Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions. Timothy Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ supper it is back to the bar and when I go to bed most of them are still at it. One or two of the younger birds stay with them but most of the wives watch telly, read a book or knit. I go into the telly lounge and ask if they would like anything.

      ‘Yes, a husband,’ says one of them and the others laugh.

      ‘Don’t hang around here too long,’ says another cute little number who deserves better things, i.e. me. ‘Frustration might get the better of us.’

      I leave them, thinking that the wrong type of bloke could easily be tempted to do himself a bit of good in the circumstances and retire to my room. By chance, Carmen drops by to see if I have any brown boot polish and in the ensuing search for a tin all thoughts of other ladies in the hotel are driven rhythmically from my mind.

      The next morning I wake up to find that one of the rooms has been burned out, due to a drunken Rottingfestrian falling asleep with a burning cigarette in his mitt. Numerous jokers have thrown up all over the hotel, and a running battle with fire buckets and soda syphons has kept most of the non-rugby-playing guests awake half the night. There is an angry queue forming outside Sidney’s office and their pointed chatter is loud enough to be heard above the noise of the Rottingfestrians pouring cornflakes over each other in the dining room.

      It is while explaining to the narked guests that Sidney will be along in a minute that I notice one of the birds who was in the TV lounge, coming down to breakfast. She is a bit older than the others and wearing a green silk trouser suit that does not have enough spare room in it to store a postage stamp. She looks a very cool lady and sweeps her eyes over me like they are the lashes on a pair of windscreen wipers brushing aside an insect. Five minutes later Sidney comes along and the rugby hearties start pouring out of breakfast.

      ‘OK chaps,’ trills one of them, ‘time for training.’ Thank God, I think, now for a little peace. But not a bit of it! They march straight across to the bar and demand pints all round. Dennis does not come on duty till eleven o’clock and I try to point out this fact.

      ‘Come off it!’ snarls one of them, bigger and uglier than the rest. ‘This is a hotel, isn’t it? The bar should be open all the time.’

      ‘I’d have thought you would have had enough last night,’ I say. Fatso does not like this.

      ‘It’s not your place to comment on my drinking habits,’ he yelps. ‘You do as you’re told and get this bar open. Otherwise I’ll report you to the BTA.’

      ‘You can report me to the RSPCA if you like but the bar doesn’t open till eleven.’

      ‘Damned cheek.’

      ‘Piss off.’

      ‘Grab him!’

      Before I can lift a finger, or, more relevant to the situation, a boot, I am seized by half a dozen pairs of strong hands and pressed back against the wall.

      ‘What shall we do with him?’

      ‘Chuck him in the briny.’

      ‘No, I’ve got a better idea.’

      Five minutes later Sidney comes into the bar in answer to my shouts and looks around him inquiringly.

      ‘I’m up here, Sid.’

      ‘Blimey!!’ Sid has probably never seen me sitting astride a bison’s head fifteen feet from the ground, and the hint of surprise in his voice is understandable.

      ‘How long have you been up there?’

      ‘Ever since they put me up here. Sid, you’re going to have to get rid of them, you know.’

      ‘I can’t afford to, Timmo.’

      ‘And Sid.’

      ‘Yes, Timmo.’

      ‘Get us a ladder before you piss off.’

      ‘Oh, sorry. OK. Yeah. I’ll do that.’ Sid seems to be in a daze as he wanders out of the room. My own feeling is of a deeper and more primitive nature. I am going to get even with those bastards if it is the last thing I do. You probably remember the movie. I was staked out on an anthill at the time and Yukon Pete and that sidewinding sidekick of his, the Mexican with the easy smile and the fast knife in the back pocket, had just lifted my stake in the Eldorado Gold Mine. That, after I had dug them both out of a roof-fall with my bare hands. Little did they know that three days later when I had gnawed through the buffalo hide thongs–‘Ahem,’ the bird in the green trouser suit has succeeded in attracting my attention. ‘What were you thinking about?’

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

      ‘It makes a refreshing change, even if it was about nothing. What are you doing this afternoon?’

      ‘I’m serving afternoon teas.’

      ‘I’d like you to serve me as well.’ The lady has not batted an eyelid–not that I would probably be able to tell if she had. I mean, do you know how to bat an eyelid?

      ‘Come again?’ I Mumble.

      ‘I hope so,’ she says briskly. ‘Come to my room at three. Two-four-six.’

      ‘Aren’t you going to the game?’

      ‘This is the game, darling.’

      ‘I mean the rugger match.’

      ‘Darling, we all go on tour for different reasons. For some people it’s rugby. Now me; I don’t like team games. I don’t like mildewed jock straps, butterscotch socks, stud mud in the bathroom basin, vomit on the door mat or courgettes that talk like cucumbers. Do you understand me?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Two-four-six at three. We can discuss it further.’ She starts to willow away down the corridor as Fatso staggers in through the door with his arms full of one-gallon beer cans.

      ‘Where the hell did you put the car keys?’ he calls out to her. ‘I’ve had to walk half a mile with this lot.’

      ‘I expect it did you the world of good, darling,’ she beams. ‘Why don’t you try hopping upstairs on alternate feet? I’ll time you.’

      ‘Bitch.’

      ‘Thank you.’ She draws herself up and makes with the withering glance. ‘Have a good game this afternoon, and don’t forget to put your jock strap on the right way round. I’d hate your brain to get cold.’ She stalks off while I take in the glorious news that this must be Fatso’s old lady. Wild horses are going to be required to drag me away from room two-four-six.

      Around lunch time the booze intake begins to drop a little and it becomes easier to spot those who are actually playing that afternoon. They can be seen sipping brandies rather than pints and ordering salads instead of meat and fourteen veg. Quite what difference this late change of diet is supposed to make I don’t know. It must all be in the mind or whatever these blokes have instead. Half a dozen of them start rugby-passing empty beer cans round the foyer and Sandra gets a nasty belt in the bristols before they can be persuaded to stop.

      It СКАЧАТЬ