look into it while Sidney bangs on the door knocker. A dead rat is floating past, suspended in the water as if trying to touch its toes. I try not to think of this as an omen and rejoin Sidney.

‘Looks nice, doesn’t it?’ he says.

‘If you like yellow lace curtains, it looks a knock out,’ I say. ‘They are yellow aren’t they? Or is it just the way they have faded?’

Before Sidney can ignore my remark the front door opens and we find ourselves face to face with a curvy dolly who must be knocking forty – but very gently so it does not hear her. She has a Margaret Lockwood beauty spot and her hair swept up and over one eye in a way I have not seen since I watched one of those Sunday afternoon telly films. Her knockers are definitely up to scratching, and her legs, though nothing to write home about, are a matching pair.

‘Mrs. Runcorn?’ says Sidney in his grade one creeper voice.

Now, one of the things that always fascinates me about birds is the way that they will sometimes go potty over the most revolting herberts. Like Sidney, for instance. Take Mrs. Runcorn. You can tell that the minute she claps eyes on him, her insides start melting like a soft-centred chocolate in a hot glove compartment. Her hand goes up to the gap between her generous knockers and a far away look comes into her eyes.

‘Mr. Noggett?’ she says hopefully.

‘The same,’ says Sidney, dropping his voice a couple of decibels until it sounds like Paul Robeson with laryngitis. Eagles envy Sidney’s eyesight when it comes to spotting a possible piece of nooky. ‘This is my associate, Mr. Lea.’ I give her the famous Lea slow burn but I would be better off with trading stamps. It is obviously Sidney who has stolen her heart.

‘Pleased to meet you,’ she says, hardly looking at me. ‘Do come inside. It’s very simple here, but we try to make folks welcome.’

‘Delightful,’ breathes Sidney.

‘Rita, the gentlemen have come.’

Things are pretty cramped in the tiny hall and when Rita joins us we need shoehorns. She is taller than her mother but built to the same pattern, e.g. bigly. Her hourglass figure has enough sand in it to last for six months. Not that I am complaining, mind you. I find all that flesh a bit intimidating but I would not mind her using my firm young body as a chattel for her base lusts should that be the only thing to stop her becoming a secret sennapod muncher.

‘Oh, hello,’ she says, sending her eyes rolling over us like a couple of balls bouncing round a pin table. ‘Did you have a good trip?’

‘First class,’ I say, but I am not only referring to our voyage north. With Sidney obviously spoken for by Mrs. R., this leaves the daughter to me. Whacko, the froggies! The sight of some bird lapping up Sidney has always been one to cause me near physical pain. I turn to Big N. and – oh dear! His eyes have glazed over and he is gazing at Rita like she is a bundle of fivers with his name written on them.

‘Did you see that bird?’ he says when we are alone.

‘Yeah, fantastic,’ I pant. Didn’t fancy her daughter much, though.’

‘I meant the daughter!’ says Sid. ‘I thought she was beautiful.’

‘I agree. I know some people would be put off by that squint but I rather like it. Makes her face more interesting somehow.’

‘What are you talking about?’ storms Sid. ‘She has lovely eyes.’

‘Oh yes, they’re lovely alright. It’s just that—well, I suppose you’d hardly notice it after a while. Especially if you were concentrating on her limp.’

‘Limp!?’

‘Yes. Now, come on. You must have noticed that. I thought she had a wooden leg at first. It was that hollow noise when she walked up the stairs.’

‘Sure it wasn’t something rattling around inside your head?’

‘Don’t be like that, Sid. I was only making a completely objective comment.’

‘Don’t try and confuse me with long words. I fancy that bird and nothing you say is going to change my mind.’

And that is that. Sidney nearly spills the soup tureen fighting to sit next to Rita at suppertime, and I have never seen him do so much passing: pepper, salt, bread, butter. Nobody else gets a look in. He is behaving like Mr. Fanny Cradock. After supper he moves in front of the telly with her and spends more time gazing into her mush than looking at the screen.

She munches her way quickly through a half pound box of chocs and occasionally says ‘ooh’ or ‘well, I never’! when sufficiently moved by something. How she feels about Sid it is difficult to tell with her cakehole full of hazelnut clusters but Mrs. Runcorn’s intentions are very obvious. She apologises about the furniture, the television set and anything else there is to eat, see or touch, and keeps asking if Sid would like a cup of tea or something. There is no doubt that her preference lies in the realm of ‘or something’.

Eventually, at ‘News at Ten’ time, Sidney suggests that we should be turning in as we have a busy day tomorrow and we pad off leaving the girls to it. Our bedrooms are at opposite ends of the house, which means that they are at least eight feet apart and I notice that we have Mrs. R.’s room between us. We have not found out what happened to Mr. R. but he is certainly not around to clutter up the laundry basket.

I pop into bed immediately and one thing I soon notice is that you can hear every sound in the house. It creaks like a windjammer in a BBC radio play. I hear Mrs. R. come upstairs and go into her room and soon there is the inviting wheeze of the springs as her body settles onto the bed. It is very disconcerting to know that she is only a few feet away from me on the other side of the wall, no doubt thinking the same kind of deliciously dirty thoughts as myself – only about Sid, while he in turn pines for Rita. My God, but life can be cruel, can’t it, Carruthers?

As I lie there getting more and more worked up it occurs to me that nothing will be lost by nipping next door and asking for a hot water bottle, or a glass of water, or the telephone number of the local chinese laundry, or anything. Maybe I will be able to convert her to an appreciation of my own vastly superior charms, or maybe she will reckon that anything is better than nothing – I mean, it is a philosophy I have followed myself with considerable success.

I am just swinging my feet off the bed when I hear Rita coming upstairs and the sound of Sid’s door opening. Immediately the bedsprings next door break into full squeak and Mrs. R. opens her door. As that opens so Sid’s closes and I hear Rita being asked what time she would like to be called in the morning. Rita reminds mum that she has already said, and mum goes back to bed again. I give it another five minutes and then, just as I am about to chance my arm again, I hear Sid’s door opening. This time the squeaking of the springs next door is very subdued and, at first, I do not think that Mrs. R. is getting out of bed. But she is. I hear Sidney yelp in terror as her door is suddenly thrown open.

‘Looking for something, Mr. Noggett?’ The voice is husky and has more promises in it than a Party Political Broadcast.

‘The bathroom, Mrs. Runcorn.’

‘That’s still on the landing.’

‘Oh yes. I must have turned the wrong way.’

‘Don’t do that, Mr. Noggett.’

‘No. No, I won’t. Good night, Mrs. Runcorn.’

‘Good night, Mr. Noggett. You know where I am if you need anything.’

‘Er—yes. Thank you.’

Blimey! Sid must really have a dose of the hots for Miss Runcorn if he is going to turn down a cast iron certainty like mum. Just as well though. The sound of Sid bashing out Ravel’s Bolero on Mrs. R.’s bedsprings while I fretted next door would be enough to make me look round for a new hobby.

I listen attentively but there are no more interesting noises and the next thing I hear is an alarm going off. The day of the Noggett Nugget launch has arrived.

After breakfast Sid goes off to lead the girls on a major onslaught on the larger dealers and I find myself outside number fifty-eight Roberts Road. I choose fifty-eight because it is the last house in the street, it has just started to rain and I have to start somewhere.

‘Good morning,’ I say when the door opens, ‘I wonder if I could steal a few moments of your time. I’m conducting a survey into electrical appliances in the home and I would like to ask you a few questions about the products you own.’

‘You what?’ says the woman suspiciously. I repeat the question three times before she shakes her head. ‘My husband wouldn’t like that.’

‘But –’ No good. The door has been closed in my face.

At the next house there is no answer yet I sense that there is someone at home. After prolonged jabs at the doorbell, I sink to my haunches and push open the letter box flap. Staring back at me are a pair of eyes. They are arranged side by side like yours or mine but I find the experience disconcerting. It is like a corpse winking at you. I jump back in surprise and when I next look the eyes have gone.

‘What are you frightened of?’ I shout through the letterbox. ‘I know you’re in there!’ A feeling that I am behaving in a slightly berk-like fashion is reinforced when I turn round to find the milkman looking down at me.

‘I thought I smelt burning,’ I say weakly.

‘I wish I could, lad. They’re boogers in there when it comes to paying for owt,’ he says. ‘I think they’ve dug a tunnel out to the back alley. That door hasn’t been opened since Armistice Day.’

At the next house there is no answer and at the next a small child tells me that Uncle Jack is helping mummy with the plumbing and that she can’t come. The noises in the background tend to disprove this statement but I don’t say anything. You can’t really, can you?

It occurs to me that I have made four calls and not got my Nugget out of its reinforced cardboard box. A slight feeling of panic begins to grip me. At this rate we will not be able to afford the price of Mrs. Runcorn’s coal cellar. I quicken my step towards the next call and decide to change my tactics.

The house in question has been knocked about a bit and boasts a very big sitting-room window of almost shop-like proportions. An obvious challenge for the Nugget in its role as window cleaner extraordinary. I will forget about the phoney appliance survey lead-in and go straight for the U.S.P. (Unique Selling Proposition, what else?).

‘Good morning, madam miss,’ I say tumbling the words after each other to prevent interruption. ‘I was walking down the street and my eye was immediately taken by your house. Remarkable architecture. Very elegant, stands out like a sore – like a beacon. Beautiful. All that light. Must be a boon. But – I can see you have a problem keeping those windows spotless. Now, it so happens that I have here the product that your house might have been built for – The Noggett Nugget. It’s not just a window cleaner. It’s a vacuum cleaner, floor polisher, carpet shampooer and – should you ever require it – it actually unblocks drains. Remarkable I am certain you will agree. “Ah, hah,” I can hear you saying, “but does it come from a reputable manufacturer?” The answer, most certainly is “yes”. Klamikazi has been a household word in Japan since time immoral and we all know the reputation the Japanese have for manufacturing skills, don’t we? I don’t want you to take my word for it. I would like you to have the opportunity of seeing this product in action for yourself. When you have done that I am certain that you will agree that you cannot afford to be without one.’

‘Come in,’ says the woman. She peers out into the street and as I turn round I see half a dozen curtains dropping back into place. ‘They’ve got minds like sewers around here,’ says my prospective customer. ‘Just because my husband is away a lot they reckon – you know – eh?’

‘Yes,’ I say hurriedly. She is wearing a frilly housecoat which makes her tits look like a couple of easter eggs in a presentation basket but I do not care about that at the moment. I need a sale. ‘Stores away anywhere,’ I say, tapping the carton. ‘When you see what’s inside this lot you wouldn’t believe that so much equipment could be tucked away in such a small space.’

‘O-o-oh!’ she says, ‘you’re whetting my appetite.’

‘Excellent,’ I say, ‘where would you—let’s go in here.’ I open the sitting room door and quickly start assembling, the Nugget. The packaging has got a bit rain-sodden and is beginning to fall apart but provided I keep talking everything should be alright. ‘I think that one of the things that is going to amaze you is the way everything is so easy to assemble,’ I say, casually unscrewing the drain cleaner which I have mistakenly connected to the suction nozzle. ‘I am certain you will agree too that the attractive grey colour is ideal in that it does not show up scuff marks and is restful to the eye, unlike the harsh blinding colours you can find on some other products.’

‘Do you want to take your jacket off?’ says the woman.

‘Thank you, madam. Now, there we are. Everything fixed up. That didn’t take long, did it?’

‘You’ve played a lot of sport in your time, haven’t you?’

‘Er, yes. I used to play a bit of soccer and rugby netball. Now let’s –’

‘I thought so. You’ve got an athlete’s body, haven’t you?’

‘If you say so, thanks. Now watch carefully. We’ll have a dry run first so you can get a feel of the action. What’s the matter?’

‘The things you say,’ she says, suppressing a contrived giggle. ‘You should listen to yourself. A girl could get the wrong idea about what you were trying to sell.’

‘Ho, ho,’ I say, ‘we don’t want that, do we? Now watch carefully.’ It has occurred to me, rather late in the day, that I have never seen the window cleaning feature demonstrated, and I am going by what I remember reading in the product leaflet. Since this was written in Japanese my knowledge is a bit sketchy.

‘Could I buy one of these on the never never?’

‘Oh, I’m certain we could arrange very advantageous Hire Purchase terms.’

‘Would you come round and pick up the instalments?’

‘No,’ I say firmly, ‘I don’t think so.’

This is the kind of bird you want to meet at about half past three when you have completed ten successful calls, not when you are still struggling for your first tickle.

‘You’ve got some muscles on you, haven’t you?’

I am holding the Nugget against the sheet glass and she runs a finger over one of my biceps and pouts her lips at me.

‘You have a choice of either “up-down” or “circular” rhythm,’ I explain, clearing my throat. ‘We recommend that you start with the circular to spread the lather and then finish off with a spot of – and then change to the up-down control to finish off. It’s important not to use too much lather but I’ll show you that in a minute.’

‘Gr-e-e-at’ says the bird, ‘and it does so many other things, doesn’t it? I can almost afford to get rid of my husband.’

‘You’re going to need him to pay for it,’ I say jokily. ‘Now, here we go.’

I flick the switch and POW! The end of the extension arm shoots out like Henry Cooper’s left jab and the pane shatters into a hundred fragments. Like all great tragedies, it takes a little time for a full realisation of what has happened to come home to me. Not so the neighbours. Curtains are being pulled back as if a giant gust of wind has blown down the street. Frilly tits looks from the shattered pane to the Nugget.

‘Does it mend windows?’ she says.

It is nearly two o’clock by the time I have finished putting in a new pane of glass and I am not looking forward to my meeting with Sid which was arranged for an hour earlier. He is not going to be pleased when he hears that I have not sold a solitary Nugget and have run up a bill for five pounds at the local glazier’s. As it happens he has other things on his mind.

‘Typical,’ he says, when I meet him slumped over a cup of cha in the railway buffet, ‘blooming typical. Only somebody with my luck would pick a bloke who was taken prisoner in Singapore for his first call. You should have seen his face when he saw Happy Spirit.’

‘He didn’t like her, Sid?’

‘Didn’t like her? I wouldn’t have spoken to your mother like that. All she did was offer him a sunflower.’

‘It sounds a nice idea.’

‘I thought so, Timmo. A graceful expression of friendship. Better than giving him an ever-clean, plastic hanky for his breast pocket.’

‘Much better, Sidney.’

‘And then he has to go for her like that.’

‘Very unnecessary.’

‘I thought so. I had every sympathy with the girl.’

‘Yes, Sid.’

‘I mean, I would have acted like that myself if I had been her.’

‘Like what, Sid?’

‘She threw him over the colour television sets.’

‘Oh dear. So there was a bit of trouble, was there?’

‘You could put it like that, Timmo. The rest of the girls were outside ready to march in singing the Nugget Jingle and –’

‘Wait a minute, Sid. “The Nugget Jingle”?’

‘Yes. Didn’t I tell you about that? I thought we needed a theme song that would help bridge the gap between Britain and Japan and put over what the Nugget is all about. It will be very good if we ever get on telly, too.’

‘Who wrote it, Sid?’

‘Well, I did actually.’ And to the tune of Rule Britannia, Sidney sings:

‘Buy a Nugget,

It really does the job,

It scours and cleans and sucks

and blows,

While the kettle’s on the hob.’

It is a few moments before I can say anything.

‘That’s it, is it?’

‘That’s the first verse.’ Sidney studies my face. ‘It’s not easy to find something to rhyme with “job”.’

‘It can’t be.’

‘I think the bit about the kettle makes it homely. I think women will like that.’

‘They should do, Sidney. It’s certainly got a very patriotic melody.’

‘I’m glad you noticed that. The second verse isn’t quite as good:

If it’s dirty

Or merely slightly soiled –’

‘Yes, yes, Sidney,’ I say hurriedly, ‘but what happened about the dealer?’

‘Oh yes. Well, the girls got a bit teuchy when the bloke told Happy Spirit what she could do with her sunflower and there was a bit of unpleasantness.’

‘Oh dear. Nothing serious I hope?’

‘Not too bad. The police soon got it under control – once the second van load had arrived, that is.’

‘Took a bit of stopping, did it?’

‘Just a little. I thought the fire hoses were unnecessary myself but I suppose you can’t blame people for not taking chances.’

‘Girls alright, are they?’

‘Ours are. One or two of the assistants had minor sprains and that kind of thing. None of them were detained.’

‘Oh good. So it was nothing too serious?’

‘We’ll know after the hearing tomorrow.’

‘The hearing?!’

‘About eleven o’clock, the bloke thought they would be on.’

‘“They”? You mean the Daughters of the Cherry Blossom?’

‘Yes.’

‘Arrested?!’

‘That’s right.’

‘And you haven’t sold anything either?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Oh, my gawd!’