When they come through the door Dad is already bathed in sweat – about the only bath he ever gets – and Mum and Rosie have got unflattering damp patches under the armpits.
“Sir Anthony Eden, I presume,” I say approaching Dad. “Would you care to step into the Embassy Rolls?”
“Oh, Timmy. Thank Gawd you’re here,” says Dad, dropping both cases on my foot. “Cop hold of these, will you? I wasn’t going to let any of those dagos get their hands on them. Never see them again. Cost a bloody fortune, those cases did.”
“Very nice,” I say.
“They were until the wogs got hold of them. I reckon they played bloody football with them. Still smarting about the World Cup, they are.”
“But Brazil won the World Cup, Dad.”
“Not that one. The World Cup. In 1966.”
“Oh, give over, Dad,” says Mum giving me a big wet kiss. “How are you, Timmy love? You’re looking well.”
“Smashing colour,” chimes in Rosie. “I’d lose that hat, though.”
“I’ve got to wear that. It’s part of the uniform. You lot wrapped up well, didn’t you?”
“You never know what to expect in these places,” moans Dad. “Floods, tycoons, you might find anything.”
“I didn’t want to crease my things by packing them,” says Mum defensively, “this brocade wrinkles something terrible.”
“Well, I hope you don’t evaporate on the way there,” I say. “It’s going to be very warm in the coach.”
“Is Sidney coming?” says Rosie.
Very probably, I think to myself. “No,” I say. “He’s rather tied up at the moment. He’s looking forward to seeing you, though. Now let’s get hold of these cases. I’ve got to make sure everybody gets on the coaches.”
But I don’t have to worry about the cases, because a big dark geezer with hair sprouting out of his cuffs and sideburns that meet under the chin hoves into view. I suppose he is quite good looking if you fancy that kind of thing. Rosie obviously does because her knees start to wobble the moment she claps eyes on him. Ignoring Dad’s suitcases he snatches up Rosie’s vanity case and starts wrapping his lips round a slice of the Marcello Masturbani’s.
“Permitta me to carry your kice, bella signorina,” he purrs. “I do not like to see a beautiful woman strangling.”
“You mean ‘struggling’, don’t you, mate?” says Dad. “Look, if you want some exercise, slap your mits on this lot. And she ain’t no ‘signorina’ either, she’s a ‘senora’. She is married to our Sid. Elle est parleyed for. Comprenny?”
“Don’t be so rude, Dad,” minces Rosie. “The gentleman is only trying to help.”
“Yes, help,” beams Hairy.
I notice that he has the letters R.V. and a semi-quaver embroidered on the breast pocket of his blazer and that a number of similarly clothed swarthy blokes are loading musical instruments on to the back of one of the coaches.
“Ricci Volare?” I say.
“And his Angels of the Sun,” says the man himself, waving his hand expansively towards the other geezers. “You have come from the Island of Love, and you—” he turns to Rosie “—are going there. It is very right. I will sing many boughtiful songs only for you.”
“Oh,” says Rosie. “That will be nice.”
“First of all you can help us get these bleeding cases on the bus,” says Dad. “Plenty of time for singing later.”
So Ricci staggers off with Dad’s cases and I get the rest of the party aboard the two coaches. I am a bit surprised, because most of those sitting tired and weary before me are typical “Funfrall Folk” as Francis would say. One or two honeymoon couples but very few obvious “hanky panky” addicts. Still, you never can tell, can you?
I travel in the same coach as the family and it is no surprise to find Ricci sitting next to, and virtually on top of Rosie. He is whispering in her lughole the whole bleeding way, and the stupid cow sits there with a glazed look in her eyes, beaming up at him. How Sid is going to react to this little lot I don’t know.
Luckily the ferry is at the Jetty, the paintwork seems to have dried, and, since neither of the coaches broke down, the trip to the island has been an unparalleled success. Our luck can’t hold, I tell myself, but we get across to the Island without being torpedoed and there is Sidney and the welcoming Committee with their wreaths of plastic flowers. This is another great Funfrall idea stolen from those Polynesian birds who stick garlands of flowers round your neck. Of course, their flowers are real but, as Sidney says, it is cheaper and more hygienic to use plastic wreaths which can be washed and used again and again. Also, no flowers will grow on the island. Also, as Ted says, the wreaths will come in very handy if anyone dies of food poisoning.
Dad, who has been very niggly ever since Mum would not let him take off his stiff collar in the coach, does not take kindly to having a wreath hung round his neck.
“Bring me all this bloody way to play hoop-la with me,” he says. “I’d be better off at home in front of the tele.”
“I wish you were,” says Rosie. “You’ve never stopped bloody moaning since you got off the plane.”
I was looking forward to seeing Sidney and Ricci weighing each other up but Mr. Volare and his merry men melt away the minute we get off the boat. Maybe Rosie has said something to him.
“Good to see you, Rosie, love,” says Sid with convincing enthusiasm. “That’s a nice little number you’re wearing. I bet that cost me a few bob.”
“You’re looking tired, Sid,” says Rosie tenderly. “You haven’t been overdoing it, have you?”
“Oh, he’s been going at it really hard,” I say, fixing Sidney with my beady eye, “he hasn’t spared himself. Twenty four hours a day, he’s been—”
“Alright, alright, Timmy,” says Sid firmly. “Rosie’s got the idea. Don’t make me out to be some kind of martyr. There was a job of work to be done and I got on with it, that’s all.”
“Sidney got on the job alright,” I say. “Nobody could argue with that.”
“Right. Let’s show everybody to their quarters, shall we?” says Sid through clenched teeth. “Then they can change their money to the island currency.”
This money-changing is another Funfrall dodge to rake in the ackers. The island currency is Tokens – Love Tokens, get it? – and these have to be used to buy anything that is sold on the island. Of course the exchange rate is fiddled so that a bottle of Coke costs twice as much as if you were paying for it in real money. It is a beautiful racket because no one understands the exchange rate and no one likes to worry about money on holiday anyway. You just find yourself spending twice as much of the stuff as you intended to. Your Tokens are worn round your neck like beads, and this too, encourages you to have millions of them so you can impress the other poor jerks.
Dad does not like having to change his money into “pistaccios” as he calls them and is even less enthusiastic about Tokens: “like a bloody Co-op divi” he says, “I wouldn’t use ’em for washers.”
Neither does the living accommodation appeal: “I’ve heard about rude mud huts,” he says, “but this is past a bleeding joke. You don’t expect your mother and me to sleep in that, do you? I’d need to shove a