am hoping that Christopher and Penny will be too knackered to come down to breakfast but, of course, they are the first couple I see, staring at their packet of Rice Krispies as if it has the meaning of life scrawled on the back.
‘Morning!’ I say brightly. Mrs Brown’s face registers surprise but this is soon replaced by an expression not far distant from outrage.
‘You’re a waiter!’ she says.
‘That’s right.’ I could explain that I stand on the right hand side of Sid the All-nighty, but what is the point?
‘You’re not one of us?’
‘An imposter.’
‘How dare you! You took advantage of me.’
‘Get stuffed.’ The last words are mine. I mean, it’s a bit much isn’t it? Ruthlessly exploited all night and then rejected because my credentials do not come up to par. How middle class. I wonder she did not ask for a blood sample.
My little outburst raises a few eyebrows around us but most of these are drooping like they have lead weights sewed at the corners. The night was obviously one of nonstop pelvic-bashing. I change tables with one of the other waiters and leave the Browns to splutter over their kipper fillets. My cock-cast is never going to see the inside of Mrs B.’s bureau. Too bad. I was thinking there might be a few bob in flogging them as alternatives to garden gnomes.
Out in the vestibule a sign directs club members to an address by one Professor Mordecai Hucklejohn entitled ‘Marriage–Whither or Wither?’ and quite a few of them troop into the ballroom after breakfast. They must regret it because no sooner has Professor Hucklejohn asked for a glass of iced water than a gang of micks roll up and start tearing down the building next door. They have obviously been concentrating on the Liffywater or given orders to make as much noise as possible because the Prof’s instructive words are soon drowned by the din of falling masonry and language that would make a Billingsgate fish porter blush. Added to that clouds of dust drift in through every window in the place. Rigby’s war has begun.
‘It’s a bugger, isn’t it?’ says Sid, ‘but there’s nothing I can do about it, short of dumping him out to sea with a weighing machine tied to his ankles. I’ve been to the Town Hall but, like he said, they don’t want to know. We’ll just have to plough on regardless. I’m not giving in.’
‘Has he been in touch with you?’
‘Yes, he rang up last night. Cocky bastard. I told him what he could do with himself. Oh dear, here comes trouble.’ He refers to Sam the Ram who is approaching, shaking his head ruefully.
‘Nobody can hear a word in there, man,’ he says. ‘How long before they start on this place and we can all go home?’
‘I’m very sorry about that, Sir, but I am afraid the whole situation is caused by circumstances beyond my control–’ Sid sounds as if he is reading a bulletin fixed to the gates of Buckingham Palace, but my thoughts are elsewhere. Supposing Riley’s mob did start trying to knock down the Cromby? That could well spark off enough scandal to force weasel-features to halt his dastardly plans for a bit.
I potter about until lunch-time and then pop round to the local boozer. As anticipated the sons of Eire are tucking into a well-earned glass of lunch and I salute them cheerfully.
‘Hello there, me boyos,’ I chant, trying to get a lilt into my voice, ‘the top of the morning to you. And a fine day it is for a drop of the hard stuff.’
‘Bugger off!’
Attempts to get alongside these lusty lads are obviously going to have to be handled with a bit more subtlety.
‘Sure, and I’m having the divil’s own trouble with this dratted crossword,’ I continue. ‘Could you be tickling my memory with the information as to the longest river in the dear old Emerald Isle?’
‘I’ll be tickling your back passage with the toe of my boot if you don’t fuck off!’ Unpleasantly dirty fingers close round my throat and I get a Cinerama Holiday view of half a dozen blackened stumps which might just once have been teeth. The owner of this gross affront to the British Dental Association sprays my mug with saliva and a whiff of rotting vegetation which could be used to gas rats. ‘We’ve had enough of youse perverts,’ he continues, moving my head around with his hand as if trying to find a crack in the wall which might fit it. ‘If you don’t get your backside out of this bar in the next two minutes, you’ll get my drill up it.’
‘Don’t encourage him to stay, Paddy,’ says a large gentleman with a face like a plateful of boiled potatoes, ‘to his kind that’s a promise, not a threat.’
‘Throw him out!’
‘Murder him!’
‘Papist!’
It occurs to me, as my backside collides with the pavement, that this is one plan which I can forget about in a big way. I had formed a hazy idea of getting the micks so pissed that they would find it difficult to tell the difference between the Cromby, the apartment house next door, and a set of kids building bricks. With them swinging their big lead ball against the dining room windows, it might have been possible to alert the local press to another example of property developing vandalism. No such luck. Not content with inflicting injury on my precious person the surly sons of the sod are back after dinner bashing away twice as hard–but with no loss of accuracy. The building next door is falling apart before my eyes and the Cromby remains dusty but intact.
Awareness of the life-style of the Pendulum Society has not been slow to sweep through the ranks of the Cromby staff.
‘When I brought in the tea they asked for two extra cups,’ says June primly. ‘They were lined up across the bed.’
‘Four of them?’ says Carmen.
‘No, six. Two of them only drank coffee.’
‘There’s decadent for you,’ I say. ‘You sound as if you don’t approve?’
‘It’s not very nice, is it?’ drones Carmen.
‘How can you ravers have the gall to say that?’ I scold them. ‘You’ve never been fussed about hunting as a pack.’
‘But we’re not married,’ says Audrey reproachfully. ‘It’s different for them. They shouldn’t behave like that.’
‘It’s not nice,’ repeats Carmen.
‘You mean to tell me that when you get married you’re never going to have a bit on the side?’
‘No!’
‘The very idea!’
‘I should think not!’
Amazing, isn’t it? The ways of women never cease to amaze me. Take my sister, Rosie, for instance. There was a time when everybody used to. Yours for a tanner’s worth of chips and first shake with the vinegar bottle, they used to say around us. She got married to Sidney–very sudden it was–and after that butter would not melt between her thighs. The perfect wife and mother–until she gets a whiff of Ricci Volare. Then, pow! Right back to square one, or round one would be more appropriate. How she is going to react
