In which a talent spotting trip to the East End with brother-in-law, Sid, involves Timmy in an unseemly fracas and two close brushes with the opposite sex.
âGordon Bennett!â says Dad. âMost people can get out of the nick easier than the army. âDishonourable Discharge.â Sounds like what we used to find on the front of your pyjamas.â
âDad, please!â I mean, that kind of remark is so uncalled for. Anyhow, I never had a pair of pyjamas when I was going steady with the five-fingered widow.
âThis latest disgrace has dropped us right in it with the neighbours. I donât know where to put my face.â
âWhy donât you try some of the places Sid has been suggesting all these years?â It is sad, but Dad always brings out the worst in me.
âYou leave your sponging brother-in-law out of this. Just consider what youâve achieved in the last five years. Youâve broken your motherâs heart and now youâve damn near done for mine. In the nick twice and God knows how many jobs youâve had.â
âThe first time was only reform school, Dad.â
âThatâs shredded in the mists of antiquity, that is. Why canât you be like your sister? A nice home, two lovely kiddies. Sheâs done all right for herself.â
âI couldnât find the right bloke to settle down with, Dad.â
âI donât expect itâs for want of trying, though. Thatâs the one thing we havenât had from you, isnât it? Iâm waiting for you to turn into a nancy boy. Thatâll be the final nail in my coffin.â
âIâve started a whip round for the hammer, Dad.â
As might be expected, Dad is not slow to take umbrage at this remark.
âThatâs nice, isnât it? Bleeding nice. That really puts the kibosh on it, that does. You sacrifice your whole life to your kids and what do you get? Bleeding little basket wants to see you under the sod.â
âOne on top of the other, Dad.â
Dad steams out of sight and I consider what an ugly, weasel-faced old git he is. It is amazing to think that he could have produced something as overpoweringly lovely as myself. Sometimes I wonder if he actually did have a hand in it â or something more intimate. I have always found it disgusting to think of my Mum and Dad on the job but the thought of some invisible third-party â a prince or something like that â giving Mum one behind Battersea Town Hall seems much more favourite. The arse is always cleaner on the other side of the partition, if you know what I mean.
Of course, to be fair, you can understand Dad being a bit narked. When I was conned into signing on as a âProfessionalâ for nine years, he must have thought that he could fill every inch of my bedroom with nicked stuff from the lost-property office where he works. I use the word âworkâ in its loosest sense. Dad had to be carried into the nearest boozer when someone in his bus queue mentioned overtime. When Dad thought he had got rid of me, he reckoned without Sidâs ability to put the mockers on anything he comes into contact with. I will never forget the sight of Sidâs nuclear warhead drooping towards submarine level while the colonelâs lady shouted for action and all those Yanks with gaiters halfway up their legs bristled in the doorway. It is the nearest we have ever come to causing World War III. She was a funny woman, that one. Very strange. There canât be many birds who fancy a bit of in and out under the shadow of the ultimate deterrent â still, I expect you read all about it in ConfessionsofaPrivateSoldier so I wonât go on. (Of course, if you did not read about it, there is nothing to stop you nipping round the corner and having a word with your friendly local newsagent. If you ask him nicely he might be able to find you a copy â to say nothing much about the other titles in the series. For instance, there is â âBelt up and get on with it!â Ed. All right, all right! Iâve got to live, havenât I. Blimey, these blokes think you can nosh carbon paper. I am not surprised that LesMiserables packed it in after one book.)
Anyway, getting back to the present. There I am at 16, Scraggs Lane, ancestral home of the Leas since times immemorial after an unproductive brush with HM Forces. It might have done Mark Phillips a bit of good but I did not as much as catch sight of a corgiâs greeting card the whole time I was in the Loamshires. Ridiculous when you consider how many Walls sausages the family must have eaten over the years. And talking of food, here comes my Mum, that commodityâs greatest natural enemy. The only woman to have burned water.