myself onto an elbow. ‘Are you cold, or something?’
Miss Mealie shakes her head mockingly. ‘ “Or something”,’ she says. ‘Don’t move, I always want to remember you like that.’ And then, she tears her dress open so that buttons explode all over the floor, slaps her face a couple of times and starts screaming.
‘Rape! Help! Murder! Rape! Rape! Rape!’
I find this very interesting. I mean, it is a bit strange, isn’t it? One minute she is all over me and the next it is me all over. Maybe it turns her on to feel that she is being raped. Yes, that must be it. She seems a very passionate girl. I do not mind playing along with her little fantasy if it makes her – and me – happy.
‘Help! Help! Rape!’
If she is going to be like this before I have even touched her, God knows what she will be like in the sack. The prospect launches me from the bed and I close with her fast.
‘Don’t touch me!’
She starts running through the living room and I follow. I hope the walls are thick because her language would make a Billingsgate porter switch off his deaf aid. I catch up with her by the door but before I can deter her she has flung it open.
‘Rape! Help!’ she screams and runs out into the corridor. I get as far as the doorway and then stop. I mean! There is a limit. I don’t mind a quick frisk round the apartment but chasing her round the block in the altogether could lead to trouble. People are not as liberated as you read in the papers.
Just as I am making up my mind what to do next, Miss Mealie returns. But she is not alone. She is sobbing hysterically on the arm of a tall fellow with a flashlight camera in his hand. Another guy follows on behind with a notepad in his mitt.
‘Thank God you came!’ sobs Miss M., hysterically. ‘It was horrible. Horrible!’
‘What are you rabbiting on about?’ I say angrily.
‘How did he get in?’ says the fellow with the notepad, pencil poised.
‘I invited him up to discuss the show and then – and then –’ Miss M. starts sobbing convulsively.
‘He is in the show, is he?’
Miss M.’s sobs stop immediately. ‘He was going to be. That’s what I wanted to discuss.’
‘I’ve never heard such a load of cobblers in my life!’ I say indignantly. ‘She invited me up to her flat and into her bedroom, and then she took all my clothes off.’
‘I can see you put up a fight,’ says the bloke with the camera, taking a shot of me.
‘Was he naked like that when he came into the flat?’ says the one with the notepad.
‘No. He said he wanted to use the toilet and then – and then –’ More sobs soak the carpet.
‘Tore your dress, did he?’
‘She tore her dress!’ I yelp.
All the time the fellow with the camera is snapping away like it was some kind of still-life class he has blundered across.
‘What are you two guys doing up here, anyway?’ I say, beginning to smell a rat – or more likely, three of the little furry chaps.
‘We’re freelance reporters. We were coming to do an article on Miss Mealie.’
‘You’ve got quite a scoop then,’ I say sarcastically. ‘Too bad Miss Mealie won’t let you use it.’
‘What do you mean?’ says the lady in question.
‘It must be obvious. If a kid can get thrown off the programme for puking his ring, then they’re going to crucify you for having a nasty naked man in your room. Even if your lousy story was true, some mud would stick. Now, why don’t you wise up and send these two goons back to wherever it is they come from?’ It would sound better if I borrowed Humphrey Bogart’s mac for the delivery, but even then it might not cut much ice with Miss Mealie.
‘Good thinking, rapist,’ she hisses, ‘but what makes you believe I want to stay on Kiddichat for the rest of my life? There are other forms of entertainment, you know.’
And then I see it all. In a blinding flash it comes to me like a clip from an old detergent commercial. I have been framed. Miss Mealie is after publicity at any price and my career has been sacrificed to get it. I snatch at the camera but the geezer is too quick for me.
‘Uh, uh. Naughty!’ He wags a finger at me. ‘If you want to see the pictures, buy the morning papers tomorrow.’
‘This is a nice one of Timmy,’ says Mum. “You can’t see a lot of his face though.’
‘You can’t have everything,’ says Dad, all sarcastic like.
They are studying the daily newspapers and I have made the front page of every one of them except The Times and the Guardian. I know that because Mum has rushed out to buy everything except the Jewish Chronicle and Chicks Own. She is dead narky about my non-appearance in the quality press because she had to go up to Clapham South tube station before she found a copy.
Her reaction to my little spot of bother is interesting. Distress, accompanied by pride in the number of column inches I have achieved – I hasten to add that I am referring to space in the newspapers. Already she has the scissors out and I can see that I am taking over from Jason as the family star. Unfortunately my career now seems likely to be considerably shorter than that of the squint-eyed little monster glaring at me over his bowl of Tasty Frosties.
‘You see where tangling with that harpy got you,’ sniffs Rosie, who does not hate me quite so much now that she knows I am not destined for the Uncle Timmy spot.
‘It was strictly a no-tangle action, I’m afraid, Rosie. You don’t want to believe everything you read in the papers…’
‘Oh yeah. Sounds very likely, doesn’t it?’ says Dad. ‘Stark bollock naked and her with her dress half torn off. Nothing remarkable about that, is there? Oh dear me no.’
‘She led me on, Dad. I’ve never had to resort to force yet. It’s not my nature.’
‘She was a hussy, that one,’ says Rosie helpfully. ‘There was always a lot of talk about her.’
‘I think she left those pills there on purpose,’ I say, seeing a chance to patch things up with Rosie. ‘She never liked little Jason, did she?’
‘She never liked anyone except herself.’
‘It says here she’s considering a number of film roles,’ says Mum, who is still studying the papers. ‘She wants to be an all-round entertainer. There’s talk of her going to Hollywood.’
‘More like Neasden Rep,’ snorts Rosie. ‘She can’t do anything.’
‘Don’t
