The Confessions Collection. Timothy Lea
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electric appliances. While you are checking the numbers on the products you are quick to point out that they are all on their last legs, but, being the kind of sweet generous guy you are, you are prepared to give their owners a very advantageous trade-in price should they buy the latest HomeClean model. You are certain that they will agree, etc., etc. This can be quite an effective way of boosting your sales figures if you have made all your dealer calls and the pubs have not opened.
If Miss Vickers is excited she hides the fact well. ‘They’ve come to look at the vacuum cleaner again,’ she says dismissively. I notice that a funny look comes into her eyes when she gazes upon Arthur and I find it difficult to guess what is going through her mind.
‘Ask the gentlemen in, Cheryl!’ The voice bustling down the hall towards us belongs to a larger version of Miss Vickers but one that is none the less appealing, especially to a man who has not tasted human flesh for over three weeks. She is untying an apron and smoothing her skirt as she comes and I can see what Arthur was getting at. There is a very pronounced smell of perfume in the air and Cheryl sniffs disdainfully and obviously.
‘Oh, mother,’ she says wearily and turns away shaking her head. Mrs. Vickers’ blush matches Arthur’s.
‘Young people,’ she says. ‘They’re a problem these days, aren’t they? Never seem to know what they want. When Cheryl was at school she was full of ideas about what she was going to do. Art school, hairdressing, things like that. Now she just moons about here all day getting under my feet. It’s worse than having a man around the place. Not that that’s something I’ve had to put up with a lot lately.’ She looks hungrily from Arthur to me and back again.
‘It must be very trying sometimes,’ says Arthur as Cheryl disappears upstairs, her back end ticking away like the mechanism on an expensive Swiss watch. Mrs. V. sighs after her and turns back to us.
‘I’m glad to see you today,’ she says. ‘Of course, I’m glad to see you on any day, Mr. Seaton,’ she squeezes his arm, ‘but just at the moment everything seems to be going wrong.
It’s difficult when you’re just two women in the house. Cheryl is just as helpless as I am with fuses and things.’ I nod understandingly.
‘Anything we can do to help?’
‘Well, there is one thing. Cheryl’s hair dryer seems to be acting up. I’d be very grateful if you could look at it.’
Arthur shoots me a ‘you heard what the lady said, now beat it’ look, and I am quick to express my enthusiasm for the task.
‘It’s in her bedroom. Top of the stairs, turn right.’
The polished rail runs smoothly under my fingers as I glide up the staircase and I push open the door that is ajar before me.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
Cheryl Vickers has taken her jumper off and is standing in front of the mirror revealing that she must have burnt her bra weeks before. I notice that her breasts are all-over suntanned. Maybe she pops over to Mrs. Bennett’s to sunbathe. There is no hint of embarrassment in her voice as she calmly continues to brush her hair. It is a pursuit that makes her breasts stand out very nicely indeed.
‘If you were sorry,’ she says, ‘you wouldn’t be standing there gawping at me.’
‘I’m not gawping,’ I say. ‘I’m just a connoisseur of beautiful things.’ Pretty smooth, eh? I got that out of an old Rossano Brazzi movie. Maybe I should have left it there.
‘Yuk!’ says Cheryl. ‘Have you ever thought about compering “Come Dancing”?’
‘Your mum said you had a hair dryer that needed mending?’ I say hurriedly, deciding that the lark-tongued side of my personality is wasted on this chick. My first impulse was clearly the right one.
‘It’s not one of yours,’ she says with obvious satisfaction. ‘I’m going to take my jeans off now. Promise you won’t make some stomach-turning reference to the colour of my panties?’
‘I’m surprised to hear you wear any,’ I say. ‘Now, give me the dryer before I bash you over the nut with it.’
‘There’s no need to be bloody rude,’ she says, shoving the dryer into my hand.
‘Look who’s talking. You’ve hardly said a civil word since I came through the door.’
Her pants are a deep purple colour with a kind of crochet pattern running through them. I remember seeing them on the expensive counter at Marks and Sparks. They are special favourites of mine.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m a bit on edge at the moment.’
‘What’s the trouble?’
‘Oh, lots of things. I’m fed up with hanging about here and yet I don’t seem to be able to pull myself together and do something about it; and I’m fed up with mum pussyfooting around with the likes of your friend Mr. Seaton.’
‘She’s a very attractive woman, your mother. You can’t blame her –’
‘I don’t blame her. I wish she would do something about it. She’s so, so genteel. I suppose that’s the right word.’
‘But Seaton gives me the message that you’re always getting in the way.’ Cheryl blushes.
‘Well, to tell you the truth, I fancy him myself.’
‘You what!’ So that is what that funny look in the hall meant – Blimey, I seem to be losing out to the Sanatogen brigade all over town.
‘Oh, yes. I think he’s terribly sexy. That wispy, greying hair and those incredible bags under his eyes. I love men whose faces look as if they’ve been lived in.’ I can understand that, but Seaton’s face looks as if it has been lived in by a colony of woodworm.
‘He’s old enough to be your father,’ I blurt out and then a thought occurs to me. Ja, Herr Doctor, it eez all ver zimple. Ze child haz lozt her fader, nein? Zo she identifies mit ze Zeaton who becomes ze fader figure unt de lover. Eez, zimple, nein?
‘I don’t care what he is,’ she says. ‘I think he’s smashing. All the fellows I meet of my own age are only interested in getting these off.’ She points to her knickers. ‘Now your friend. He’s so gentle. When I see him fussing over mum and her just sitting there simpering, it makes me want to hug him. I wish he had come up here to mend the dryer.’
‘Yes’ I say thoughtfully. ‘Put your dressing gown on, I’ve got an idea.’ I hate to leave such a delectable flesh banquet but it is obvious that owing to the strange workings of the female mind, there is one better equipped to take advantage of it than I.
‘What do you mean?’ she says as I get up. ‘What about the dryer?’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ I say, heading for the door. ‘Everything is going to be alright.’
Just as I had expected, Mrs. V. and Arthur are sat down at opposite sides of the kitchen table having a cup of tea. The atmosphere is about as laden with suppressed sexuality as an old age pensioner’s drag contest. It occurs to me that Arthur Seaton’s trousers probably only come down just before he climbs into bed with Mrs. Seaton, and then when she is facing the wall. Maybe Cheryl will be able to do something about that.
‘I’m sorry, Arthur,’ I say, ‘but I can’t make head or tail of it. I think you’d better have a look.’
‘What is it, then?’ he says, sounding a bit narky at being disturbed.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘That’s the trouble. It needs a real pro.’ I smile at Mrs. V. and she smiles back. Arthur finishes his tea and stands up.
‘I’ll be right back,’ he says. Personally, I have my doubts, but I don’t say anything.
He goes out and Mrs. V. nods towards the tea pot.
‘Do you fancy a cup?’