The Confessions Collection. Timothy Lea
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to us from Children’s Hour via the West London Magistrates Court.’
I watch them do the scene again and it occurs to me how blasé everyone is. There is lovely Sandra revealing her all and most of the blokes on the set are playing cards or kipping. Even Sandra herself calmly chucks aside her copy of The Lady before getting on with it. I suppose the glamour must wear off after a while. Luckily the blood is still running dangerously hot through my veins and when Justin announces that shooting is over for the day I am swift to offer Big S. her robe.
‘Ta, love,’ she says. ‘Did you say you were a window cleaner?’
‘I used to be.’
‘That’s a pity. I hoped I could press you into service. I can’t get anyone to come near me.’
‘You amaze me,’ I husk. ‘Tell you what: I’m not doing very much at the moment. Why don’t I give your windows a quick once over?’
All the time I am talking to her I cannot take my eyes off her knockers and she pulls her robe across her chest protectively.
‘You’re sure it’s no trouble?’
‘None at all.’
‘All right. I won’t be long.’
When Sandra comes out of the dressing room she leads the way to the car park and steers me towards a bubble car, the shape of which is a perfect match for her own best feature.
‘It’s very economical for hopping about in,’ she says. ‘As long as you don’t mind a bit of a crush.’ She reaches across to shut the door and for a second I feel as if I’m bringing in the melon harvest. ‘Snug, isn’t it?’
‘Very. Tell me, how many films have you made?’ I say, demonstrating that gift for conversation that has made me the darling of my Mum’s Tupperware parties.
‘I’ve no idea. About twenty, I think.’
‘I don’t even know your full name.’
‘At the moment it’s Sandra Virgin. I’ve had about six. Paula Rental, Dreft Sunsilk –’
‘Dreft Sunsilk?’
‘Yes. My manager had the idea of getting manufacturers to sponsor me. It never caught on though. It’s a cute name, don’t you think?’
‘Very. Why do they keep changing them?’
‘They change them every time they re-launch me. I think they’ve stopped now. I hope so. I get fed up with it. They’ve even done a feature on the number of times I’ve been launched.’
‘What’s your favourite name?’
‘Sandra Finch. That’s my real name.’
‘Finch! It’s not really big enough, is it?’
‘That’s what they kept saying. They’d have liked to have called me Sandra Jumbotits, or something.’
‘Who’s they?’
‘I have an agent and Justin has taken a big interest in my career.’
‘He seems to know what he’s doing.’
‘Oh, he’s brilliant. Very clever. He went to Oxford, you know. The University.’
‘I have heard of it.’
‘Yes. Since he set up Trion we haven’t looked back. He’s marvellous at finding out what people want and giving it to them.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of his films.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t. Most of them go abroad. They do show in the West End though. Underwater Sex was on at the Burlington for months.’ Now she mentions it, I do remember a poster saying: ‘Their love was so hot even the Adriatic could not put it out.’
‘You filmed that on location, did you?’
‘On location! You must be joking. We shot it all in a tank in five days. I got a terrible cold. It was awful having to hold your breath down there. And all those octopuses! It was disgusting the things they got up to. Squirting muck everywhere.’
‘So you do everything in a studio?’
‘In a room if possible. Justin is the king of the low budget production. He makes Andy Warhol seem like Cecil B. de Mille.’
‘They’re all sex pictures?’
‘Not completely. I mean, there are sex pictures and sex pictures. Justin was the first producer to hit on the idea of the instructional sex film that demonstrates how to do it. It’s wonderful, because you don’t need any dialogue and, if it’s instructional it can’t be dirty. Professor Blumsticker reads his casebook and we do a fade from his surgery to the bedroom, with his voice over.’
‘His voice over what?’
‘Over the action on the screen. My, my, you don’t know much about it, do you? Quite the little greenhorn.’
Not so much of the ‘little’ or the ‘green’, I think to myself but I don’t say anything. It is not in my nature to give offence to the owner of such a magnificent pair of knockers.
When we get to Sandra’s house I see that it is one of those old Victorian jobs which has more windows than a fish has scales. Sandra reads my expression.
‘I’m afraid you’ve got your work cut out,’ she says. “You’d better tell me what you’d like and I’ll see if I can accommodate you.’ She raises an eyebrow and winks at me. ‘In the way of equipment, of course. I’m sorry, but when you’ve been in as many of Justin’s films as I have everything sounds like a double-entendre.’ She takes a deep breath and half the oxygen in the car disappears. I’m not kidding, this lady’s breathing equipment is really constructed on the grand scale.
‘I take it you’re married?’ I say as we crunch across the gravel.
‘Married and separated.’
‘Oh dear. You live here all by yourself, do you?’ It is difficult to keep a note of satisfaction out of my evil little voice.
‘Yes, except for Fido.’ We are approaching the front door as she speaks and I can see the outline of something pressing against the frosted glass. ‘Poor dear. I have to leave him at home and he misses me dreadfully.’ I smile sympathetically and think what a lot of noise little Fido can make. Little Fido! By the cringe, but I was never so mistaken about the size of anything since I caught a glimpse of Tiny Trotter’s chopper when we changed in the same cubicle at Tooting Bec Baths. Fido makes the Hound of the Baskervilles seem like Sooty’s kid sister. He comes through the door like an express train and has to stoop to rest his front paws on Sandra’s shoulders.
‘There, there boysie,’ she says. ‘Did naughty Mumsie leave her favourite doggy alone all day? Wicked Mumsie!’ The brute licks her face in a way that suggests a great future stripping paintwork and then looks at me and yawns. At least, I hope it yawns. Whatever it does I see enough big yellow teeth to kit out a couple of sharks.
‘I think he’s hungry,’ says Sandra.
‘You leave him plenty of food, I suppose?’ I croak as Fido starts sniffing one of my legs. ‘I wouldn’t like him to think I was some kind of cocktail snack.’
‘Heel, Fido!’ says Sandra firmly. ‘Don’t do that to Mr Lea, it’s not nice. Mumsie will give you your din-dins right away.’
I follow Sandra through to the kitchen and watch fascinated as Fido folds his chops around what looks like half a sheep. He adjusts his molars and engages full crunch in a way that convinces me he could bite a hole in the side of a battleship.
‘He’s lovely, isn’t he?’ says Sandra, like she was peering into a cot full of first-born.
‘Yeah. Quite a character,’ I say. ‘Now, have