Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions. Timothy Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ away from his bottle of Scotch, we discover that the poor bloke has a badly slipped disc and must go to hospital. On his wedding night, too. What a tragedy!

      At first Mrs B. threatens to sue everybody up to the Duke of Edinburgh but we quieten her down and explain what happened and she decides to concentrate her wrath on the three blokes concerned, one of whom, of course, turns out to be the bridegroom’s best man. They nicked the flowers from a local graveyard. Oh well, I expect it seemed a good idea at the time.

      On her return from the hospital Mrs B., or Sadie as I learn she is called, tries to book in at the Grand and the Imperial but they are both full. Thwarted in her attempt to escape, she retires to her apartment and orders a bottle of Bourbon to be sent up.

      ‘And send the cute one,’ she says, meaning me.

      When I get there she has taken her jacket off and is revealing a shapely pair of bristols lunging against a halter neck jumper.

      ‘Put it down there,’ she says meaning the tray. ‘Boy, I wasn’t expecting too much, but I was hoping for better than this.’

      ‘I’m very sorry,’ I say. ‘The bed is all right now, isn’t it?’

      ‘Do you think we should check it? No, don’t look so alarmed. I was only joking. Tell me, what’s a good-looking boy like you doing in a place like this?’

      ‘It belongs to my brother-in-law. He’s just taken it over.’

      ‘He should try taking it over the side of a cliff. I wouldn’t put up my last husband in a dump like this.’

      I don’t have an answer for that and she pulls a packet of cigarettes out of her handbag.

      ‘I expect you’re asking yourself what a beautiful dame like me is doing getting hitched to Beecham when I could have my pick of any man in the world.’ She watches my adam’s apple as I swallow. ‘You’re right. I’m lonely. Nobody wants to marry people of my age. Take them out, sleep with them, sure. But I want someone to talk to in the long winter evenings. In a few years I’m going to have problems finding three clean old ladies to play bridge with. Do you know how many times I’ve been married?’

      I shake my head.

      ‘This is the fourth. Four times. The only one I loved gave me one night of heaven and the next morning there was just a hole in the bed where he had been. I never saw him again. He took everything I had–even my clothes–I loved that bastard.’ She glugs some more Bourbon into her tumbler. ‘You don’t know what to say, do you? Have a drink, it’ll loosen your tongue.’

      ‘No thanks. I think I’d better be getting along.’

      ‘You’re a shy boy, aren’t you?’ The truth is that with her I am. Give me some innocent little scrubber who says ‘Oh, Timmy you’re smashing. I don’t half fancy you’ and I am all over her. But this bird has had four husbands–well, three and a half, anyway–and talks as if she could eat three of me for breakfast. I feel Percy slinking away with his tail between my legs, and make for the door.

      ‘I’ll take dinner in the apartment,’ she says grandly. ‘And you’d better bring it up.’

      Just as long as you don’t, I think to myself as I go downstairs. It is Mrs Caitley’s night off and the bloke who stands in would be pushed to win a cooking contest against my Mum. I have seen him turning over an egg in his hand as if looking for the instructions.

      That afternoon I have a swim and report back to the hotel about six-thirty. Sure enough, Sadie has phoned down her order and asked for it to be brought to her room by me at eight o’clock sharp.

      ‘I theenk mybe I shoulda handle theez one myself,’ says the new Head Waiter who is (would you believe?) Italian and obviously very hot on the frippet.

      ‘No, no, Senor Luigi,’ I lie. ‘I promised her old man I would see she was all right. I’d better do as she says.’

      ‘But I have much experience of American ladies.’

      I bet you do, mate, I think to myself. Three coins in the fountain–and about forty-eight pairs of knickers.

      In the end I practically have to wrench the tray away from him. I mean, I don’t reckon anything is going to happen, but if by chance it does, I want it to happen to me and not to some blooming Eyetie.

      I run a moist finger along my eyebrows and tap on the door. I have a feeling that Sadie will be spread out on the bed wearing a long frilly negligee, but I am wrong. She is standing by the repaired bed and gazing down at a long frilly negligee that is lying on top of it.

      ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ she says as I cough discreetly in the doorway. ‘Too bad he isn’t going to see it for a few days. I suppose I could wear it round to the hospital under a long coat. Whip it open and whee! They don’t have lady flashers, do they?’

      I shake my head. ‘I’ve never seen one. Where are you going to eat?’

      ‘Oh, put it down over there. It’s not going to get cold, is it?’ She is right there because everything she has ordered is from the cold plate. A wise choice as I have already indicated. ‘Now–what’s your name?’

      ‘Lea–Timothy Lea.’

      ‘Well, Tim … I’d like you to join me in a drink. You do have a few moments, don’t you? It’s my wedding night and I want to have a good time!’ She looks away and bites her lip and for a moment I think I am going to have to whip out the handkerchief again. Blimey, but you need to be a man of many parts in this game. Guide, philosopher and fiend, as Ted Hotchkiss used to say at Melody Bay.

      ‘That’s very kind of you. Thanks.’

      A glance at the liquid left in the bourbon bottle tells me that it has been sinking faster than the country’s gold reserves. Mrs Beecham has obviously been drinking to forget her sorrows. Not that I blame her. A wedding night with Mr B. would not be my idea of the first prize on the back of a cornflakes packet, but it is better than being on your tod.

      ‘He was all right, was he?’ I say conversationally.

      ‘Henry? Do you mean in the sack or when I saw him in hospital? Oh, sorry. You’re blushing again. Yes, he seemed OK He couldn’t move much but his stiff upper lip was still bend-proof. I suppose that’s one of the things that appealed to me about the guy when I first met him. That and his background. He’s very well connected, you know.’ She smiles. ‘I mean, family-wise. Practically an aristocrat. That’s what I need, a touch of class.’ She runs a finger lightly down my nose. ‘Have you got class?’

      ‘Not that kind.’

      ‘No, you’re more the noble savage type, aren’t you? Do you get pestered by lots of ladies?’

      ‘Not as far as the paying customers are concerned. Most of them have to be lifted into their bath chairs.’

      ‘What a shame. You want to get a job in a cruise boat–or somewhere in the south of France. That way your talents could be really exploited.’

      ‘I don’t have any trouble being exploited. My brother-in-law is an expert at it.’

      Mrs B. looks as if she is about to say something, and then changes her mind.

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