Читать книгу Confessions of a Private Dick - Timothy Lea - Страница 4

‘I still don’t understand how she knew that he knew,’ says Sid. ‘When he went down to the waterfront in the rain and they fished the two stiffs out of the drink, the D.A. gave him a funny sort of smile. Did that mean that he knew as well?’

‘Search me, Sid,’ I say. ‘I lost touch when the bloke in the wheelchair opened up with his artificial leg. That bird had a nice pair, didn’t she?’

I see immediately that my observation has given offence. ‘ “That bird had a nice pair”! ’ snorts Sid. ‘Is that all you can think about? I’m trying to have an intelligent conversation about the plot of the film and all you can do is give vent to your knocker complex. Can’t you raise your mind to anything higher?’

‘There wasn’t much higher than those bristols,’ I say. ‘Honestly, Sid, that girl had curves in places where other people don’t have places.’

‘I still can’t understand it,’ muses Sid. ‘Maybe they cut something out of it. All those bleeding commercials. They have to make room for them somehow.’

‘They make it so difficult to follow, don’t they?’ I say. ‘I was wondering who that mysterious bird was who kept running down the beach every half hour. I never cocoed it was a cigar commercial.’

‘You only watch when there’s a bird on the screen, don’t you?’ says Sid. ‘The television companies are wasting their time putting out programmes with blokes as far as you’re concerned. I’d have thought you’d have had enough after our trip home with Nancy and Felicity.’

Do those names ring a bell? If the answer is yes you may well have come across them in Confessions of a Plumber’s Mate. I certainly did. What a right couple of nautical ravers they were. Employed to look decorative on the poop deck of the SK498 at the Indoor Outdoor Exhibition but, in reality, knocking back a couple of bottles of ‘Southern Courage – the drink that lost the South the American Civil War’ – and taking it out on Sid and myself – not so much taking it out as ripping it out! Small wonder that we lost control of the boat as well as ourselves and drove off the marina and through the exit doors at Earls Court. That was all right because the boat was designed to travel on land as well as water. The only drawback was that it did not travel so well under water. We found that out when we ran up the back of a car transporter on the Chelsea Embankment and dived into the Thames. Frankly, I thought we had less chance of coming up than a winning line on a pools coupon but we surfaced just opposite Battersea Funfair – or where it used to be. A bloke who was about to commit suicide by jumping off Battersea Bridge took one look at us and fell backwards in a dead faint – actually, I must be honest, I made that last bit up. Sorry, Mum always said I was a whimsical child.

By the time we got ashore, the romance was deader than a set of election promises and we had drunk all the Southern Courage – or maybe the two things were connected. The girls got a taxi out of our lives and we got a 49 bus leaving a trail of bubbles behind us where the SK498 got its head down for a long kip on the bed of the Thames.

‘I hope that the whole distressing incident is not shambolic of the future of British industry,’ says Sid as we sip our tea and watch the little pinpoint of light die away in the middle of the telly screen.

‘Symbolic,’ I say, thinking as I speak that Sid may be right. ‘Crispin isn’t exactly going to cream his jeans over this lot, is he?’

‘I’ve been thinking about Crispin,’ says Sid.

Just in case your shop was sold out, or in a fit of reckless madness, you thought you could exist without Confessions of a Plumber’s Mate – or you have forgotten – let me point out that Crispin Fletcher is our interior decorator boss/partner who has been instrumental in securing us the job of maintenance men at the Indoor Outdoor Exhibition. As I have intimated, first indications suggest that he is going to be less than totally satisfied with our latest contribution to the profit/loss account of Home Enhancers.

‘What have you been thinking?’ I say.

‘I’ve been thinking that I might have made a mistake,’ says Sid.

This statement affects me like an Irish navvy stamping out his cigar butt on my groin. Though speedy to confess to weakness in others, Sid has never won renown for pointing the rigid digit in his own direction.

‘Mistake, Sid?’ I say.

‘Well,’ Sid double banks his lips in a north-easterly direction and waggles his mitts. ‘More an error of judgement than a mistake. A miscalculation.’ I breathe more easily. For a moment I thought that Sid’s subterranean passage had played havoc with his down the drains. ‘There is a stage beyond Crispin.’

This is indeed interesting news. I had always thought that Crispin went about as far as you could go. It is not everybody that wears pink velvet kneebreeches and sabots especially when they are pushing a wire basket round the supermarket. I know because I saw him. He was wheeling fourteen avocados and a jar of Vaseline at the time – don’t ask me, your guess is as good as mine.

‘When I decided to turn my back on big business,’ says Sid who was sacked from his position at the Slumbernog Bedding Company – ‘And decided that there was too much capital investment involved in the transport business’ – two-thirds of the Nogget transport fleet was wiped out by unfortunate accidents involving ladies – ‘I was approaching the answer: fewer hands make light broth and keep the overheads down.’

‘I see,’ I say, wondering what he is rabbiting on about.

‘Home Enhancers was right in concept but it was a mistake to get involved with Crispin. Even one other bloke can be one bloke too many. There are misunderstandings, personality clashes. What you need is a really lightweight operation: one bloke issuing the orders and another bloke carrying them out with scrupulous attention to detail.’

‘I see,’ I say. ‘So you’re not going to give Crispin another chance?’

If Sid perceives that there is a trace of sarcasm in my voice he is a master at disguising it. ‘I don’t think so,’ he says. ‘I don’t think there would be any point.’ At that moment, the telephone rings. Sid puts down his cuppa and strolls across the lounge of his sumptuous Vauxhall pad. ‘Hello, Crispin,’ he says as the earpiece nestles against his earhole. That is all he does say. He listens for a while and then stares into the mouthpiece like he reckons Crispin might be just visible through the little holes.

‘What did he say?’ I ask.

Sid puts the phone down. ‘He agrees with me.’

‘Well, that’s that then,’ I say. ‘Back to the Labour. It’s getting so crowded these days you have to be early to be sure of a chair.’

‘I know,’ says Sid. ‘It’s hard work, isn’t it? They ought to send it to you through the post. Think of all the clerical staff it would save. One bloke could probably do the whole thing.’

‘Yes, but that would make the others redundant,’ I explain. ‘Then they’d all go on strike, wouldn’t they?’

‘If they were redundant, it wouldn’t matter, would it?’ says Sid. ‘They couldn’t do anything.’

‘They’d probably picket the place so the one bloke who was doing all the work couldn’t get in,’ I say.

Sid’s face contorts in anger. ‘Bastards!’ he says. ‘No wonder this country’s going to the dogs when bloody bolsheviks can prevent you getting your unemployment benefit. What’s the ordinary working man expected to do?’

Further discussion on this interesting point is interrupted by the arrival of a taxi outside the front door. Out of it gets my sister and Sid’s wife – only one person as regular readers will recall – in a soaking wet condition and wearing an expression that would be rejected by a voodoo mask maker as being likely to frighten off prospective customers. Since we are both well acquainted with her vindictive nature and could be accused of having contributed to her bedraggled condition (she fell in the marina when the SK498 went berserk) it is a matter of seconds before we are letting ourselves out by the back door.

‘A taxi,’ says Sid. ‘That’s marvellous, isn’t it? Even if I had a million quid I could never travel in a taxi. I’d feel awkward somehow. But it doesn’t worry her, does it?’

‘I expect she’s more adaptable,’ I say diplomatically. I could also say that, thanks to the success of the boutiques and the wine bars, Rosie is a blooming sight nearer to a million quid than her old man and therefore able to afford the odd taxi, but I deem it inadvisable. There is no doubt that Sid’s half-baked schemes to make money at any cost are a direct result of Rosie’s successful moola-making activities.

‘Hello, Dad Dad.’ The appealing waif fondling his ferret through the bars of its cage with a length of bamboo cane is my nephew, Jason Noggett – or ‘The Child Piranha’ as he is known in some circles.

‘Don’t poke him like that,’ says Sid. ‘He doesn’t like it.’

‘When you buy Jason rabbit, Dad Dad?’ says the little fiend, looking up towards the house thoughtfully.

Sid opens the back gate. ‘I’ve told you! You’re not having one until we get another cage.’

‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘We don’t want Mr Ferret to gobble bunny up, do we?’

Jason flashes me a quick ‘Piss off, Uncle Timmy!’ look and continues to address his father. ‘Mummy home now? Daddy go boozer?’

‘I’m having a word with your uncle,’ says Sid irritably. ‘Where’s Jerome?’

‘We play Red Indians,’ says Jason, giving his ferret a last affectionate poke. ‘He staked out on ant hill.’

In fact, it is only the manure heap next door but the child is in a very anti-social condition.

‘I don’t know what’s got into that child,’ says Sid when we have handed over some ‘sweety money’ blackmail and been allowed to continue on our way. ‘He’s never wanted for anything – except that alligator he’s always on about – and yet he’s a real handful.’

‘Kids today,’ I say in my best ‘old codgers’ manner.

‘That’s right,’ says Sid. ‘Sometimes I think we’re cruel when we try to be kind. You give them too much and they miss out on the simple things.’

‘Still, it’s a violent age, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘That’s got to have an effect on them.’

‘Must have an effect on all of us,’ says Sid. ‘Still, it’s always been like that, hasn’t it? Look at that film on the telly this afternoon. Every time that bloke stuck the brim of his fedora round the frosted glass somebody bashed him over the nut.’

‘And it wasn’t just “The Mob” was it?’ I say. ‘Those Bay City cops were really mean, weren’t they? You needed a paper bag to put your teeth in if you went round to report that your cat was missing.’

‘Yet all the time he preserved a kind of simple dignity, didn’t he?’ says Sid admiringly. ‘One man against a corrupt society – and pulling all the crumpet on the side. Can’t be bad.’ He suddenly clutches my arm. ‘Timmo! I’ve just had an idea.’ Strong men – and ones with brains – run when Sid says that but I stand my ground bravely. ‘You know he worked out of that office above the launderette?’

‘You need capital to set up a launderette,’ I say. ‘Anyway, all the best sites have gone.’

‘I didn’t mean that!’ says Sid. ‘I was referring to the simplicity of the operation. All you need is a telephone. You could do it from home.’

‘Mum wouldn’t stand for it,’ I say. ‘All that washing everywhere. Where would you hang it?’

‘Forget about the bloody washing!’ shouts Sid so loud that an old lady wheels her shopping basket into a lamp post. ‘I’m talking about becoming a private detective. Don’t you see? It’s perfect. No overheads, no partners, no qualifications. Crime is the only growth industry in this country at the moment and more people are getting divorced than get married. We can’t go wrong. What’s more, it’s legit.’

‘Yeah,’ I breathe, buying my imagination a one-way ticket to romantic places. ‘I can just see it: “Timothy Lea, Private Dick”.’