LITMIR.BIZ

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eyes.

      There, staring at me from the bedside table is a photograph of Brian Belfry. He is standing next to the lady who is lying on top of me so that they have obviously met before. What a coincidence. I thought the au pair girl pronounced Balfour in a funny way. Stupid slut! They should not let them into the country unless they can speak English properly. I turn my head away from Belfry’s ugly mug and—EEK! There it is on the other side of the bed. For real! In the flesh!! All the way from Knuttley Hall to find me on the job with his old lady!!!

      ‘Brian!’

      ‘You –! !’ It is obvious that Belfry is trying to say something but the expression on his face suggests that the words are too frightened to come out of his mouth.

      ‘Listen, Mr. Belfry,’ I squeal, ‘I can explain everything.’

      The way his fists knot as he charges towards the bed suggests that he does not believe me.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      ‘Blimey,’ says Sidney. ‘What happened to you?’

      ‘I had an accident,’ I say with all the dignity I can muster.

      ‘Accident? You look as if you had half a dozen.’

      ‘Well, in a manner of speaking, Sidney, that is more or less true. One thing did lead to another.’

      ‘Yeah, a bit of the other, knowing you. Come clean, Timmo. Some bloke caught you having a nibble at his spot of trouble, didn’t he? You don’t get marked like that in an ordinary punch-up.’

      Sid, of course, is dead right. He should be with the experience he has had. Old man Belfry went berserk and I felt really sorry for his missus. I remember seeing him catch her a terrible belt just after I had climbed out of the cucumber frame. How my own little courgette did not sustain a nasty injury I will never know. And thank goodness the palings of that fence were rotten otherwise I might have done myself some real damage. I will never forget that old lady’s face as I suddenly burst through into the alley, stark naked. You could see she was surprised. Luckily I had grabbed hold of some vegetable matter in my travels and was able to hold this in front of Percy as I backed away saying what a nice evening it was. By the cringe, but it is difficult running like that. I reckon those ancient Greeks only put on their fig leaves when they were having their sculptures done. Not that they had a lot to shout about. Most of them could have got by with a sprig of watercress.

      But, back to the plot. It is not necessary to enrol for a course of evening classes to work out that my career with HomeClean was at an end. Finito. No amount of muttering about SM 42’s was going to change that. The Company had probably launched about half a dozen product disasters since the Wonderwasher anyhow. No, it would have to be back to Hoverton and whatever Sidney had been able to get his hands on in the way of merchandise.

      ‘How did the training go then?’ he says. ‘You passed out all right, did you?’

      ‘In a bus queue, actually,’ I say, enjoying my own private joke. ‘No, I didn’t complete the course, Sid. I was—I mean, I resigned once I reckoned I could be more good to you back here.’

      ‘Very thoughtful of you,’ says Sid suspiciously. ‘You reckon you know the ropes now, do you?’

      ‘Oh yes. Of course, it’s always difficult to reconcile theory with practice, isn’t it?’

      ‘Yer what?’ says Sid.

      ‘I mean the way they teach you to do things isn’t always the way they seem to be done when you actually set out to do them. Still, I’m certain I can do a good job for you, Sidney. What have you got lined up?’

      Sidney’s eyes glisten with enthusiasm.

      ‘Something right up your street.’

      ‘A sex boutique?’ I say hopefully.

      ‘No! It’s in the same area you’ve been operating in.’

      ‘Electrical?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Well, what is it?’

      ‘A revolutionary new product –’

      ‘Do me a favour, Sid. I’ve heard it all before.’

      ‘But this really is revolutionary, Timmo. Imagine a product that vacuum’s carpets, cleans windows, shampoos rugs, polishes floors and unblocks drains.’

      ‘One product?’

      ‘One product, Timmo. Of course it has a few accessories you have to screw on and all that.’

      ‘Yeah, but does it do all these things properly, Sid? Usually the more things they do the worse they do them.’

      ‘Timmo, this isn’t some piece of rubbish you see tucked away down at the bottom of the Saturday bargain pages. I haven’t told you the half of it yet.’

      It is about this time that I start to get really worried. ‘Well, Sid?’

      ‘It’s made in Japan, Timmo!’

      ‘Blimey, I didn’t think they had carpets and windows and all that over there.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter, Timmo. You know their reputation for electrical wizardry. They can take anything to pieces and find out a way of making it better and cheaper. Think of transistors and those little telly sets and all that other stuff they do.’

      ‘It’s small, is it?’

      ‘No! It looks very much like an English model. Good thing too. We don’t want to be too oriental, it might put people off. If we can just say it’s made in Japan that will be enough to get them all believing it’s a bleeding technical miracle.’

      ‘And is it?’

      ‘Wait ’til Mr. Ishowi demonstrates it to you, Timmo. You’ll be amazed.’

      ‘How did you meet this geezer, Sidney?’

      ‘He fell into my lap. Apparently he was one of the few Japanese prisoners of war we ever captured – he didn’t really believe in Pearl Harbor and all that.’

      ‘Very understandable, Sid.’

      ‘Yes, well, for some reason they brought him over here and he married one of the cleaners at the War Office.’

      ‘She in the P.o.W. camp as well, was she?’

      ‘No, no. He had a special job at the War Office. Broadcasting or something like that. He wanted to bring all the suffering to an end quickly. He is a very sensitive sort of bloke.’

      ‘He sounds it, Sid. So what happened after he got married?’

      ‘That broke up, as did so many marriages about that time. It was the war, you know. Anyway, it left him with a deep love for this country and after he went back to Japan – many years later – he was very anxious to continue to do business with us.’

      ‘He manufactures this product, does he?’

      ‘Not exactly. I think he has an interest in the company but mainly he’s a kind of agent.’

      ‘What’s it called, Sid?’

      ‘We haven’t quite finalised that. At the moment it’s the Klamikazi Monsoonbreaker, but I think we can do better.’

      ‘I’m certain we can. What did you have in mind?’

      ‘Well, I was thinking of the Noggett Tristar.’

      ‘You must be joking.’

      ‘The Noggett de Luxe?’

      ‘Sidney!’

      We had exactly the same trouble when Sidney wanted to rename the Cromby. The cult of personality looms large in his legend. At least he seems to have forgotten about MagiNog.

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