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‘I’ve had a few twinges,’ says Dad, putting on his ‘I fought through Hell and lived’ face.
‘You want to take it easy, Dad.’
Nature’s greatest argument for compulsory patricide looks up sharply.
‘Are you trying to take the mickey?’
‘No, Dad. I—’
‘I do my bit. I always have done. Not like some people. Some people don’t know what I’ve been through. The doctor said he’d never seen anything like it. He didn’t know how I kept it up. “You’re a walking miracle” that’s what he said to me. He’d never met anyone with my willpower, you see. I don’t talk about it much but me and pain are not strangers. Oh, dear me, no. I don’t let on much but–’
‘Yes, Dad,’ I say, trying to halt the flow before he really gets going. ‘You don’t have to tell me.’ Not again, I must have heard it a hundred times.
Luckily Mum announces that tea is up and I am spared any more details of how Dad is going to romp away with the Martyr Of The Year Award. Not that the alternative is all that great. Mum’s Rosie Lee certainly brings out the gypsy in me and what can you say for a woman who cannot even make a decent cup of tea? I can remember when she used to open the tea bags and pour them into the pot. What with one thing and another it does not take me long to get the feeling that 17 Scraggs Lane has not got a lot to recommend it over the nick.
‘Have you got a job lined up?’ asks Dad.
‘Give us a chance, I only got – I only came home this morning. I didn’t call in at the Labour on the way.’
‘You don’t even know where it is,’ says Dad scornfully. ‘I think I’ll buy you a street map so you don’t get lost.’
‘Perhaps Sidney can find something for him,’ says Mum.
I am swift to shake my head. ‘No. I’m going to stand on my own two legs. Nothing Sidney has lined up for me has ever worked out. Not in the long term, anyway.’
‘That’s not all Sidney’s fault,’ says Mum, wagging a finger at me. ‘I have to speak as I find even if blood is thicker than water.’
‘I don’t care if it’s thicker than melted nougat,’ I say. ‘I don’t reckon that it’s an accident that Wonder Sid has cleaned up the ackers while I’ve been cleaning out the “D” Block khasi.’
It is at this propitious moment that there is a quick ‘We are the champions’ on the door bell and I prepare to greet my poxy brother-in-law as Mum goes off to do a recce through the lace curtains.
‘Hello, Timmo!’ says Sid a few moments later. ‘I didn’t know you were coming out today.’
‘Didn’t you get a telegram from Buckingham Palace?’
‘I didn’t bother to read it. I thought it must be another bleeding garden party.’
‘Sidney!’ says Mum, shocked. As far as she is concerned there is nothing to choose between God and the Duke of Edinburgh. Probably not a lot to choose as far as the Duke of Edinburgh is concerned. I am not really taking a lot of notice because I am drinking in Sid’s clobber. He is wearing a black serge safari jacket and matching trousers with a raised seam. It is all very trendy and makes him look a bit of a poofter. Not at all the Sid I remember back in his faded denim days.
‘He’s not looking too bad, is he, Mum?’ says Sid. ‘He needs a bit of your home cooking to fatten him up.’ Sid winks at me and I give him my ‘do us a favour’ look. Mum cooks like she has a pathological hatred of food and is trying to pay it back for some injury it has done her in the past.
‘I’ve got a nice bread pudding planned for this evening,’ she says, proudly, as I wince. I make a better bread pudding when I’m mixing paste to go fishing.
‘How’s the family?’ I ask.
‘Smashing. Rosie should be over with the kids in a few minutes. Tell you what. Why don’t you and I slip out for a couple of jars and then we can look in later. There’s not room for us all in here. You fancy a beer, do you?’
‘Great idea, Sid. Let’s go up The Highwayman.’
‘Don’t go drinking too much,’ warns Mum.
‘There’s no danger of that. Not with those two buying!’ says Dad who is about as tight as a gnome’s foreskin when it comes to lashing out for a round of drinks.
When we get to The Highwayman I hardly recognise the place. There is piped muzak, a snack bar and everything tarted up with the most diabolical wall paper. It quite puts you off your ale. Not that this commodity is very easy to come by anyway, and when I ask for a packet of crisps the geezer behind the bar looks at me as if I have been trying to force my hampton through the slit in the Doctor Barnado box.
‘We don’t do crisps,’ he says witheringly. ‘You can have a toasted sandwich.’ He indicates a fish tank bearing the word ‘Toastimat’, inside which are littered a few melting blobs which remind me of the scene three feet below a vulture’s perch. The sight is not calculated to have me diving into my pocket for 30p.
‘Let’s go in the garden,’ I say.
‘Kiddies only,’ says the barman sharply.
‘But there aren’t any kids here.’
‘That’s the rule. If you don’t like it–’ He keeps looking me up and down as if he is trying to tell me something.
‘The place has changed a bit, hasn’t it?’ I say to Sid. ‘I don’t recognise any of the old faces.’ It is a fact that all the birds look as if they have just had their hair done and the blokes are wearing ties. One or two of them even have suits on.
‘There’s a lot of middle class people around here, now, Timmo,’ says Sid. ‘You get the office workers coming in here for lunch. They even serve coffee.’
I can hardly believe my ears. Coffee! In the boozer?! How disgusting can you get? Still, I know what Sid is on about. A lot of the big houses around the common have been pulled down and in their place are posh blocks of flats catering for dynamic young executives. It is getting so the place is almost fashionable.
‘You’re shooting up the social scale a bit, aren’t you, Sid?’
‘No, not me, mate. I’m working class and proud of it.’ This is a sure sign that Sidney is tucking away a bit of loot. When people are on the make they are always trying to act posher than they really are. Once they get a bit of cash and security they start telling everyone that success has not changed them and go around complaining about the price of brown ale.
‘What are you doing then, Sid?’
Sid narrows his eyes into slits and tries to look like a cross between Charlie Clore and Paul Newman.
‘These days you’ve got to move fast, Timmo. Things change so quickly you’ve got to be in and out. Grab the money while it’s going and then get into something else. You can’t sit back and make long term plans. The public are fickle.’
‘But what exactly do you do, Sid?’
‘Well, Timmo, in a nutshell. I see a new craze coming and I capitalise on it. Do you remember the hula hoop revival?’
‘No, Sid.’
Sid looks disappointed. ‘No, well maybe that’s not a very good example. “Hulava good time.” I think it was a bit subtle. A bit ahead of its time. By the way, you don’t happen to know anyone who wants forty thousand hula hoops, do you? You could use them as cheap tyres for penny farthings, Or cut them open, seal one end and use them for storing marbles.’
‘I’ll keep my eyes open, Sid.’ I will too. I can see all the signs that Sid’s keen eye for a business disaster has not deserted him. How, I wonder, can he find the gelt to buy houses? He must still have some cash salted away from his Cromby Hotel days.
‘But this latest one can’t go wrong,’ exults Sid. ‘It’s a sure fire winner. Nobody’s really begun to tap the potential.’
‘What is it?’
Sid looks round carefully as if the boozer might be crawling with industrial spies. ‘Pogo sticks.’
‘Pogo sticks!’
‘Not so loud, you berk. I don’t want to tell everybody.’
Sidney watches a couple leave the pub and I can see him wondering whether they are going to rush home and start dismantling the telly to make pogo sticks.
‘You reckon they’re going to catch on, do you?’
‘With a bit of help from the right quarter. The art in this game is to get the merchandise before you start the craze. That way you get it cheaper.’
‘I understand that, Sid. But it’s a bit risky, isn’t it? What about all those hula hoops?’
‘I was unlucky there, Timmo. I didn’t know all the little wrinkles. I’ve got a professional public relations adviser now.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He gets you into the papers without you having to pay for an advertisement. He’s got lots of great ideas. We’re going to have a pogo stick race round Trafalgar Square and an attempt on the world pogo stick high jump record outside Buckingham Palace. Imagine that! It will give the whole thing a sort of royal seal of approval. We’re giving one to Ted Heath. He’s athletic, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, but he can’t use it on his yacht.’
‘I dunno. When there’s a calm and nothing much going on he might be glad to bounce up and down on the fo’c’sle. Think of the pictures we’ll get. Everybody will want one.’
‘What makes you think Ted Heath is going to accept your blooming pogo stick?’
‘He won’t have any alternative. We’re going to send a frogman down to tie it on to the anchor.’
‘I don’t reckon he’s going to like that, Sid.’
‘I don’t know about that. I just hope he accepts it in the spirit in which it is given.’
‘That of wanting to make a load of bread, you mean?’
‘Well, he’s done all right, hasn’t he? I don’t see why he should object to chucking it about a bit. The Conservatives are champions of private enterprise, you know.’
Poor old Sid can be so naïve sometimes that it makes me want to weep.
‘How does Rosie react to all this?’ I ask.
‘She’s so wrapped up in her boutiques she doesn’t know what I’m doing.’
‘Boutiques?’
Sidney looks slightly deflated. ‘Yeah. She’s got two. Thinking of opening another one. She’s got quite a flair for it.’
Good for Rosie. I wonder Mum wasn’t rabbiting on about it. I suppose, being pre-women’s lib, she reckons Sidney must have done everything.
‘Must bring in a few bob.’
Sid looks downright uncomfortable. I can see where the money for his house is coming from.
‘Yeah. It’s handy of course. Gives her an interest, that’s the main thing. Of course, it hasn’t got any of the potential of my schemes. When one of these goes then, woosh! One’s talking about tens of thousands.’
That’s the trouble with Sid. He is always talking about tens of thousands. Never doing anything, just talking.
‘I hope it all goes well for you both, Sid. That’s a nice bit of stuff you’ve got there.’
Sid looks at his trendy whistle as if seeing it for the first time.
‘Do you like it? I’m not sure, myself. It’s one of Rosie’s. To tell you the truth, I think I look a bit of a ponce in it.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I say. ‘I think that bloke over there thinks so too.’ In fact, the geezer in question is harmlessly reading his paper but he looks up when he sees Sid staring at him. Unbeknown to Sid, I give him a little wave from behind his shoulder and the fellow waves back. Sid blushes scarlet and buries his mug in his glass.
‘Blimey, you’re right,’ he says. ‘The buggers are everywhere. I’m never going to wear this lot again.’
‘Probably wise. I think that wrist chain is a symbol of The Gay Liberation Front, isn’t it? Funny, I always think they should be called The Gay Liberation Behind.’
But Sidney is too busy tearing his bracelet off to listen to me.
‘Let’s get out of here.’
‘Hang on a minute, Sid. Your friend might be over to buy you a drink in a minute.’ But my desire to stay is not only occasioned by the embarrassment I am causing Sid. At the far end of the room are a couple of fair looking birds, one of whom definitely has eyes for me. They are both on the posh side but I reckon that they are not above the thought of romantic dalliance. Stands to reason, doesn’t it? You don’t get birds in a boozer unless they know their way around. Dinner time, too. Down at the office the old man is taking his corned beef sandwiches out of his briefcase and they’re out on the town. It’s terrible, but it’s life.
‘Hang on a minute, Sid,’ I say, grabbing him by the arm. ‘I reckon we could be away there.’
Sid follows my eyes. ‘Yeah. Brings back memories, doesn’t it? This always has been a good place for pulling birds.’
For a moment I don’t know what he is on about and then I remember my embarrassing experience when I was trying to show Sid how I could charm chicks and be a successful window cleaner. That seems a long time ago now.
‘Where are you going?’ I say to him as he strains for the door.
‘I told you, I want to get out of this place.’
‘Don’t worry about him. He’ll soon back off if he sees you prefer birds.’
‘I’ve got to go shopping with Rosie this afternoon.’
‘Go another time. She’ll be all right without you.’ It is depressing to hear Sid going on like this. I can remember when he went ape if he walked past the underwear counter at Marks and Sparks.
‘I promised her.’
‘Break it.’
‘I can’t.’
Fortunately my desire for Sid’s presence diminishes strongly when the bird who showed signs of being able to resist me gets up and starts making as if she is about to leave.
‘Right. Piss off then,’ I tell Sid.
‘Aren’t you coming?’
‘I think I’ll stick around for a few minutes.’
