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‘Where are you from?’ I say, always dynamite when it comes to casual banter.
‘Peckham,’ she says.
‘I meant before that.’
‘Southwark.’ Her eyes send tracer bullets towards mine. ‘You thought I was going to say Bongo Bongo, didn’t you?’
‘South Bongo Bongo,’ I say. ‘I’m from Clapham, myself. Europe’s Disneyland. It’s looking lovely this time of year. The goal mouths are cutting up a bit but you can’t have everything, can you?’
Miss Bradford does not reply to my question and I sense that the state of the football pitches in my homeland is not of prime concern to her. There is more than a touch of the Matilda Ngoblas about her and it is a real trip down mammary lane to case those bounteous boobs. Matilda, faithful readers will recall, used to be one of our next door neighbours at 17 Scraggs Lane, ancestral home of the Leas since times immoral and it was with her that I proved that two young people can reach across the barriers of race and colour, and have it off on the sitting-room carpet just like you and me – well, just like me and your sister. Unfortunately, Dad’s unexpected arrival put the kibosh on that spot of instant romance but I see no reason why lightning Lea should not strike twice.
‘What do you think of it?’
I wrench my mince pies off Miss Bradford’s bristols and look round the room. ‘This is where the bluebottles come to die, is it?’ I say with a light laugh.
‘It needs cleaning up,’ agrees the comely blackamoor. ‘Still, what do you expect for the money you’re prepared to pay? It’s a wonder you’re not working out of a telephone box.’
We would have been if Sid had thought of it, I muse to myself idly tracing ‘fuck’ in the dust on top of the desk – well, it makes a change from ‘clean me’, doesn’t it? One thing I do like about the office is the frosted glass in the door that gives out on to the corridor. Just right for grabbing a trailer of Lauren Bacall’s profile or the outline of the two hoods who have come to bounce you off the walls. I can just see myself behind the desk reaching out for the two fingers of Tizer that live in the top right hand drawer and – hang on a minute! The profile outside the door is not at all the kind of thing I was thinking of. It is of some geezer armed with an enormous hard going into orbit at an angle of forty-five degrees to his body. I glance at Miss Bradford and see that she has clocked this new threat to our already over-congested airways. An expression more of interest than of outrage hovers around her dusky chops. This is too much! I always suspected that flashers had big ones and this proves it. Filthy brute, going around making everyone discontented with their lot – or in my case, not such a lot.
‘Excuse me,’ I say briskly. ‘I must put an end to this.’
‘Just what I was thinking,’ murmurs Miss Bradford wistfully.
I try not to think what she means by that remark and wrench open the door. Maybe if I gave the bloke 10p he would go and stand outside somebody else’s office.
‘Now look—!’ I begin. I stop when I see an old man holding a broom at his side. ‘All right?’ I say weakly.
The old man looks me up and down as if he finds it a very unrewarding occupation. ‘Your flies are undone,’ he says. I mumble something and close the door.
Miss Bradford is laughing. ‘I thought that was too good to be true,’ she says.
‘Yeah. Looked, er – a bit funny, didn’t it?’ I say.
‘Looked like the answer to a maiden’s prayer,’ says Miss Bradford. ‘That’s what sent you bustling to the door, wasn’t it? You didn’t like the competition.’
‘I don’t think of flashers as competition,’ I say. ‘They do that instead of the real thing.’ I turn my back and do up my fly.
‘Are you going to give me a demonstration?’ mocks Miss B.
‘What of?’ I say.
‘That’s up to you. You’re handling the equipment.’
‘I’m not handling it,’ I say. ‘I’m readjusting my clothing.’
‘Are you shy?’ she says.
If I was going to be honest, I would say yes. Self-confident birds always knock me back on my heels and this one is a spade to boot. We all know what they’re like, don’t we? Carrying a black anaconda between their legs and blessed with a natural sense of rhythm. It is not the dancing I am worrying about as much as the ballroom if you take my meaning. Percy is no pouch slouch but size-wise he may fall a few feet short of what Miss Bradford is used to when the tom toms beat out their jungle love call to the turn turns.
‘Shy?’ I say with the suspicion of an amazed laugh. ‘Me? Ouch!’ I have just stumbled back against the filing cabinet and those handles do stick in your back, don’t they? The whole structure gives a hollow rumble and I clear my throat uneasily. ‘This comes with it, does it?’
Miss Bradford gazes into my minces as if she expects the answer to my question to come up on them like a telex machine. ‘It’s funny about white skin,’ she says as if talking to herself. ‘It looks so soft.’ She reaches up and draws her hand down the side of my cheek. ‘Terry likes it.’
‘Does he?’ I say. ‘What a pity he’s not here. I could have—’
‘She is here,’ says Miss Bradford propping her bristols against my all the best. ‘I’m Terry. Short for Teresa.’
‘It’s funny you should say that,’ I say. ‘I’ve always been partial to – er, br-bl-col—’
‘Black pussy,’ says Terry helpfully. ‘I could tell by the way you were looking at me that you wanted to get my panties off.’
‘Ye-es,’ I say. Terry Bradford is what you might call direct when it comes to filling in the plot.
‘But you’re not going to get the chance.’ My spirits fall and percy suspends his clumsy clamber into the vertical. Could it be that I am in the presence of a prick teaser – or prick Teresa as seems more nearly the case? ‘I’m not wearing any.’
This is interesting news and delivered in terms that invite verification – good word that, isn’t it? I think I will be using it a lot when I become a private dick: ‘I’m going to have to ask you to verify that alibi, Mrs Cholmondeley.’ Terry’s well-defined lips are hovering before the identical feature on my own Jem Mace and a tilt of the nut is all it requires to set the merry scamps clambering over each other. Whilst the bits that stop your cakeholes from fraying are thus pleasurably engaged, I slip one of my germans up the back of Terry’s dress and feel the overhang of her well-defined sit feature cutting into her thighs. Some birds have back bumpers like a couple of under-filled water cushions but this chick is the last load out of the melon field. Firm as a weightlifter’s handshake and definitely unhampered by any contact with the knicker counter of Marks and Sparks. It is probably my imagination set off by her own comments on white flesh but there seems to be a tougher texture to her skin. More tensility. It all helps build up the impression of strength and formidableness that is restraining the progress of my hampton towards the ceiling. Will the midnight mauler of the Clapham Common children’s playground sand pit be a match for the coloured snatch? That is the question the free world is asking itself at this time. Normally my action man kit would be pointing towards the airholes in my hooter but at the moment it is a quarter to nine and losing time fast. A most unusual occasion when you consider the proximity of this obviously willing curve carnival. Wake up Lea! What has got into the marrow arrow that it seems unlikely to get into anything else? Most of the time my mind and body work independently. Now, my fears of being found wanting threatens to prevent me from slipping my fun gunny into this jungle bunny.
Terry pulls back her head and brushes her lips to and fro across mine. At hip level her crutch imitates the motion and I feel like a piece of carved wood that is being polished. My right hand hovers around the slit in the collecting box and I probe the soft, tight curls; feeling the whole feature quiver beneath my fingertips. As I had imagined they might, Terry’s hands drop to my waist and she fumbles untidily with the catch of my trousers. Just when I am thinking that she may need help, the zip jerks downwards and my slack cock is exposed like a fish in a net dangling against the side of a vessel. Terry sucks in her breath and dips a mitt down the front of my Y-fronts.
‘Oooom!’ she says. ‘That’s nice.’
I don’t think she is tempted to write to the Guinness Book of Records about it but the remark is just what percy needs to get all pinky and perky. Make no mistake about it, ladies. You can work wonders with a shy, sensitive lad if you give him a bit of admiration and encouragement. ‘What an attractive spot to have a prick’ or ‘Goodness! I doubt if my slight frame will be able to withstand the onslaught of such a monster’, go down a lot better than ‘Everything seems to be miniaturised these days, doesn’t it?’ or ‘OK, vole parts, let’s be having you!’
The minute that percy hears Teresa’s comforting words he responds as if plugged into a recharging machine. Any hint of the horizontal is brushed aside by a new sense of dynamic purpose and an angel choir bursts into song. Actually, it is somebody turning on a transistor radio across the other side of the light well but it does make me think about where we are. Miss Bradford has now started to fondle my spheroids and it is clear that a desire for intimacy is somewhat nearer than the back of her mind.
‘Nice black pussy,’ she husks bullying my lower lip with both of hers. My right hand has now discovered an opening with great opportunities for advancement and I look around for somewhere to start thrusting my way to the top. Though not expecting a four poster bed to be lowered through the ceiling on silken ropes it would be nice if there was somewhere a little more prepossessing than rutted, crumbling lino to plight our troth on. You could blight it rather than plight it in these surroundings. Still, it is no good worrying too much. We are lucky to have the desire, the opportunity and the capability. A stand-up quickie against the side of the filing cabinet seems to be the order of the day. Be just like the office party, won’t it? You always fancied that shy girl in accounts but you never knew she was like that – not until you poured half a bottle of gin into her lemonade.
In practice, the filing cabinet rattles too much so we stagger back against the door that connects with the next office. Teresa has thoughtfully yanked my trousers and pants down to knee level and percy is peering through the curtain of my shirt like an actor looking to see if the theatre is filling up. It would be but a second’s work to engage the lady’s parts with my towing equipment but I feel that those lovely knockers deserve closer inspection. As I have already indicated, Teresa is handing out a terrible beating to the front of her sweater and I almost hear the fibres groan with relief as I start to put the merchandise on display. What a hammockful! She may not wear any knicks but she needs a bra in case she turns round quickly and kills someone. Talk about Black Beauties. She makes Chesty Morgan seem like Olive Oyl’s kid sister on a diet. Some birds stuff a handkerchief between their knockers. This chick could manage a couple of sheets – and you wouldn’t have to take them off the bed first. Of course, I exaggerate a trifle – I exaggerate a jelly if you give me half a chance – but this bird is definitely an experience bristol-wise. For a moment I gawp. Then my itching fingers flip up the bra cups like they are garage doors. Bouncing out to meet me come a couple of nipples like the last third of a brown cucumber. She is obviously pleased with them because her hands leave my hampton and thrust up her bristols until the nipples are tickling my bracket.
‘You like black titties?’ she says. I don’t answer her because I have my mouth full. Miss Bradford would clearly prefer it if I had two cakeholes or one very wide one because she keeps counter punching with her knockers until I am in danger of going down for the count – as opposed to the cunt which is what I normally go down for. This is all very, very well but my appetite is now sufficiently worked up for the main course – shish kebab of Teresa Bradford: tender portions of grumble and grunt speared on my steaming hampton and cooked over a couple of white hot balls. I am about to pocket the lady’s socket on my sprocket when she gives a shudder like a cabinet minister looking at the latest trade figures and dives down the front of my body until her Manchesters are pummelling my knee caps. What those soft, tender lips and talented tongue are dishing out I hesitate to reveal but it is not a million miles from what must go on in the testing department of a trumpet factory. I am not surprised that the Queen is looking the other way as she salutes – she is on a calendar on the far wall of the office.
Teresa slips a hand between my legs and – ‘OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH!!’ Any more of that and I will be using her epiglottis as the spring-up target for my fun gun. Taking a deep breath and hoping that Teresa will not do the same, I haul the sensational syrup (syrup of figs: nigs. Ed.) up my power-packed frame and cup my hands under her back bumpers. As our lips collide I hitch her into the air and guide her into the right position for a quick game of furry quoits. Her helpful fingers pull back percy from his streamlined – or more like it, steamlined – position against my body and I slowly ease her down until her feet are resting on top of mine and percy is flying blind. She grinds slowly whilst my nervous system responds like an under cranked pin table with two balls running and everything lighting up at the same time.
‘Love that white flesh!’ she groans, stretching her long fingers down the back of my thighs and chewing my neck. Call me impulsive if you like – though I usually answer to Tiger Lips – but all the signs indicate that this is going to be a quick romance. Miss Bradford presses her body against mine at many points and I lift her into the air so that her knees are on either side of my thighs and proceed to see how far percy can push pussy without losing contact. Teresa clearly likes this game and it is not long before her knees are banging against the connecting door like a couple of battering rams. My eyes glaze over and it seems as if the Queen is sliding off her horse – I know how she feels.
‘Go on! Go on!’ I never know why women say things like that because you have no intention of stopping, do you? I press back against the door for the last, telling thrusts and – ‘AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGG!!!’ No, you’re wrong. That’s not me going into orbit. Some blooming idiot has opened the door. Still carrying Teresa with me, I take a series of increasingly fast backwards steps and collapse on what turns out to be a button-back sofa. We must look as if we are doing a speeded up tango. My crotch needs one – or a couple – of splints and my high-pitched yelp of pain threatens to shatter the lamp bowl. When I have moved Teresa to a part of my body that is not a disaster area, I look over her shoulder and see a middle-aged bag of coke looking over his specs at us and rubbing his hands together nervously.
‘Righty ho,’ he says. ‘Glad you could make it.’
He goes behind a desk – I mean, of course, that he takes a seat behind a desk – and I try and work out what makes him so certain that we have made it. I am not so sure myself and I should be one of the first to know. At least he is being very reasonable about the whole thing. A lot of people would react very badly if you charged into their office in full knee tremble. Teresa pulls down the shutters over her knockers and I sweep the remains of percy into my Y-fronts. I will have to hold the autopsy later. The geezer in the blue pin stripe leans forward on his desk and places his fingertips together.
‘Of course, that’s all very gratifying,’ he muses, waving a hand in the direction of his left earhole. ‘But how are we to know it’s not just a flash in the pan? It’s when you’re waiting in the anteroom that you really get to grips with it, isn’t it? You realise what you’re letting yourself in for.’
This bloke is leaving me behind fast. If he is handing out a mild bollocking, I don’t get it. And why is he smiling at us like that? He reminds me of the bloke who came up to me when I was having a gypsy’s kiss in the gents at Piccadilly Underground – not a pursuit I recommend, incidentally.
‘We’d better be going,’ says Teresa.
‘But you’ve only just come,’ says Pin Stripe. There he goes! Jumping to conclusions again. ‘I know it’s awkward talking to a complete stranger about intimate matters but don’t worry, we’ve all been through it.’ He smiles at Teresa when he says this and I wonder if he means what I think he means. She was certainly very friendly when you come to think about it. The bloke unscrews a fountain pen and pulls a pad towards him. ‘How long have you two been together?’
‘Since about ten o’clock this morning,’ I say.
The smile drops faster than a pair of lead knickers. ‘Ten o’clock this morning and you’re here already?’
‘It wasn’t very far, was it?’ I say, turning to Teresa. ‘We wasted a bit of time trying to park but —’
‘You can’t expect things to work out right from the beginning,’ says the bloke. ‘There’s got to be a period of acclimatisation. You know what that means, don’t you?’
‘Oh yes,’ I say. ‘It’s what you have to do before you get out of a diver’s suit.’
Pin Stripe does not seem to hear my remark and helps himself to a couple of pills from the pocket of his waistcoat. ‘God knows, we live in troubled times and the whole fabric of society as we understand it is threatened – but really! You have to give it a little more time than this! What makes you think you have problems when you’ve only been married four hours – Good God!’ He strikes his forehead with his clenched fist. ‘You made the appointment yesterday – before you were even married!’
Before we can say anything, the door behind us has burst open and a bloke with a black eye and scratch marks down his cheek is revealed dragging a screaming woman by the hair. ‘Sorry we’re late, guv,’ he says. ‘We had words on the way here.’
While the couple trade punches in the doorway and Pin Stripe slides beneath his desk with a strangled croak, I am busy reading the sign stencilled on the office door. It says: ‘J. Bugstrode, Marriage Guidance Counsellor.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u97dce316-74ff-521d-b90e-4a8cd04ed1ab)
‘Not much happening, is there?’ says Sid.
It is three days after my first visit to the building which now houses the N.I.B. (Noggett Investigation Bureau) and Sid and I are well and truly ensconced – as El Sid chooses to call it. This means that we have straightened out all the paper clips and folded them again, and watched Mr J. Bugstrode taken away by a couple of men in white coats. I have not said anything to Sid about Mr Bugstrode and Teresa Bradford. I don’t feel that it would help anybody, somehow.
Sid picks up the telephone and holds it to his ear. ‘It’s working,’ he says.
‘Don’t worry, Sid,’ I say. ‘The word’s got to get around, hasn’t it? We’re not in the book or anything like that. Those leaflets we dropped off in the Co-op are going to take a few days to get around. We’re competing against a special offer on dried figs.’
‘Funny about that bloke next door,’ muses Sid. ‘I wonder if there was more to it than the job. It might be blackmail, you know. He could have had a go at one of his patients.’
‘Unlikely, Sid,’ I say. ‘These geezers are very prone to mental disorders and nervous breakdowns.’
‘Exactly,’ says Sid. ‘He might have found that he was giving the helpful advice from inside some bloke’s old lady. The job getting on top of him in fact. Then, the door bursts open and—’
‘I don’t think it was like that,’ I say hurriedly. ‘Do you fancy a cup of cha?’
‘Not from that bleeding machine, I don’t,’ says Sid. ‘That’s not powder they have at the bottom of those cups – it’s rust.’ He glances at his watch and picks up his new raincoat – the one which has epaulettes, panels, brass rings, restraining straps at the sleeves and is three sizes too big for him. Alan Ladd wore something like it in ‘This Gun For Hire’. ‘I’ll leave you to look after the shop. Don’t do anything stupid. Take down any messages and try to get some of that pigeon shit off the windows.’
‘Where are you going?’ I ask.
‘I’m going round to the public library to look at the footprints.’
Before I can decide whether or not it would be wise to enquire further, Sid has gone. Opening time is not many seconds away and no doubt he has nipped off to get a bit Chopin before Lilley and Skinner. (Chopin and Liszt: pissed. Lilley and Skinner: dinner. Ed.) What can I do to while away the weary hours? I could write a few letters if I had anyone to write to, or try to unclog my biro. It has also been a long time since I pushed back the cuticles on my toenails. It hurts but at the same time you get a funny electric feeling which I quite fancy. You must know what I mean. I have not cleaned my belly button for a few months, either. My spirits rise as I see a whole programme of personal hygiene beginning to take shape. I will start on my toes and work upwards, skipping the most difficult bits until I get home.
I have just got my shoes and socks off and one of my feet on the desk when a shadow falls across the frosted glass. It does not do any damage but the shock makes me whip my tootsie off the desk and kick the telephone into the wastepaper basket. Before I can shout ‘goal!’, the door opens and a large, worried looking guy comes into the room. I would have preferred a beautiful blonde reeking of expensive perfume but you can’t have everything.
I advance round my desk to meet him and then shuffle back as I see him looking at my bare feet.
‘Hot, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘What can I do for you, Mr—?’ ‘Brown,’ says the bloke. ‘You handle divorce business, don’t you?’ His eyes follow me as I replace the receiver on the phone in the wastepaper basket.
‘We’re getting a new one,’ I explain. ‘Yes, Mr Brown. We handle divorce business. We handle anything. What’s your problem?’
The man looks round and lowers his voice confidentially. ‘It’s my wife,’ he says.
That’s a relief, I think to myself. Nothing too complicated to begin with. ‘Playing around, is she?’ I say.
Mr Brown looks impressed. ‘How did you know that? I only dropped her off at the golf club on my way here.’
I wave my hand airily. ‘Just call it instinct, Mr Brown. What do you want us to do for you?’
Mr Brown buries his face in his hands. ‘I can’t take any more. It’s too humiliating. The men – her lovers. She’s insatiable.’
‘In where?’ I say. ‘That’s the Indian Ocean, isn’t it? I had a mate who went there for his holidays.’
‘I believe you’re thinking of the Seychelles,’ says the bloke. ‘I was referring to my wife’s sexual appetites.’
‘Oh yes,’ I say, keeping the professional cool that is doing so well for me. ‘So your wife is in the Seychelles having it off – I mean, behaving indiscreetly, with whatever kind of person lives there, a fact that is inevitably causing you to feel dead choked?’
‘My wife has never been near the Seychelles,’ says the bloke beginning to turn red. ‘Not that it makes much difference where she’s been. She has relations everywhere.’
‘We’re a bit like that,’ I say chattily. ‘I’ve even got an aunty in New Zealand. Takapuna. It’s north of Auckland. She sends us a Christmas card every year. Same one usually. Maybe they don’t have a lot of Christmas cards down there or she bought a job lot.’
To my surprise, Mr Brown starts to quiver. ‘I am not in the slightest bit interested in your aunt in New Zealand!’ he hisses. ‘I have other things on my mind! My wife has become an unbearable burden and I wish to rid myself of her. I want a divorce!’
‘I see,’ I say. ‘You’re sure that’s really what you want? There’s a bloke next door – no, he’s not there any more.’
I feel sad when I think that Mr Bugstrode has taken a trip to the funny farm. We might have been able to do business together. He could have sent us the marriages he was unable to save.
‘I want you to procure the evidence with which I can divorce the slut! Take photographs of her in flagrante delicto!’
‘She gets abroad a lot, doesn’t she?’ I say. ‘Prefers foreigners and that kind of thing, I suppose. A lot of birds do. Personally, I think it’s all in the mind. I don’t believe they’re any—’
‘If I could get my hands on one of those swine,’ says Brown, thoughtfully gazing into space and picking up the wastepaper basket. ‘I’d crumple him up like a piece of paper. I’d rip him apart!’
I watch, fascinated, as Brown folds the waste-bin in half and then tears the metal as if it is a piece of tin foil. When that look comes into his eyes I would hate to be found practising press-ups on his old lady. ‘What does she look like?’ I say. ‘Where can I find her?’
Brown produces a much fingered photo and pushes it across the table to me. ‘By the cringe!’ I say ‘She’s a bit of—’ I pause when I see how Brown is staring at me. His eyes are harder than petrified cherry stones. ‘—very nice, very refined.’
When you look at Brown and you look at the photograph it is not easy to relate the two. The missus is definitely a looker and a bit flash with it. Brown seems like the sort of bloke who would turn down a job as a bank clerk because he thought the uniform was too daring.
‘She’s booked in to the Densford Hotel,’ says Brown. ‘I found this card in her handbag – quite by chance, of course.’
‘Of course,’ I say. The card is a postcard announcing that Room Number 367 has been booked for today’s date. I turn it over and see that it is addressed to a Mr Brown. ‘That’s not you?’ I say.
‘Of course it isn’t!’ snaps Brown. ‘Don’t you see? Her lover has given her that and used my name!’ He starts trembling again and suddenly picks up Sid’s paperknife and drives it through the desk. ‘I’d go there myself but I’m frightened that I wouldn’t be able to restrain myself. I only have to think of what they might be doing and—!’ He brings his fist down on top of the filing cabinet and all the drawers lock. I know because I try to open one of them.
‘Leave it to us,’ I say soothingly and start walking towards the door in the hopes that he will follow. At this rate there will be little of the office left when Sid gets back.
‘You’ll take a photograph, will you?’ says Brown.
‘That’s right,’ I say, grateful for the suggestion.
