then I don’t know much about art. I just know what she likes.
On the Driving School side everything is going well for a change. I retake the written part of my Register Qualifying Examination and pass without breaking into a sweat. Now, all I am waiting for is a date to take the practical part at Norwich and if I pass that I will be a ‘Department of the Environment Approved Driving Instructor’ and small dogs will wag their tails at me and beautiful women swoon at my feet.
Needless to say, it is at this potentially happy time that an incident takes place which nearly puts the kibosh on everything. I am foolish enough to tell Garth about Mrs. Carstairs and he is very interested. Especially when he hears that her latest masterpiece is to be based on ‘The Rape of the Sabine Women’. I am quite happy to carry on raping by myself, but Garth’s relationship with Mrs. D. is going a bit flat and he suggests that their participation might pep things up in more than just an artistic sense. I try to forget the idea but he keeps on at me and eventually I mention it to Mrs. C. To my disgust she is quite keen and tells me to bring ‘my friends’ along at our next session. Frankly, I am not ecstatic about a foursome because I can see my John Thomas being thrown into competition with Garth’s and it is not a challenge I relish. Whatever crap you may hear to the contrary, most blokes do feel that their cocks are not big enough and most women agree with them but are too kind to say so. If Garth’s plumbing lives up to the rest of him, I might as well not bother to tug down my Y-fronts.
It is with this unwholesome thought nagging away at the back of my mind that I find myself standing on the doorstep of Cavenham Lodge one February afternoon with Garth and Mrs. D. giggling in the background. Mr. C. is in Oslo working on the problem of putting D.D.T. into the water supply, or something, so his missus feels that she is able to “take advantage of the light,” as she so delicately puts it. Frankly, I am becoming more and more disbelieving of her artistic integrity, especially since stumbling across a pile of half-finished canvases, showing some very athletic activity in which I had certainly played no part. I have a strong feeling that a few other blokes have been grappling with Mrs. C.’s problem.
“Come in, all of you,” she yodels as the door creaks open. “So good of you to come. You’ve no idea how much this means to me. Would you like a hot drink before we start? It must be bitterly cold out there.”
We work our way through a fairly standard range of pleasantries and then it comes to the crunch. Mrs. C. downs her last drop of coffee and gives us all her best beaming smile.
“Right. Into action we go. I thought it might be an idea to use the pool. At least it’s a bit warmer in there. You come with me, my dear, and we’ll leave the men to get on with it. Everything off, remember.”
She sweeps past with Mrs. D. following on behind and beginning to look a bit uneasy. No sooner is she out of the room than Garth digs me in the ribs.
“This is the life, eh, boyo?” (He is inclined to go a bit Welsh in moments of excitement.) “To tell you the truth, I thought you were having me on before we got here. I hope my bint isn’t going to let us down. She was looking a bit green behind the gills, wasn’t she? It’s a pity, because she can be as brazen as buggery when she likes, but then you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” He adds a wink to another nudge in the ribs. I smile weakly, wondering what Mrs. Dent has passed on concerning our adventures on the golf course and nearby; nothing very flattering, I’ll be bound.
“When do we change?” He is practically licking his lips—big randy sod.
“Change?”
“Well, take our clothes off, then. Don’t start mincing your words, boyo.”
I take him through to the swimming pool which has been built on to the end of one wing of the house and has a glass wall which slides back to give access to the garden in summer. Now the glass is all steamed up and even the climbing plants which straggle from pots around the walls are wilting a bit.
“Phew! It’s hot in here,” pants Garth. “You need to swim if you’re going to stick it for long.”
There is a room at the end full lof deckchairs and general poolside clobber and Garth has soon stripped down to the buff to reveal that my worst fears are justified. Like a donkey’s dongler it is, and faced with this competition I can feel my own equipment making a bolt for it between my legs. Maybe the humidity will coax it out a bit extra to save me from total humiliation.
As if he didn’t have enough natural advantages, Garth now proceeds to prove what a great swimmer he is and starts performing a one-man water ballet whilst I am doing a spot of crafty stretching behind the tropical undergrowth.
“Nice place you’ve got here,” he shouts, bouncing up and down on the springboard. “It would be worth coming without the extras.” He jets into the air, touches his toes and flashes into the pool like a steel blade. Honestly, it makes you sick to watch him.
“Bring on the dancing girls,” he bellows. “Come on. What’s happened to them?” “I think Mrs. Carstairs said something about them putting on costumes, didn’t she?” I say. Frankly, I wish I had never mentioned the whole bloody business. I recall the way Mrs. C.’s eyes rolled over Garth’s physique the first time she saw him and I shudder at what I have let myself in for. I will be lucky to end up washing out the paint brushes.
“Watch this one,” sings out Garth. He is on the diving board and facing inwards with only his toes on the board. “Tell me if I go in straight.”
I am wearily focusing my eyeballs on his heavily muscled back and thinking how much better it would look with about nine inches of carving knife sunk into it when I suddenly become aware of a figure standing in the doorway. And it is not Mesdames Carstairs or Dent. It is a tall, distinguished-looking geezer with horn-rimmed specs and a leather briefcase in his mitt. He looks as if he has just arrived from distant parts and I have a shrewd suspicion I know where he finds his toothbrush every morning.
“Here we go,” hollers Garth, all cheerful and unsuspecting, and propels himself into the air. The newcomer has not looked towards me yet, so I sink down behind a convenient pot of giant spinach and leave Garth to introduce himself. He disappears below the water with hardly a splash and rears up seconds later like a cheerful seal.
“That felt pretty good,” he begins and then sees our new friend, who puts down his briefcase and folds his arms menacingly.
Now, I have never thought of Garth as being particularly quick on the uptake, but his reactions in this situation are razor sharp, to put it mildly.
“Good afternoon,” says the stranger, pushing his specs up on his nose and making his voice sound about as welcoming as an icicle sticking out of the tap marked ‘hot’. “Might I be presumptuous enough to inquire what you think you are doing in my swimming pool?”
“I’ve been overhauling the filtration system, guv,” says Garth. “You know, your annual check-up that everything is functioning O.K. We don’t want your clunge outlets clogging up, do we?”
He pulls himself out in one easy, graceful movement and taps one of the grills in the wall. “I’d watch the temperature in here, if I were you. Too much humidity can fur up your spangers.”
He says it so naturally that he almost has me convinced.
“Very interesting,” says Mr. Carstairs in his best Nazi. “I’m glad my ‘spangers’ are in such good hands. But one thing puzzles me slightly: why it is necessary to perform the service in the nude?”
I would have refused to answer that one on the grounds that it might incriminate me, but it is underarm bowling to Garth in his present mood.
“Checking the chlorine level, guv’nor. I don’t really know how it works myself but over the years your skin works up an incredible sensitivity to the chlorine content of the water. It’s a bit like taking canaries down the mines.”
“Remarkable,” says Mr. Meany, all sarcastic-like. “And this amazing talent is denied its full expression if you are wearing a pair of bathing trunks?”
“Exactly,