Confessions of a Babysitter

Title Page

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

About the Author

Also by Timothy Lea and Rosie Dixon

Copyright

About the Publisher

I got the idea from a film. I can’t remember what it was called but it was about this woman saving a lot of children from the Chinese. They marched for hundreds of miles and sang songs. It was very uplifting. The woman was played by Ingrid Bergman or Flora Robson, so you can see it was a serious film. I was visibly moved – especially when the man sitting next to me tried to put his hand up my skirt. Just like that. No ‘by your leave’ or ‘I’m sorry, I was looking for my return half to Chorleywood’. Most of them at least have the decency to drape their jacket casually over your leg first, but not this fellow. Of course, being on a troop ship does make a difference. The niceties tend to be forgotten. Especially when you have been adrift in the Strait of Hormuz for two weeks. It gets hot off the coast of Persia – or Iran if you want to be toffee-nosed about it – and passions run high. Especially when there are only two girls and two thousand men. Every time a man brushes against you he thinks that he had better make the most of it because he might never get another chance.

Anyway, I don’t wish to dwell upon that distressing part of my life. I have already described my career as a WRAC (Confessions of a Physical WRAC) and, apart from a sense of outrage at being dishonourably discharged, I am very happy to be turning my back on a career as a lady soldier. When the next war breaks out I intend to become an unconscious objector and resist passively.

‘That was a nice film,’ I say when the man has been taken away by the Military Police and I have returned to the cabin I share with Penny Green – regular readers will remember that she is my bosom pal and the other half of the two-girl complement of the troop ship. She is very nice but just a teeny bit forward and outspoken on occasions.

‘I thought it was pathetic,’ says Penny. ‘You get more love interest in a party political broadcast on the telly. That chap with the sellotaped eyes looked about as Chinese as Robin Day.’

‘I found it very moving,’ I say. ‘It made me think that I’d like to do something that brought me into contact with children.’

‘Why not get pregnant?’ says Penny.

‘I think that’s overdoing it a bit,’ I say, trying not to blush – I have found that it only encourages her if I reveal how shocked I am. ‘I meant something that involves looking after children. After all, we nearly qualified as SRNs.’

‘Yes,’ says Penny. ‘It would have been a good life if it hadn’t been for the patients.’ (Read Confessions of a Night Nurse to find out just how good.)

‘The trouble is,’ I muse, ‘nearly everything you can do these days needs qualifications.’

‘Except being a tart,’ says Penny. ‘I sometimes think that’s the answer, you know. Find some paunchy old creep to set you up in a sumptuous Mayfair flat and then charge a bunch of groovy Latin-American diplomats two hundred guineas a throw for what you’d gladly give them for nothing.’

‘Penny!’ I exclaim. ‘That’s shameful!’

‘Not if your sugar daddy doesn’t find out,’ says Penny, her eyes sparkling with developing interest. ‘If you didn’t want a slice of the action you could be my maid. I can just see you with a little mob cap and a riding crop.’

‘Please!’ I say, closing my eyes in horror. ‘How can you talk like that after such a lovely film?’

‘You don’t have to use the whip,’ says Penny. ‘Just bring it to me on a silver salver – or maybe a silver slaver would be more appropriate. You could just take the money and pay the police their bribes. Why are you dragging that chest in front of the door?’

‘I’m not taking any chances,’ I pant. ‘Ever since those two men with the stockings over their heads came to read the gas meter I haven’t relaxed a muscle.’

‘We should have smelt a rat when both stockings belonged to the same pair of tights,’ says Penny. ‘They obviously had no idea where the meter was either.’

‘It beats me where they got the tights from,’ I say.

‘Ah-hem.’ Penny smiles. ‘Surely you remember that energetic “Strip the Willow” at the ship’s dance?’

‘The one that was broken up with the fire hoses?’

‘That’s it,’ says Penny. ‘I seem to remember that you were still doing the conga at the time?’

‘It went on and on,’ I say.

‘I thought it would when I saw you leading them into the lifeboat,’ says Penny.

I don’t answer her immediately because my recollection of exactly what took place at the ship’s dance is somewhat clouded by the punch I had at the ship’s officers’ party just before the event. The punch was intended for the First Officer but he stepped to one side and it caught me a glancing blow on the chin. I don’t remember what the fight was about but it did seem to create a precedent for the rest of the evening. Penny is still looking at me questioningly when there is a strange noise from the air conditioning system. This is a rather exaggerated name for the metal shaft that is supposed to feed air into our stuffy cabin. I say ‘supposed’ because it has not been working for days.