Timothy Lea's Complete Confessions. Timothy Lea

I associate with dew-soaked meadows and oast houses – I think it was one of those butter advertisements. She is obviously nervous because she is fiddling with the entry form between her fingers.

      I feel I want to help her.

      “Look, it doesn’t matter. You go in for the contest and we’ll worry about that afterwards. You want to go in for it, don’t you?”

      “Yes, but what am I going to do about this form?”

      “Just put down your date of birth. Nobody is going to check it. It’s all a bit of a giggle anyway, isn’t it? Think how chuffed your old man would be if you won, even if you were disqualified later.”

      “That’s another thing.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Well, I told Ron about the contest and he said I was mad – that I didn’t have a chance – that I would make him a laughing stock.”

      Tears glisten in her eyes and I reckon that even Mr. Francis would expect me to make with the sympathy. Nasty Ron!

      “Now, come on,” I say. “I’ve told you before. You’re a very, very attractive woman. I don’t want to say anything rude about your husband, but maybe he hasn’t taken a good look at you lately.”

      “He said I was fat.”

      Her lip starts trembling and a big tear forms and topples slowly down her cheek. I am outraged.

      “Fat!!? You’re—you’re delicious—”

      I offer her my handkerchief and she takes my hand and kisses it. The poor girl is obviously desperate for reassurance and affection. I cannot quite remember what it said in my Holiday Host Manual but I am certain I am supposed to supply both. “There, there, you mustn’t cry,” I say, taking her gently in my arms. “Fat? Your husband doesn’t, realise what a lucky man he is. Curvy, maybe, and soft, certainly, you have the softest skin—” I am stroking her cheek— “—and lips.” I run my fingers along her lower lip and kiss her gently. “You go out there and really show them tonight.” I can feel the tears cool against my cheek as I stroke her spine.

      “But—”

      “No buts. You’re beautiful. Come on, I’ll show you.”

      An alarm bell is clanging in my mind but I silence it with the pressure of my fingers around her waist and steer her over to the mirror. Her dress has buttons all down the front and from behind I gently release them, one by one, allowing my hands to steal in and massage the territory revealed.

      “Beautiful breasts—” I reassure her, ”—slim waist—gorgeous thighs—just look at your legs, they’re great. What have you got to worry about?”

      I know what I should be worrying about but I have less chance of pulling back now than a piece of fluff at the mouth of a suction cleaner. I turn her round and kiss her warmly on the mouth, pulling the dress down and off her arms so that I can drop it on to a convenient chair.

      “You won’t let me come last, will you?” she breathes, as we topple on to the bed.

      I think she is referring to the Beauty Contest.

      Half an hour later she has been sent on her way rejoicing and I am struggling into my clobber again. I am now late for my next assignment and feeling decidedly knackered. It is therefore with some anxiety that I hear another knock on my door. Thinking that it is my last visitor who has left something behind, or Ted coming to chase me up, I throw it open to be faced with – you’ve guessed it – Else’ wearing enough makeup to kit out a tribe of Red Indians and a T-shirt that is stretched so tight across her tits that you can see the indentations on her nipples.

      “I want to have a word with you,” she says.

      “Evidently,” I say, wondering whether to slam the door in her face, or try and run for it. “Which one do you want to have?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “It doesn’t matter.” Why does Gary Grant never have my trouble getting through to birds? “What is it? I’m in a hurry.”

      “I want to show you something.”

      “Oh, yeah.”

      “Can I come in?”

      “I suppose so.”

      I haven’t got the strength to stop her anyway. As she skates through the door, I notice that she has something clasped in her hand which looks like a kid’s handkerchief.

      “What is it, then?”

      “I wanted to ask you about my costume.”

      “What about it?”

      She holds up the fragment of material in front of herself and I can see that it is one of those costumes that have bloody great holes everywhere except where there is black mesh.

      “In the rules, it says you have to wear a one-piece costume. Will this do? I mean, it doesn’t cover my tummy and it does plunge very low at the back.”

      “Well, if it’s all fastened together it should

      “Probably better if I showed you.”

      Hey, hang on a moment!”

      “You can look the other way if you like.” And the shameless little cow starts tugging her T-shirt over her nut.

      “I told miseryguts Brian I was going to do this and he said I wouldn’t dare.”

      “I would have agreed with him. Do you realise I could be sacked if anybody came in now?”

      She is now revealing a neat pair of bristols with bell push nipples, and wastes no time in lowering her shorts to reveal the smallest pair of panties I have seen outside the toddlers’ paddling pool.

      “Here,” she says, looking at me without a flicker of embarrassment disturbing her sly little features. “Do you think you could pull a few strings?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “You know. Get me amongst the prizewinners. You’re one of the judges, aren’t you? I could make it worth your while.”

      “Don’t be ridiculous.”

      “Go on. I quite fancy you anyway. I’m fed up with old misery guts mauling me.” She is closing with me fast and once again my split personality betrays me. Like a punch drunk boxer hearing the count near ten Percy begins to pull himself up off the canvas. Ferret-fingered Else’ immediately adds to my problems by making a direct frontal assault and in an instant I have stumbled back against the bed and am at her mercy.

      “Just somewhere in the first three,” she says, as she slips out of her panties.

      “Ooh, you’re lovely, you really are.”

      I never ever see her in her bleeding bathing costume and by the time she leaves I am prepared to climb out of a window to get away from the place. My fingers are shaking as I knot my tie for the third time and I nearly bash my head on the ceiling when somebody laughs as they go by outside. By the cringe, but you have to be in peak physical condition if you want to hold down a job in this place.

      After the events of the last couple of hours, it is with a feeling of pure horror that I see Mr. “Hanky Panky” Francis himself approaching as I stagger down the pathway that leads from my chalet. No doubt the maid has cracked under interrogation, or one of the informers rumoured to lurk amongst the holidaymakers, has squealed. As he comes nearer I cast down my eyes and cold fear invades my person.

      “Afternoon, laddie,” he observes, “keeping your end up?”

      I give him a bit of an old fashioned look at that one, but his expression does not suggest any secondary meaning to that normally associated with the phrase.

      “Keep smiling,” he observes and, flashing his Ted Heath’s, wanders on his way.

      Fortunately,