‘Where’s the bed?’ says Sid. ‘You haven’t damaged it, have you? I sunk a lot of investment in that.’
‘You sunk it to the bottom of the Thames,’ I say. ‘It didn’t stay afloat more than a couple of hundred yards. It’s a miracle that I’m alive!’
Sid claps his hands to his head. ‘Gordon Bennett! I might have guessed you’d make a mess of everything. What is it about you?’
‘What are you two talking about?’ says Rosie.
‘Sid wanted me to drift round the world on a floating bed,’ I tell her. ‘The trouble was that it didn’t float.’
‘You didn’t have to drift,’ says Sid. ‘You could have rowed a bit. Your attitude’s typical of so many young people today. You want everything on a plate. It’s getting so a kid expects a Duke of Edinburgh Award for pulling out a sheet of bog paper.’
‘Drifting round the world on a bed?’ echoes Rosie. ‘That’s dangerous.’
‘Oh, belt up!’ snaps Sid. ‘If you want to say anything you can blame your perishing brother for putting the mockers on our holiday.’
‘What do you mean?’ says Rosie.
‘I can’t charge it to expenses if he hasn’t gone, can I? Just think about it. We might have had to wait there for months until he showed up.’
A glance at Rosie shows me that she is torn by what I have heard described as conflicting emotions. ‘We’re not going?’ she says. ‘But I’ve got all the clothes.’
Sid shrugs. ‘You’ll have to send them back to Carmen Miranda’s estate, won’t you?’
Rosie turns to me. ‘Are you sure you didn’t act a bit hastily, Timmy?’
‘I acted hastily, all right!’ I say. ‘If I hadn’t, it would be my corpse standing here! You don’t seem to understand the seriousness of what I’m telling you. I was nearly sent to my death.’
‘And I’d set my heart on it, too,’ says Rosie, sinking into a chair – for a moment, I think she is talking about me kicking the bucket.
‘You know who to blame,’ sulks Sid, wiping his cakehole on the tablecloth and picking up his golf putter.
‘It’s not fair, those Rightberks gallivanting round the world while we can’t go anywhere. I thought you’d bought control of the firm?’ Rosie looks at Sid accusingly.
‘Yeah, so did I, but it’s more complicated than that.’ Sid puts a glass on the floor and prepares to tap golf balls into it. I would have chosen one that was not half full of orange juice, myself, but I have noticed before that Sid is inclined to get flustered when Rosie starts having a go at him.
‘Mind what you’re doing, you great pillock!’ It is sad to hear Rosie talking like that. I can remember the time when she used to think that the sun went in every time Sid zipped up his fly.
‘Belt up, slug nipples!’ It is clear that feelings are running high and I am not sorry when there is a sharp rat-tat-tat on the front door.
‘I’ll get it,’ I say.
The sound of battle is still ringing in my lugholes as I swing open the door and find myself staring at the back of the postman’s head.
‘Hello, darling,’ he says, giving my left nipple a playful tweak. ‘Look at those naughty doggies. I wouldn’t mind having a bit of that, would you?’
‘Why don’t you ask one of them?’ I say.
The bloke whips round and turns an interesting shade of scarlet. ‘Oh yes-er. Recorded delivery,’ he says, shoving a pencil stub and a piece of paper into my hand. ‘Sign here.’ He looks me up and down questioningly. ‘Are you an au pair boy?’
The sooner I get out of this tunic the better. It does make me look like a blooming waiter. ‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘You’re the commandant of the Boys’ Brigade, aren’t you?’
‘Watch it!’ The bloke is swift to take umbrage.
‘You want to watch your hands, and all!’ I take the letter and close the door firmly in his face. Honestly, I don’t know what public servants are coming to these days. It makes me glad that I still have his pencil.
‘What is it?’ says Sid, as I go into the room. ‘Another bleeding bill?’
‘I don’t think so,’ I say. ‘It’s got a French stamp on it.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ says Sid. ‘Now we’re in the Common Market I’m probably paying French taxes. Give it here!’ He wrenches it open and I watch his lips begin to move as he tries to get his mouth round the words. I wonder who could be writing to Sid from France? ‘Blimey!’
I don’t know if you have ever seen a bloke’s face turn ashen but that is what happens to Sid’s mug. All the colour drains out of it.
‘What’s the matter, Sid?’
‘They can’t do it!’
He lets the letter flutter to the ground and I pick it up. The notepaper crackles like a new fiver and is headed ‘Villa Splendide, Cap des Riches, Cote d’Azur’. I look down the bottom of the letter and it is signed ‘Plantagenet Rightberk’. It is not an easy letter to understand, but basically the meaning is clear: Sid is out on his ear.
‘Just when I was coming to grips with my slice,’ he whines. ‘It’s tragic.’
‘Don’t take it too hard, Sid,’ I say. ‘They are offering you a golden handshake.’
‘Golden handshake?’ Sid’s features crumple up like a sheet of baking foil. ‘It’s more like a clip round the lughole with a piece of lead piping! Taking inflation into account, it’s less than what I put into the business.’
‘You haven’t made a mess of it again, have you?’ says Rosie speaking my mind for me. ‘Really! You’re like a big soft kid. You want to get yourself an accountant and a solicitor if you’re going into business.’
‘You can’t trust them,’ snaps Sid. ‘They’ll bleed you dry and take you to the cleaners.’
‘At least, that way, they won’t get blood over the machines,’ I say.
Sid is not amused. ‘Shut up!’ he says. ‘There’s nothing funny about this. Seeing a noble lion dragged down by a pack of jackals is a tragic spectacle.’
There is much more in this vein followed by threats of legal action, letters to MPs and a bunch of fives up the hooter, but by half past three Sid is off to bullock (bullock’s horn: pawn) his golf clubs and sign on at the Labour. I feel sorry for him, but not so sorry that I offer to break open my piggy bank with my Xmas club. Years of experience suggests to me that it will not be long before Sid comes up with another imaginative and foolproof way of losing money.
Two evenings later, I am proved correct. We are sitting in the saloon bar of the
