‘Having a nice time, aren’t they?’ I turn round and craggy Petheridge is at my elbow. ‘I thought I was a bit of a raver but this lot leave me standing. You’d need to turn on the sprinkler system to separate them, wouldn’t you?’
‘What?!’ I say, a giant ‘thinks’ bubble bursting from my nut.
‘I said you’d need to turn on the sprinkler system to separate them.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ I try and sound dead casual. ‘You mean down the end of the corridor on the third floor?’
‘Yes. Hey, look at those two! They’re going at it aren’t they?’
Experienced readers will have no difficulty in knowing which two he is talking about, and my feet develop wings as I speed towards the third floor. I am belting down the long corridor when a door opens and–surprise, surprise–I am face to face with Sidney Noggett. His face is flushed and it does not look as if this is due to the strain of ministering to little Jason. I obtain this impression from the sight of the buxom red head who is patting her hair into place beside the crumpled bed.
‘Where’s Rosie?’ yelps Sidney, his voice combining both fear and menace.
‘She’s on her way,’ I shout over my shoulder, I reckon this being a fairly accurate statement of the situation. Sidney says something else but I don’t hear him because I am round the corner and flinging open the door marked ‘no admittance’.
The inside of the room resembles the control room of a Victorian Cape Kennedy. Brass switches and cobweb-covered circuits abound and I look desperately for some instructions. In my panic I press a large switch and realise that it is not the right one when the light in the room goes out. Ah! There we are! ‘Sprinkler System’. ‘Foyer’, ‘dining room’, ‘ballroom’. I take a deep breath and pull the lever as far as it will go. I hope to God that Sidney has not got to the ballroom yet. To add to my good fortune there is a key on the inside of the lock. I grab it, hop out into the corridor and lock the door behind me. That should keep everybody off their knees for a bit.
Not half it won’t. When I get to the top of the stairs the Pendulum Swingers are pouring out of the ballroom like there has been a thunderstorm at the nudist camp picnic. I have not seen so many wet, naked bodies since I peeped through the cracks in the back of the ladies’ changing rooms at Tooting Bec baths. I look into the ballroom and the scene resembles a tropical rain forest by night–not that I have ever seen one, but I reckon it must be something like that. One or two couples who are probably stoned are still grinding away in the middle of the floor and one naked joker is lying on his back with his arms outstretched, chanting, ‘Now grow, you bastard!’ as he gazes down at his acorn. Happy days!
Luckily there is no sign of Sam and Rosie and I am glad of this when I find Sid standing at my elbow sending glances into the darkness like cavalry scouts.
‘Has she come yet?’ says Sid nervously. ‘I wish I could get my hands on the bleeding basket who did this lot.’
‘Probably one of the residents,’ I say. ‘Oh–’ My exclamation is caused by the sight of Rosie coming through the front door. She is bedraggled but fully clothed and alone. She must have got out by one of the side exits.
‘Hello Sid, darling,’ she says, giving him a big hug, ‘what happened?’
‘Some bleeder turned on the sprinkler system. Where have you been?’
‘I’ve been struggling back from the theatre, love. My cheap-jack brother couldn’t afford a taxi. I might as well have stood under that lot, mightn’t I?’ She indicates the inside of the ballroom as the sprinklers are suddenly turned off. ‘Come on, Sid. Come and warm me up.’ She gives his arm a big squeeze and folds back her lips.
‘I ought to–Oh, well. We’ll do something about it in the morning.’ Sid shakes his head and is led away towards the stairs.
I go out of the front entrance of the hotel and look towards the pier. The moon is now high in the sky and there are a lot of stars about. Not a trace of rain. Luckily, in Rosie’s capable hands, Sid is unlikely to ever know this.
‘Old what?!’ says Sid.
‘Old Rottingfestians,’ I say.
‘Who the hell are they?’
‘They’re a rugby club. Playing a couple of pre-season games in the area. Two teams and a spattering of wives, girlfriends and supporters. It can’t be bad can it?’
‘It can’t be much worse.’
It is two weeks after the Pendulum Society have wrung out their Y-fronts and gone home and the Cromby is now totally isolated from its adjoining buildings. On one side is a flat expanse of red mud with a few bricks sticking out of it and on the other the Irish problem are filling the air with dust and cursing. Bookings have dropped off at an alarming rate and some couples have only entered the hotel in order to ask for their deposits back. Never the most elegant of heaps, the Cromby now looks like the foreman’s hut on a building site.
‘At least they won’t complain about the noise, I suppose,’ sighs Sid. This has been one of our main problems and ‘The Friends of Silence’ checked out before breakfast on the first morning. Even Miss Primstone has taken to wearing ear plugs.
Poor Sid’s enthusiasm has been fading fast and I know that only his pride is preventing him from selling out to Rigby. That little rat-substitute is frequently seen standing by his Rolls-Royce and supervising the demolition with an evil smile puckering the corners of his cakehole.
Mum–Batwoman, as we now call her–and Dad have long since returned to The Smoke and Rosie–thank God–has expressed herself as unwilling to risk Jason’s tender lugholes until the noise of demolition has ceased.
‘The little perisher hardly sleeps at the best of times,’ she says. ‘I’ll come back when everything has settled down.’
At this rate everything is going to settle like a ship sliding down in fifty fathoms of briny.
Elsewhere in the hotel things do not change much. Miss Ruperts spends most of her time in her room getting, or rather keeping, pissed, and Mrs Caitley is now conducting a bitter vendetta with Senor Luigi, the latest head waiter. June, Audrey and Carmen roam the corridors, hoping to find Sacha Distel without his running shoes, and Sidney and Sandra play their own intimate version of mixed singles once a week. They have no trouble making ends meet but Dennis has to fiddle twice as hard in order to keep himself in fag money.
It is with the hotel in this, not untypically, fair-to-muddling situation that two important visitors arrive independently. The Old Rottingfestians Rugby Union Football Club, and Doctor Walter Carboy.
The former straggle up one Friday afternoon in a variety of fly-spattered MGs and scruffy 1100s. Those emerging from sports cars wear loud check hacking jackets and are usually accompanied by small blondes with brooches on the front of their jumpers. The 1100s disgorge a slightly older and shabbier article with leather elbow patches on their crumpled houndstooth and unlit pipes sagging over double chins. Their women have an air of experienced resignation like cows approaching the milking shed. You feel that they have been on tour before.
One feature that characterises all the men is an air of undefeated cheerfulness that flows like something out of a Battle of Britain epic.
‘How’s it going, Tinker?’
‘Dickers, old chap. Fantastic. How’s Daphers?’
‘Not so bad. Turned a bit green when I did a ton in Lewes High Street.’
‘Cool bastard! How did the peelers react to that?’
‘No