Confessions from a Nudist Colony. Timothy Lea
to one of your fly buttons on Tuesday,’ I say, trying to remember. ‘Or was it Wednesday?’
‘I don’t mean that!’ snaps Sid. ‘I haven’t had an idea what we’re going to do next, have I? Normally, new career opportunities are bombarding my nut like flies round a steaming horse turd. But at the moment – nothing. I’m worried, I don’t mind admitting it.’
‘You mustn’t get yourself in a state,’ I comfort. ‘Maybe we should venture beyond those screens at the Labour more often. They might have something right up our street.’
‘I don’t want to work on my own doorstep,’ says Sid. ‘Swanning round the Med gave me a taste for the wide open spaces. That’s why I’m so contented up here. Look at the light on the sail of that yacht. The sun gives it an almost translucent quality – like when you’re sitting on your mum’s karsi.’
I take it that Sid is referring to the way the sun shines through the cracks in the door and focuses on the cut up bits of the TV Times in the bog paper holder but I don’t really like to ask. ‘I could certainly do with some bread,’ I say.
‘What for?’ says Sid. ‘What good’s bread?’
His words strike me round the face with the force of an ice-cold halibut freshly wrenched from the Arctic Ocean.
‘What good is bread?’ I repeat. ‘Everything we’ve ever done has been based on your desire to stash away a few bob.’
‘I was young then,’ says Sid. ‘No more than a gullible boy with distorted values. I used to think that if money couldn’t buy happiness at least you could live miserably in comfort, but I don’t believe that any more. Look at Paul Getty.’
‘That’s not him, is it?’ I say. ‘Behind the thermos with the blonde bird? She’s a bit young for him, isn’t–?’
‘No!’ says Sid, cuttingly. ‘I meant examine the situation of Paul Getty and ask yourself if he has found true happiness. I’ve realised that money isn’t the answer, Timmo. There’s much more to life than sipping your Bovril out of a gold-plated mug in front of Match of the Day in colour.’
‘And you don’t think Paul Getty has realised that?’
‘I do think he’s realised that,’ says Sid emphatically. ‘But he’s realised it too late. That’s why he’s always looking so blooming miserable. I don’t intend to make the same mistake.’
‘Thank gawd!’ I say. ‘You’d have been unbearable as the richest man in the world.’
Sid ignores what some might have considered to be a trace of sarcasm in my voice. ‘The only thing, is that having rejected riches, I don’t know where to turn. I’m in a state of limbo. Timbo – I mean, Timmo.’
‘Well,’ I say. ‘As it so happens, fate has directed us to the right spot. Look what it says on that caravan. “Madame Necroma reveals all: £1”. Your future laid bare for a couple of bars, Sid. Can’t be bad.’
I am not really serious but Sid’s mince pies light up. ‘Yeah!’ he says. ‘She should know, shouldn’t she? They have a gift, these people. Lend us a quid.’
‘Do me a favour!’ I say. ‘She can make do with the gifts she’s already got. I’ve already bought most of the booze you drunk in that rubber. Anyway, I’m very happy with you in a state of limbo. It doesn’t cost me money.’
‘There you go again,’ says Sid. ‘Money. It’s your BO and end all, isn’t it? You can’t think about anything else. You’re so inflexible. If it wasn’t for my ability to mellow and develop as a human being you’d be exactly where you were when I first met you.’
‘Don’t make it sound too tempting,’ I say.
‘What I always have difficulty in making you understand,’ says Sid, ‘is that you have a wonderful opportunity to learn from my experience in life. I go through things so that you don’t have to.’
‘Like my fiancée,’ I say.
‘You’re not still worrying about that,’ says Sid. ‘It was so long ago – and anyway, you were never properly engaged.’
‘Wouldn’t have made any difference if we’d been getting married,’ I say wearily. ‘You’d have been trying to feel her up while you handed me the ring.’
‘No need to be coarse,’ says Sid. ‘That’s all behind us now – all that sexual foolishness. Now I’m a more mature human being I can see what Mary Whitehouse and Lord Longford are up to.’
‘You’ve heard rumours, have you?’ I say, beginning to get interested. ‘Don’t tell me that nice Antonia Fraser’s daddy has done something untoward.’
‘Of course not!’ says Sid. ‘I didn’t mean “up to” in the slap and tickle sense. I was referring to their stand against the corrupting influence of books like the ones your Dad keeps in the hallstand.’
‘He doesn’t any more,’ I say. ‘They’re in the cistern.’
‘Blimey, I wondered why he was in there for so long. Dirty old sod! How did you find out?’
‘I pulled the chain one day and nothing happened–’
‘You have to pull it quickly and then give it one long pull,’ interrupts Sid.
‘Do you mind?’ I tell him. ‘It is my home. I ought to know how to use the karsi. Why don’t you belt up and let me finish?’ I pause for a censorial moment – good word that, isn’t it? – and then continue. ‘When I climbed up on the seat I found that a couple of mags had slipped underneath the ballcock.’
‘How very appropriate,’ says Sid. ‘They must have been a bit soggy.’
‘They were,’ I say. ‘But it didn’t spoil the effect. The photos on the reverse side of the page showed through so you had one bird on top of the other.’
‘You had that anyway,’ says Sid. ‘Oh dear. How sad it all is. Your Dad has grown old without achieving maturity. I’d feel sorry for him if he wasn’t such a miserable old git. Lend us a quid.’
I had hoped to talk Sid out of his insane impulse to help Madame Necroma towards a new set of frilly curtains for her caravan but once he gets an idea into his crust it can be very hard to budge. We are still arguing when one of the curtains is pulled aside and a bird with a beauty spot and a lot of makeup snatches a gander at us. She looks a bit ruffled, as does the geezer who appears when the caravan door opens. His knees are practically the first thing to hit the top step and he staggers down the rest of them like he has both feet through the slit of his Y-fronts.
‘Find it all right, did you?’ asks Sid.
The bloke looks not a little taken aback. ‘What do you mean?’ he says suspiciously.
‘You know,’ says Sid, jerking his head towards the window. ‘Does she know her stuff?’
The bloke gives a little shiver and pulls his mac around him. ‘Unbelievable,’ he says.
Sid turns to me. ‘There you are! Come on, don’t be a berk. Maybe she’ll take something off for the two of us.’
‘She won’t take anything off,’ says the bloke. ‘I asked her specially.’
‘Well, we’ll have a go anyway,’ says Sid. ‘Come on, Timmo! Don’t you want to know what the future holds in store?’
The bloke gives Sid another funny look and hurries away muttering. ‘Nice chap,’ says Sid. ‘He clearly found it a moving experience. Did you notice that glazed look in his eyes?’
‘I was concentrating on the way his knees bashed together,’ I say. ‘Do you really want to go through with this, Sid?’
‘Definitely,’ says my diabolical brother-in-law.