The Confessions Collection - Timothy Lea

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and ‘Fairmeads’ and give a sharp rat-tat-tat on the first door knocker that attracts me. The door is opened by a bird who is ugly as sin and a darn sight less attractive. When she opens her mouth I realise that she is the au pair girl.

      ‘Pleeze,’ she says, ‘Mrs. Balfour eez not een.’ I reckon she must come from Spain to talk like that but it is not a subject I wish to discuss with her.

      ‘Will she be back soon?’ I ask.

      ‘I zinc zo.’

      ‘Good,’ I say, stepping over the threshold. ‘I may have some good news for her.’ I go into the spiel about lucky numbers which Spanish fly clearly does not understand and find my way to the kitchen so that I can check the electrical products. Once she sees me thus engaged Carmen begins to catch on and suddenly grabs hold of a toaster and a plug. Now it is my turn to work out what the hell she is talking about and after five minutes gesticulating, I get the message that she wants the toaster to, stand on a work surface with the flex going down to a socket at the base of the wall underneath. The Spanish bird must think that I am some kind of handy man and it occurs to me that it might not be a bad idea to do this little job so that the mistress of the house is appropriately grateful when she gets back. It should not be too difficult because there is a conveniently placed knot hole just next to where she wants the toaster and if I can tap this out it will be child’s play to feed through the flex and get everything fixed up. Move over, Barry Bucknall, your days are numbered!

      I rummage around until I find some tools and start trying to tap out the knot. Unfortunately it is shaped like a bung and so I will have to approach it from underneath. I disappear beneath the work surface and am lying there with my feet sticking out into the open when I hear Carmen’s voice.

      ‘I go out now,’ she says. ‘Mrs. Balfour vil be back zoon.’

      ‘O.K. Thanks,’ I shout and set to work trying to bash out the accursed knot. It is more difficult than I had anticipated because there are a lot of awkwardly placed pipes down there and it is not easy to get an uninterrupted swing with the hammer.

      I have been at it about five minutes when I hear the kitchen door opening. I imagine that it is the au pair returning and continue to grunt in the darkness. Then YEEOW! Something grabs hold of my balls and I jerk my head up so sharply that I crack it on one of the pipes and see enough stars to illuminate the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. A woman screams and I wriggle out to see a handsome bint with copper-coloured hair that looks as if it has just come back from the hairdressers. She is standing with her hand held to her mouth in horror and her expression does not improve when she sees my face.

      ‘Oh!’ she squeaks, ‘I thought you were my husband!’

      I move my hand to my forehead and take it away sharply. By the cringe! The lump there could get me dates with unicorns.

      ‘Oh, your poor head. I am sorry. I’ve been on at my husband for weeks to fix up that toaster and I thought he’d got the message at last.’

      I shake my head and scramble to my feet. There is no doubt that I am feeling decidedly shaky.

      ‘Let me bathe it with something.’ I slump into a chair while the bird bustles around filling a bowl with warm water and fetching some cotton wool.

      ‘There now, is that better?’ I respond to her dabs with groans and decide that the lady has a beautiful arse.

      ‘Do you usually do things like that to your husband?’ I ask.

      ‘No, no. It’s never occurred to me before. It was just a little joke. I don’t know what came over me.’

      ‘Good,’ I say. ‘I don’t think there are many blokes that could learn to love that being done to them.’

      ‘I’m just going to put the kettle on,’ she says. ‘Would you care for a cup?’

      ‘Ta, thanks very much.’ I look at her hair. ‘Are you going out this evening?’

      ‘No. I have my hair done every week. It’s habit really. My husband is away a lot of the time and it helps to pass the time. Tell me, what did you come here for?’

      But I never get around to answering that question. Mrs. Shapely-Arse has just switched off the cooker and is returning to the table with the kettle when—oops! She trips over the tool box and directs the steaming column of liquid towards my lap. I leap out of the way and catch my head a terrible crack on the cupboard door she has opened to get the teapot out.

      That does it! I am precious nearly out on my feet and reel back against the sink holding my head in my hands.

      ‘Oh dear. You poor thing. Come on, you’d better lie down. Oh dear, let me help you. I am so terribly sorry.’ She rambles on like this whilst helping me out into the hall and guiding my hand onto the banisters. ‘If you have a little lie down perhaps you’ll feel better. I’ll get you some aspirins in a moment.’

      She leads me upstairs and into a largish double bedroom. I slump down on the bed and she goes to a cupboard and gets out a blanket which she lays on top of me.

      ‘You stay there for a little while. Don’t move until you feel quite better.’ I try and nod but the pain makes me wince and she squeezes my arm reassuringly. ‘Don’t try and say anything. I’ll be back in a minute.’

      Maybe it is my double injury or more likely it is the fact that I had a few beers at dinner time, but whatever it is, the next thing I remember is opening my eyes to the sight of Mrs. Shapely-Arse stepping out of her dress and popping it on a hanger. She is wearing a coffee coloured slip and she looks very desirable. She dives her hands under her slip to pull up her tights and I groan. Not with pain but because I find the sight affecting. My ministering angel hears the noise and speeds to the bed-side.

      ‘How do you feel?’ she says, sounding really worried. There she is, with her bristols bulging temptingly above me and her soft brown eyes full of compassion and I think: What the hell, what have I got to lose?

      Releasing a long, low groan suggestive of enormous suffering I close my eyes and stretch out my arms as if in a dream.

      ‘Oh my beautiful darling,’ I murmur. ‘At last you’ve come back to me.’ So saying I clamp my arms around her and pull her down onto my hungry lips. ‘Oh!’ is the best she can manage before my mouth shuts out all sound. She struggles for a moment and then goes limp. Perhaps this is what her mother told her to do: ‘Let him have his way dear, then roll out from under him when he falls asleep.’

      ‘Why did you leave me?’ I moan, ‘Why, why, why?’ I am careful never to give her a chance to answer and move my powerful fingers down to her delectable hind quarters with maximum speed. ‘It’s a dream,’ I murmur, ‘a wonderful, wonderful, dream.’

      You do not have to read a lot of detective novels to see what I am getting at. If I can persuade the bird that I am in some kind of besotted trance, then she may well consider that a spot of nooky might be therapeutic – or, as we say in Clapham, favourite. I am also trying to suggest to her that in my trance-like state I have no knowledge of what I am doing. She may therefore use me shamelessly without any fear that I will remember what happened afterwards. I am thus trying to appeal to her on a number of levels, all of them horizontal.

      ‘Seven years,’ I groan, ‘seven years without a woman’s touch. Oh, Margaret! To have you in my arms again.’

      Suddenly Mrs. Shapely-Arse is not in my arms again and for a moment I think I have blown it – if you will excuse the expression. Then, I hear the happy rustle of discarded clothing and something warm and soft presses against my body, something that is certainly not a polythene bag full of cooling tapioca.

      ‘You poor boy,’ murmurs a voice trembling with emotion, ‘you poor, poor, boy.’ Nimble fingers set to stripping my body of unwanted clothing and a light dust of kisses descends upon my exposed flesh. Romantic, isn’t it? Well, it’s more romantic than ‘With Rifle and Killing Jar through Southern Patagonia’.

      At last I am naked and then, fortunate me, wearing

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