LITMIR.BIZ

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      I am just about to tell him how I know when a thought stops me. My interview so far has not been one of the all time greats and Snooks seems to get an attack of the vapours every time I mention the words SM 42. Maybe I can turn these simple letters and numerals to my advantage.

      ‘I know,’ I say, leaning forward and fixing him with a steely eye. ‘And I very much want to join your training scheme.’

      Snooks thumbs through the papers on his desk nervously,

      ‘Acceptance for the scheme is no guarantee of employment,’ he says. ‘You have to satisfy our instructors at Knuttley Hall and spend a period in the field during which you will be on parole.’

      ‘I am confident I can come up to the standard you require,’ I say with dignity. I search for his eyes again but they are not available.

      ‘You will be hearing from us in due course,’ he says. ‘Your past record certainly suggests that you have many of the qualities we are looking for. Tell me,’ he tries to appear casual, ‘how did you come to hear about the—er SM 42’s?’ He drops his voice when he says ‘SM 42’ as if he fears the room may be bugged.

      ‘I’d rather not reveal the source of my information at this stage,’ I say, rising to my feet with a languid grace which succeeds in jarring his flowers on to the blotter again. ‘Let’s just say it was from someone not too far away from here,’ I raise an eyebrow knowingly and Snooks practically ruptures himself getting the door open.

      ‘I think we will be able to find a place for you,’ he says conspiratorially, barely stopping himself from squeezing my arm. ‘In fact, I’m certain we will.’

      It is therefore in a mood approaching the chuffed that I return to Hoverton because I reckon that my simple Lea cunning has ensured a place in the HomeClean Training Scheme. My spirits begin to droop a little when I find that not only Rosie and Jason, but Mum and Dad have descended upon the Cromby. Being the kind of stupid old bleeder that he is, Dad does not feel at home with the rest of the senior citizens clogging up the joint, but regards them almost as I do.

      ‘What are all these old geezers doing here?’ he says, when I meet him hunched up over a pint of light ale in the hotel bar. ‘It makes me all depressed looking at their miserable faces. Where’s all the young crackling then? The birds with no bras and mini skirts?’

      ‘Dad, please!’ I can’t bear him when he goes on like that. It’s disgusting, isn’t it? Give him a few beers and he behaves exactly like me. ‘It’s all part of the new policy, dad,’ I tell him. ‘Sidney’s trying to cater more for old people.’ Dad laughs scornfully.

      ‘Your precious Sidney never catered for anybody except himself. Think of the years he used to sponge off us –’

      ‘Yes, yes, dad,’ I say hurriedly, because I have been down this road many times before. ‘Mum alright? Still doing the Yoga?’

      ‘No, thank Gawd. She tried standing on her head in bed one day and shoved her toe up an empty light socket. Blimey! You should have heard her. She bounced off all four walls before she touched the floor again.’

      ‘Very nasty, dad. So she doesn’t have any hobbies at the moment?’

      ‘Only bleeding moaning, as usual. I even bought her a bloody washing machine and she’s binding about that!’

      ‘Straight up, dad.’

      ‘Straight up, son. Ninety-seven quid the bleeding thing cost me and first time out it jams with all my smalls inside it. Do you know, Timmy, I’m having to wear some of your mother’s undergarments at the moment. Good job she’s the shape she is. I rang up the shop and I said “Do you know, all my pants and vests are stuck in your bleeding machine. What are you going to do about it? It’s Thursday and I want a change”.’

      ‘And what did they do, dad?’

      ‘Bugger all, Timmy. They said they’d had a number of complaints about this model and were referring them back to the makers. Blooming nice, isn’t it? I’m having to ponce about in your mother’s smalls while the bloody Wonder Washer is sitting there loaded to the gills. I look pretty closely before I cross the road I can tell you. Get run over in this lot and –’

      But I have tuned out dad’s voice. ‘Wonder Washer’. The name is not unknown to me. A big advertising campaign has been running featuring the machine and a bunch of birds dressed up in see-through nighties. They feed the Wonder Washer clothes in the middle of a Greek Temple. It all seemed a bit barmy to me but maybe women like it.

      ‘Who made it, dad?’

      ‘Load of shysters called HomeClean Products. Blimey, but I wouldn’t half mind getting my hands on them. I’ve tried ringing them up but nobody answers the ’phone.’

      ‘Do you know what the number is, dad?’

      ‘Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to ring them, would I? Don’t be stupid, Timmy.’

      ‘I mean the number of the machine, dad?’

      ‘Oh, that. FU 2, I should think. No, that’s one thing I haven’t looked for.’

      But it doesn’t take me long to find out what the number is. I go through a pile of magazines in the lounge and there, underneath a headline saying “The Greeks did not have a word for washing so gentle, so fast”, is a picture of the Wonder Washer with two birds kneeling in front of it holding out clothes as if offering gifts. In very small lettering underneath the illustration it says SM 42 HB. I do not have to overtax my tiny mind to realise that HB stands for ‘House Beautiful’, the name of the magazine, and SM 42 is the number of the ill-fated washing machine, source of discomfort to both Snooks and my mum and dad. This information, it occurs to me, may well serve to grease my passage through the HomeClean Training Scheme should I be selected for it. (I ought to have phrased that better, but you know what I mean.)

      Sure enough, a letter telling me to report to Knuttley Hall arrives a couple of days later and Sid tells me to forget about the rest of the interviews.

      ‘Frankly, Timmo,’ he says with a note of grudging admiration creeping into his voice, ‘I’m surprised you landed that one. They’re normally very fussy about who they take.’

      I have not told Sid about the Wonder Washer, so I accept his cack-handed compliment without comment.

      One person who does express interest in my impending departure is the lovely Miss Stokely. She comes up to me after supper on the evening before my departure and touches my forearm lightly.

      ‘I’m sorry to hear you’re leaving us,’ she says, tugging down her jumper so that her breasts swell forward in a more than friendly fashion. ‘We haven’t had much to do with each other, have we?’

      ‘No,’ I say, noticing how my voice becomes posher when I am talking to her. ‘I haven’t been in need of your services, have I? It’s a pity, because I would like to have had a go with your—er vibrator.’ Miss Stokely notices my discomfiture.

      ‘It is a name that causes some people embarrassment. I suppose one tends to think of it in another context?’ She stares into my face and I feel myself blushing. I really am a berk sometimes. ‘Oh, dear,’ she says. ‘I hope I haven’t shocked you?’

      I don’t think she hopes anything of the sort. In fact I think she is trying to come the old soldier so she can establish some kind of female mastery over me. Some birds are like that. They try and reverse the roles so that they are doing all the masculine stuff – nudge, nudge, wink, wink – that kind of thing, while you are expected to fill in the gaps in the conversation. This is all very well until they suddenly holler ‘O.K. buster, you’re on’, and wait for the action. Some of them have had to wait a long time. I am an old fashioned boy at heart, and I like to feel that I am calling the shots.

      ‘I’m pretty unshockable, Miss Stokely,’ I say in a voice borrowed from an old Humphrey Bogart movie. ‘I turn pink every year about this

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