Читать книгу Confessions of a Window Cleaner - Timothy Lea - Страница 8

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.