“Make up your mind,” says Sid, who has miraculously appeared behind me. “You know, sometimes, I think he doesn’t know the difference,” he adds, flashing his pearlies at the old bag who is staring at me like I had eye teeth down to my navel.
“Is he with you?” she screeches. “You want to watch him, he’s round the twist. You heard what he said. He should be locked up.”
“In an asylum, Madam,” agrees Sid, “Anybody making a suggestion like that to you must be insane.”
“Hey, what do you mean,” says the old bag. “You trying to be funny or something? You’re no bleeding oil painting yourself.”
“That’s enough,” says the barman, “You two hop it.” He means Sid and me.
“Why should we?” says Sid. “We aren’t doing any harm. My friend merely asked the lady if she’d like a drink.”
“I heard what he asked the lady,” says the barman, “Now hop it before I call the police.”
“If you’re going to call anybody make it Hammer Films, mate,” says Sid. “They can’t start shooting till she turns up. ‘Daughter of the Vampires’, that’s what she’s in, and guess who’s playing mother!”
“Ooh, you little bastard!” The old bag swings her handbag, Sid ducks, and the barman catches it, smack in the kisser. You have to laugh. At least Sid and I do. The other two don’t seem to be finding it so funny. The barman shouts to the alsatian and before I can get really scared it has torn the old bag’s skirt off. By the time we get outside I am laughing so much I can hardly stand up.
“You did a bloody marvellous job in there,” says Sid all sarcastic. “My God, you came on strong. Nothing like getting to the point quick.”
“It’s no good with me if I don’t fancy a bird,” I say. “If my heart isn’t in it, nothing else is.”
“I don’t believe you could stick your old man in a fire bucket without someone shouting instructions through a megaphone,” says Sid. “What a bloody hopeless performance. That’s done it for me. You’d have both of us locked up on your first morning.”
“Come off it, Sid. You know it was an accident. I just got a bit flustered, that’s all.”
“Flustered?” says Sid. “Christ, I wonder you didn’t stick it in her hand and burst into tears.” I can see there isn’t much point in going on about it, so we walk across the common in silence. Dusk, as they say, is falling and I notice that Sid keeps taking a few strides and jumping as far as he can. I’ve never known him show any interest in athletics, apart from running away from hard work, so I ask him what he is doing.
“Trying to put the alsatian off the scent,” he says.
“You didn’t think of telling me, did you?”
“I was just going to mention it,” he says, managing to sound all hurt.
So I’m off across the common with a hop, skip and a jump and a right fairy I feel. Then Sid tells me to stop.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I was taking the piss out of you, you stupid berk, and it isn’t funny any more.”
Sometimes I really dislike Sid.
We are near the boating pond by now and I can make out a few shadowy figures moving about in the darkness. Most of them are bent or on the game because the pond, after dark, is very much the place you wouldn’t arrange to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury. There are also a few anglers but their presence is a bit suspect, for the last fish must have coughed itself to death about ten years ago, and the surface is too thick with fagpackets and french letters that you’d need a half pound ledger to get through it. I reckon the anglers just want an excuse to get away from the old woman and have a bit on the side. I must confess, I’ve thought about it myself, but somehow I feel I need something more private for the first time.
“Look, Sid,” I say, my mind returning to the window cleaning, “couldn’t you just give me a trial? A couple of weeks maybe. I’m certain I could do the job. If I can’t, well, O.K. then.”
Sid is exploring the darkness and doesn’t seem to be listening to me. Eventually he sees what he’s looking for and, beckoning to me to follow him, makes towards the pond. By the water’s edge a fat old git is buttoning his oilskin trench coat and spitting words at a thin bird who is picking pieces of grass off her skirt. No prizes for guessing what they’ve been up to. The man bends down and reels in his line which, I notice, only has a weight on the end of it – no hooks. Presumably his technique is to whirl the weight round and round above his head and bash the fish over the bonce with it.
“Hallo, Lil” says Sid all cheerful like, “You busy?”
“With old kinky-coat” says the bird, “You must be joking. He exhausted himself screwing his rod together.”
The fat man says something ‘not nice’, as my mother would say, and collapsing his collapsible stool, hurries away.
“Lil,” says Sid, “I’d like you to meet my brother-in-law, Timmy. Timmy this is my aunty Lil.”
“Not so much of the aunty, ta.” says Lil. “Pleased to meet you Timmy. I don’t remember you at the wedding.”
“Timmy was detained elsewhere. He was giving her majesty pleasure.”
Sid’s aunty! What a turn up. She doesn’t seem old enough.
She’s not bad looking really. A bit tired and a bit skinny but not bad. Fancy her being on the game.
“She’s my mum’s youngest sister. Much younger.”
“Pleased to meet you,” I say. I have a nasty feeling that Sid has engineered our meeting with what the B.B.C. calls an ulterior motive in view. Sid immediately proves me right. Waiting no longer than the space of time it takes fatso to merge into the background he begins to speak.
“Lil,” he says, “with my friend Timmy, actions speak a bloody sight louder than words, or so he would have me believe. He’s not much of a chatterbox but he’s shit hot when it comes to the proof of the pudding. I’d like you to take him in hand or anything else you have to offer and give me your views.”
I start to say something but Sid shuts me up and sweeps Lil away into outer darkness. I hear them rabbiting away and then Lil nips back again all peaches and cream. Before I can say anything she’s kneading the front of my trousers like dough and steering me towards the wide open spaces.
“Hey, Sid—” I begin but there’s no stopping her.
“Don’t be frightened,” she murmurs, “Lil’s going to take care of you.”
The minute she opens her mouth with that quiet reassuring tone I can feel my old man disappearing like a pat of butter at the bottom of a hot frying pan. It’s about as sincere as Ted Heath singing the Red Flag. At the same time I realise that Sid is setting this up so he can see what I’m made of, and that after the last cock-up I can’t afford to blow it.
It’s in this uneasy frame of mind that I find myself wedged up against a tree with the lights of Clapham sparkling all around me and Aunty Lil’s hand pulling the zip of my fly out of its mooring.
“Ooh, ooh, ooh,” she grunts fumbling away, but my cock has got about as much sensation in it as a headline in ‘Chicks Own’.
“Come on, darling,” she pants, “don’t you want a nice time?”
“I feel we’re being watched” I say and it’s no exaggeration. Talk about Edward G. Robinson in ‘The Night Has A Thousand Eyes’. There’s a crackle of plastic macs around us like a crisp eating contest. That’s another thing I’ve got against Clapham Common. The public don’t only come to watch the football matches.
“Don’t