The Confessions Collection. Timothy Lea
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clouds of burning thatch are being snatched away by the night breeze.
I rush forward, putting together a jigsaw puzzle of Dad with every step. I remember all the little acts of human kindness which characterised the man: the time he gave me his old tobacco tin to keep my earwigs in, the space helmet he brought me back from the Lost Property Office – of course it was a gold fish bowl, but Dad believed in teaching a kid to be imaginative.
Suddenly, he is there before me; an unforgettable figure in his Steptoe-issue long underpants and blackened face.
“Dad, Dad,” I scream. “Are you alright?”
“No thanks to you two bleeders,” he rasps. “Bloody place is a bleeding death trap. Knock out your pipe and the whole lot goes up like tinder.”
“You what!” screeches Sid.
“You heard. I said try knocking your pipe out around here. It’s bloody murder. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
“You mean—!”
“Don’t get all worked up about it. It could have happened to anyone. It’s you who want to feel responsible. Leaving your poor old father to fry while you pander to your unnatural tendencies. Look at those skirts. I always said you two was poufdahs.”
“You take his legs,” says Sid. “We’re going to chuck him into a burning hut.”
“No wonder Rosie fancies that Eyetie geezer,” goes on Dad. “You don’t expect nothing better from their lot.”
“Whadya mean?” snarls Sid, an edge in his voice you could cut your fingers on.
“I thought you hadn’t noticed. Oh, yes, they were creeping through here hand in hand about half an hour ago. Very nice goings on I said to myself. Our Rosie canoodling with some singing wop. Here! Where are you going? What about all the things I lost in the fire? I want retribution.”
But he doesn’t get it. Not then, anyway. Sid’s mug assumes the expression of one of those things you see sticking out of church walls and he plunges on through the burning huts with me trying to keep up with him.
“Where is that bastard’s hut?” he shouts.
“I don’t know,” I lie. “Over there, I think.”
I let Sid get out of sight and then belt across to Hairy’s hut. The fire has not reached it yet but clouds of smoke are swirling round the walls. Holding my breath, for a number of reasons, I peer through the doorway and see Ricci and Rosie stretched out naked on two beds that have been dragged together. Oh my gawd! They are obviously taking a post-poke nap and, while I watch, Ricci’s nostrils begin to twitch as wisps of smoke drift through the thatch.
“Get out!” I scream. “The camp’s on fire and Sidney’s looking for you!”
I thought the bloke who dived through my window into the cactus was a fast mover, but this Ricci must have been in the Italian team at the Rome Olympics. He has snatched up his skirt and is past me before you can say “Jesse Owens”. He doesn’t stop to say “goodbye” or “thank you” either.
It doesn’t get him anywhere because I hear a noise like somebody chopping up pork cutlets and turn to see Sid delivering a bunch of cinques up the wop’s bracketo with sufficient force to send him spinning through the wall of a nearby hut. Sid plunges in after him and a succession of unpleasant thumps and yelps rise above the noise of the approaching flames.
“Get out of it,” I hiss at Rosie who is desperately trying to hook up her grass skirt, “piss off back to the bungalow.”
I make an opening in one of the walls and she slips though it seconds before Sidney comes in stroking his knuckles. I follow his searching eyes round the room and am relieved to find that Rosie seems to have left no evidence of her visit.
“Taught him a bleeding lesson,” says Sid with grim satisfaction. “Come on, let’s go and find the others.”
It has been an evening crowded with incident hasn’t it? But more is still to come. When we leave the huts we see that the Candlelight Casino is ablaze, presumably ignited by the burning straw that is drifting everywhere.
“You stay here and stop anyone going near those huts,” shouts Sid.
“I’ll see if I can do anything about the casino.”
I don’t have a lot to do because in no time at all the whole area of the huts is only fit to roast chestnuts in and there are not a lot of those about. I extend what sympathy and reassurance I can and start to walk back towards the Casino. From the glow in the sky it looks as if the Passion Fooderama has gone up as well. Suddenly, looking into the pines that border the path, I see two figures picking their way through the trees. One of them I immediately recognise as Mum, but the other – blimey, it can’t be! Naked, bearded, pot-bellied – Grunwald!!!
“Mum!” I shout and start racing towards her, my mind reeling with the horror of it all. When I reach her, Grunwald has disappeared and Mum is crying.
“Mum, Mum!” I pant. “What happened? What did he do to you? I’ll kill him.”
Through the tears Mum blinks up at me like she has trouble recognising who I am.
“It was beautiful,” she says, “beautiful.”
“Beautiful!? What do you mean, Mum?”
“—and now it’s over.”
Once again her face has that dreamy look and an expression I can only describe as radiant.
“Mum—”
“I was frightened when I first saw him, but then he took me by the hand and showed me his temple in the rocks.”
“Mum!”
“His Temple of Love, he called it. He’d made it ever so comfy and nice. Really snug it was. He wanted me to stay there with him for ever.”
“Mum. Do you know what you’re saying?”
“Such a nice man. He was so kind. And he had such a lovely furry tummy.”
“Mum, please!” I mean, it’s disgusting, isn’t it? Your own mother!
“I’ve considered it quite seriously in the last few days.”
“You couldn’t, Mum.”
“And then I thought about you and your father.”
“Yes, Mum?”
“And it seemed an even better idea.”
“Mum!”
“I suppose you think it’s ridiculous at my age?”
“Exactly, Mum. You’re old enough to be my mother.”
“But then I thought: after a while the magic will wear off; there will be all the unpleasantness with your father, and nobody will remember to feed the goldfish.”
“True, Mum.”
“So I told him I couldn’t go through with it.”
She starts crying again and I put my arm round her shoulder. I mean, when you think about it, it’s rather lovely, isn’t it?
“There, there, Mum,” I say. “You did the right thing. I believe it gets quite parky here in the winter. Now come and warm your hands on the Candlelight Casino and – take my advice – don’t say anything to Dad about it all!”
“I can’t remember when I was last so moved,” says Sir Giles.
It is the next afternoon and we are sitting under a shady rock not far from the scorched site of Sid’s office. Sir Giles, Sid, Ted and me, listening to the last party of