Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions. Timothy Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ I’ll introduce you to Mr. Cripps.”

      He presses a button in the middle of his desk and nothing happens. He does this twice more and then stalks to the door and siezes the knob as if intent on tearing it from its mooring. Seconds later I realise that this was not his intention because he is looking at the knob in his hand with something akin to surprise. Cursing crudely he seeks the spindle, but this has dropped through to the other side. I find the whole situation a mild giggle but Cronk has turned scarlet and dropping to his knees begins to bellow instructions through the keyhole. These are speedily complied with—possibly too speedily because the returning spindle makes violent contact with Cronk’s eyeball causing him to cry out with pain and anger.

      “Are you trying to blind me?” he howls, as the door is opened. “Do you realise there could have been a very serious accident? When is somebody going to do something about that bleeper? I’d be better off with a megaphone. Oh my God, this place is going to the dogs.”

      “The man said he’d come yesterday,” says the receptionist who is totally unmoved by the outburst. “Do you want me to see if he can fix the door handle as well?”

      “Yes, please,” says Cronk making an obvious effort to control himself. “I’d be very grateful if you would. Now, can you ask Mr. Cripps if he would be kind enough to step inside my office as I’d like to introduce him to Mr. Lea.”

      Cronk sits down behind his desk and applies a spotless white handkerchief to his weeping eye. Everything about him is immaculate in a square sort of way. His shirt looks as if it is part of a new set of tennis kit and you feel that the creases in his trousers must score grooves in the underside of his desk. The contrast between him and the figure that stumbles through the door is remarkable.

      Mr. Cripps, whom I assume it to be, looks as if he keeps a moulting polar bear as a suit press and the layer of dandruff on his shoulders would come up to a moth’s knees. He wears a grey nylon shirt, darkening to black at neck level and a frayed tie with so much dirt engrained round the knot that one supposes it is never untied but merely loosened to afford a passage over its owner’s head. The face is that of a life-battered fifty-year-old and everything sags, mouth, eyes and even a sparse moustache that looks as if a strong gust of wind would snatch it away across the North Sea. The total effect of flabby incompetence is cemented by the footwear—yellow plastic sandals worn over holed grey socks.

      I was expecting a Nazi stormtrooper to bound through the door after Cronk’s pep talk and the reality is a bit of an anti-climax. Not that I am complaining, mind you. Seeing Mr. Cripps makes me feel much happier.

      Cronk can obviously read my mind because his eyes travel over Cripps without looking as if they are enjoying the trip very much.

      “Good morning, Arthur,” he says. “This is Timothy Lea who I told you about. He’s joining us under licence and I’d like you to take him round the town this morning. Show him the ropes.” He turns to me almost apologetically. “Mr. Cripps looks after our more mature learners. He’s a veritable font of patience to those who aren’t as quick as they might be.”

      Mr. Cripps extends a damp hand and looks patient. “Pleased to meet you,” he says.

      “Likewise,” I murmur. “When will I start instructing?”

      “If everything goes alright today, it could be tomorrow,” says Cronk. “We’ll see.” We go out and I smile at the receptionist but she looks through me as if I am the most boring thing since rubber spaghetti and goes on inspecting her nails. I could shaft her on the spot.

      “What’s she like?” I ask Cripps as we climb into a scruffy Morris Minor with a large red and white sign across the top.

      “Dawn? Oh, she’s not a bad girl. A little flighty and impertinent but it’s mostly high spirits I believe.”

      “She does a turn, does she?” I ask eagerly.

      Cripps blushes. “I wouldn’t know about that,” he says primly, “perhaps you would care to drive.” His voice sounds as if its coming from half way down his throat and when he speaks his lips don’t move. He would make a marvellous ventriloquist, only it would be impossible to hear him if you weren’t sitting in the front two rows and no self-respecting dummy would want to work with him. I reject the thought as being unkind and peer back through the window of the driving school where I catch one of Dawn’s heavily made-up eyes. I stick my tongue out at her but she merely directs her gaze towards the ceiling and my rapist fantasies become homicidal.

      This is probably why I nearly clip a milk float as I pull out. There is a screech of brakes and a crate of milk shatters all over the road.

      “Dammit, boy,” shouts the enraged driver, “how many lessons you had to come swinging out like that before giving any signals?”

      “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you,” I say.

      A small crowd has gathered and Cronk and Dawn are watching through the window. Not one of my best starts.

      “Didn’t see me!” snorts the yokel. “You better have your eyes tested, boy. You want to watch it, Arthur. You should have taken him up to the golf course before you let him have a go. He won’t pass his test if he can’t see proper.”

      I could belt the bleeder, but after a few more insults we help him kick the broken glass into the gutter and can get on our way. Cronk’s face is a picture but he stays inside. For the first time since I have been there, Dawn is smiling. What really gets my goat is that Cripps does take the wheel and drive up to the golf course before he lets me have a go. I feel like accelerating to the cliff edge and slamming on the anchors inches from the brink but the poor sod can’t help being like he is so I don’t do anything and meekly drive towards the club house as instructed.

      It is about ten o’clock when we get there and he flashes inside mumbling something about “call of nature”. I don’t know what kind of piss house they have in there but when he comes back there is a new spring in his gait and a faint whiff of Scotch around his chops. I don’t pay much attention but not more than half an hour later it is the side entrance of the Metropole and he has disappeared again. I am therefore not surprised when eleven o’clock finds us outside the Admiral Nelson and Cripps asks casually if I would fancy a quiet half of shandy or something. His “something” turns out to be a large Scotch and you don’t have to have an I.Q. of 150 to guess what he spends all his pocket money on.

      Marvellous, isn’t it? After all that bullshit from Cronk, I’m driving round with a chronic boozer who can’t last half an hour without having a snifter. Not that it seems to affect him. He looks just as docile and disinterested as he did when I first saw him.

      “You have to be a bit careful with the stuff, don’t you?” I ask him.

      “Oh yes. But it’s no problem with me. I just have a quick snort occasionally to keep my spirits up.”

      “How long have you been with Cronk?”

      “Oh, let me see, I suppose about five years. I knew him in the army, you know. He used to work for me then. Very conscientious chap, and behind the gruff exterior, exceptionally kind-hearted.”

      “What made you leave the army?”

      I can sense that this is a question he would have preferred me not to ask and for a second I wish I wasn’t such a nosey sod.

      “Oh, a number of reasons. I was getting a bit old for it. I felt I needed a change, СКАЧАТЬ