Chapter 7

In which Timmy takes Gretchen home to meet Mum and Dad-and regrets it.

"The butler did it,' says Sid. 'The buder?' I say.

'Yes,' says Sid. 'It's an open and shut case. Like your Dad when he's helping himself to a fag without passing them around. He was run down by a trolley full of sugar outside Sainsbury's.'

'Dad?' I say.

Sid shakes his head impatiently. 'No! The buder. When they loosened his collar they found that he was wearing half a dozen stretch bras. He had three pairs of flower patterned panties under his pin stripes.'

"That's amazing,' I say. 'I didn't even know that the school had a buder.'

'It doesn't,' says Sid. 'He was on loan from one of the local nobs. Supposed to clean the silver and help with the flower arrangements. Fate intervened just as I was about to expose him.'

'What a pity,' I say. 'I expect he would have liked that. If it's not a rude answer-how did you tumble him?'

Sid looks pleased with himself. 'It was the matron. She put me on to it.'

'Oh yes,' I say, suppressing a smile. 'How?'

'Well,' says Sid. 'It was only a little thing.'

'I can believe that,' I say, having another secret chortle. 'You had to pump her, did you ?'

Sid gives me one of his funny looks. 'What are you on about? She merely observed, in the course of ordinary conversation, that she had seen Mr. Pomeroy blowing his snitch on a pair of knicks. It was a throwaway piece of information but it made me think. How many men do you know who blow their noses on birds' fleas and ants ?'

I shake my head, silent in the presence of a master. 'You've got me there Sid.'

Sid wrinkles up his eyes. 'For a moment I was puzzled, I must confess. And then it came to me: he didn't intend to blow his nose on a pair of knicks!'

'You mean, he was sniffing them?' I say. 'Blimey, that's a bit kinky, isn't it?'

Sid claps a hand to his nut. 'Gordon Bennett! It's going to be agony working with you-he thought the knicks were his handkerchief, don't you see? That's how he gave himself away. He'd obviously had a quick whip round the dormitories and stowed the swag in his jacket pockets.'

'Caught in the knicker time,' I say. 'Blimey, Sid. I have to hand it to you. That was brilliant. I bet your breath came in short pants when you made the final deduction. What a crying shame that fate in the shape of a Sainsbury's trolley should rob you of your finest moment.'

'Lesser men might think like that,' says Sid waving a dismissive mit. 'But I reckon that in this game you've got to be phflat-philli-'

'Philosophical?' I prompt.

"That as well,' says Sid 'It's the intellectual satisfaction of having outwitted a master criminal that really makes me chuffed to the bollocks.'

'Very understandably,' I say. 'Tell me, was the butier the geezer who was ranning round with the knickers over his nut?' Sid shakes his head. 'No, Timmo. That was a red heron. You get a lot of them in this kind of case.'

'Don't you mean a red herring?' I say, thinking once again that the dicky bird image may not be inapt. Had the Lea nut collided with the floor of the gym, red could indeed have been this year's colour for co-opted love divers.

'As you wish,' says Sid. 'What I'm trying to say is that you get a lot of publicity seekers trying to cash in on the action. The kind of people who confess to murders when they haven't committed them.' Smart readers will observe that my involvement in the whole sorry business has not been discovered. The speed of a naked Lea with a pair of woman's knicks over his nut makes a mockery of Great Britain's lack of success in recent Olympic Hundred Metres finals. 'The bastard who terrorised those poor girls in the gymnasium just wanted a cheap thrill and his name in the papers. It's a good job he got away really. It robbed him of the satisfaction.'

The way I feel after my bout with Titania, Imogen and the rest of them I reckon that I have been robbed of the satisfaction permanentiy. Percy has about as much verve and devil-may-care vigour as the skin on a mug of cold Horlicks. Every time I pass a bird in the street I can feel him scuttling for shelter.

My rehabilitation is not helped by the unhappy course of my relationship with the fair Gretchen. The tip of my tonk has still to penetrate deeper than the first half inch of her nunga throttler and I am beginning to wonder if I am ever going to feel my cobblers dusting the back of her khyber. Talk about frustrating. It is like trying to play shove halfpenny with your dick. I am thinking of buying percy a Tarn O' Shanter and calling him Throb Roy. After every session with Gretchen I am reduced to aching agony. There is nothing worse than having fifteen and a half centimetres of warmobile and finding that the parking space is only big enough for a mini. It is a great pity because at every other level than the horizontal I get on very well with the bird. She is warm and kind and even buys me a present-some Bavarian orna mental mug with a lid on it. I don't reckon it much because it reminds me of the thing Uncle Ted kept spitting in when I visited him in hospital but, of course, I don't let on.

One thing I do find embarrassing is the way that she keeps rabbiting on about my Mum and Dad. She is always asking questions about them and it is clear that she is angling for an invite round to the ancestral seat. I would be chary if she was an English bird but her being German makes the whole idea even more of a liability. I always remember how Dad went spare when he found me having it off with Matilda NGobla. That little bout of in and out pleased him a great deal less than somewhat, and Mum did her nut as well. Of course, Gretchen is not black which is a big step in the right direction as far as any future daughterin-law is concerned but I am still wary of inviting her to make a mockery of the door mat with 'welcome' written on it.

In the end I decide that to invite her round for a cup of cha can't do any harm and broach the subject with Mum and Dad. 'Be all right if I invite a friend round for tea on Sunday?' I say, dead casual-like.

'Not that boy with the motorbike,' says Mum. 'He left grease marks all over the house.'

'And that was just the stuff that dripped off his bonce,' says Dad. 'llorrible long-haired git! It made my flesh creep to look at him.'

'I wasn't talking about Michel,' I say. 'This is a girl.'

'A girl?' says Mum. The minute she says it I have third thoughts-I have already had second thoughts. 'Oh. That's nice. A friend, is she?' Mum used to treat any bird I got involved with like she had terminal dandruff. Now it is different. I think she is getting worried about me. She keeps taXkkvg, about "Rode and the Yids-"Jerome and "Jason, or Reggje and Ronny as they are known locally-and saying how most of the neighbourhood tearaways have improved since they 'settled down'. I reckon she would like to see me going up the aisle. 'What's her name?'

'Er-Gretchen,' I say.

'Gretchen?' Dad spits Swiss roll all over the tart in The Sun who is demonstrating a new kind of seatbelt in the altogether. "That's not an English name.'

"That's right,' I say. 'It's German.'

'Blooming stupid!'

Dad gives the bird in The Sun a second helping of Swiss roll and spares her further suffering by putting down the paper. 'Fancy giving a little kiddy a Hun name. Some people have got no common.'

'She is German,' I say.

'German?' says Mum, her eyes widening. 'You mean, from Germany?'

"That's right, Mum.' I say. 'Bad Soden.'

'You mind your language in front of your mother!' storms Dad. 'Oh my gawd. I never thought I'd live to see the day. The Nazis marching over my threshold. Achieving by stealth what they could never do in open combat.'

'Come off it, Dad!' I say. 'You're always saying how much you respect the Germans. What hard workers they are, how clean they are and all that.'

"That's as soldiers,' says Dad. 'They're all right to fight against but I don't want them in my home.'

'I don't know what the neighbours will say,' says Mum sounding dead worried.

"They don't have to know, do they?' I say, beginning to get warmed up. 'She's not going to walk down the street carrying a swastika and singing "Deutschland alley lubbers".'

'I wasn't thinking of her coming to tea,' says Mum. 'It's when-well, you know, later on, the banns.'

'I'm putting up a ban right now,' says Dad. 'No son of mine is going to marry a kraut. I didn't fight for six years to keep this country free for my children to grow up in so they could get spliced to the people who were raining fire bombs down on me'-Dad's war effort involved fire watching and building up the largest stock of nicked gas masks in South East England.

'llang on a minute!' I shout. 'Who said anything about marriage? I'm asking her round for tea, not to choose the wedding cake.'

'I'm not saying we wouldn't like you to settle down,' says Mum. 'To the right girl, of course. I always used to like that girl from Stockwell. What was her name? Tracey Stacey?'

'Lacey,' I say. 'She came from Tooting and you hated her. You were always saying that she wasn't good enough for me.'

'Oh no, dear,' says Mum. 'You're getting confused. I always liked her.'

'At least she wasn't a bleeding kraut,' says Dad. 'Oh dear, you do know how to pick them, don't you ?'

'Now listen-!' I say.

'I suppose we'll have to make the best of it,' says Mum. 'You remember that Avril Figgis-the one there was the fight about outside the baths hall-she married a Yank, didn't she?'

'Several from what I heard,' says Dad. 'Darkies, most of them. It near killed her mother, I know that. Her old man resigned from the bowls club.'

"The kiddies weren't black,' says Mum. 'I saw a photo of them in the Sentinel.'

'You can never tell what colour anyone is supposed to be in that rag,' says Dad. 'You remember when Uncle Albert had his presentation down at the British Legion. They made him look like Al Jolson.'

'Ah hem,' I say. 'Do you mind if I interrupt for a minute? Not only am I not getting hitched but I resent all this anti-German rubbish. The war has been over for thirty years, you know. Gretchen belongs to a generation which never knew about all the things the rest of us would have forgotten if it hadn't been for Colditz and all those old war movies they show on the telly.'

"They don't change,' says Dad. 'Only their socks, any way. Either at your throat or at your feet. You don't have to tell me nothing about the son honey-I mean, the Hun, sonny.'

"Timmy's right, Walter,' says Mum, her Up quivering like a jeUy at a farting contest. 'It's his life. If he wants to marry this girl then there's nothing we can do about it. He's past the age of incontinence. We've done eveiything we can for him. No mother or father could have done more.' With these touching words she bursts into tears and it takes several minutes of my father comforting her and telling her to belt up before peace is restored.

I continue to try to make it plain that I have no plans to get spUced but I might as weU save my breath. With every second that passes, Mum becomes more convinced that her third grandson is going to be called Adolf and it gets so that I am beginning to take the idea seriously myself. Maybe fate is perspiring so that I don't have it off with Gretchen until after we are hitched. Very ironical that would be.

In the end, Mum bends over backwards so far that she ends up saying that Gretchen must come for a proper meal and not just tea. Of course, this is the last thing that I want. The most practical thing that Mum ever did with her Good Housekeeping Cookery Book was to use it to prop up one of the wonky legs on the hallstand. Even Attila the Hun and his hungry hordes would have turned their hooters up at the nosh she provides.

Poor unsuspecting Gretchen is delighted to get inside 17 Scraggs Lane at last and even the expression on Dad's face doesn't put her off. 'So nice it is, here, Mr. Lea,' she says cheerfully. 'How many interesting things you have. It is like museum. I like old photograph of Kaiser on mantelpiece.'

Dad turns scarlet. That's my father!' he says. 'He fought against your Kaiser-or he would have if he hadn't taken the wrong tram on the way to join up and lost his memory. It was a terrible experience for him. He never forgot it.'

'And all these old umbrellas,' continues Gretchen, quite relaxed. 'I know it rain a lot in England but why you have them?'

"They always come in handy,' says Dad, obviously loth to admit that he nicks everything he can lay his hands on down at the Lost Property Office where he spends most of his waking hours-and quite a few of the ones when he is having a crafty kip.

'Hello dear,' says Mum coming in and wiping her hands on her apron. 'I hope father hasn't been having a go at you because of what happened during the war. It's all over now and I say let bygones be bygones. I'm certain there was good and bad on both sides and if what Mrs. Coles says about her husband is anything to go by then we've nothing to be proud of. She's a nice woman but you can never get away from her. You know what I mean? I often think-'

'Mum! Please!' I hiss. Honesdy, my Mum and Dad do so lhtle entertaining that when anyone comes, Mum gets an attack of the verbal squitters. Nobody else can get a word in. It would be all right if anybody had ever met any of the people she rabbits on about or even if she finished one story before she went on to the next but she gets carried away.

'Your husband has been showing me his treasures,' says Gretchen. 'So unusual, the idea of the stuffed birds on the furniture.'

I think it is bloody stupid myself. Especially with all the stains there are about. The birds just draw attention to them. Dad gets some really stupid thoughts wedged between his bottles sometimes. I hate stuffed birds at the best of times and it is decidely diabolical when you setde back in a chair and a blackheaded gull pecks you in the earhole.

'I have prepared a special German meal for you,' says Mum, striking fresh terror into my heart. 'Worst liver.'

At first I think she means liverwurst, but not after I have tasted it. Honesdy, if you could get your soles repaired with that stuff you would put every shoemaker in the country out of business. I see Gretchen wince when she takes the first mouthful and as for the sauerkraut, that is unbelievable. It tastes like red tea leaves. By the time we get to the Black Forest Cherry Cake I am ready to throw in the sponge. Mum has quite clearly thrown in the sponge, not to mention the remains of a Dundee cake, half a slab of Battenburg and a packet of wafers. Talk about awful. A few more meals like that and Mum could be in line for Lives of the Great Poisoners.

What amazes me is that Gretchen manages to nosh everything that is put in front of her. It is a performance of real character and it makes me wonder what the food at her hotel must be like. I make the excuse that she has to be back, early because she is on duty, and drag her away as soon as Mum has made a pot of tea. 'Why you do that?' she says. 'I was enjoying evening.'

'I was thinking about a way you might enjoy it a lot more,' I say, thrusting her back into a convenient doorway and making immediate contact with her cakehole. 'Oh Gretchen, I do want to make love to you.' Just to make sure that she understands what I am talking about, I dart my hand under her coat and spread my mit over her grumble. I can feel her swelling like a silk pin cushion and I wish I could slot a couple of digits and follow up with the star attraction. Percy is probing north by north west and Gretchen presses her hand against him and sucks in breath.

'I want, too,' she says.

I know it is dead dicey to mess about in shop doorways but I am getting carried away and I want something to show for the evening. Just a feel would be better than nothing. When you have got something like six inches of burnished steel going for you it deserves exposure to the risk of a spot of appreciation. We are necking in the entrance to a large shoe shop so I pull her round the corner into one of the glass lay-bys with a view of ten inch platform heels and whip open my fly. Perce leaps to the hand and I guide one of her appropriately named Germans to my love object.

'Do something,' I say. 'I can't go on like this.' There is a strained edge to my voice and although she might produce a bow and play 'Way down upon the Swannee River' on my tonk, I rather hope that she will realise that relief lies in a different quarter.

'It's hot,' she whispers. She sounds fascinated and I press myself against her and move up and down on the balls of my feet. I am so worked up that I am practically coming.

'What do you think you're doing?' The tone of voice suggests that the speaker has a very clear idea of what we are doing. Gretchen freezes and withdraws her hand immediately. The handbag she has round her wrist slips and falls towards the floor. Eager not to share the secret of my impulsive nature with the fuzz-for it is indeed one of their ilk who has slunk round the corner on a thrill quest I turn away from full frontal exposure and move deeper into the recesses of the shop to repair the damage. I do not drop my mits to my rampant rogerer as this will immediately give the game away to anyone standing behind me. It is something of a surprise to me to find that the innermost sector of the display area has been occupied by a gendeman of the road. He is lying back against a window full of 'Spring's exciting colours!' under a blanket of newspapers and his eyes are just beginning to flicker shut as I make my appearance. They open pretty wide when they clock a gander at me and his bonce clonks back against the glass.

'Do me a favour, son,' he says. 'If you're going to carry a handbag, don't hang it on your prick!'