you?’
‘Yes, but we’re just good friends,’ says Sid brusquely. ‘One two seven.’
‘If you’ve bought the bleeding hotel I don’t know why we didn’t have separate rooms,’ I say, as the Nancy with the laughing eyes trips off to wield his ballpoint.
‘We should have done but I just didn’t think of it. I’m so used to being skint that I forget sometimes.’
‘I’ve noticed.’
‘Don’t be cheeky. Remember who’s the gaffer round here. Right, now let’s go and sort out those birds. You take what you can get, all right? And don’t let on who we are. Say we’re sales reps, OK?’
‘What are we flogging?’
‘Cars. That sounds as if it’s got some money in it. Now, come on.’
Three hours later we are standing outside the back door of the hotel in a fine drizzle and trying to decide on our next move. Both the girls are hopelessly pissed and my judgement is not exactly faultless. Amongst other things, we have been ten-pin bowling, in which Sid got his finger stuck in the ball and nearly said goodbye to it. I will always remember him doing this great wind-up and then following the ball for the first ten yards down the alley. For a wonderful moment I thought he was going to overtake it and be the first man to make a strike with his own body.
We have also lost a fortune in small change–all mine, of course–on the pin-table machines on the pier. Very few of them seem to be working although they have no problem in gobbling up 5p pieces.
We have also done a great deal of boozing and I now think I know the inside of every pub in Hoverton. Sid has taken me out to the kasi and we have agreed that he can have first crack in our room while I nip upstairs. The bird situation is no problem because neither of us has any preference. June does seem to fancy Sid and Audrey has only drawn the line when I tried to stroke her tits in the public bar of The Three Jolly Matelots. That was when I decided I must take the water cure. Swill down as much as you can and it dilutes the alcohol. I don’t want to fall down on the job with an acute attack of brewer’s droop.
‘Where’s your key, June? Can’t you get it out?’
This salty sally reduces both girls to parrot schisms of mirth and I am soaked to the skin before the door is eventually unlocked.
‘Bloody marvellous hotels where they lock the front door at eleven,’ moans Sid.
‘You should be grateful. Saves you a lot of embarrassment. It isn’t going to do your reputation much good if the new owner is seen testing his tonk on every skivvy in the place.’
‘You’re a silver-tongued bastard, aren’t you?’ Sid slips his arm round June’s waist and we all stand there making ‘sshhssh’ noises at each other. There is hardly a light on in the place and only the horrible smell tells me that we must be near the kitchens.
I take Audrey in my arms for a warm-up snog near the foot of the stairs and press her back against the door of what turns out to be a broom cupboard. I learn this fact when we slowly topple into a welter of vacuum cleaners and tins of floor polish. Maybe I should have had some more water. When we struggle out, Sidney and June have disappeared and all I can hear is the hall clock ticking. God knows where the night porter is; not that I particularly want to meet him in my present situation.
‘Oh, you’re fantastic,’ I murmur into Audrey’s lughole. ‘Absolutely fantastic.’ This is Lea’s standard Mark I gambit and seldom needs to be followed up with anything more imaginative before the bedsprings start playing ‘Love’s Old Sweet Melody’. All birds lap up a diet of non-stop flattery if delivered with sufficient enthusiasm because it backs up their own judgement. They feel both reassured and impressed by your good taste. I know I have said this before but you can’t repeat the golden rule too often.
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