Confessions from a Holiday Camp. Timothy Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ the path of duty is made smoother for me by the sight of a right little darling sweeping past and pausing only to totally ignore me. Sid always reckoned that when a bird really fancied you she went out of her way to treat you like air and I think he had something. I have known chicks who would cross the road when they saw me coming. Anyway, this particular specimen is carrying a suitcase and she gives a lift to my Y-fronts by getting into my train. Pausing only to slam down 30p for an epic entitled “Terrible Hard Says Alice” which I remember Sidney raving about, I slope in after her and wander down the corridor casually glancing into the compartments until I find her. My luck is in, because she has discovered an empty compartment and is just struggling to get her case on to the rack as I appear. Nice curve to her calves there is too as she teeters with the case at shoulder height. Nearly doing myself a nasty injury in my haste, I gallop through the door and prepare to show her how strong and gentlemanly I am.

      “Here, let me do that,” I yodel, snatching the case from her fumbling fingers, pausing only to destroy her with the fruits of about half a ton of Colgate and years of hard brushing (children, please note), I toss it lightly on to the rack and follow up with another flash of the gnashers. She has a nice smile too, and we stand there beaming at each other so it might make you feel sick. She is blonde and she has big blue eyes and mouth so generous it looks as if it might give away kisses to strangers. I wouldn’t mind receiving the rest of her as a free gift, either. Smashing tits, as Wordsworth would say, and all the better for nestling under one of those thick woolly sweaters which make you think of stroking animals – or what you thought of stroking in the first place. I wouldn’t complain to my M.P. about her legs, either. Speaking as I find, all in all and putting it bluntly, she is definitely a looker who could well have her way with me if she played her cards right.

      “Oh, thank you so much.”

      “No trouble.”

      We have another little smile and I make sure to sit down in the opposite corner to her. I want to fill up the compartment and I don’t want to crowd her too much to begin with. After all, we have six hours alone together.

      But I speak too soon. Just as I am beginning to feel the first little electric thrill of anticipation as she crosses her legs, and the train gives a sympathetic jerk forward, so the compartment door slides open and a strong contender for the Upper Class Twit of the Year award hoves into view. In fact, I do him an injustice. If I was betting money I would put the lot on his nose – all fourteen inches of it.

      “Phew, oh I say,” he chortles, “damn close thing, eh what?” He crashes one of his great nobbly brown shoes onto my multi-patterned suedes without giving any sign that the encounter has caused him pain, bashes his pigskin case against my knees and slumps down opposite my bird. I can see that she is no more pleased to see him than I am and this makes his presence doubly choking.

      He is wearing a sort of poor man’s Sherlock Holmes uniform with a check cloak and a non-flap Deerstalker that looks as if it ought to be covered in trout flies. In fact, any kind of fly could cover the whole blooming lot of him without feeling it was living above its station.

      “Had the devil’s own job finding a cab,” he confided, as if we cared. “There must have been a garden party at Buck House, or something.”

      There is nothing there for me so I exchange a commiserating glance with Big Eyes and look out across the corridor to where there is a large expanse of tunnel on which to project my thoughts.

      Captain Chinless is obviously desperate for conversation because he slips into full bore.

      “My own, fault, I suppose. Didn’t leave enough time, eh, wha-a-at?” He strings out the last word so that it sounds like someone gargling. “But demned if I was going to rush my lunch. Very bad for the indigestion, that’s what nanny used to say. Chew each mouthful sixty five times – or was it fifty five? No, I think it was sixty five – that’s the only sound way to digest it, wha-a-at?”

      If he is going to keep on like this to Newcastle I’m going to swing for him and that is the honest truth.

      “The family never missed a train when nanny was around. Nanny Pecksmith; that was her name. I can still see her as if it was yesterday. Remarkable woman. Tremendous disciplinarian. Hated television. Used to read Pilgrims Progress to us all the time and the next one, what was that called?”

      “Carry on Pilgrims Progress?” I say.

      “No, it wasn’t that.”

      “Onward Pilgrims Progress?”

      “No, no. That’s a hymn.”

      “Oh, of course.”

      Tragic isn’t it? The world’s most attractive male animal thwarted by this throwback from Berks peerage and I don’t mean Burke’s. The poor Lea-besotted bird in the corner must be heartbroken.

      “Tea is now being served,” says the waiter in the pumice stone coloured white jacket.

      “Oh, super. Just what the doctor ordered. Would you care to join me for a spot of tea?” says Sherlock Twit.

      “I’d love to,” says my bird.

      And the consequence is that they have disappeared up the corridor before I can say Fascist Hyena. It is diabolical, isn’t it? The titled twit hasn’t even asked me if I fancy a cup of tea. I try and immerse myself in my book but even the multiple talents of Christopher Wood fail to wrest my uneasy mind from the thought of Sherlock and Big Eyes grappling over the tea table. She is obviously the kind of chubbycheeked scrubber that hands it out to everybody and I did not move fast enough. The thought of losing out to Lord Shagnasty is more than I can stand.

      I consider wandering down there after them but I can’t see where it is going to get me, apart from outside one of British Railways’ diabolically expensive excuses for the traditional vicar-ridden and clotty.

      One hour I have waited before they stumble through the door and it is obvious that the tea has degenerated into a drop of the hard stuff. My tip for the Upper Class Twit of the Year stakes is registering symptoms of an attack of the galloping knee-trembles and Big-Eyes is totally giggly and droopy.

      “Awfully funny,” says Shagnasty raking his eyes across my face is if he expects me to break into spontaneous applause. “Oh, yes, capital wheeze, eh wha-a-at?”

      Only the lack of a primed twelve-bore materialising in my hands prevents me from turning his mug into scarlet wallpaper.

      I sit there pretending to give my all to “Terrible Hard, Says Alice”, whilst my evil cock-orientated little mind seeks a means of reducing the human equation to a simple one plus one equals minus supertwit.

      Fortunately, Fate chooses that moment to play into my hands. The train shoves on the anchors and I notice a flurry of activity in the corridor which denotes the fact that disembarkation is imminent.

      Whilst my two companions flop out in their seats making fish-pouting noises to each other, I cast a casual eye over Shagnasty’s baggage. This clearly reveals that my rival is bound for Leeds. This is something of a surprise, but I have a better one in store. The sign on the platform describes a place well short of that fair city and is obscured by a trolley-load of mail bags as we grind to a halt. Quick as a flash I dart onto the platform and take up a position behind the mail bags. “Leeds,” I shout. “Change here for Leeds. We are the champions.” Whether my final utterance gives a gloss of truth to the rabbit I do not know, but my erstwhile rival is soon stumbling out of СКАЧАТЬ