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 Long Distance Lorry Driver
by Timothy Lea

CONTENTS

Publisher’s Note

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Also Available in the Confessions Series

About the Author

Also by Timothy Lea

Copyright

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

Two hundred yards downstream, the bed sinks.

Typical, isn’t it? I should have known the moment Sid asked me how I’d like to be the first man to sail round the world on a bed. Mind you, I would have thought that it might have stayed afloat for a bit longer – like to The Isle of Dogs or even Woolwich Ferry. Still, you can’t afford that kind of naive optimism when you are dealing with my brother-in-law, Sidney Noggett. It is like buying a hot water bottle before you go for a paddle in the alligator pool.

The events leading up to Sid casting me adrift on a double bed – I was lucky it was a double, he isn’t usually that generous – are well known to readers of Confessions from the Shop Floor, more an education than a book and still available from Futura Publications, or direct from me including seven pounds eighty-five pence for postage and packing. Suffice to say that Sid planned to use my trip round the world to publicise the firm of bedmakers he has bought his way into, The Universal International Bedding Company – now known as Slumbernog.

At the moment, it looks as if another great Noggett idea is about to make contact with the bed of the Thames. Not that the bed sinks fast, I will say that for it. In fact it takes me a few minutes to realise that the water is rising up the inside of my trouser leg. I thought it was the wash from a passing tug. To say that cold panic invades my system is no exaggeration. I can feel percy trying to find a foothold on my belly button as the icy water gets closer and closer. Thank goodness Sid left me with a life jacket. He is not all bad. There is a piece of string hanging down the front of it and some writing. What does it say? ‘REJECT’. I wonder if that has anything to do with inflating it? Only one way to find out. I wrench the piece of string. There is a loud ripping noise and one side of the jacket comes away at the shoulder. Oh well, back to the drawing board. Maybe the pillows will keep me afloat – or maybe they would have done. The last one is floating off into the night.

Blimey! I am really getting worried now. You don’t know how fast the current in the Thames can move until you try floating down it on a double bed. Sid must have chosen an ebb tide specially. Conniving bastard! I wish I had my hands on him now. His own brother-in-law. How could he do it?

I am on the point of losing contact with the bed when I look up and see a row of lights looming up in front of me. For a moment I think that I must have drifted in to shore. Then I can make out a mast and rigging against the night sky. It must be a boat.

‘Help!’ I shout, ‘Man overboard! Help!’

There is no faulting what I am shouting. It is all good solid stuff that I have seen used to very good effect on any number of telly screens. If my name was Robert Redford the water around me would look like an explosion in a washer factory as the lifebelts plopped over the side. But my name is Timothy Lea and that makes a lot of difference. All I hear is the echo of my own voice, the lonely hoot of a foghorn and a sound like someone playing the banjo. At least the boat in front of me does not appear to be moving. I had always reckoned on dying in bed, but not by being cut in half by a bleeding great liner!

I have hardly had time to open my cakehole again when – zomp! The bed bashes into the side of the boat and goes down faster than Britain’s gold reserves. So much for the pride of the Noggett fleet. I fling out my arms and find myself clutching the thick links of a gunge-encrusted chain. For a few seconds the current plucks at my body and then I manage to haul myself up and find a foothold on the chain. Exciting, isn’t it? I bet you are all on the edge of your seats. No? Well, do you mind edging forward a bit as I get discouraged very easily? Ta. Anyway, there I am, shivering with cold and terror and trying not to think why the anchor chain I am clinging to smells the way it does. All those rats running up and down it can’t help a lot. I suck in a few deep breaths, square my enormous shoulders, and start struggling up to where the chain disappears through a hole in the side of the ship.

Above me, I can begin to make out the name of the boat. It looks like Len Grade. It must be named after one of the famous Grade family. Funny, I have heard of Lew and Leslie but not Len. As I get nearer I see that there is a lot of other writing, like the symbols they use in cartoons when someone is swearing, and that it is Leningrad not Len Grade. The boat must come from Russia which accounts for the balalaika music smiting my earholes. I thought it was a bit haunting for a banjo.

This news cools down my blood another couple of degrees. I know that the Ruskies do not take kindly to unannounced visitors snooping round their goodies and I hope that there are going to be no misunderstandings about the reason for my appearance on board. Better, perhaps, if nobody knows about it. With this thought in mind, I slide my hand up the side of the boat and close my fingers round the lowermost of the rails. A few more contortions that Charles Atlas would envy – well, he must be about seventy now – and I pull myself up so that I can look on to the deck. There seems to be no one about so I swing my leg over the side and—

‘Haltski! Stay exactly where you are!’

I wish the bloke with the gun had not said that because the ship’s rail is threatening to carry the cleft in my arse round to the front of my body. ‘I’m not a spy,’ I say. ‘My bed sank.’

‘Your what?!’

‘My boat sank,’ I say. I mean, there is no point in making the confusion worse, is there? I flirt with a few items of verbal jollity that involve Vulgar Bedmen and Volgar Boatmen and decide against them. The gentlemen with the submachine-gun pointed at the centre of my nut cluster could well fail to be amused. Their ways are not our ways.

‘You looking for asylum?’

What a funny thing to ask a bloke! I suppose I do look a bit odd but there is no reason to start jumping to conclusions. The geezer reads the expression of surprise on my face. ‘I mean political asylum.’

‘Oh, The House of Lords,’ I say. ‘You should have said. That’s further up the river.’

‘What is it, Boris?’ Another bloke rolls up wearing long boots and a fur hat. I wonder whether to tell him that his shirt has come out of his trousers but decide against it.

‘I think it is another refugee from the fascist hyenas, Excellency.’

‘Indeed.’ The newcomer leans towards me and I suddenly tumble to the fact that it is a bird. I thought the voice was a bit funny. On closer inspection she reminds me of Vanessa Redgrave. You know, everything there, but stretched a bit. ‘So, you want to go to Urals?’

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ I say. You know how it is when you’re cold and you’ve had a few beers. It goes right through you.

‘Come, follow me. I wish to examine your credentials.’ I have heard how the Commies are great ones for spying on you but this is too much. Nobody follows me into the karsi. I am about to say something but the bird turns on her heel and the bloke gives me a playful nudge with his submachine-gun that clearly means ‘get a move on’. In the circumstances I see no alternative but to do as I am nudged. I never reckoned myself with perforations.

Down some steps we go and along a narrow, dimly lit corridor that smells like a baby camel’s chewing rag. The cold is now really getting through to me and I am shivering like your mum’s automatic washing machine going into spin dry.

‘You want to join the party?’

In my present condition, I have never felt less like a knees-up but I decide that it would be a bad idea to refuse the lady’s invitation. ‘Yeah, lovely,’ I say. ‘I wouldn’t mind getting out of these things though.’

‘Of course. Boris, get the comrade a people’s suit.’

I am not sorry to see Boris taking his machine-gun for a walk and for a moment I consider making a bolt for it. Then it occurs to me that it probably has a bolt anyway. Plus a trigger and all the other bits. I will have to find another way of working myself into the Commie’s favour.

‘Do you know Nitya Pullova?’ I say. ‘She comes from Omsk.’

Comrade Pullova is the big knockered bird who has come to Slumbernog on an exchange visit and revolutionised production. So much so that the firm is actually making money and the horrible Rightberk brothers who share responsibility for spending all the profits with Sid have pushed off on a cruise. I throw that in just in case you like a bit of plot.

‘Omsk?’ says my companion, opening a cabin door with a wry smile – she uses her hand as well, of course. ‘That is two thousand miles from Leningrad. London is nearer to Leningrad than Omsk.’

‘Blimey,’ I say. ‘So it’s right over the other side of the country?’

The bird smiles again. ‘No, the beautiful city of Omsk is not even one third of the way across the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.’

Amazing, isn’t it? Nearly drowned and a free geography lesson into the bargain. Nobody can say that I don’t lead a rich and varied life.

‘Not surprising you don’t know her then,’ I say, exhibiting once more the easy mastery of casual banter that has cemented my reputation as the Michael Parkinson of the West Clapham light ale and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps set.

There is a bit more light – of the electrical variety – in the sparsely furnished cabin and it gives me the opportunity to have a shufti at the bird. She looks a lot better when she has taken off her fur hat and allowed her blonde barnet to tumble round her shoulders. She has large grey eyes and a wide mouth that turns up temptingly at the corners. I would imagine that she is OK in the bristols department but it is a bit difficult to tell because of the blouse she is wearing. It has less shape than one of Mum’s steak and kidney puddings. She is looking at my clobber with interest.

‘You, serf,’ she says.

‘Not here,’ I say. ‘You need waves. You might be able to water ski but it wouldn’t be much fun if you fell in. I mean, look at me.’

‘I am looking at you.’ She points to the front of my ripped life jacket. ‘“REJECT”. That is how your capitalist society designates you.’

It has been occurring to me that the word ‘reject’ might well refer to something else – like what the manufacturer thinks ought to be done with a garment that quite clearly fails to come up to scratch. I wonder where Sid got it from? Probably off the back of a lorry. So much of what Sid lays his hands on falls off the back of lorries that the items usually carry tyre marks.

‘Take offski those sad rags.’ The lady is swift to note the hesitation on my part, prompted by hundreds of years of genteel breeding and the certain knowledge that my brush with cold hearted Father Thames has resulted in my hampton taking on the proportions of a dwarf brussel sprout – Hampton Wick as you might say. ‘Do not worry about exposing yourself to me. I have seen more naked men than you have had.’

I wait expectantly for her to say ‘hot dinners’ but she doesn’t.

‘What exactly do you do on board?’ I ask, peeling off the remains of Sid’s jacket. A card falls out of one of the pockets which says ‘Everything slashed!’ I don’t think it referred only to the prices.

‘I am Comfort Officer. I ensure that revolutionary fervour is maintained at high level and that crew have spotski of in and outski on Saturday night. Here, I do it.’ So saying she briskly begins to peel off my sodden clobber like she is removing washing from a line.

‘Blimey,’ I say. ‘All on Saturday night?! Have you considered staggering?’

‘I don’t have to consider,’ she says with feeling. ‘I stagger!’

The feeling I am referring to is what might be termed a brisk massage and richochets through the lower half of my body like honey bullets. The lady is obviously well-equipped with the physical wherewithal to withstand the passionate demands of the crew and it occurs to me that the work is probably no hardship to her. ‘I do not know what has happened to Boris,’ she says, whipping down my Y-fronts. ‘Maybe you like to lie down. You like bunk up?’

‘I beg your pardon!’ I say. I mean, I am not used to girls being so forward. This isn’t a Young Conservatives’ dance or anything like that.

‘You like bunk up or bunk down?’ The Russian lady is now pointing to the two bunks in the cabin and her meaning becomes clear to me.

‘The bottom one’s fine,’ I say, grabbing a blanket and adjusting my shapely limbs in a horizontal position.

Before there is time for any more sparkling interchanges the cabin door opens and Boris reappears with a bundle of clothing. ‘Is that all, Excellency?’

There is a note of pleading in his voice that goes unheeded.

‘Yes Boris. Go and read the library book.’

‘But Olga, Excellency. I know the life of Karl Marx backwards. I have other needs.’

‘They will be attended to, Boris. Now leave us.’

The door closes on the resentful Boris and Olga looks at her watch. ‘So,’ she says. ‘It is now Saturday.’

‘Yes,’ I say, trying to keep the conversation bubbling along. ‘I like the weekends.’

‘I prefer the strong ends,’ says Olga. ‘They make my job so much easier.’

‘I don’t think you quite understood what I mean,’ I say. ‘I was referring to – oh well, it doesn’t really matter.’

Olga has suddenly pulled her shift over her head to reveal that my hopes for her knockers were well founded. Naked as nature intended they lunge forward like a couple of gently curved hunting horns. The angle of dangle is tempting and my own horn starts thinking about doing a bit of hunting.

Olga picks up a bottle and a couple of glasses and sits on the edge of my bunk. ‘Now you are one of us you are entitled to take pleasure from my body like any other crude member’ – I think she means crew member but I don’t say anything. You can’t go on picking people up all the time, can you? It is very clever of her to be able to speak English as well as she does.

‘That’s very nice of you,’ I say. ‘But—’ I am about to say that there has been some kind of mistake and that I am not running away from anything and that I don’t want to join the crew when I remember the expression on Boris’s face as he went out of the door. It was not projecting a lot of human warmth and affection in my direction and could easily suggest an unbalanced personality with a quick trigger finger.

‘Yes?’ says Olga.

‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘I was just thinking.’

Olga pours some colourless liquid into a glass and hands it to me. ‘Maybe you think too much. From now on, we do thinking for you.’

‘What is this?’ I say.

‘Just straightforward party philosophy.’

‘I meant the drink,’ I say.

‘Wodka.’

‘You mean vodka?’

‘I mean wodka.’

I take a sip and she is obviously right. It is wodka. Potent too. I have already consumed a bellyful of booze earlier in the evening and this stuff races through me like a flaming brand in a paraffin factory.

‘You like?’ Her knockers are now brushing against my bare chest and the sensation serves to short circuit the current already pumping through me from the wodka – the stuff must be pure anti-freeze.

‘I like.’ I put my glass on the floor and allow my mouth the freedom of Olga’s cakehole. With a gentleness for which I am grateful she returns the pressure and presses her warm bristols against my chest. I don’t know if you have ever seen a carp sucking at a piece of bread on the surface of a pond but that is rather her kissing style. A lot of gentle chewing and the occasional gnaw of the lower lip.

We go on like this for a while and she wriggles on to the bunk so that she is stretched out on top of me. It is very good for the warming up and after a few minutes of our nibble fest the last icicles have thawed and percy is rising like an early crocus from the melting snow. In fact, when I say crocus I do man’s best friend a disservice. He is coming up more like a scarlet cucumber.

A woman like Olga is clearly no stranger to the effect that she has on men and it is not many seconds after percy has thrust himself between us that she lets out an exclamation that sounds like the name of a new Japanese motor bike and begins to sew kisses on my chest like they are mustard seed. I watch her tawny barnet taxiing down to the root of many of my problems and it occurs to me that something very pleasant is about to happen to Timothy. ‘Oh!’ That is me responding to Olga’s snake tongue trying to undo my belly button. ‘Oooh!’ Olga’s right hand has now coasted up the inside of my thigh and is gently squeezing my niagras like they are the bellows which inflate my already straining Mad Mick. ‘OOOH!!’ Olga has now done something very volga that you seldom see unless you watch the chocolate bar commercials on the telly. How shameless and enjoyable it all is. As the minutes pass and Olga’s bobbing nut becomes increasingly in danger of bashing itself against the upper bunk, I decide that is is about time that I did something to repay the hospitality that I am being offered. It is no good lying back and expecting to have everything done for you. Do as you would consider yourself very fortunate to be done by is one of my mottoes.

Not without some regret, I draw Olga up my body and reapply myself to her lips whilst attempting to remove the garments which lumber the lower half of her body. They obviously do things up differently in Russia because I am not getting anywhere until my friend jumps from the bed, tears open her breeches, tugs off her boots and leaps on top of me again. Such eagerness is touching, as are most parts of her body. With some difficulty, I press her back against the wall and adjust my cakehole to the nearest available knocker. This treatment is well received by the lady and it is with little difficulty that I persuade her to enjoy every knocker’s favourite meal – guzzle and tweak. I dish out a second helping to each Manchester and then head south like a migrating swallow – or dipper, more like. It is funny how birds – I mean the human kind – work themselves up when a muff job is in the air, isn’t it? Backs arch, heads twist from side to side before you have even licked your lips. Olga is no exception. By the time I have found a way of propping my legs against the far wall of the cabin and swept the hair out of my eyes, you could run a model railway under her back. Mind you, it would be a terrible waste if you did. You can play with your model railway any day of the week. A girlchik like Olga comes along only when Sid casts you adrift on a double bed. And that, thank God, is not very often. As Olga quivers I set my tongue to work like it is a bow playing a musical instrument. I can’t say I recognise the tune that comes out but it is certainly a very cheerful sound. Ideally, I reckon that a muff job is a horse’s duvet (hors d’oeuvres? – Ed.) It should whet the appetite for what is to come and get the old gastric juices flowing. I don’t think it ought to become a meal in itself.

Anyway, in this case, everything works out just about right. Olga suddenly arches her back and catches her nut a terrible crack on the upstairs bunk and I realise that she is trying to tell me something. Hardly before she has sunk back against the pillow, I have stopped staring at the small hammer and sickle she has tattooed above her minge fringe and have hauled myself up her body until percy is now poised for his journey into the interior. I often wonder how he must feel at moments like this. So many responsibilities to discharge, his two porters struggling along behind him – one slightly in front of the other – and the secret cave looming in front, thick foliage almost concealing its narrow opening. It is nearly as exciting as King Solomon’s Mines, isn’t it?

‘Comeski, my little comrade.’

I am not so happy about the little but I assume that it is merely a term of affection. Better not to dwell on it. Wishing that my knees had ridges, I murmur a silent farewell to my fanny ferret and jerk forward the part of my anatomy that carries the six inch gun. Olga’s response is whole-hearted and suggests that she has played this game before. Faster than a camera shutter, her mits clamp round my back ballast and she presses me to her like she wants to take a moulding of my body. At the same moment her legs curve round outside mine and hook over my ankles. It looks like the perfect fall and I can almost hear the referee counting and Kent Walton doing his nut. The Commie custard is now rotating my bum like she is trying to unscrew it. Maybe this has something to do with the counter revolution she was talking about earlier.

This is all very well but, once again, I feel that I should stamp my own personality on the proceedings. After all, I am representing Britain and regular readers will know that I always pull out all the stops when national prestige is at stake. If we all did our bit – or, in fact, anybody’s bit – then maybe this dear old country of ours would not be in the mess it is now. At the very least, life would be a lot more fun.

Rising up so that my bonce loosens three of the slats in the upstairs bunk, I drive viciously and feel the satisfying ‘thwack!’ of my baggage train against Olga’s back bumpers. Bracing my toes against the end of the bunk, I deal out a few telling thrusts and hear the satisfying sound of Olga searching for breath. Her hands run lightly up my back as if she is playing a harp and I accompany her on the trombone – in, out; in, out, in – you can’t beat a musical evening.

Half an hour later, we are still at it, but on the floor this time. The bunks have collapsed. In my present condition, I can’t imagine what it felt like to be cold. Rivulets of condensation are running down the steamed up porthole and the wodka bottle is warm to the touch – when you can touch it. Olga is kneeling on all fours and taking hefty swigs interspersed by shouts of ‘Giddyupski!’ I am in a position slightly to the rear of the lady and we are playing a game she describes as ‘Sleigh rides’. She is between the shafts as she terms it and I must say that it is something that I envy her. I have not been ‘between the shafts’ since we started this bout of intensive, not to mention knackering, exercise and the strain is beginning to tell.

‘Once more up and down the Caucasus!’ says my hostess gaily. Frankly, I would be pushed to get up and down the crocuses. It is all I can do to prolong my attachment to the lady as she bumps and grinds round the floor.

Fortunately, some strange whim makes her suddenly flip over on to her back and seize me to her greedily. ‘Ride me, little moujik,’ she cries. ‘Ride me!’

Sensing that the moment has come, I decide to follow suit. Summoning up my last resources of energy I whip the old groin greyhound in and out until he makes Mick the Miller look like your grandma’s tabby cat. Olga lets out a wild shriek and grabs my barnet like she has Red Indian blood in her. I chuck in a few croaks and in a classic fusion of Eastern and Western ideologies, mutual orgasm is achieved. Olga lets out what I can only describe as a contented sigh and her head zonks back against the carpet. She makes a few purring noises and then starts snoring. A glance at the quarter of inch of liquid left in the bottom of the wodka bottle suggests that is is not only the compulsive fire of my love-making that is responsible for her condition.

This may well be the moment to say goodbye. Olga was not amused when I told her that I thought the Red Square was a geezer called Brezhnev and it is clear that there is another side to her nature that I have not been fully exposed to. Life with Olga would not purely be a question of getting tossed off in Rostov.

Whilst my fair companion snuggles closer to her wodka bottle I slip into the threads provided by Boris. They may go down a bomb in the Stalingradski Prospect but I don’t reckon that they are going to pull a lot of birds down the baths hall. Still, that is not my number one problem at the moment. Blowing what I hope is a farewell kiss to the toast of the Neva, I ease open the cabin door and stick my hooter out into the corridor. Not a sausage. Less sign of a human being than there is of a knot in a Scotsman’s used french letter – at least, that is, until I start walking down the corridor. Then Boris’s boots appear down the steps, closely followed by the rest of his body. He eyes me suspiciously and the nozzle of his submachine-gun starts giving percy palpitations.

‘There you are!’ I say in a flash of creative desperation. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Olga wants you.’

The way I say ‘wants you’ must make it clear to him that she is not seeking someone to unblock a stuffed up plughole.

‘Me?’ Boris’s chest swells visibly. I don’t know about the rest of him, I don’t look.

‘She’s waiting for you in the cabin.’ I just have time to flatten myself against the wall before Boris charges past. Cupid Lea they call me.

I don’t hang about but canter up the steps and stick my bonce above deck level. Still no sign of anyone. I can hear the strain – and it is a strain, make no mistake about it – of an old Russian folk tune coming from the front of the boat. The crew must be having a musical evening. Good luck to them. Over to the rail I go and look over the side. As if to signal my good fortune the moon comes out and there, shimmering beside my reflection, is the outline of a dinghy. I take another quick glance about me and slip over the side. Fortunately, I manage to cling on to a rope before I do myself a serious injury. A few moments dangerous dangling and my feet scrabble against the side of the dinghy and manoeuvre it beneath me – it’s not getting too exciting for you is it? Good. I wouldn’t like to think that I was doing Alistair MacLean out of a living. Anyway, there I am, poised over the dinghy. The strength in my arms gives out and I tumble into the bottom of the boat. For a moment, it rocks alarmingly and then settles down to tap angrily against the side of the larger vessel. Quickly, I undo the piece of rope at the sharp end, and push off with one of the oars.

Free! What an evening for my treasure trove of memories. The dinghy drifts down the side of the boat and I prepare to row to the shore. Most of the portholes show round circles of light but one has a pair of bum knockers jammed up against it. I imagine that Boris must be enjoying his Saturday constitutional.

CHAPTER TWO

In the end it is eight o’clock in the morning by the time I get round to Sid’s place in trendy Vauxhall. The blooming current carried me all the way round to Plumstead Marshes before I was able to get ashore.

I am not in a good mood and it is with no little force that I bang on the heavy brass doorknocker. Frankly, I am surprised that nobody has nicked it. When they moved in, Rosie said that the area was coming up but a glance around suggests that most of it is coming down – either falling or being pulled. Looks like Sid got lumbered again. It is no good being the only house in the street with a lilac front door if it has ‘Poufdah!’ written on it with an aerosol paint spray. The door opens and there is Rosie wearing a black robe with Chinese dragons all over it. She is carrying a glass of orange juice.

‘You’re not having another kid, are you?’ I say, clocking the mittful of vitamin C.

‘Of course I’m not! I’m having my breakfast. What are you doing round here?’

‘I’m looking for Sid,’ I say, pushing past the colour supplement life-style and entering the house. Rosie has changed a lot since she got into the boutiques and wine bars. You would never catch her drinking orange juice for breakfast in the old days. Then it was a cup of tea and a marmite sandwich.

‘You might wipe your feet,’ she says. ‘And why are you wearing that ridiculous suit?’

I don’t answer her because I have just clapped eyes on Sid. He is sitting at a scrubbed pine table and reading a glossy brochure entitled Jetsetter Holidays in Brazil.

A puzzled and unhappy expression settles over his face as he sees me. ‘What are you doing here?’ he says.

‘I just walked from the Copacabana Beach,’ I tell him. ‘You can forget that for a start. “Drift across the Atlantic and taxi down the coast of South America to Rio de Janeiro.” I should cocoa!’

‘Are you coming, too?’ says Rosie. ‘Sid never tells me anything.’

‘I was going on ahead,’ I say. ‘By sea. I don’t suppose Sid told you that?’

‘He said he had to meet someone,’ says Rosie. ‘What is all this?’

‘Where’s the bed?’ says Sid. ‘You haven’t damaged it, have you? I sunk a lot of investment in that.’

‘You sunk it to the bottom of the Thames,’ I say. ‘It didn’t stay afloat more than a couple of hundred yards. It’s a miracle that I’m alive!’

Sid claps his hands to his head. ‘Gordon Bennett! I might have guessed you’d make a mess of everything. What is it about you?’

‘What are you two talking about?’ says Rosie.

‘Sid wanted me to drift round the world on a floating bed,’ I tell her. ‘The trouble was that it didn’t float.’

‘You didn’t have to drift,’ says Sid. ‘You could have rowed a bit. Your attitude’s typical of so many young people today. You want everything on a plate. It’s getting so a kid expects a Duke of Edinburgh Award for pulling out a sheet of bog paper.’

‘Drifting round the world on a bed?’ echoes Rosie. ‘That’s dangerous.’

‘Oh, belt up!’ snaps Sid. ‘If you want to say anything you can blame your perishing brother for putting the mockers on our holiday.’

‘What do you mean?’ says Rosie.

‘I can’t charge it to expenses if he hasn’t gone, can I? Just think about it. We might have had to wait there for months until he showed up.’

A glance at Rosie shows me that she is torn by what I have heard described as conflicting emotions. ‘We’re not going?’ she says. ‘But I’ve got all the clothes.’

Sid shrugs. ‘You’ll have to send them back to Carmen Miranda’s estate, won’t you?’

Rosie turns to me. ‘Are you sure you didn’t act a bit hastily, Timmy?’

‘I acted hastily, all right!’ I say. ‘If I hadn’t, it would be my corpse standing here! You don’t seem to understand the seriousness of what I’m telling you. I was nearly sent to my death.’

‘And I’d set my heart on it, too,’ says Rosie, sinking into a chair – for a moment, I think she is talking about me kicking the bucket.

‘You know who to blame,’ sulks Sid, wiping his cakehole on the tablecloth and picking up his golf putter.

‘It’s not fair, those Rightberks gallivanting round the world while we can’t go anywhere. I thought you’d bought control of the firm?’ Rosie looks at Sid accusingly.

‘Yeah, so did I, but it’s more complicated than that.’ Sid puts a glass on the floor and prepares to tap golf balls into it. I would have chosen one that was not half full of orange juice, myself, but I have noticed before that Sid is inclined to get flustered when Rosie starts having a go at him.

‘Mind what you’re doing, you great pillock!’ It is sad to hear Rosie talking like that. I can remember the time when she used to think that the sun went in every time Sid zipped up his fly.

‘Belt up, slug nipples!’ It is clear that feelings are running high and I am not sorry when there is a sharp rat-tat-tat on the front door.

‘I’ll get it,’ I say.

The sound of battle is still ringing in my lugholes as I swing open the door and find myself staring at the back of the postman’s head.

‘Hello, darling,’ he says, giving my left nipple a playful tweak. ‘Look at those naughty doggies. I wouldn’t mind having a bit of that, would you?’

‘Why don’t you ask one of them?’ I say.

The bloke whips round and turns an interesting shade of scarlet. ‘Oh yes-er. Recorded delivery,’ he says, shoving a pencil stub and a piece of paper into my hand. ‘Sign here.’ He looks me up and down questioningly. ‘Are you an au pair boy?’

The sooner I get out of this tunic the better. It does make me look like a blooming waiter. ‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘You’re the commandant of the Boys’ Brigade, aren’t you?’

‘Watch it!’ The bloke is swift to take umbrage.

‘You want to watch your hands, and all!’ I take the letter and close the door firmly in his face. Honestly, I don’t know what public servants are coming to these days. It makes me glad that I still have his pencil.

‘What is it?’ says Sid, as I go into the room. ‘Another bleeding bill?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I say. ‘It’s got a French stamp on it.’

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ says Sid. ‘Now we’re in the Common Market I’m probably paying French taxes. Give it here!’ He wrenches it open and I watch his lips begin to move as he tries to get his mouth round the words. I wonder who could be writing to Sid from France? ‘Blimey!’

I don’t know if you have ever seen a bloke’s face turn ashen but that is what happens to Sid’s mug. All the colour drains out of it.

‘What’s the matter, Sid?’

‘They can’t do it!’

He lets the letter flutter to the ground and I pick it up. The notepaper crackles like a new fiver and is headed ‘Villa Splendide, Cap des Riches, Cote d’Azur’. I look down the bottom of the letter and it is signed ‘Plantagenet Rightberk’. It is not an easy letter to understand, but basically the meaning is clear: Sid is out on his ear.

‘Just when I was coming to grips with my slice,’ he whines. ‘It’s tragic.’

‘Don’t take it too hard, Sid,’ I say. ‘They are offering you a golden handshake.’

‘Golden handshake?’ Sid’s features crumple up like a sheet of baking foil. ‘It’s more like a clip round the lughole with a piece of lead piping! Taking inflation into account, it’s less than what I put into the business.’

‘You haven’t made a mess of it again, have you?’ says Rosie speaking my mind for me. ‘Really! You’re like a big soft kid. You want to get yourself an accountant and a solicitor if you’re going into business.’

‘You can’t trust them,’ snaps Sid. ‘They’ll bleed you dry and take you to the cleaners.’

‘At least, that way, they won’t get blood over the machines,’ I say.

Sid is not amused. ‘Shut up!’ he says. ‘There’s nothing funny about this. Seeing a noble lion dragged down by a pack of jackals is a tragic spectacle.’

There is much more in this vein followed by threats of legal action, letters to MPs and a bunch of fives up the hooter, but by half past three Sid is off to bullock (bullock’s horn: pawn) his golf clubs and sign on at the Labour. I feel sorry for him, but not so sorry that I offer to break open my piggy bank with my Xmas club. Years of experience suggests to me that it will not be long before Sid comes up with another imaginative and foolproof way of losing money.

Two evenings later, I am proved correct. We are sitting in the saloon bar of the Highwayman – all the toffs go in the public bar, these days, because they reckon it’s where the locals hang out – and I am allowing the maestro of moan to treat me to a pint and a torrent of ear-bending rabbit about how badly he has been put upon.

‘Sometimes, I feel like chucking it all in,’ he says. I can’t help wondering what ‘it’ he is talking about but I don’t say anything. ‘It’s no good belonging to a large organisation in this country. If you’re a boss then you can’t get anyone to work for you and if you’re a worker then the bosses are trying to exploit you all the time. People don’t have any confidence in each other any more.’

‘That’s my pint you’re drinking,’ I say.

Sid puts the glass down and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Are you sure?’ he says, suspiciously.

‘Positive,’ I say. ‘You know that bloke who went to the karsi?’

‘I don’t know him,’ says Sid.

‘I thought you must do,’ I said. ‘You’d drunk half his pint before he even stood up.’

Sid picks up his empty glass, looks round nervously and starts edging down the bench. ‘Big bloke, wasn’t he?’ he says. I nod. ‘Just shows how overwrought I am. I don’t know what I’m doing.’

‘I’d better get you another pint to help calm your nerves, hadn’t I?’ I say.

Sid nods. ‘Ta. I think a Mahatma Ghandi might slip down all right now you make me think of it.’

‘Instead of?’ I ask.

‘No, as well as. I can’t drink brandy by itself.’

‘You poor bastard,’ I say. ‘You really suffer, don’t you?’

Sid is never swift to detect when one is being sarcastical and he merely nods and starts prospecting for crunched up crisps in the bottom of a discarded packet. I get the drinks in and notice that the big fella has come back from the karsi – you would hope him to, wouldn’t you? – and is looking at Sid and his empty glass with equal interest.

‘Ta,’ says Sid when I get back to the table. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking.’

‘I’m not certain it suits you,’ I say.

‘About what I was talking about earlier,’ says Sid. ‘I reckon the only thing to do is to be your own governor. That way, nobody can let you down or mess you about. You’re responsible for everything that happens.’ A faraway look comes into his eye. ‘You remember what it was like when we were cleaning windows?’

‘You mean, all those birds?’

Sid frowns. ‘I wasn’t referring to that. I was talking about how easy it was.’

‘It was pretty easy with the birds,’ I remind him.

‘No forms, no taxes, no clocking on, knock off when you like.’

‘And who you like,’ I chip in.

‘Money isn’t everything. I’ve said that before.’

‘You say it every time you’re skint,’ I remind him. ‘There’s two lots of people who never worry about mazuma: those who’ve got so much of it they don’t know what to do with it and those who haven’t got any.’

‘Very philatelical,’ says Sid. ‘But, frankly, I’m not interested in what you pick up from those religious programmes before the Sunday film. It’s job satisfaction I’m after.’

‘Hear, hear!’ The words do not issue from my shapely cakehole but from the big geezer whose beer Sid nicked. He is leaning towards us with an expression on his face that can only be described as rapt. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing what you were saying because I was listening very carefully,’ he says apologetically. ‘It’s seldom that I find myself in such complete and utter agreement with anyone.’

‘Ta, that’s very nice of you,’ says Sid. ‘Would you care for a drop of something? I’m certain my friend here would be happy to—’

To my relief, the bloke holds up a hand. ‘Thank you, but no. I hardly touch the stuff.’ That is certainly true when you have Sid sitting next to you. The bloke smiles and shakes his head admiringly. ‘Working for yourself, it’s the only way. I ought to know.’

‘You’ve got your own business, have you?’ asks Sid.

The bloke’s face clouds over. ‘Not for much longer, I’m afraid.’

‘It’s not easy these days, is it?’ says Sid, putting on his head mourner face.

‘It’s not that,’ says the bloke. ‘The business is going like a bomb. It’s the wife.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ says Sid. ‘She’s-er, um-er, has she?’

‘Nothing like that,’ says the bloke. ‘She wants us all to go to Australia. Our eldest girl married an Australian. She kept writing all these letters and it got Mavis going. Now we’re off. I’ve got to sell up.’

‘Your wife’s adamant, is she?’ says Sid.

‘No, C of E, but it doesn’t matter out there as long as you’re not black. She hasn’t half made up her mind, though. Every morning she’s in the back garden with her boomerang. She can throw it right round the house and make it come back again. You wouldn’t credit it unless you’d clocked it coming in through the front gate. The vicar copped it right behind the earhole.’

‘Fascinating,’ says Sid. ‘Tell me, what is the business?’

‘Road haulage,’ says the bloke. ‘We’ve got a couple of lorries and we freelance round the country. Marvellous way of seeing a bit of scenery and getting paid for it. It’s like a caravan holiday sometimes.’

I should be warned when I see mist rising from Sid’s mince pies.

‘It’s just you, is it?’ he says.

‘Me and my boy. We’re our own bosses; work when we like. I don’t mind telling you, I’m going to miss it. Nice little business it was. Some lucky bloke’s going to get a bargain.’

‘About time we moved on, isn’t it Sid?’ I say.

‘Belt up!’ Sid doesn’t even look at me. ‘You haven’t sold up yet?’

‘No, they only confirmed the travel arrangements yesterday. I haven’t had much time to think about it. I suppose I’ll have to put an advertisement in the paper.’

‘Probably the best idea,’ I say, starting to stand up. ‘I hope you—’

‘Sit down!’ Sid yanks me down beside him and leans forward eagerly. ‘Well, Mr—’

‘Rogers,’ says the bloke. ‘William Rogers.’

‘Well, Mr Rogers.’ Sid takes a deep breath. ‘I’m very interested in what you’ve just said. I think we might be able to come to some arrangement.’

‘You know somebody who might be interested?’ says Mr Rogers.

‘I’m very interested,’ says Sid with the finality of a corpse pulling the coffin lid down on itself. ‘Are you sure you won’t have a drink?’

‘Oh well, maybe just this once. I’ll have a scotch, ta.’

‘A large one?’ says Sid.

‘Well – ta.’

Needless to say, it is Timothy Sucker who is despatched to buy the ‘I’m so frisky’ while Sid and Rogers practically hold hands under the table. There is something about the Rogers bloke that I don’t trust. For a start off, anyone who has listened closely to Sid for a few minutes and is still prepared to do business with him must be round the twist. There is also the way he handles the scotch. He throws it down his throat like he is trying to knock a spot off the bottom of his Cousin Kelly. It does not square up with the image of a bloke who hardly touches the stuff.

‘Ta,’ he says, slapping his glass down on the table. ‘Well, that’s all settled then. My girls will show you the merchandise.’

‘Settled?’ I say.

‘Yes,’ says Sid. ‘You know me. I don’t mess about. I’ve agreed a very reasonable price with Mr Rogers and his daughters are going to take us round the garage.’

‘I wish I could do it myself,’ says Mr R. ‘But the wife’s mother is coming round and I want to be at the bedside in case she says anything. You know what they’re like. They read unpleasantness into anything. I didn’t know she was in the garage when I was trying to back the car in.’

‘I thought your daughter was in Australia?’ I say.

‘The eldest one,’ says Mr Rogers. ‘You don’t miss a trick, do you, sonny?’ He gives me a look that is so old-fashioned that it is practically wearing woad.

‘Don’t take any notice of him,’ says Sid, kicking me in the ankle. ‘He’s seen too many Perry Mason programmes. Now, let us know where we can link up with your girls and we’ll start the ball rolling. I must say, I’m very excited about this.’

Another large scotch later, Mr Rogers has made a telephone call to alert his daughters and is informing us of the address to go to. ‘It would be a big help if you could pay in cash,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to get clobbered for a lot of tax just before I leave the country.’

‘You’ll have to give us a bit of a reduction,’ says Sid.

Mr Rogers whistles through his teeth. ‘You strike a vicious bargain, don’t you? I can see you’re no mug.’

Sid looks pleased with himself but I have my doubts as to whether Mr Rogers’s assessment is either genuine or correct.

Half an hour later, my doubts are even greater. Sid and I are rattling the fencing that surrounds a bomb site in British North Battersea. It also surrounds what looks like a scrap metal dump but is apparently the home of ‘Squaredeal Used Cars’.

‘This can’t be the place,’ I say. ‘Let’s go home, Sid.’

‘Belt up,’ says Sid. ‘The bloke said they shared the premises, didn’t he? I wonder if that’s them, over there?’

‘You mean, those two clapped out old wrecks?’ I say, staring at a couple of ancient lorries rusting away in one of the railway arches.

‘That’s not a nice way to talk about two charming young ladies.’

I spin round and see that Sid was referring to a couple of birds who are hurrying towards us. They look as if they are no strangers to the make-up counter of Boots and are clearly not of a shy and retiring disposition.

‘Hello, boys,’ says the one in the scarlet plastic mac. ‘I’m Babs and this is Suzanne. Sorry we’re late. Did Fred – I mean, Dad, give you the key?’

‘No,’ says Sid. ‘I’m Sid and this is my assistant, Timmy. Why are you looking at me like that?’

The bird called Suzanne is indeed staring into Sid’s mug like it is a ‘What the Butler Saw’ machine. ‘It must be the light,’ she says. ‘It’s uncanny.’

‘You saw The Exorcist too, did you?’ I say. ‘A lot of people have commented.’

‘Paul Newman,’ she breathes. ‘What do you think, Babs?’

‘I think he’s more like Steve McQueen, myself,’ says the other bird. ‘Either way, it’s very distracting. How can you be expected to do business with a bloke whose irresistible magnetism reduces you to a shapeless jelly?’

‘Not shapeless,’ says Sid gallantly.

‘He makes Dave Allen sound like Alf Ramsey,’ simpers Suzanne.

‘How are we going to get in?’ I say, deciding that my stomach can’t take much more.

‘We’ll have to climb over the top,’ says Babs. ‘Give us a leg up, Suzanne.’

Without another word, the bird proceeds to insert one of her feet in the mesh and reveal as much of herself as she can while straddling the swaying fence. She is wearing stockings with a black rose on the suspender straps and frilly red panties, I can tell you that without sending for my magnifying glass.

‘Careful,’ says Sid. ‘You don’t want to do yourself an injury.’

‘It’s you who wants to be careful,’ says Suzanne. ‘You’ve got more to lose than we have.’ With these saucy words the bird in the short fur coat with the bald patches proceeds to follow her sister over the fence.

‘Hold on, I’ll give you a hand.’

‘Oooh!!’

‘Sorry,’ says Sid. ‘I didn’t mean to do that.’

‘That’s all right,’ says Suzanne. ‘Your hand was a bit cold, that’s all.’

‘Sid!’ I whisper. ‘You’re not taking these girls seriously, are you? They look as if they’re on the game.’

‘You mind your language!’ Sid is bristling like a turkey’s cock. ‘Just because they reckon me, there’s no need to let your naked envy show through.’

It is no good trying to reason with Sid when he is in one of his moods and I say nothing but follow him over the fence. It’s a good job there aren’t any bules about because they might entertain suspicions.

‘Here we are,’ says Babs. ‘This was the best model they ever made, you know. After 1955 they started introducing plastic components.’ She leans against one of the mudguards which falls to the ground in a shower of dust.’

‘Every part replaceable. It’s so much easier if you do have a little accident. With some of these modern ones you have to buy half a lorry if something goes wrong.’

‘Just in case we do have a prang,’ I say, ‘Where’s the nearest blacksmith’s?’

Babs looks at me coldly. ‘Daddykins said you were sarcastic.’

‘Don’t mind him,’ says Sid. ‘I make the decisions round here.’

‘I should think you could make anything round here,’ says Suzanne running her fingers up the sleeve of Sid’s Gannex.

‘Do you want to get the feeling of the controls?’ says Babs. ‘It’s lovely and snug inside. Do you remember when Daddy used to give us a ride, Suzanne?’

‘That’s where they score over the modern ones,’ says Suzanne. ‘They don’t sacrifice the comfort. After all, you’re going to spend a lot of time in the cab, aren’t you? You might as well be cosy.’

Sid is obviously going to be like warm putty in these birds’ hands and it is with something approaching eagerness that he wrenches open one of the doors. Fortunately, I step to one side just in time and the hunk of crumbling metal crashes harmlessly at my feet.

‘Do you want to see the controls?’ Suzanne is addressing me as if she does not care very much one way or the other.

‘It has some, does it?’ I say. ‘I thought maybe you pressed up and down on a couple of pedals.’

‘Oh my, we are funny, aren’t we? Proper little comedian.’

Sid has scrambled into the cab in a cloud of rust and Babs is following, showing everything she has got and a bit more she must have borrowed from someone else. It occurs to me that they may not be re-emerging in a hurry and that I might be wise to take advantage of what shelter is available. It is very parky on the bomb site.

‘Come on, then,’ I say. ‘Let’s have a look at it.’ I open the door – very carefully – and pull myself up into the second of the two relics of the golden years of the British motor industry. ‘You’re very high off the ground, aren’t you?’ I say, as the bird climbs in beside me.

‘What do you mean!? I’m just over five foot.’

‘Not you,’ I say patiently. ‘I was referring to the height of the cab from the ground.’

‘Oh yes,’ she says. ‘It’s nice, isn’t it? Nice arrangement of dials and all that.’

‘Do you know what they all do?’ I ask.

‘I know where the heater switch is.’ She leans forward and turns a knob. The windscreen wipers start scratching backwards and forwards with a high-pitched squeaking noise.

‘Interesting,’ I say, ‘I suppose the friction heats up the windscreen and it slowly spreads through the whole lorry?’

‘You are unkind,’ she says. ‘I’m not Graham Hill.’

‘No, he’s got a moustache, hasn’t he?’ I say. ‘Look, I’m not expecting mechanical wizardry but you’re supposed to be selling me this crate. I don’t reckon you even know how to start it.’

For a moment, I think the bird is going to clock me. Then, she pulls open the glove compartment and shoves a key in my mitt. ‘You start it.’

‘Where do I put this?’ I say, indicating the key.

‘I know where I’d like you to put it,’ says the bird.

‘I wouldn’t want to run the risk of hurting you,’ I say. ‘Let’s try this hole here. It looks a bit smaller.’

Before she can really get into her stride, mouth-wise, I insert the key in the ignition and turn it in a clockwise direction. To my surprise, there is a noise like my bronchitic Uncle Norman clearing his throat into a megaphone and the engine slowly roars into life.

‘There you are, clever dick!’ says Suzanne drawing her legs up underneath her. ‘I bet that shook you.’

‘I bet it shook you and all,’ I say. I twiddle one of the other knobs and there is a smell of burning dust and old mouse droppings, combined with a current of warm air around turn-up level.

‘There, you see! Everything works.’

I don’t say anything but I have to confess that the old bus has a kind of bashed up charm about it. The seats are so shiny that they might have perspex over them and all the numerals on the dials are picked out in old-fashioned lettering. I can quite see myself chugging round the countryside in this. It is practically a collector’s piece.

‘Well, what do you think?’

The bird has turned to face me and is brushing a wisp of hair out of her eyes. Curled up on the seat she looks quite attractive. Small but well constructed. The fur coat has flopped open and I can see the soft swelling of one of her knockers slotted into the top of her dress.

‘Not bad,’ I say.

‘It’s warm, isn’t it?’

She is right, it is warm. I look beyond her to the driving cab of the lorry Sid is in. The window is steamed up and I can just make out the imprint of two upside down boots. Sid always was a fast worker.

‘Do you think you’re going to like it, Down Under?’ I ask her.

The bird gives me a playful nudge. ‘You don’t mind what you say, do you?’

‘That’s what they call it, isn’t it?’ I say.

‘I dunno,’ says Suzanne. ‘They call it so many things, don’t they?’

‘I suppose they do,’ I say. To tell the truth I can’t think of anything else other than ‘Down Under’ or ‘Aussie’. There is some word like ‘antipathies’ but I don’t reckon she could be referring to that. She doesn’t immediately strike you as a likely candidate for ‘Mastermind’. ‘How about your sister, is she looking forward to it?’.

Suzanne glances towards the next door lorry. ‘Not any more,’ she says. I follow her eyes and wonder if we are talking about the same thing. The window is now open and a female leg is hanging out of it. It waves grotesquely and then is joined by Sid’s. I must remind him to get that hole in his sole mended.

‘It is warm in here, isn’t it?’ I say.

Suzanne takes a deep breath and leans towards me sticking out her lower lip. ‘Ye-es!’ she says. ‘Do you want to try anything? Waggle the gear stick about? Slot it in a few times?’

It occurs to me that this young lady is on the verge of employing techniques not usually practised by the average used car salesman. It also occurs to me that I am a sucker for such tactics. Below dashboard level, percy is responding to the warmth and the promise of good times ahead and is beginning to dent my denims.

‘Are you sure it’s all right?’ I allow my digits to take a stroll along her left thigh. They meet nobody who tells them that they are trespassing.

‘Oh yes. We want you to be completely satisfied with what you’re getting.’

You can’t say much fairer than that, can you? I don’t know what sales manual this girl uses but she could go a long way.

Wasting no further time on idle chit chat, I lean across and show her how good I am at sealing envelopes. She snuggles closer and I draw her towards me and ease her over the hand-brake which separates the two seats. Her legs are now alongside mine and she thoughtfully props one of them against the clutch pedal. In this way there is much less danger of me damaging my wristwatch as I slide my mitt up to say hello to her snatch-box. She is an eager little thing and her brewer’s bung probes for my hairy goat like it is an escaping eel. She is wearing stockings like her sister and it is a real treat to glide from nylon to warm, soft flesh. There’s not that feeling of being trapped at the end of a bag that you get with tights. I hook my finger under the rim of her knicks and she grabs hold of my balls like it is a game of Pass the Parcel and she reckons she is on to a winner.

‘Let me get across you,’ she says. Nothing bashful about her, is there? It’s not a question of an hour and a half’s foreplay and ‘I’m sorry but I’m saving myself for the curate’. I have hardly got my zip open before she has wrenched my pants and jeans down to knee level. Percy bobs in front of me as if nodding his agreement to some unspoken – and probably unspeakable – suggestion and Suzanne raises her chassis and sheds her panties before you can say Roger Carpenter.

‘Here we go then.’ With an agility that suggests that she has done something not totally unlike this before, Suzanne slides a leg across my lap and lays one of her delicate little hands on my poke spoke. ‘Say goodbye to daddy,’ she murmurs. A quick wriggle and my friend has disappeared. Suzanne slides her arms round my neck and settles into a position from which any Rhode Island Red watching would expect her to hatch out my balls.

‘What’s your after sales service like?’ I ask.

Suzanne bounces up and down and closes her eyes. I think her mind is on something else. ‘Do you want me to do it faster?’ she says.

The engine is still running and the heater is still on and I can’t help feeling that it is getting a bit on the warm side. The condensation running down the inside of the windows is a big help in reaching this conclusion.

‘That’s lovely,’ I say. I mean it, too. The sensation is like a butterfly’s wings tickling a naked current – don’t ask me how I know, I just do. Not wishing to interfere with anyone’s pleasure, I sneak out a hand and try and find the heater control.

‘Hold me.’ Suzanne intercepts my hand and guides it to her back bumpers. She is now shaking about like a sack of warm jelly beans and it is clear to me that something explosive is about to happen. Quite what it is comes as something of a surprise.

Suzanne swings out one of her legs, there is a grinding noise – mechanical – and the lorry suddenly lurches forward. She must have knocked it into gear. Before I can take any rescue action I have been thrown back in my seat by the sudden movement and achieved some of the deepest penetration you will read about outside a sex instruction manual. The incident could not have taken place at a worse moment because I was just about to see off a few hundred thousand friends. Now I don’t reckon that I could wave goodbye to my granny if you gave me a Union Jack on a couple of sticks. Down and out, percy dives for the shelter of my thighs and I fumble for the ignition. CRUNCH! We hit something and I slide across the seat with Suzanne still on top of me. She is screaming her head off and I can’t say I blame her. We are still moving but I can’t see where because of the steamed up windows.

Womp!! We hit something else and, more by luck than judgement, I bash against the gear lever and knock it into neutral. No sooner has the vehicle stopped than Suzanne has opened the door and started to clamber out. She does not even wait for her knicks. That is one big advantage that birds have in an emergency. There is no chance of a bloke scarpering with his trousers round his ankles.

We seem to have come to a halt with the snout of the lorry half way through the perimeter wire. It looks like something out of a prisoner of war movie. The Great Escape – you must have seen it. They have it on the telly every other Sunday. Behind us are a couple of bashed in motors that now have a bit more knocked off them than is indicated by the price reduction.

Sid steams up and it is soon clear that he has something on his mind beside a couple of inches of thinning barnet. ‘You bleeding half wit!!’ he screams. ‘What do you think you’re doing? I haven’t paid for them yet.’ I am disturbed to see that the idiot has what appears to be a bundle of five pound notes in his mitt.

‘We had a bit of an accident,’ I say. ‘Look, Sid. You’re not seriously thinking of buying these crates, are you?’

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.