by Timothy Lea
‘That’s right. What can I do for you?’ She shoves her knockers forward a couple of inches and smiles nervously.
‘I’m your new milkman,’ I say.
She cranes her head over my shoulder and takes a gander at the float. Her face clouds over. ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘I’ve got a bit behind, haven’t I?’
‘You’ve got a bit in front, as well,’ I say, ever prepared to soften the blow with a spot of humour.
Mrs Farley blushes and quickly does up a couple of buttons. She need not have bothered. ‘I don’t know if I can do it,’ she says. ‘It’s been a difficult week. You’d better come in. Would you like a cup of tea while I see what I’ve got?’
‘That’s very kind of you,’ I say. ‘They’re getting a bit worried down at the depot,’ I add that so she does not think that I am going to be an easy touch: eg one cup of Rosie Lea and ta, ta till next week.
The net curtains around us are waving like a semaphore contest and Mrs Farley notices my glance. ‘They’ve got dirty minds,’ she says, closing the door firmly. ‘Any woman living on her own has to put up with it. They’d believe you were having an affair with every man who came to the door. How do you like it?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ I say.
‘Your tea?’
‘Oh, any way it comes. Ta.’
We are in the kitchen now and Mrs Farley moves the brand new Sony cassette-playing transistor from the table to a new-looking fridge which still has a price ticket on it. ‘A present,’ she says indicating the transistor. ‘My mum’s been very good to me in my time of need. Now, how much do I owe?’
‘Well,’ I say. ‘Four weeks at-er-um-yes, and the-yes. That’s eight pounds, sixty-three pence.’
Mrs Farley pauses with her teapot above my cup. ‘Eight pounds sixty-three pence! That can’t be right. I’ve never drunk that much milk.’
‘You had the juice,’ I remind her.
‘What Jews?’ Mrs Farley turns scarlet. ‘What have you heard? It’s the neighbours, isn’t it? Just because the man who collects for the loan club is a bit dark-skinned – and why shouldn’t he bring his brother to look at the vacuum cleaner. Were they supposed to mend it in the garden? Really, I’ve had about enough of their dirty, prying—’
‘Orange juice!’ I shout. ‘And don’t forget the two dozen eggs and the butter.’
Mrs Farley stops shaking long enough to direct some of the tea into my cup. ‘Oh yes,’ she says. ‘Silly of me. That’s what happens to you, living around here. You become confused. I’ll have to move.’
‘I hope you can settle up with us before you go,’ I say.
Mrs Farley looks hurt. ‘That’s not very nice,’ she says. ‘I invite you in for a cup of tea and you accuse me of being a thief.’
‘Oh no,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean anything like that. You misunderstood me.’
Mrs Farley sits down and rests her head in her hands. ‘It’s no good,’ she says. ‘I can’t go on.’ Then she starts to cry.
Oh dear. I am always bleeding hopelesss when women start crying. ‘Look,’ I say, ‘don’t cry. That’s not going to help. How much have you got?’
Mrs Farley doesn’t say anything but continues to sob. I drink my cha and see her watching me through a gap in her fingers. One large reproachful eye. ‘Being called a thief. That’s the last straw.’
‘I didn’t call you a thief,’ I say.
‘You did. I heard you. Is that how they teach you to behave at the depot? Mr Turberville would never have carried on like that.’ (Turberville was the bloke before me. Big, soft fellow with a limp.) ‘I think I’ll report you to the manager. I’ve had enough persecution.’ She starts to sob again.
‘Have a cup of tea,’ I say. ‘You’ll feel better. It’s nothing to get worked up about. Really it isn’t.’ I nearly say I’ll come back next week but I just stop myself. I must see this thing through if I can. I get up and grab the teapot. It is nearly empty. I put it down and give Mrs Farley what is supposed to be a reassuring pat on the shoulder.
‘Why did you touch me?’ she says, staring up into my face.
‘No reason,’ I say. ‘I just didn’t want you to worry, that’s all.’
Mrs Farley rises to her feet and advances on me. She has stopped crying very quickly. ‘You’re like the rest of them, aren’t you?’ she says. ‘Trying to make something out of my predicament.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I say. ‘I’m here purely on behalf of Meadowfresh.’
‘Purely?’ she says. ‘Don’t make me laugh. You know I can’t pay so you’re going to take advantage. I suppose you’d like to have me on the kitchen table.’
‘Mrs Farley—’ I begin, but she is already moving the teapot.
‘You don’t have to say anything,’ she says. ‘I’ve heard it all before. If I give in to your demands, you’ll give me a week’s extension?’
I don’t know about a week’s extension but she has already won herself a couple of inches. Percy is like a groin greyhound when it comes to homing in on a potential bout of in and out.
‘Please, Mrs Farley,’ I splutter. ‘You have the wrong end of the stick. I had no intention of trying to compromise you. I just want the money – and please put your knickers on again.’
‘I hope someone will find it in their hearts to forgive you for this,’ says Mrs Farley hopping up on to the edge of the table and throwing her panties over her shoulder so that they land on the new toaster – no doubt another present from mum. ‘Make it short.’
Whatever she is talking about, it isn’t percy. My action man kit is letting Meadowfresh down in a big way. Oh dear, it is all so difficult. Mr Claygate was talking about getting closer to the customers but I reckon that he might think inside was a bit too close. Especially in these circumstances.
‘What are you waiting for? Are you trying to humiliate me?’ Mrs Farley feels my nether cosh and plucks open the buttons that run down the front of my new uniform. ‘Could have been designed for the job,’ she husks. ‘Ooh. Here we are. You dirty brute, you should be ashamed of yourself.’
‘Mrs Farley –’ I begin. But it is too late. She has introduced my old man to her snatch faster than a new recruit to a Tupperware circle and lain back with her head on a packet of Ryvita. How different from the home life of our dear Queen. I would like to talk to her – I mean, Mrs Farley, of course – but the lady has closed her eyes and is jerking her head from side to side and heaving her not inconsiderable bosom. I lean forward to move the Ryvita – waste not, want not – but Mrs Farley pushes me back firmly.
‘Don’t leave me!’ she commands. ‘Ooh! Could you see your way to an extra pint?’
For a moment, I wonder what she is talking about. I was thinking in terms of a couple of fluid ounces at the most. Then it dawns on me. ‘Listen,’ I say. ‘This has gone far enough.’
‘No, it hasn’t!’ Her legs scissor round my back and her clit makes a cleft in the bit where my cock joins my pelvis for the summer holidays. I wish I could say that I was impervious to all this but since I am not quite sure what it means, I won’t. Suffice to say that Mrs Farley’s charms are getting through to me. In for a penny, in for a pounding, as they say. The lady’s berkeley is one with more drawing power than Manchester United and it is difficult to remain totally in control of your scruples when your mad mick is enjoying a sensation like being choked in velvet. I don’t feel I can withdraw without turning the bird inside out.
‘OOOOAAAARRRRRWWWWWWGGGGG ! ! ! ! !’ Blimey! That was the Chivers Olde Englishe Marmalade. A direct hit from the clenched fist riccocheting the contents of the saucer half way round the table.
‘WOWF!’ A mighty kung fu blow crunches through a pile of Weetabix. Mrs Farley clearly does not care when she is in the mood. Now her fingers have got caught in the toast rack. How genteel. She prises them free and starts sucking the wounded digits. Very sexy. I brace my thighs against the edge of the table and start dishing out the love thrusts. Firm but controlled. My hands patrol Mrs Farley�
��s breasts and her own clamp on top of them. They are sticky. Not surprising really after the marmalade.
‘That’s it!’ she says. ‘Go on, go on!’
I can’t help feeling a bit choked when they talk like that. I have been going on all the time. It is just that she has suddenly caught up with what I am doing. Women! It is always the wrong thing at the right time, or the right thing at the wrong time, or the wrong thing at the wrong time, or the right thing at the right time – only they changed their minds the moment you start doing it. They are so bloody difficult. For two pins and a bacon slicer down the front of my Y-fronts I would jack the whole thing in and start collecting train numbers – it wouldn’t take long to get all of them the way things are going at the moment.
‘Don’t stop!’ I was not stopping. I was just slowing down to make sure that my balls didn’t drop into the cutlery drawer. She only has to start tidying up in mid-chava and her old man could cop a nasty surprise the next time he looked for a bottle opener – ‘Have you taken up golf, Marcia?’ Stranger things have happened. I remember a bird who kept patting the pillows all the time I was giving her one. She had spent twenty minutes folding the counterpane, too. Hardly carried away in a tidal wave of passion.
The kitchen table is now looking like a battle ground. The Grapenuts have spilled into the marmalade and a fine dust of Weetabix covers the scene. It is not the only one around. As I look down to the point where my Marquis of Lome is pursuing its leisurely passage into Mrs Farley’s fun box I observe a cloud of black powder dancing in the air. How exotic. I have known women to powder their snatches but never with black talcum. What a rich harvest of experience the lady is turning out to be. Turned on by the sight, I take a firm grip of her thighs and start wacking in the love thrusts. It is satisfying enough but not, I soon discover, as effective as me standing still and pulling her on to me like a wheelbarrow. The tablecloth ruckles and stretches like the side of a concertina and a familiar sensation starts to quiver through my dick. Could be that the local sperm bank is going to be denied another deposit – ‘Ooooooh!’ Very nice, even if the butter does fall on the cat – how did that get in here? It looks at me disapprovingly and then licks its paw and sweeps it behind its ear. That means rain, doesn’t it? Not to worry. I don’t really care at the moment. Hot currents of velvety syrup are fanning out through my loins and Mrs Farley is the only thing left on the table.
‘Wheeeeeeh!’ The cat blinks and Mrs Farley claps her hand round my bum and hangs on for dear life. A couple of thrusts and my dick is gripped with the fervour of an American Presidential candidate’s handshake. A mighty, muscular mechanism gets to work and the fruit of my loins is harvested so fast that you can almost hear a noise like a suction cleaner in full slurp. There would be no question of coypu interrupted with this lady – not unless you were prepared to leave your dick behind.
‘Have you finished?’ The question is purely academic as they say. Mrs Farley has her feet on the floor before I have tucked my hampton away. ‘So,’ she says. ‘You got what you wanted. I’ll make sure I’ve got the money next week so I’m spared a similar ordeal.’
‘Er – yes, the money,’ I say. ‘I was wondering—’ But it is no good. She is already walking towards the door and I can’t bring myself to make an issue of it. She has got round me – huh, you can say that again. I put the remains of the Grapenuts back on the table and follow her to the door. ‘Well – er, next week then,’ I hear myself say. ‘I’m sorry to push it but we’re having a bit of a drive on –’ I break off when I find that I am talking to the door which has been closed in my face. I turn away and twenty net curtains drop like guillotines. I glance down and my shirt is poking out of my fly. Charming. I rearrange it and look up the street. Interesting. That solves the mystery of the black talcum. Three houses away, the coalman is coming out of the front gate.
CHAPTER SIX
‘Reminds me of the bloke who wanted to buy his missus a talking parrot,’ says Sid.
‘Why did he want to do that?’ I ask.
‘Because he was away a lot and he thought she’d like someone to talk to,’ says Sid. ‘Stop interrupting and get the beer in. Now, where was I? – oh yes. He goes round to the pet shop and he says ‘How are you off for talking parrots?’ And the geezer says: ‘Fantastic. You couldn’t have come at a better time. I’ve got this fantastic little number. Wonderful talker. Only problem is – it doesn’t have any legs.’ So the bloke says: ‘Well, how does he stay on his perch?’ And the geezer says: ‘Easy, he wraps his old man round it.’ So the bloke thinks for a bit and he has a chat with the parrot – who is a lovely talker – and in the end he decides to have him. He takes the bird home and his old lady is dead chuffed. She loves the bloody parrot. So the bloke is highly satisfied and goes off and leaves his wife with the parrot. Two weeks later, he comes back and his wife isn’t in. Only the parrot is there. So he says: ‘Afternoon. Everything going all right?’ And the parrot says: ‘Very nicely, thank you. Only one thing – I’m a bit worried about the milkman.’ So the bloke pricks up his ears and says: ‘What do you mean?’ And the parrot says: ‘Well, couple of days after you left, the milkman came round and your wife asked him in for a cup of tea.’ ‘Oh yes?’ says the bloke.’ ‘Yes,’ says the parrot. ‘And he’s no sooner through the door than your missus has got his old man out.’ ‘That’s terrible,’ says the bloke. ‘I thought so too.’ says the parrot. ‘But there was worse to come.’ ‘What happened?’ says the bloke who is now getting highly agitated. ‘She let him take her knicks off and then she got up on the kitchen table.’ By now the bloke is sweating blood. ‘What happened?’ he shouts. ‘Come on, you’ve got to tell me!’ And he grabs the parrot by the neck and starts shaking it. ‘The milkman took his trousers off and got between your wife’s legs,’ gasps the parrot. ‘And then what?’ sobs the bloke. ‘I don’t know,’ says the parrot. ‘I got a hard on and fell off my perch.’
Sid falls about and I try to catch the barman’s eye. Blokes who rolled up at the bar yonks after me are getting served, but Lea? – not a sausage. It never seems to work like that on films. The hero only has to raise an eyebrow and eight waiters are knocking people down to get to him.
‘Great story, isn’t it?’ says Sid. ‘You can just see the old parrot keeling off its perch, can’t you?’
‘Sid,’ I say. ‘What made you change your mind about becoming a milkman?’
‘You’re not still on about that, are you?’ says Sid. ‘Anyone can change their mind, you know. It was my conversation with your Mr Claygate that did it. Nice fellow. He’s got a lot of interesting ideas. I was at one with him in many areas. What’s the crumpet situation like on this course?’
‘Terrible,’ I say. ‘There’s this bird with big knockers but she’s just not interested. I heard her telling someone that sex turns her right off. I think she’s got something wrong with her, too.’
‘Probably cyclepneumatic,’ says Sid. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll sort her out in no time. The ones who say they don’t like it are always a pushover. They’re frightened, that’s all. What they need is a bloke who’s prepared to trample over their scruples. They want to be mastered. They want somebody to do the thinking for them. They want to be swept off their feet. For instance: when you open a packet of crisps, you keep the salt to yourself. If they want any they have to come to you.’
‘It’s a whole new world,’ I say.
‘Course it is,’ says Sid. ‘Hey, Gunga Din. You ever thought of serving beer in this place? It’s not a bleeding temple, you know.’ The Indian bloke behind the bar does not take kindly to this remark and I judge it wise to take my leave when Sid starts complaining to the manager that the bitter tastes of curry powder. I don’t have a lot of time to waste anyhow because the sooner I finish my round and plug in my float on the charger, the sooner I can piss off for the day. You have to get up early but you can leave yourself a lot of spare time if you want to. Some blokes do two jobs but I am not that crazy about making money. Sid is keep
ing his reasons for joining Meadowfresh pretty dark but I reckon it must be more than taking a shine to Claygate’s mug. He has got some crafty little scheme up his sleeve.
‘Yoo hoo! Timothy Lea?’ I look up and there is a very nice little number wearing a blue suit with an MMB badge on the lapel. She is leaning out of the window of a Morris 1100.
‘In the flesh,’ I say. ‘Every glorious, glistening inch of me.’
‘Don’t be a chump,’ she says. ‘I’m from the Milk Marketing Board. Sue Dangerfield spending a day with you chaps trying to gee up sales. Don’t expect you knew anything about it. Absolutely lousy communications.’
‘Mr Claygate didn’t say anything,’ I say. ‘At least, I don’t think he did.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ says the bird. ‘We’ll be able to get on with it, won’t we?’
‘No trouble,’ I say. ‘What exactly did you have in mind?’
‘Well, it’s pretty boring, most of it. A few recipe leaflets about things to do with that extra pinta. Then there’s a little competition they can enter for if they buy something. You ought to know all about this. There were tons of forms.’
‘Maybe they arrived when I was on my course,’ I say. ‘Er – how are we travelling?’
‘I’ll go with you. We can pick the car up later if that’s all right with you. I must say, it does make a change to be with a young chap. Some of the ones I’ve been with in the last few days have been real old fogies. No zip at all. Frankly, I’ve been rather disappointed. I mean, back at HQ the gels look forward to going up the sharp end.’
‘How very unusual,’ I say.
‘In the field,’ she says. ‘It’s all very well making graphs about milk yields and the effect of rain on calf production but you yearn to get out where the action is. I mean, the milkman is a key figure in our childhood, isn’t he?’