Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions

CHAPTER SIX

Breakfast the next morning has as much snap, crackle and pop as a damp cornflake and I am relieved when I can escape from the brooding Mrs. B. and head for the E.C.D.S. At least my reception there won’t be silent. If Mrs. B. goes on like this, I will have to change my lodgings, though probably after my latest episode, that will be taken care of for me.

I am working out my best approach to Cronk when I notice a primrose Rolls Royce pull up alongside me at the traffic lights. It is cleaner than a choirboy’s foreskin and has a venetian blind at the back and a few magenta cushions scattered along the width of the rear window. The driver is about fifty, with close-cropped hair, a small waxed moustache and a pillar box red complexion. He is wearing a camel hair overcoat and backless driving gloves and tapping the wheel impatiently whilst peering fixedly at the red light. Even before I see Sharp sitting by his side I feel positive it must be Major Minto. Neither of them takes any notice of me and as the amber comes up, the car leaps forward and roars out of sight. Nobody at M.S.M. seems to like driving slowly.

I get to the E.C.D.S. before nine o’clock but it is not early enough to beat Garth, Crippsy, Lester and Petal who are all hovering like expectant vultures and waving their morning papers.

“Ooh, but you’ve had it this time, ducky,” squeals Petal, “front page news on half the nationals. Cronky is going to go out of his tiny mind.”

Sure enough “The Sun” carries one of Gruntscomb’s poxy photographs with “How Miss Frankcom was driven to the drink” plastered above it and the “Express” combines that with a picture of the duckpond incident under the headlines “How to make a splash as a driving instructor”. Very funny. Gruntscomb has obviously done a world-class job.

I have no more time to sample the wit of the British press because Cronk sweeps through with an expression on his face like a man who has had his “Special K” laced with cement. He says nothing but merely jerks his thumb at me to follow him into his office.

“Is it going to be like this every day?” says Petal. “I can’t wait to see tomorrow’s papers.”

I tell him to get his roots tinted and pad after Cronk.

“Now—” he starts, but then the telephone rings. He lets it ring for a few moments and then snatches it up. “Where the hell is that girl? She’s never on—. Hello, East Coast Driving School. Oh, I was just beginning to wonder where you were. Yes, I’m sorry to hear that. O.K. Well get in when you can. Goodbye.” He slams down the ’phone. “She’s got ’flu and won’t be in today. Now—” His ’phone rings again. “Good morning, East Coast Driving School, Cronk speaking. Oh yes. Did you—wait a minute. I’m afraid my girl’s away, I’ll have to get the book.” He turns to me. “Get the appointment book from Dawn’s desk.” I hand it to him and he flips through the pages. “Yes, we can manage tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock. You know where we are? And the fees? Good. Oh did you? But then things do get exaggerated a bit you know. Yes, well, goodbye. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” He puts down the ’phone and turns back to me.

“The dual control packed in,” I say desperately. “You can check it yourself if you like.”

“I will do that. Now perhaps you can explain how the Echo seems to be following you about everywhere you go. This publicity could ruin us.”

The telephone goes again. “Good morning. East Coast Driving School. Yes, yes. Yes I think we can.” He flips through the book again. “Mrs. Dobson? Fine. Right, we’ll see you then. Oh, did you? Yes, I know what you mean. I’m talking to the young man now. Do you? Well, we’ll have to see about that, Mrs. Dobson. It all depends on our rotation schedules. Goodbye.” He puts the ’phone down and shakes his head. “Woman must be mad, quite me-add! Now, where was I—oh yes, I was talking about all this rubbish in the papers. It’s making us a laughing stock. At your current rate of progress, we’ll be out of business in a few weeks if I go on employing you.” The ’phone rings again.

“East Coast Driving School. You saw our what in the paper? But we don’t advertise. Oh, well. It doesn’t matter. Of course we’d be delighted to enrol you.” He reaches for his pen.

And that is how it goes on all day. Any publicity seems to be good publicity and there are twenty people who ring up to say that they had been meaning to take lessons for years and decided to do something about it after reading about us in the papers. Faced with this sudden upsurge in business Cronky finds it increasingly difficult to keep the rough edge on his tongue and by the time someone from Anglia T.V. rings up to see if I will appear with Miss Frankcom on “Anglia in the News”, he is almost purring.

In fact, I do trip along to the studios and, though I say so myself, I am a wild success, mentioning the East Coast Driving School twice and giving the impression that I love helping old ladies across the road and being kind to animals. Petal notices that my fly is undone but you can’t have everything and overall it must have gone well because for the rest of the week we are besieged with people wanting to learn to drive and one woman from Felixstowe who craves a lock of my hair—I send it to her, of course.

I continue to take Miss Frankcom and people nudge each other in the street as we go past. We are like a travelling advertisement for the E.C.D.S. With all this goodwill and public image flying about I am keen not to spoil it by kicking Sharp in the crutch but this does not change my resolve to get the bastard when the right moment comes along. In the meantime, there is Mrs. Dent to keep me occupied.

She is one of Garth’s pupils, and I can see why when I get a crack at her while he is taking a week’s holiday with his aunt under the shadow of the Brecon Beacons. She is a wispy blonde of about thirty who is constantly biting her lip and fingering her necklace when her hands aren’t creeping round the edge of the driving wheel. She chats to herself at moments of stress and is as mixed up as a kid’s fishing line. I remember birds like her from when I was cleaning windows and I am quick to check out her background as we spiral up towards the golf course.

“What kind of car does your husband drive?” I say conversationally.

“Some kind of Jag, I think. The latest saloon.”

“Has he ever taken you out in it?”

She laughs derisively. “You must be joking. I hardly ever see either of them. No—that’s a lie. I see them together on Saturday mornings when he’s cleaning the blasted thing. I’ve often wished I could get that much attention, but it’s difficult when you’re a woman.”

“He’s fond of the car, is he?” I say innocently.

“Fond of it!? If he had the choice between it and me and the kids I wouldn’t fancy our chances. That and his golf are the only things he cares about.”

For a girl with a soft face she comes over very hard and her voice is flat as shovel.

“What does he do?”

“He’s a Brand Manager for Python’s. That’s like being one of the ones who was crucified next to Jesus.”

“I’ve heard of them.”

“It’s the only thing you ever hear about in our house. That, and ‘why don’t you try and do a bit more with yourself. I give you enough money, don’t I?’ I’m supposed to prance around in front of his business associates just in case the marketing director has a heart attack.”

“What, because of you prancing around in front of him? Don’t hog the middle of the road so much!”

“No! Because of the—oh, it doesn’t matter. The whole bloody thing doesn’t matter. Look, can we stop for a cigarette in a minute?”

“Yes. There’s a lay-by up here on the right. Pull in there.”

She dives in her handbag and lights up as if she was doing it against the clock; then puffs a thin stream of smoke over her left shoulder.

“Do you want one?”

“No. I gave it up.”

“That’s very strong-minded of you.”

“Not strong-minded. Just scared. I was frightened of killing myself.”

“You could die crossing the road.”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t do it by throwing myself under a car.”

She shrugs her shoulders and gazes out across the golf course.

“That’s the seventeenth over there,” she says.

“Oh.” I try to sound interested. “Do you play too?”

She smiles. “No, I don’t. Where’s Mr. Williams?”

“Garth, you mean? He’s visiting his mum in Wales, I think. You have him usually, don’t you?”

She looks at me a bit sharpish as if she suspects I might be trying to suggest something.

“Yes, that’s right.” She decides that I didn’t mean anything and her expression softens. “I didn’t know you called him Garth.”

“Well, he’s a big fellow, isn’t he?”

“Yes, I suppose he is. What do they call you?”

She settles down in her seat and tilts her head back so she is blowing smoke against the car roof. Her tits stand out firm against her blouse and I would like to put my hands on them. Sitting like this she is asking for it. But you never know with some birds. Often the pushy ones are the first to start yelling for a copper. It’s the quiet ones who won’t look you in the eyes who usually turn up trumps. At least, that is how it was when I was cleaning windows and my clientele is not all that different.

“Well?” she says.

“Well what?”

“What do they call you?”

“Oh!” I’ve been so busy looking at her tits I have forgotten what she was rabbiting about. “I don’t know. I haven’t been with the firm long enough to get a nickname.”

“You make it sound as if you qualify for one when you retire. My husband would approve of that. Another non-contributory fringe benefit.”

Back to the old man again. I don’t have to be able to do the Times crossword to get the message that he is not looming very large in her legend at the moment. It would be nice to think that this probably spelled out a big welcome for my hand testing her knicker elastic but that might not be true either. I have often found that women who rabbit on like maniacs about how wonderful their husbands are become the first to ask you if you would like to see their new counterpanes. This is because they feel guilty about their adulterous desires and don’t want to commit the additional sin of blaming their innocent husbands for them. Similarly, the women who bitch about their husbands are really making them scapegoats for their own lack of guts in not having an affair. “If my husband wasn’t so pathetically jealous and old-fashioned,” they grumble to themselves, “I could have a whale of a time.” The fact is that they are usually dyed-in-the-wool Puritans who would pass out if you tweaked their suspenders coming out of a ‘War on Want’ lunch.

Fascinating lot of old cobblers, isn’t it? No? Oh, well, I don’t blame you if you disagree with me. Any theory you have about women is unlikely to be provable in more than one case. Anyway, there we are, with Mrs. Dent flashing her tits at me and throwing in a bit of thigh for good measure and me wondering what is the best method of getting my hands on both of them. I am also wondering just how much driving Mrs. D. expects to fit into an hour’s session. I don’t mind watching the East wind turn every blade of grass on the Cromingham golf course into a hunchback, but I feel I should be doing a bit more for my money.

“Is this what you usually do when you’re having a lesson?” I say.

“It depends on the instructor,” she says, looking at me like Lauren Bacall used to look at Humphrey Bogart. I wait for her to eject a meaningful puff of smoke in my direction, and sure enough she does.

“You mean that some are more easy going than others?”

“You could put it like that. I prefer to say that some are more imaginative than others.”

“What do you mean?” It’s always worth while asking women that when you don’t know what to say next.

“John Williams knows that there is more to playing golf than hitting a golf ball four hundred yards. Do you know that if there’s a hint of sun, you can lie in the bottom of that bunker by the seventeenth green in a bikini?”

“Fascinating, but what’s that got to do with learning to drive?”

“What’s learning to drive got to do with learning to drive?” She laughs hollowly. “I came out here with my husband once when he was flogging his way round with one of his clients. You could smell him three holes away. Scared stiff that he wouldn’t put up a good show. Wanting not to appear wanting.” She laughs again. “I watched him digging a hole in the bottom of that bunker with the sweat dripping off him and his expression getting more and more racked. And do you know? Just where he was flapping away I had been lying a few days earlier with my lover. Ironic, isn’t it? I started laughing out loud and that made him furious. We had quite a row about it.”

“What did the client do?”

“He didn’t mind. I’m having lunch with him tomorrow.”

“Sandwiches at the seventeenth?”

“No. He’s staying at a hotel. You sound as if you don’t approve.”

“I’m jealous.”

“There’s no need to be.”

She turns towards me and reaches up an arm to pat my cheek. That’s it! I don’t have to have a crystal ball to know what she is thinking. I bend down and kiss her and her tongue comes out like one of those curled up squeaker things that kids blow at Christmas time. At the same time her hand goes down to my fly so fast it might be tied to the top of my zipper with a piece of elastic. She is the quickest worker since God made the world without breaking into double time. I hardly have time to breathe in through the nose before her practised fingers have poured over the side of my jockey briefs like Attila the Hun and she is rummaging away like a champion shop lifter who has got her hand caught down the side of the deep freeze cabinet. Not that there is much frozen goods being displayed. That kind of thing brings me on faster than a Derby winner and I’m giving her a bit of the same before the first appreciative murmur has escaped from her throat.

“It’s a bit cramped in here, isn’t it?” she says.

“Yeah! I used to have a pantechnicon but I fell behind with the payments. Let’s go back to your place.”

“I daren’t do that. I’ve got too many nosey neighbours. What about you?”

“No dice. I’ve got the same kind of problem.” I can just see Mrs. Bendon’s face if I rolled up with this one. She would do her nut. “Come on my lap,” I murmur, helpfully.

“I don’t like that. I can only come when I’m lying flat out.” She’s honest, isn’t she? Germaine Greer herself could not be more direct. “There’s a bunker at the fifteenth,” she goes on. “Let’s go there.”

“Not the sixteenth?”

“It has sentimental memories for me.”

I would not have suspected that she was the romantic type, but there you are. As an alternative to my usual chores as an instructor a length on the links seems very attractive—but in mid-November?

“It’s going to be a bit parky out there, isn’t it?” I say nervously.

“I’ve already told you. Once you get out of the wind it’s alright. Look, there’s even a bit of sunshine.”

She is right, too. A few perished shafts are breaking through the blanket of grey that has hung over my head ever since I left Liverpool Street Station.

“O.K. Let’s give it a whirl.”

“You needn’t sound so enthusiastic. I know some fellows who’d stay all night in an open lifeboat for a chance to hold my hand.”

“I can believe it,” I lie enthusiastically. I mean, really! Twice round the boating pool whilst you finished your cheese sandwich would be more like it. Some women get delusions of grandeur about what they are trying to give away. At least a whore has the guts to put a price on her goodies. As my old schoolmaster used to say: you don’t have to like capitalism but at least it separates the professionals from the amateurs.

Anyway, off we go across the golf course with me trying to look at my watch without her noticing and hoping that we will be able to squeeze a happy memory out of the fifteenth. I reckon she must have played every hole on the course in her day because she does not deviate by an inch but pushes through the bracken and brings us out a long-distance spit from a neat little circle of grass with a flag in the middle of it.

“Where do we go from here?” I ask, but she is already scrambling up the side of a low mound and beckoning for me to follow. When I get there, I can see that we are perched on the edge of a deep sand trap and she squeezes my arm ferociously, presumably intending to suggest the pleasure to come. Down we go and she leans back against the wall of the bunker and gazes at me expectantly. I have to confess that out of the wind it is almost bearable, though I don’t go a bundle on the old Woodbine packets and the used french letter I can see out of the corner of my eye.

“You see,” she says. “It’s quite cosy, isn’t it?”

It is hardly the word I would have used but then I am not a country boy at heart.

“Come here,” I say, which is another great non-phrase I use a lot with birds. Roughly translated, it means: “I can’t think of anything to say so I am going to try to kiss you/put my hand up your skirt/both.”

Mrs. D. offers me her mouth and we chew away hungrily whilst her hands start a reprise of ‘Love’s Old Sweet Song’ on the zip of my fly. The sand is a bit damp and I would normally reckon this as being a knee-tremble job but for what Mrs. D. said about liking to get stretched out for maximum satisfaction. She has pulled open my trousers like the mouth of a flour sack and has got both hands round my hampton while I am easing her knickers down to knee level with a skill any window dresser would envy. It may not be the most elegant sight in the world but it is giving us both a lot of pleasure and I am fast forgetting about the weather. I prod forward a couple of times and Mrs. D. gives a shiver of passion which just might be for real and starts licking my ear.