Confessions of a Driving Instructor. Timothy Lea
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understand what the hell he’s talking about,” says Dad. “You mean you found she was in the family way?”
The stupid old sod doesn’t know how close he is but I dismiss him with a humoring nod of the head and address myself to Sid and his disappearing wallet.
“No, Dad, it’s nothing your generation would understand. I think Sid knows what I mean, don’t you, Sid?”
Sid blushes before my penetrating gaze and nods vigorously.
“Yes, Timmy,” he says, “I had the same problem myself once.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Rosie. “It certainly wasn’t with me. We never had a wrong word the whole time we were engaged.”
“I don’t ever remember that you were engaged,” says Dad.
“Now, Dad …” says Mum.
“If he’s going to start getting at me …” says Rosie.
“I’d better be getting going,” says Sid. “I’ve got an early job. I’ll have some breakfast at the caff.”
I catch up with him in the hall. “Oh, Sid,” I say, “I got the impression in there you might be able to stand me a few bob.”
“How much? A fiver?”
“You must be joking. That’s what you’d pay up the West End. For family it comes a bit more expensive. Twenty-five nicker.”
“Nice bleeder, aren’t you? You’d make a good ponce.”
“Thanks. It takes one to know one. Just take it as being damages for breach of promise.”
“I never promised anything.”
“O.K. Well, consider yourself an unofficial co-respondent.”
“It’s more like bloody blackmail.”
“It is bloody blackmail and you’re bloody lucky to get off with twenty-five nicker and a bunch of fives up the bracket.”
“O.K. Well, I suppose it was worth it.”
“Don’t push it.”
And so on those pleasant terms we part with Sid lighter by the weight of five crisp fivers which he counts three times in case an extra one might have got stuck to them.
It is shortly after this event that, much to my father’s surprise and mother’s sorrow, Sid makes good his promise and moves Rosie and Jason into the wonderful new world of a Span flat, overlooking the common. Dad congratulates himself that it is his non-stop rabbiting that has done the trick but I have a shrewd suspicion that it is the threat of me blurting out a few home truths to Rosie—plus the not inconsequential demands I am making upon his surplus funds. Some might feel the odd pang of guilt, but I console myself with the thought that I am feathering my beloved sister’s nest as well as my own.
With the departure of the Boggetts (that was Sid’s name, poor sod) I move my photographs of the Chelsea football team (F.A. and European Cup winners: ‘We are the champions’) down to their bedroom and prepare to lord it a bit. But things don’t work out the way I’ve hoped. Mum is distraught about losing ‘her little Jason’ and keeps going on about all his lovable little habits like pissing in the coal bucket, and Dad misses having Sid to whine at and starts taking it out on me. Between the two of them, they are beginning to make me feel quite nostalgic for the old days. What I would have done next I’ll never know because at that moment fate intervenes and the whole course of my life is changed at one stroke. Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it? Oh, well, please yourself.
I have already mentioned that I shared a window cleaning business with Sid and readers of the previous volume of my memoirs (Confessions of a Window Cleaner—Sphere 1971. Ed.) will recall that this led to the odd entanglement with what my old schoolmaster used to call members of the opposite sex. It was such an occasion that led to my eventual, and literal, downfall.
I remember the day well because it was late summer and very hot in a way that only happens in the week after everyone has come back from their August bank holiday. Dogs panted in shadowy doorways and the heat seemed to muffle the noises of the street so that I might have been working in a dream as I lazily swept my squeegee over the top floor windows. I was operating in the front garden of a row of comfortable middle-class semi-detacheds behind Nightingale Lane and was stripped to the waist, not because I wanted to give any bird the come-on, but because I wanted to improve my suntan—though the two things are not entirely unconnected. Most of the windows round here are thicker with net curtains than Dracula’s wedding veil, but Mrs. Dunbar must have had hers in the wash because I can see straight through into her kiddies’ nursery.
Mrs. D. is on her hands and knees behind a rocking horse, and I note with satisfaction the pattern of her knickers showing through her skirt as her delicious little arse bulges over her haunches. Mrs. D. is a regular client of mine but I’ve never had an inkling that there might be anything there for me. To be honest, I find her a bit upper-class and self-confident. I prefer a bird who is more dithery and unsure of herself. Nevertheless, in my sun-sated mood and with a couple of pints from the wood inside me, there are a lot worse things to look at. She has the horse’s tail in her hand and turns towards me and shrugs her shoulder. This is a gesture she could repeat to advantage because she isn’t wearing a bra and her breasts give a little jump like startled kittens. I can see the kittens’ noses, too, pressing temptingly out towards me. Cruel Mrs. D. No animal lover should be so frustrated. The no-bra look has been slow to penetrate into the Clapham and Wandsworth Common area and is another indication of upper-class sophistication and decadence which leaves me trembling with a mixture of desire and impotence—two bedfellows that seldom give each other much pleasure.
Mrs. D.’s gesture is meant to indicate that she doesn’t know what to do with the rocking horse’s tail and a number of tempting alternatives flash across my mind. I reject them and take the opportunity to close the distance between us.
“Let me give you a hand,” I say gallantly, and I’m over the sill before she can say ‘Piss off.’
“Oh, that’s kind of you,” she says breezily. “I’m afraid he’s seen better days.” She isn’t joking because most of the leather-work is hanging off and the screws that hold the horse to its frame all need tightening up. I make a few tut-tutting noises and send her off for the tools to do the job. The way her eyes flit lightly across my pectorals does not escape me. When she comes back I’m tapping in tacks and she asks me if I’ve got any children.
“Don’t think so. What makes you ask?”
“You seem to know how to mend toys.”
“My sister and her husband used to live with us. The kid smashed everything it could get its hands on. I got plenty of practice. You know what kids are like. They enjoy taking things to pieces but they don’t want to put them together again.”
She nods.
“So you’re not married?”
“No. I was thinking about it, but things didn’t work out. You must be, though. How many kids have you got.”
“Two. They’re with their father at the moment. We’re separated.”
“Oh, I am sorry.” In fact, I’m chuffed to NAAFI breaks because there is nothing more likely to put the mockers on a beautiful romance than the threat of a couple of kids bundling in on you at any moment.
“Don’t be. I’m not.” She rubs her hands together lightly and pats her hair. “You’re a fabulous colour.”
“It’s easy on this job.”
“I envy you when it’s like this.”
“Well, you haven’t got far to go yourself.”
“I have to think of the neighbours. Would you like a beer? I think there’s some in the ’fridge.”
Another sign of class. Mostly