Confessions of a Plumber's Mate Read online

  ‘Home Enhancers,’ says Sid in his best ‘pleased to meet you’ voice. ‘General Garstlia has granted us the privilege of dancing attendance upon his august personage.’

  ‘You, dancers?’ says the bird, sounding puzzled and looking at my bag of tools. ‘August? Is July now. Why you come early?’

  ‘We have an appointment with the General,’ says Rosie, briskly pushing in front of Sid. ‘Try not to make a fool of yourself, Sidney.’

  ‘You’d think they’d understand plain English in an embassy, wouldn’t you?’ grumbles Sid as we are conducted along a corridor. ‘It’s enough to make you break off trade relations.’ So saying, he trips over the outstretched legs of a geezer wearing a sombrero and a blanket who is propped up against the wall like a guy. Immediately, the bloke snatches up a rifle, leaps to his feet and fires a couple of shots into the ceiling. Large quantities of plaster fall on Sid’s head and there are shouts of ‘I surrender’ in several languages – I know about this because I found a piece of paper that Dad kept in case he was called up in the last war. It even had the Italian for ‘I surrender’, which shows that he was taking no chances.

  While we cower against the wall, a door opens and a man wearing a dress uniform and riding boots comes out with his hands above his head. ‘It’s alla lies about the nuns,’ he says. ‘Some of my besta friends are nuns.’

  This bloke may not be a dead ringer for Richard the Lionheart but he is no slouch when it comes to summing up a situation. Quick as a flasher he has snatched the gun – no great problem because the geezer’s sombrero has fallen over his eyes – and is pointing it at Sid’s gut. As a slimming aid it must be unique because Sid’s belly changes from convex to concave as I look at it.

  ‘So,’ he says, all menacing-like. ‘Another revolution thwarted. Let there be dancing in the light well outside the basement window. I will personally supervise the executions.’

  He raises his shooter like he intends to air-condition Sid, but the bird who opened the door steps forward swiftly. ‘No, Excellency,’ she says. ‘These are the decorators.’

  A disappointed expression leaks across Garstlia’s face. ‘But I have no more room for decorations,’ he says. This is indeed true. Every square inch of his chest is covered in medals and ribbons.

  ‘It is the walls we have come to decorate, Your Excellency,’ says Rosie, with a shy humility that I have not heard for many a long day.

  Garstlia’s eyes sparkle and his Zapata moustache lurches ten degrees towards the horizontal. ‘Quel grandilente balloonos!’ he says gazing at Rosie’s knockers. ‘I think we maka sure they no carry bugging device.’

  Before anyone has woken up to what is happening, he is running his evil hands all over Rosie’s mammalian appendages. I must say, she takes it very well – mind you, at the risk of appearing unbrotherly, I must reveal that this is not the first experience of that type she has had to contend with. Mum was very worried about her at one stage. I remember the time when she was at school and Dad caught her on the front room settee with the exchange teacher – I think he was called an exchange teacher because after his appearance at the South Western Magistrates Court he changed to doing something else.

  Unfortunately, Sid is less well-equipped to deal with General Garstlia’s slightly eccentric behaviour. ‘Get your hands off my wife!’ he shouts. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘I already tell you what I am doing,’ says Garstlia, shoving his hand up Rosie’s jumper. ‘I check for bugging device, secret weapons, combine harvester – anything that take my fancy.’

  Sid moves forward like he is out to deliver a bunch of fives and Garstlia waves his equaliser threateningly. ‘Calm yourself, Sidney,’ reproaches Rosie. ‘The General is only trying to do his job.’

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ says Sid. ‘He shouldn’t have to do that.’

  Rosie does not answer but pulls forward the neck of her jumper and addresses the General’s head which has now thrust itself up under the tightly stretched wool. ‘Are you satisfied, General?’

  ‘He didn’t even take his hat off,’ complains Sid. The General wriggles into view again and Rosie pulls down her jumper. ‘Satisfied?!’ he says. ‘You think a son of Slobovia is so easily satisfied? I show you how I am satisfied. Macpherson!’

  So saying, he sits down on a chair and starts unbuttoning his tunic. Seconds later, a bloke wearing a high-peaked cap and jackboots sticks his long snitch round the door. He has a duelling scar on one cheek and is wearing a monocle. He does not look like a typical Scotsman. ‘You hev called me, Excellency?’

  ‘Si, Macpherson,’ says Garstlia, extending a foot. ‘Remova my boots. I am instituting an athletic security check.’

  ‘I notice it’s only women you check,’ sneers Sid. ‘You’re not interested in what I might be carrying.’

  Garstlia does not say anything but catches Macpherson’s eye and nods towards Sid. Macpherson acknowledges the gesture and advances on my brother-in-law. A swift upward movement of the knee and Sid is lying on his back clutching his groin. ‘Dida your educated knee reveal anything?’ says Garstlia.

  Macpherson shakes his head. ‘There is nothing there,’ he says.

  ‘I’m grateful for a second opinion,’ says Rosie, dropping to her knees beside her stricken husband. ‘Can we stop all this searching and get on with some work?’

  ‘I don’t think that bloke is a Scotsman,’ I say. ‘He looks more like a German to me.’

  ‘Gott in Himmill Hempstead!’ snaps Macpherson. ‘Vot a dirty lie! “Tis a braw bracht moonlit nacht, the noo!” Hogmannay, Haggis, Harry Lauder and “Lang may your lum reek”! Heil Hitler!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

  ‘You don’ta know what you are talking about, Englishman,’ says Garstlia. ‘Otto Macpherson was a ghillie in the Bavarian Alps before he –’

  ‘Scottish Highlands!’ hisses Macpherson.

  ‘– Before he came to Slobovia in nineteen forty-five with his fiend Martin Boor –’

  ‘My friend has nothing to do with it!’ screams Macpherson. ‘I come because I love wild life. Can we Scots never be allowed to forget?’

  Further discussion on the problems of expatriate Scots is interrupted by the arrival of Crispin Fletcher, looking harassed. ‘I say, I’m most awfully sorry to be late,’ he says. ‘I fell asleep at the sauna. I don’t know who – I mean, what came over me.’

  ‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ says Rosie. ‘I’m afraid Sidney hasn’t been handling things very well in your absence.’

  At the moment, Sidney is handling his goolies with something approaching tenderness and it is only with the greatest difficulty and the support of the rest of us that he regains a vertical position. Whether his hampton may ever do the same is a matter for conjecture.

  ‘Excellent,’ says Crispin, nervously rubbing his hands together. ‘Now let’s get down to work. Rose, you come with me. Our two technical tyros can embrace the mechanical nitty gritty.’

  In practice, this means getting the air-locks out of the central heating system. We try bleeding a few radiators but this does not work so Sid suggests draining the whole system and refilling it with the taps open. When the water starts coming out we will know that all the air-locks have been cleared and will close the taps. Dead simple, isn’t it? How fortunate I am to have a partner with Sid’s easy grasp of matters technical.

  While the unpleasantness has been going in the hallway, it has not escaped my attention that the Slobovian bird has been hardly able to take her eyes off me. At first, I think my fly must be undone but as time passes it becomes clear that my animal magnetism is at work. When I smile at her, she blushes and peers down over her knockers like she wonders if she will ever see her belly button again. When it is time for me to go round and visit the radiators she is swift to offer her services as a guide.

  ‘Do you like working here?’ I ask as we go into a box-room at the top of the stairs.

  To my surprise – Conchita – that’s her moniker.
Nice, isn’t it? – puts her fingers to her lips and advances towards me until her cakehole is practically brushing against my ear. ‘You must be careful,’ she whispers. ‘General Garstlia is a great bugger.’

  This news comes as something of a surprise to me. On his track record with Rosie, Big G has looked normal plus. Still, you can never tell these days. More and more people are trying to be all round entertainers. Maybe it is just an old Slobovian custom.

  ‘Thanks for the tip,’ I say. ‘It’s not my bag of walnuts, I don’t mind telling you.’

  ‘Sssh!’ Conchita taps a vase of flowers that for some reason is standing on the window sill. ‘Little bug.’

  ‘It’s a greenfly,’ I say. ‘They don’t do any harm – not unless you’re a leaf.’

  ‘Ssssh!’ Conchita lifts the flowers and pulls out a small microphone on the end of a lead. She does something to it and drops it back in the vase. ‘Now we can speak,’ she says in a normal voice.

  Of course, the minute she does that, I realise what she was on about. What a twit I am! Especially after what Garstlia said he was doing to Rosie when he was trying to find the switch on her knockers.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘How stupid –’

  Conchita holds up a hand. ‘You must not apologise. You are not used to such deviousness. Oh, how I wish my life could be free from taint.’

  ‘You are in publishing?’ I ask.

  ‘No, it is Garstlia. He is a man of no principle and less integrity. He is not a gentleman like you.’

  ‘Gentleman?’ I say.

  ‘You are English, no?’

  ‘Yes,’ I says. ‘But –’

  ‘Always, I have longing to meet with Englishman. So cool, so refined. Lacking the coarse, passionate fibre of my countrymen. As a little girl, I love Biggles.’

  ‘I’ve never tried one,’ I say. I suppose it must be some kind of muffin or suchlike. It is funny how these foreigners always have tastes for local delicacies you have never heard of. I remember an Arab geezer who was always on about Gentlemen’s Relish. For a long time, I thought he was talking about a J Arthur.

  ‘And your sense of humour,’ she says. ‘So dry, so sophisticated.’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I say. ‘Nothing at all really.’

  Of course, one never thinks that a foreign bird could find a British bloke romantic, does one? I suppose it’s just the same for them as it is for us. What the eye doesn’t see, the imagination reckons must be a bit of all right.

  ‘It is important for me to take a grip on myself. I become easily excitable – uncontrollable almost. You would despise me.’

  The bird is actually quivering as she stands before me. I stretch out a hand to take her arm and she flinches. ‘You’ll find me very understanding, my dear,’ I say, trying to summon up my recall of how George Sanders used to come over.

  ‘All the time that I have been here I have hoped to make the acquaintance of an Englishman but I am never allowed to leave the embassy. It is like a prison.’

  ‘How too, too trying for you,’ I say. ‘So I’m the first British chappie you’ve been able to feed your peepers on?’

  ‘Please?’ she says.

  I squeeze the hand that now nestles between mine. ‘I imagine that in your own country, men must never cease from telling you how beautiful you are?’

  Conchita sighs and flutters her long eyelashes at me. ‘Never in words. It is always the grab and the pinch. The General he is typical Slobovian. Uncouth, like animal. He has never heard of croquet pitch.’

  ‘Poor devil!’ I say, gently transferring my hand to Conchita’s upper arm and stroking downwards in what I hope is a soothing and reassuring gesture. ‘There are moments, of course, when passion dictates the conduct of the heart.’

  ‘How beautiful you speak,’ she says. ‘I wish that I could match you with the words.’

  ‘It is not necessary,’ I say. ‘You are the violin, I am the bow. I will play you with my lips and we will make beautiful music.’

  Not bad, is it? I bet that if you were an impressionable Slobovian bint you would feel yourself going at the knees. The trouble is that you can’t talk to a British bird like that or she would think you were barmy.

  Conchita closes both mince pies and strains as if trying to break an invisible bond. ‘Be still my foolish heart,’ she says. ‘There are other radiators to be visited.’

  She makes a feeble attempt to remove her hand from mine but I cling on to it like the double-six in a domino shuffle. ‘Don’t move,’ I say. ‘This moment may never return again. We are but grains of sand on the beach of time. Our days are numbered like those flowers – incidentally, why are these flowers in the boxroom?’

  ‘There are flowers in every room,’ says Conchita. ‘When the Russians get a new bugging device they give us the old one. At the moment, we are being flooded with plastic flowers.’

  ‘Plastic flowers?’ I say. ‘If those flowers are plastic, why is there a greenfly on them?’

  ‘It’s probably an American spy,’ says Conchita. ‘You would be amazed at some of the devices being used in the cold war.’

  ‘Cold?’ I say. ‘How can lips so warm utter such a word?’

  ‘This is madness,’ breathes the Slobovian bombshell. ‘Your words incinerate me. I am a volcano about to erupt.’

  ‘Lava come back to me,’ I say, cursing that the bird will not be able to understand my little joke. ‘Don’t feel ashamed. Your impulse to rip all my clothes off and make violent love to me is thoroughly natural. You could be certified for doing anything else.’

  ‘You mean, you would not spurn me?’

  ‘You did say “spurn”, didn’t you?’ I say, after a pause. ‘Yes, I can guarantee that I won’t spurn you.’ With these reassuring words, I draw the fortunate bird into my arms and give her a tongue sandwich with a side order of rampant banana served through a bulging trouser leg. I have heard expressions like ‘releasing the flood gates’ but I have never had an experience that measures up to the description – until now.

  The moment we start necking, the bird presses herself against me so tightly that I think she is trying to force her tits under her armpits. She grinds her cakehole against mine and makes growling noises like it is feeding time at the lion house.

  In the circumstances, it seems cruel not to open the presents until Christmas Day so I pull down my fly and taking Conchita by the wrist, guide percy to the promised hand. The pressure on my north and south eases as she suddenly sucks in her breath. Her fingers hesitate and then close like those of someone about to start a motor bike. Before she can deliver any revs, I slip my right hand underneath her skirt and start to gently caress the inside of her thighs. Despite all her rabbit about having a passionate nature I do not reckon that she is a survivor of a lot of bouts of in and out – if any – and I do not want to alarm her. A hand up your bird is not always worth two on her bush – not in the long run, anyway.

  For those of you who are saying hang on a minute! I thought this bird was supposed to go a bundle on refinement, let me elucidate you – it’s all right, it won’t stunt your growth. If Garstlia had done what I have just done, it would have been crude and nasty. It is all in the mind, see? Birds are like that. If one geezer shoves his mitt up their bloomers then he is a pestering little nit or a sex maniac. If Mr Right does it, then he is demonstrating what a firm, positive, no-holds-barred, red-blooded and desirable male he is.

  Conchita clearly slots me into the second category. ‘Caramba!’ she breathes. ‘Que hombre! When you do that it is like the hot sun on the Andes.’

  ‘You keep your Andes to yourself,’ I say, revealing that even at moments of advancing passion I am not above leavening the conversation with a small geographical joke.

  ‘What you say?’

  What I really feel like saying is ‘Where are we going to do it?’ The boxroom of the Slobovian Embassy shows no sign of being equipped with a four poster bed and things are getting to the point where – ‘AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGG!’
‘Que grandos cojones!’

  ‘Thank you.’

  While Conchita continues to juggle with my goolies I cast an eye round the room. There is something on top of that cupboard. Could it be? Yes! An old, dust-covered Lilo. No doubt used for sun-bathing on the embassy roof.

  ‘Hold on a minute.’ Conchita does as she is told and I gently have to remove her sensation-hungry fingers. I wonder if she plays the maraccas, as well? I shake the Lilo and prepare to inflate. Should the results be anything like those already achieved by percy then I might have a small airship on my hands. ‘I make love bed,’ I say by way of explanation.

  Conchita nods approvingly. ‘May I take clothes off?’

  ‘As you wish,’ I say, trying to retain my cool. I might as well invest the occasion with all the finesse the lady so clearly requires. I take a deep lungful of air and start to blow. Thank goodness, the Lilo does not seem to have any leaks.

  Before me, Conchita is down to a skimpy bra and panties. Coffee coloured, they are, with tiny white polka dots. She hesitates for a moment and then reaches behind her back. Blimey! When she takes off her bra, I nearly cop back all the air I have put into the Lilo. What a cracking pair! The nipples alone are like the sockets of a couple of screw-in light bulbs. And that cleavage! If she lay on her back you could use her as a bike rack. ‘Multo splendido!’ I say giving her a few of the fruits of my cosmopolitan upbringing. ‘Multos bigos!’

  ‘You no find them vulgar? I think they too large for English lady.’

  ‘English lady not going to get them,’ I say through gritted Teds. Never at a loss for a romantic gesture, I remove my cakehole from the Lilo and apply it to one of the afore-mentioned strawberries (Strawberry ripple: Nipple. Ed.). Hardly have I changed the switch from blow to suck than Conchita shivers like a bamboo shithouse in a typhoon and hurls herself into my arms. It is obvious that the knocker-nibble looms large in her legend. You have heard of ‘See Naples and die’? Well, this is more like ‘Seize nipples and cry’. Unfortunately, I am still holding the Lilo in front of me and the force of her passionate embrace half deflates the perishing thing up one of my nostrils. If you ever feel like blowing your brains out, I suggest you find another way. This method might get the kink out of General Amin’s hair but that is about all.