‘You pack up at closing time, do you?’ I ask, lowering my voice. I can see the guvnor looking at me suspiciously and I don’t want any trouble. I have been told not to come back more times than our next door neighbour’s tom.
‘When we’ve tidied up,’ she says.
‘We might go on somewhere?’ My voice becomes husky and enticing — at least, it tries to.
‘Like where?’ I was afraid she would ask that question. The smarter birds usually do. I was thinking of behind the changing rooms where they store the goal posts but I wanted it to be a surprise — it was certainly a surprise the last time I was there. I had just got this bird pressed up against something solid when all the crossbars fell down and buried her knickers. Very lucky she wasn’t wearing them at the time. It put the kibosh on our romance though. I stepped back a bit sharpish and sat in one of the washing troughs — my trousers were round my ankles, you see. It wouldn’t have mattered but some sloppy bastard hadn’t bothered to take the plug out. Talk about a passion killer. It wasn’t all that warm to start off with.
‘I could take you home,’ I say.
‘What, to your place?’ This had not been my intention but the hint of interest in her voice makes me think again. Mum and Dad usually go out less often than the tide in the Mediterranean but some mate of Dad’s at the lost property office — where Dad works and furnishes our home — has got him involved in a rotarian’s ladies’ night. Of course, Dad didn’t want to go but Mum nagged him rigid. She said the last time Dad took her out was to see ‘Brief Encounter’ — they didn’t get in because there was a queue — and thirty years later she feels like hitting the high spots again. Dad groans and moans about the cost of the tickets — especially when he finds that the cost of what he thought was a double is for a single and that wine is not included — but Mum gets her way in the end. ‘Don’t worry about the wine,’ she says wittily. ‘I’ve had enough whining from you to last me a lifetime.’
I seem to recall that the tickets said ‘Carriages 2 am’ — Dad thought it meant real carriages, stupid old git — so my esteemed parents should be out of the way long enough for me to cement a meaningful relationship and be snug in my cot by the time they lumber through the front door.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Come back for a drink.’
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘That will make a change.’ I think she is trying to be sarcastic but I don’t take her up on it.
‘I can run you home afterwards,’ I say. That is literally correct. Provided I am still capable of running I will be quite willing to lope beside the young lady as she leaves the purlieus of Scraggs Lane, from time immemorial and immortal the home of the Leas. If she is expecting a car she will be disappointed.
‘All right,’ she says. ‘But I won’t be able to stay long.’ I have to suppress a smile. They all say that. It is like turkeys making plans to visit the in-laws on Boxing Day.
‘How did you get on?’ says Sid when I sit down again.
‘Salt and vinegar,’ I say. ‘Do you fancy one?’
‘Don’t treat me like I’m soft in the head,’ says Sid. ‘You were trying to get that bird to go out with you, weren’t you?’
‘I was just being pleasant,’ I say. It never pays to tell too much to Sid. Although he is married to my vivacious sister, Rosie, he is not above thrusting his pelvic area and appurtenances into close contact with any lady’s mole-catcher. He has seen more crumpet than your friendly local baker — in fact it was Sid who gave the trade the idea of putting holes in the middle of doughnuts — and he does not mind playing with his friends’ toys.
‘Going to take her home, are you?’
‘I was thinking about it,’ I say. ‘But there are nine of them in the flat. You know what it’s like? Her mum’s just come back from Nightingale Lane with another one.’
‘You find a lot of them down there,’ says Sid. ‘Ah well, sup up. No sense in being downcast about it. Women aren’t everything, are they?’
‘You’re right, Sid,’ I say, trying to sound as if I am putting a brave face on it. ‘There’s comradeship, isn’t there?’
‘A few pints of ale between friends. What could be better. Drink up, Tim lad. You don’t fancy a short, do you?’
I have never known Sid so full of the milk of human kindness. It is practically curdling in the face of the unexpected warmth. As I stand in the gents’ wondering why anyone should want to write ‘I had my sister in a pair of Wellington boots’ on the pebble dash wall — I mean, it is so difficult apart from anything else — I also chew over whether Sid is preparing himself for the key role he intends to play in the bedding business — I must say it does seem the right business for Sid.
I later learn that my naive faith in Sid’s good nature was misplaced. I have just helped Pearl — yes, that’s her name — remove something rather unpleasant from her shoe — those platform jobs don’t half spread it around — and the lights at the edge of the common are in sight when she starts moaning. ‘I’d have taken your friend’s offer if I’d known,’ she says. ‘Do you want your handkerchief back?’
‘You must be joking,’ I say. ‘What offer?’
‘He said he’d take me up west for a meal.’ Sid only meant West Clapham but it is still a better offer than I came up with. The crafty sod! No wonder he was keen to get up to the bar.
You can’t trust anyone can you?
‘He’s got a Rover 2000, hasn’t he?’
I decide to ignore this remark. ‘Lovely night, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘I do like a stroll.’
I don’t mind a stroll. It’s hiking I object to. You told me it was just round the corner.’
‘Once we get off the common it’s just round the corner.’ She is not exactly overdoing the pre-foreplay, this one. I hope I am not dooming myself to disappointment. It is distressing how white hot favourites can sometimes turn colder than last year’s Christmas pudding. There is no accounting for women.
‘Cut across here,’ I say. ‘Sorry mate.’ I am addressing the uppermost of the two people I have just tripped over. It is so dark once you get off the path. The bloke makes a strange grunting noise but I don’t think he is talking to me.
‘Disgusting!’ says Pearl. ‘Why did you have to bring me this way?’
‘It’s a short cut,’ I say, trying to steer her away from the bloke who is throwing up in the waste paper basket. ‘If we go — no.’ I don’t think that couple against the tree are studying lichen. Knickers! It is not exactly the best introduction to a night of wild passionate ecstasy. Most of these people seem to know each other rather better than we do.
By the time we get to 17 Scraggs Lane I am humming to keep my spirits up.
‘Is this it?’ says Pearl. She sounds as excited as some bird being fixed up with Frankenstein’s monster on a blind date. I know they don’t live in rude mud huts in Trinidad — polite mud huts at the worst of times — but I was not expecting to be taken to task for the family home.
‘These houses are very sought after in Putney,’ I say, quoting something that Mum is always saying.
‘It must have heard,’ says Pearl. ‘It’s leaning towards Putney.’
‘Very funny,’ I say, opening the front door and sticking my tongue out at Mrs Tanner, our new neighbour. She is always peering through her lace curtains and it drives me round the twist. Once I took Dad’s moose head round and tapped it against her front window and she had a police car on the door step in two and a half minutes flat. I had only just closed the back door behind me when I heard it screaming down the street. I wish I could have caught an earful of what she