Czytaj książkę: «Confessions of a Window Cleaner»

CHAPTER ONE

The window cleaning lark first begins to appeal to me one evening when I am up at the pub with my brother-in-law. It is on Clapham Common and we are sitting on a bench outside, watching the sun go down and this big bird with the white silk blouse on. It is a bit small – the blouse I mean – and rides up from her waist so you can see her two tone flesh and the top of her knickers.

She has been in the sun, that is for sure. She has dyed hair, too much lipstick and a diabolical eyebrow pencil beauty spot that dates her a bit, but if she is going down hill I can think of a few blokes who wouldn’t mind waiting for her at the bottom – me included.

“Sup up,” says Sid. “You’re supposed to drink it, not pour it all over your balls. You’re right out of practice, aren’t you?”

I nod and correct the angle of my glass. Sid is right. I am straight out of reform school, ‘for the holidays’, my poxy father says, and there haven’t been a lot of opportunities for elbow bending – or lapping up birds like Silk Blouse. She has a black bra underneath it which I think is a bit of a liberty. Sid looks at her as if it is an effort to keep from yawning. “I’ve had her,” he says, switching his gaze to his finger nails. Very neat they are, too. Say what you like about Sid – and most people say plenty – but he keeps himself in good nick.

“Oh yes,” I say. “You and who else?”

“I don’t know about that, do I?” he says. “But I know I have. Why, don’t you believe me?”

“If you want to put it like that – no?” I say. I mean, she is with two blokes who look sharp as tin tacks and have a white Jag to prove it. I can’t see our Sidney with her legs up against the dashboard of his mini van.

“Hang on,” he says. “I’ll show you.”

Before I can say anything he picks up my glass and slides off towards the bar. The bird hasn’t noticed him up till then, but when she does I begin to believe Sid might be right. She half smiles and shoots a quick glance at one of the blokes she’s with. You can see she doesn’t quite know what to do. Sid is a gent because he nods to her ever so politely like she was his Sunday school teacher and carries right on into the pub. I can’t help it, I’m impressed. Seeing Sid must have done something to her, for her fag goes out and she starts tugging her blouse down and smiling slightly out of time with the conversation she’s supposed to be part of; as if there’s something on her mind. I look at Sid through new eyes when he comes out of the pub. He’s quite a good-looking fellow, I suppose. Not tall, but with very broad shoulders and narrow hips. Looks a bit like one of those poufdah ballet dancers you see on the telly before you turn over to the wrestling. I know my sister thinks his arsehole plays ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ every time he farts.

“Try and keep this one inside you,” he says, handing me a pint. “You look as if you’ve pissed yourself. I’m ashamed to be seen with you.”

He runs his fingers through his hair, kneading in every wave – Sid has lovely hair, even my mum remarks on it – and gives Silk Blouse a big smile as she glances at him. She blushes and turns away double quick. Sid shakes his head and stares out over the common towards the pond where the kids and the middle-aged wankers sail their model boats. It’s as if he doesn’t want to be the cause of any embarrassment to her. Very thoughtful.

“Well?” he says. “You saw that?”

“Yes,” I say. “She looked pretty twitched up. Who are those blokes she’s with?”

“I don’t know. Her husband travels, I believe. I expect she gets a bit lonely in the evenings.”

“How did you meet her?”

“On the job, how else?”

“What, window cleaning?”

“I haven’t got any other jobs, have I?”

I’m registering surprise because Sid and Rosie, my sister, have been married for three months and Rosie is already great, too great if you ask my mother, with child, which everybody in the family, and even a few of the neighbours, are prepared to accept as Sid’s. What’s more, Sid has only been cleaning windows since they came back from their honeymoon, which is what they called the weekend they spent at Brighton where one of Sid’s friends was supposed to have a boarding house. In fact, they never found a trace of the friend and spent two nights trying to sleep rough at Butlins before they were thrown out. I missed the wedding because I was being reformed at the time and heard all about it, and the honeymoon, from Rosie, who could not be accused of exaggeration because she was bonkers about Sid and would burst into tears every time Dad said he was a ponce.

“What about my sister?” I say, feeling I’d better show a bit of family loyalty.

“She’s getting all she can handle,” says Sid. “You haven’t heard her complaining, have you?”

This is true. I’ve heard my old man complaining about the row they make but not a squeak out of Rosie. In fact, Rosie doesn’t make much noise of any kind. This evening we’ve left her at home in front of the telly, knitting some woolly horror for ‘her Sid’ and I know she’ll be in exactly the same position when we get back, with her head jutting towards the screen and just a few more rows of puce to show for it. She and Sid have been living with us since the wedding and show every sign of continuing to do so until they find ‘the right place’ as Sid puts it. Dad says that Sid’s idea of the right place is the one he seems to be finding every night and he can hardly expect his daughter to be a contortionist as well as a wife. Mum tells him not to be dirty, though she doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. She just knows Dad.

“Anyhow, I’m doing it for her, aren’t I?”

I give him my ‘pull the other one’ look.

“Oh, you can act all disapproving, but you’ve no idea what it’s like. I’m trying to build up a business, aren’t I? Half of these birds don’t just want their windows cleaned. You say no dice and they swear blind you did it anyway. I’ve been told that. Straight up, I have. One terrible old bag, she blackmailed me, said if I didn’t give her what she wanted, she’d start screaming the place down. What could I do? You soon get the message. Put yourself in my position.”

I steal a quick glance at Silk Blouse and wish I could.

“You want to keep them happy, don’t you, because you want the work; and you’re only human, aren’t you? When a bit of stuff like that starts offering to squeeze out your chamois, you don’t start retracting your ladder, do you?”

“I suppose not,” I say. “But is it really like that? I mean, you hear all those stories about milkmen, but I never believe half of it.”

“I don’t know about milkmen,” says Sid. “But you wouldn’t coco some of the things that have happened to me, and I haven’t been in the business four months. I won’t start to tell you, because you wouldn’t credit it. I think maybe it’s because you look more athletic cleaning windows. You might laugh but sometimes I feel I’m almost hypnotising them when I sweep the old squeegee backwards and forwards. I always wear a T shirt or white nylon – that’s favourite because when it gets wet they can see your nipples. Press up against the window and give ’em a smile occasionally. You can see their hands shaking as they put the kettle on.”

“So that bird isn’t the only one?” I say slowly.

“God, no. It’s a bad week in which I don’t get half a dozen solid offers – and that’s new business, not my old customers.”

“How do you manage?”

“Well, you have to box a bit clever, don’t you? You can’t leave them without it for too long, otherwise they get all resentful. You have to spread it out a bit. Keep everybody happy. In fact,” he looks round at Silk Blouse, who is climbing into the Jag and showing thigh clean up to her arse, “the business is expanding, so fast I’ve got almost more than I can handle. Work and all.”

I lean forward hopefully, and the bastard pauses, leaving me dangling on his words. Silk Blouse gives him a discreet little wave as the Jag pulls away and Sid inclines his head. “I was thinking of asking you if you’d like to come in with me—”

“It’d be great, Sid,” I interrupt, thinking of Silk Blouse’s thighs and nearly creaming my jeans. “Great, I’d—”

“—cool it.” Sid’s voice sounds just like Paul Newman’s which is exactly what it is meant to sound like. Rosie, or some other bird, once told him that he looked like Paul Newman and the world has suffered for it ever since, “don’t get your knickers in a twist. I just said I was thinking about it, I’m not certain you’re up to the work.”

“There’s nothing to cleaning windows, is there,” I say. “and I’m not afraid of heights. Shouldn’t be any problem getting a ladder and a bucket – one of those polythene—”

“I wasn’t thinking about that side of it. Rosie said she reckoned you’d never had your end away.”

He runs his fingers round the edge of his glass. It’s one of those tall thin ones and made an apologetic whining noise. They don’t give Sid and me the thick chunky ones with the handles.

“That’s what Rosie said, is it?” I say, trying to give myself time to think.

“That’s what Rosie said.”

Of course, Rosie is right but I don’t thank her for opening her trap to Sid. Must be envy on her part. Before she met Sid she was known as the easiest lay in the neighbourhood. On Saturday night, after the pubs closed, there used to be a queue outside the front door. Talk about watching the quiet ones.

“How does she know?” I say.

“Said you told her.”

This is true too. I once had a confidential word with her because I was desperate to score and I reckoned she must have a mate who could oblige me. Fact was that all the other birds in the district hated her guts because the way she gave it away was ruining the market. Their blokes only had to get a sniff of our Rosie and that was that. In my present mood I have half a mind to tell Sid all about her but I think better of it.

“That was before I went inside.” I say.

“You had birds in there!?”

“Of course. I had this mate. We used to get out at nights and go round the local girls’ school. They’d hang their knickers out of the window so we knew which one to get in at. Very posh birds they were but they were crazy for it.”

Of course, it’s all a load of lies but I think it sounds quite good.

“Really,” says Sid. “Bentworth Grange wasn’t it? Must have changed a bit since I was there. In those days the screws would go spare if you as much as looked out of the window.”

“I didn’t know you were there, Sid,” I say – trying to appear interested.

“Yeah, we went to the same school. I’ll let you borrow my old boys tie some time. Now look, I’m still a bit sceptical about whether you’ve had your end away or not.”

Sid is very strong on long words and ‘Quotable Quips’ he gets from the Reader’s Digest. He used to spend so much time in Doctors’ waiting rooms trying to get a medical certificate that he is quite well read.

“I don’t want to go on about it, but I can’t afford to have someone with me who goes around disappointing people. You’ve got to know how to handle yourself.”

Make no mistake, I’m not a fairy or anything, and my equipment is alright. It’s just that something always seems to go wrong just when I am about to score. The bird passes out or a copper starts flashing his torch or I’m too pissed to do it. A lot of trouble is the birds themselves. Because I am inexperienced I end up with inexperienced girls and of the two of us I have the most to lose. Rosie doesn’t help because I feel embarrassed about her, and that puts me off my stride a bit, and of course, there wasn’t anything happening at Bentworth, apart from the danger of spraining your wrist or getting a bent screw up your backside. I say all this because a lot of people seem to believe that every working class lad has it regular from the age of eight and it just isn’t true. I wish to God it was.

“Don’t worry about me Sid,” I say, “I won’t let you down.”

“Um.” Sid looks at me and then past me to the plump old bird we can see just inside the boozer, sitting up at the bar and sipping what must be a port and lemon.

“Could you handle that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Chat her up, buy her a drink, take her home. She’s a pushover, that one. Always up here begging for it.”

“I don’t fancy her.” I say quickly. It’s the truth too. Talk about mutton dressed up as lamb. She’s bulging out all over the place like a badly tied parcel and they must be able to hear her laughing down at the Plough. It sounds like somebody cutting through giblets with a hacksaw.

“Don’t fancy her? You’re going to be no bloody good to me if you go on like that. Who do you think you are, Godfrey Winn?”

“If I was, I’d be calling her mother. She won’t see forty again if you give her a telescope.”

“You mean you won’t even say hallo to her? Look, go and chat her up a bit, that’s all. You don’t have to do anything. I just want to see how you handle yourself. I tell you she’s a bit of class compared to some of the scrubbers you’ll come across if I take you on.”

“Well I won’t be coming across them then.”

“Get over there and overpower her with some of your sophisticated banter,” sneers Sid, “and remember, I’ll be watching.”

“I won’t forget,” I say and I start towards the bar. I feel less enthusiastic than a bloke setting out to poke a bacon slicer, but it isn’t a boozer I go to a lot, so I can afford to make a bit of a Charlie of myself. Above all, I want to show Sid that I am a man of the world.

The old bag gives me a quick up and down as I go in and returns to her drink. She has terrible legs and wears patterned stockings so you’ll notice it. It is difficult to know where the pattern ends and her varicose veins begin. I stroll up to the bar and lean on it as casually as I can, discovering as I do so that I have chosen a large puddle of beer to put my elbow in.

“Learning to swim, dear?” says the old bag. I blush and hope that Sid has noticed how smoothly I have started a conversation.

“Lovely evening,” I say. The words are alright but unfortunately I am so tense that my voice cracks and the alsatian in the corner growls and pricks up its ears.

“What did you say, dear?”

“I said ‘it’s a nice evening’.”

“Very nice, dear.” She sounds a bit nervous. I can feel. I am sweating and I start licking my lips. The barman is in the saloon and I try to catch his eye.

“I don’t get up this way often.”

“Really dear? I thought I hadn’t seen you before.”

“Not on Thursdays, anyway.” Why did I say that? The old bag looks even more worried. “Thursday is early closing day,” I go on desperately, “I work in a bakery, you see, and we get the afternoon off.”

“Very nice, dear. I expect you look forward to it?”

The barman is coming towards me. Now for my big push.

“Can I buy you a fuck?” I say. She goes scarlet, the barman breaks into a run and the alsatian sits up.

“I mean a drink,” I shout, wishing I was dead.

“Make up your mind,” says Sid, who has miraculously appeared behind me. “You know, sometimes, I think he doesn’t know the difference,” he adds, flashing his pearlies at the old bag who is staring at me like I had eye teeth down to my navel.

“Is he with you?” she screeches. “You want to watch him, he’s round the twist. You heard what he said. He should be locked up.”

“In an asylum, Madam,” agrees Sid, “Anybody making a suggestion like that to you must be insane.”

“Hey, what do you mean,” says the old bag. “You trying to be funny or something? You’re no bleeding oil painting yourself.”

“That’s enough,” says the barman, “You two hop it.” He means Sid and me.

“Why should we?” says Sid. “We aren’t doing any harm. My friend merely asked the lady if she’d like a drink.”

“I heard what he asked the lady,” says the barman, “Now hop it before I call the police.”

“If you’re going to call anybody make it Hammer Films, mate,” says Sid. “They can’t start shooting till she turns up. ‘Daughter of the Vampires’, that’s what she’s in, and guess who’s playing mother!”

“Ooh, you little bastard!” The old bag swings her handbag, Sid ducks, and the barman catches it, smack in the kisser. You have to laugh. At least Sid and I do. The other two don’t seem to be finding it so funny. The barman shouts to the alsatian and before I can get really scared it has torn the old bag’s skirt off. By the time we get outside I am laughing so much I can hardly stand up.

“You did a bloody marvellous job in there,” says Sid all sarcastic. “My God, you came on strong. Nothing like getting to the point quick.”

“It’s no good with me if I don’t fancy a bird,” I say. “If my heart isn’t in it, nothing else is.”

“I don’t believe you could stick your old man in a fire bucket without someone shouting instructions through a megaphone,” says Sid. “What a bloody hopeless performance. That’s done it for me. You’d have both of us locked up on your first morning.”

“Come off it, Sid. You know it was an accident. I just got a bit flustered, that’s all.”

“Flustered?” says Sid. “Christ, I wonder you didn’t stick it in her hand and burst into tears.” I can see there isn’t much point in going on about it, so we walk across the common in silence. Dusk, as they say, is falling and I notice that Sid keeps taking a few strides and jumping as far as he can. I’ve never known him show any interest in athletics, apart from running away from hard work, so I ask him what he is doing.

“Trying to put the alsatian off the scent,” he says.

“You didn’t think of telling me, did you?”

“I was just going to mention it,” he says, managing to sound all hurt.

So I’m off across the common with a hop, skip and a jump and a right fairy I feel. Then Sid tells me to stop.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because I was taking the piss out of you, you stupid berk, and it isn’t funny any more.”

Sometimes I really dislike Sid.

We are near the boating pond by now and I can make out a few shadowy figures moving about in the darkness. Most of them are bent or on the game because the pond, after dark, is very much the place you wouldn’t arrange to meet the Archbishop of Canterbury. There are also a few anglers but their presence is a bit suspect, for the last fish must have coughed itself to death about ten years ago, and the surface is too thick with fagpackets and french letters that you’d need a half pound ledger to get through it. I reckon the anglers just want an excuse to get away from the old woman and have a bit on the side. I must confess, I’ve thought about it myself, but somehow I feel I need something more private for the first time.

“Look, Sid,” I say, my mind returning to the window cleaning, “couldn’t you just give me a trial? A couple of weeks maybe. I’m certain I could do the job. If I can’t, well, O.K. then.”

Sid is exploring the darkness and doesn’t seem to be listening to me. Eventually he sees what he’s looking for and, beckoning to me to follow him, makes towards the pond. By the water’s edge a fat old git is buttoning his oilskin trench coat and spitting words at a thin bird who is picking pieces of grass off her skirt. No prizes for guessing what they’ve been up to. The man bends down and reels in his line which, I notice, only has a weight on the end of it – no hooks. Presumably his technique is to whirl the weight round and round above his head and bash the fish over the bonce with it.

“Hallo, Lil” says Sid all cheerful like, “You busy?”

“With old kinky-coat” says the bird, “You must be joking. He exhausted himself screwing his rod together.”

The fat man says something ‘not nice’, as my mother would say, and collapsing his collapsible stool, hurries away.

“Lil,” says Sid, “I’d like you to meet my brother-in-law, Timmy. Timmy this is my aunty Lil.”

“Not so much of the aunty, ta.” says Lil. “Pleased to meet you Timmy. I don’t remember you at the wedding.”

“Timmy was detained elsewhere. He was giving her majesty pleasure.”

Sid’s aunty! What a turn up. She doesn’t seem old enough.

She’s not bad looking really. A bit tired and a bit skinny but not bad. Fancy her being on the game.

“She’s my mum’s youngest sister. Much younger.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I say. I have a nasty feeling that Sid has engineered our meeting with what the B.B.C. calls an ulterior motive in view. Sid immediately proves me right. Waiting no longer than the space of time it takes fatso to merge into the background he begins to speak.

“Lil,” he says, “with my friend Timmy, actions speak a bloody sight louder than words, or so he would have me believe. He’s not much of a chatterbox but he’s shit hot when it comes to the proof of the pudding. I’d like you to take him in hand or anything else you have to offer and give me your views.”

I start to say something but Sid shuts me up and sweeps Lil away into outer darkness. I hear them rabbiting away and then Lil nips back again all peaches and cream. Before I can say anything she’s kneading the front of my trousers like dough and steering me towards the wide open spaces.

“Hey, Sid—” I begin but there’s no stopping her.

“Don’t be frightened,” she murmurs, “Lil’s going to take care of you.”

The minute she opens her mouth with that quiet reassuring tone I can feel my old man disappearing like a pat of butter at the bottom of a hot frying pan. It’s about as sincere as Ted Heath singing the Red Flag. At the same time I realise that Sid is setting this up so he can see what I’m made of, and that after the last cock-up I can’t afford to blow it.

It’s in this uneasy frame of mind that I find myself wedged up against a tree with the lights of Clapham sparkling all around me and Aunty Lil’s hand pulling the zip of my fly out of its mooring.

“Ooh, ooh, ooh,” she grunts fumbling away, but my cock has got about as much sensation in it as a headline in ‘Chicks Own’.

“Come on, darling,” she pants, “don’t you want a nice time?”

“I feel we’re being watched” I say and it’s no exaggeration. Talk about Edward G. Robinson in ‘The Night Has A Thousand Eyes’. There’s a crackle of plastic macs around us like a crisp eating contest. That’s another thing I’ve got against Clapham Common. The public don’t only come to watch the football matches.

“Don’t worry about them,” says Aunty Lil soothingly, “they’re only jealous.”

Nothing is happening down below and I can see she’s getting a bit fed up. What with the beer and the tension I’m under, and all those dirty old buggers creeping round us like red indians, I don’t think it’s going to be one of my nights. Lil stops mauling me and puts her hands on my shoulders.

“Don’t worry about the money,” she says, “it’s on the family.”

I try and blurt out my thanks and in a desperate effort to get in the mood I attempt to kiss her. This is definitely not a good move, for she twists away as if I’ve sunk fangs into her neck.

“Don’t do that!” she snarls, “Don’t ever do that.”

It’s obvious that I’ve seriously offended her and I’ve since learned that a lot of whores don’t mind what you do to them below the waist but they reserve their mouths for their boyfriends – or girl friends since quite a few of them are bent. There is also the problem of smudged make-up and Clapham Common isn’t exactly crawling with powder rooms.

“I’m sorry,” I mutter.

“Get on with it,” she spits. I can see she’s had enough. I’m all for chucking it in but I think of Sid and some kind of pride drives me on.

“Come on, come on.”

I put my hands underneath her skirt and she sucks in her breath because they must be quite cold. She’s not wearing any knicks which is no surprise and I fumble till I find something like a warm pan scourer, Lil’s arms are round me and I’m gritting my teeth and staring over her shoulder towards the string of lights that run across the common. There’s a bit of something going for me down below now, so I grab hold of it and lunge forward until I feel myself secured between her legs. It’s really very disappointing after all I’ve read and heard about it, but at least I’m there. I put my hands behind her arse and start pulling her towards me. Sid should be quite impressed.

“Well,” says Lil, “aren’t you going to put it in?”

“I have put it in!” I gulp.

“You stupid berk. You’ve got it caught under my suspender strap.”