Kitabı oku: «Confessions of a Milkman»

CHAPTER TWO

‘You can imagine how I feel,’ says Fred Glossop. ‘Twenty years, that’s a long time.’

I rub my hands together and nod. I know how I feel: bleeding parky. And we have only just left the depot. Still, it is only six o’clock and it must get warmer – lighter, too.

‘Are you tired, lad?’

I swallow my yawn and try and look like I am just waiting to come out the traps at Harringay. ‘I didn’t sleep very well last night. I was a bit keyed up. You know what it’s, like when you want to be certain to wake up. You always wake up an hour earlier.’

Fred nods, showing neither interest nor sympathy. ‘If you can’t get yourself up in the morning you might as well forget about the job. I’ve never found it a problem myself.’

Fred Glossop must be about sixty and looks as if he has never heard anything but bad news all his life. You only have to start a sentence and he is nodding pessimistically before you have got further than ‘it’s a pity—’.

‘It’s going to be a bit of a problem when you retire,’ I say, listening to the whine of the float as we whirr past the lines of parked cars.

‘Oh no, not at all,’ says Fred – he disagrees with everything you say, as well. ‘I’ve always been able to amuse myself. My mind’s always on the go. That’s vital when you work by yourself. If you haven’t got an active mind you might as well forget it.’

‘Um, yes,’ I say. ‘This thing easy to drive, is it?’

An expression almost of horror arrives on Fred’s face. ‘You’re not going to drive it,’ he says looking towards the pavement as if hoping to find someone to share his amazement with. ‘Not yet. These are specialized vehicles, you know.’

‘It’s only a bloody great battery, isn’t it?’ I say, beginnig to feel a bit choked. ‘I don’t want to enter it for a Grand Prix.’

When you arrive at the depot in the morning all the battery-operated floats are on charge. The leads stretch away like mechanical milkers fastened to a cow’s udder. It is all very symbolic.

‘There’s no need for that tone,’ reprimands Fred. ‘After twenty years I ought to know the regulations. We’ll put you through your paces at the depot. You could be cut to pieces out here – look at that one!’ A car pulls out of the line in front of us without giving a signal and I catch a glimpse of a dry-faced man using an electric shaver with one hand while he drives with the other.

‘Off to the office?’ I say.

‘Or home,’ says Fred making a ‘tch, tch’ noise. ‘There’s a lot of it goes on round here. People’s moral values seem to have plummeted.’

‘You must have seen a lot of changes,’ I say. This remark is always guaranteed to give any boring old fart over the age of thirty-five enough to talk about for the rest of his life and Fred Glossop is no exception.

‘There’s no comparison,’ he says. ‘There’s not many of the old ones left. All these people coming in from outside have changed the whole character of the community. Look at that. Wire baskets of flowers hanging in the porch. I ask you! Of course, the kids from the Alderman Wickham Estate come and nick them.’ A certain grim satisfaction enters his voice and then fades quickly. ‘Still, they’re horrible little baskets themselves. Where are you from?’

I am not quite certain I care for the way he moves smoothly from talk of ‘horrible little baskets’ to an enquiry after my place of residence but I let the matter pass. ‘Scraggs Lane,’ I say.

‘Oh.’ Glossop sounds surprised. ‘You’re local then.’ His tone warms on learning that I am not a light-skinned Jamaican. ‘That hasn’t changed much, has it? Apart from the bits they’ve pulled down. The wife’s mother used to live there until they put her in a flat.’ He makes it sound like a cage – quite accurate really. Most of the flats do look like nesting boxes for mice. ‘Mrs Summers?’

I shake my head. ‘I expect my Mum knows her. Are you going to live round here when you retire?’

Glossop screws up his face like I have slipped a spoonful of cough mixture into his cakehole. ‘Worthing,’ he says. ‘Nice little bungalow. Near enough the front but not so you get the weather and the people. Know what I mean?’

I give him a ‘sort of’ kind of nod and wrap my arms round my body so that I can tuck my hands under my armpits. Gawd but it is taters. I can see why Fred Glossop wears mittens round his blue, bony fingers.

‘Cold, lad?’ he says glancing at me disparagingly. ‘This isn’t cold. Not compared with what it can be. If you find this cold —’

‘I’d better forget about the job. Yeah, I know,’ I say, finishing his sentence for him and wondering if I am going to be able to stand two weeks with such a miserable old sod. ‘How much longer before we get where we’re going.’

Glossop looks at me coldly and mutters something under his breath. ‘Just round the corner. Up Clyde Avenue, along Barton Way, The Estate, Clark Street, Thurleigh Avenue, south side of the common and back down Nightingale Road.’

‘Blimey,’ I say. ‘All human life is here.’

Glossop gives me a second helping of the freezing glances laced with a deep sigh and slams on the anchors. Our glorious progress is arrested and the crates of milk in the back make ‘tut, tut’ noises. ‘After a while you know what everybody has,’ he says. ‘It comes automatic. You’ll have to look in the book at first. When I collect the divis, that’s when I indulge in the sales chat. If a lady’s in a delicate condition for instance.’

‘You mean if she’s broken something?’ I say.

The red veins that run across Glossop’s face like a map of the world’s airlines leak some colour into his hollow cheeks ‘I mean, if she’s with child.’

‘Oh, I get it,’ I say. ‘When they’re in the pudding club you wack in with an extra pint?’

Glossop closes his eyes and nearly drops a couple of pints of homogenised. ‘Don’t be disgusting!’ he says. ‘You’ll never get anywhere if you talk like that. You have to present yourself to the public as a fount of practical knowledge and guidance on all matters relating to the beneficial properties of milk and its allied products. They have to respect you.’

‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I quite see that.’

What I am really clocking is the little darling leaning out of the bay window of what must be the sitting room. She is wearing a black, halter neck nightie and although her hair has been piled up on top of her head it is starting to tumble down temptingly.

‘Sweet little tits,’ says Glossop.

‘Not so little, either,’ I say.

Glossop switches his gaze from the bird table and I realize that there has been a misunderstanding, the judy tosses her head sulkily and closes the window. ‘You’ll have to watch your step,’ says Glossop. ‘I can’t see you lasting long at this rate.’

By eleven o’clock I am prepared to agree with him. My fingers feel as if they are going to drop off with the cold and I am knackered after struggling up and down hundreds of flights of stairs. I never knew there were so many flat developments. The biggest of them all is the Alderman Wickham Estate and that is where Fred Glossop looks at his watch and strokes his chin thoughtfully. ‘Um,’ he says. ‘I’m going to leave you here for a bit. I want to get something for the wife.’

‘How much do you think she’s worth?’ I ask.

Fred ignores my merry quip and makes off in the direction of the The Nightingale. It occurs to me that his ruddy conk may well be the result of drinking something a good deal stronger than milk. Boozers are often miserable old sods.

The Alderman Wickham Estate is a series of grey skyscrapers and concrete corridors which have very nasty niffs in them. Most of the lifts and rubbish chutes are out of order and the walls exist to show that there are some people who can’t even spell four-letter words. Cardboard boxes full of rubbish fall apart in every corner and I can see why Fred Glossop decided to take a powder.

I grab a crate of milk and the order book and head for the lift in Block F. It is out of order. That is no great surprise and I am heading for the stairs when I happen to glance back towards the float. A teeny tea leaf is in the process of half inching a couple of pints of ivory nectar. ‘Hey you!’ I bellow. I expect the little sod to put the stuff back but he darts across the tarmac still clinging to his swag. I do not hang about because Fred has explained that you get lumbered for any stocks that are lost or mislaid.

‘Come back here!’ I drop the crate and set off in pursuit like my whole future depends on it – which it might well do. I can’t see Fred taking kindly to any deductions from his last pay packet. The kid flashes up a flight of stairs and I am gaining fast when a plastic dustbin bounces down towards me and catches me just below the knees. The little perisher obviously fancies himself as James Bond. I pick myself up and come round the bend in the stairs just fast enough to see him taking off down a corridor. He stops outside the third door, and tries to open it. The door is locked. I allow myself a satisfied smile and begin to saunter down the corridor. A quick clip round the earholes and justice will be done. The kid tucks one of the bottles under his arm and reaches up to ring the doorbell. He is looking dead worried and his finger is pressed against the bell like it has become stuck to it.

‘All right, short arse,’ I say. ‘Hand them over.’ I step forward purposefully just as the door opens. A naked woman with dripping glistening boobs cops a pint in each hand. It would make a good advertisement really. The naked knockers and the milk. All together in the all together so to speak. It makes me wish I had drunk more of the stuff when I was a kid. About the age of the little bastard who is now scarpering back down the balcony.

‘What do you want?’ says the bint, retiring behind the door. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a woman before?’

‘I’m not certain,’ I say. ‘I thought I had but you make me have second thoughts. I reckon some of the others must have been blokes in drag.’

‘If that’s a compliment, thank you,’ says the bird. ‘Now piss off.’

She tries to close the door but I put my foot in it – something I do quite often. ‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘But that’s my milk you’re holding.’

It sounds a bit funny when I say it and the woman gives me an old-fashioned look in the area of the all the best. ‘As long as it tastes the same as the cow’s,’ she says.

‘Your kiddy nicked it off the float,’ I say, allowing an edge of impatience to creep into my voice. ‘If you don’t give us it back there could be trouble.’

‘You’re not our milkman,’ says the bird showing no sign of handing over the milk.

‘I’m helping Mr Glossop,’ I say. The bird’s face does not register recognition. ‘Meadowfresh,’ I prompt.

The woman shakes her head. ‘I’m with Universal,’ she says. ‘I’m quite satisfied.’ She gives a funny little smile when she says that and I wonder what she means. Because I have a mind like that it occurs to me that she may not be referring only to the practical guidance on the beneficial properties of milk and all the guff so dear to Fred Glossop’s heart.

‘You may be satisfied but I’m not,’ I say. ‘Your little boy has just knocked off two pints of Meadowfresh milk.’

‘I never saw the child before in my life,’ says the bird. ‘You want to be careful the things you say. Why don’t you go away and stop plaguing people? Do you know how much it costs to heat bath water these days?’

‘About the price of a couple of pints of milk, I should think,’ I say. ‘Now, hand them over please. I don’t want to have to get nasty. I saw him taking them off the float with my own eyes.’

I start to push forward but the bird throws her weight against the door. ‘I know who you are,’ she says. ‘You’re the one who’s been going round rattling the knocker flaps.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I say. ‘I’m a milkman!’ I get a bit narked at that point and give the Rory a vicious shove. It flies back and the bird drops one of the milk bottles which shatters on the floor. The carpet is soaked and pieces of glass fly everywhere. The bird lets out a cry of pain and irritation and I immediately felt guilty.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean to do that.’

‘I should hope not,’ says the bird. She is trying to cover up her very obvious charms with a couple of arms and the remaining milk bottle and I feel that I ought to do something to make amends.

‘Where’s the kitchen?’ I say. ‘I’ll get a rag and clean it up.’

‘I should bloody well think so,’ says the bird. ‘If it wasn’t for the neighbours I’d call the police. Barging in here like some rapist. You don’t come from Cambridge, do you?’

Despite the way the bird is going on at me I can’t help feeling that she is well able to look after herself. She has a big pouting mouth and her lower lip sticks forward aggressively like it is trying to upper cut the end of her hooter. She is not tall but very curvy in all the places you would first look if checking her for smuggling hot water bottles. I rather fancy her bristling with anger – or perhaps I should say bristoling.

‘I’m on probation,’ I say, deciding to try and defuse the situation with a little chat.

‘That’s reassuring,’ says the bird over her shoulder as she disappears into the bathroom.

‘I mean I’m having a trial,’ I say.

‘My old man always went on probation after the trial,’ says the bint reappearing in a lilac-covered frilly housecoat. ‘Then they got his number and threw him in the nick.’

‘A trial as a milkman,’ ‘I say. ‘That’s why I was a bit up tight about the milk. I don’t want to put my foot in it.’

‘You just have,’ says the bird. ‘Gawd, you’re a clumsy custard, aren’t you? Don’t wipe it on the carpet!’

‘If you give me a rag—’

‘You’ll make even more of a mess. I’ll do it. You pick up the pieces of glass.’

It is funny but it is much more sexy now that she has the housecoat on. All pink and visible she was a bit overpowering. Especially with me wearing my these and those. I don’t mind being in the buff with a chick – in fact, I have been known to quite like it – but I never reckon it when one of us is standing there with all the clobber on and the other is as naked as a Tory Party Election manifesto. I can’t really think why. It just doesn’t seem natural.

‘Where’s your old man now?’ I ask.

‘I told you,’ she says. ‘In the nick.’

We are both kneeling down now and could post a letter in the gap between her knockers – mind you, it wouldn’t get very far even if the postman enjoyed opening the box.

‘You must be lonely,’ I say.

‘I don’t miss him,’ she says. ‘Thieving was the only thing he was good at – and he wasn’t very good at that, was he?’

‘I suppose not,’ I say. I am so busy looking at her knockers that I jab my finger against a bit of glass and cut it. ‘Ouch!’

‘I read you for a cack-handed twit the moment you came through the door,’ says the bird without great warmth. ‘Don’t drip all over the carpet! Blimey, come in the bathroom.’ She shoves my finger under the cold tap and rummages in the medicine cabinet. ‘Blast! There’s never one there when you want it.’

‘You play with those rubber ducks, do you?’ I say, looking at the tray across the bath.

‘Don’t be daft. They’re the—’ The bird breaks off and waves a finger at me. ‘Oh, cleversticks, eh? Trying to get back to your bleeding milk, are you? Listen, my kiddy would never take anything that didn’t belong to him.’

‘As opposed to his old man,’ I say.

‘That’s a nasty thing to say,’ says the bird striking a pose with her hands on her hips. ‘And me helping you out, too. I’d ask you to withdraw that remark. You’re the one who’s come barging in here without foundation.’

I nearly laugh when she talks about foundations because she could really do with one. She looks like the kind of woman who Marjorie Proops would take in hand and help to get the best out of herself. Mind you, I would not climb over her to get to Cyril Smith. She is quite handsome if you go for gentle curves – especially with the front of her housecoat drifting open and a hint of furry knoll revealing itself. The lady follows my eyes and draws her gown haughtily around her.

‘Cheeky bastard,’ she says. ‘What are you looking at?’

‘Your bath water’s getting cold,’ I say, sticking my finger in it.

‘Don’t do that! I don’t want your bloody finger in it!’ She springs forwards and grabs hold of my arm and there we are – touching each other in half a dozen different places at the same time, heaving, breathing – it is like an old Charlton Heston religious epic.

‘Hop in and I’ll scrub your back,’ I say.

The bird looks into my eyes and I hold my breath whilst continuing breathing. ‘You’d look,’ she says.

I shake my head. ‘Not so you’d notice.’

‘Keep your bleeding finger out of it.’

‘There must be an answer to that,’ I say.

But she isn’t listening. She slips out of her robe, chucks it over my head, and by the time I have taken it off she is in the bath, leaning forward so that her bristols are brushing against her knees – that’s something Wedgwood Benn can’t do. ‘All right,’ she says. ‘The soap’s behind you.’ She is right too. I grab hold of it and work up a nice rich lather. Cor, can’t be bad, can it? I knew there must be more to this milkman business than complaining about the empties not being washed out properly. I kneel down beside the bath and apply my Germans to the lady’s I’m alright. (I’m all right, Jack: Back; Ed) Oh dear. The moment I feel the soft, warm flesh, Percy gets an attack of the space probes. How untoward of him. I am trying to break the tension between myself and this Richard, and the old groin greyhound has to introduce another fifteen and a half centimetres of it – note: a metric-mad mick makes for more majestic mating, men.

‘Is that all right?’ I say.

‘I’ve known worse,’ says the bird. ‘Did you ever use to clean windows?’

‘Yes I did,’ I say. ‘That’s amazing! How did you know?’

‘Because you’ve practically pushed a couple of panes out of the middle of my back! Go a bit easy, will you?’

‘It’s the effect you have on me,’ I say. ‘I’m trying to be gentle but something about you excites my blood.’

‘Blimey!’ says the judy. ‘You’ve seen too much telly, haven’t you? Where did you learn to talk like that?’

‘It comes naturally,’ I say modestly.

‘Uum. Not the only thing I should think. I’m not surprised you’ve dropped the soap – OOH!’

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It slipped.’

‘It didn’t slip there, there isn’t room for it! Mind what you’re doing!’

‘Perhaps I’d better try the other side,’ I say.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ she says.

‘Not if you don’t.’ I wack off another handful of lather and slap it onto her knockers – well, not so much slap as get it on before she can complain too loudly. Not that she does complain too loudly – in fact, she doesn’t complain at all. Her nipples turn to large acorns beneath my fingers and she closes her eyes and shivers.