LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Six,” she repeats and makes a tick on her questionnaire. “When did you last buy a pair?”

      Talking of pairs, I think that’s a lovely set of knockers you’ve got there. I wouldn’t mind doing a few press-ups on top of that lot.

      “About a month ago,” I say.

      “Where did you buy them?”

      “At the shoe shop. I can’t remember the name. Maybe it’s on them. I’m wearing them, you see.”

      We smile at each other as if it’s all terribly funny really and I wrench one of my casuals off and gaze hopefully into its interior. Nothing, except a shiny brown surface and a lived-in smell I would not try to sell to Helena Rubinstein. I put it on hurriedly.

      “I think it was that one down by Woolworths. It was in the High Street, anyway.”

      “Can you remember how much they cost?”

      “About a fiver I think. Shoes are diabolically expensive these days, aren’t they?”

      I throw that in because it is about time I started showing a bit of initiative. Horst and Inga would have had each other’s knickers off by now on half the wordpower.

      “Terrible,” says the bird, “and it’s not as if they’re made to last.” She flexes her calf muscles and indicates some disintegrating stitchwork before realising that I am casing her joints and snapping back to being Miss Efficiency.

      “Do you have any wet-look shoes?”

      “Three pairs.”

      “What colours?”

      “Two black, one brown.”

      “How do you clean them?”

      “I breathe on them,” I say, fluttering my lips at her. “And then I rub them over with a duster.”

      “Have you ever used an aerosol?”

      “Only my sister’s hairspray.”

      “On your shoes?”

      “No. I was trying to stick Mum’s Green Shield stamps in with them. They got left out in the rain and all the glue came off.”

      There doesn’t seem to be a column on her questionnaire for that so she gives a little sigh and gets on with it.

      “I meant an aerosol shoe spray,” she says. “They’re specially made for wet-look shoes.”

      “They cost a few bob, don’t they?” I say suspiciously.

      “How much do you think?” She sounds all eager and her pencil is poised expectantly.

      “Oh, about five bob, twenty five p, forty seven rupees, or whatever it is, these days.”

      “What is the most you would be prepared to pay for an aerosol shoe-spray?”

      “I’m quite happy with breathing on them like I do at the moment.”

      “But supposing you wanted to buy an aerosol.”

      “But I don’t.”

      Not vintage Noel Coward, is it? And certainly not getting me any nearer a dramatisation of “Wife-swapping, Danish Style”. It’s a shame really because she’s a lovely bird, even if she does seem married to her craft.

      “You must get a few passes made at you on a job like this,” I say chattily. “Have you been doing it for long?”

      “Six months,” she says. “Now try and imagine that you do want to buy an aerosol. 20p? 25p? 50p?”

      She does go on, doesn’t she?

      “Well, it’s difficult, isn’t it?” I say. “Do you fancy a cup of tea or something? It must get a bit knackering wandering about the streets all day.”

      “Thank you, no,” she says. “Look—” and she dives into a large satchel-type handbag she is carrying, “—this is the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

      She produces three aerosol canisters and lays them on the settee. One pink, one black, one green.

      “Oh yes,” I say, trying to keep my enthusiasm within bounds. Actually I am quite glad that we have found something to play with. I always reckon that it is easier to get to grips with a bird if you have something to keep your hands occupied. Start with your stamp collection and you will soon be showing her your tool set is one of my golden mottoes.

      “How does it work?” I say, wrapping my mits round one of the canisters. “Oh dear—”. This latter remark is prompted by the fact that I have depressed the plunger and ejected a large blob of frothy, white liquid over my visitor’s skirt. If standing in the dock of the Old Bailey I would probably say it was an accident.

      Faced with this emergency I move swiftly and muttering profuse apologies ram my hand up Miss Shapley-Thighs’ skirt. This manoeuvre, though liable to misinterpretation, is of course intended to prevent the gunge soaking through to the tights whilst also affording me a firm and uncontroversial surface on which to perform mopping up operations.

      “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” squeals my visitor.

      “I’m trying to stop your skirt getting stained,” I bleat. “You’d better take it off.”

      “Take it off?!”

      “Yes. I’ll get some water from the kitchen. I’m terribly sorry. I’ll buy you a new one if it’s ruined.” This show of efficient concern is obviously reassuring because when I return with a beaker of warm water she is standing behind the sofa with her skirt over her arm. She has fantastic legs that go straight up to her armpits and her arse would trigger off a wop’s pinching fingers like a burglar alarm. My hands are shaking as I put down the beaker and it is all I can do to control myself.

      “You have a marvellous figure,” I tell her breathlessly. “I hope you don’t mind me saying that?” No woman ever has and I can see that my boyish enthusiasm is not entirely repulsive to her.

      “Thank you,” she says permitting herself a slight smile. “I bet you say that to all the girls you squirt aerosols over.”

      She bends forward and starts rubbing away at her skirt and again I have to put a hammer lock on my impulses.

      “Let’s have a drink while you’re doing that,” I say. “What do you fancy? Gin, whisky, sherry?”

      In fact, I know the sideboard contains a half-bottle of Stone’s Ginger Wine and an empty Chianti bottle Rosie was going to make a lamp out of seven years ago, but I want this to come as a complete surprise.

      “No thanks,” she says. “I’ve finished. Now, where can I put it to dry?”

      I whip the skirt down to the kitchen and drape it over the stove and when I get back the lovely girl is curled up in an armchair with her questionnaire over her thatch patch.

      “Back to the questions is it?” I observe. “My, but you take your work seriously, don’t you?”

      “It’s my first job,” she says. “OH!”

      I follow her eyes and see that one of the poxy aerosols has started leaking all over the settee. Mum will half kill me and for the first time since I peeped through the lace curtains, all thoughts of bayonet practice are banished from my mind. Snatching up the damp rag I dive onto my hands and knees and start rubbing away like a maniac. So wrapped up in my task am I that I do not immediately notice that Miss Research is doing her bit beside me. It is only when I accidentally bounce against her boobs that it occurs to me that Mum doing her nut is not the only thing I could be up against. The damp patch is half across the sofa, the questionnaires are strewn all over the floor and the aerosols have rolled under the sideboard.

      “It’s not our lucky day, is it?” I say into her mouth which is a couple of inches from mine.

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