Free Confessions of a Window Cleaner by Timothy Lea Page A

cakes and toast cut up into thin bits and a silver teapot and its friends. I look round for someone else but she waves me to sit down and starts filling a couple of cups. It’s not easy to park myself because the settee is one of those ones you either perch on the edge of or plunge down into and it takes me a bit of wriggling before I can get into a position to receive my cup.
    “Two lumps?”
    Mrs. A. drops them in with a pair of tongs as if they’re the final ingredient in a Doctor Frankenstein experiment. Since my experiences with Viv and Dorothy I’ve been quite at ease in this kind of situation but with Mrs. A. gazing past me out of the window my hands feel about eight sizes too large for the cup and I drop the spoon down the side of the settee. It’s the old upper class hypnotism I suppose. If she was Dorothy I’d be chattering away nineteen to the dozen. She has got nice legs though. I do notice that. She’s sitting on a pouf – a leather one, I hasten to add – and I can see quite a bit of them.
    “I don’t think you’ve met my daughters.” She nods towards the mantelpiece and for a moment I expect to see them sitting up there. In fact, there’s one of those great leather wallets full of photos of everybody including the nursemaid’s dog, and beside it a very posed photograph of two birds holding bunches of flowers. They must have been bridesmaids or something. Anyway they are both lookers and I say so. Mrs. A. nods graciously but continues to avoid my eyes as if she might catch something from them.
    “When they’re home,” she sighs, “it’s absolute bedlam. They are attractive, as you say and I have young men round here in droves.”
    I’m not certain what a drove is but I imagine it’s one of those flash wop sports cars. Alright for some, I think to myself.
    “Where are they now?” I say.
    “Oh, Fiona’s nursing at Guys and Viccy is at Sussex – University, you know.”
    I didn’t. I mean if she’d have said Manchester, should I have reckoned she played on the wing for United?
    “Of course, these boys do lead to some unexpected problems. Very flattering, though.”
    I nod understandingly and wonder what she is on about.
    “Do you find older women attractive?”
    I think of Marlene Dietrich and Mae West. I can never understand what all the fuss is about. I mean they are a bit past it, aren’t they?
    “Up to a point,” I say. “I mean, within reason.”
    “They’re not mine,” she says, indicating the photograph. “They’re by my late husband’s first marriage. I think she must have been rather an insecure woman. People who know her suggested she had a jealous nature and I think it’s carried over into the children.”
    I accept another piece of toast and bite into it so the butter runs down my chin. Mrs. A. is still looking out of the window and doesn’t notice.
    “I mean you’d think they’d be flattered if someone found their mother attractive, wouldn’t you?”
    I don’t think so at all, in fact it seems a bit disgusting even Dad finding my Mum attractive; though that must have been a long time ago. I start to say something but Mrs. A. rabbits on.
    “This Johnathan, I can’t even be certain that was his name. Anyway, he drinks too much at one of their terrible parties and we put him to bed. Poor boy, I know he’s always had a thing about me – I mean it’s perfectly natural, perfectly harmless. I’m trying to calm him down and Fiona comes in. Heavens, you should have heard the things that girl called me.
    “She totally lost control of herself. It was so embarrassing. What everybody else thought, I’ve no idea. Poor Johnathan, he was the one I was worried about. He was so upset he never came near the house again – and you can’t blame him.” She takes the empty tea cup out of my hand and sits down next to me on the sofa tugging her skirt down towards her knees.
    “Then there was Rollo. Now, he was a charming boy – absolutely charming. Much too good for