style="font-size:15px;"> ‘My boat sank,’ I say. I mean, there is no point in making the confusion worse, is there? I flirt with a few items of verbal jollity that involve Vulgar Bedmen and Volgar Boatmen and decide against them. The gentlemen with the submachine-gun pointed at the centre of my nut cluster could well fail to be amused. Their ways are not our ways.
‘You looking for asylum?’
What a funny thing to ask a bloke! I suppose I do look a bit odd but there is no reason to start jumping to conclusions. The geezer reads the expression of surprise on my face. ‘I mean political asylum.’
‘Oh, The House of Lords,’ I say. ‘You should have said. That’s further up the river.’
‘What is it, Boris?’ Another bloke rolls up wearing long boots and a fur hat. I wonder whether to tell him that his shirt has come out of his trousers but decide against it.
‘I think it is another refugee from the fascist hyenas, Excellency.’
‘Indeed.’ The newcomer leans towards me and I suddenly tumble to the fact that it is a bird. I thought the voice was a bit funny. On closer inspection she reminds me of Vanessa Redgrave. You know, everything there, but stretched a bit. ‘So, you want to go to Urals?’
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ I say. You know how it is when you’re cold and you’ve had a few beers. It goes right through you.
‘Come, follow me. I wish to examine your credentials.’ I have heard how the Commies are great ones for spying on you but this is too much. Nobody follows me into the karsi. I am about to say something but the bird turns on her heel and the bloke gives me a playful nudge with his submachine-gun that clearly means ‘get a move on’. In the circumstances I see no alternative but to do as I am nudged. I never reckoned myself with perforations.
Down some steps we go and along a narrow, dimly lit corridor that smells like a baby camel’s chewing rag. The cold is now really getting through to me and I am shivering like your mum’s automatic washing machine going into spin dry.
‘You want to join the party?’
In my present condition, I have never felt less like a knees-up but I decide that it would be a bad idea to refuse the lady’s invitation. ‘Yeah, lovely,’ I say. ‘I wouldn’t mind getting out of these things though.’
‘Of course. Boris, get the comrade a people’s suit.’
I am not sorry to see Boris taking his machine-gun for a walk and for a moment I consider making a bolt for it. Then it occurs to me that it probably has a bolt anyway. Plus a trigger and all the other bits. I will have to find another way of working myself into the Commie’s favour.
‘Do you know Nitya Pullova?’ I say. ‘She comes from Omsk.’
Comrade Pullova is the big knockered bird who has come to Slumbernog on an exchange visit and revolutionised production. So much so that the firm is actually making money and the horrible Rightberk brothers who share responsibility for spending all the profits with Sid have pushed off on a cruise. I throw that in just in case you like a bit of plot.
‘Omsk?’ says my companion, opening a cabin door with a wry smile – she uses her hand as well, of course. ‘That is two thousand miles from Leningrad. London is nearer to Leningrad than Omsk.’
‘Blimey,’ I say. ‘So it’s right over the other side of the country?’
The bird smiles again. ‘No, the beautiful city of Omsk is not even one third of the way across the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.’
Amazing, isn’t it? Nearly drowned and a free geography lesson into the bargain. Nobody can say that I don’t lead a rich and varied life.
‘Not surprising you don’t know her then,’ I say, exhibiting once more the easy mastery of casual banter that has cemented my reputation as the Michael Parkinson of the West Clapham light ale and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps set.
There is a bit more light – of the electrical variety – in the sparsely furnished cabin and it gives me the opportunity to have a shufti at the bird. She looks a lot better when she has taken off her fur hat and allowed her blonde barnet to tumble round her shoulders. She has large grey eyes and a wide mouth that turns up temptingly at the corners. I would imagine that she is OK in the bristols department but it is a bit difficult to tell because of the blouse she is wearing. It has less shape than one of Mum’s steak and kidney puddings. She is looking at my clobber with interest.
‘You, serf,’ she says.
‘Not here,’ I say. ‘You need waves. You might be able to water ski but it wouldn’t be much fun if you fell in. I mean, look at me.’
‘I am looking at you.’ She points to the front of my ripped life jacket. ‘“REJECT”. That is how your capitalist society designates you.’
It has been occurring to me that the word ‘reject’ might well refer to something else – like what the manufacturer thinks ought to be done with a garment that quite clearly fails to come up to scratch. I wonder where Sid got it from? Probably off the back of a lorry. So much of what Sid lays his hands on falls off the back of lorries that the items usually carry tyre marks.
‘Take offski those sad rags.’ The lady is swift to note the hesitation on my part, prompted by hundreds of years of genteel breeding and the certain knowledge that my brush with cold hearted Father Thames has resulted in my hampton taking on the proportions of a dwarf brussel sprout – Hampton Wick as you might say. ‘Do not worry about exposing yourself to me. I have seen more naked men than you have had.’
I wait expectantly for her to say ‘hot dinners’ but she doesn’t.
‘What exactly do you do on board?’ I ask, peeling off the remains of Sid’s jacket. A card falls out of one of the pockets which says ‘Everything slashed!’ I don’t think it referred only to the prices.
‘I am Comfort Officer. I ensure that revolutionary fervour is maintained at high level and that crew have spotski of in and outski on Saturday night. Here, I do it.’ So saying she briskly begins to peel off my sodden clobber like she is removing washing from a line.
‘Blimey,’ I say. ‘All on Saturday night?! Have you considered staggering?’
‘I don’t have to consider,’ she says with feeling. ‘I stagger!’
The feeling I am referring to is what might be termed a brisk massage and richochets through the lower half of my body like honey bullets. The lady is obviously well-equipped with the physical wherewithal to withstand the passionate demands of the crew and it occurs to me that the work is probably no hardship to her. ‘I do not know what has happened to Boris,’ she says, whipping down my Y-fronts. ‘Maybe you like to lie down. You like bunk up?’
‘I beg your pardon!’ I say. I mean, I am not used to girls being so forward. This isn’t a Young Conservatives’ dance or anything like that.
‘You like bunk up or bunk down?’ The Russian lady is now pointing to the two bunks in the cabin and her meaning becomes clear to me.
‘The bottom one’s fine,’ I say, grabbing a blanket and adjusting my shapely limbs in a horizontal position.
Before
