Driving lessons can be a lot of fun – if you’re the instructor and you get pupils like Timmy found when he changed jobs.

Mrs. Bendon liked to make her boarders really comfortable. Dawn was more interested in the back seat than the lessons.

Mrs. Dent had her own unusual treatment for injuries. Mrs. Carstairs liked to paint – and got very closely involved with her subjects.

All things considered, Timmy found that being a driving instructor was even more enlightening than cleaning windows.

CONFESSIONS OF A DRIVING INSTRUCTOR continues the autobiographical saga of the erstwhile Timothy Lea begun in CONFESSIONS OF A WINDOW CLEANER.

Publisher’s Note

The Confessions series of novels were written in the 1970s and some of the content may not be as politically correct as we might expect of material written today. We have, however, published these ebook editions without any changes to preserve the integrity of the original books. These are word for word how they first appeared.

CONFESSIONS OF A DRIVING INSTRUCTOR
by Timothy Lea

Contents

Publisher’s Note

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

Also by Timothy Lea

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

I don’t know how you would react to finding your brother-in-law knocking off your fiancée in the potting shed, but I can tell you that I was annoyed. Not annoyed so much as bloody choked. I mean, what a liberty. My own brother-in-law! The horny bastard who was living in the room below mine at the ancestral home of the Leas in Scraggs Road. It would have broken my sister’s heart. Poor Rosie thought the sun went in every time he pulled up his trousers. But what about me? Why was I being so generous with my sympathy? The cunning of the bitch. All that ‘butter wouldn’t melt between my legs’ innocence. The reproving looks every time I used a four-letter word, her little hand sneaking over the top of her glass after the second Babycham. Well, she certainly had me fooled.

That’s what annoyed me most of all, really. I’d been fooled. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d reckoned her as being a bit on the flighty side, but I’d never had an inkling. She’d really made a mug out of me.

I must confess that when I’d stalked off into the night, leaving them clambering out of the wreckage of the shed, I though seriously about going straight home and sobbing the whole story to Rosie. But as I strode through the drizzle and my blood cooled a bit, two things stopped me. One was the praiseworthy desire to spare my sister’s feelings already alluded to, and the other, and much stronger emotion, the fear that everybody in the neighbourhood would soon know that I had been shat on by sexy Sidney, Balham’s answer to the piston engine. If I dropped Sidney in it, he wouldn’t be slow to make sure that everybody in S.W.12 knew that my fiancée preferred him in bed, in a shed, or anywhere, and I couldn’t have stood that. Some of the things I’d heard her whispering to him in the shed fair made my blood curdle; mainly because I had a horrible suspicion that she had never felt like that with me. I didn’t want to think about it, but I couldn’t help it.

Mum and Dad had gone to bed when I got home and I tiptoed up to my attic room and lay there staring at the roof (I didn’t have much alternative because it was about three inches above my head) and wondering what I should do. As is my normal habit in situations like that, I eventually decided: nothing. Apart from Rosie and my reputation, there was the job (Sid and I were partners in a window-cleaning business) and though we went pretty much our own ways, I didn’t want to rock the boat too much there.

The more I rationalised it all the more I put the blame squarely on Liz’s shoulders. I hated her, but at the same time I wanted her more than I’d ever done in the past. Not with any shred of affection, but with a desire to batter her to death with my body so that she died gasping “You are the greatest” with a look of unspeakable contentment etched across her glazed eyeballs. It had been this ability to look on the brighter side that has been my salvation in many chastening situations.

Not that I was prepared to give Sid a book token or anything. The bastard would be dead scared that I’d spill the beans to Rosie and I decided to let him sweat on it. I didn’t hear him come in before I fell asleep and the next morning when I got down to breakfast early, there was no sign of him or Rosie. Dad was sitting there studying his form book and Mum was frying bread. Dad is very working-class because, though he never does anything, he’s always very punctual about not doing it. He gets down to the Lost Property Office where he works a quarter of an hour before they open and then spends forty minutes in the cafe opposite before he strolls in and bleats like buggery about some kid who comes in five minutes late and gets down to work immediately.

“Morning,” I say cheerfully.

“Morning,” says Mum.

Dad grunts without looking up.

“Have you seen your Dad’s Dentucreme?” says Mum. I shudder because I can’t stand false teeth at the best of times.

“I think Sid tried to clean his wet-look shoes with it,” I say.

“Oh, no! You must be having me on.”

“Straight up, Ma. Sid got mad because it took all the shine off and threw it out of the window.”

“Bloody marvellous,” says Dad. “Who does he think he is?”

“You’ll be able to ask him yourself,” I say, as Sid comes in trying to look all relaxed. I am glad to see that there is a lump under one of his eyes and his upper lip is grotesquely swollen. Mum notices immediately.

“Ooh, Sid, you haven’t been in any trouble, have you?”

“No, Mum. Somebody let a swing door go at me. It was an accident.”

He stresses the last word and there is almost a hint of pleading in his eyes as he looks at me.

“Looks as if Rosie has been having a go at him, if you ask me, Mum,” I say. “What have you been up to, Sid?”

“You and Rosie haven’t had words, have you?” says Mum, all worried-like. Mum can’t stand what she calls ‘an atmosphere’ and can remember when Sid came home rotten-drunk and tried to have Rosie on the stairs. This manoeuvre, difficult enough at the best of times and downright impossible when drunk and with Rosie trying to knee you in the groin, resulted in Sid slipping down fifteen steps and nearly doing himself irreparable damage on a loose stair rod.

“No, no,” says Sid. “Rosie and me are fine. It was an accident, I tell you.”

“Of course, I don’t suppose Rosie has seen your face yet, has she?” I say pleasantly. “You came in pretty late last night, didn’t you?”

“I don’t have to clock in, do I?” says Sid, and I can tell he is beginning to lose his temper.

“Come, come, dear,” says Mum, “I don’t think Timmy meant it like that. It’ll be a bit of a shock for Rosie, won’t it?”

“Too true, Ma,” I chip in. “It’s the kind of thing Rosie could get very distressed about.”

“You hadn’t been drinking, had you, dear?” says Mum. “I know it’s none of my business, but I think you ought to look after yourself a bit more. You’ve been looking quite peaky lately. You must get enough sleep if you’re going to be up and down those ladders all day. You only need one slip and that’s your livelihood gone. And with Rosie and, now, little Jason, you’ve got more than just yourself to think about.”

“Humf,” says Dad from behind his paper.

Dad is a first-rate judge of a layabout and has few contenders himself in the over-fifty category. He has always reckoned Sid to be a creep of the first water and not been slow to say so.

“He’s never thought about anyone else in his whole life and he’s not going to start now. You’re wasting your time there, Mother. Any man with a grain of self-respect wouldn’t still be living off his in-laws on the money he’s making. I know what his little game is. He reckons if he hangs on long enough, you and I will snuff it and he’ll have the house. Well, he’ll have to wait a damn long time, I can tell you. I’ll still be sitting here when he’s queueing up for his old age pension.”

“Oh, God! Not again! I can’t stand it at this time of the morning. How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t want your rubbishy old house.”

“‘Rubbishy’. Did you hear that, Mother? The sponging layabout has the gall to call our home ‘rubbishy’. If it’s not good enough for you, why do you stay here then?”

“I’m not staying here a minute longer than it takes me to save up the deposit on a flat. You know that as well as I do. And don’t talk about sponging. You get your rent every week. A bloody sight more than you deserve for this dump. I’m amazed the kid wasn’t born with web feet.”

“Oh, that’s nice, isn’t it? Did you hear that, Mother? Now he’s sneering at us. You’d like oil-fired central heating, I suppose, and a heated lavatory seat.”

“It’s quite warm enough, the length of time you spend sitting on it,” says Sid, and Dad goes on spluttering while Mum clucks away and the fried bread gets burnt. It’s all going very nicely, though it’s getting a bit far away from Rosie.

Luckily the little lady herself makes a timely appearance and immediately drops her lips to give the loathsome Sid his first kiss of the day. In such a position his battered phizog is clearly revealed to her.

“Oh, Sid,” she squeals. “How did you do that?”

“Yes, Sid,” I say, my voice heavy with menace, “how did you do that?”

“I’ve told you once, you berk. Somebody swung a door in my face.” He sounds worried.

“On purpose?” howls Rosie. “How could anybody do a thing like that?”

“Maybe Sid rubbed them up the wrong way,” I say, helpfully. “You’d be surprised some of the things he gets up to.”

I divide my gaze between Sid and Rosie and they stare at me blankly, but for different reasons.

“You aren’t in any trouble, are you, Sid?”

Very good question. Sid swallows hard and is about to open his mouth when Mum decides it’s time to change the subject.

“I thought your Elizabeth was looking very nice the other night,” she says to me. Stupid old bag. Trust her to let Sid off the hook. But maybe I can turn it to advantage.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” I say, grudgingly.

“What do you mean, ‘you wouldn’t know’?” says Rosie, turning her attention away from Sid. “She’s a lovely girl. You should be very glad to have her.”

“Yes,” says Sid, chirping up a bit, “very glad.”

“Depends what you mean by ‘have’,” I say, giving Sid the evil eye.

“I don’t understand you.” Rosie shakes her head.

“Well, Rosie, I suppose I’d better tell you—and you, Mum. You’ve got to know sooner or later—” My voice is trembling and even Dad puts down his pencil and stares at me. Sid’s face screws up like a man threatened with a red hot poker and his mean features plead for mercy.

“I don’t really know how to say this …” Sid pulls back from the throng and his hand dives into his back pocket.

“… but last night I saw Liz and …” Sid pulls open his wallet and points feverishly at a thick wad of notes. My power is total and I can’t resist another turn of the knife.

“It was in her Dad’s potting shed …”

“Her Dad’s potting shed?” says Mum. “I hope you weren’t up to no good.”

“Oh, no, Mum. Not me …”

Sid staggers back against the sink to await the mardi gras, as the frogs call it.

“We had a talk and, well, we decided it wasn’t on.”

“Oh, no, dear. I am sorry to hear that. Are you sure it isn’t just a tiff?” says Mum.

“No, Mum. There’s a number of fundamental issues we disagree on.” (I got that from all those trade union interviews on the telly.)

“Like sex before marriage, I suppose,” sneers Dad, rubbing his fried bread into his egg yolk like he’s trying to clean the pattern off the plate.

“No, we both felt the same about that,” I say, meaningfully, giving Sid’s wallet a hard glance. Sid’s smile is what you might call conciliatory.

“Oh, I am sorry,” says Rosie. “I liked Liz; didn’t you, Sid?”

Sid gulps and nods his head.

“From what little I saw of her.”

Cheeky bastard! That’s going to cost him a few extra quid.

“What do you mean, ‘little’? You two were getting on like a house on fire that night up at the boozer.”

Blimey, I think to myself, even my dozey sister could see what was going on. What a prize berk I must be.

“The course of true love never runs smooth,” chips in Mum. “Don’t be too disappointed. I’m certain it’s not over yet.”

“Oh, I am, Mum. From my point of view, there’s no going back on what happened last night.”

“But how can you suddenly be so certain!” bleats Rosie. “I mean, you’ve been going steady with Liz for months now. You’re not going to tell me that one little row can be the end of everything.”

“It wasn’t so little,” I say with a quiet intensity that would have made Godfrey Winn sound like a fairground barker. “There are some things so fundamental in a relationship that when you stumble across them they spell make or break.”

“I don’t understand what the hell he’s talking about,” says Dad. “You mean you found she was in the family way?”

The stupid old sod doesn’t know how close he is but I dismiss him with a humoring nod of the head and address myself to Sid and his disappearing wallet.

“No, Dad, it’s nothing your generation would understand. I think Sid knows what I mean, don’t you, Sid?”

Sid blushes before my penetrating gaze and nods vigorously.

“Yes, Timmy,” he says, “I had the same problem myself once.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Rosie. “It certainly wasn’t with me. We never had a wrong word the whole time we were engaged.”

“I don’t ever remember that you were engaged,” says Dad.

“Now, Dad …” says Mum.

“If he’s going to start getting at me …” says Rosie.

“I’d better be getting going,” says Sid. “I’ve got an early job. I’ll have some breakfast at the caff.”

I catch up with him in the hall. “Oh, Sid,” I say, “I got the impression in there you might be able to stand me a few bob.”

“How much? A fiver?”

“You must be joking. That’s what you’d pay up the West End. For family it comes a bit more expensive. Twenty-five nicker.”

“Nice bleeder, aren’t you? You’d make a good ponce.”

“Thanks. It takes one to know one. Just take it as being damages for breach of promise.”

“I never promised anything.”

“O.K. Well, consider yourself an unofficial co-respondent.”

“It’s more like bloody blackmail.”

“It is bloody blackmail and you’re bloody lucky to get off with twenty-five nicker and a bunch of fives up the bracket.”

“O.K. Well, I suppose it was worth it.”

“Don’t push it.”

And so on those pleasant terms we part with Sid lighter by the weight of five crisp fivers which he counts three times in case an extra one might have got stuck to them.

It is shortly after this event that, much to my father’s surprise and mother’s sorrow, Sid makes good his promise and moves Rosie and Jason into the wonderful new world of a Span flat, overlooking the common. Dad congratulates himself that it is his non-stop rabbiting that has done the trick but I have a shrewd suspicion that it is the threat of me blurting out a few home truths to Rosie—plus the not inconsequential demands I am making upon his surplus funds. Some might feel the odd pang of guilt, but I console myself with the thought that I am feathering my beloved sister’s nest as well as my own.

With the departure of the Boggetts (that was Sid’s name, poor sod) I move my photographs of the Chelsea football team (F.A. and European Cup winners: ‘We are the champions’) down to their bedroom and prepare to lord it a bit. But things don’t work out the way I’ve hoped. Mum is distraught about losing ‘her little Jason’ and keeps going on about all his lovable little habits like pissing in the coal bucket, and Dad misses having Sid to whine at and starts taking it out on me. Between the two of them, they are beginning to make me feel quite nostalgic for the old days. What I would have done next I’ll never know because at that moment fate intervenes and the whole course of my life is changed at one stroke. Sounds fascinating, doesn’t it? Oh, well, please yourself.

I have already mentioned that I shared a window cleaning business with Sid and readers of the previous volume of my memoirs (Confessions of a Window Cleaner—Sphere 1971. Ed.) will recall that this led to the odd entanglement with what my old schoolmaster used to call members of the opposite sex. It was such an occasion that led to my eventual, and literal, downfall.

I remember the day well because it was late summer and very hot in a way that only happens in the week after everyone has come back from their August bank holiday. Dogs panted in shadowy doorways and the heat seemed to muffle the noises of the street so that I might have been working in a dream as I lazily swept my squeegee over the top floor windows. I was operating in the front garden of a row of comfortable middle-class semi-detacheds behind Nightingale Lane and was stripped to the waist, not because I wanted to give any bird the come-on, but because I wanted to improve my suntan—though the two things are not entirely unconnected. Most of the windows round here are thicker with net curtains than Dracula’s wedding veil, but Mrs. Dunbar must have had hers in the wash because I can see straight through into her kiddies’ nursery.

Mrs. D. is on her hands and knees behind a rocking horse, and I note with satisfaction the pattern of her knickers showing through her skirt as her delicious little arse bulges over her haunches. Mrs. D. is a regular client of mine but I’ve never had an inkling that there might be anything there for me. To be honest, I find her a bit upper-class and self-confident. I prefer a bird who is more dithery and unsure of herself. Nevertheless, in my sun-sated mood and with a couple of pints from the wood inside me, there are a lot worse things to look at. She has the horse’s tail in her hand and turns towards me and shrugs her shoulder. This is a gesture she could repeat to advantage because she isn’t wearing a bra and her breasts give a little jump like startled kittens. I can see the kittens’ noses, too, pressing temptingly out towards me. Cruel Mrs. D. No animal lover should be so frustrated. The no-bra look has been slow to penetrate into the Clapham and Wandsworth Common area and is another indication of upper-class sophistication and decadence which leaves me trembling with a mixture of desire and impotence—two bedfellows that seldom give each other much pleasure.

Mrs. D.’s gesture is meant to indicate that she doesn’t know what to do with the rocking horse’s tail and a number of tempting alternatives flash across my mind. I reject them and take the opportunity to close the distance between us.

“Let me give you a hand,” I say gallantly, and I’m over the sill before she can say ‘Piss off.’

“Oh, that’s kind of you,” she says breezily. “I’m afraid he’s seen better days.” She isn’t joking because most of the leather-work is hanging off and the screws that hold the horse to its frame all need tightening up. I make a few tut-tutting noises and send her off for the tools to do the job. The way her eyes flit lightly across my pectorals does not escape me. When she comes back I’m tapping in tacks and she asks me if I’ve got any children.

“Don’t think so. What makes you ask?”

“You seem to know how to mend toys.”

“My sister and her husband used to live with us. The kid smashed everything it could get its hands on. I got plenty of practice. You know what kids are like. They enjoy taking things to pieces but they don’t want to put them together again.”

She nods.

“So you’re not married?”

“No. I was thinking about it, but things didn’t work out. You must be, though. How many kids have you got.”

“Two. They’re with their father at the moment. We’re separated.”

“Oh, I am sorry.” In fact, I’m chuffed to NAAFI breaks because there is nothing more likely to put the mockers on a beautiful romance than the threat of a couple of kids bundling in on you at any moment.

“Don’t be. I’m not.” She rubs her hands together lightly and pats her hair. “You’re a fabulous colour.”

“It’s easy on this job.”

“I envy you when it’s like this.”

“Well, you haven’t got far to go yourself.”

“I have to think of the neighbours. Would you like a beer? I think there’s some in the ’fridge.”

Another sign of class. Mostly it’s a cup of tea with my customers. But whatever it is, any form of refreshment is a favourable omen. Many is the pot of cha I’ve known to go cold with only the two cups out of it.

“That’s very kind of you.”

A few moments later she’s back just as I’ve finished the rocking horse.

“Oh, that’s much better. I’d hardly recognise him. The children will be pleased. I hope this is all right. It’s lager.”

“Smashing! Cheers!”

“Cheers!”

I’m down on the floor so I lean back against my handiwork and rub the cool glass against my cheek. She is standing above me pulling at the horse’s bridle as if it is real. I can see up her skirt but not as far as I’d like to. I feel keyed up the way I do just before going out to play football. The sunlight is coming through the window in chunks so you can see thousands of particles of dust dancing in it.

“You said you were nearly married once, didn’t you?”

“Did I?”

“Yes. You implied it, anyway. What went wrong? Forgive me asking, but it’s a subject I’m particularly interested in at the moment.”

“I found the bird I fancied having it away with my brother-in-law.”

“The one that lives at home with your sister?”

“He used to. They’ve got a flat up by the common now.”

“You didn’t like that? I mean, him sleeping with your girlfriend?”

“Not very much. I mean, it doesn’t seem the best recommendation for your future wife, does it?”

“I don’t know. At least you know where you stand with her.”

“It’s who else is standing with her I’d be worried about.”

“You’re the jealous type?”

“You could put it like that.”

“Jealousy is a very self-destructive emotion.”

“Not with me, it isn’t. I’m the last person that gets destroyed.”

“Surely the concept of sexual faithfulness is a bit out of date, isn’t it? Are you seriously going to tell me you will remain faithful to your wife when you do get married? The opportunities you must have in a job like this.”

I try to look as if the thought had never occurred to me.

“I reckon it’s difficult for me.”

I know this remark is going to get her all worked up, but there is no point in putting off saying it. I’m all for complete sexual freedom for women in theory, but the moment some horny bastard gets near my bird a phial of sulphuric acid explodes in my stomach and little green bells start ringing as I look around for an axe. That’s the way I am and I can’t see myself changing.

“Oh God! Even my far from successful marriage had progressed beyond that hoary old male chestnut.” Mrs. D.’s tone is as contemptuous as I had expected it to be. “Why should you have complete freedom to take sex just whenever you want it, whilst your little woman is supposed to sit at home and keep your supper warm?”

I have now decided that the kittens look more like small, fretful tigers jostling each other to escape and get at me. I am prepared for this eventuality.

“You mean to tell me,” I say seriously, borrowing one of J.C.’s successful argumentative devices, “that if your old man came in now and saw us—um, er—” (the indecision is intentional; I don’t want to sound too sure of myself) “making love, he wouldn’t mind?”

“No, of course not. No more than if he found me enjoying a bit of quiche lorraine.” (I don’t understand what she’s on about, but I imagine it must be French for a muff job. Outspoken lady, isn’t she?) “It’s no more than an appetite and as such, it can be controlled.”

“And if it was the other way round, you wouldn’t get annoyed?”

“Good heavens, no.”

“Then what went wrong with your marriage?”

“I found out I didn’t love him any more. It had nothing to do with sex. I was seven years younger than him and I changed—he didn’t. Suddenly I found we had nothing in common.”

I can sense that I have to get things moving pretty quickly, otherwise we’re going to end up having a natter that only needs Adam Faith and the Archbishop of Woolwich to get it on Sunday evening telly. I am still lying down and I want to bring her down to my level. It’s no good with her leaning against the bedroom door. I can’t just get up and grab her, because that is not my style. There is still some lager in my glass so I put it down beside me and then promptly knock it over.

“Oh, sorry. I am a clumsy berk.”

“It doesn’t matter; there’s a cloth in the bathroom.”

She goes out and I dab ineffectually at the stain with my handkerchief until she comes back. Then she’s on her hands and knees beside me and her delicious tits bounce up and down whilst I ache to close my hands around them. Her vest hangs open, and it is like looking into a sackful of apples. “Do something!” shouts the voice inside me. The soft down of hairs on her forearm glistens gold and matches the curls gently caressing the smooth, white valleys behind her ears. “Do something!” She gives one last stain-dispersing rub and sits back on her haunches. The outline of her pants now runs across her stretched skirt like an extra seam. She takes a deep breath and there’s no doubt about it, she’s a real knock-out. “Do something!” The message gets home to me and I lean forward for what is intended to be a gentle, respectful kiss, capable of interpretation as mute admiration rather than slow rape. Trouble is that she suddenly leans forward at the vital moment and nudges me in the mouth with her temple. I taste blood immediately and she doesn’t make things any better by laughing. Nothing bright and breezy leaps to my lips and, sensing my discomfiture, she gives me a light kiss on the cheek.

“I’m sorry—” she begins, but when a Lea’s passions are roused and his pride stung, tidal waves are like a kid’s widdle. I grab her above the elbows and pull her on to my mouth. She struggles a bit and then goes limp so that I can release the pressure on her arms and send my finger up to stroke her cheeks. I suck her lips and her tongue darts against mine. She is rubbing those fantastic tits against my chest and her fingers claw underneath the belt of my jeans. I may have misread the signs but I don’t think she is going to start hollering for a cop.

I kiss her eyelids and with the delicacy of a master surgeon run my fingers along her backbone, dwelling momentarily on each firm protuberance. Her vest is cramping our style and I tug it upwards until the delicious breasts bound into my eager hands and I can soothe the fretting nipples with my kindly caress. Such a shape they have, and so firm. The vest must go and she writhes rhythmically like an athlete winding up to throw the discus, before slipping it over her shoulders. Unimpeded, I now drop my mouth and browse between her breasts, near suffocating in their rich, firm fullness. My hands scout for the hook on her skirt and tug it open, down with the zip, and I can feel the soft sheen of her pants. Her fingers are not idle and she fumbles with my belt, grumbling under her breath. I flip over on my back and slip down my trousers, pants, shoes and socks like a snake shedding its skin. She lies across my chest and her hand tip-toes down to explore between my legs. Deliciously naked and warm in the sun-filled room, I kiss her hard and send my tongue deep into her mouth so that her hand tightens around my fullness and her body squirms against mine. I have had enough of games and even vein and muscle in my body throbs to be at her.

“I want you inside me.”

She tears the words from my mouth and slowly turns on to her back like a frivolous cat, her half-parted lips hinting at the pleasure to come. For a second I savour her and then I am between her legs, pulling down her skirt and slowly removing her pants—women love having their knickers taken off—before softly gauging her readiness with my fingers. She gives a little gasp and stretches out her hand imploringly.

“Please,” she says. “Please put it in.”

Maybe it is an hour later, maybe longer. I don’t know. All I do know is that the sun is still shining, the room is still warm and I have been asleep. Mrs. D. is dozing beside me and I am looking straight into the eyes—or rather eye—of a scruffy teddy bear.

“Penny!”

The voice is loud and male and does not belong to the teddy bear—not that it is coming from much further away.

“Penny! Where the hell are you?”

Mrs. D.’s eyes open and then open a whole lot more. Her head bounces off the floor and she swallows half the air in the room.

Now, at this moment, I should have remembered that Mrs. D. and her husband were separated and that he wasn’t the jealous type anyway. I should have lain back and called out, “We’re in here, old chap. Won’t be a sec. Why don’t you fix yourself a gin and T. and we’ll be right down?” and he would have coughed apologetically and said, “Gosh, I’m most awfully sorry. Hope I didn’t disturb you, what? See you in a few mins.” Then I could have had Mrs. D. again and gone downstairs to talk about how the soil around here was lousy for lupins.

But, of course, I don’t do any of those things. Maybe it’s the look in Mrs. D.’s eyes or maybe it’s the size of the voice outside, or maybe it’s just instinct; but anyway, I’m half way across the room as the door knob starts turning. I pause pathetically, considering snatching up a few clothes, and then launch myself on to the ladder. As I swivel round, my eye captures the scene like a camera. Door flung open, bloody great rugby type filling the space it occupies, Mrs. D. cowering with her pants in one hand and the other draped across her tits. Mr. D. (I have no reason to suppose it is anyone else) sinks the scene in one gulp and bounces Mrs. D. across the room with a belt round the side of the bonce which would have stopped Joe Frazier.

I feel like telling him that I agree with him entirely and that he has all my sympathy, but I don’t think he wants to talk to me. His eyes flash towards the window and as my head drops out of sight I see him reaching for something. This turns out to be a hobby horse, as I find when he swings it at my head like a mace. The expression on his face would scar your dreams for years.

“I’ll kill you, you bastard,” he screams, and he doesn’t have to go on about it—I’m convinced. I’ve hardly had time to rejoice that I’m out of range than he changes his tactics. I’ve got the extension on and there’s a long drop to the ground. Mr. D. decides to speed up my journey and, jamming the hobby horse against the ladder, starts to push it away from the house. Like a prick, I hang on for grim death and scream at him instead of sliding. What a way to go! Stark bollock naked in the middle of Thurston Road! I see Dunbar’s face contorted in a self-satisfied effort and for a moment the ladder trembles. Then I’m going backwards, paralysed with fear, and the house is growing in front of me.

I try to jump and the next thing I know is this god-awful pain in my ankle and the feeling that all the breath has been dug out of my body with a spade.

I’m sprawled across the centre of the road, screaming with pain and fear, Mrs. D. is howling, the neighbours’ windows are slamming open, cars are squealing to a halt, and suddenly a quiet residential street seems like Trafalgar Square on Guy Fawkes night. I’m glad to see everyone, because any second I’m expecting Mr. D. to come bursting through his front door to finish the job. It’s amazing how the great British public react at a moment like this. They are interested all right, but not one of the bastards makes a move to help me. I might be a tailor’s dummy for all they care.

To my surprise, Mrs. D. is first to my side, and she’s alone, thank God. She drapes a blanket over me and that encourages a few helpmates to get me on to the pavement.

“What a load of crap about your husband,” I snarl. “If that was your husband.”

“Yes, yes,” she says, beaming round at the neighbours, who, observing her black eye, are no doubt putting two and two together and scoring well. “I’m sorry about that. He’s phoning for an ambulance now.”

“Sure it isn’t the morgue?”

“No, no.” She pats my arm and smiles again. “I’m sorry. I really am.” I close my eyes because I’m feeling sick, dizzy and knackered. Bugger the lot of them. When I open them again, it’s as I’m being lifted into the ambulance. Mrs. D. follows me in and gives my hand an affectionate squeeze.

“It was wonderful,” she says.

I won’t tell you what my reply was, but the ambulance man nearly dropped me on the floor.

CHAPTER TWO

It turns out that my ankle is broken in more places than a Foreign Secretary’s promises and they keep me in hospital for three days. I have a private room, which surprises me at first until I find out that it is courtesy of a certain Dr. Dunbar—small world, isn’t it? I make a few inquiries and it seems that this party has taken his wife and kids on a camping holiday to the South of France, so he isn’t around to be thanked. You could knock me down with a feather—or half a brick, if you had one handy. So Cupid Lea strikes again! What a carve-up! Why wasn’t I in the marriage guidance business? I might not be able to do myself any good, but I was obviously the kiss of death to the permissive society.

One of the advantages of a private room, apart from the fact that the other buggers couldn’t nosh your fruit, was that it gave you an uninterrupted crack at the nurses, and some were little darlings. I’ve always been kinky about black stockings and Florence Nightingale, and with one pert red-head the very presence of her thermometer under my tongue was enough to raise the bedclothes a couple of inches. There is nothing more randy-making than lying in bed with sod-all else to do but fiddle about under the bedclothes and by the end of my time, the nurses had to come into the room in pairs and my arm had grown half a foot grabbing at them. It didn’t do me any good, although I did corner the red head in the linen cupboard on my last morning and pin her against a pile of pillow cases with my crutch (the one you prop under your arm). I had just got one hand into that delicious no-man’s-land between stocking top and knickers (I hate tights) when Sister came in looking like a scraped beetroot and I had to say goodbye quickly. All very sad but life is full of little might-have-beens.

Eight weeks later it was time to take the plaster off and I was bloody grateful because every berk in the neighbourhood had used it as a scribbling pad to demonstrate his pathetic sense of humour. Word of my escapade had got around and there were a lot of cracks about ‘Batman’ and ‘Peter Pan’ which I found pretty childish.

I hate going to the Doctor because the waiting room smells of sick people and most of the magazines are older than I am. It is cold and badly lit and the stuffed owl in a glass case looks as if you’d only have to give it a nudge for all its feathers to fall out. Everybody seems healthy enough but I have a nasty feeling that underneath the clothes their bodies are erupting in a series of disgusting sores covering limbs held together by sellotape. Behind the serving hatch a parched slag of about 182 dispenses pills and indifference. In such an atmosphere I wonder why the N.H.S. doesn’t dispense a do-it-yourself knotting kit and have done with it.

When I get in to his surgery, Doctor Murdoch attacks my plaster as if gutting a fish that has done him a personal injury. From the look of him one would guess that he had just returned from a meths drinkers’ stag party. The sight of my ankle causes his prim lips to contract into walnuts and I can sympathise with him. The object we are both staring at looks like a swollen inner tube painted the colour of a gangrenous sunset.

“What do you do?” he barks.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean if you’re a ballroom dancer, you’d better get down to the labour exchange.”

“It’s going to be alright, isn’t it?” I whine. I mean, what with heart transplants and artificial kidneys you expect them to be able to mend a bloody broken ankle, don’t you?

“You’ll be able to walk on it, but I won’t make any promises about the next Olympic Games,” says Murdoch who must be a laugh riot at his medical school reunions.

“I’m a window cleaner,” I pipe.

“You were,” says Murdoch. “That ankle has been very badly broken. You can’t risk any antics on it. I’m amazed we’ve got it together as well as we have.” I’m speechless for a moment. All those windows, all those birds. I could weep just thinking about it. What are they going to do without me? What am I going to do without them?

Added to that, there is the money.

“Are you positive?” I gulp.

“Absolutely. Of course, you don’t have to take my advice but you’d be a damn fool to get on a ladder again.”

So there I am, redundant at 22. Lots of blokes would envy me but there is a crazy streak of ambition in the Leas and I’m too patriotic to go on National Assistance—at least for a few years yet. What am I going to do?

Broken-hearted, I manage to get pissed and return to the family home. As I have already indicated relations with Dad have been strained since Sid’s departure and my accident has not drawn forth the sympathy one could expect from a father figure. I suspect that this may be due to some of the rumours that have been circulating. “Look Mother,” he sings out as I come through the door. “It’s the Birdman of Alcatraz!”

This is really witty for Dad and besides confirming my suspicions is an unkind allusion to a few months I once spent at reform school.

“Shutup, you miserable old git!” I say.

“Don’t raise your voice to me, sonny,” says Dad, “otherwise I’ll start asking you when you first began to clean windows in the all-together. Got a nudist camp on the rounds, I suppose?”

Dad and Doctor Murdoch would make a wonderful comedy team, and I’m wondering what Hughie Green’s telephone number is when Mum chips in.

“Do leave him alone, Dad, he’s told you enough times what happened.”

“Oh, yes, Mother. I know all that. He was stretched out on the roof, wasn’t he, having a little sunbathe. Then this bloke opens a window, dislodges the ladder. Timmy grabs at it, slips, loses his balance and does a swallow dive into the street. Sounds very likely, doesn’t it?”

“I really can’t be bothered—” I begin.

“I suppose that bird got a black eye when you landed on top of her?”

“I wonder what your excuse is going to be, Dad?”

“Don’t adopt that tone with me, Sonny Jim. I could still teach you a few lessons if it came to the pinch.”

“Well, prove it, or shut up.”

I mean it, too. Every few weeks or it is probably days now, Dad and I are squaring up to each other and sooner or later I am going to dot the stupid old bugger one. Nothing happens this time because mum throws a tantrum and sister Rosie arrives with little Jason.

“I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it,” Mum is wailing when little dribble jaws shoves his jam-stained mug round the door and her mood changes faster than a bloke finding that the large lump in the middle of his new cement path is his mother-in-law.

“Hello darling,” she coos. “Who’s come to see his Grand-mummy, then? Ooh, and what a nasty runny nose we’ve got. Doesn’t naughty mummy give you your lovely cod liver oil, then?”

Honestly, Rosie must feel like belting her sometimes. She still exists in a world of cod liver oil, cascara and milk of magnesia. Open your bowels and live might be her motto.

Mum and Rosie go rabbiting on and little Jason rubs his filthy fingers all over the moquette. Just like old times. I haven’t had a chance to tell anyone about my problem, and nobody would be interested, anyway.

“How are the lessons going, dear?” says Mum.

“Oh, smashing Mum. I’ve got this lovely fellah. Very refined, lovely even white teeth. I think they’re his own. You know what I mean?”

Mum shakes her head vigorously. “Yes dear, some of them are very nice. I’ve thought about learning myself, but your father will never get one.”

What are they on about? I’ve never known Rosie to acknowledge the existence of any other bloke than Sid.

“He’s ever so gentlemanly and he never shouts at me. Everything is very smooth and relaxed.”

“That’s the secret, dear,” agrees Mum. “If you were doing it with Sid he would probably start getting at you. I’m told you never want to take lessons with your husband. Can you imagine what your father would be like?”

They nod enthusiastically.

“Bloody marvellous, isn’t it?” says Dad, letting me in on the secret. “For thirty years I struggle and sweat to support a family and never even sniff a motor car. Now every bleeder has one and your mother starts saying she wants to take driving lessons.”

“Yes Dad.”

I’m not really listening because suddenly I’ve got this feeling that fate—or whatever you like to call it—is trying to tell me something. Become a driving instructor! Why hadn’t I thought of that before? It would be ideal. I can’t hop about on my leg too much and as an instructor I’d be sitting on my arse most of the time, telling some bird to turn left at the next traffic lights. It would be a doddle. And what opportunities to exploit my natural talents! If Mum and Rosie could be aroused, just imagine the effect on a normal red-blooded woman! I’d seen all those ads and tele commercials—that’s where they had got the idea from. Tight-lipped, hawk-eyed young men ruthlessly thrusting home gear leavers with wristy nonchalance whilst, open-mouthed x-certificate “yes please” girls lapped up every orgasmic gesture. It was a wonder a bird could look at a gear stick without blushing. And the whole operation had so much more class than window cleaning. I’d seen them with their leather-patched hacking jackets, nonchalantly drumming their fingers against the side of the window. “Very good, Mrs. Smithers. You really are beginning to make progress. Now let’s pull off on the left here, and I’ll ask you a few questions about the Highway Code—”

“Oh Mr. Lea—”

“Careful, Mrs. Smithers, you’re drooling all over my chukka boots.”

I can see it as clearly as Ted Heath’s teeth. An endless procession of upside-down footprints on the dashboard.

Are you the guy that’s been a pushin’

Leaving greasemarks on the cushion

And footprints on the dashboard upside down

Since you’ve been at our Nelly,

She’s got pains down in her belly,

I guess you’d best be moving out of town.

That’s the way Potter the Poet tells it and that’s the way I can see it.

The rest of the day is background music and the next morning I am round at Battersea Public Library which is the source of all knowledge to the lower orders. I had been simple enough to imagine that you just slapped a sign saying “LEArn with LEA” on your car and you were away. But, oh dear me, no. Not by a long chalk. The lady with a frizzy bun and indelible pencil all round her unpretty lips soon throws a bucket of cold water over that one.

“You’ll have to write to the Department of the Environment,” she says coldly. Me writing to the Department of the Environment! I mean, it sounds so grand I hardly feel I have a right to. Maybe I should chuck it all in and get a job on the buses. But I do as she says and soon receive an AD154 (an official paid buff envelope which Dad snitches to send off his pools), an AD12, an AD13, and AD1 3L, two AD14’s and an AD1 14 (revised). My cup overfloweth. After poring over this lot till my eyes ache I work out that I have to get on the Register of Approved Driving Instructors and that to do this I have to pass a written and a practical examination. I will then be a—wait for it—“Department of the Environment Approved Driving Instructor” and you can’t get much higher than that, can you? D.E.A.D.I.—oh well, I suppose they know what they are doing.

Filling in the application form is a bit of a drag because there is a section about convictions for non-motoring offences and a request for the names of two people prepared to give references. I decide to come clean on the lead-stripping because, on the application form, they give you four lines for details of your offences and tell you to continue on a separate sheet if necessary, so they must be used to getting some right rogues. My criminal record will fit into half a line.

The references are more of a problem because you can’t use family (not that anyone, apart from Mum, would have a good word for me) and I am not on close terms with anyone else in S.W.12. In the end I make up a couple of names and give my sister’s address for one, and a block of flats where I know the caretaker for the other. Both of them get instructions to hang on to any mail addressed to the Rev. Trubshawe or Lieut.-Colonel Phillips R.A. and sure enough, both of them get a letter asking for a character reference.

I am dead cunning with my replies, even getting the Rev. Trubshawe to allude to my schoolboy indiscretion: “no doubt accounted for by his having strayed into the company of the wrong sort of boy”, whilst the colonel says I am a “damn fine type”. My little ruse seems to work because two weeks later I get a receipt for my £5 examination admission fee and am told where to report.

The first examination is the written one and I mug up all the guff they give me so I see road signs every time I close my eyes. I have never worked so hard in my life and I feel really confident that I’m going to do well. But—and that is one of the key words in my life—once again fate puts the mockers on me. This time it is in the crutch-swelling shape of the eldest Ngobla girl Matilda. The Ngoblas are our next door neighbours and, as their name suggests, are blacker than the inside of a lump of coal. Mum and Dad are very cool about it and would never admit to anything as unsavoury as racial prejudice but the Ngoblas are not on our Christmas card list and when Mum smiles at Mrs. Ngobla it’s like Sonny Liston trying to tell his opponent something as they touch gloves. For myself, I am not very fussed either way but I don’t have much to do with the Ngoblas, basically, I suppose, because I never have done.

My encounter with Matilda takes place when I am revising on the eve of my examination. Mum has gone to the bingo and Dad is at the boozer so I have the kitchen to myself and am reading “Driving” for the four hundred and thirty second time when I look out of the window and see Matilda prancing about on the lawn (which is what Dad calls the patch of dandelions by the dustbins). She has just achieved that instant transformation from schoolgirl to woman and with her pink woolly sweater and velvet hot-pants she looks decidedly fanciable. I can hardly believe that when I last saw her she was wearing a grubby gymslip and dragging a satchel behind her. It turns out that one of her kid brothers—there are about 400 of them—has lost his ball over the wall and I help her look for it whilst flashing some of the small talk that has made me the toast of Wimbledon Palais. I am glad to find, when she bends over an old chicken coop, that there isn’t a drop of prejudice in me. In fact, quite the reverse. I could board her, no trouble at all. She looks as if she has been poured into a black rubber mould and the sight is enough to give Mr. Dunlop a few ideas for new products, I can tell you.

I persuade her to pop inside for a quick drink (tea or coffee) and—well, you know what it is like—one thing leads to another and I’ve got her hot pants off before you can say Enoch Powell. A few moments later, we are wearing out the pile on the fireside rug when Dad comes in. He must have crept across the hall on tiptoe, the nosey old sod. He goes spare and starts rambling on about “your mother’s home” and “blackamoors”, “thin end of the wedge” etc., until I nearly go out of my mind. No sooner has he belted up than Mum comes in to hear the whole story and start blaming herself for leaving me alone for a couple of hours just as if I was still a schoolkid. Matilda stalks out with her head in the air right at the beginning and, I must say, I have to hand it to her.

“Ooh, the hussy,” squeals Mum, “can’t you see, it’s a conspiracy. They’ve been trying to lure you for years. Give themselves a bit of respectability. You mark my words, that black trollop will be saying you made her pregnant.”

“She’ll be dead lucky,” I say. “Dad put the kibosh on that.”

“Shut your mouth, you dirty little bleeder,” howls Dad.

It’s all pretty turgid, and when I tell Dad he is jealous and I have watched him giving Mrs. Ngobla the eye for years, he goes stark raving bonkers.

“Get out of this house!” he rages. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

So I do. Straight out of the front door, slamming it behind so the whole terrace sways. And that is the start of one of the worst nights of my life. I am not going back, oh no, not me! But where am I going? Rosie seems a good bet, even if I do have to throw myself on Sid’s mercy, but I find that they have gone to Hastings for the week.

When I think about it, I’ve got the same problem I had when I was looking for a reference. No friends. I end up sleeping, if that is the right word, in one of the tennis court huts on Clapham Common, and I have to hang around there for an hour until the last pair of lovers vacate it. It is bloody cold and I think I still have the pattern of the benches stamped on my shoulder blades. When I eventually drop off it is only onto the floor and then it starts raining so I give up the whole idea of sleep and huddle in the darkness until it begins to get light.

The result of this is that by the time I get to the examination, I am totally knackered and can hardly keep my eyes open. I am not looking my best, either because pride has prevented me from returning to the family home and velvet jeans and a Mr. Freedom T-shirt are a trifle conscipuous amongst the selection of sports jackets set off by the occasional Burton masterpiece.

We have one hour and twenty minutes for the first two papers and by a superhuman effort I manage to keep my eyes open most of the time, though it is fatal if I prop my head on a hand. My habit of jumping out of my seat and taking violent swings at the empty air causes a little surprise though, as does the occasional slap round the chops I administer to myself.

We have a break before the second examination and I nip across the road for some tea and a couple of ham rolls. Trouble is I’ve no sooner sat down than I fall asleep and all the other buggers have been working for fifteen minutes when I come stumbling through the door. I try and settle down but it’s hopeless. Every question I read about five times and I can’t take in the words. I start writing and my mind drifts off into cotton wool and I forget what I was about. Then I make the mistake of thinking that if I could just take a little cat nap I would awake refreshed and be able to dash off the papers in half an hour. The next thing I remember is the examiner tugging my papers from under my head and the trail of saliva running down the desk and on to the floor. My paper has my number on it, the question number and “The interpretation of the reason for failure”. That is all. I could weep.

But of course, I don’t. I drag myself home and go straight to bed, ignoring Mum who is glad to see me, but damned if she is going to show it too much. It’s a funny thing but though I am still flaked out I can’t sleep. I just lie there thinking how I have blown the exam and how bloody unfair it is. After a while, I get up and go through all my AD12 and AD13s to see if and when I can take it again. Three months it says.

Three months! That is a bloody long time; especially now that I have vowed to get out of Scraggs Road just as fast as my tiny legs will carry me.

I pore over my papers and discover a faint ray of hope. I can get a “Licence to give Instruction” which would allow me to do just that whilst I am waiting to take the written exam again. Trouble is, that for at least one-fifth of the time I’m on the road I have to be supervised by an A.D.I. so that means finding a driving school that will accept me as a trainee. LEArn with LEA will have to wait for a bit.

Slightly cheered I pad round the local schools but not a sausage. They are all one man bands, fully staffed or “we only take fully qualified people” said with withering contempt.

So there I am again, on the scrap heap at 22. Stuck between the Devil and the Deep Black Ngoblas for another three months. Dad is, of course, not at all surprised by my failure to pass the exam and the verbal war between us festers unpleasantly with Mum flapping miserably on the side lines. The situation is intolerable, as my old schoolmaster used to say, and I keep out of the house as much as I can. “You use this place like a hotel,” moans Dad, who would start belly-aching about me always being under his feet if I watched five minutes of Coronation Street! It is at this time of frustration and bitterness that help arrives from an unexpected quarter.

I am having a solitary drink in the public bar of the Highwayman when I see Sid in the saloon. At first we pretend not to see each other but then, when I am sitting down thinking how stupid it is and on the point of going over and buying him a beer, he comes in and buys me one. I tell him my problems and he nods sympathetically.

“You want a driving school, eh?” he says. “Funny that, but I just might be able to help you. Bloke I knew in the army runs a driving school. Did I ever tell you about B.S.M. Cronk?”

“Cronk?! That’s a funny name!”

“Yeah. Battery Sergeant Major Cronk. He was the herbert who got me chucked out, bless him.”

Sid had done his national service, which shows you how old he is, and been dishonourably discharged after getting involved in some petrol fiddle. I could never understand the details and Sid swore that he was innocent—not that that meant anything. When he was caught red-handed in a fur warehouse he said he had heard a cat mewing, climbed in to let it out, and picked up the wrong fur in the darkness.

“I had a letter from him afterwards saying that it had all come out and that they now knew I was innocent. I said ‘forget it’ in case they took me back in again. I remember at the time thinking that it was good of the old bugger to write to me.”

“What’s all this got to do with me?” I say, because Sid can go on a bit once he starts his army reminiscences.

“Well,” says Sid, “he owes me a favour; said as much in his letter. I reckon if I dropped him a line and reminded him, he might see you alright.”

“Where is this school?” I ask.

“I dunno. Place called Cromingham, I think. Somewhere in Norfolk.”

“Norfolk! Bloody heck. It’s not exactly round the corner, is it?”

“No, but I believe it’s very nice up there. Very good air, your Mum always used to say. She went up there for her honeymoon, didn’t she?”

“I don’t know where she went. Look, I don’t know if I want to go all that way. It’s flat as a pancake, isn’t it, and there’s nothing there but a load of swede-bashers. What am I going to do in the evenings?”

“What do you mean? It’s a seaside resort, isn’t it? The place will be crawling with birds. It’ll be like a permanent holiday.”

“But it’s November, Sid.”

“Well, all the local birds will be dying for a bit of spare, won’t they? I went to Rhyl in October once and all the local tarts who wouldn’t have looked at you in the holiday season were roaming the streets in packs.”

“I’d have thought they’d have been better off out of season because their blokes weren’t knocking off all the new birds.”

“It works both ways. By Christ, but you’re hard to please. You don’t just look a gift horse in the mouth, you kick its bleeding teeth down its throat.”

“You’ve got a vested interest in seeing me out of the way, Sid. You can’t blame me for being cautious.”

And so we go on until I agree that he should write to Cronk and lend me two quid, the latter negotiation being a bit more difficult to effect than the former. A week later a very official looking letter arrives with “The East Coast Driving School” tattooed all over it. It is from Walter Cronk, Managing Director and Chief Instructor, and informs me curtly that the writer has reason to believe that I wish to become a licensed instructor at the above-named establishment and would be grateful for my verification of this fact and a statement of my availability. I write back saying that my availability is immediate and receive what Mr. Cronk calls a movement order, stating that upon acceptance of my application for a licence to give instruction in the driving of a motor car, provision will be made for me to board with a Mrs. Bendon at 17 Ocean Approach, and will I inform her and the E.C.D.S. of my intended date and time of arrival. Mr. Cronk, or someone, has also thoughtfully enclosed a postcard of the Esplanade at Cromingham which looks not unlike the Esplanade of 132 other resorts, though achieving a certain distinction by the quality of the colour register which is such as to give the effect of a 3D film seen without glasses.

I make my arrangements quietly and secretly and can then achieve total surprise and discomfiture when I announce that I am pushing off. Mum can’t believe it and even Dad looks a trifle cast down. The night before I go he takes me out for a drink, which is totally unheard of, and hardly says anything the whole evening, which is likewise.

“Good luck, boy,” he says, squeezing my arm as we say goodnight. “I’ll miss you.” I think the miserable old sod really meant it.

The next morning I take my sandwiches which Mum has wrapped in grease-proof paper, refuse her tomatoes because I know they will get squashed, and stride off to Clapham South tube station.

It’s funny, but now that I’ve fixed everything, I don’t want to go.

CHAPTER THREE

I change trains at Norwich and up till then the landscape has been flatter than a witch’s tit. After that it is flatter. Ploughed fields stretch away to the horizon and there are occasional lines of straggling trees pinning down the hedgerows. Farm buildings glint from behind the trees but they seem outnumbered by church towers. There must be one for every man, woman and child in Norfolk. Above all looms the sky, totally dominating the earth, the clouds sweeping in like waves on a vast and deserted beach.

The effect on me is depressing. Without a few houses around I feel as exposed as a spare prick at a whore’s wedding and there is something about the increasingly bare landscape and slow unhurried progress of the train that makes me feel I am coming to the edge of the world. Now the fields give way to marshes, pock-marked by brackish pools, and the trees disappear. Soon, I think to myself, the marsh will disappear and we will continue over, into and under the sea without anyone making a move to save himself. We are on the train of the doomed! (It just shows what watching all those late-night horror movies can do to your imagination.) I had hoped that the trip would be enlivened by the presence of a nymphomaniac lady of quality going up to visit her titled husband who had been paralysed from the waist down in a car accident. Unfortunately, once again we seem to have got on different trains and I am forced to blunt my imagination on hordes of yacking schoolgirls who invade the train as it approaches Cromingham. If not desirable, they are at least reassuringly not of the spirit world.

“So I says to ’im, git you your ‘ands off my knicks,” says one of them enthusiastically to a friend in an accent I can hardly understand. With them chattering like starlings and increasing evidence that man has contributed to the landscape, I begin to cheer up and look out hopefully towards the sea. I have been a few times with Mum—day trips to Brighton, Eastbourne and Hastings when I was a kid—and I remember the kick I used to get when I suddenly realised that the great blue line running along the horizon was the sea. Unfortunately, today it is a great grey line and what I see through a sudden dip in the landscape is barely distinguishable from the sky. I know Cromingham is next because British Railways have thoughtfully provided a map to which someone has added a piece of chewing gum and the word ‘dump’ next to my destination; no doubt one of my fellow-travellers who is now confiding to a local friend that one Clint Seago, fortunate owner of a Honda motor bike, “be a bit of all right”.

The marsh gives way to dry land again, thus ending my last fears, and buildings begin to appear beside the track as the brakes slam on. I notice that the trees cower away from the sea and their topmost branches are twisted in on themselves like the arms of a beaten boxer trying to protect himself from a hail of blows. When I flick the sandwich crumbs off my lap and struggle out onto the platform I can see why. The wind has an edge on it like a razor and must have been gathering speed ever since it left Norway. I can understand why all the locals scuttle off at an angle of 45º to the vertical. Also why their skins are tanned a kind of golden brown not far short of mahogany. You don’t have to breathe here. Just open your mouth and let the wind rush through every hole in your body.

When I get to the station entrance it is in time to see what I imagine is the only taxi in East Anglia disappearing inland and the last schoolgirl paddling away down the hill towards the town. An inquiry about buses is met with the same puzzled amazement that might have greeted a request for a camel.

I eventually manage to ring for another taxi and settle down to wait, looking over the rows of flint-studded cottages to where clumps of caravans sprout along the cliffs like toadstools. Very few of them seem to be occupied and I’m not surprised. You could freeze to death up there if this weather is anything to go by.

All in all, speaking my mind, and not mincing my words, the place has about as much appeal as an old age pensioners’ nudist camp and I’m seriously considering catching the next train home when my taxi arrives. The driver takes one look at my Hardy Amies original and has me summed up immediately.

“You want the camp?” he says.

“Holiday or army?”

“You can have either.”

“I don’t want either, thanks.”

“Python’s, then?”

“Pythons?” I query, my mind boggling.

“Python’s Pesticides. Look, what do you want?”

He seems irritated, as if there are only three reasons for coming to Cromingham in November and he has mentioned all of them.

“15 Ocean Approach, please.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Bendon, isn’t it? You a relation of hers?”

“No. I’m going to lodge with her.”

“Oh, I didn’t think you looked like family. From London, are you?”

“Yes.”

“We don’t get many folk down from London at this time of year.”

“Maybe they don’t like getting the third degree from complete strangers.”

If this ruffles him he doesn’t show it.

“What are you here for?” he says, letting out the hand-brake slowly.

“I’m joining the driving school.”

“You’ve come all this way to learn to drive?”

“Yes. Princess Margaret told me it was the best in the world.”

His expression doesn’t change and he nods his head.

“Which one?”

“The Queen’s sister, of course; which one do you think?”

“I mean which driving school?”

This is a surprise because I hadn’t thought of there being more than one.

“The East Coast Driving School.”

“Oh yes.” He nods his head again and suddenly lapses into silence.

“How many driving schools are there here?” I ask eventually, unable to restrain my curiosity.

“Just the two. The East Coast and the Major.”

“Which one do you reckon is the best?”

“I dunno,” he says, his expression not changing by the flicker of a muscle. “You’d better ask Princess Margaret.”

We are driving along the front now and below me the sea stretches away like cold porridge, only less enticing. The beach has a generous helping of shingle and is divided into sections by an orderly procession of breakwaters disappearing into infinity as if the effect has been achieved with mirrors. I can see one lunatic sitting against a concrete ramp with a thermos flask in his hands, otherwise the beach is as empty as the collection plate at a Jewish wedding. Quite where all the birds that Sid was talking about are I don’t know, but maybe word hasn’t got around that I’m in town yet. We pass a few shelters built in the style of Japanese prefabs and turn off beyond a row of seedy hotels with names that promise rather more than they look likely to deliver. 15 Ocean Approach is one of a row of what must once have been fishermen’s cottages and has a fading ‘Bed and Breakfast’ sign in the parlour window.

‘You’ll be all right there,” says the driver with meaning as he watches me struggle out with my case. “She’ll look after you.”

I pay him and advance towards the front door, which opens as I reach out for the knocker. When I see what I presume to be Mrs. Bendon, I can understand what the driver was getting at. She must be knocking forty and she has a nice pair of knockers to do it with. Her hair has been freshly permed, possibly for my benefit, and she pats it genteelly as she extends a hand.

“Mr. Lea? I thought so. Do come in. Can you manage? Good. Don’t bother about that. I’ll pick it up later. It is cramped in here, isn’t it? Put your case down there. I’ve got the kettle on. Would you like a cup of tea—or coffee, perhaps? Are you sure? It doesn’t make any difference to me. Really it doesn’t. Give me time and I’ll find out all your little likes and dislikes. Did you have a good journey? It’s a drag from London, isn’t it? That change at Norwich and all those stops afterwards. Of course, Norwich is quite a pleasant city. I go and shop there sometimes. Not like London, though. I was born and bred in London, you know. Within the sound of Bow Bells, though I bet you can’t tell it from my accent. Still, I mustn’t ramble on like this. You must be dying for that cup of tea—or was it coffee? It really doesn’t matter, you know. It’s no trouble. You just say what you’d like. I’ll soon get to know all your little likes and dislikes.”

I can’t get a word in, so I take a cup of tea and sit in the front room, listening to her rabbiting on while I look at the horse brasses and the frilly lampshades and the lace headrests and the painting of three horses running into the rising sun, and her legs. Mostly it’s her legs, which are not at all bad for a woman of her age and have a delicious little swelling rising from her thigh which suggest that she is wearing suspenders. Suspenders! The very thought of it sends new life surging through my jockey briefs. Her complexion is good and though she is a trifle on the plump side it suits her. Her teeth are a bit crooked but this must mean that they are her own and I rate that. I’ve never fancied birds who start dismantling themselves at bedtime. The one big disadvantage I can see at the moment is her non-stop rabbiting, which could well get on my nerves over the next few months, or weeks, or days, or hours.

“… so I married him,” she goes on. “There I was with the world at my feet. A pretty girl—though I say it myself—with a good many beaux to my string, and I marry a penniless fisherman after I’ve known him a week. Foolish, romantic chit of a girl that I was.”

I nod understandingly.

“Not that I had anything to complain about—Ted was a wonderfully kind man. He didn’t say much but you always knew he meant well. Never denied me anything that we could afford. But he wasn’t a thinker. We never talked about things. Do you know what I mean?”

I know all right. The poor bastard couldn’t have got a word in edgeways even if he knew any.

“I’d fallen in love with a dream, you see. When he came in on the boat all bronzed and handsome he used to look like some Viking god. He’d leap over the side and thrust the boat up the beach,” Mrs. Bendon bristles at the thought of it, “and his waders would be slapping together, and the fish dancing and the crabs scuttling.” She licks her lips quickly. “I was so proud of him, I wanted to turn to people and say ‘He’s mine.’” Mrs. Bendon’s voice sinks down below the ecstatic level. “But when we were at home he’d just sit staring at the television or go to bed. I never saw him even look at a newspaper. He was a different man. Of course he wasn’t really. He was the same man but it was just the way I looked at him. Do you know what I mean?”

I nod gamely. Of course I do. She wanted a mixture of Oliver Reed and David Dimbleby. Don’t they all?

“Still, that’s enough of me, going on like this. You’ve only been here half an hour and I’m telling you my life story. Must be very boring for you. You’re probably dying to see your room and get unpacked. Would you like a bath after your journey? The trains these days are so dirty, aren’t they? I don’t think anybody ever cleans them. You’d think those diesel things would be cleaner than the old steam ones, but they aren’t.”

My bedroom is at the back of the house and looking obliquely left over a series of tiny back gardens. I can see a chunk of sea between the gap thoughtfully bequeathed by two boarding houses. In the middle of it nestles a small boat and I think of Mr. Bendon. Mrs. B. has not yet told me what happened to him and it’s a bit early to ask. Maybe he was drowned or maybe he couldn’t stand the sound of her voice any more and kept his boat pointed out to sea.

It is cold so I close the window and switch on the electric fire thoughtfully provided. Five minutes later I realise that nothing has happened and notice a small meter which exchanges warmth for 5p pieces. Mrs. B. is not Nelson Rockefeller in drag. I unpack, wash from the rose-patterned china jug and bowl set—idly wondering whether I’m supposed to throw the dirty water out of the window—and lay down on the bed. I’ve almost dozed off when there is a light tap on the door and Mrs. B. tells me that supper will be ready in half an hour and that I can watch the television if I want to.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.