waves his hands in the air as if trying to dry them quickly.
‘I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Wanda.’
‘But she told me to talk to you about it.’
Sidney closes his eyes. ‘Look, Timmo. We’ve got a lot on our minds at the moment. This health farm thing could be very big. It needs constant attention. You’ll get your money. I’ve never let you down yet, have I?’
‘You’ve never not let me down, Sid. The last time I asked you for some cash you owed me you said “leave it to me, Timmo”. That’s what I’ve been doing all my bleeding life, leaving you money!’
This kind of argument makes less impression on Sid than a caterpillar stamping on reinforced concrete but at least it ensures that he takes me with him and Wanda when they go down to Long Hall.
I am quite partial to the country, once you can get to it, and I have a nice game with Wanda seeing who is the first person to spot a cow – it takes us forty miles, and then it is hanging up in the window of a butchers. Sidney is a rotten sport and will not play. I think he is sulking because he did not think of the idea in the first place – though maybe he is still worrying about the size of his dongler. Acornitis is what I have taken to calling his condition. Every time we drive past an oak tree I shake my head and he goes spare.
‘Here we are,’ says Wanda when we are somewhere on the other side of Henley. ‘Turn right at the gates.’
We sail past a couple of stone lions holding shields in front of their goolies and I soak up the acres of rolling parkland sprinkled with clumps of trees. It is better than any nick or reform school I have ever been to. I never knew you could see places like this if you were not a lunatic or a con. At the end of five hundred tons of gravel is a warm redbrick house with two wings and hundreds of windows – looking at them makes me blooming glad that I’m not still in the window cleaning game. You could perish your scrim on that lot.
‘This isn’t the place, is it?’ I say. ‘Not all of it?’
‘All of it,’ breathes Wanda. ‘Europe’s most modern beauty farm.’
‘You can’t have bought it?’ I say. ‘It must be worth millions.’
‘We’ve set up a company which will run the estate as a beauty farm, restaurant and superior country club. In return for our management expertise and a share of the profits from the enterprise –’
‘And because Sir Henry Baulkit owes us a favour,’ interrupts Sid. ‘We have carte blanche to convert the house to meet the requirements of its new usage.’
I can’t recall what Carte Blanche looks like but I remember the name. She must be one of those posh interior decorators you read about in the dentist’s waiting room.
‘Where is Sir Henry going to live?’ I ask.
‘He has a house in town which he uses when Parliament is sitting. His wife and daughter will be moving into the dower house.’
‘What’s wrong –?’
‘ “Dower” spelt D-O-W-E-R, not D-I-R-E,’ says Sid. ‘Spare me the Abbott and Costello routine.’
‘No need to be so touchy,’ I say. ‘You never learn if you don’t ask.’
‘Can you see that doe?’ says Wanda.
‘You bet I can,’ says Sid. ‘We should make a million out of this little caper.’
‘I was referring to the deer,’ says Wanda coldly.
‘Tch, Sidney!’ I say. ‘You’ve got a little caper on the mind, haven’t you?’
Sidney’s reply to my botanical jibe is unnecessarily coarse and hardly suitable for repetition in a book of this kind. I am glad when we arrive at the pillared front door.
‘Blimey!’ I say. ‘Take a gander at that bird. It looks like the hat Aunty Edna wore at Uncle Albert’s funeral.’ I remember the item well because there was a lot of talk about it at the time in family circles. It was also considered that the choice of scarlet stockings was inconsistent with the impression of a woman trembling on the brink of physical collapse over the loss of a dearly loved one. No one was very surprised when she married the coal man two months later. ‘She always had dirty finger nails,’ said Gran, significantly.
‘That’s a peacock,’ says Sid, following my gaze. ‘Blimey. Haven’t you ever been to Battersea Park?’
‘Some bugger nicked them two days before I went,’ I say. It is funny, but now that Sid reminds me, I seem to recall that the keeper was reported to have seen a coloured bloke climbing out of the aviary. I suppose it could have been a coal man …
‘Don’t look for a door bell,’ says Sid scornfully. ‘Houses like this don’t have them. Fold your mitt round that piece of wire and give it a pull.’
I do as I am told and we are lucky to avoid serious injury when the lightning conductor comes hurtling down and misses us by inches.
‘It’s going to need a few bob spent on it,’ says Sid, wisely.
‘What do you think of the weathercock?’ says Wanda.
‘Not bad for the time of year,’ says Sidney. Sometimes I don’t know if he is trying to be funny. Before I have the chance to find out the front door opens. An elderly geezer wearing a stained tail coat and a haughty expression looks down his hooter at us.
‘We have all the clothes pegs we need,’ he says coldly and tries to close the door.
‘Hold on a minute, Roughage,’ says Sid. ‘It’s me. Remember? I came round with Sir Henry.’
‘I don’t even remember the two of you being unconscious,’ says the ancient retainer. I can sense that with two such ace gagsmiths as him and Sid together sparks are surely going to fly.
‘Roughage! Surely you remember me? I’m going to convert the house into a spa.’
‘You’re wasting your time. There’s a new Tesco just down the road.’
‘Stop trying to close the door on my foot! Miss Zonker and I have a perfect right to be here.’
‘Does she charm warts?’ says Roughage, showing faint signs of interest.
‘She charms anything,’ I say gallantly.
‘Shall I show him my credentials?’ says Wanda.
‘Don’t overdo it,’ says Sid. ‘You can have too much of a good thing.’
‘What about fortune telling?’ says Lizard Chops. ‘Her ladyship has been powerfully attached to the crystal ball in her time.’
‘Quality rather than quantity, eh?’ says Sid, sounding comforted. ‘I don’t know where you get the impression that we’re gypsies.’
‘And don’t park your caravans up by the pigs,’ says Roughage, who seems to be a bit hard of hearing.
‘You mean, because of the smell?’ says Sid.
‘That’s right. Two of the pigs passed out last time. We had to give them mouth to mouth resuscitation.’
‘How horrible!’ says Wanda.
‘It was. Both of them died.’ Roughage scratches his head thoughtfully. ‘Maybe there’s something in those toothpaste advertisements.’
‘Come, come, my good man,’ says Sid. ‘We can’t stand here talking all day. Miss Zonker and I have work to do.’
‘And so have I,’ says the grey-haired Roughage. ‘I’m supposed to be helping her ladyship move into the dower house. She’s very put out by the way things have gone.’
‘I’m certain Sir Henry has her interests at heart,’ says Sid.