and wears patterned stockings so you’ll notice it. It is difficult to know where the pattern ends and her varicose veins begin. I stroll up to the bar and lean on it as casually as I can, discovering as I do so that I have chosen a large puddle of beer to put my elbow in.
“Learning to swim, dear?” says the old bag. I blush and hope that Sid has noticed how smoothly I have started a conversation.
“Lovely evening,” I say. The words are alright but unfortunately I am so tense that my voice cracks and the alsatian in the corner growls and pricks up its ears.
“What did you say, dear?”
“I said ‘it’s a nice evening’.”
“Very nice, dear.” She sounds a bit nervous. I can feel. I am sweating and I start licking my lips. The barman is in the saloon and I try to catch his eye.
“I don’t get up this way often.”
“Really dear? I thought I hadn’t seen you before.”
“Not on Thursdays, anyway.” Why did I say that? The old bag looks even more worried. “Thursday is early closing day,” I go on desperately, “I work in a bakery, you see, and we get the afternoon off.”
“Very nice, dear. I expect you look forward to it?”
The barman is coming towards me. Now for my big push.
“Can I buy you a fuck?” I say. She goes scarlet, the barman breaks into a run and the alsatian sits up.
“I mean a drink,” I shout, wishing I was dead.
“Make up your mind,” says Sid, who has miraculously appeared behind me. “You know, sometimes, I think he doesn’t know the difference,” he adds, flashing his pearlies at the old bag who is staring at me like I had eye teeth down to my navel.
“Is he with you?” she screeches. “You want to watch him, he’s round the twist. You heard what he said. He should be locked up.”
“In an asylum, Madam,” agrees Sid, “Anybody making a suggestion like that to you must be insane.”
“Hey, what do you mean,” says the old bag. “You trying to be funny or something? You’re no bleeding oil painting yourself.”
“That’s enough,” says the barman, “You two hop it.” He means Sid and me.
“Why should we?” says Sid. “We aren’t doing any harm. My friend merely asked the lady if she’d like a drink.”
“I heard what he asked the lady,” says the barman, “Now hop it before I call the police.”
“If you’re going to call anybody make it Hammer Films, mate,” says Sid. “They can’t start shooting till she turns up. ‘Daughter of the Vampires’, that’s what she’s in, and guess who’s playing mother!”
“Ooh, you little bastard!” The old bag swings her handbag, Sid ducks, and the barman catches it, smack in the kisser. You have to laugh. At least Sid and I do. The other two don’t seem to be finding it so funny. The barman shouts to the alsatian and before I can get really scared it has torn the old bag’s skirt off. By the time we get outside I am laughing so much I can hardly stand up.
“You did a bloody marvellous job in there,” says Sid all sarcastic. “My God, you came on strong. Nothing like getting to the point quick.”
“It’s no good with me if I don’t fancy a bird,” I say. “If my heart isn’t in it, nothing else is.”
“I don’t believe you could stick your old man in a fire bucket without someone shouting instructions through a megaphone,” says Sid. “What a bloody hopeless performance. That’s done it for me. You’d have both of us locked up on your first morning.”
“Come off it, Sid. You know it was an accident. I just got a bit flustered, that’s all.”
“Flustered?” says Sid. “Christ, I wonder you didn’t stick it in her hand and burst into tears.” I can see there isn’t much point in going on about it, so we walk across the common in silence. Dusk, as they say, is falling and I notice that Sid keeps taking a few strides and jumping as far as he can. I’ve never known him show any interest in athletics, apart from running away from hard work, so I ask him what he is doing.
“Trying to put the alsatian off the scent,” he says.
“You didn’t think of telling me, did you?”
“I was just going to mention it,” he says, managing to sound all hurt.
So I’m off across the common with a hop, skip and a jump and a right fairy I feel. Then Sid tells me to stop.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because I was taking the piss out of you, you stupid berk, and it isn’t funny any more.”
Sometimes I really dislike Sid.
We are near the boating pond by now and I can make out a few shadowy figures moving about in the darkness. Most of them are bent or on the game because the pond, after dark, is very much the place you wouldn’t arrange to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury. There are also a few anglers but their presence is a bit suspect, for the last fish must have coughed itself to death about ten years ago, and the surface is too thick with fagpackets and french letters that you’d need a half pound ledger to get through it. I reckon the anglers just want an excuse to get away from the old woman and have a bit on the side. I must confess, I’ve thought about it myself, but somehow I feel I need something more private for the first time.
“Look, Sid,” I say, my mind returning to the window cleaning, “couldn’t you just give me a trial? A couple of weeks maybe. I’m certain I could do the job. If I can’t, well, O.K. then.”
Sid is exploring the darkness and doesn’t seem to be listening to me. Eventually he sees what he’s looking for and, beckoning to me to follow him, makes towards the pond. By the water’s edge a fat old git is buttoning his oilskin trench coat and spitting words at a thin bird who is picking pieces of grass off her skirt. No prizes for guessing what they’ve been up to. The man bends down and reels in his line which, I notice, only has a weight on the end of it – no hooks. Presumably his technique is to whirl the weight round and round above his head and bash the fish over the bonce with it.
“Hallo, Lil” says Sid all cheerful like, “You busy?”
“With old kinky-coat” says the bird, “You must be joking. He exhausted himself screwing his rod together.”
The fat man says something ‘not nice’, as my mother would say, and collapsing his collapsible stool, hurries away.
“Lil,” says Sid, “I’d like you to meet my brother-in-law, Timmy. Timmy this is my aunty Lil.”
“Not so much of the aunty, ta.” says Lil. “Pleased to meet you Timmy. I don’t remember you at the wedding.”
“Timmy was detained elsewhere. He was giving her majesty pleasure.”
Sid’s aunty! What a turn up. She doesn’t seem old enough.
