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“That was a bit thick,” says Geoffrey as we drive away. “Did you hear what that chap said?”
“Yes. He said ‘Schweinhunds!’”
“No. I mean about reporting us to the Race Relations Board.”
Marvellous, isn’t it? Unless you watched television all the time you could be excused for wondering who won the war.
“I need a drink after that,” I say.
As it turns out, this is my second foolish suggestion of the evening. Spirits play havoc with me on an empty stomach and Geoffrey makes me bolt back a second enormous scotch in order to “get it in before closing time” as he puts it.
“Do you fancy a packet of nuts with it?” he says. “They have eighteen times the protein value of steak, you know?” Something tells me that I can say goodbye to my supper.
“You need a bit of steak for that eye, don’t you?” I say.
“It’s much better now,” says my lark-tongued cavalier. “It’s no hardship looking at you through one eye.”
“You mean, it would be even better if you couldn’t see anything?”
“No! Rosie, why do you have to take everything I say the wrong way?”
“Because that’s the way it comes out,” I say. “Ooooh! I felt quite funny then. I think I’d better sit down.” It must be the scotch.
“I felt funny when you touched my arm like that,” breathes Geoffrey, sinking onto the moquette beside me. “Oh Rosie. I fancy you, rotten.”
“Well, that’s the way I feel at the moment,” I tell him. “I think I’d better go outside.”
“If you want to use the toilet, there’s one in the passage. I saw it as we came in.”
“Thank you, Hawkeye,” I say. “But I don’t think that will be necessary. You’d better take me home.”
We get outside to the car and, thank goodness, Geoffrey’s eye does seem to be a lot better. Just as well because the cool air hits me like a slap in the face and I hardly know what I’m doing.
“Comfy?” says Geoffrey as he shuts the door. “You wait till I turn the heater on. Then you’ll be really snug.”
He is not kidding! After about five minutes I feel as if I am sitting in a microwave oven. Geoffrey is talking to me about teaching but I just can’t keep my eyes open—I believe that lots of people have this trouble with Geoffrey. When I wake up it is because the engine has been turned off.
“Are we home?” I ask drowsily.
“Not quite,” says Geoffrey. “I brought you up to the common because it’s such a beautiful night.”
A glance out of the window shows that Geoffrey is not the only nature lover in North West London. Cars are parked all round us and inside them I can see the shadowy outlines of struggling figures—no doubt fighting to get a better view of the pitch darkness.
“It’s raining,” I say.
“I like rain,” says Geoffrey. “I think it’s very romantic. Water turns me on.” He proves it by trying to slide his hands up my skirt.
“Stop, cock!” I say wittily. “What are you trying to do? I thought you were taking me home?”
Geoffrey transfers his attentions to my breasts and one of my blouse buttons hits the windscreen.
“If you start teaching down in the country I won’t see you,” he pants. “I want you to know how I feel about you.”
“I’ve no problem knowing that,” I say, wishing he could be a bit gentler with his hands.
“Do you remember that time up the tennis club? Let’s do that again.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say. Of course, I do remember but I don’t like to think about it. I mean, there was something funny in the fruit cup and Geoffrey took advantage of me—at least, he tried to. I’m still not certain what happened before he was sick behind the roller. As anybody who has read Confessions of a Night Nurse must know I am not a girl of easy virtue who bandies her charms about. I have a romantic nature but I try not to let it go to my head—or anywhere else.
“Just kissing you isn’t going to do any harm.”
Geoffrey is right, of course. There is no sense in being ridiculously prudish. We have known each other for some time and after Natalie’s remarks I am glad to find that I can arouse some feelings in the man. Also, the whisky is making it difficult for me to say no—that and the fact that Geoffrey’s mouth is firmly clamped over mine.
Oh! I wonder where he learned to do that? I always remember Geoffrey as a rather useless kisser. Perhaps Raquel Welchlet has been giving him lessons? The thought makes me determined to demonstrate that big sister knows best.
“Oh, Rosie!” The inside of the windows is beginning to steam up.
“Geoffrey! Please!” Without me realising what was happening he has raided my reception area. How awful that I am so befuddled with drink and hunger that I am practically powerless to resist him.
“That’s nice, isn’t it?”
“Geoffrey!” Now the condensation is running down the windows in rivulets.
“Feel how much I want you.” Geoffrey takes my hand and guides it to—OH! This is too much! Can this be the boy who shyly pressed a cucumber sandwich into my fingers at the Eastwood Tennis Club Novices’ Competition?
“Geoffrey!!”
“I must have you!” Geoffrey presses something between my legs—I mean, presses something situated between my legs—I mean, presses a lever situated on the floor between my legs—and the back of my seat drops down to the horizontal position. Hardly have I realised what is happening than Geoffrey is trying to scramble on top of me. I have never known such a change come over a man. It must have been that German giving him ideas.
“Are you mad, Geoffrey!?” I screech.
“Mad with love!” Somehow—don’t ask me how he manages to do it—the great idiot gets his foot hooked in the driving wheel. The horn lets out a high-pitched shriek—and then refuses to stop.
“Get your foot away!” I shout.
“I have!”
One of the good things about a nurse’s training is that it teaches you how to handle yourself in an emergency: take a long, critical look at the situation and then—panic.
“You’ve turned the ignition on!”
Geoffrey turns off the ignition and immediately the horn stops and smoke starts billowing out of the front of the car. He turns on the ignition and the smoke dies down while the horn starts again.
“Do something!” I scream. All around us I can see people reacting to the noise and one or two cars switch on their lights and start to pull away.
“You’d better get out!” shouts Geoffrey. He is pressing every switch and knob on the dashboard and I hear something making a spluttering noise like a fuse burning down. “The wiring must have shorted,” he yells.
I don’t wait to hear any more but start scrambling out of the car. Unfortunately, for some reason that escapes me, my tights are round my ankles and I am blinded by the headlights of a car that is pulling away. How embarrassing! I try to pull my skirt over my knees and fall down as I hobble towards the protection of some bushes. This is the last time I will ever let Geoffrey Wilkes take me out to dinner.
I have just found myself face to face with a middle-aged man wearing a plastic mac—and, as far as I can make out, nothing else—when I hear a familiar wailing noise. A police car, with light flashing, is bowling over the pot holes. I had only intended to pull up my tights and then return to help Geoffrey but, maybe, I had better wait and see what happens. The police car screeches to a halt beside Geoffrey’s car and two men jump out. The noise of the horn is still deafening and the smoke like that on a Red Indian party line.
Oh dear! One of the policemen has a breathalyser in his hand. I recognise it because I thought it was something else for a minute.
“Don’t do that!” I whisper to the man in the plastic mac. What a disappointing evening this has been. It just shows what happens when you look forward to something too much.
CHAPTER 2
“What time did you get in last night?” says Mum.
“Two o’clock,” says Natalie.
Needless to say, the question was addressed to me.
“We had a bit of trouble with the car,” I say truthfully. “I thought I’d better see it out with Geoffrey.”
“Oooh. You saw it out, did you?” says Natalie.
I ignore this piece of tasteless crudity and pop another piece of Ryvita into my mouth. For all I know the car may still be there. At least, the police silenced the horn before they took Geoffrey away. I remember how upset he sounded when they pulled all the wires out from underneath the bonnet.
That was at midnight. It took me two hours to get away from that horrible man and walk home. I have heard about people like him but I never thought I would be chased through a cemetery by one of them. I never thought people got up to tricks like that in cemeteries, either. Some of the things that were going on you would not believe if you were warned about them in the Sunday papers.
“The post is here,” says Dad. “There’s a big one for you, my girl. It must be your cards.” He drops a large buff envelope in front of me.
“I expect it’s the prospectus,” I say, trying not to let my excitement show as I slip my knife under the flap.
It is indeed. ‘St Rodence Private School For Girls, Little Rogering, Nr. Southmouth, Hants.’ There is a picture of a big house set amongst trees and rolling countryside, and an embossed coat of arms.
“Looks like a lunatic asylum,” says Dad.
Natalie laughs like he is Jack Benny.
“You recognise it?” I say. Once again, I can see that Dad is on the point of revealing that he has no sense of humour and it is as well that Mum steps in.
“Nice countryside, dear.”
“That’s one of the things that appeals to me,” I say truthfully.
“And having Southmouth so near,” says Natalie snidely.
“Perhaps you would care to elaborate on that remark?” I say grandly.
“Eeeoh I seeay,” minces Junior Nausea. “Fraytfully sorry and all that. Actually, you know, I was referring to the proximity of all those jolly jack tars. Do I make myself plain?”
“You don’t have to bother,” I say. “Somebody beat you to it.”
“Now, girls. Let’s have none of that.” Mum intervenes again. “If Rosie wants to go into teaching it’s up to us to give her all the support we can. Right, Harry?”
“Uum.” Dad sounds about as happy as Ted Heath finding that someone has locked up his organ and thrown away the key.
“There’s fourteen teachers,” I say. “And a broadly based curriculum.”
“That’s nice,” says Mum. “Your Aunt Enid used to play one of them.”
“What’s all this Oxon business after their names?” says Dad.
“Probably means they’re stupid,” says my pathetic sister.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I say. “B.A. Oxon means they’ve got an agricultural degree.”
“What’s the point of that at a girl’s school?” says Dad.
“It is in the country,” says Mum.
“They teach them to be milkmaids,” says Natalie.
I shut out their voices and read on about the acres of playing fields and the entrance scholarships won to Cheltenham Ladies College and Benenden. There is also a note from Penny:
“Dear Rosie,
Here is the official story. Don’t believe a word of it. The prospectus has not been reprinted for years. Half the playing fields have been sold as a building site and the left wing of the school—you can’t see it in the photograph—was blown down in the last gale. Luckily it had been evacuated after the school inspector fell through the floor—or ceiling—or both, dependent on which way you look at it.
But don’t let me put you off. The staff aren’t as bad as the sisters at Queen Adelaide’s and though the pupils are worse than the patients I’ve found a few very acceptable compensations—details when I see you! After receiving your letter I told Miss Grimshaw that you might be interested in the job and she is expecting a call. Hope this is O.K.? Must go now as I have a man hanging on for me—to the window sill, actually. Ho, ho, just my little joke—write soon. Love, Penny.”
“What does the letter say, dear?” asks Mum.
“Says I’ve got to get in touch with the headmistress,” I say.
“Gym mistress,” says Dad, shaking his head. “I just can’t see it somehow.”
I think Dad may be right but I don’t let on, of course. By a strange coincidence, I am on the point of picking up the telephone to call Miss Grimshaw when it starts ringing.
“Hello, it’s me,” says Geoffrey. “Are you all right?”
“No thanks to you and your Japanese wacky racer” I say coolly. “You know I had to walk all the way home?” I am expecting a profuse apology from the Chingford amateur rapist but I don’t get it.
“You were lucky,” says Geoffrey. “They’ve only just let me go.”
“It’s your own fault,” I say. “You should have zipped yourself up before you got out of the car.”
“It wasn’t only that,” groans Geoffrey. “They found your lipstick and compact in my blazer pocket. I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life. They thought—they thought I was some kind of pervert.”
I have never heard it put as strongly as that before. Poor Geoffrey, how very unpleasant.
“You should have told them about me,” I say. I am always ready with any offer of help short of actual assistance
“I did,” says Geoffrey. “But you weren’t there, were you? That made it even worse. Apparently there’s been some sex maniac up there, terrorising courting couples.”
“You don’t have to tell me that!” I scream. “Who do you think chased me through Chingford Mount Cemetery?”
