LITMIR.BIZ

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      When I leave Mrs. Sinden’s, a large weight is off my mind and the rest of me is feeling much lighter, as well. What a performer that lady is! I feel as if I have been through a suction cleaner a couple of times. Talk about being taken out of yourself. I have to skate round the rest of the lodgings to pick up all the laundry before lunch and the strain of my morning obviously shows.

      ‘Ooh, you’re looking completely drained,’ says Petal resting his hand on my forearm. ‘Are you all right?’

      ‘Don’t do that,’ I tell him. ‘How many times do I have to tell you? I’m allergic to being touched.’

      ‘Ooh, you are sensitive. I can see you had a bad morning. I had a lovely time in the library. They’re ever so nice there. One of the boys, well he’s called Jeremy and he’s my favourite. He said that his whole life-style had been changed since he worked there. His basics have been broadened out of all recognition.’

      This comes as no surprise to me and I only hope he will be able to cope with Mr. Warren. Maybe they will be able to strike up a deep and meaningful relationship that will relieve the pressure on my toecap.

      Before I can comment further on the subject I hear the crunch of motor car against gravel and look out of the window to see a Rolls pulling up outside the front door. To my amazement, four groovy chicks pile out of it, all fun furs and thigh-length boots, giggling and looking up at the windows.

      ‘Who the hell are they?’ I say to myself as much as to anyone else.

      ‘They’re wives, ain’t they?’ says the inmate Legend addressed as Grass, matter-of-factly.

      ‘Wives!?’

      ‘Yeah. Every Wednesday your wife can visit you for the afternoon.’

      ‘Ooh, there’s no getting away from them,’ says Fran distastefully.

      ‘Supposing you don’t have a wife, then?’ I ask.

      ‘Well, you’ve had it, haven’t you? Old shit-face is dead against immorality.’

      ‘But I’ve got feelings. Just the same as any married bloke.’

      ‘If you had ’em strong enough, you’d get married. That’s what the Governor thinks, anyhow.’

      I return my eyes to the crumpet, thinking how unfair it all is. At least, it is good to know that there is some advantage in being married – if you ever got stuck in the nick. Looking at those birds it is difficult to believe that they are spliced. They seem so blooming cheerful compared to most of the wives I know. Maybe this is another result of their old men being in the chokey. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that sort of rubbish. They are certainly receiving a lot of attention from the windows and when they disappear inside it is to a sound like someone testing a leaking set of bagpipes. I have hardly got used to their absence when a charabanc arrives, and then another. They are all jam-packed with real sporty looking birds and I feel like I must be one of the few unmarried blokes in the prison. Me, and Fran, of course.

      ‘Ooh, they’re like ravening beasts, aren’t they?’ says Fran. ‘I think it’s disgusting, myself. Like Honeymoon Holiday Camps. All of them arriving down here for only one thing. I’d have too much pride myself. It must take all the romance out of it.’

      ‘Yeah,’ I say, thinking how blooming lucky it is that I had my little session with Mrs. Sinden in the a.m. Without that I could be contemplating knotting myself. You may think it strange that I am wandering about casing the frippet but this is what the place is like. Nobody has asked me to pick any oakum yet – which is just as well as I wouldn’t know which shade to choose – and the only time they lock the door of your cell – oops sorry – room, is when you are bloody grateful because it is time to start worrying about Fran Warren. At this rate, boredom is going to be my chief enemy unless I can pick up Mrs. Sinden’s washing article by article.

      I am contemplating this course of action as a serious possibility when another coach-load of bird-life rolls up. I don’t know how many blokes there are in the nick but at this rate a lot of them must be moslems. I look down and allow my mince pies to fondle the curvy limbs as the bints trip down the steps of the bus. Blimey! There is a face from the past I recognise. Daisy Deacon. One of sister Rosie’s friends from my old Scragg Lane days. She was a raver, was Daisy. I remember her well. Rosie was no angel but Daisy left her standing. I can recall Dad having to lock the door of the potting shed because she was always in there breaking his flower pots. Not intentionally, mind. They just got in the way when she had about three fellahs with her. I might have guessed she’d end up marrying a villain. I wonder – Blimey! Mark II!! There is Rosie large as life and twice as tastelessly dressed. What is she doing here? I did not know it was an ordinary visiting day as well. I wonder how she found out where I was? Good old Rosie. I always knew she had a soft spot for me. She does not say too much, but when the chips are down she’s in there – one way or another. Not like dad. Dad’s attitude really got up my bracket to eyebrow height. Dropping me in the S-H-you-know-what like that.

      I abandon thoughts of my evil old man and head for the front entrance where scenes of touching reconciliation are being enacted. Not so much touching as downright groping in some cases.

      ‘Oh, my little lovie-dovie, you’re looking marvellous,’ says one lecherous old sod folding himself round a chick who looks about half his age.

      ‘Hang on a moment,’ she says coldly. ‘Are you ninety-nine?’

      What a funny question, I think to myself. Surely she knows that by now. What does it matter as long as he’s still got some lead in his pencil. He can’t have been love’s young dream when she first met him.

      ‘I’m sixty-six,’ he says.

      ‘Well, I’m ninety-nine,’ she says. ‘You’ve got the wrong girl.’

      The poor bloke looks flabbergasted as well he might. What is she on about? And then I see it! The bird is showing him a lottery ticket which he has read upside down. Could it be that there is hanky panky afoot? My shrewd nature tells me that the answer to that question is a wacking great YES! In that case is it possible that my sister Rosie could be offering herself for the gratification of the lewd and base instincts of the inmates – in some cases, no doubt, almost equal to her own? Again, previous experience suggests a fat ‘yes’ to be the answer to that question. What a carry on! Meanwhile, back at the old homestead, Sidney is probably packing his bucket and spade ready for the Sardinian adventure and imagining the first Cuba Libre of the holiday. The base ingratitude of it all brings tears to your eyes, doesn’t it? Not to mine, it doesn’t! After what Sidney has lumbered me with I would be prepared to hum ‘In a Monastery Garden’ while Rosie walked naked through an Italian prisoner of war camp. If she wants to come to a sticky end by charabanc – good luck to her. What I want to know is: where’s mine?

      I am about to address this question to Arthur Legend who is disappearing down the corridor with two birds, when Brownjob suddenly appears beside me and tugs at my sleeve.

      ‘Have you ever thought about it?’ he says.

      I feel like telling him he must be joking but you have to humour the poor old sod, don’t you?

      ‘You mean, dirty thoughts and all that?’ I ask him.

      Brownjob closes his eyes and winces. ‘I meant the sacred state of marriage. I know only too well that your thoughts have erred in the other respect. When you see those fortunate men united with the ones they love does it not make you think there is a piece missing from your life?’

      I can only nod my head in agreement. ‘Yes sir,’ I say humbly.

      ‘I took special care to examine your record, Lea, and I found, just as I expected, that you had never rested your finger on the nuptial knot.’

      That’s all you know, you stupid old berk, I think to myself. There is not a part of the female body I have not had a go at in my time. Since I got those books out of Battersea Public Library I have become an artist at finding parts of the body birds never

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