aside, gentlemen,’ he says, putting a bulging attaché case on the reception counter. ‘I am a professional man. What seems to be the trouble, my dear?’
Sandra tells him in no uncertain fashion and Dr C. shakes his head sadly. ‘Infectious high spirits cause serious complaints. Tell me, does this hurt?’
‘Hey, wait a minute!’
‘It’s alright, my dear. I’m a doctor. Doctor Walter Carboy. No, I don’t think there is anything there to worry about. Quite a lot to disturb, but nothing to worry about. In your case I’ll waive my fee.’ He waves his hand towards the door. ‘Goodbye fee. Now, let’s talk turkey–or Turkish–I don’t mind. I would like the best room you have available and a bottle of Glen Grant sent up immediately. It doesn’t matter about glasses, just send up the bottle. I joke, of course, madam,’ he smiles into Miss Primstone’s bemused face. ‘And if you can do anything to turn off the noise next door and buy yourself a hairnet, I would be grateful. I need peace. Perfect peace.’
‘What about the rest of your luggage, sir?’
‘It’s following me from Southampton. Some of the most faithful luggage in the world. I’ve been trying to shake it off for years. And now gentlemen, enough of this idle badinage. Good luck with the spheroid and even better luck with the haemorrhoids, as my old coach used to say. Last one to my room is a cissy.’ And so saying he leaps towards the stairs like Rudolf Nureyev.
The Rottingfestrians are left speechless and it takes a few seconds before Miss Primstone shoves the keys of the Plaza Suite into Martin’s hands and tells him to catch up with Carboy fast.
‘One of the old school,’ she says. ‘We have not seen his like for a long time.’ She is right there.
About two o’clock the hotel surrenders itself to blissful quiet as the Rottingfestrians pull out for their rugby match. They are full of booze and big talk about how they are going to crush the ‘swede-bashers’ as they call the local side. Most of the wives and sweethearts troop along dutifully but there is no sign of green-pants, and the winsome chick who asked me about local events trips down the stairs ten minutes after the others have pulled out.
‘Hurry up or you’ll miss the match,’ I tell her.
‘I’m not going. I thought I told you. I can’t stand the game. I’m taking a look at the lifeboat station and the fish market. You don’t fancy being my guide, do you?’
‘I’d love to,’ I say, meaning it, ‘but I’m on duty this afternoon. Maybe tomorrow?’
‘Maybe.’ She gives me a cute little wave and dances away down the steps. I think she quite fancies me, that one. It is diabolical isn’t it? They are either all over you or nowhere to be seen.
Somehow the minutes tick by to three o’clock and my mind is not on the outcome of the clash between Hoverton RUFC. and ORs.
Doctor Carboy rings down and asks if his baggage has arrived. We tell him ‘no’ and he delivers half a dozen wisecracks and a request for a tailor, a shirtmaker and another bottle of Glen Grant to be sent up to his room. This is unheard of and Sid practically purrs with delight when we tell him.
‘It’s happening,’ he squeaks. ‘At last it’s happening. Just when I had almost given up hope. I said if we stuck it out long enough the class customers would start showing up.’
‘No you didn’t, Sid. Only this morning you were saying we should sell out to–’
‘Quiet, you viper,’ hisses Sid. ‘Don’t talk about things you don’t understand.’
‘But I do understand, Sid. You seem to think that one swallower makes a summer.’
‘Belt up with those awful jokes and get the booze in. He’s paying for it, isn’t he?’
‘I hope so, Sid.’
Ten minutes later simple Sid has disappeared, rubbing his hands together at the thought of the riches to come, and I am rubbing my hands nervously outside room number two-four-six, also thinking hopefully of the riches to come. I stretch out my arm but the door opens before I make contact with it.
‘Come in.’
‘Blimey!’
Mrs Fatso is wearing a black nylon negligee which is downright negligent in its coverage of her erogenous zones (I got the word from one of the sex books I borrowed from Battersea Public Library. Everything you always wanted to know about sex but got smacked in the kisser for asking. Something like that, anyway).
‘Come in,’ she says, ‘it’s draughty with the door open.’
‘It would be draughty in the Sahara Desert with that thing on.’
‘You like it, do you?’
‘Fantastic.’
‘I found my husband polishing the studs of his rugger boots with it.’
‘I don’t believe it. I don’t know how he can bear to leave the room with you looking like that.’ It is no hardship chatting her up. I mean what I am saying.
‘He finds it easy to leave any room that doesn’t have a bar in it. In the last three years he has only taken me out once, and that was to a film show of the British Lions tour of New Zealand followed by two blue movies. Most of those present were more turned on by the rugby film.’
‘Incredible.’
‘Sometimes I wonder if it’s me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think I must be ugly or something. I look at myself in the mirror and ask myself why he prefers a rugby ball to me.’
‘You’re not ugly, you’re a very striking woman.’
‘Thank you. I appreciate that. You’re not just being kind?’
‘No, no. Compared to some of the birds I–’ I stop myself just in time. ‘Compared to most of the visitors we get, you’re a knockout. I can’t understand your husband. Has he always been like that?’
‘He’s always been mad keen on rugby. He started going off me about the time I stopped ironing his bootlaces.’
‘Why did he marry you in the first place?’
‘Because the captain of the first team was going out with me. Basil is very competitive. He said he liked looking at me when I bent down to pour the teas.’
‘Oh, he noticed you, then?’
‘Yes, he said that when I leaned over my breasts looked like two rugby balls dropping over the bar of my dress.’
‘Very romantic.’
‘It was, by his standards.’
‘What did you see in him?’
‘Oh, physical things, I suppose. He wasn’t so fat then. Somehow I thought that all those healthy young men charging about were where I ought to be.
