‘Gai—Ya—Yai—Yee—Yonk! ! !’ Well, it was something like that, anyway. The sound I remember most clearly is that of the table snapping in half as Apple Blossom lands on it. Yes, Apple Blossom! No sooner had she extended a muscular mit than Spring Fragrance grabs it and gives a quick switch of the wrist as if turning a key in a car door – at least that is what the action looks like – the result is somewhat different. Apple Blossom performs a couple of cartwheels in mid-air and snaps the table in two as easily as breaking a breadstick. Fantastic! Mini-nip is obviously a judo star too. Just what you need at the Wimbledon Baths Hall on St. Patrick’s night.
Whilst Apple Blossom tries separating her features from the wood grain, big sister belts in to try her luck. With a wild cry, the like of which I have not heard since Rosie mistook the fly spray for her vaginal deodorant, she launches herself at plucky little Spring Fragrance. It is an action she is lucky to live to regret. Spring Fragrance makes the ‘Ying, ting, tong’ noises and P.D.’s sole contribution to the conversation is an agonised ‘YE–o-o-w-w!’ swiftly drowned by the sound of shattering glass. Yes folks, Shagnasty – oriental style – has just left by one of the windows. Too bad it was closed at the time.
‘Blimey!’ I gasp as Apple Blossom tries to disentangle herself from the wreckage of the table and collapses back into it. ‘You’ve probably killed her.’ I am referring to the appropriately named Pearl Diver, but when we get to the shattered window, there she is, straddling a couple of telephone wires like a piece of washing hanging out to dry.
‘She’ll live,’ says Sid with a trace of disappointment in his voice. ‘Still –’ I can see him trying to claw some grain of satisfaction from her predicament – ‘it must be pretty cold out there.’
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘There’s a nasty nip in the air.’
‘This is it,’ says Sid enthusiastically. ‘Open your lungs and smell that soot.’
We have just emerged from the railway station and every building seems to have been carved out of charcoal.
‘Why don’t you stop rabbiting, and give Moon Flower a hand with the suitcases, Sid,’ I tell him. ‘They’re bigger than she is.’
‘She likes doing it.’
‘Maybe, but I don’t like the way people are looking at us.’
‘Well, you should do. It’s all good publicity. I can’t think where that bloke from the Sentinel got to. I’d have thought we’d have been the biggest news in this place since the last Clog Dancing Championships.’
It’s always the same with Sidney. He is such a blooming optimist. I look around the teeming streets and wish I was back at Scraggs Lane with mum and dad. Dad will just be coming back from the Lost Property office – if he bothered to clock in in the first place – and mum will be wondering whether to open a tin of pineapple slices for supper and deciding to scrape the mould off the bread pudding instead. She has a tin of pineapple slices she has been hanging onto since the war.
They both seem a long way away as we wait for a taxi. Sid, the Daughters of the Cherry Blossom, and me.
‘I find them a bit difficult to understand, don’t you?’ says Sid. ‘That porter fellow for instance.’
‘“Tight wad” was the only word I understood. It took him a bit of time to realise you only wanted to borrow his barrow, didn’t it?’
We nearly have some more agro when Sid tries to get all twelve girls into one taxi.
‘You’re breaking no world record in my taxi, gaffer,’ says the driver. ‘I’ll take four, five at a pinch – provided I can do the pinching.’
‘Everybody wants to be a comedian,’ sniffs Sid when we have eventually been forced to settle for three taxis. ‘Grand Hotel please, driver.’
Grand Hotel! That sounds alright, doesn’t it? I can practically see the palms tickling the second violinist’s lughole. Maybe this little caper is not going to be so bad after all. We whip down a series of grimy streets and, there it is. Big pillars and a flight of steps. I stretch out my arm to open the door but Sidney stops me. ‘You stay here,’ he says.
‘I’d like to drop my luggage off.’
‘Why? You’re going to need it, aren’t you?’
‘What do you mean? Aren’t we putting up here?’
‘Of course not. I’m not made of money. The girls are, Mr. Ishowi insisted. We’re in digs.’
‘I should have guessed. Don’t you want me to get out here and walk the rest of the way.’
‘You can if you like, but you’re going to find it a bit difficult with all those cleaners, aren’t you?’
I may not have mentioned that Sidney has lumbered me with lugging half a dozen ‘Nuggets’ all the way from Hoverton so we can get out into the field with some demonstration stock. Needless to say this has not made the trip north anymore enjoyable, despite the assistance of the shapely nippons.
When Sidney returns to the taxi his next instructions to the driver are somewhat less pulse-quickening.
‘Seventeen Canal Street,’ he says.
‘Oh, very nice, Sid,’ I say mockingly. ‘We have separate suites, I suppose?’
‘Don’t take the piss, Timothy. There’s always the Y.M.C.A. if you don’t fancy it.’
‘Thanks for reminding me. It just seems a bit ridiculous, that’s all. I mean, we won the war, didn’t we? Why aren’t we in the Grand?’
‘No racialism, please, Timmo. It’s a simple question of economics. Once we’ve flogged a few Nuggets it will be the best hotel in town every night.’
‘How many is “a few”, Sidney?’
But Sidney does not have to answer that question because the taxi pulls up outside 17 Canal Street. Yes, there is a canal and I look into it while Sidney bangs on the door knocker. A dead rat is floating past, suspended in the water as if trying to touch its toes. I try not to think of this as an omen and rejoin Sidney.
‘Looks nice, doesn’t it?’ he says.
‘If you like yellow lace curtains, it looks a knock out,’ I say. ‘They are yellow aren’t they? Or is it just the way they have faded?’
Before Sidney can ignore my remark the front door opens and we find ourselves face to face with a curvy dolly who must be knocking forty – but very gently so it does not hear her. She has a Margaret Lockwood beauty spot and her hair swept up and over one eye in a way I have not seen since I watched one of those Sunday afternoon telly films. Her knockers are definitely up to scratching, and her legs, though nothing to write home about, are a matching pair.
‘Mrs. Runcorn?’ says Sidney in his grade one creeper voice.
Now, one of the things that always fascinates me about birds is the way that they will sometimes go potty over the most revolting herberts. Like Sidney, for instance. Take Mrs. Runcorn. You can tell that the minute she claps eyes on him, her insides start melting like a soft-centred chocolate in a hot glove compartment. Her hand goes up to the gap between her generous knockers and a far away look comes into her eyes.
‘Mr. Noggett?’ she says hopefully.
‘The same,’ says Sidney, dropping his voice a couple of decibels until it sounds like Paul Robeson with laryngitis. Eagles envy Sidney’s eyesight when it comes to spotting a possible piece of nooky. ‘This is my associate, Mr. Lea.’ I give her the famous Lea slow burn but I would be better off with trading stamps. It is obviously Sidney who has stolen her heart.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ she says,