Confessions from a Holiday Camp. Timothy Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ on the front door step is a pneumatic brunette of about twenty-five, carrying a map board and chewing the end of a pencil as she examines our door-knocker. She is not at all bad and in my present keyed-up condition could be a lot worse. Pausing only to make sure that my eye teeth are not showing, I speed to the front door and hurl it open.

      “Good morning,” says my visitor with practised cheeriness. I note that her eyes are making a lightning tour of my person and allow myself a similar liberty with her own shapely frame.

      “Good morning,” I say.

      “I am doing some research for a company called Baspar Services and I wondered if I could ask you a few questions about shoes.”

      “Shoes?”

      “Shoes. It won’t take very long.”

      Take as long as you like, darling, I think to myself, wincing at the discomfort her too-tight sweater must be causing her tempting tits.

      “Come inside, we don’t want to stand out here on the doorstep.”

      The girl looks a little doubtful.

      “Is your wife at home? I’ve got some questions for her, too.”

      This is obviously a ploy used to discourage potential rapists. Funny how my expression always gives me away.

      “Oh, I’m not married,” I say jokily as if the whole idea was too funny for words, “but my mother is doing the washing.”

      I don’t say where, so she trips over the threshold and I steer her on to the settee in the front room. This puts her at a disadvantage because generations of Leas watching tele, or grappling before it during power cuts, has forced the springs down to floor level. One either sinks without trace or perches on the edge. My guest starts off by doing the former and then struggles uncomfortably into an upright position revealing a good deal of shapely leg which I pretend not to see. In reality, I am finding it difficult to control myself because the adventures of my Danish friends are still firmly rooted in my mind.

      “Well, let’s get down to business,” say Miss Shapely-Thighs, briskly. “First of all, how many pairs of shoes do you have?”

      She chews the end of her pencil and I could do without that for a start.

      “Sixty-nine,” and her eyebrows shoot up.

      “I mean six—er—yes. I think it’s six. Sorry, I don’t know why I said that.” I don’t either. I have this terrible habit of saying what I am thinking, sometimes. Very embarrassing.

      “Six,” she repeats and makes a tick on her questionnaire. “When did you last buy a pair?”

      Talking of pairs, I think that’s a lovely set of knockers you’ve got there. I wouldn’t mind doing a few press-ups on top of that lot.

      “About a month ago,” I say.

      “Where did you buy them?”

      “At the shoe shop. I can’t remember the name. Maybe it’s on them. I’m wearing them, you see.”

      We smile at each other as if it’s all terribly funny really and I wrench one of my casuals off and gaze hopefully into its interior. Nothing, except a shiny brown surface and a lived-in smell I would not try to sell to Helena Rubinstein. I put it on hurriedly.

      “I think it was that one down by Woolworths. It was in the High Street, anyway.”

      “Can you remember how much they cost?”

      “About a fiver I think. Shoes are diabolically expensive these days, aren’t they?”

      I throw that in because it is about time I started showing a bit of initiative. Horst and Inga would have had each other’s knickers off by now on half the wordpower.

      “Terrible,” says the bird, “and it’s not as if they’re made to last.” She flexes her calf muscles and indicates some disintegrating stitchwork before realising that I am casing her joints and snapping back to being Miss Efficiency.

      “Do you have any wet-look shoes?”

      “Three pairs.”

      “What colours?”

      “Two black, one brown.”

      “How do you clean them?”

      “I breathe on them,” I say, fluttering my lips at her. “And then I rub them over with a duster.”

      “Have you ever used an aerosol?”

      “Only my sister’s hairspray.”

      “On your shoes?”

      “No. I was trying to stick Mum’s Green Shield stamps in with them. They got left out in the rain and all the glue came off.”

      There doesn’t seem to be a column on her questionnaire for that so she gives a little sigh and gets on with it.

      “I meant an aerosol shoe spray,” she says. “They’re specially made for wet-look shoes.”

      “They cost a few bob, don’t they?” I say suspiciously.

      “How much do you think?” She sounds all eager and her pencil is poised expectantly.

      “Oh, about five bob, twenty five p, forty seven rupees, or whatever it is, these days.”

      “What is the most you would be prepared to pay for an aerosol shoe-spray?”

      “I’m quite happy with breathing on them like I do at the moment.”

      “But supposing you wanted to buy an aerosol.”

      “But I don’t.”

      Not vintage Noel Coward, is it? And certainly not getting me any nearer a dramatisation of “Wife-swapping, Danish Style”. It’s a shame really because she’s a lovely bird, even if she does seem married to her craft.

      “You must get a few passes made at you on a job like this,” I say chattily. “Have you been doing it for long?”

      “Six months,” she says. “Now try and imagine that you do want to buy an aerosol. 20p? 25p? 50p?”

      She does go on, doesn’t she?

      “Well, it’s difficult, isn’t it?” I say. “Do you fancy a cup of tea or something? It must get a bit knackering wandering about the streets all day.”

      “Thank you, no,” she says. “Look—” and she dives into a large satchel-type handbag she is carrying, “—this is the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

      She produces three aerosol canisters and lays them on the settee. One pink, one black, one green.

      “Oh yes,” I say, trying to keep my enthusiasm within bounds. Actually I am quite glad that we have found something to СКАЧАТЬ