down here, come down here,” she begs. Some might refuse but Percy has become a bit of a handful and I know that in this mood it is pointless to try to control him. So, off with my jeans and down I go, and – oh! what fun takes place. Mrs. E. is a very selfish lover but you don’t mind when she is obviously enjoying herself so much. I mean, for a man, the pleasure has got to be in making someone else happy, hasn’t it? Otherwise we’d all get the problem off our tiny minds immediately and have a nice kip.
By the time we’re finished, we’re blacker than a bus conductor’s finger nails. If Al Jolson saw us he’d be on to his lawyers within seconds.
“Now what?” I say and it’s a fair question. Unless she’s got a shower in the coal cellar her lovely clean house is going to look like her old man is a chimney sweep who brings his work home with him.
“Over there,” she snaps, and it’s obvious she’s reverting to type faster than most. “In the corner you’ll find some plastic clothes bags. Put one on and hop up to the bathroom.”
So help me, she says it just like that. As if she’s telling you where to empty the waste bin. I think she’s joking but when I get over there it’s just as she says. A pile of bags with a sash round them saying ‘One dozen suit or costume containers. Keep away from children’ etc., etc. Feeling like a right Charlie I put one on and start shuffling upstairs. Something inside me makes me almost wish George would come in as I’m hopping past the front door. I think maybe it’s that there are only four bags left in the pile and I’m wondering who the other four blokes were.
When I left Mrs. Evans’ place I was still feeling dirty. Not physically, you understand, because Mrs. E. had taken great care to see that there wasn’t a smidgeon of coal dust on me. There was a shower in the bathroom, a proper one with a frosted glass door and Mrs. E. had taken me inside it with a bottle of shampoo and – Well, you can imagine, can’t you? The lather; the warm, wet bodies rubbing against each other; the slippery fingers gliding everywhere. I was putty in her hands – no, not putty. I do myself a disservice when I say that. What I mean is, she had me again, just as she presumably had all the other blokes. I had played my part in her kinky games and when it was over I was patted on the head and sent on my way.
It began to dawn on me that I wasn’t screwing anybody. All these birds were screwing me. When I thought about it, most of the birds I’d been with had made me fit in with their plans. Their fantasies, or whatever, never changed; only the man who took part in them, and he could have been anyone.
Nothing wrong with that except that it was getting more and more complicated and I was never doing things my way. Having it away in the coal cellar was the last straw. A few more like Mrs. E. and I’d probably only be able to do it standing in a bowl of custard with a rose behind my ear. I could see it affecting my relationship with Elizabeth. Nice, simple girl like that, it would break her heart if she knew what I was getting up to. Imagine, on your wedding night having to say, ‘I’m sorry, love, but you’ll have to hang upside down from the lamp bracket before I can do anything – oh, and don’t forget to put on your riding boots.’ I mean, it would put the mockers on everything, wouldn’t it?
I think that was the moment I made my resolve to give up all the frigging about and settle down.
“It’s got to stop.” I can remember saying the words out loud so that an old lady at the bus stop almost jumped out of her skin and I got embarrassed and tried to cycle on and cracked the back window of the van in front with my ladder. The bloke was very nasty about it and I was still thinking about some of the things he had called me when I got home.
When I arrive, Mum is rolling out pastry in the kitchen, and she looks at me with that ‘I’ve-got-something-to-tell-you’ expression on her face.
“Lady left a note for you,” she says.
“Who was it?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t stop. I just saw her walking away.” Nobody in the world is faster off the mark than Mum when she hears somebody near the front door, and she has eyes that can see through curtains two inches thick.
“She looked like one of those hippies to me. Got some kind of leather cowgirl costume on and a ton of beads.”
“Well, I’d better read the note, hadn’t I?”
“She went off with a black man on a motor bike.” Mum speaks the words as if she expects to be struck down for blasphemy. She doesn’t go and see a lot of Sidney Poitier movies, does Mum.
“I reckon it must be Sandy. My friend Miss Rachel Devroon to you. She has a lot of time for Spades. She says they are much more exciting lovers than white men.”
“Oh! Timmy!”
I have said that strictly for Mum’s benefit and the reaction is exactly as anticipated.
“How can you say such a thing? I hope you aren’t being silly, are you? You don’t want to get into bad company again. Remember what happened last time.”
“No. O.K. Mum, you’ve made your point. Now where is this letter?” Eventually I get it off her and, as I expected, it is from Sandy. ‘Superthrash. Tonite. Ten till then. Now is the time for all good pokes to come to the aid of the party. So please do. Luv, Sandy.’ Of course it’s typical, isn’t it? I’ve no sooner decided to give it all up and live happily ever after than a bloody great load of temptation lands in my lap. I haven’t seen Sandy for weeks and now she comes bouncing back into my life. I hold the letter up to my nostrils and breathe in memories. Mum looks worried.
“She looked a bit old for you, dear,” she says.
“Don’t worry about that, Mum, we’re just good friends.” I’ve never been to one of her parties though she’s talked about some of the things that have gone on at them. Just this once couldn’t do any harm could it? I mean, I’m giving up my wicked ways and turning over a new leaf, so starting tomorrow won’t make any difference. Just to going to this party will serve as an innoculation against any more depravity.
Well, in no time at all I’ve talked myself into it and decided to do something about Elizabeth the next day. I could take her of course, but somehow I don’t think it’s going to be her scene.
I’m dead right there because I can hear the noise before I even get to the street and the sound waves are coming at you like a coloured hangover.
There are cars parked down both sides of the road and there’s everything from puce landrovers to minis painted like unwound marbles. A group of spades are noshing fish and chips outside the front entrance and there is one guy already stoned out of his mind and doing an old-fashioned waltz on the front lawn – by himself, of course.
You can see where the party is, because through the window it looks like an aquarium chock full of people with a few more slid in sideways along the top to fill in the spaces. Sometimes you feel confident that an evening is going to be different and I have a lot of faith in this one.
I bound up the stairs and go in with the kind of upper class twit I normally meet when he leans out of his sports car and asks me how to get to Dulwich. He is all cuff and silk choker, with shiny black shoes with a gold chain across the instep, and it’s obvious that the dolly who is lumbered with him can’t love him half as much as he does.
“You’re looking drool-making, darling,” he lisps, and for a moment I think he’s talking to himself because he’s certainly not looking at the bird.
“Let’s just take a little looksee and if it’s not us we can slope off to my place for drinkypoos.”
“Super!” says the bird who looks the kind of blonde old English Sheep Dog who can’t say anything else, except perhaps “dishy” when describing people like the upper class berk to her friends.
Luckily Sandy appears before they can really get up