Common for the entrance to the tube station. Sid, himself, is looking a bit flustered which Mum chooses to interpret as a sign of work strain. Now that Mum reckons Sid is worth a few bob he can do no wrong, while with Dad acute dislike has grown into seething hatred.
‘You haven’t been overdoing it, I hope, dear?’ says Mum. Sid avoids my eyes and smacks a couple of kisses on the Lea ladies.
‘No fear of that, Mum, you know me. Hello, Rosie love. I didn’t expect you so early. Hello Jason!’ Sid pops on his ‘I love kids’ expression but it does not cut any ice with little Lord Nausea.
‘S’cream! S’cream! S’cream!’ he wails. ‘I wanna s’cream, wanna s’cream.’
‘But he is screaming,’ says Sid, perplexed.
‘He wants an ice cream, you berk,’ I tell him. ‘Blimey, Sid, can’t you even understand your own kid?’
‘He never sees him long enough to be able to recognise him properly,’ says Rosie. ‘I tell you, if he saw him walking down the other side of the street he wouldn’t recognise him.’
‘Oh yes I would,’ says Sid, all indignant. ‘He’d be the one dressed like a two-year-old poofter.’
It is true that Rosie’s tastes do veer a little towards the Carnaby in toddler’s wear and I would not like to be left at nursery school in some of the clobber he gets landed with unless I had a flick knife hidden under my rompers. Nevertheless, Rosie is sensitive on the point.
‘I want the child to look nice, that’s all. If it was left to you, he’d still be wearing that thing they gave him at the hospital.’
‘He’ll be on the turn soon. You mark my words, that’s how they all start. If you want a girl let’s have another one. Don’t try and make him ambidextrous.’
‘Fine chance of that when we don’t even live together, isn’t there?’
All through this fairly typical Lea family reunion, Jason’s screams are getting louder and louder and it is perhaps fortunate that Miss Ruperts arrives on the scene to restore a little queenly decorum. She appears to be very good with children and my Mum, and takes them off for a cup of tea, a liquid which could float ma through a Martian invasion.
‘She is in one of her moods, I can tell that,’ says Sid, when Rosie has been led away to the Bridal Suite. ‘She can be very funny sometimes.’
He does not say any more, but I have a feeling that some sixth sense, or sexth sinse, is carrying his mind back to the Ricci Volare episode on one of Spain’s unsettled colonies. He never actually caught them on the job, but I think he suspected more than he rationalised, if you know what I mean.
It is just as well that he is not with me when Rosie comes back from the beach an hour later. She has taken Jason down for a paddle and, I reckon, as an excuse to get into her new multi-piece bathing costume. The one in which none of the pieces quite covers the bit it is supposed to be covering.
‘Ooh, he is nice,’ she says.
‘Who?’
‘That big fellow, Sam something. He had a bottle of spirit down the front of his trunks–’ I feel better already. ‘–got all the oil off Jason’s legs. It’s disgraceful, isn’t it? Sidney should complain to somebody.’
‘He can’t find Liberia on the map.’
‘No? Well, this fellow was so kind. He was marvellous with Jason. He asked me if I was going to the dance tonight.’
‘No!’ Maybe the words did come out a bit quick.
‘What do you mean “no”? It’s in the hotel isn’t it? I’m the owner’s wife.’
‘Yeah, but it’s private.’
‘Not if I’ve been invited by the President of the Society. That’s what he said he was.’
‘I don’t want her going anywhere near there! It’s disgusting!’ Sidney’s reaction when I tell him of Rosie’s plans is not totally unexpected.
‘But you went, Sidney,’ I say innocently.
‘Don’t push your luck, it’s different for fellers. Everybody knows that. Anyway, nothing happened.’
‘Only because your bird went off with that big bloke. He’s the one that invited Rosie to the dance.’ I get more satisfaction out of Sid’s face than from an old Laurel and Hardy movie.
‘I don’t want to see her there,’ he says, gulping. ‘You know what she’s like. Give her a few drinks and she loses control. The wrong kind of bloke could take advantage of her.’
‘I always wondered how you two came to be married.’
‘That’s enough of that. I’m serious. I’ve got a position to uphold here and I don’t want any embarrassment. It’s in your interest too, you know. She’s your sister.’
‘What do you expect me to do about it?’
‘There’s a show down on the Pier, Frisky Follies of 1902 or something. I’ll get some tickets and you can take them off there.’
‘Take what off there?’
‘Oh, blimey. Take Mum, Dad and Rosie off there, of course. That should keep them out of harm’s way.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll have to stay here, won’t I? After all, I am the owner.’
‘But I like dancing.’
‘No, you don’t. You like getting your end away. Tonight you’ll have to do without it. Your job is to keep Rosie away from that dance floor.’
‘But, Sid–’
‘No “buts”. You let me down on this one and you’ll be able to flog your old man for valve washers.’
Sid can come on a bit heavy with the old-world charm sometimes and at such moments it is unwise to push the aggrochat. I swallow back my resentment and prepare for the tedium ahead. Hoverton’s light entertainment industry is no threat to Broadway and seeing any show with my parents has been a source of embarrassment since they took me to a pantomime at Clapham Junction. First of all they always sit on somebody else’s lap and then Dad finds a seat and sits on it while it is still tipped up. He wonders why everybody is shouting at him and a right old how’s your father goes on until the manager and three usherettes force him into a seat like a ventriloquist’s dummy. Then he never understands what is happening.
‘Why is he doing that, mother?’ he demands. ‘Look, look, they’ve got it wrong. He’s got different clothes on.’
Perhaps Dad’s worst fault is that he has always seen everything. Despite only having been to the flicks about six times in his life, there is always one moment in every film when he suddenly springs to his feet, points at the screen and exclaims, ‘I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it. The bloke with the ’tash does it.’ He even did that in the Sound of Music.
Perhaps he will be better at the live theatre. He is always rambling on about how you could not beat the old music hall.
Rosie is definitely not pleased at the evening that has been arranged for her.
‘I don’t want to go down the pier,’ she says as she shovels in her last mouthful of fruit salad. ‘Is Sid ashamed of us or something?’
‘I think it’s “or something” ’I murmur under my breath. ‘Come on, Rosie, cheer up! I’ve heard it’s a great show.’
‘Who’s in it then?’ I rack my brain for some of the half-forgotten names of yesteryear.
‘Terry Grimley–’
‘He’s not still alive is he?’ says Dad, wiping the custard off his chin–some of it anyway. ‘I remember him when I was a boy.’