Читать книгу The Confessions Collection - Rosie Dixon, Timothy Lea - Страница 77

‘OK, Timmy, you can put your plasters back on now. We’ve got all we want.’

It is the day after my encounter with Sandra’s front door and I have just finished a tiring stint before the cameras. As far as I can make out I am Crispin’s stand-in which does not fill me with great enthusiasm, as I have to remove all the sticking plasters which are holding my face together.

‘Can’t take any chances,’ says Mac, the cameraman, ‘although I don’t reckon they’ll show, up there.’

‘Up there’ turns out to be a number of terrifyingly high window ledges on which I am called upon to disport myself while Justin collects the outside shots that he requires to string together the twenty-seven different sexual episodes in the film.

‘First four films we made, we never went outside the studio once, did we, Mac?’ says Justin breezily.

‘We only went inside the studio twice,’ says Mac. ‘The first three were shot in that girl’s flat. You know, the one you fixed up with that apartment in Tangiers. Whatever happened –?’

‘Yes, yes,’ says Justin, running his fingers through his shoulder-length hair. ‘No need to tell everybody about my munificence. They’ll all want flats, won’t they? I often hear from Sonia. She’s having a lovely time.’ He turns to me. ‘Splendid performance, Timothy, absolutely splendid. I’m certain you have a talent we could exploit.’

‘He’ll exploit it, all right,’ muttered Mac. ‘There’s no doubt about that.’

‘Fail not to record that I have some of the sharpest ears in the business, sweetheart,’ murmurs Justin in a chilling whisper, ‘and that people who take the mickey make me sickey.’

‘No offence,’ says Mac quickly. ‘Just my little joke.’

‘Make them larger or not at all,’ warns Justin. ‘Now, Timothy, as I was saying, before I was so crudely interrupted, I think that with your physique and appearance you could be a considerable asset to Trion Productions. You’re cast in the same mould as Glint Thrust and it would do him good to know that there was some competition breathing down his neck.’

I am so excited that I can hardly speak. One day in the studio and I am already on the threshold of stardom!

‘Where is Mr Thrust?’ I ask.

Mac looks at Justin who pauses for a minute and then permits himself a strained smile. ‘He’s been ill,’ he says. ‘Picked up an infection. We thought it best to nip it in the bud.’

‘He’s accident-prone,’ says Mac.

Justin shoots his colleague a warning glance and puts an arm round my shoulder.

‘I’m trying to get something big off the ground. If it comes off then we must talk again. I take it you are interested?’

‘Oh yes, Mr Tymely.’

‘Call me Justin. We’re all one big happy family here, aren’t we, Mac?’

‘Yes, sir,’ says Mac, touching his forelock.

Sandra has not been involved in any of the outdoor shooting and I have not seen her since we rummaged through the first-aid box together. Apart from the shaking-up I received, the sight of my phizog covered in bits of plaster does little to recapture the flavour of our earlier pre-grind touch-up and I eventually venture home by means of the Northern Line without suffering any loss of weight in the Y-front area.

Returning to Scraggs Lane after the exterior shooting, I am surprised to find brother-in-law Sidney stuck into a cup of cha in the kitchen. There is a satisfied expression on his mush not dissimilar to that worn by cats with canary feathers sticking out of the corners of their cake-holes.

‘Hello, Timmy,’ he says. ‘Mum tells me you’ve become a bleeding film star. Can you get me lined up with a bit of crumpet?’

‘You do all right for yourself, Sidney,’ I tell him. ‘How’s the Cromby?’

‘Same as usual. Miss Ruperts had one of her turns and came down to dinner stark naked. I didn’t see it myself but I hear it was a disgusting eyeful.’

‘Sounds very nasty, Sid. How are the vacuum cleaners?’

Sidney pushes his teacup away from him and looks at me thoughtfully. ‘Funny you should mention that, Timmo.’

‘I thought you might say that.’

‘There was an accident.’

‘No.’

‘Yes. Most unfortunate.’

‘Let me guess. Not a fire by any chance?’

Sidney extends his arms and sighs deeply. ‘I know just what you’re thinking – but you’re wrong. I admit it did flash across my mind to set fire to the whole bleeding lot of them and collect the insurance. But, when it came to the pinch – well, you know me. Do you think I could do it?’

‘Sidney. This is probably going to come as a big surprise to you but, in a word: yes. Not only that but I think you could probably claim for the matches as a tax deduction.’

Sidney closes his eyes and adopts an expression of anguish the like of which I have not seen since they last showed On the Waterfront on the telly.

‘Oh, Timmo, Timmo. How can you say that? I know we’ve had our ups and downs but if I can’t rely on you to believe me, who can I rely on?’

I stare at Sidney blankly because, for the life of me, I cannot think of anyone. Maybe he shares my uncertainty because he continues without waiting for an answer: ‘Fireworks, Timothy. Fireworks. That’s what did it. You may recall that Guy Fawkes Day has just passed?’

‘I do recall that, Sidney.’

‘A stray rocket through one of the windows.’

More like a two-inch mortar shell, I think to myself, but I remain silent.

‘Couldn’t the fire brigade do anything?’

‘They were all out on calls at the time.’

‘What a coincidence.’

‘Are you trying to suggest something?’

‘No, Sid. I was just wondering what that piece of sticking plaster was doing round your index finger.’

‘If you’re suggesting –’

‘That you rang in a whole lot of false alarms to keep the firemen busy while the warehouse burned down? Sidney! You know me better than that.’

‘It was an accident, so help me!’

‘Sid, it doesn’t matter if I believe you. It’s the insurance company that counts. I take it from the happy expression that was on your mug when I came through the door that they have coughed up?’

‘Justice has been done,’ says Sid grandly.

‘So you’re in the ackers again?’

‘I have recouped my loss. Yes.’

‘And no sign of Ishowi.’

Sidney’s expression hardens. ‘No! Perishing little nip bastard! I wish he’d gone up with the cleaners.’

‘Sidney! Really. That’s no way to talk of an ex-colleague. You used to think very highly of him.’

‘Come off it! You can’t think highly of someone who only stands four-foot-six off the bleeding ground!’

Sidney is definitely one to bear a grudge and there is obviously very little chance of him being invited to take the chair at the next meeting of the Anglo-Nippon Friendship Society. ‘I should have remembered what they did in the war,’ he says bitterly. ‘Your father warned me. It’s the only good bit of advice the bleeding old git has ever given me.’

Any love lost between Sid and my Dad could be found wedged in the eye of a small needle and to remind me of this fact, Father Lea’s weary frame struggles into the kitchen and slumps into the only vacant chair.

‘Hello,’ he says, nodding at me and then at Mum. ‘Bleeding Ramon Navarro’s back with us, I see. Discussing a documentary on work-shy spongers, are you?’

‘If we were, you’d be a dead cert for the leading role, Dad,’ says Sid.

‘Don’t you “Dad” me. I never had no part in you!’

‘I should hope not. What a disgusting thing to say!’

‘Talk about work. You don’t know what it means. I’ve been slaving away down there since nine o’clock. Not a drop of food nor drink has passed my lips since I had a cup of tea this morning before you lot were up.’

‘That pong of beer is your deodorant, I suppose?’ I venture.

‘Deodorant?’ says Sid. ‘He can’t use one. When it gets a whiff of his armpits, that white stick thing shrinks back up the tube and won’t come down again.’

‘That’s marvellous, isn’t it?’ explodes Dad. ‘Decent working-class man slaves away all day and then comes back to be revealed in his own home. No wonder this bleeding country is going to the dogs. Any greedy, work-shy little basket can fiddle his way into a fortune while decent ordinary people have to scrimp and save to find two pennies to rub together.

‘You scrimped and saved enough to buy a colour telly, didn’t you?’

‘Blimey! I’m entitled to a little pleasure, aren’t I? I can’t afford to go out. What do you expect me to do? Watch the pattern on the wallpaper?’

‘You go out to the boozer,’ says Mum.

‘That’s fantastic, that is! Now you turn on me. I only got that colour telly because I thought it would give you some pleasure.

‘You only got it because my Premium Bond came up,’ says Mum.

‘That only paid for the deposit!’ bellows Dad. ‘Who’s looking after the instalments, then? You tell me that. I don’t know why I go on, I really don’t.’

‘I don’t know why you go on, either,’ says Sid. ‘Why don’t you belt up or drop dead or something?’

The situation is quivering on the brink of unpleasantness but luckily Rosie chooses that moment to bring Jason back from the Natural History Museum, where apparently he tried to nick half a brontosaurus, and Mum dishes up supper. Delicious tangy, Coddyburgers, fried a tempting golden black in rich diesel oil.

‘Don’t you reckon your frying pan needs an oil change?’ says Sid.

‘Eat them up, dear,’ says Mum good-humouredly. ‘They’re very good for you. It says “a dish fit for a king” on the packet.’

‘More like “a dish fit for aching,” ’ mutters Sidney. He should worry. I am so much in favour, now that I am a film actor, that Mum gives me the extra portion.

No more is said about Sid collecting the insurance money from the burnt-out warehouse but I recall the subject when I am on the set of Up the Ladder, Jack the following day. Justin has called me in because he thinks that I may be needed for a few interior shots and I hear him talking to Mac about the finance for their next epic.

‘You don’t know anybody with a few thou to invest in the movie business, do you?’ he says to me jokingly. ‘Most of my cash is tied up in production work at the moment and I need some liquid funds. The front office pay-out can be very slow sometimes.’

‘Very, very slow,’ says Mac. Justin glares at him.

I am about to say no, when it suddenly occurs to me that Sidney is in the ackers again. What better way of cementing myself to Justin’s bosom than by introducing him to Sid? At the very least the gesture should be appreciated, and if by any chance Sid does lash out some mazuma, Trion Productions can hardly fail but to reward me with a leading role. Also, such an arrangement has the advantage of preventing my natural talents being shackled to Sid. In the past I have been too much under his thumb in our working arrangements.

‘Funny you should say that, Mr Tymely,’ I observe. ‘My brother-in-law, Sidney Noggett, is in the hotel business and he has a bit of money to invest at the moment. He struck lucky recently.’

While I enjoy my little joke Justin strokes his silk scarf and raises an eyebrow in a gesture which I think is intended to suggest casual interest.

‘Really? I’d like to meet your brother-in-law some time. Is he in town?’

‘He is at the moment. Usually he’s down at Hoverton where the hotel is.’

‘Interesting. Perhaps we can arrange lunch sometime.’ He turns his attention back to the actors. ‘OK, Crispin, let’s do it again. Remember “Oh my God, it’s my husband!” – off the bed and into the wardrobe. And do be careful how you close the door this time. We used the last of the sticking plaster on your toupee, remember?’

Justin says no more about Sidney but later on in the afternoon the girl who was being groped when I first arrived at the studio, and is apparently Justin’s personal assistant, checks out Sidney’s address with me. She is a nice looking bird, that one, always covered in confusion and love bites. I think she must have a very hectic social life.

‘Hello, we’ve never really met,’ she gasps, sweeping hair out of her eye. ‘Samantha Toots. Call me Sam, everybody does. Justin wanted to know where I could get hold of your brother-in-law.’

I discount some of the more obvious answers to that one and give her the tellyphone number of the Lea residence in Scraggs Lane. Yes, with little Jason on the verge of becoming an international star, Mum and Rosie forced Dad into lashing out on what he regards as a vast waste of money. He is double choked when he finds that he gets a set of tellyphone books free because he has been lovingly cherishing a set of old ones in the hallstand along with his porn collection. These phone books are so ancient the numbers are in roman numerals.

When I get home, Sidney is looking well chuffed with himself and in such a situation is seldom slow to impart the reason for his good humour.

‘Who’s this bird Samantha, then?’ he says. ‘She sounds a bit of all right.’

‘Oh, you mean Sam,’ I say. ‘We all call her Sam. Yes, she is pretty attractive. Never wears a bra. Looks like she’s got a couple of pom-pom hats down the front of her sweater. Why do you ask?’

‘She rang me up. Says her boss wants to have lunch with me. You told him about me, did you?’

‘Some of the things about you, Sidney. I didn’t want to frighten him off.’

‘Looking for fresh talent, is he?’

Typical of Sidney to imagine that he is about to be discovered. The poor old sod would be pushed to get a walk-on part in Creatures the World Forgot.

‘He’s looking for finance, Sid. I mentioned that you might be interested in getting into the film business. You said you’d go, of course?’

‘Oh yeah. Nothing to lose, have I?’

Experience has taught me to pretend that I do not hear questions like that and I leave Sidney thinking a Wills Whiff into a Havana cigar.

Rather late in the day I find that Justin has also invited me to lunch. Sidney has not been swift to inform me of this fact and I think that he has been hoping that I would fix up a day trip to Southend, or some other convenient alternative to cramping his style.

The restaurant selected for our meeting is in Soho and called something like the Trattoria Grotti. I am not very keen on Greek food myself, never having had any, but I can see that Sidney is bubbling with excitement – probably only at the thought of getting some buckshee nosh.

‘Looks a nice place, doesn’t it?’ he says, rubbing his hands together. ‘I reckon I’m going to enjoy this.’

‘Probably got the cook we had at the Isla de Amori. Do you remember? The only English words he knew were “stomach pump”.’

Sidney ignores this and we advance towards the door which is whipped open as if the waiter is trying to snatch it off its hinges.

‘Bon Journo Signori!’ he trills. ‘What service can I perform for you?’

Justin and Mac are sitting in a corner but they are not alone. Sam is with them, looking very dithery and desirable, and there is a pneumatic blonde bird with about half a ton of mascara plastered round her peepers. She looks like something out of Antony and Cleopatra meet Tooting Common on Ice.

‘Splendid to meet you, Mr Noggett,’ beams Justin, extending a hand as I stutter an introduction. ‘This is my cameraman, Donald McDonald and this is my personal assistant, Samantha Toots and one of the artists we have under contract, Miss Sadie Masoch. You may remember her in our historical romance, Fanny Mountain? Sadie! What’s the matter?’

The blonde bint has her hand to her mouth and is gawping at Sidney like he has just dropped from the ceiling and landed on eight legs.

‘I’m terribly sorry!’ she shrieks in a high-pitched theatrical squeal, ‘but just for a moment I thought – well. I suppose you must get terribly bored with people saying this, but it really is remarkable.’

‘What is?’ Sidney is feeling behind his ears for drifts of shaving soap.

‘The resemblance!’ Sadie looks at Sam who nods vigorously and tries to make a hole in her Ribena at the same time. Justin pats her on the back. ‘Paul Newman!’

With those words my heart sinks. There was once a stupid scrubber who told Sid he looked like Paul Newman and the poor twirp went around chewing matchsticks for three months afterwards.

‘Oh, that,’ Sidney delivers one of his throw-away smiles which he should have thrown away years ago. ‘Yes, it can get a little embarrassing sometimes but you learn to live with it. I’m a bit taller than he is.’

‘Really? How interesting,’ shrills Sadie. ‘Well, darlink, you must come and sit next to me and tell me all about it.’

‘It’s a shame really,’ purrs Justin. ‘If you didn’t have this incredible resemblance to Paul Newman I’d feel like offering you a role as actor rather than financier. Your kind of –’ he waves a hand in the air as if hoping to draw down inspiration.

‘Caramba?’ says Sidney hopefully.

‘Charisma, that’s right,’ says Justin. ‘One finds it so rarely these days.’

If Sidney ever became an actor he would never be able to play modest parts, and it is fortunate that a waiter arrives before he can prove it.

‘Signor Justin,’ he grovels, ‘eez lovely to ’ave you ’ere again. May I recommend the Peto di pollo. Delicious. And the artichokes are also very nice.’

He waits expectantly and everybody looks at Sidney.

‘Yes,’ says Sid finally, having stared blankly at the menu for several minutes. ‘That sounds very nice.’

‘I adore corciofi,’ trills the blonde job. This comes as no surprise to me but I reckon she would do herself a bit of good by being more secretive about it. I can’t stand birds that talk dirty. I look at the menu but can only see one word of English.

‘Spaghetti,’ I say with dignity.

‘Certainly, sir. And to follow?’

I look back down the menu but there is definitely nothing there I have ever heard of.

‘Just coffee, thanks,’ I say.

‘Would you like something with the spaghetti?’

‘Chips.’

‘Splendid, splendid,’ says Justin, waving the waiter away when everyone has ordered. ‘There’s so much pretension about eating out, isn’t there? I do like to hear people asking for what they want,’ he reached behind him and grabs hold of a passing waiter. ‘You uncorked the Valpolicella at eleven-fifteen didn’t you? Excellent.’ He looks at his watch. ‘We’ll have that later and start with a bottle of Soave. Make sure it’s well chilled, won’t you?’

‘Certainly.’ The waiter turns to Sidney. ‘Aperitif, sir?’

‘No thanks. I’ve still got my own.’

‘He’s not talking about dentures, you berk!’ I tell him. ‘He wants to know if you fancy a snort before munching.’ Really! You would hardly credit it, would you? And he is in the business as well. He embarrasses me sometimes, he really does.

‘I’ll have a Bleeding Maria,’ says Sid. I see Justin and Mac exchanging glances but Sadie continues to gaze into Sidney’s mug like it is her favourite painting.

‘Uncanny,’ she says and I have often had the same feeling myself, although for different reasons.

Sid is definitely flummoxed when his artichoke arrives and I watch with interest as he prepares to deal with it. He pauses for a minute and then, obviously deciding that everybody will sus he has never seen one before unless he gets stuck in fast, sprinkles sugar all over the leaves and starts attacking it with a knife and fork. ‘I thought it was some kind of melon,’ he says to me afterwards.

Sidney is not doing very well and it is Sam who comes to the rescue.

‘Can I have a bit?’ she says. Sidney has never been known to refuse such a request from a lady and Sam swiftly selects a leaf and sucks the goody from it in the approved fashion, having dunked it in the bowl of vinaigrette provided. Sidney nearly gets it right only he dips his leaves in the finger bowl.

Although most of the conversation at the meal takes the form of Justin rabbiting on about his ideas for a new film and the fantastic amount of cash it is going to make, it is the meal itself I remember most clearly.

For instance, the moment when Sidney sticks his knife into his Peto di pollo and sends a stream of hot butter down the front of Justin’s silk shirt. Also the flaming liqueur called Timbuctoo or something like that. We all have one and after it has burned happily for a couple of minutes and the birds have squeaked with ecstasy at the dizzy excitement of it all, Justin blows his out. Sidney blows his out too. Right out of the glass and down the front of Justin’s long-suffering shirt.

In the circumstances it is not surprising that Sidney hardly knows whether he is coming or going and appears to be agreeing to every proposition that Justin fires at him. Mac has excused himself earlier and suddenly Justin leaps to his feet and shoots out a hand.

‘Splendid, splendid,’ he says. ‘So glad you could join us. I’ll have the papers drawn up and send them round for your signature. I think one day you’ll look back on this meal as a milestone.’ He should say millstone but we don’t know that then. ‘Don’t disturb yourselves,’ he urges as Sid starts to get up. ‘You stay and finish your coffee with the girls. I’ve got to go and do some editing. Beastly nuisance but there it is.’ He waves a hand and is gone.

‘I’d love a teeny weeny brandy,’ says Sadie who is snuggling up so close to Sidney they could be on the same chair.

By the time she has had a couple of largy wargy brandies, it is occurring to me that I am well and truly pissed and that Sam has the most shapely nipples I have seen outside a jar of gherkins. I am also hopelessly in love with her. In the physical sense of the word of course.

‘That was lovely,’ she says. ‘I feel all warm and glowing inside. I don’t want to go back to work.’

‘Don’t go back to work,’ I husk. ‘Let’s go somewhere where we can make love.’ It is smashing being pissed because you can say things like that all day without feeling any kind of embarrassment or hang-up. Sam looks me straight in the eyes and puts her hand on mine.

‘Oh dear. I’m so weak,’ she breathes. ‘I just can’t help it.’

‘You have beautiful thighs – I mean eyes,’ I tell her, looking at her tits. Really, I reckon if I don’t get my hands on her soon I am going to explode. ‘Where can we go?’ I murmur.

Sam looks desperate. ‘I don’t know. Maybe –’ She turns to Sadie who is kissing Sidney in a manner that reminds me of a female vulture feeding its young, and gives her a couple of sharp nudges which eventually prise her off Sid’s cakehole. They have a little whisper and depart to powder their noses.

Sid winks at me triumphantly. “I reckon we’re away here,’ he gloats. I am trying to clear up the coffee spilt when Sidney lurched to his feet as the girls left the table, so it takes me a few minutes to answer. ‘What are you doing down there?’ says Sid, sounding worried.

‘Trying to get the coffee stains off my jeans. What do you think, you clumsy berk?’

‘I thought you were having yourself away for a minute. Couldn’t control your excitement.’

‘You’re pissed, Sid.’

‘Yeah. But what about those two, eh? I reckon even you could score there. What a right couple of little darlings. I should have found out about this movie caper before.’

He opens a box of matches and sticks one between his teeth like Paul Newman. He must be pissed because he has two sticking out of his gob already.

‘We hopa very much that you enjoy your meal and we hopa very much to see you again.’ The Head Waiter is beaming down at Sidney but Sidney does not beam back.

‘What’s this then?’ he says.

‘It’s the bill, Sidney,’ I tell him. ‘You must have seen one before somewhere.’

‘But I thought those other blokes were paying?’

‘I expect they forgot, Sidney. In the film business little sums of money like that are hardly worth considering.’

Sidney looks at the bill and winces. ‘Twenty-eight quid! I don’t reckon that’s inconsiderable. I reckon it’s bleeding extravagant. That would keep me in grub for a month.’

I have to be careful with Sid because I don’t want him getting all narky and backing out of the deal. My whole future depends on it.

‘Pay it and forget about it, Sid. It’s an investment compared with what you stand to make out of the picture. And think of those birds you’re getting chucked in.’

Luckily the girls return at this moment and I see Sidney’s glazed eyes get another coating of frost. ‘I’ll have to write a cheque,’ he grumbles.

‘Darlinks,’ trills Sadie, ‘We thought we’d take you to the cinema. I’ve got a friend at Fantastic Unbelievable Pictures and I’ve arranged for us to use one of their projection rooms. That’s right, isn’t it, Samantha?’

‘I’m so weak,’ says Sam.

The waiter looks from Sid’s cheque to the bill.

‘Service is not included,’ he says reproachfully.

‘Oh dear,’ says Sid. ‘What a pity. I can never work it out in this new decimal money. Have you got a couple of bob on you, Timmo?’

When we get outside I have a nasty feeling that Sid is going to be bankrupted by having to pay for a taxi but fortunately the home of Fantastic Unbelievable Pictures is just round the corner. It is no more exciting than the studios at Sheppertree and once you get past the blurred and bleeding coloured photographs of some of FUP’s latest epics: Revenge of the Creeping Horror, They Came in Outer Space, Orgy and Bess, it is like any office building.

Sam leads the way down a long, dark corridor and sticks her head round the door of a small office.

‘Hello, Trevor,’ she says. ‘I rang through about that new Arty Spangler movie. Can you put it up for us?’

Would that she would ask me the same question but I can wait. The next door leads into the projection room which is about twenty foot square with thick pile carpets and three tiers of armchair-type seats. There is a small panel of glass behind the seats through which the film can be shown and, of course, a screen.

‘Cosy,’ says Sidney, winking at me again. ‘Very cosy. Right-O, darling? Let’s grab a slice of the back row.’ He leads Sadie up underneath the projection box and they sink into the armchairs like a couple of pebbles into warm toffee.

‘Oh dear,’ sighs Sam. ‘I just don’t seem to be able to control myself.’

‘I know exactly how you feel,’ I murmur, drawing her down into the front row as the lights dim.

I do not remember very much about the film except the first few minutes which seem to be taking place in a junk yard with a lot of naked chicks and fellows rolling about starkers in the rubbish. There is a good deal of moaning and groaning but I am not certain whether this is coming from the screen or the back row. I look round once and all I can see is one of Sadie’s feet hooked over the seat. Sid does not waste much time at the flicks as any of the usherettes at the Odeon, Balham will tell you. When you have seen him in action it comes as no surprise that he can hardly remember a thing about any of the pictures he has paid to see. He saw Gigi three times and still came out thinking it was about horse-racing.

Not that I am concentrating on Sidney’s performance. Oh dear me, no! Once Samantha Toots’s squeaks of remorse have been silenced by my eager mouth she becomes a different person. Everything I touch seems to send her into another fit of shuddering passion and when I greedily pull up her cotton sweater and turn my mitts loose on her bristols, the reaction is, to put it mildly, electrifying. The whole row of seats threatens to work itself free of its moorings and, like a packet of fags left on the dashboard of a clapped out banger we are shaken onto the floor.

Recently, life has presented me with a few disappointments nooky-wise and I am keen that there should be no repetition of those thrust-quenching incidents which have left me with no more than a disappointed ruckle of the Y-fronts to remember the what-might-have-been. For this reason I move with more than my usual speed and quickly wriggle free from the tacky embrace of my coffee-stained jeans. Beneath her long skirt Sam wears – absolutely nothing! The discovery fills me with a certain disquiet because it does not seem quite nice really. I may be old-fashioned but I do expect birds to wear a pair of knicks! I mean, it’s more refined, isn’t it?

Luckily Toots’s tornado tactics help overcome my temporary distaste and I am soon rolling back her long skirt like you might fold down the neck of a sack. Her mouth is seldom an inch from mine and only leaves the sanctuary of my lips in order to plunder another part of my body. ‘Oh yes,’ she breathes, caressing Percy from P to Y, ‘yes, yes, yes.’

I am in no mood to argue with her and with the smooth action of a twenty-five pounder shell sliding into the breech I close the distance between us to a number of hair breadths. Her mouth is open and her eyes are closed and I can see that one of her bottom teeth is a bit crooked. Funny that I should notice a thing like that at the moment like this.

Sam is one of those birds who is terrified of her own sensuality. Like an alcoholic circling a bottle of gin she knows that it only needs a taste for everything to go off the rails. Once she gives in – pow! Sex with Samantha is like trying to stay on a bucking bronco. After three minutes of being churned around on her hips I feel like an egg that has been whisked into a bowl of cake mix. Even when the lights go on I am not certain whether I am seeing it or feeling it. It is only when I recognise Justin’s horrified mug staring down at me that I know I am seeing it.

‘What the devil!?’ says the short, fat geezer with him.

‘O-o-o-o-o-o-o-h!!’ The sounds from the back row suggest that something very beautiful has just come to an end, or, that an end has just come too – something beautiful. You pays your money and you takes your choice.

‘Turn that bleeding light off!’ snarls Sid as his face appears above the row of seats shortly followed by that of Sadie.

‘Beryl!’

‘Daddy!’

‘Excuse me.’ The last words are mine and accompanied by a hurried fumbling for my jeans. Reunions between father and daughter can often become very emotional affairs and I am not particularly big on sentiment myself. It would be better if I crept quietly –

‘You swine!’

‘Daddy, don’t. Remember your heart.’

‘Mr Guttman, please!’

‘Get out of my way! Let me get at him! You know what they do to tom cats!’ I can see by the way Sidney moves that he knows all right.

‘Mr Guttman, Mr Guttman, calm yourself,’ shouts Justin. ‘This gentleman is making a considerable investment in our next production. Right, Mr Noggett?’

Sidney looks at the expression on Guttman’s face and then begins to nod slowly.

‘We need money from creatures like that?’ sobs Guttman. ‘Seducing my little girl. Look, she’s been drugged. It’s obvious.’

Sadie, or Beryl as I know her, is one of those birds you can never imagine ever having been a little girl and the thought of her being seduced does not fit easily into the mind. She does look drugged, though. It must be the booze.

‘I assure you, Mr Guttman. We were just having a bit of fun,’ stammers Sid.

‘“Fun!!” Seducing my little girl, “fun”? Where’s this contract you were talking about? I’m going to tear it limb from limb.’

It occurs to me that nobody has mentioned a contract but Justin is swift to produce a folded sheet of paper which Guttman snatches from his hands.

‘Mr Guttman! I beg you to reconsider,’ sobs Justin. ‘What has happened here is highly reprehensible and I can appreciate your feelings of outrage at seeing your first-born in the process of despoliation but think of the longer view. Is it not right that this man should make good the wrong he has done? His signature on that contract can be a step towards financial reimbursement at least.’

‘I feely dizzy. My throat is dry,’ croaks Sadie.

‘Drugged. He’s drugged her. What did I tell you?’ howls Guttman. ‘Fetch the police! I will not rest until that twisted pervert is behind bars!’

‘Relax! Relax!’ shrieks Sid. ‘I didn’t drug anyone. I swear it. It was the girls’ idea. Look, I’ll sign it. Give me that piece of paper. Let’s not get hysterical about this.’

He grabs the piece of paper and dashes off a signature so fast that his trousers fall down again.

Guttman extends his arms. ‘What is the world coming to when I have to do business with rapists and perverts, drug peddlers and sexual maniacs. Come, Rachel –’

‘Beryl!’ hisses Justin.

‘– come Beryl. Let us go round to Great Portland Street and beg for atonement.’ He snatches back the contract and sails out with Sadie hobbling into her skirt behind him. Justin pauses for a moment and shakes his head.

‘A bad business,’ he says solemnly. ‘I’ll see you later.’ He is talking to Sam who is still lying on the floor with her hands over her head to shut out the noise.

‘Look, Mr Tymely –’ Sidney hurries after Justin and Sam and I are left alone.

‘Oh dear,’ says Sam. ‘That was awful, wasn’t it?’

‘Awful,’ I agree with her.

‘Just when we were having such a lovely time, too.’ She looks at me out of the corner of one of her eyes and smooths her skirt over her thigh.

‘It was good, wasn’t it?’

‘Sometimes when something like that happens it’s difficult to pick up the threads.’ She pulls her sweater down so that her nipples jut out like bell pushes.

I suck in my breath. ‘Yes.’

‘What are we going to do now?’

‘Where’s the light switch in this place?’ I ask her.