âWas it nice, Sid?â I ask.
Claphamâs answer to Paul Newman grits his Teds like he has plans to make them retractable. âWatch it!â he hisses. âJust watch it. Iâm not telling you again.â
Readers of ConfessionsofaPrivateDick will recall that my brother-in-law and partner, Sidney Noggett, ran into a spot of bother at the end of our career as C Men working for Mission E â or Emission as it was widely known in concentric circles at the Ministry of Defence. I will not spoil the story for those who have not read it by revealing the amazing details, but suffice to say that Sidâs distress was occasioned by an unsolicited sexual encounter â and there are not many of those flying around as far as Mrs Noggettâs little boy is concerned, I donât mind telling you. Sid usually holds back from nooky the way a freshly sharpened hatchet rests lightly on half a pound of warm butter.
âIâm not asking for the unpleasant details,â I say.
âDonât ask for anything,â says Sid. âOtherwise your lower lip is going to look like Idi Aminâs pyjama case. Anyway, what have you got to rabbit about? You havenât heard from your precious Retchen, have you?â
âGretchen,â I grit.
âNo doubt some horny Kraut is introducing her to his Frankfurter at this very moment,â says Sid, clearly warming to the idea. âOh yes, I reckon you can say âauf wiedersehenâ to that little number.â
I try to look as if the idea is too blooming stupid to comment on but in my heart of hearts I fear that he may well be right. Gretchen went back to Germany three weeks ago and I have not heard a dicky bird since. Our bitter-sweet romance was not helped when the local anaesthetic I used to assist in its consummation sent my dick to sleep half a second after penetration. I would have cried if Gretchen had not beaten me to it. It was all so sad because she went home before I had the chance to introduce her to the full lustre of my cluster.
âSheâll write,â I say. âDonât you worry.â
âIâm not worried,â says Sid. âNot about that, anyway. Of all the bleeding things Iâve got to worry about, your bit of Hun fluff is very low on the list.â He takes a long sip of Mumâs tea and his face wrinkles in disgust. âGordon Bennett! Canât your Mum even make a cup of tea? Look at the brown rings round the inside of this cup. Theyâve eaten into the china.â
âMum puts something with it to make it go further,â I tell him.
âThis isnât going to go any further,â says Sid pushing his cup away. âBlimey, I wish Iâd brought my clogged-up paint brushes with me. Stick âem in this lot for a few minutes and you could paint the Mona Lisa with them.â
Sid and I are having a cuppa round at 17 Scraggs Lane, the ancestral home of the Leas, and we are supposed to be discussing our future. No sooner has my brother-in-law emptied the contents of his cup down the sink than my mother enters clutching a couple of letters.
âI didnât know people still wrote letters,â says Sid. âStill, when itâs a choice between spending the money on a stamp or a few hundred British Leyland shares â¦â
âThereâs one from Germany,â says Mum. âQuite a pretty stamp. You wouldnât think the Germans would have a stamp like that.â
âHere it comes,â says Sid cheerfully. âThe old brush-off, Kraut-style. Get your handkerchief out.â
âOh look,â says Mum. âSomebodyâs poured their tea leaves into the sink. What a waste. You can dry them and use them again mixed with dandelion leaves. I heard it on the wireless.â
âThat was for pipe tobacco, not drinking!â says Sid. âNo wonder it tasted so diabolical. That bleeding tom is always up against the dandelions.â
My finger and thumb are testing the contents of the airmail envelope. It does not seem over-thick for a passionate love letter. Perhaps I would be better off reading it in the privacy of my own very small room.
âRead us out the fruity bits,â says Sid. He snatches the envelope and holds it under his hooter. âPhew! Eau de Sauerkraut. She must have been off with some bloke when she posted this.â
âShe was a nice enough girl,â says Mum. âFor a foreigner, that is.â
âI know, Mum,â I say. âTheir ways are not our ways, are they?â
âThatâs exactly what I always say,â says Mum.
âI know it is,â I say wearily.
âHeâs taking the piss,â says Sid. âI think love has coarsened him.â
âThatâs not nice,â says Mum.
I suppress a sigh and tear open the envelope. I do wish Sid would spend a bit more time in his trendy Vauxhall pad with my sister Rosie and his two delightful children, Jason and Dominic. He always said how much he loathed Scraggs Lane when he was forced to live here. Now he never stops hanging about the place.