Confessions of a Window Cleaner (5 page)

“Very nice,” I gulp. “Er, it makes you look very sexy.”

“You don’t sound very convinced,” she says. “How do you like it, hot and strong like Sid?”

She has this habit of suddenly switching from one subject to another which throws me a bit.

“You mean the tea?”

“What else?”

“Anyway it comes, I’m not fussy.”

“Why don’t you sit down. You make me nervous standing there.”

I sit down and find myself playing with the sugar bowl and trying to think of something to say.

“I think we’re going to have a storm,” I manage eventually.

“Shouldn’t wonder,” she puts a cup of tea in front of me and sits down on the other side of the table.

“Do you smoke?”

“No thanks.”

She lights a fag and blows a puff of smoke at me as if from a peashooter. She’s got that amused, distant look on her face again.

“Cheer up.”

That’s always a disastrous thing to say to me because it’s like telling a bloke you can see his trousers are falling down.

“I’m very happy” I say and listen to the silence. If only I could be like Sid. He’d be chatting her up and dancing about so the whole thing would be like ‘Spring in Park Lane’. The same though obviously occurs to Viv because she rests her head in her hand and gazes at me sadly.

“You’re a quiet one compared to Sid,” she says.

“Still waters.”

“Pardon?”

“Still waters run deep.”

“Oh, I see. You’re a deep one, are you?”

“Well, I don’t know about that—”

She gets up and comes behind me resting her fingers lightly on my shoulders for a second.

“How deep do you go?”

“What do you—”

“—It doesn’t matter. Have another cup of tea.”

She reaches down past me and her warm arm brushes against the side of my face. Now’s your chance, I shout to myself but by the time I get around to moving, she’s over the other side of the kitchen filling the teapot.

“There you are,” she says, “a nice cup of cha. Do you fancy a biscuit?”

“Yes, very nice. Ta.”

She couldn’t be more obliging but she’s obviously waiting for me to do something. So am I.

“Chocolate finger or a ginger nut?”

“Ginger nut, please.”

“I won’t join you because I have to watch my figure.”

“I should think you have a lot of company.” That’s not bad and I can see it goes down well.

“Cheeky. No, its alright for an old married woman, I suppose, but I have to work at it.”

“What does your old man do—” I say very casual.

“Oh, he’s in the navy. In Singapore at the moment, lucky basket. I can just imagine what he’s up to.”

I’m glad there are a few thousand miles between us.

“How long is he away for?”

“Oh, months at a time. Why, are you thinking of moving in?”

“It’s an idea.”

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic. I know some blokes who would jump at the chance.”

I would jump at it too if I wasn’t such a stupid tongue-tied twat. I can listen to myself like some gormless berk you overhear on the bus and feel sorry for, but I can’t get off my arse and tell her I want to fuck her. I feel it so badly I’m nearly crying but it’s stuck inside me and I don’t think anything is going to bring it out. Now, I can’t think of a thing to say. Not a single bloody little word. I’m sitting there concentrating and I know my face is setting as if its in a jelly mould. I’ve got to get out. The whole thing was a stupid mistake. Its much better if you stick to thinking about it. I stand up fast and my knee jars the tea cup across the table.

“Well—” And then it rains. It doesn’t just rain, it explodes. One moment there’s nothing and then the water is hitting the ground like bullets. One moment Viv is looking at me startled the next our eyes are pulled towards the window. Its frightening – and exciting. Watching it I forget my tensions and when she struggles to close the top window I help her and our bodies are touching and the rain’s splashing all over our faces. I don’t know whether she starts kissing me first or it’s the other way round but it seems like the most natural thing in the world and when I feel her beautiful soft mouth against mine I want to come, it’s so fantastic. Her housecoat falls open and I pull her down on the floor knocking over the garbage bucket as we go. All the rubbish spills out and for some reason I find myself looking at a tin which says ‘Honest Katkins – a satisfied cat or your money back’. But not for long. Viv is coming at me like eight drunken Irishmen locked in the ladies’ and she tears at my fly like it’s the way out of a burning building.

“Get it in, get it in!” she hollers and I’m struggling with my skin tight jeans in a graveyard of potato peelings. I tear my boots off with my feet practically still in them and she’s plucking the buttons off my shirt as if she’s shelling peas. Talk about ‘Beat the Clock’. At last I get my jeans off and she grabs my cock like it’s a lifebelt and she’s going down for the third time.

“Come here,” she howls, and I’m so twitched up I nearly do – on the spot. Once she’s got her hands on you you’d be a fool to try and resist and I’m inside her faster than a pouf on a choirboys outing. Then she really starts. If I didn’t know I’d think she’d just plugged herself into the electrical circuit. I’m not complaining mind you, but it’s all a bit overpowering for me considering it’s my first time and I soon realise that things are getting out of control.

“Yowee,” I howl and suddenly its like going over a bump on a toboggan incredibly fast. Everything speeds up and I hear myself shouting as if from the other end of a long corridor.

“Thank you, thank you,” I sob, “you’re marvellous, fantastic—”

Viv moves her head to one side and squints down my body.

“You’ve cut your heel,” she says, ‘We’d better put something on it before you bleed all over the mat.”

When I leave Mrs. Stanmore’s – that was Viv’s name because I saw an envelope with her address and a foreign stamp on it in the kitchen – I feel about a hundred feet tall. I’ve scored at last and I want to rush off and tell everybody about it. I am a bit disappointed that Viv seems so unaffected and is thumbing through the T.V. Times when I leave but you can’t have everything. The main thing was that I’ve got my end away, and on my first day too. I rolled my eyes at all the girls I passed and wonder if they knew what they are missing. And a married woman too. She must have been on the pill – or something. How should I tell Sid? For no reason that I can think of I terrify everybody waiting for a bus outside Balham Station by shouting ‘Up the Blues!’ and race myself home.

But I don’t have to tell Sid. A couple of hours later he comes in and chucks himself down in front of the telly. Mum was getting tea and Rosie is washing her hair. Dad is presumably down at the Linnet explaining to those who haven’t heard it before how he won the Second World War.

“How’s it go?” I say waiting for him to ask the same question.

“Much as usual. I brought your ladder back.”

That takes the wind out of my sails. Sid grins.

“Yeah, you start leaving those all over the place and its going to get expensive.”

“Sorry Sid, my mind just went blank.”

“Only just?”

I try and smile but I don’t really feel like it. What did Sid go back for? I don’t have to wait long to find out.

“Viv told me you had a little tussle. Very little I believe, You’ll have to do better than that with Viv, she’s a very greedy girl.”

It occurs to me that Sid has secretly been a bit jealous once he’s handed over his bird and hopped back smartish to see that everything is alright. His swagger suggests that he has been reassured that he is still Number One in the farm yard. Lucky old Viv. She’ll really be looking up when we take on a few partners. I can’t help feeling a bit choked about it but at the same time the fact that Sid might have been worried gives me confidence. I’ve never known him show any signs of flapping before.

“She didn’t seem overimpressed with you if you must know.” I lie.

Sid goes scarlet. “What did she say?”

“Oh, nothing really. It’s not worth talking about.”

“Go on. What did she say?”

“Well, she said – oh, no. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Sid.”

“She didn’t say anything. You’re lying.”

“That’s right Sid. I was just having a little joke.”

“She’s never complained to me.”

“No, of course not.”

Poor Sid. You can see him racking his mind to think of every single time he’s had it away with her.

“She said I was the best poke she’d ever had.”

“Well, there you are.”

“What did she say?”

“I told you Sid. It was nothing really.”

Sid is starting to speak again when Mum comes in with our tea.

“What you got lined up for me tomorrow?” I says to him all innocent like.

“You can get stuffed,” he snarls, and storms out, nearly knocking over Mum’s tray.

“What’s the matter with him,” she says. “You two haven’t been quarrelling have you? Not when you’ve only just started together. Oh, dear, that’s not very nice is it?”

“It’s alright Mum,” I say loud enough for Sid to hear before the front door closes, “he’s strained his groin and I was telling him to look after himself.”

That’s the last bit of spare I get from Sid and for the next few weeks our relationship is dead official. Every morning he gives me a list of addresses and tells me the area he wants me to cover and off we cycle in opposite directions.

My little adventure with Viv has totally changed my approach to women and I’m now a different person. It’s like learning to ride a bike. Once you find you can stay up there’s no holding you. In fact, looking back I think I overdid it a bit. I was all straining biceps and too-tight T-shirts; whistling through clenched teeth and bouncing about like the bloke who takes your money on the Giant Whip. I must have looked like the cover of ‘Butch Male’. Not that I didn’t realise there was room for improvement. I had sensed that Viv went off the boil pretty quickly, before Sid started riding me, and it was easy to tie this in with the fact that I’d been in and out of her faster than the Pope mistaking the local Synagogue for the Gents.

I went down the Junction and bought a book about it from one of those shops that you can never look in the window of without someone appearing beside you. I had exactly the right money and I threw it down and snatched up the book before the wet-lipped old pouf behind the counter had finished leering, “Do you need any other personal requisites?” at me.

It’s very interesting reading and I’m full of things I didn’t know, like birds taking longer to get warmed up than fellows. It occurs to me that if Viv was just getting into her stride she’d bloody kill you once she got going. Anyhow, I get the message that I’m supposed to stick around a bit longer and in this connection there is an interesting passage on something called ‘carezza’. With this you think about a subject totally unrelated to what you’re doing so you don’t boil over. In other words if you think you’re going to come, you immediately start concentrating on your grandmother’s budgerigar. It seems alright to me as long as you have a wide range of things to think about. I mean, I wouldn’t fancy getting a hard on every time I saw grandma’s budgie.

There’s also a lot of other stuff in the book which they say, to my relief, is quite normal. I had always thought I was kinky just thinking about it. At the back are some illustrations which are sealed so you can’t open them till you buy the book. I tear the pages open hungrily but there are only a couple of pictures of cocks and fannies with all their working parts and the posh names for them. Vas Deferens. It sounds like a pop singer.

Now, as you can imagine, all this fruity reading plus the taste I’ve had from Viv is making me keener than a new razor blade and I’m really keeping my eyes open. I don’t have long to wait.

“Don’t hang about out there,” she says, “You’ll catch your death.”

It’s turned a bit colder now and it’s a day that reminds you of what winter is going to be like. I’m standing under the only tree in her little back garden and I’m still getting wet.

“Rain is a nuisance isn’t it?” she says. “If it had started earlier I could have saved myself a few bob – I’m only joking of course.”

She touches my arm quickly to prove she means it. It’s a good sign that arm touching. Viv did it too. It’s like squeezing fruit in a greengrocers. It shows interest and concern. A desire to make contact.

“You’d better have a cup of tea now you’re here, hadn’t you? You know I’m quite glad you showed up. I’d been meaning to do something about the windows for ages. They’re a disgrace, aren’t they?”

She wasn’t one of the regulars on Sid’s list but a bird who had come darting out as I cycled past. A bit on the tall side but with big eyes and good legs. I like her.

“But it’s one of those things, like having the chimney swept. Somehow you can never bring yourself to do anything about it until the grate is full of soot.”

She’s rabbiting on as if she’s really glad to have someone to talk to. I suppose it must get a bit lonely when your old man is away all day and the children are at school and it’s pissing down with rain. The boozer’s shut and you’d get a few raised eyebrows if you went in there on your tod. You might go to the flicks but that’s like a morgue in the afternoon and some nutcase will probably start trying to touch you up. A cup of tea with one of your mates and a natter about the kids is the most you can look forward to. It’s not much is it?

“Sorry the place is in such a mess but I usually do the washing today. Could go down the launderette, I suppose, but I don’t fancy using the same machine as some coon. You know what I mean?”

It’s funny how after the first time I’m so relaxed. I’m letting her do all the talking and I’m thinking about her – not me.

“Still takes all sorts doesn’t it,” I say. “My old man can’t stand the Irish. Always on about the night they chucked one through the window of the Linnet. He’s dead funny like that.”

“Oh, don’t misunderstand me. I’ve nothing against them. There’s good and bad on all sides. It’s just that we got a few hard nuts round here.”