‘Gloody, gloody,’ she says, ‘now we can flind out if all those stories about Englishmen are true.’ If she means the ones about them being able to run very fast in an emergency she is dead right. I am heading for the door in Olympic qualifying time, but alas! These girls must have had lots of experience of blokes trying to do a bunk and they are not sluggish themselves.
Crump! Something thuds against my back and the door knob becomes a dream rather than a reality. I am knocked sideways and before I can repair my balance, Pearl Diver is between me and the door. She picks up a football sized object which I assume must be a volley-ball and bounces it playfully off my nut.
‘Naughty boy!’ she chides. ‘Blad manners to turn your black on a lady.’
‘I just remembered, I left the bathroom jap on—I mean, tap on,’ I bleat. ‘Please, girls. Let’s have a game tomorrow. By that time I can be out of the country—I mean, out of this terrible depressed state I’ve sunk into. Do you ever get –’
‘Slut up!’ barks Apple Blossom. ‘You talk too mluch. Let’s have some action. You are blig strong bloy.’
She bounces the ball off my bonce again and I see red – well, yellow and red. Am I a man or a mlouse – I mean mouse? Am I going to let two gnat-sized nips with faces that look as if they have been traced on steamed up window panes tell me what to do? Of course I am not.
‘Out of my way, girls,’ I say firmly, ‘I am going out of that door.’ I take a step forward and— ‘EEE YOW!!’ Why is the chandelier growing out of the middle of the floor? Why are all the pictures hanging upside down? After a pause for reflection which I notice is also upside down, I come to the conclusion that I have been nobbled by a spot of the deadly ju jitsu. But this is ridiculous! Those birds would have to stand on each other’s shoulders to post a letter. How can they throw six foot one and a half inches of red blooded Englishman around? They are not slow to show me. ‘EEE YA YOW ! ! !’ Again I take a quick spin round the room, and this time I am not in such a hurry to get up.
‘Girls, please!’ I groan. ‘I slender. I slender!’ I am trying to get over ‘surrender’, see. Clever, isn’t it?
‘You very corpulent,’ says Apple Blossom severely. ‘You need exercise. Now, take off tlousers.’
‘NO!’
But they are strong these girls. Make no mistake about that. As I struggle desperately they pin me down and I can almost hear the ref counting. ‘One, two, three’ – there go my shoes and socks, ‘four, five, six’, trousers hurled across the room, ‘seven, eight, nine’, ladies, please! Their strong fingers are folding round the rim of my y-fronts. ‘Help! Help!’ I did not know I could shout so loudly. Don’t let them get me. What have I ever done to hurt anybody? I am too young to go like this. ‘Help! Help!’ Suddenly, just as I fear that I am doomed, the door bursts open and Sidney appears at the head of a crowd of gawping octogenarians.
‘Sidney! Save me, save me,’ I slobber gratefully.
‘Just having little workout,’ says Apple Blossom meekly.
‘That’s not all they were having out!’ I holler. ‘Let me go.’ I shake myself free of their thwarted hands and start picking up my clothes.
‘Come, come, Timothy,’ says Sidney reproachfully. ‘Our Japanese friends were only looking for a spot of exercise.’
‘Right! You give it to them,’ I say. ‘I fancy you as a volley-ball player.’
‘Yes, but –’
‘Glood idea,’ chirps Pearl Diver.
‘Right – that’s settled.’ I start pushing the senior citizens out of the room.
‘Hey, but wait –!’
I close the door on Sidney’s protests and hear the key turn almost immediately.
‘Physiotherapy?’ says one old dear innocently.
‘Something like that,’ I tell him. ‘Now don’t hang about outside the door. You might rupture your eardrums.’
‘How do you feel, Sidney?’
‘I don’t think I will ever feel anything again.’
It is the next morning and Sid is looking decidedly the worse for wear. His features are blurred like a kid’s painting that has had a pot of water spilt over it.
‘Had a hard time of it, did you?’
‘Judas,’ snarls Sid, ‘how could you leave me alone with those two?’
‘What do you mean! You were the one who was telling me what nice girls they were.’
‘You took advantage of me.’
‘Come off it, Sid. Like I’ve said before, you were hoisted with your own pederast.’
‘All right, all right. I misjudged them. But what worries me is: supposing the rest of them are like that?’
‘A team of Japanese volley-ball players, you mean?’
‘Don’t!’ Sid buries his head in his hands.
‘And when are we going to see the product?’
‘Don’t keep on. I’m expecting them any day.’
‘And you’ve got work permits and all that kind of thing?’
‘Of course I have. I’m not a fool!’
Sidney is obviously on edge so I leave him alone and concentrate on keeping away from Pearl Diver and Apple Blossom. I have not asked him what they did to him but it was noticeable that he had his legs crossed all the time he was talking to me.
To my surprise a much cheerier Sid comes bounding up at eleven o’clock and tells me that the first batch of ‘Nuggets’ – I am now getting used to the name – has arrived at a nearby warehouse, and that Mr. Ishowi is all lined up to give us a demo.
I am quite excited when we get there, but it does not take long for this mood of unnatural optimism to pass. First of all there is the packaging. I start worrying about this when Mr. Ishowi picks up one of the cartons with a flourish and all the gubbins drops out of the end onto the floor. He picks up the largest bit and then discards it with a rueful smile.
‘Ah so. One in a million,’ he says, ‘cracked cylinder case.’
He sweeps the debris away with his foot and tries another one. This seems to be O.K. but it is obvious that Mr. Ishowi is not as familiar with the product as one would expect from someone who claims to have sold millions of them back in dear old Nippon.
‘Export model different,’ he says after five minutes of struggling to fit a long tube into the back of the cleaner.’
‘Try the other end,’ says Sid.
‘Ah so. Yes, very good. Power of observation excellent.’ The tube clicks into place and Sid avoids my eyes. ‘Now we vacuum carpet. And here we have our little friends dust, fluff and glit.’ Ishy’s English is almost perfect but he does slip occasionally. I watch with interest as he sprinkles all kinds of muck over a strip of matting he has brought especially for the purpose: sand, soot, cotton waste, gravel. I will be most impressed if the ‘Nugget’ can gobble that lot up.
Sidney steps forward to get a closer look and Ishy checks that the machine is plugged in properly.
‘Now,’