‘It’s terrible what you milkmen do to get business,’ she says, squirting another load of foaming suds into the bath. ‘You stop at nothing, do you?’

I don’t answer her at once because it had never occurred to me that there was a business angle to what I am doing – or about to do … There was I, feeling a bit guilty about being on the job when I should be on the job, and all the time I am on the job … with this happy thought bubbling through my mind I step forward briskly …

CONFESSIONS OF A MILKMAN
Timothy Lea

CONTENTS

Title Page

Introduction

Chapter One

In which Timmy has a disturbing dream sparked off by his new profession.

Chapter Two

In which Timmy begins to get the hang of his new job under guidance of fellow milkman, Fred Glossop, and obliging customer, Mrs. Nyrene Gadney.

Chapter Three

In which brother-in-law, Sidney Noggett, expresses an oblique interest in becoming a milkman.

Chapter Four

In which Timmy goes on a course and has his eyes opened by well-stacked instructoress, Betty Tromble.

Chapter Five

In which Timmy gets to grips with Mrs. Farley who has got a bit behind – she has not been paying her bills either.

Chapter Six

In which Timmy becomes involved with Sue Dangerfield of the Milk Marketing Board and a dissatisfied customer.

Chapter Seven

In which Sid gets an idea of how to make a bit on the side and Timmy’s girlfriend is got at.

Chapter Eight

In which Timmy is taken out of himself in unusual circumstances by a lady called Hermione.

Chapter Nine

In which Timmy becomes sucked into the vortex of the Balham Self Service Society and gets involved in an unusual competition.

Chapter Ten

In which Timmy is interrupted whilst getting to grips with a new customer.

Chapter Eleven

In which Timmy and Sid take Daisy to the Festival of Milk.

Also Available in the Confessions Ebook Series

Copyright

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

How did it all start?

When I was young and in want of cash (which was all the time) I used to trudge round to the local labour exchange during holidays from school and university to sign on for any job that was going – mason’s mate, loader for Speedy Prompt Delivery, part-time postman, etc.

During our tea and fag breaks (‘Have a go and have a blow’ was the motto) my fellow workers would regale me with stories of the Second World War: ‘Very clean people, the Germans’, or of throwing Irishmen through pub windows (men who had apparently crossed the Irish sea in hard times and were prepared to work for less than the locals). This was interesting, but what really stuck in my mind were the recurring stories of the ‘mate’ or the ‘brother-in-law’. The stories about these men (rarely about the speaker himself) were about being seduced, to put it genteelly, whilst on the job by (it always seemed to be) ‘a posh bird’:

‘Oeu-euh. Would you care for a cup of tea?’

‘And he was up her like a rat up a drainpipe’

These stories were prolific. Even one of the – to my eyes – singularly uncharismatic workers had apparently been invited to indulge in carnal capers after a glass of lemonade one hot summer afternoon near Guildford.

Of course, these stories could all have been make-believe or urban myth, but I couldn’t help thinking, with all this repetition, surely there must be something in them?

When writing the series, it seemed unrealistic and undemocratic that Timmy’s naive charms should only appeal to upper class women, so I quickly widened his demographic and put him in situations where any attractive member of the fairer sex might cross his path.

The books were always fun to write and never more so than when they involved Timmy’s family: his Mum, his Dad (prone to nicking weird objects from the lost property office where he worked), his sister Rosie and, perhaps most importantly, his conniving, would be entrepreneur, brother-in-law Sidney Noggett. Sidney was Timmy’s eminence greasy, a disciple of Thatcherism before it had been invented.

Whatever the truth concerning Timothy Lea’s origins, twenty-seven ‘Confessions’ books and four movies suggest that an awful lot of people share my fascination with the character and his adventures. I am grateful to each and every one of them.

Christopher Wood aka Timothy Lea

CHAPTER ONE

What I can’t understand is why all the taps in the bath are shaped like Sid’s mug. I mean, if he was sticking over the side of a church with water pouring out of his cakehole like one of those gargoyles I would not be surprised – but a gold tap! If you are going to mess about with gold you want to do something nice with it, don’t you? Anyway, I haven’t got time to worry about that. Not with all the young maidens bearing pitchers of ass’s milk and emptying them into the bath – don’t ask me how I know it is ass’s milk. It just feels like it. Fresh from the ass too, I should reckon, because it is quite warm.

Some of these birds are fantastic. Naked to the waist – going downwards, of course – and slim as England’s chances in the next World Cup. They are of what you might call dusky hue and their knockers dangle temptingly like inverted foxgloves. I can imagine how they feel; soft and silky, satisfyingly full … Steady Lea! Control yourself.

The bath is beginning to fill up fast now – and not just with ass’s milk. The girls empty their pitchers and then get in the bath. I suppose it helps to raise the milk level but it does seem a bit unusual. Still the line of girls stretches back out beyond the marble pillars and disappears through the wrought-iron gates so there should be no shortage of supply. Those loin cloths are attractive. Simple and so easy to release. You just tug the knob at the waist and – ooh! That was a bit cheeky. Perhaps she tugged the wrong knob by mistake. But no! She’s done it again. What lovely eyes she has. And that smile. Revealing Teds as white as the milk that is now lapping round our navels. Her barnet is held in place by one of those little caps like they wear in Joe Lyons and, now I come to think of it, she is a dead ringer for the bird who sold me the Cornish pasty at dinner time. Still, she couldn’t be. How would she get from Joe Lyons to the Sultan’s harem in just a few hours? There was a swarthy geezer behind me in the queue but I only heard him ask for a couple of doughnuts – ooh! She’s done it again. This must be love. Either that or the bath is so full of crumpet that you can’t help bumping into it. And still the line of vase-carrying beauties stretches away into the distance. I suppose that is what they mean out here when they talk about ‘going to the pitchers’. Oh! Now there is another of them at it. It’s a good job that ass’s milk is not transparent otherwise it might be embarrassing. Aaarh. What a soft, beautiful mouth. It seems to have appeared from nowhere and is now browsing on my lips. Tingles run through my system and I feel myself growing, growing … blimey! Is that me? That huge tutti-frutti all rooty with the birds nibbling it like they are playing a giant flute? It cannot be true. Soaring out of the milk it is like a nuclear sub breaking through the icecap. And the sensations! And all those lovely girls pressed against me! Oh, it’s too much, it really is. I don’t think I’ll be able to hold on much – Wait a minute! Who’s the geezer with the scimitar and the baggy trousers? The turban with the cockade and the mean expression on his mug? Why is he wading through the milk towards me. ‘Sid!’ I shout the word but no sound comes out of my mouth. I try to move but the weight of birds on top of me makes it impossible. Only my enormous hampton trembles in the slipstream of Sid swinging back his sword. ‘No!!’ Again, not a sound. Sid’s features set in an evil smile and the muscles in his arms tighten. ‘You can’t!’ I am using every ounce of strength I possess but not moving an inch. It is as if I have been drugged, as if I am standing outside myself trying to get back in. ‘Whooosh!’ “Yaaaaaaargh! ! !” I am so relieved to hear the sound of my own voice shouting into the night that I nearly shout again. Night! A second wave of relief arrives almost simultaneously with the first. I have been dreaming. Clammy and half strangled by sheets, I shake myself free and listen to a distant train. 17, Scraggs Lane seems quiet as a grave – which it resembles in many ways. I wonder if I have woken Mum and Dad? Contrary to what one might think, Dad is a light sleeper. He gets so much kip at the lost property office where he works and in front of the telly that he is quite perky during the time the rest of the world gets its head down.

I listen to the silence and then pull the bedclothes about me. What a bleeding nasty dream. If there are going to be any more like that I don’t fancy going back to kip. Just to be on the safe side I check that the old action man kit is still joined to the rest of me. Phew! What a relief. You never quite know with dreams, do you? Maybe it – no. For a moment I had hoped that it might have retained some of the lustrous promise of the harem but it seems very ordinary at the moment. Very, very ordinary. Still, better to have it intact and in working order than miniaturized by my brother-in-law’s scimitar. Funny him turning up like that. It is probably very symbolic. I believe that Clement Freud has done a lot of work in this area when not flogging dog food for the Liberal Party. He says that everything you dream has a meaning. I wonder what meaning having your hampton cut off by your brother-in-law has? Probably not a very nice one. I suppose I could write to Mr Freud about it but it does seem a bit delicate and the Liberals have enough problems of that kind as it is, don’t they? Better to save the cost of the postage stamp and buy a controlling interest in British Leyland.

It is funny about the milk though. I mean, coming so soon after my interview at the depot. I suppose I must be keyed up at the thought of going out on the rounds with Mr Glossop. Two weeks with him, a week’s course, and I could have my own float. A steady income, regular hours and virtually your own boss. It can’t be bad, can it? And no Sid. I have been tagging along under his thumb for too long. All his crackpot schemes have got me nowhere. I have been exploited. I feel myself going hot under the pyjama collar and take a couple of long, deep breaths. Cool it, Lea. Sid is not going to like it but there is nothing he can do. If you want to be a milkman that is your decision.

Cupping my hands round my goolies just in case Sid and his scimitar are within swinging distance, I prepare myself for the big day.

CHAPTER TWO

‘You can imagine how I feel,’ says Fred Glossop. ‘Twenty years, that’s a long time.’

I rub my hands together and nod. I know how I feel: bleeding parky. And we have only just left the depot. Still, it is only six o’clock and it must get warmer – lighter, too.

‘Are you tired, lad?’

I swallow my yawn and try and look like I am just waiting to come out the traps at Harringay. ‘I didn’t sleep very well last night. I was a bit keyed up. You know what it’s, like when you want to be certain to wake up. You always wake up an hour earlier.’

Fred nods, showing neither interest nor sympathy. ‘If you can’t get yourself up in the morning you might as well forget about the job. I’ve never found it a problem myself.’

Fred Glossop must be about sixty and looks as if he has never heard anything but bad news all his life. You only have to start a sentence and he is nodding pessimistically before you have got further than ‘it’s a pity—’.

‘It’s going to be a bit of a problem when you retire,’ I say, listening to the whine of the float as we whirr past the lines of parked cars.

‘Oh no, not at all,’ says Fred – he disagrees with everything you say, as well. ‘I’ve always been able to amuse myself. My mind’s always on the go. That’s vital when you work by yourself. If you haven’t got an active mind you might as well forget it.’

‘Um, yes,’ I say. ‘This thing easy to drive, is it?’

An expression almost of horror arrives on Fred’s face. ‘You’re not going to drive it,’ he says looking towards the pavement as if hoping to find someone to share his amazement with. ‘Not yet. These are specialized vehicles, you know.’

‘It’s only a bloody great battery, isn’t it?’ I say, beginnig to feel a bit choked. ‘I don’t want to enter it for a Grand Prix.’

When you arrive at the depot in the morning all the battery-operated floats are on charge. The leads stretch away like mechanical milkers fastened to a cow’s udder. It is all very symbolic.

‘There’s no need for that tone,’ reprimands Fred. ‘After twenty years I ought to know the regulations. We’ll put you through your paces at the depot. You could be cut to pieces out here – look at that one!’ A car pulls out of the line in front of us without giving a signal and I catch a glimpse of a dry-faced man using an electric shaver with one hand while he drives with the other.

‘Off to the office?’ I say.

‘Or home,’ says Fred making a ‘tch, tch’ noise. ‘There’s a lot of it goes on round here. People’s moral values seem to have plummeted.’

‘You must have seen a lot of changes,’ I say. This remark is always guaranteed to give any boring old fart over the age of thirty-five enough to talk about for the rest of his life and Fred Glossop is no exception.

‘There’s no comparison,’ he says. ‘There’s not many of the old ones left. All these people coming in from outside have changed the whole character of the community. Look at that. Wire baskets of flowers hanging in the porch. I ask you! Of course, the kids from the Alderman Wickham Estate come and nick them.’ A certain grim satisfaction enters his voice and then fades quickly. ‘Still, they’re horrible little baskets themselves. Where are you from?’

I am not quite certain I care for the way he moves smoothly from talk of ‘horrible little baskets’ to an enquiry after my place of residence but I let the matter pass. ‘Scraggs Lane,’ I say.

‘Oh.’ Glossop sounds surprised. ‘You’re local then.’ His tone warms on learning that I am not a light-skinned Jamaican. ‘That hasn’t changed much, has it? Apart from the bits they’ve pulled down. The wife’s mother used to live there until they put her in a flat.’ He makes it sound like a cage – quite accurate really. Most of the flats do look like nesting boxes for mice. ‘Mrs Summers?’

I shake my head. ‘I expect my Mum knows her. Are you going to live round here when you retire?’

Glossop screws up his face like I have slipped a spoonful of cough mixture into his cakehole. ‘Worthing,’ he says. ‘Nice little bungalow. Near enough the front but not so you get the weather and the people. Know what I mean?’

I give him a ‘sort of’ kind of nod and wrap my arms round my body so that I can tuck my hands under my armpits. Gawd but it is taters. I can see why Fred Glossop wears mittens round his blue, bony fingers.

‘Cold, lad?’ he says glancing at me disparagingly. ‘This isn’t cold. Not compared with what it can be. If you find this cold —’

‘I’d better forget about the job. Yeah, I know,’ I say, finishing his sentence for him and wondering if I am going to be able to stand two weeks with such a miserable old sod. ‘How much longer before we get where we’re going.’

Glossop looks at me coldly and mutters something under his breath. ‘Just round the corner. Up Clyde Avenue, along Barton Way, The Estate, Clark Street, Thurleigh Avenue, south side of the common and back down Nightingale Road.’

‘Blimey,’ I say. ‘All human life is here.’

Glossop gives me a second helping of the freezing glances laced with a deep sigh and slams on the anchors. Our glorious progress is arrested and the crates of milk in the back make ‘tut, tut’ noises. ‘After a while you know what everybody has,’ he says. ‘It comes automatic. You’ll have to look in the book at first. When I collect the divis, that’s when I indulge in the sales chat. If a lady’s in a delicate condition for instance.’

‘You mean if she’s broken something?’ I say.

The red veins that run across Glossop’s face like a map of the world’s airlines leak some colour into his hollow cheeks ‘I mean, if she’s with child.’

‘Oh, I get it,’ I say. ‘When they’re in the pudding club you wack in with an extra pint?’

Glossop closes his eyes and nearly drops a couple of pints of homogenised. ‘Don’t be disgusting!’ he says. ‘You’ll never get anywhere if you talk like that. You have to present yourself to the public as a fount of practical knowledge and guidance on all matters relating to the beneficial properties of milk and its allied products. They have to respect you.’

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I quite see that.’

What I am really clocking is the little darling leaning out of the bay window of what must be the sitting room. She is wearing a black, halter neck nightie and although her hair has been piled up on top of her head it is starting to tumble down temptingly.

‘Sweet little tits,’ says Glossop.

‘Not so little, either,’ I say.

Glossop switches his gaze from the bird table and I realize that there has been a misunderstanding, the judy tosses her head sulkily and closes the window. ‘You’ll have to watch your step,’ says Glossop. ‘I can’t see you lasting long at this rate.’

By eleven o’clock I am prepared to agree with him. My fingers feel as if they are going to drop off with the cold and I am knackered after struggling up and down hundreds of flights of stairs. I never knew there were so many flat developments. The biggest of them all is the Alderman Wickham Estate and that is where Fred Glossop looks at his watch and strokes his chin thoughtfully. ‘Um,’ he says. ‘I’m going to leave you here for a bit. I want to get something for the wife.’

‘How much do you think she’s worth?’ I ask.

Fred ignores my merry quip and makes off in the direction of the The Nightingale. It occurs to me that his ruddy conk may well be the result of drinking something a good deal stronger than milk. Boozers are often miserable old sods.

The Alderman Wickham Estate is a series of grey skyscrapers and concrete corridors which have very nasty niffs in them. Most of the lifts and rubbish chutes are out of order and the walls exist to show that there are some people who can’t even spell four-letter words. Cardboard boxes full of rubbish fall apart in every corner and I can see why Fred Glossop decided to take a powder.

I grab a crate of milk and the order book and head for the lift in Block F. It is out of order. That is no great surprise and I am heading for the stairs when I happen to glance back towards the float. A teeny tea leaf is in the process of half inching a couple of pints of ivory nectar. ‘Hey you!’ I bellow. I expect the little sod to put the stuff back but he darts across the tarmac still clinging to his swag. I do not hang about because Fred has explained that you get lumbered for any stocks that are lost or mislaid.

‘Come back here!’ I drop the crate and set off in pursuit like my whole future depends on it – which it might well do. I can’t see Fred taking kindly to any deductions from his last pay packet. The kid flashes up a flight of stairs and I am gaining fast when a plastic dustbin bounces down towards me and catches me just below the knees. The little perisher obviously fancies himself as James Bond. I pick myself up and come round the bend in the stairs just fast enough to see him taking off down a corridor. He stops outside the third door, and tries to open it. The door is locked. I allow myself a satisfied smile and begin to saunter down the corridor. A quick clip round the earholes and justice will be done. The kid tucks one of the bottles under his arm and reaches up to ring the doorbell. He is looking dead worried and his finger is pressed against the bell like it has become stuck to it.

‘All right, short arse,’ I say. ‘Hand them over.’ I step forward purposefully just as the door opens. A naked woman with dripping glistening boobs cops a pint in each hand. It would make a good advertisement really. The naked knockers and the milk. All together in the all together so to speak. It makes me wish I had drunk more of the stuff when I was a kid. About the age of the little bastard who is now scarpering back down the balcony.

‘What do you want?’ says the bint, retiring behind the door. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a woman before?’

‘I’m not certain,’ I say. ‘I thought I had but you make me have second thoughts. I reckon some of the others must have been blokes in drag.’

‘If that’s a compliment, thank you,’ says the bird. ‘Now piss off.’

She tries to close the door but I put my foot in it – something I do quite often. ‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘But that’s my milk you’re holding.’

It sounds a bit funny when I say it and the woman gives me an old-fashioned look in the area of the all the best. ‘As long as it tastes the same as the cow’s,’ she says.

‘Your kiddy nicked it off the float,’ I say, allowing an edge of impatience to creep into my voice. ‘If you don’t give us it back there could be trouble.’

‘You’re not our milkman,’ says the bird showing no sign of handing over the milk.

‘I’m helping Mr Glossop,’ I say. The bird’s face does not register recognition. ‘Meadowfresh,’ I prompt.

The woman shakes her head. ‘I’m with Universal,’ she says. ‘I’m quite satisfied.’ She gives a funny little smile when she says that and I wonder what she means. Because I have a mind like that it occurs to me that she may not be referring only to the practical guidance on the beneficial properties of milk and all the guff so dear to Fred Glossop’s heart.

‘You may be satisfied but I’m not,’ I say. ‘Your little boy has just knocked off two pints of Meadowfresh milk.’

‘I never saw the child before in my life,’ says the bird. ‘You want to be careful the things you say. Why don’t you go away and stop plaguing people? Do you know how much it costs to heat bath water these days?’

‘About the price of a couple of pints of milk, I should think,’ I say. ‘Now, hand them over please. I don’t want to have to get nasty. I saw him taking them off the float with my own eyes.’

I start to push forward but the bird throws her weight against the door. ‘I know who you are,’ she says. ‘You’re the one who’s been going round rattling the knocker flaps.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I say. ‘I’m a milkman!’ I get a bit narked at that point and give the Rory a vicious shove. It flies back and the bird drops one of the milk bottles which shatters on the floor. The carpet is soaked and pieces of glass fly everywhere. The bird lets out a cry of pain and irritation and I immediately felt guilty.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean to do that.’

‘I should hope not,’ says the bird. She is trying to cover up her very obvious charms with a couple of arms and the remaining milk bottle and I feel that I ought to do something to make amends.

‘Where’s the kitchen?’ I say. ‘I’ll get a rag and clean it up.’

‘I should bloody well think so,’ says the bird. ‘If it wasn’t for the neighbours I’d call the police. Barging in here like some rapist. You don’t come from Cambridge, do you?’

Despite the way the bird is going on at me I can’t help feeling that she is well able to look after herself. She has a big pouting mouth and her lower lip sticks forward aggressively like it is trying to upper cut the end of her hooter. She is not tall but very curvy in all the places you would first look if checking her for smuggling hot water bottles. I rather fancy her bristling with anger – or perhaps I should say bristoling.

‘I’m on probation,’ I say, deciding to try and defuse the situation with a little chat.

‘That’s reassuring,’ says the bird over her shoulder as she disappears into the bathroom.

‘I mean I’m having a trial,’ I say.

‘My old man always went on probation after the trial,’ says the bint reappearing in a lilac-covered frilly housecoat. ‘Then they got his number and threw him in the nick.’

‘A trial as a milkman,’ ‘I say. ‘That’s why I was a bit up tight about the milk. I don’t want to put my foot in it.’

‘You just have,’ says the bird. ‘Gawd, you’re a clumsy custard, aren’t you? Don’t wipe it on the carpet!’

‘If you give me a rag—’

‘You’ll make even more of a mess. I’ll do it. You pick up the pieces of glass.’

It is funny but it is much more sexy now that she has the housecoat on. All pink and visible she was a bit overpowering. Especially with me wearing my these and those. I don’t mind being in the buff with a chick – in fact, I have been known to quite like it – but I never reckon it when one of us is standing there with all the clobber on and the other is as naked as a Tory Party Election manifesto. I can’t really think why. It just doesn’t seem natural.

‘Where’s your old man now?’ I ask.

‘I told you,’ she says. ‘In the nick.’

We are both kneeling down now and could post a letter in the gap between her knockers – mind you, it wouldn’t get very far even if the postman enjoyed opening the box.

‘You must be lonely,’ I say.

‘I don’t miss him,’ she says. ‘Thieving was the only thing he was good at – and he wasn’t very good at that, was he?’

‘I suppose not,’ I say. I am so busy looking at her knockers that I jab my finger against a bit of glass and cut it. ‘Ouch!’

‘I read you for a cack-handed twit the moment you came through the door,’ says the bird without great warmth. ‘Don’t drip all over the carpet! Blimey, come in the bathroom.’ She shoves my finger under the cold tap and rummages in the medicine cabinet. ‘Blast! There’s never one there when you want it.’

‘You play with those rubber ducks, do you?’ I say, looking at the tray across the bath.

‘Don’t be daft. They’re the—’ The bird breaks off and waves a finger at me. ‘Oh, cleversticks, eh? Trying to get back to your bleeding milk, are you? Listen, my kiddy would never take anything that didn’t belong to him.’

‘As opposed to his old man,’ I say.

‘That’s a nasty thing to say,’ says the bird striking a pose with her hands on her hips. ‘And me helping you out, too. I’d ask you to withdraw that remark. You’re the one who’s come barging in here without foundation.’

I nearly laugh when she talks about foundations because she could really do with one. She looks like the kind of woman who Marjorie Proops would take in hand and help to get the best out of herself. Mind you, I would not climb over her to get to Cyril Smith. She is quite handsome if you go for gentle curves – especially with the front of her housecoat drifting open and a hint of furry knoll revealing itself. The lady follows my eyes and draws her gown haughtily around her.

‘Cheeky bastard,’ she says. ‘What are you looking at?’

‘Your bath water’s getting cold,’ I say, sticking my finger in it.

‘Don’t do that! I don’t want your bloody finger in it!’ She springs forwards and grabs hold of my arm and there we are – touching each other in half a dozen different places at the same time, heaving, breathing – it is like an old Charlton Heston religious epic.

‘Hop in and I’ll scrub your back,’ I say.

The bird looks into my eyes and I hold my breath whilst continuing breathing. ‘You’d look,’ she says.

I shake my head. ‘Not so you’d notice.’

‘Keep your bleeding finger out of it.’

‘There must be an answer to that,’ I say.

But she isn’t listening. She slips out of her robe, chucks it over my head, and by the time I have taken it off she is in the bath, leaning forward so that her bristols are brushing against her knees – that’s something Wedgwood Benn can’t do. ‘All right,’ she says. ‘The soap’s behind you.’ She is right too. I grab hold of it and work up a nice rich lather. Cor, can’t be bad, can it? I knew there must be more to this milkman business than complaining about the empties not being washed out properly. I kneel down beside the bath and apply my Germans to the lady’s I’m alright. (I’m all right, Jack: Back; Ed) Oh dear. The moment I feel the soft, warm flesh, Percy gets an attack of the space probes. How untoward of him. I am trying to break the tension between myself and this Richard, and the old groin greyhound has to introduce another fifteen and a half centimetres of it – note: a metric-mad mick makes for more majestic mating, men.

‘Is that all right?’ I say.

‘I’ve known worse,’ says the bird. ‘Did you ever use to clean windows?’

‘Yes I did,’ I say. ‘That’s amazing! How did you know?’

‘Because you’ve practically pushed a couple of panes out of the middle of my back! Go a bit easy, will you?’

‘It’s the effect you have on me,’ I say. ‘I’m trying to be gentle but something about you excites my blood.’

‘Blimey!’ says the judy. ‘You’ve seen too much telly, haven’t you? Where did you learn to talk like that?’

‘It comes naturally,’ I say modestly.

‘Uum. Not the only thing I should think. I’m not surprised you’ve dropped the soap – OOH!’

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It slipped.’

‘It didn’t slip there, there isn’t room for it! Mind what you’re doing!’

‘Perhaps I’d better try the other side,’ I say.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she says.

‘Not if you don’t.’ I wack off another handful of lather and slap it onto her knockers – well, not so much slap as get it on before she can complain too loudly. Not that she does complain too loudly – in fact, she doesn’t complain at all. Her nipples turn to large acorns beneath my fingers and she closes her eyes and shivers.

‘Ooh!’ she says. ‘I bet you’re going to drop it again.’ A hint is seldom lost on the toast of the Clapham south side crumpet thrashers and I watch the large pink lump bump down the curve of her Ned Kelly. Another large pink lump is coming up from the other direction – though outside the bath. Yes! – percy is making the front of my trousers a lousy place to store a bunch of bananas. My hand follows the soap down below the water line and loses interest in it immediately. Something soft and slippery welcomes my inquisitive fingers and experience suggests that it is not an empty banana skin.

‘AAAAaargh!’ I was expecting a reaction but nothing quite so violent. Hardly have I sent my digits motoring up down passion alley than the lady grabs me and nearly hauls me into the bath with her. I wonder how long her old man has been in the nick? I hope he doesn’t choose this morning to come back on parole. There is enough blood on the carpet as it is. ‘I’m making your shirt all wet aren’t I?’

‘Well – er yes, I suppose you – maybe I’d better take it – yes!’

It doesn’t take you long to get the drift with this lady. Once she has decided that she likes you she doesn’t send messages in code. She helps me off with my shirt and three of its buttons and if I did not stand against the wall to take off my trousers she would have the zip out of them as well.

‘It’s terrible what you milkmen do to get business,’ she says squirting another load of foaming suds into the bath. ‘You stop at nothing, do you?’

I don’t answer her at once because it had never occurred to me that there was a business angle to what I am doing – or about to do. It goes right back to Sid’s golden maxim when we were cleaning windows – keep the customer satisfied. There was I, feeling a bit guilty about being on the job when I should be on the job, and all the time I am on the job. If this little session is going to help me wrestle a customer from Universal it is well worth while apart from any pleasure given and received along the way. With this happy thought bubbling through my mind I step forward briskly and discover that my hostess has two bars of soap. One in the bath and the other the one I stand on before breaking a new record for aquatic muff dives.

‘Oh, you impetuous fool!’ she says, as I raise my dripping nut from between her legs.

‘How do you hold your breath down there?’ And before I can answer she has shoved my crust down again.

‘Madam, please!’ I say, struggling to the surface. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’

‘What a way to go,’ she says.

‘For you, maybe,’ I say. ‘I have plans to die in bed.’

‘We’ll try the bed later,’ says the woman, hardly pausing for breath. ‘Come here, it’s lovely when we’re all slippery together.’

She does not hang about but shoves her arms round me and hugs me to her Bristols – definitely First Division material. She lies back and another couple of gallons of water slop on to the floor. Honestly, you should see the place. It is like the fountains in Trafalgar Square – though without the bloody pigeons, thank God. Water is still dripping off the ceiling from when I dived into the bath and the floor is awash. Still, that is not my problem. Once again, I am succumbing to my sensitive nature. Think of Meadowfresh, Lea. Think of this lovely lady’s snatch wriggling enticingly against the tip of your hampton. Yes, I think I prefer the second inducement. My playmate can’t use a water softener because my tonk is more rigid than a tungsten steel tuning fork. I lunge through the H2O and clobber the clam first go. Dead centre – you can always tell because you don’t meet anything until your balls bang into each other as they lock shoulders in the entrance to the love shaft.

‘Ewwwgh!’ Forgive me if I have spelt it wrong but it sounds a bit like that. The contented expulsion of air from the throat of the owner of a barbecued Berkeley. Another tidal wave hits the floor and I get enough suds up my hooter to wash Idi Amin’s smalls for a week – well, half a week. Wishing that I had knees with small rubber suckers attached to them, I try and achieve some purchase against the bottom – excuse that word – of the bath. My new friend has wrapped her legs round me and I reckon she could crack boulder-sized walnuts if she put her mind to it – which in the position she is adopting would be quite an achievement. Honestly, I find the whole performance – and the hole performance, too – very difficult. I read in a book once about this couple having it off in the bath and floating glasses of champagne backwards and forwards between each other but I don’t see how they could have done it. The only way I can screw this judy satisfactorily is with her head under the water and this can’t be very nice for her after the first five minutes.

‘Let’s get on the floor,’ she says.

‘Good idea,’ I say. ‘That’s where most of the bath water is.’ I am not kidding. One of the rubber ducks has floated across the room and is bumping against the door like it is trying to peck a hole in it.

‘Who’s a nice clean boy?’ says the bird as we flop on to the floor. ‘I could eat my dinner off you, couldn’t I?’ Without more ado she drops her nut and starts on the first course. Very arresting it is too. I reckon she would have a water ice down to the stick in about thirty-five seconds. Not that I am grumbling. I would rather have her lips round my hampton than a swarm of bees any day of the week.

‘Ooh!’ I say. ‘Ah! No! Don’t – don’t – don’t – DON’T STOP!’

‘You’re sex-mad,’ she says, looking up from my gleaming knob. ‘You’re an animal, aren’t you?’

‘Do you like animals?’ I say.

‘Ye-es’ says the lady and she starts again.

O-o-o-o-o-o-o-H! Talk about thrills running up and down your spine. Mine are travelling by motor bike – and I wish my old man was wearing a crash helmet. If she goes on like this much longer there is going to be a nasty accident. O-o-oh! Another few seconds and she stands to cop the cream off the top of my bottle. This cannot be in the best interest of ultimate client satisfaction and my astute business brain wakes up to its responsibilities. Removing my dick from the lady’s cakehole – it is rather like trying to take a bone away from your pet pooch – I measure the bird’s length against the slippery lino – five foot two and eyes of blue – and give her rose hips a gentle going over with my brewer’s bung. She is clearly not averse to this treatment and squeezes my hampton like it is one of those gadgets for strengthening your grip.

‘Ooh,’ she says. ‘I know what would be nice now.’

A few years ago I might have thought she was talking about a cup of tea but wise men find time an instructive mistress (good that bit, isn’t it? Gives the whole narrative a touch of class) and I have a pretty clear idea what she is getting at – or rather what she would like me to be getting at – a touch of the old cunning linctus, or whatever they call it. I know it sounds like a cough mixture – and you can need some of it if you get a few hairs wound round your epiglotis. Anyway, I have got to be nice to her if I want to convert her to Meadowfresh and after a nifty muff dive she should be putty in my hands. No point in throwing it away too lightly though. I might as well weigh in with a bit of sales chat. I expect Fred Glossop would in my situation – though, come to think of it, I can’t really see Fred Glossop in my situation.

‘Oh yes!’ I breathe passionately. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’ Notice the clever way I get her thinking in terms of the affirmative. She is practically nodding as I close my Teds gently round her strawberry ripples. ‘Have you ever thought of changing?’

She raises her head slightly. ‘You mean, being a fellow?’ Fortunately I stop myself from grinding my teeth together.

‘No!’ I say. ‘I mean, no. I was talking about changing your dairy. Meadowfresh has got a lot to offer.’ I drop my nut down to her tummy button and start eel-darting my tongue into the dainty little dip.

‘Oh yes?’ she gasps. ‘Ooh.’

‘I was wondering if you would be interested?’ I say. ‘You could keep the milt – I mean, the milk – as a free sample. I think you’ll notice the difference. Rich, creamy …’

I get my tongue down till it is nearly part of the pattern on the lino and bring it up slowly.

‘Oh, oh, OH!’ The lady’s backside lifts off the floor like my tongue has the power of levitation.

‘Would you like me to give it a try?’

Her hands go into my barnet and for a moment I wonder if she has Red Indian blood. ‘Oh yes!’ she says. ‘Yes! Yes!!’

What a satisfying moment. A contented customer and she hasn’t even tried the product yet. This must be my best ever start at any job.

I give her dilly pot a few more tongue tickles and then reckon that the time is favourable to give Percy his head – well, he has had her head, hasn’t he? Rising to my shapely knees I prepare to drive proud perce home – and I don’t mean back to 17, Scraggs Lane, ancestral home of the Leas. As it turns out this task is unnecesary because Meadowfresh’s latest recruit has her greedy mits round it like she fears it might disappear if exposed to the light. With the speed of British Leyland going on strike she has whipped my action man kit into her snatch and clamped her ankles over mine. ‘Wheeh-ouch!’ Unfortunately her bum catches on a ridge where the lino is breaking up but the floor is so slippery that we don’t stay in one place for long. I try and brace my legs against the door, but end up sliding the length of the room and nearly fracturing my nut against the washbasin holders.

‘This is no good,’ I say. ‘Come on!’ I sit on the edge of the bath and the bird is on to my lap like your moggy on to Dad’s favourite armchair. The aim is what you might call unerring. I bet she is a minor miracle at quoits.

‘Ooh,’ she says. ‘This is the third time I’ve come. Do you do deliveries on Sundays? That’s when Edwin goes to his Gran.’

‘Not every Sunday,’ I say, beginning to calculate that I could be on the way to an early grave if all my new customers appreciate the same line of sales technique. ‘Ooh! Ow! Eeh! Ah!’

Fortunately, release in the form of sending a few million sperm cells to a better place and falling backwards into the bath comes to my aid and I am eventually able to limp away with an assurance from Mrs Nyrene Gadney – for that is the lady’s name – that it is Universal out and Meadowfresh in! What a triumphant start to my new career. Fred Glossop will be pleased with me. I do not exactly dance but my step is light as I emerge from the staircase and find the man himself standing by the empty milk float. ‘Where in the name of the Lord have you been!?’ he says.

‘Just signed up a new customer, Fred,’ I say. ‘A Mrs Gadney. Nice lady. I’ve got her down for—’ I break off when I see that Fred is staring at the empty float and shaking. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘You had to finish the round by yourself, did you? I didn’t know it was going to take so long. It took a bit of time to get her interested in my bollocks – I mean, products!’

‘You stupid half wit!’ shouts Glossop. ‘I haven’t delivered a drop. While you’ve been frigging about, the whole bleeding lot has been knicked by kids!’

CHAPTER THREE

‘Pissed off with it yet, are you?’ says Sid.

‘Course not,’ I say. ‘It’s very interesting. I wish they’d turn the bloody muzak down in this place.’

Sid refuses to be diverted. ‘I reckon it’s a comedown, myself,’ he says. ‘You wouldn’t catch me trying to flog bleeding yoghurt.’

‘They haven’t got around to putting blood in it yet.’ I say. ‘Are you going to buy me a drink? My glass has dried out.’

‘A half?’ says Sid hopefully.

‘Pint, thanks,’ I say. ‘What are you doing these days?’

‘I’m weighing things up,’ says Sid.

‘On the veg counter at Sainsbury’s?’

Sid pats my cheek. ‘You’re full of fun today, aren’t you?’ he says. ‘How would you fancy a plate of scrambled teeth for dinner? When I say “weighing up” I am referring to a judicious appraisal of the career opportunities currently pissing themselves to get at me.’

‘So you’re on the sausage,’ I say.

Sid sighs. ‘How typical,’ he says. ‘You have difficulty seeing to the end of your hooter, don’t you? I don’t want to insult the welfare state by not taking what’s due to me. Just because I’m public-spirited it doesn’t mean that I can’t organise my own destiny. I’m not rushing, that’s all.’ He breaks off and sucks in his breath sharply. ‘Cor. She’s a bit of all right, isn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Hello Nyrene.’

‘You know her?’ says Sid.

‘She’s a customer,’ I say, nonchalantly wiping some froth off my hooter with the end of Sid’s tie.

‘She turned a funny colour when she saw you,’ says Sid. ‘You given her one, have you?’

‘Sid, please,’ I say ‘A gentleman never discusses things like that. Let’s just say we shared something rather beautiful. Afternoon.’ I am addressing the girl in the black halter neck nightie I saw on the job with Fred Glossop – I mean, on the round with Fred Glossop. She is wearing a stretch sweater that must have belonged to one of her kid sister’s dolls.

‘Another customer?’ says Sid. He takes a quick, dabbing swig at his beer.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Nice kid.’

‘Er – what’s it like down at the depot?’ says Sid, very casual-like.

‘Thinking about a job?’ I say.

Sid splutters. ‘What? You must be joking. Just expressing an interest, that’s all. I wouldn’t take a job I didn’t want just because there was a bit of crumpet going with it. What was she like?’

‘Which one?’ I say.

‘The one with the big knockers. The first one.’

‘Nyrene?’ I say. ‘Well—’ I look round and lower my voice discreetly. ‘Would you believe fantastic?’

‘Go on,’ says Sid.

‘That’s just what she said,’ I tell him. ‘Honestly, there was no holding her. I was frightened for my life once or twice, I don’t mind telling you.’

Sid gazes towards the stool on which Nyrene is perching showing a fair amount of Scotch egg. ‘She looks a goer,’ he says thoughtfully.

‘Comes, goes – you name it,’ I say. ‘I just hope your life insurance payments are up to date. It would be bad enough for Rosie hearing how you snuffed it. I remember when she grabbed my—’

‘She’s looking this way!’ hissed Sid. ‘I think she fancies me.’

‘Well, sign up then,’ I say. ‘That way you’ll be certain to get a crack at her.

‘I don’t have to sign up!’ says Sid. ‘I can pull her just as I am. I don’t have to hide my magnetism behind a milk float.’

‘Just as you like, Sid,’ I say. Frankly, I am a bit knackered after my chava with Mrs Gadney and the excitement of the first day and I don’t care what Sid does.

‘I’m going to pull her,’ says Sid, draining his pint. ‘You want to watch this. You’re never too old to pick up tips.’

‘You’ve got a bit of pork pie at the corner of your mouth,’ I say.

‘I was going to give her that for supper,’ says Sid. ‘Right, stand by for an attack of the old verbal magic.’ He tucks his paunch into his trousers and glides across the floor like he is on a monorail. Mrs Gadney has just fished in her bag for a fag and Sid arrives at exactly the right moment to set fire to it. He carries a lighter which he wears in a little leather pouch round his neck and he leans forwards sexily, and gazes moodily into Mrs Gadney’s eyes. It is a pity he does not look towards the fag because he would see that his tie is draped over the top of the lighter. He presses the plunger and I can smell the scorched fibres from where I am sitting. Oh dear, what a shame. Sid always fancied that tie, too. Anyway, it gets him into conversation with Nyrene and I suppose that is the main thing.

I am just wandering up to join them when the door flies open and a bloke comes in who commands attention. He is about six foot four with a thick tash and hands that hang so low they brush against his knees. He is slightly less wide than the Oval gasometer and if he has a smile he must have given it the evening off. It is not difficult to guess at his profession because he is wearing a striped apron and has a peaked cap tipped on the back of his head. The badge on the cap says UD and you don’t have to have ‘A’ Levels to know that stands for Universal Dairies. I suppose his arms must have lengthened after years of humping milk crates about. Either that or his mum was having it off with a gorilla. He looks round the room and when he sees Nyrene and Sid he gives a little shiver. Something about the gesture makes me slow down my progress towards Clapham’s answer to Paul Newman and I burrow into the crowd round the bar.

‘What’s this then?’ says the big Herbert waving a piece of paper under Nyrene’s nose.

Everybody looks round and Nyrene flushes a shade darker, ‘It’s what it says,’ pouts Nyrene. ‘I’ve decided to change. You were collecting empties late this evening, weren’t you?’

‘I came to see you!’ growls the bloke.

‘Well, that’s as may be,’ says Nyrene. ‘I’ve got fixed up elsewhere.’ She looks down the bar towards where she last saw me and I duck down so low that a bloke thinks I am trying to sup out of his pint. ‘Meadowsweet,’ says Nyrene.

‘Fresh,’ says Sid. ‘Meadowfresh.’

The bloke who has been staring at Nyrene slowly transfers his attention to Sid. It is like peeling chewing gum off moquette. ‘What did you say?’ he asks.

‘Meadowfresh,’ says Sid all helpful like. ‘The name of the firm is Meadowfresh. M – E – A–’ Sid falters when he sees the way the bloke is looking at him. ‘– D – O –’ The barman sweeps a handful of glasses beneath the bar. ‘– W. That’s one word. F – R –’

‘So! You’re trying to take the piss as well as my girl,’ says the geezer menacingly.

‘No!’ says Sid, wising up to danger. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. It’s not me it’s –’ WHUUUUMP!! I never thought it was possible to uppercut someone so that they could hop on to a bar but Sid goes up into the air like his jaw is glued to the end of the guy’s fist. ‘Wait a minute!’ he squeals. ‘You’ve got it all wrong. It’s not me you want it’s—’ WAMP!!

I must say, I do like this fellow’s timing. By the time Sid has bounced off the line of stout bottles at the back of the bar and slid down on to a crate of empties he has nothing to say about anything.

‘What did you do that for?’ squeals Nyrene, clearly annoyed. ‘He never did you any harm.’

‘Depends what you mean by harm,’ says the angry milkman. He leans over the bar and is trying to grab Sid when the landlord lays him out with a cricket bat. I can see that this milkman business is going to be tougher than I had thought.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘Now, let’s go right back to where it all starts,’ says Miss Tromble. ‘The cow. We all know how many stomachs a cow has, don’t we?’

I nod, but I am not thinking about a cow’s stomach. I am thinking about Miss Tromble’s knockers. They move me – well, they move part of me. The bit that frays the inside of my Y-fronts. I have never seen a woman with such enormous bristols. They swell away from her chest like the sails on an ocean schooner running before a hurricane. When she comes round a corner they arrive a couple of minutes before the rest of her. They are beginning to prey on my mind. I can’t concentrate on the difference between homogenised and pasteurised milk or how much is lost in unreturned empties every year. All I can do is gaze upon the beginning of the snowy vastness and wonder what the whole lot looks like, feels like, tastes like! There is a loud crackling noise and I realize that in my passion I have squeezed the life out of a blackcurrant yoghurt container. Luckily it is empty. Miss Tromble looks at me coldly. That’s the trouble, she always looks at me coldly. She seems to have no awareness of how I feel about her – or would like to feel about her. She seems inexorably wed to her craft, that of a lecturer at Meadowfresh Residential Course for aspiring milkmen – perspiring in my case. It is warm in the lecture room and the Tromble knockers discreetly veiled behind their owner’s crisply laundered white coat are making me feverish. I must have a gander at them! I wonder if she is aware of the feelings she gives rise to? I glance round the other blokes on the course: Ted Gunter who took a first in dandruff at Oxford University, Norman Hollis with the leather patches on his elbows and the row of biros in his top pocket, Jim Keen with the beard and the polo neck. They are all watching her knockers like they are hypnotised by them. She must know. Perhaps the breast feature is an embarrassment to her. It must be terrible having blokes like me staring at you all the time. The least I could do is be a bit more discreet about it. I wonder where her room is. It must be somewhere in the buildings. All the staff are residential. When I think about it I get another little shiver to add to the crop down the front of my trousers. I don’t usually go much on being a peeping Tom but spying on Miss Tromble as she revealed her super chassis would be a bit special. There is something very haughty and reserved about her that brings out the lusty peasant in me. What the butler saw, that’s it. Humble, earthy Timothy Lea watches the lady of the manor stripping down to the buff – ‘crack!’ Another yoghurt container up the spout.

‘Do you mind not doing that?’ says the lovely Tromble, coldly. ‘Apart from being wasteful it’s very distracting.’

‘Exactly,’ says Gunter on my right. He is a real toffee-nosed berk who takes notes all the time and leaps about opening doors whenever Miss Tromble gets within forty paces. Why he wants to be a milkman, I don’t know. I reckon he must have got into a bit of trouble somewhere and ended up with the tin tack.

Finding Miss Tromble’s room is a cinch because I follow her when she leaves the lecture room and goes up the staircase with ‘Staff Only’ written at the bottom of it. I give her a couple of seconds to go round the bend – you know what I mean – take a crafty shufti round the entrance hall and scamper up the stairs just in time to see her steering her mighty Manchesters through the second door along the oak-panelled corridor. So, that is where she snuggles down beside them for the night. Just across the way from the milking sheds. Very handy when I come to think of it. There is certain to be a loft above the prize Friesians and I should be able to cop an uninterrupted view of the plus feature if I can find a handy window. I check out the joint during my dinner hour and it could not be better. I can practically see my mug in the mirror on her dressing table. It all depends how tightly she draws her curtains.

I can hardly concentrate on Simple Accounting Procedures and Know Your Way Round Your Float, which takes up most of the afternoon. Gunther, Hollis and Keen are such earnest, dedicated buggers. It makes my heart bleed to see them scribbling away in their little books and smiling up at Miss Tromble like she invented Christmas. They would not know what to do with her knockers if they were lowered on to them face downwards from a crane. Gunter especially. What a prick. The old school tie with egg all over it. And the way they all team up together. You would think they had never been away from home before. They really put the mockers on me. I would not be surprised if there was something a bit unhealthy about their relationship. Latent, of course. They would not have the guts to flash their old men in earnest – or perhaps I should say Ernest, ha! ha! – oh well, please yourselves.

Come the evening I bolt down my bangers and mash and settle down with an old Woman where I can keep an eye on Miss Tromble who is eating daintily on the staff table. We eat in a blooming great room called the refectory which has a few easy chairs and old magazines in one corner of it. Also a ping pong table.

The object of my desires is wearing a kind of lace blouse and I can see the outline of her white bra beneath. I have to confess that she is on the plump side but with a pair of knockers like that everything else would have to be in proportion. If it wasn’t she would topple forward every time she stood up.

‘Feel like making up a four?’ Twit Gunter is standing in front of me with a couple of table tennis bats in his mit. ‘Equipment’s a bit ropy, I’m afraid, but you can have the bat with the rubber on it.’

‘Thanks a zillion,’ I say, trying not to sound too sarky. ‘It’s not my game.’

‘We thought we might slip out for a swift half later,’ continues Terrible Ted lowering his voice. ‘Norman has got a wheeze.’

‘You won’t find a chemist open at this time of night,’ I say wittily. ‘No thanks, I think I’ll get an early night.’

Miss Tromble has just started the laborious task of brushing the crumbs off her knockers and I know that she will soon rise – like something else not a million miles from the back of my fly. Honestly, Percy has fallen very deeply in love with Miss Tromble and is now trying to show his feelings in a brave attempt at a Hitler salute. I lower the feature on Princess Margaret – ‘The little girl who grew up’ – on to my lap – hoping that no harm will come to Her Royal Highness by my so doing – and stand up, pressing Percy back against my tum.

‘Sure you won’t change your mind? You could be in for a spot of fun.’ Another thing I can’t stand about Gunter is that he is very slow to take a hint.

‘No, thanks,’ I say. ‘I’m going to brush up on my milk grades. Good night.’

I nod to the others and stroll out into the hall. There is a notice board there and I pretend to look at a poster about the local hunter trials whilst I wait for Miss Tromble to emerge. I had always thought that peeping Toms were dirty old men in plastic raincoats, not clean-limbed lads like myself. It just shows you that life is full of surprises, doesn’t it?

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