Confessions from a Luxury Liner. Timothy Lea

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СКАЧАТЬ you can’t say anything sensible, belt up. I’d better go and set their minds at ease. I’ll have a Scotch.’ And with that, he is gone. Lea gets lumbered with the drinks again. I can see them all looking at me. Sid is saying something and the two birds are leaning forward like he is describing the first symptoms of rabies.

      ‘That’ll be two pounds thirty pence, mate.’

      ‘Two pounds thirty pence!’

      ‘This is the doubles bar.’

      I pay up and stagger over to where Sid is sitting, determined to see a return on my investment. The last time I laid out this kind of money on a bird I thought she was buying her trousseau with it.

      ‘Haven’t they got any ice?’ says Gloria.

      ‘I’d like some water with mine,’ says Natalie.

      Marvellous, isn’t it? You would think my jeans would be sodden with tears of gratitude after all the moola I have lashed out. Instead of that they treat me as if I am a blooming butler.

      ‘Come on, Timmo,’ says Sid. ‘Get it together. See if you can find some nuts while you’re about it.’

      ‘I think I know where I can find a couple straight off,’ I say.

      I leave him to think about it and pad back to the bar. The plastic pumpkin is full of lukewarm water and dead flies, and when I mention ice the barman looks at me as if I have asked for the kiss of life. ‘It’s finished, mate,’ he says. ‘People take it.’

      ‘That’s terrible,’ I say, realising immediately that sarcasm is wasted on him. ‘Is there anywhere here I can get some?’

      ‘You might try the Orchestra Bar,’ he says. ‘They don’t have the same run on it down there.’

      So I pour the water from the plastic pumpkin into a glass, fish out the flies, and take it back to the girls. Natalie does not even say ta but pours it straight into her Pernod.

      ‘Oh look,’ I say. ‘It’s turned cloudy. Do you want me to take it back?’

      ‘It’s supposed to do that, you twit!’ hisses Sid. ‘Piss off and find some ice.’

      So I am across the dance floor like a ball of mercury and amazed to find that the plastic pumpkin on the counter of the Orchestra Bar is full of ice. I snatch it up and have taken one step back the way I came when the geezer behind the bar buries his voice in my earhole.

      ‘Here! Where do you think you’re going?’ he says.

      ‘I want some ice,’ I say.

      ‘Well, you can’t take that,’ he says.

      ‘Listen,’ I say. ‘Don’t give me a bad time. My patience is becoming exhausted. I’m not nicking your bleeding pumpkin for a kiddy’s piss pot. I just want some ice for a couple of drinks.’

      ‘I don’t care if you want it to embalm your pet lizard,’ says the bloke. ‘You’re not taking that tub.’

      As it turns out, the bloke is right. I take another couple of purposeful strides and the ice bucket is jerked out of my hands as if it is attached to a chain fastened to the counter – which it is. A shower of iced balls fly across the floor and four couples fall arse over tit in the middle of their ladies’ excuse me. I am fortunate to be able to pick up half a dozen balls and lose myself in the confusion. When I get back to Sid and the girls, my hands are dripping and the balls have nearly disappeared – I gave them a quick suck in case they had picked up any dirt, which did not help. After all my efforts, I am not overthrilled to find that the birds have finished their drinks.

      ‘That’s great,’ I say. ‘I’ve got six balls and you don’t want any of them.’

      ‘Stop lying and being disgusting,’ says Sid. ‘You must learn to judge when you’re giving offence.’ He turns to Gloria. ‘Would you care to take the floor?’

      ‘Watch him,’ I say. ‘He won’t even help you carry it out to the lorry.’

      I know what I said a few paragraphs ago but sometimes you don’t care, do you? Sid goes past me with a look of disdain illuminating his noble features and soon he and Gloria are dancing their way into the record books. That leaves me with Natalie and my bus fare home. It is for this latter reason that I ignore her blood red fingernails toying with the stem of her empty glass.

      ‘I believe Gloria’s husband is afloat?’ I say, revealing that easy gift for conversation that makes it so amazing that I am one of the few people in the country who has never appeared on the Michael Parkinson Show.

      Natalie looks puzzled. ‘A what?’ she says. ‘He’s English.’

      I think hard and realise that there has been a misunderstanding. ‘No,’ I say with a light laugh. ‘I mean, he is a seafaring man, a jolly jack tar, “fifteen men on a dead man’s chest” and all that kind of thing.’ I lean forward and give her my Robert Newton. ‘ “Them as dies ’ll be the lucky ones. Aaaargh, Jim boy. Aaaargh!” ’ Natalie draws back and looks around nervously. Maybe I should have gone a bit easy on the eyeball rolling. Still, you see worse on children’s television. Much worse.

      It is not something that I particularly care to be seen doing in public but it occurs to me that in the present situation there is probably no way out. ‘Do you fancy a—?’ I say, jerking my head towards the dance floor.

      Natalie closes her eyes momentarily as if racked by a sharp pang of toothache. ‘All right,’ she says.

      Like I have said before, my dancing is lousy but I don’t think I can come to too much harm because the floor is crowded with snogging couples and they are playing the ‘Tennisknee Waltz’ or some such tune calculated to act as an emetic if you do not have the strength to shove your fingers down your throat. All I will have to do is change my weight from one foot to the other and hope that she does not leave her plates lying about where harm can come to them. It might even be the start of something beautiful. I push her deep into the scrum of bodies so that none of the herberts standing around the side of the floor can see me making a berk of myself and wait for the loudest of the boum, boum, boums before gliding my left foot forward with an easy flowing motion that catches her just above the instep.

      ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘The floor’s a bit fast tonight, isn’t it?’

      ‘Are you barmy?’ she says. ‘Surely you can do a waltz?’

      ‘I think it’s you,’ I say. ‘You’ve got me all excited. That’s a lovely perfume you’re wearing. What is it? I’d like to get some for my Mum.’ Natalie does not look as flattered as I would like her to be and I am swift to try and set her mind at ease. ‘For her birthday,’ I say. ‘She’d like to smell like you, I know she would. I always get her perfume – sorry, was that your leg again?’

      ‘No, it belonged to the man behind me,’ she says. ‘Can’t you keep in time with the rhythm? One, two, three. One, two - ouch!’

      ‘Sorry!’ I say. I stop and pull her very close to me so that I don’t have to see the look of suffering on her face. ‘Let’s start again. Right foot forward.’ I notice one of the bouncers who was near the Orchestra Bar peering at me like he recognises me, and burrow into the centre of СКАЧАТЬ