by Timothy Lea
‘Not so loud, you berk! It’s made of rubber. It just looks like a fried egg. While you’re distracting the bloke’s attention I’ll do a switch and he’ll tuck into the imitation job.’ Sid allows himself a malicious smile. ‘I reckon he’ll kill the bloke who runs this place after the first mouthful.’
I shake my head in admiration. ‘That’s a conception of truly diabolical cunning,’ I say. ‘Expensive, too. How much did that egg cost?’
‘I confiscated it from Jason,’ says Sid. ‘Cheeky little Charley ’Arstard tried it on me at breakfast. Hang on! Here we go.’
‘One-three-two’ echoes over the loudspeaker system and the Gorilla shambles to his feet. He is an ugly looking cove, there is no doubt about it. I would not like him to find me with my all forlorn being the cause of a chink of light showing between his old lady’s walkabouts. The very thought of it casts a cold shadow along the length of my giggle stick. The man collects a plate of petrified morsels from the engine driver’s assistant behind the counter and returns to his seat via the cash desk. It may be my imagination but I think I see the eyes of the old slag who takes the money move. It must be getting near the time when she changes her skin.
‘All right, Robert Redford,’ says Sid. ‘Get out there and do your stuff.’ He is practically humming the theme music from The Sting. He is very impressionable is Sid.
I stand up, replace the watered-down bottle of HP sauce I have knocked down and direct my animal grace towards the Gorilla’s table. A number of ruses pass through my computer mind but in the end I decide to settle for Sid’s suggestion. Should anything go wrong, he will only have himself to blame. Checking that Clapham’s answer to Paul Newman is on the right course I clear my throat and close with the Gorilla.
‘Excuse me, mate. Have you got a light?’
The giant fist returns the fork to the side of the yellowing plate and dives into the pocket of the donkey jacket. It is at this point that I realise that I don’t have a cigarette. The Gorilla produces a box of Swan Vestas and starts to go through the motions of striking one of them. A feeling not totally unakin to panic descends upon me. The match flares into flame and the Gorilla looks at me expectantly.
‘Have you got a cigarette as well?’ I say, trying to inject a pleasing lilt into my voice. Whatever Sid may think of the way I have done it, there is no doubt at all that I have succeeded in distracting the Gorilla’s attention.
‘Have I what?!!’ The vast hulk of the bloke towers above me. I am vaguely aware of Sid doing his stuff but it is not my first area of consideration.
‘I’m sorry. I – er—’ I try to back away but a giant mitt descends on my jacket.
‘Are you trying to take the piss?’ I splutter convincingly.
‘You buy your own bleeding fags!!’ The Gorilla signals the end of our conversation by thrusting me back half a dozen paces. Everybody in the caff is looking at us and I feel a right berk. With my cheeks burning, I scuttle back to Sid.
‘You didn’t have to overdo it,’ he says contemptuously. ‘I thought you were trying to start a punch-up.’
‘Did you get the egg?’ I say.
Sid nods at the table in front of me. ‘What does that look like?’
‘It looks like the rubber one covered in blue fluff,’ I say.
‘I had to slip it in my pocket,’ says Sid. ‘You can have it if you like.’ I don’t think he is joking either. ‘Hang on, here he goes.’
The Gorilla gives me a farewell scowl and empties a bottle of watered-down tomato ketchup over his plateful. Sid rubs his hands together and leans forward in anticipation. The Gorilla picks up his irons and I suck in my breath. In a couple of seconds, he will be going berserk. It may be that our little brush will help to make him even angrier. I wink at Sid and my lips part in an anticipatory smile. It is like when one of the blokes at school put tin tacks on the teacher’s chair and we all waited for him to sit down.
‘Now!’ Sid bites his tongue and the Gorilla shovels home the first mouthful. No reaction. This time! Still no reaction. Maybe he is saving the egg until last or it has got lost under all the ketchup. The Gorilla takes another mouthful and spreads out a crumpled copy of The Sun.
Sid looks at me and shakes his head. ‘What’s up with him?’ I shrug my shoulders and Sid rises to his feet like a man in a dream. The Gorilla is staring at a full page photo of Nadine Jardine who likes horse riding, dancing and baring her knockers to readers of The Sun. I know because I looked at a copy earlier. Sid walks past the Gorilla’s table and beckons to me as he heads for the Gents. I follow him, but not past the Gorilla’s table.
‘What happened, Sid?’ I say.
‘He ate it,’ says Sid.
It all goes to show why we have such diabolical nosh in this country. People will eat anything. Even a rubber egg covered in tomato ketchup.
‘I’m amazed the knife was sharp enough to cut through it,’ muses Sid. ‘He must have put it in all at once.’
Putting it in all at once makes me think automatically of some of the birds of passage who hang around the transport caffs. Most of them are not very lovely but they are yours for the price of a bacon sandwich and a night’s kip in your cab. They are travelling ladies and they must see more of this country than the British Travel Association ever dreamed of. They would be offended if you called them nails. With them it’s more a question of barter: ‘a ride for a ride’ is how the professionals describe it. Like I say, most of them would stand out at the vicar’s tea party like a donkey’s erection but there are exceptions. They don’t all use their faces as full colour advertisements for the services they offer. Shirl is a good example. I ask some of the old boilers I give a lift to about her and the ones that know her reckon that she is too stuck up for her own good. ‘She doosn’t give a booger for anywoon,’ says one of them. ‘She’s disappointed a loot of poiple.’
I take this to mean that she does not always deliver the goods in the manner laid down by the conventions of the road. This is not something that can be said about most of my travelling companions. Some of them are very insistent on making their contribution for services rendered. I don’t think that there is any doubt that they fancy the life. I find that the best thing to do when faced with an offer I can easily refuse is to say that I am recovering from a bout of The Coachman (Coachman on the box: pox. – Ed.). This way you don’t give offence.
One bird who gives me a big surprise is a little nurse I pick up in North London. She is wearing her uniform and carrying an overnight bag and she looks a dead ringer for Florence Nightingale. You would not reckon that you could get a thermometer up her ‘how’s your father?’ let alone anything else.
‘Where are you going to?’ she says, looking up at me like Little Red Riding Hood must have looked at the wolf.
‘How does Manchester grab you?’ I say.
‘Marvellous,’ she says. ‘It must be my lucky day.’
She hands up her hold-all and scrambles into the cab like a kid being shown the inside of an aeroplane’s cockpit.
‘It’s nice,’ she says. ‘Cosy. Would you like a sweetie?’ She produces a brown paper bag and shoves it in front of my face.
‘Ta,’ I say. ‘What are they?’
‘Bulls eyes. They’re a bit sticky. Shall I pop one in for you?’
‘Ta.’ I open my cake hole and she gives me a lovely smile as she slots the goody between my Teds. She has dark curly hair, big brown eyes and a dust of freckles round her button nose. She is so wholesome she makes an Ovaltine Girl seem like Lucretia Borgia.
‘Do you want to do it now or later?’ she says.
For a moment, I think I must have misheard her. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t get you.’
‘Sex,’ she says, without blinking. ‘Here or at the other end? There’s a good place just off this layby we’re coming to.’
You can imagine my feelings. Deep and profound shock coupled with a keen sense of moral outrage and a strong dose of ‘can’t wait to get at it!’
‘Where?!’ I say, nearly unscrewing the steering wheel as I wrench it over.
‘Through the trees at the end,’ she says, hauling herself up into the vertical. ‘I hope you don’t think I’m fussy but I travelled with this feller who had me on the side of the A6 in broad daylight. Anybody could have seen.’
‘You go up north a lot, do you?’ I ask, steering Enid between a couple of silver birches.
‘When I get a long leave,’ she says. ‘My parents live in Salford. The train fares are terrible, aren’t they? I’d never go if I had to save up the fare.’
‘Uum,’ I say. I still haven’t quite cottoned on to the idea of this bird offering herself to me as the price of the trip north. ‘Is this how you normally do it?’
‘That’s right,’ she says. ‘I don’t mind returning a favour. Do you want to stay inside? It’s probably better, isn’t it? You never know who’s about, these days.’ She props her legs against the front of the cab, raises her bum, and slips off a pair of navy blue panties. ‘Put these in your pocket, will you? I don’t want to lose them. And my sweeties.’
I do as I am told, hardly able to believe my luck. ‘This happens every time, does it?’
The bird stretches out her hand for my zip. ‘You should know. Oh, sorry. My fingers are sticky from those sweets.’
‘I’m not complaining,’ I say.
‘Have you got anything to wipe them on?’
I tug down my zipper. It is like pulling the string on a self inflating dinghy. ‘Use that,’ I say.
CHAPTER SIX
Hannah, that is the bird’s name. Nurse Hannah Dobson. We have another bit before I drop her and it is even better than the first time. When I think about it, it usually is. You’re more relaxed, I suppose. More relaxed, but still finding each other new and exciting. I tell her that I’ll keep my eye open for her but I never see her again. Sad, isn’t it? I think about her every time I pass that layby – well, nearly every time. As the weeks go past, more and more laybys start to hold memories for me. It is amazing some of the things you see.
Once darkness falls half the population seems to be at it in the back of a car. There are laybys I can think of where the peeping toms are queuing up like buskers outside a West End cinema. Of course, most of these geezers wearing out their springs are up to no good. Stands to reason, doesn’t it? If you can afford a Jag you can afford a pad to take your lady friends to. You would not work out on the back seat unless you were kinky for the kiss of imitation leather against your bare bum. It’s got to be that the old woman is back home watching ‘World in Agony’ and hoping that the lamb cutlet in the oven bakes so dry it chokes you. It doesn’t have to be the old woman either. I see a number of nifty looking birds in sports cars who are tongue angling with young blokes who don’t look as if they could scrape together the wherewithal to buy a plastic valve cap. Their talents function below dashboard level. The birds usually look a bit desperate – like they feel middle age breathing down their necks and know that Edgar is going to start wondering why they have to visit their sister so often.
I mention this as a background to Henrietta. I meet her in a layby. Well, it is not so much a layby as one of those windy bits of road that have been by-passed. They are favourite for back seat bingo. Walk down them and there is hardly a window that does not have a curtain of steam over it.
It is about eleven o’clock at night and I am looking for a place to get my head down for a few minutes – I refer to a kip, not a muff job, I am travelling alone. I pull off at this stretch of road but it is choked with private cars, huddled together like woodlice. I feel choked, too. Both because I am dead knackered and because I resent the thought of somebody else getting their end away while I have to sweat my guts out – there is nothing big hearted about me. I have just got back to the main road without finding a parking space and am silently hoping that the rubber in any french letters being used has perished when my headlights pick out this bird rushing towards me. For a moment, I think she is going to chuck herself under the wheels. Then she stumbles round to my side of the cab and bangs on the door.
‘Help, help!’ she hollers. ‘I’ve been attacked. Take me to the police!’ She looks over her shoulder desperately. ‘He’s coming after me!’
At least he had some consideration, I think to myself. Now, I hope I don’t have to convince anybody that I am lion-hearted in the extreme. The courage of the Leas is a legend. We don’t know the meaning of the word fear – amongst many other words. However, our raw adventurous spirit is leavened by a strong dose of common sense – often confused with cowardice by those who don’t know us. Although my natural impulse is to leap down into the darkness and sort out the grumble bandit I control myself. There are some very funny people about and fruity nut-cases can turn nasty in the extreme. Maybe better to do as the lady says and let the moody blues sort it out. I mean, that’s what they get paid for, isn’t it? It’s not all raiding dirty book shops and deciding whether to bring an action rather than take a slice of it.
‘Hop in,’ I say. ‘Round the other side.’
She is definitely a harassed lady as I see when she scrambles in beside me. Her blouse is open down to her waist and her bra is all cock-eyed like somebody has had a go at it. Her lipstick is smeared, her eye make-up is running and there is a blotchy flush spreading downwards from her neck. I must say, I find it quite a turn on. I take a gander at the lower half of her body and she immediately smoothes her long woollen skirt over her leather boots like she is protecting herself. She has straight blonde hair cut close to her nut and nervous, slightly zany, blue eyes. I look out into the darkness but I can’t see anything.
‘Is he coming?’
‘I don’t think so.’
The bird shivers. ‘Please get me away from here.’
I ease forward to the edge of the road. ‘Which way? You do want to go to the police?’
‘Oh yes. Turn left and keep straight on.’ I do as she says and take another look at her out of the corner of my eye. There are no indications that she has been badly roughed up. ‘What happened?’
‘Have you got a cigarette?’
‘I don’t use them.’
‘Blast!’ The bird is really on edge. She sits there, biting her fingernails like a kid watching a horror movie.
A car’s headlights appear in the rear view mirror and she looks up at them nervously. The car overtakes and moves ahead fast. ‘We were going home after the drama club. He said he wanted to talk to me.’
‘I see.’ I don’t see, really, but you can’t go on asking questions. ‘You’re all right, are you?’
The bird does not seem to hear me. ‘He exposed himself to me,’ she says.
‘Must have been very disturbing for you,’ I say.
‘I’d never done anything like it before.’
I am not quite certain what she means by this. The way she puts it, it sounds as if she had something to do with what happened. Something she feels ashamed or embarrassed about.
‘I keep straight on, do I?’ I ask.
The bird bites her lips. ‘No, stop.’
‘Stop?’ I take my foot off the accelerator.
‘Maybe it isn’t a very good idea. They’d ask a lot of questions, wouldn’t they? It would be very embarrassing.’
‘It’s up to you,’ I say. ‘I mean, I don’t really know what happened. You weren’t—? He didn’t – er, rape you?’
‘I wouldn’t let him,’ says the bird. ‘He was saying the most terrible things. Things he wanted to do to me.’ She brings her hand to her throat. ‘I should never have given him a lift.’
‘It was your car, was it?’ I say.
The bird looks at me sharply. ‘Do you think that makes a difference? Do you think the police will believe that I – I was a party to what happened?’
‘You drove to the layby, did you?’
‘Yes, but we didn’t go there to make love – at least, I didn’t. I thought we were going to discuss the play.’
�
��Yes,’ I say.
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think,’ I say. ‘You know how difficult it is to get a charge like this to stick. Then there’s your husband. You are married, are you?’ The bird nods. ‘How’s he going to feel about it?’
The bird doesn’t say anything for a couple of minutes. ‘You’re saying that I should forget it?’
‘I think maybe that’s what you’re saying yourself. Wait till tomorrow, anyway.’ There is another silence. ‘Do you want me to take you back to your car?’
‘If you don’t mind.’ She gives me a nervous smile. ‘I’m sorry to cause you all this trouble. You must think I’m a very foolish woman.’
‘Oh no,’ I say. ‘I’m certain it was very nasty for you.’ I pull into a garage forecourt and start to turn round.
‘I suppose I did act rather stupidly. I think sometimes that I must be very innocent.’
‘It makes a change,’ I say. The road is clear so I pull out and we start chugging back the way we have come.
‘I think it must have been the roles we were playing. It was a romantic comedy, you see. We got on very well. I just wasn’t prepared for what happened. It was so – so blatant.’
‘I expect he got a bit carried away. I mean, you’re not—’ I break off and concentrate on my driving.
‘What were you going to say?’
‘You’d probably think I was like him if I said it. I was going to say that you were very attractive.’
‘Thank you.’ I can feel the bird weighing me up. ‘I don’t think it would have been so bad if it had been you, I mean, I don’t know you. I haven’t formed an impression of you. You could be anything. With John, I’d cast him in a role and he suddenly behaved completely differently to what I expected. That’s what startled me. Do you understand what I mean?’
‘Sort of,’ I say.
‘I don’t think you do. Not that I blame you. I don’t think I understand it myself. I suppose, in a way, I did want an adventure. That’s what it boils down to. But I was frightened – a little ashamed of myself.’