‘Did you swing from strap to strap, Dad?’ asks Sid, lowering his voice and beating his chest. ‘Me, father Lea. King of de Northern Line.’
‘Shut your face!’ snaps Dad. ‘It’s a lovely thing. I couldn’t let it go in the incinerator.’
I feel I should point out that my revered parent works in the lost property office and is inclined to ‘save’ certain articles which he considers might be lost to Sir Kenneth Clark, or handed in to the keeping of undesirables – e.g. their rightful owners.
‘I don’t understand why you wore it,’ says Mum.
‘It seemed the best way of getting it home,’ says Dad, mopping his brow. ‘I’d have looked bloody silly carrying it, wouldn’t I? This way I was anonymous so nobody knew who I was. The coon who was collecting the tickets at Clapham South took one look at me and started running across the common.’
‘I bet you weren’t even wearing the head-piece, then,’ I say cheerfully.
‘At least he could run,’ says Sid. ‘Look at you. Puffing and blowing like an old grampus. You underline what I’ve been saying to Timmy and Mum. You’re all overweight and unfit. The whole country is dragging round tons of surplus weight. That’s why we’re in the mess we are at the moment. Pare off those extra pounds and the natural vitality will start flooding through your veins.’
‘Sounds disgusting,’ says Dad. ‘Is my tea ready yet?’
‘You’re the worst of the lot,’ says Sid sternly. ‘There’s a permanent depression in the middle of the armchair made by your great fat arse while you watch telly. The only exercise you ever take is jumping to conclusions.’
‘How dare you!’ bellows Dad. ‘This is my house you’re standing in. You keep your filthy tongue under control. I don’t have to listen to this.’
‘Look at him!’ says Sid. ‘That’s a sick face, that is, mark my words. See those treacherous little blue veins running through that sea of scarlet porridge? That’s not healthy. That’s a face living on borrowed time.’
‘He doesn’t look very good, does he?’ says Mum, peering into Dad’s mug. ‘Still, you’ve got to remember he’s been like that for years.’
‘Stop talking about me as if I’m not here!’ squawks Dad.
‘That’s it exactly,’ says Sid. ‘Very prophetic words. Soon you won’t be here. You’ve got to get a grip on yourself. Like I said, you’re living on borrowed time.’
‘If you ever lend me any, you won’t see it back again in a hurry,’ says Dad bitterly.
‘What are you getting at, Sid?’ I say. ‘Are you starting some kind of keep-fit class?’
Sidney’s lip curls contemptuously. ‘Much more than that,’ he says. ‘Keeping fit is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s the whole spectrum of physical and mental welfare that I want to embrace.’
‘Watch your language in front of my wife,’ says Dad.
Something tells me that Sid has been got at. He does not normally come out with sentences like that unless his chips were wrapped in the Weekend section of the Sunday Times.
‘Who told you about that?’ I ask.
‘Wanda Zonker,’ says Sid as if he is glad to get it off his chest. ‘She’s a remarkable woman. She’s a beautician and health food specialist. I’m thinking of getting together with her to open a health farm.’
‘Where’s the money coming from?’ says Dad.
‘I’ve got a bit tucked away,’ says Sid.
‘So you’ve just told us,’ says Dad. ‘I was asking about the money.’
Sid does not take kindly to the implication behind this remark.
‘Shut your mouth, you disgusting old rat bag!’ he snaps. ‘Rosie will probably be coming in with us. There’s nothing underhand about what I’m doing. Nothing compared to nicking stuff from the lost property office and keeping the hall stand full of filthy Swedish magazines.’
‘How did you know they were Swedish, clever shanks!?’ exults Dad. ‘You’ve been peeping, haven’t you?’
‘Please!’ I say, desperate to raise the standard of argument a few notches above crutch level. ‘Can’t we forget about “Swedish Spanking Party, Volumes 1–5” and concentrate on something more intellectually stimulating?’
‘You were at them and all, were you?’ says Dad. ‘Marvellous, isn’t it? I only bring them home for the articles and I’m being branded as some kind of pervert.’
‘What articles?’ says Sid. ‘“How spanking saved my marriage”? “Spanking round the world”? “Cooking for spankers”?’
‘Nothing like that!’ snorts Dad. ‘I mean the articles by famous living men of letters. I don’t look at the pictures.’
‘Yeah. Smoke rises from his fingers, he turns the pages over so fast,’ sneers Sid.
‘ “Wanda Zonker”?’ says Mum. ‘She foreign, is she?’ There is a strong note of disapproval in her voice. Mum has been around long enough to know that foreigners cause most of the trouble in the world.
‘Yes, Mum. She’s a Lithuanian.’
‘Oh.’ Mum does not sound as if that is the best news she has heard since the end of World War Two. ‘Where’s that?’
Sid looks round the room and shrugs his shoulders. ‘I don’t know, Mum.’
‘I’ve never met anyone who did know,’ says Mum suspiciously. ‘You want to watch those Lithuanians. There’s a lot of them about and nobody knows where they come from. You want to ask her if you see her again.’
‘If she says Peckham, he’s not going to know whether she’s telling the truth or not,’ says Dad.
‘It’s definitely abroad,’ says Mum.
‘ “Next week, our panel of experts will be discussing Euthanasia – does it come too late?” ’ says Sid in his posh announcer voice. ‘Come on, Timmo. I’ll go bonkers if I hang around here much longer. I’m nipping round to see Wanda now. I’ll introduce you.’
‘You watch yourself,’ says Dad. ‘Don’t sign anything.’
‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ says Sid. ‘When it’s all fixed up I’ll give you a fortnight’s free treatment. That’ll open your eyes – your pores, your bowels, everything!’
‘Don’t be disgusting!’ Dad’s voice echoes after us as we bundle out of the front door.
Sid rubs his hands together and a faraway look comes into his eyes. ‘Ooh. I wouldn’t half like to get him in one of those dry heat cabinets,’ he says. ‘I’d turn the bleeding knob up to maximum and watch his nut turn scarlet. Twenty minutes later there would be nothing left but a puddle in the bottom of the cabinet.’
‘Sid! Please! That’s my old man you’re talking about.’
Sid shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry. I keep forgetting that he’s a human being.’ Sid has been bashing the horror movies a bit lately and I think that they have an unfortunate effect on him. He is always knocking back his char with a maniacal laugh and saying, ‘Today, Clapham. Tomorrow the world!’ I could belt him sometimes.
‘Where does this tart live?’ I ask.
An expression of pain flashes across Sid’s features. ‘Watch it,’ he says. ‘She’s quality, this bird. Refined. You know what I mean?’
‘She washes her hands before she goes to the karsi?’
Sid