Confessions from a Luxury Liner
BY TIMOTHY LEA
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Also available in the CONFESSIONS series
About the Author
Also by Timothy Lea & Rosie Dixon
About the Publisher
‘Was it nice, Sid?’ I ask.
Clapham’s answer to Paul Newman grits his Teds like he has plans to make them retractable. ‘Watch it!’ he hisses. ‘Just watch it. I’m not telling you again.’
Readers of Confessions of a Private Dick will recall that my brother-in-law and partner, Sidney Noggett, ran into a spot of bother at the end of our career as C Men working for Mission E – or Emission as it was widely known in concentric circles at the Ministry of Defence. I will not spoil the story for those who have not read it by revealing the amazing details, but suffice to say that Sid’s distress was occasioned by an unsolicited sexual encounter – and there are not many of those flying around as far as Mrs Noggett’s little boy is concerned, I don’t mind telling you. Sid usually holds back from nooky the way a freshly sharpened hatchet rests lightly on half a pound of warm butter.
‘I’m not asking for the unpleasant details,’ I say.
‘Don’t ask for anything,’ says Sid. ‘Otherwise your lower lip is going to look like Idi Amin’s pyjama case. Anyway, what have you got to rabbit about? You haven’t heard from your precious Retchen, have you?’
‘Gretchen,’ I grit.
‘No doubt some horny Kraut is introducing her to his Frankfurter at this very moment,’ says Sid, clearly warming to the idea. ‘Oh yes, I reckon you can say “auf wiedersehen” to that little number.’
I try to look as if the idea is too blooming stupid to comment on but in my heart of hearts I fear that he may well be right. Gretchen went back to Germany three weeks ago and I have not heard a dicky bird since. Our bitter-sweet romance was not helped when the local anaesthetic I used to assist in its consummation sent my dick to sleep half a second after penetration. I would have cried if Gretchen had not beaten me to it. It was all so sad because she went home before I had the chance to introduce her to the full lustre of my cluster.
‘She’ll write,’ I say. ‘Don’t you worry.’
‘I’m not worried,’ says Sid. ‘Not about that, anyway. Of all the bleeding things I’ve got to worry about, your bit of Hun fluff is very low on the list.’ He takes a long sip of Mum’s tea and his face wrinkles in disgust. ‘Gordon Bennett! Can’t your Mum even make a cup of tea? Look at the brown rings round the inside of this cup. They’ve eaten into the china.’
‘Mum puts something with it to make it go further,’ I tell him.
‘This isn’t going to go any further,’ says Sid pushing his cup away. ‘Blimey, I wish I’d brought my clogged-up paint brushes with me. Stick ’em in this lot for a few minutes and you could paint the Mona Lisa with them.’
Sid and I are having a cuppa round at 17 Scraggs Lane, the ancestral home of the Leas, and we are supposed to be discussing our future. No sooner has my brother-in-law emptied the contents of his cup down the sink than my mother enters clutching a couple of letters.
‘I didn’t know people still wrote letters,’ says Sid. ‘Still, when it’s a choice between spending the money on a stamp or a few hundred British Leyland shares …’
‘There’s one from Germany,’ says Mum. ‘Quite a pretty stamp. You wouldn’t think the Germans would have a stamp like that.’
‘Here it comes,’ says Sid cheerfully. ‘The old brush-off, Kraut-style. Get your handkerchief out.’
‘Oh look,’ says Mum. ‘Somebody’s poured their tea leaves into the sink. What a waste. You can dry them and use them again mixed with dandelion leaves. I heard it on the wireless.’
‘That was for pipe tobacco, not drinking!’ says Sid. ‘No wonder it tasted so diabolical. That bleeding tom is always up against the dandelions.’
My finger and thumb are testing the contents of the airmail envelope. It does not seem over-thick for a passionate love letter. Perhaps I would be better off reading it in the privacy of my own very small room.
‘Read us out the fruity bits,’ says Sid. He snatches the envelope and holds it under his hooter. ‘Phew! Eau de Sauerkraut. She must have been off with some bloke when she posted this.’
‘She was a nice enough girl,’ says Mum. ‘For a foreigner, that is.’
‘I know, Mum,’ I say. ‘Their ways are not our ways, are they?’
‘That’s exactly what I always say,’ says Mum.
‘I know it is,’ I say wearily.
‘He’s taking the piss,’ says Sid. ‘I think love has coarsened him.’
‘That’s not nice,’ says Mum.
I suppress a sigh and tear open the envelope. I do wish Sid would spend a bit more time in his trendy Vauxhall pad with my sister Rosie and his two delightful children, Jason and Dominic. He always said how much he loathed Scraggs Lane when he was forced to live here. Now he never stops hanging about the place.
‘Dear Timmy,’ I read. ‘I hope you are well. I am sorry I am not writing more soon but there is very much happening when I arrive home. I have seen many old faces. One of them is Horst. I do not remember if I tell you around him. He is maybe the reason why I leave home. He has told me that he misses me very much and I think that I miss him, too. At Christmas we become engaged so I will not be coming back to England.’
I let the letter drop to waist level and Sid does not have to go to night school to read my expression. ‘Like I said, eh?’ he says cheerfully. ‘The big elbow. You can’t say I didn’t warn you.’
‘Thanks,’ I say.
‘Is there someone else?’ says Mum. She sounds quite perky, too. Of course, she was never keen on me marrying a daughter of the Third Reich, desperate as she was for me to get spliced to someone.
‘Seems like it,’ I say.
‘Oh well,’ says Mum. ‘I expect it’s for the best. You never met her people, did you?’
‘They were Nazi war criminals,’ I say. ‘I saw her Dad on Colditz the other night.’
I try and entertain myself by imagining a wedding photograph of Mum standing next to a geezer