Confessions of a Milkman

by Timothy Lea

  ‘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.’

  ‘W
ell, 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 conce
ntrate 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.’