Chapter 11

Old new friends

I was watching cartoons on the TV this bright sunny Saturday morning when I could hear Tobes outside yelling my name,

TOBY: LEO! LEO! LEO!

My Dad had told Toby off for unnecessarily and continually yelling though the letterbox and knocking repeatedly on the front door when my Dad was on nightshift.

So now Tobes had resorted to yelling out my name at a safe distance, just in case my Dad came to the door first. Toby is in the middle of the road shouting my name.

As I go to the front door, I can see Tobes short shadow outline though the frosted door glass some meters back. As I open the door Toby jumps back.

TOBY: FUCK! I thought it was your Dad!

ME: What do you want, I’m watching cartoons on TV!

TOBY: You got any money?

ME: NO?

TOBY: Come on then, I got me washing gear, lets go wash some cars,

ME: You don’t need me, you can get all the money,

TOBY: Yeah, but cos I’m small, people think that I might climb onto the cars bonnet or boot lid to clean the roof,

ME: What do you mean, think you will get on the bonnet to clean the roof? That’s what you fucking well do anyway!

TOBY: Yeah! But Leo, if they see you first, because you are taller, and look like your sixteen, and they know you can reach the roof. Come on Leo, I really need the money for Mums birthday card!

I know he’s right about the birthday, because I herd my Mum saying that Toby’s Mum was having a celebration drink and buffet in a local pub this weekend,

ME: Ok, just gotta turn off the TV,

Even at the ages of 15, me and my mates were always skint. So me and Toby go car washing.

We would walk the streets with a metal bucket, a shammy leather, and an old sponge that had seen better days. We would knock on doors asking people if they wanted a car wash done for some small change.

We knew some people had moved into a house in our street but had never seen them around. There was an old four-wheel drive vehicle called an “Austin Gipsy” that was covered in mud, and parked right outside the house of our new arrivals to our street.

I knocked on the door…

A man (Alain) in his mid to late twenties answers the door. Alain is stocky, tanned, and has a scruffy beard. I cannot make out his accent, but he is clearly not from London,

ALAIN:  Well then, what ya after matey?

ME: We wash cars for small change, is that your car there?

ALAIN: Yeah, it does need a wash, how much?

Toby pushes past me,

TOBY: Sixty pence!

ALAIN: Yeah! OK!

We ask Alain to fill up our metal bucket with some warm water. Once Alain has returned the bucket and has gone back into his house, Toby gets a large plastic bottle out of his pocket, and then pours from the bottle some thick looking brown coloured liquid that was Vaseline hair washing shampoo for “greasy hair”, that he had high-jacked from his big sisters’ bedroom, into the pale of warm water.

We wash the Austin Gipsy four-wheel drive down in hair shampoo and we think it’s a job well done. It’s all shiny as expected, just like it says on the shampoo bottle, “Leaves your hair shiny and full of bounce”, It was Shinny, yes, I’m not sure about the bounce though.

I expect that if Toby had got access to his Mum’s washing machine conditioner that would had been used during the rinsing cycle.

After Alain had done an inspection and gave the car a strange close-up sniff, we are invited into his house for some cordial and biscuits.

ME: Are you Australian?

ALAIN: LOL, NO! I get that a lot. South Africa is where I am from. Cape Town,

TOBY: Why you here?

ALAIN: I’m a teacher, and so is my girlfriend, and my other friends living here,

TOBY: Is that why your car was so muddy, you drove here from Africa,

Me and Alain laugh,

TOBY: What’s up?

ALAIN: NO! we got a plane here, we bought the four-wheel drive Jeep thing to drive back to Cape town down though France, Spain, and then we get a ferry to Africa, and drive down all the way to Cape town,

ME: Why you driving back to Cape Town, and not flying back?

ALAIN: Yes, Ok, let me explain. We met and made new friends here in London. They are also from Cape Town, and we all had this idea about driving back to Cape Town because we have never been to the top half of Africa. Africa is a Huge, Huge place,

ME and TOBY: OHHH!

ALAIN: We are all saving up for the trip back by living together, its cheaper like this. We just bought the four-wheel Jeep thing and tried it out yesterday in some woods at Bromley.

As we sat in the kitchen a petit young woman with big lensed BI-focal glasses wearing a long dressing gown walk’s in,

ALAIN: And here is Hazel. Hazel! Meet Leo and Toby. Hazel is my girlfriend. Hey! Guys want to earn some more money.

ME and TOBY: Yeah!

ALAIN: The back garden needs a mow and tidy up. One pound fifty?

Toby gets up quick from his chair,

TOBY: YEP! Come on Leo, I need the Money!

Alain and Hazel giggle at Toby’s enthusiasm,

ALAIN: Right! I gotta go out for a while, I’ll see you all a bit later then,

Me and Toby take turns mowing and tiding the garden, then start throwing the cut grass at each other along with some clumps of attached dirt because we had adjusted the petrol lawn mowers cutter to run to close to the ground, then tided it all up (again)

Alain returns and walks into the back garden via a gated side entrance.

ALAIN: Hello guys, the garden looks great, but you two look filthy. Why don’t you both clean up in the bathroom, and when your ready, I’ll be out front fixing the car,

We go into the bathroom and look around. I go and have a look at the shower,

ME: Look at this shower, its nice and big. I’m gonna have a shower,

TOBY: I need a shit!

As I get my cloths off Toby makes himself comfortable on the throne and picks up a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine that’s on the floor to flick though. In the shower I can hear Toby on the toilet, “Plop, Plop”.

Then I hear Toby complain that there is no soap to wash his hands, and that he is going to get some from the kitchen. I hear the bathroom door open and close as he exits the bathroom. I carry on enjoying the nice big hot shower.

I hear the bathroom door open and close again then, the shower curtain opens, and someone walks in behind me. I turn around expecting Toby to be they’re doing something stupid like washing me down with a dirty mop, or a more ridiculous stunt. But it’s not Toby at all, but a naked Hazel without her bi-focal glasses.

HAZEL: Hmmm, you got the water temperature just right Alain, it’s really nice,

ME: EH? I’m not Alain,

Dripping wet from the shower Hazel starts to stare at me, and almost nose to nose she looks at me close up,

HAZEL: Oh! Is that you Leo?

ME: Oh, Yeah

HAZEL: Oh well, I better tell you that me and Alain don’t sleep in the same bed. He’s a man’s man. You know what I mean. He just says I’m his girlfriend you know,

ME: Really?

Hazel starts to masturbate me, then turns around and bends over,

HAZEL: Come on,

Well then, off we went…

I hear the shower curtain open behind me, and there is Toby standing there with a dirty mop in hand about to wipe me down for a joke, but he stands there staring at us. I quietly mouth to him,

ME: Fuck off, Toby! Fuck off!

Toby grins at me and leaves quickly,

HAZEL: Did you just say something,

ME: No,

I leave Hazel in the shower after we had “Undocked”, I get dried and dressed and go and find Toby who is in the kitchen. Toby, Alain and another guy are sitting down chatting. Alain gave me a funny smile; did he know what had just happened in the bathroom? the man who was about the same age as Alain was called Bill.

BILL: Hiya, I’m Bill, I’ve been chatting to Toby here. Your Leo, right? I am a friend of Alain. Toby tells me your good with motorbikes.

We all start chatting, and we find out Bill is a London bus driver who lives in a flat in a big house on Blackheath with his girlfriend and young baby.

Bill had accumulated a load of motorcycles for odd DIY jobs he had done on the side. But Bill said he was just an amateur mechanic and had asked me if I was interested in fixing these motorbikes so he could put them up for sale, and that I would get a percentage.

It sounded good to me. We all leave the kitchen and go outside. Toby gets paid by Alain and thanks him.

The bonnet of the Austin Gipsy is up because Alain had been working on it. But as Alain closes the bonnet, he starts sniffing the air. Then Alain is sniffing his cars bodywork and looking puzzled. Bill and Alain chat for a short while, then Bill sniffs the Austin Gypsy, Bill nods at Alain. Me and Toby look on.

Me, Toby and Bill all get into Bills old slide door Bedford van. Toby sits on the engine cover in the middle of the van between the front seats that has a homemade looking cushion on it. The engine seat material looks like it has poppers that secure it down to the engine cover.

BILL: You sure you’re going to be all right sitting there?

TOBY: Yeah, just fine!

As we drive off, I hear the cushion seat poppers that Toby is sitting astride on go “click, click, pop, pop”. This was because Toby was holding onto the front of the cushion seat between his legs, and has the van has pulled away quickly, Toby has gone backwards with nothing supporting his back, he has pulled the seat cushion off its securing poppers.

I look right and I see his small legs go upright and backwards as he tumbles into the rear of the van.

We drop Toby off at the local shops so he could get his Mums birthday card and Me and Bill drive to his flat in Blackheath.

We get to Bill’s flat, he introduces his baby and girlfriend (Berg) to me, and then we go to his big woodshed at the bottom of the garden.

Inside the shed he clicks a wall light switch on, and some ceiling tube fluorescents lights flicker on. The shed is full of old part dismantled British and Japanese motorbikes.

I see pound signs flash up in my eyes. I am thinking that I could get some parts for my mate Kevin, and his Hells Angels brother, and maybe work as a go between and sell some to Kevin’s brothers.

I wander around looking at the oily and dusty machines,

BILL: Well then?

ME: I can fix these, take some bits of some bikes to fix others,

BILL: When can you start,

ME: Tomorrow, Sunday,