Confessions of a Plumber’s Mate. Timothy Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ thought you said you’d give them a quick fondle!’

      I think the misunderstanding is quite funny but Rosie seems to have lost whatever sense of humour she once had. She accuses me of getting in her way and pushes me to one side while she puts on a saucepan. It is all I can do to tip the ice into a jar before she drives me out of the kitchen. When I get back to the lounge, Imogen is sitting where she was but her lovely mince pies shelter a look of reproach.

      ‘I thought you’d forgotten about me,’ she says.

      ‘I don’t think I could ever forget about you,’ I say.

      ‘How nice.’ Her lips twitch again like they did last summer and I feel percy preparing for a game of ‘Launch My Zeppelin’. ‘You got the ice, did you? I’m sorry to be such a terrible nuisance.’

      I make a few mumbling noises and hand over her glass. When she looks at me like that it is difficult to think of things to say. I take the top off the jar and hold it out to her. It seems better mannered to let her help herself rather than cop a mittful of my germs. If I had thought about it I could have brought a pair of tongs but it is too late now. She is still holding my glance and I wonder if she knows what is passing through my mind – I hope her husband doesn’t. Possibly, she is feeling something of what I feel. Beautiful, mature women of the world do fall passionately in love with simple working class lads like me. Half the plays you turn over to on BBC2 for the juicy bits are about it.

      Mrs Fletcher sticks her mitt in the jar and – ‘Oh!’ We both look down to see that her delicate digits are grasping what looks like a cube of parmesan cheese. Oh my gawd! In my confusion I must have tipped the ice cubes into the cheese jar. ‘How frightfully original,’ says Mrs F.

      Rosie appears at my side. ‘You didn’t touch the –’ She takes a butcher’s at the object between Imogen’s fingers and squeaks.

      ‘I think, if you don’t mind –’ says the love of my life.

      ‘I’m very sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean –’

      Rosie snatches the jar out of my hand. ‘Are you mad?!’ she says. ‘Are you stark raving mad?’

      Before I can say any more, the front door bell rings. ‘It must be the nosh – I mean, food,’ I say. ‘I’ll let them in.’

      As I head for the door, I hear Rosie explaining that both Sid and I have been under a lot of strain lately. It is noticeable that when she talks to the Fletchers her voice is a lot more refined than it is when she is parleying to the family.

      ‘– a hundred and forty-five with broken spokes. Of course, with them it’s touch and go as to whether they were lost or abandoned. That’s something only experience will tell you –’ Dad’s voice is still droning on as I open the front door.

      ‘Solly about delay. Go to wong address. Very tlying.’ The little bloke with the pile of containers is behind me before he has finished his sentence. I look out into the street in case there is any one else but there is only a large black cat running as fast as its legs will carry it. ‘Where you want?’

      ‘Well, I think everybody’s quite hungry now,’ says Rosie looking at Dad anxiously. ‘Can you lay it out on the table, please?’

      ‘Chinese food? How lovely!’ Imogen Fletcher drops the cheese-covered ice cube into an ashtray and rises to her feet.

      ‘Those cats were Kung Fu fighting,’ croons Dad. ‘I don’t reckon it myself, you know. I mean, look at him. He doesn’t come up to my chest.’

      ‘Neither does anyone else if they got any sense,’ says Mum. ‘Come on, Walter. Get a grip on yourself.’

      The Chinese bloke is laying out lots of little cardboard boxes full of grub and taking no notice of Dad.

      ‘You hear what I say, Chinky Chops?’ goads Dad. ‘Show us a bit of the old martial arts. Bamboo stalk that bend in wind no support mighty pagoda. You savvy words of Oriental wisdom?’

      ‘You savvy punch up throat?’ says the small Chinese gentleman.

      ‘Stop it, Dad!’ says Mum. ‘Can’t you see you’re embarrassing everybody?’

      Dad starts swaying and bobbing – he has been swaying for most of the evening. ‘Those cats were Kung Fu fighting,’ he chants. ‘Oh, it was most exciting – Come on, Ping Ling. Show us your muscles!’

      The Chinaman places both hands together and bows towards Sid. ‘Food laid out,’ he says.

      ‘You know what you are?’ says Dad. ‘You’re yellow! All you Chinks are the same. You can’t even get a proper Chinaman to play one of you. That bloke in Kung Fu, he’s not Chinese. They pull his eyes back with sellotape.’ WHAM! CRASH! BANG! Dad turns a couple of somersaults – it may have been three, it happens so fast – and lands in an untidy heap on the settee.

      The Chinaman gives Sid another bow. ‘Honourable gentleman laid out,’ he says.

      ‘Do something!’ screams Dad, scrambling to his feet and trying to hide behind Mum. ‘Don’t let him get away with it. Coming in here and assaulting innocent people. Ring for the police!’

      ‘Do shut up, Walter,’ says Mum. ‘You had it coming to you.’

      ‘Yes, Dad,’ says Sid. ‘Belt up!’

      The Chinaman goes out and Dad immediately advances to the drinks tray and empties the remains of a bottle of brandy into a tumbler. ‘Soon saw him off, didn’t I?’ he says. ‘Didn’t take him long to see which way the wind was blowing. He could see what was going to happen – one carrotty chop on a vital nerve point and – pouf!’ – Crispin looks up sharply. ‘All the way back to Gerrard Street in a wheelbarrow.’

      ‘Talking of carrotty chops,’ says Sid, indicating the nosh. ‘We’d better get stuck into this lot before it gets cold.’

      In fact, it is cold. And there is not much worse than cold Chinese food – though this stuff would probably run it close when it was hot. Crispin and Imogen send out a series of polite squeaks but Dad is blunt in his attitude to the fare provided. ‘I don’t mind the vinegar,’ he says. ‘That’s got more taste than the rest of it put together. I reckon it’s why they’re so small, these Chinks. You can’t build a man up on this, can you? It’s not like the roast beef of old England.’

      ‘The Roast Beef of Old England doesn’t seem to have got us very far at the moment, does it?’ says Crispin, carefully picking a bean shoot off his blouse.

      ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ says Dad. ‘Don’t you fancy this country, then? Are you one of those knockers who’s always saying we’re not the greatest nation living on Earth?’

      ‘We will be living on earth if we go on at this rate,’ says Crispin.

      ‘Oh yes, darling. Very good,’ says the lovely Imogen.

      ‘What do you mean, very good?!’ says Dad ferociously. ‘That’s not very good, that’s bleeding awful! Are you a foreigner? Come over here to load yourself up with free specs and dentures on the National Health?!’

      Oh СКАЧАТЬ