darling? You like sweating it out in your nice bourgeois blazer.”
“He wears his heart on his pocket, not his sleeve,” sighs Nat. “Imagine all those rippling pectorals wasting away under this serge.”
“Dents your heart, doesn’t it?” agrees Nan. “I mean, his whole body could be a glistening chalice of sweat aglow with the rippling ecstasy of sexual congress.”
“At the very least,” nods Nat. “Here, have another sip so you don’t have to think about it, darling,” and she jerks another half pint of vodka down my throat. Now, it occurs to me about this time, that I am just a tiny bit pissed. Nothing serious, mind. I can still feel Nan kneading the front of my worsteds, but I am not as exercised about it as I might have been half an hour before. After all, as long as I can keep the terrible twins occupied I am doing my job, aren’t I? Occupied. That’s the key word. I take Nat’s cheeks between my fluttering fingers and settle greedily on to her mouth like a humming bird alighting on some choice jungle bloom. Why don’t I just let them get on with it? It’s going to keep them out of trouble for a while, and it can’t do anyone else any harm. In fact it can do me a bloody lot of good, I think to myself as somebody’s hands – I know they are not mine – start unzipping my fly.
“Go on,” I gasp, as there is a sudden halt in the proceedings.
“Not enough room, Angel,” murmurs Nan, “we want to do you with justice. Come next door.”
“Next door?”
“The props room.”
“Oh. Ouch!”
Nat zipping my J.T. up in my fly keeps my senses occupied until I find myself collapsing on to some kind of sofa. There is no doubt about it. I am definitely pissed.
“You just punctured my foreskin,” I say reproachfully.
“Don’t worry. Mummy will kiss it better for you.”
I have an impression of one of those long smocks disappearing over its owner’s heads and a great, grabbable expanse of naked flesh. I grab.
“Uh, uh! I never screw men in uniform. Get it off.”
Blazer, tie, shirt, shoes, socks, and pants hit the floor in less time than it takes to write this. Somewhere I think I can hear shouting but maybe it is because I am excited.
“Where’s Nan?” I say.
“I am Nan. Nat is just coming.” Her great, warm body settles on mine like a lamb’s wool overblanket with the lambs still inside it and I let my hand run riot in the moist furrow between her legs.
“Leave some for Nat,” I murmur.
“Don’t worry.”
But, suddenly, I do worry. Whatever we are lying on is moving and somebody is shouting in my left earhole.
“Get off! Get off! Jump!!”
But with Miss Slat on top of you you’d be pushed to wink. Ah, there’s the other one. Naked of course and speeding to share her sister’s ecstacy. But what are those lights doing glaring out of the darkness? And the smell of cigarette smoke? And the band playing? And the shouts and screams? Why do I feel as if I am being taken for a magic carpet ride? Why is it suddenly so draughty?
No!! With horrible certainty I realise that I have been taken for a ride. The deadly duo have lined me up on the revolving stage and I am now flashing my credentials at two thousand holidaymakers. My first reaction is a natural one. Get the hell out of it! But this is easier thought than done. While I am grappling with Nan the immortal couplets of “River Deep, Mountain High” come richocheting over the public address system and Nan snatches up a microphone.
“O.K. Campers,” I hear her yodel. “This is the part of the show where you grab a slice of the action.” Thud, thud, thud go her great boobs as she bounces in time with the music. “Reach over to your neighbour and if you see anything you like – fondle it. Come on now, you know you want to. Don’t dream about it. Do it! Throw out your inhibitions and hang up your hangups.” Ike and Tina are bursting a gusset and the idea sounds pretty good, even to me. I mean, it’s better than breaking up your instrument with an axe, isn’t it? Less painful, too.
“I’m getting hot,” screams Nan. “I want it!! I want it!! I want it!! Do you want it?”
“Yes!” howls the audience.
“I didn’t hear you!”
“Ye-e-e-e-ee-e-e-s!!!”
“Well, grab it! Grab it! Grab it!” Her pelvis starts shuddering like a strip of confetti tied to an electric fan. From the darkness comes the sound of furniture breaking up. It is like New Year’s Eve at the British Legion.
“That’s it, clear the floor and let’s have some action. Oh! Oh! Oh!!!” I lose sight of her for a moment because Nat pulls me off the sofa and starts – well, I don’t really like to say what she starts doing.
“Love thy neighbours!!”
The noise is incredible and the kind of smell that escapes through a grating outside a Turkish bath wells up out of the darkness.
“Suck for peace.”
Nan chucks her microphone into the audience and joins Nat on top of me. I suppose if I am honest with myself, in my heart of hearts I had always wanted to make love to two birds on the stage of a theatre full of people with Ike and Tina Turner singing River Deep, Mountain High in the background.
With my face allowed a moment’s liberty I gaze into the audience. Only one seat in the place seems to remain upright and occupied. On it sits Sir Giles Slat. There is a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Beautiful,” murmurs Sir Giles.
“Beautiful,” echoes Sid.
“I can’t remember when I was last so moved by a spontaneous outbreak of mass emotion.”
“When England beat Germany in the World Cup?” offers Sid.
Sir Giles frowns. “I was thinking of something rather deeper than that. To me, what we saw that night had an almost mystical, religious significance. It was a celebration of being alive. I believe that many Scandinavian countries observe a similar festival on Midsummer Night. But what was of course remarkable about this happening was that it was not a ritual in the sense of an event given historical credence by dint of annual repetition.” He pauses so that Sid can nod vigorously.
“It was quintessentially the manifestation of an innate, atavastic but primarily unexploited yearning.”
Well, I wouldn’t like to argue with him, would you? Sid certainly wouldn’t.
“Yeah,” he says, “and it backs up that idea I—I mean – we – had, doesn’t it?
It is two days after the Camp Concert and I am back at Funfrall, London, sitting in Sir Giles’ office. After the concert a number of things happened fast, one of them being that I was off the premises before you can say “tear gas”. And Francis didn’t smile once as he handed me back my stamp collection. I remember him standing there in his underpants with his sock suspenders round his neck and his shirt hanging in shreds. Poor devil. God knows what he had been through – or how many. Dad’s expression wasn’t much of an improvement when he found me standing on the doorstep. “Look, mum,” he calls out. “It’s the return of the proditall son.” Knowing Dad, he must have been working on that one for weeks. I only get them to take me in on condition that I buy a season ticket to the labour exchange and the atmosphere is, as they say, fraught.
The call to present myself at Funfrall House does nothing to raise my spirits. Sidney presumably wants to tear me limb from limb in the seclusion of his own office or perhaps there has been an official complaint laid against me – and