Confessions from a Health Farm

‘Wanda Zonker,’ says Sid as if he is glad to get it off his chest. ‘She’s a remarkable woman. She’s a beautician and health food specialist. I’m thinking of getting together with her to open a health farm.’

‘Where’s the money coming from?’ says Dad.

‘I’ve got a bit tucked away,’ says Sid.

‘So you’ve just told us,’ says Dad. ‘I was asking about the money.’

Sid does not take kindly to the implication behind this remark.

‘Shut your mouth, you disgusting old rat bag!’ he snaps. ‘Rosie will probably be coming in with us. There’s nothing underhand about what I’m doing. Nothing compared to nicking stuff from the lost property office and keeping the hall stand full of filthy Swedish magazines.’

‘How did you know they were Swedish, clever shanks!?’ exults Dad. ‘You’ve been peeping, haven’t you?’

‘Please!’ I say, desperate to raise the standard of argument a few notches above crutch level. ‘Can’t we forget about “Swedish Spanking Party, Volumes 1–5” and concentrate on something more intellectually stimulating?’

‘You were at them and all, were you?’ says Dad. ‘Marvellous, isn’t it? I only bring them home for the articles and I’m being branded as some kind of pervert.’

‘What articles?’ says Sid. ‘“How spanking saved my marriage”? “Spanking round the world”? “Cooking for spankers”?’

‘Nothing like that!’ snorts Dad. ‘I mean the articles by famous living men of letters. I don’t look at the pictures.’

‘Yeah. Smoke rises from his fingers, he turns the pages over so fast,’ sneers Sid.

‘ “Wanda Zonker”?’ says Mum. ‘She foreign, is she?’ There is a strong note of disapproval in her voice. Mum has been around long enough to know that foreigners cause most of the trouble in the world.

‘Yes, Mum. She’s a Lithuanian.’

‘Oh.’ Mum does not sound as if that is the best news she has heard since the end of World War Two. ‘Where’s that?’

Sid looks round the room and shrugs his shoulders. ‘I don’t know, Mum.’

‘I’ve never met anyone who did know,’ says Mum suspiciously. ‘You want to watch those Lithuanians. There’s a lot of them about and nobody knows where they come from. You want to ask her if you see her again.’

‘If she says Peckham, he’s not going to know whether she’s telling the truth or not,’ says Dad.

‘It’s definitely abroad,’ says Mum.

‘ “Next week, our panel of experts will be discussing Euthanasia – does it come too late?” ’ says Sid in his posh announcer voice. ‘Come on, Timmo. I’ll go bonkers if I hang around here much longer. I’m nipping round to see Wanda now. I’ll introduce you.’

‘You watch yourself,’ says Dad. ‘Don’t sign anything.’

‘Tell you what I’ll do,’ says Sid. ‘When it’s all fixed up I’ll give you a fortnight’s free treatment. That’ll open your eyes – your pores, your bowels, everything!’

‘Don’t be disgusting!’ Dad’s voice echoes after us as we bundle out of the front door.

Sid rubs his hands together and a faraway look comes into his eyes. ‘Ooh. I wouldn’t half like to get him in one of those dry heat cabinets,’ he says. ‘I’d turn the bleeding knob up to maximum and watch his nut turn scarlet. Twenty minutes later there would be nothing left but a puddle in the bottom of the cabinet.’

‘Sid! Please! That’s my old man you’re talking about.’

Sid shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry. I keep forgetting that he’s a human being.’ Sid has been bashing the horror movies a bit lately and I think that they have an unfortunate effect on him. He is always knocking back his char with a maniacal laugh and saying, ‘Today, Clapham. Tomorrow the world!’ I could belt him sometimes.

‘Where does this tart live?’ I ask.

An expression of pain flashes across Sid’s features. ‘Watch it,’ he says. ‘She’s quality, this bird. Refined. You know what I mean?’

‘She washes her hands before she goes to the karsi?’

Sid shakes his head. ‘Don’t take the piss, Timmo. She’s living in reduced circumstances at the moment but she’s still a lady.’

‘How did you meet her?’ I ask.

‘Down the whelk stall in Northcote Road.’

‘Oh yes. Very salubrious,’ I say. ‘Washing them down with a glass of bubbly, was she?’

‘Whelks happen to be one of the great health foods,’ says Sidney loftily. ‘You wouldn’t cocoa some of the things whelks can do for you.’

‘I know what they do for me,’ I say. ‘And when you see them they look as if they’ve already done it.’

‘Gordon Bennett! You’re disgusting, you are. You take after your old man, there’s no doubt about it.’

‘Leaving the whelks to one side,’ I say. ‘What is this bird doing at the moment?’

‘She’s practising her craft,’ says Sid. ‘She’s a fully qualified masseuse as well as all the other things. She’s got a string of initials after her name long enough to spell out your moniker.’

All the time we are rabbiting, Sid is pushing the Rover 2000 towards Battersea Park and the river – I don’t mean literally, though with the price of petrol what it is today you could be excused for wondering.

‘I think it’s very nice round here,’ I say. ‘All those trees and the kids digging up the snowdrops.’

‘Oh it is,’ says Sid. ‘But it’s not what she’s used to. Back in Druskininkai, things were different.’

‘I imagine they would be,’ I say, philosophically.

‘Here we are.’ Sid stops outside a block of flats facing the park and we get out. The column of bell pushes looks like the buttons on a giant’s waistcoat but the front door is open and Sid sweeps over the threshold and heads for the stairs. It is funny, but I have never visited anybody in a block of flats who did not live either in the basement or right at the bleeding top. Sometimes I think that the floors in between are used for storing old furniture. There is never any sign of life on them. Not so the top floor of Porchester Mansions. The whole place is vibrating and the squeaking skylight sets your teeth on edge, the noise it is making.

‘She must have a client,’ says Sid.

‘If she does embalming she could have another one,’ I pant. ‘Blimey, those stairs don’t half knacker you.’

‘Because you’re so bleeding unfit,’ says Sid contemptuously. ‘Look at me, I’m hardly out of breath. It’s all a question of diet and a few exercises.’

I take a quick shufti at Clapham’s answer to Paul Newman and I have to confess that he does not look in bad nick. Maybe Madam Zonker knows a thing or two.

Just as that moment there is a long drawn out moan that quite puts the mockers on me. I am not surprised that the pigeon which has landed on the skylight relieves itself. I feel a bit edgy myself.

‘What’s that?’ I say.

‘Dunno,’ says Sid. ‘She seems to have finished anyway.’