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A woman like Olga is clearly no stranger to the effect that she has on men and it is not many seconds after percy has thrust himself between us that she lets out an exclamation that sounds like the name of a new Japanese motor bike and begins to sew kisses on my chest like they are mustard seed. I watch her tawny barnet taxiing down to the root of many of my problems and it occurs to me that something very pleasant is about to happen to Timothy. ‘Oh!’ That is me responding to Olga’s snake tongue trying to undo my belly button. ‘Oooh!’ Olga’s right hand has now coasted up the inside of my thigh and is gently squeezing my niagras like they are the bellows which inflate my already straining Mad Mick. ‘OOOH!!’ Olga has now done something very volga that you seldom see unless you watch the chocolate bar commercials on the telly. How shameless and enjoyable it all is. As the minutes pass and Olga’s bobbing nut becomes increasingly in danger of bashing itself against the upper bunk, I decide that is is about time that I did something to repay the hospitality that I am being offered. It is no good lying back and expecting to have everything done for you. Do as you would consider yourself very fortunate to be done by is one of my mottoes.
Not without some regret, I draw Olga up my body and reapply myself to her lips whilst attempting to remove the garments which lumber the lower half of her body. They obviously do things up differently in Russia because I am not getting anywhere until my friend jumps from the bed, tears open her breeches, tugs off her boots and leaps on top of me again. Such eagerness is touching, as are most parts of her body. With some difficulty, I press her back against the wall and adjust my cakehole to the nearest available knocker. This treatment is well received by the lady and it is with little difficulty that I persuade her to enjoy every knocker’s favourite meal – guzzle and tweak. I dish out a second helping to each Manchester and then head south like a migrating swallow – or dipper, more like. It is funny how birds – I mean the human kind – work themselves up when a muff job is in the air, isn’t it? Backs arch, heads twist from side to side before you have even licked your lips. Olga is no exception. By the time I have found a way of propping my legs against the far wall of the cabin and swept the hair out of my eyes, you could run a model railway under her back. Mind you, it would be a terrible waste if you did. You can play with your model railway any day of the week. A girlchik like Olga comes along only when Sid casts you adrift on a double bed. And that, thank God, is not very often. As Olga quivers I set my tongue to work like it is a bow playing a musical instrument. I can’t say I recognise the tune that comes out but it is certainly a very cheerful sound. Ideally, I reckon that a muff job is a horse’s duvet (hors d’oeuvres? – Ed.) It should whet the appetite for what is to come and get the old gastric juices flowing. I don’t think it ought to become a meal in itself.
Anyway, in this case, everything works out just about right. Olga suddenly arches her back and catches her nut a terrible crack on the upstairs bunk and I realise that she is trying to tell me something. Hardly before she has sunk back against the pillow, I have stopped staring at the small hammer and sickle she has tattooed above her minge fringe and have hauled myself up her body until percy is now poised for his journey into the interior. I often wonder how he must feel at moments like this. So many responsibilities to discharge, his two porters struggling along behind him – one slightly in front of the other – and the secret cave looming in front, thick foliage almost concealing its narrow opening. It is nearly as exciting as King Solomon’s Mines, isn’t it?
‘Comeski, my little comrade.’
I am not so happy about the little but I assume that it is merely a term of affection. Better not to dwell on it. Wishing that my knees had ridges, I murmur a silent farewell to my fanny ferret and jerk forward the part of my anatomy that carries the six inch gun. Olga’s response is whole-hearted and suggests that she has played this game before. Faster than a camera shutter, her mits clamp round my back ballast and she presses me to her like she wants to take a moulding of my body. At the same moment her legs curve round outside mine and hook over my ankles. It looks like the perfect fall and I can almost hear the referee counting and Kent Walton doing his nut. The Commie custard is now rotating my bum like she is trying to unscrew it. Maybe this has something to do with the counter revolution she was talking about earlier.
This is all very well but, once again, I feel that I should stamp my own personality on the proceedings. After all, I am representing Britain and regular readers will know that I always pull out all the stops when national prestige is at stake. If we all did our bit – or, in fact, anybody’s bit – then maybe this dear old country of ours would not be in the mess it is now. At the very least, life would be a lot more fun.
Rising up so that my bonce loosens three of the slats in the upstairs bunk, I drive viciously and feel the satisfying ‘thwack!’ of my baggage train against Olga’s back bumpers. Bracing my toes against the end of the bunk, I deal out a few telling thrusts and hear the satisfying sound of Olga searching for breath. Her hands run lightly up my back as if she is playing a harp and I accompany her on the trombone – in, out; in, out, in – you can’t beat a musical evening.
Half an hour later, we are still at it, but on the floor this time. The bunks have collapsed. In my present condition, I can’t imagine what it felt like to be cold. Rivulets of condensation are running down the steamed up porthole and the wodka bottle is warm to the touch – when you can touch it. Olga is kneeling on all fours and taking hefty swigs interspersed by shouts of ‘Giddyupski!’ I am in a position slightly to the rear of the lady and we are playing a game she describes as ‘Sleigh rides’. She is between the shafts as she terms it and I must say that it is something that I envy her. I have not been ‘between the shafts’ since we started this bout of intensive, not to mention knackering, exercise and the strain is beginning to tell.
‘Once more up and down the Caucasus!’ says my hostess gaily. Frankly, I would be pushed to get up and down the crocuses. It is all I can do to prolong my attachment to the lady as she bumps and grinds round the floor.
Fortunately, some strange whim makes her suddenly flip over on to her back and seize me to her greedily. ‘Ride me, little moujik,’ she cries. ‘Ride me!’
Sensing that the moment has come, I decide to follow suit. Summoning up my last resources of energy I whip the old groin greyhound in and out until he makes Mick the Miller look like your grandma’s tabby cat. Olga lets out a wild shriek and grabs my barnet like she has Red Indian blood in her. I chuck in a few croaks and in a classic fusion of Eastern and Western ideologies, mutual orgasm is achieved. Olga lets out what I can only describe as a contented sigh and her head zonks back against the carpet. She makes a few purring noises and then starts snoring. A glance at the quarter of inch of liquid left in the bottom of the wodka bottle suggests that is is not only the compulsive fire of my love-making that is responsible for her condition.
This may well be the moment to say goodbye. Olga was not amused when I told her that I thought the Red Square was a geezer called Brezhnev and it is clear that there is another side to her nature that I have not been fully exposed to. Life with Olga would not purely be a question of getting tossed off in Rostov.
Whilst my fair companion snuggles closer to her wodka bottle I slip into the threads provided by Boris. They may go down a bomb in the Stalingradski Prospect but I don’t reckon that they are going to pull a lot of birds down the baths hall. Still, that is not my number one problem at the moment. Blowing what I hope is a farewell kiss to the toast of the Neva, I ease open the cabin door and stick my hooter out into the corridor. Not a sausage. Less sign of a human being than there is of a knot in a Scotsman’s used french letter – at least, that is, until I start walking down the corridor. Then Boris’s boots appear down the steps, closely followed by the rest of his body. He eyes me suspiciously and the nozzle of his submachine-gun starts giving percy palpitations.
‘There you are!’ I say in a flash of creative desperation. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Olga wants you.’
The way I say ‘wants you’ must make it clear to him that she is not seeking someone to unblock a stuffed up plughole.
‘Me?’ Boris’s chest swells visibly. I don’t know about the rest of him, I don’t look.
‘She’s waiting for you in the cabin.’ I just have time to flatten myself against the wall before Boris charges past. Cupid Lea they call me.
I don’t hang about but canter up the steps and stick my bonce above deck level. Still no sign of anyone. I can hear the strain – and it is a strain, make no mistake about it – of an old Russian folk tune coming from the front of the boat. The crew must be having a musical evening. Good luck to them. Over to the rail I go and look over the side. As if to signal my good fortune the moon comes out and there, shimmering beside my reflection, is the outline of a dinghy. I take another quick glance about me and slip over the side. Fortunately, I manage to cling on to a rope before I do myself a serious injury. A few moments dangerous dangling and my feet scrabble against the side of the dinghy and manoeuvre it beneath me – it’s not getting too exciting for you is it? Good. I wouldn’t like to think that I was doing Alistair MacLean out of a living. Anyway, there I am, poised over the dinghy. The strength in my arms gives out and I tumble into the bottom of the boat. For a moment, it rocks alarmingly and then settles down to tap angrily against the side of the larger vessel. Quickly, I undo the piece of rope at the sharp end, and push off with one of the oars.
Free! What an evening for my treasure trove of memories. The dinghy drifts down the side of the boat and I prepare to row to the shore. Most of the portholes show round circles of light but one has a pair of bum knockers jammed up against it. I imagine that Boris must be enjoying his Saturday constitutional.
CHAPTER TWO (#u44860dcd-c52a-5b9b-b4a3-e6da039db9a3)
In the end it is eight o’clock in the morning by the time I get round to Sid’s place in trendy Vauxhall. The blooming current carried me all the way round to Plumstead Marshes before I was able to get ashore.
I am not in a good mood and it is with no little force that I bang on the heavy brass doorknocker. Frankly, I am surprised that nobody has nicked it. When they moved in, Rosie said that the area was coming up but a glance around suggests that most of it is coming down – either falling or being pulled. Looks like Sid got lumbered again. It is no good being the only house in the street with a lilac front door if it has ‘Poufdah!’ written on it with an aerosol paint spray. The door opens and there is Rosie wearing a black robe with Chinese dragons all over it. She is carrying a glass of orange juice.
‘You’re not having another kid, are you?’ I say, clocking the mittful of vitamin C.
‘Of course I’m not! I’m having my breakfast. What are you doing round here?’
‘I’m looking for Sid,’ I say, pushing past the colour supplement life-style and entering the house. Rosie has changed a lot since she got into the boutiques and wine bars. You would never catch her drinking orange juice for breakfast in the old days. Then it was a cup of tea and a marmite sandwich.
‘You might wipe your feet,’ she says. ‘And why are you wearing that ridiculous suit?’
I don’t answer her because I have just clapped eyes on Sid. He is sitting at a scrubbed pine table and reading a glossy brochure entitled Jetsetter Holidays in Brazil.
A puzzled and unhappy expression settles over his face as he sees me. ‘What are you doing here?’ he says.
‘I just walked from the Copacabana Beach,’ I tell him. ‘You can forget that for a start. “Drift across the Atlantic and taxi down the coast of South America to Rio de Janeiro.” I should cocoa!’
‘Are you coming, too?’ says Rosie. ‘Sid never tells me anything.’
‘I was going on ahead,’ I say. ‘By sea. I don’t suppose Sid told you that?’
‘He said he had to meet someone,’ says Rosie. ‘What is all this?’
‘Where’s the bed?’ says Sid. ‘You haven’t damaged it, have you? I sunk a lot of investment in that.’
‘You sunk it to the bottom of the Thames,’ I say. ‘It didn’t stay afloat more than a couple of hundred yards. It’s a miracle that I’m alive!’
Sid claps his hands to his head. ‘Gordon Bennett! I might have guessed you’d make a mess of everything. What is it about you?’
‘What are you two talking about?’ says Rosie.
‘Sid wanted me to drift round the world on a floating bed,’ I tell her. ‘The trouble was that it didn’t float.’
‘You didn’t have to drift,’ says Sid. ‘You could have rowed a bit. Your attitude’s typical of so many young people today. You want everything on a plate. It’s getting so a kid expects a Duke of Edinburgh Award for pulling out a sheet of bog paper.’
‘Drifting round the world on a bed?’ echoes Rosie. ‘That’s dangerous.’
‘Oh, belt up!’ snaps Sid. ‘If you want to say anything you can blame your perishing brother for putting the mockers on our holiday.’
‘What do you mean?’ says Rosie.
‘I can’t charge it to expenses if he hasn’t gone, can I? Just think about it. We might have had to wait there for months until he showed up.’
A glance at Rosie shows me that she is torn by what I have heard described as conflicting emotions. ‘We’re not going?’ she says. ‘But I’ve got all the clothes.’
Sid shrugs. ‘You’ll have to send them back to Carmen Miranda’s estate, won’t you?’
Rosie turns to me. ‘Are you sure you didn’t act a bit hastily, Timmy?’
‘I acted hastily, all right!’ I say. ‘If I hadn’t, it would be my corpse standing here! You don’t seem to understand the seriousness of what I’m telling you. I was nearly sent to my death.’
‘And I’d set my heart on it, too,’ says Rosie, sinking into a chair – for a moment, I think she is talking about me kicking the bucket.
‘You know who to blame,’ sulks Sid, wiping his cakehole on the tablecloth and picking up his golf putter.
‘It’s not fair, those Rightberks gallivanting round the world while we can’t go anywhere. I thought you’d bought control of the firm?’ Rosie looks at Sid accusingly.
‘Yeah, so did I, but it’s more complicated than that.’ Sid puts a glass on the floor and prepares to tap golf balls into it. I would have chosen one that was not half full of orange juice, myself, but I have noticed before that Sid is inclined to get flustered when Rosie starts having a go at him.
‘Mind what you’re doing, you great pillock!’ It is sad to hear Rosie talking like that. I can remember the time when she used to think that the sun went in every time Sid zipped up his fly.
‘Belt up, slug nipples!’ It is clear that feelings are running high and I am not sorry when there is a sharp rat-tat-tat on the front door.
‘I’ll get it,’ I say.
The sound of battle is still ringing in my lugholes as I swing open the door and find myself staring at the back of the postman’s head.
‘Hello, darling,’ he says, giving my left nipple a playful tweak. ‘Look at those naughty doggies. I wouldn’t mind having a bit of that, would you?’
‘Why don’t you ask one of them?’ I say.
The bloke whips round and turns an interesting shade of scarlet. ‘Oh yes-er. Recorded delivery,’ he says, shoving a pencil stub and a piece of paper into my hand. ‘Sign here.’ He looks me up and down questioningly. ‘Are you an au pair boy?’
The sooner I get out of this tunic the better. It does make me look like a blooming waiter. ‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘You’re the commandant of the Boys’ Brigade, aren’t you?’
‘Watch it!’ The bloke is swift to take umbrage.
‘You want to watch your hands, and all!’ I take the letter and close the door firmly in his face. Honestly, I don’t know what public servants are coming to these days. It makes me glad that I still have his pencil.
‘What is it?’ says Sid, as I go into the room. ‘Another bleeding bill?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I say. ‘It’s got a French stamp on it.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ says Sid. ‘Now we’re in the Common Market I’m probably paying French taxes. Give it here!’ He wrenches it open and I watch his lips begin to move as he tries to get his mouth round the words. I wonder who could be writing to Sid from France? ‘Blimey!’
I don’t know if you have ever seen a bloke’s face turn ashen but that is what happens to Sid’s mug. All the colour drains out of it.
‘What’s the matter, Sid?’
‘They can’t do it!’
He lets the letter flutter to the ground and I pick it up. The notepaper crackles like a new fiver and is headed ‘Villa Splendide, Cap des Riches, Cote d’Azur’. I look down the bottom of the letter and it is signed ‘Plantagenet Rightberk’. It is not an easy letter to understand, but basically the meaning is clear: Sid is out on his ear.
‘Just when I was coming to grips with my slice,’ he whines. ‘It’s tragic.’
‘Don’t take it too hard, Sid,’ I say. ‘They are offering you a golden handshake.’
‘Golden handshake?’ Sid’s features crumple up like a sheet of baking foil. ‘It’s more like a clip round the lughole with a piece of lead piping! Taking inflation into account, it’s less than what I put into the business.’
‘You haven’t made a mess of it again, have you?’ says Rosie speaking my mind for me. ‘Really! You’re like a big soft kid. You want to get yourself an accountant and a solicitor if you’re going into business.’
‘You can’t trust them,’ snaps Sid. ‘They’ll bleed you dry and take you to the cleaners.’
‘At least, that way, they won’t get blood over the machines,’ I say.
Sid is not amused. ‘Shut up!’ he says. ‘There’s nothing funny about this. Seeing a noble lion dragged down by a pack of jackals is a tragic spectacle.’
There is much more in this vein followed by threats of legal action, letters to MPs and a bunch of fives up the hooter, but by half past three Sid is off to bullock (bullock’s horn: pawn) his golf clubs and sign on at the Labour. I feel sorry for him, but not so sorry that I offer to break open my piggy bank with my Xmas club. Years of experience suggests to me that it will not be long before Sid comes up with another imaginative and foolproof way of losing money.
Two evenings later, I am proved correct. We are sitting in the saloon bar of the Highwayman – all the toffs go in the public bar, these days, because they reckon it’s where the locals hang out – and I am allowing the maestro of moan to treat me to a pint and a torrent of ear-bending rabbit about how badly he has been put upon.
‘Sometimes, I feel like chucking it all in,’ he says. I can’t help wondering what ‘it’ he is talking about but I don’t say anything. ‘It’s no good belonging to a large organisation in this country. If you’re a boss then you can’t get anyone to work for you and if you’re a worker then the bosses are trying to exploit you all the time. People don’t have any confidence in each other any more.’
‘That’s my pint you’re drinking,’ I say.
Sid puts the glass down and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Are you sure?’ he says, suspiciously.
‘Positive,’ I say. ‘You know that bloke who went to the karsi?’
‘I don’t know him,’ says Sid.
‘I thought you must do,’ I said. ‘You’d drunk half his pint before he even stood up.’
Sid picks up his empty glass, looks round nervously and starts edging down the bench. ‘Big bloke, wasn’t he?’ he says. I nod. ‘Just shows how overwrought I am. I don’t know what I’m doing.’
‘I’d better get you another pint to help calm your nerves, hadn’t I?’ I say.
Sid nods. ‘Ta. I think a Mahatma Ghandi might slip down all right now you make me think of it.’
‘Instead of?’ I ask.
‘No, as well as. I can’t drink brandy by itself.’
‘You poor bastard,’ I say. ‘You really suffer, don’t you?’
Sid is never swift to detect when one is being sarcastical and he merely nods and starts prospecting for crunched up crisps in the bottom of a discarded packet. I get the drinks in and notice that the big fella has come back from the karsi – you would hope him to, wouldn’t you? – and is looking at Sid and his empty glass with equal interest.
‘Ta,’ says Sid when I get back to the table. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking.’
‘I’m not certain it suits you,’ I say.
‘About what I was talking about earlier,’ says Sid. ‘I reckon the only thing to do is to be your own governor. That way, nobody can let you down or mess you about. You’re responsible for everything that happens.’ A faraway look comes into his eye. ‘You remember what it was like when we were cleaning windows?’
‘You mean, all those birds?’
Sid frowns. ‘I wasn’t referring to that. I was talking about how easy it was.’
‘It was pretty easy with the birds,’ I remind him.
‘No forms, no taxes, no clocking on, knock off when you like.’
‘And who you like,’ I chip in.
‘Money isn’t everything. I’ve said that before.’
‘You say it every time you’re skint,’ I remind him. ‘There’s two lots of people who never worry about mazuma: those who’ve got so much of it they don’t know what to do with it and those who haven’t got any.’
‘Very philatelical,’ says Sid. ‘But, frankly, I’m not interested in what you pick up from those religious programmes before the Sunday film. It’s job satisfaction I’m after.’
