BEXHILL SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, Assembly

by Adrian Akers-Douglas

Sally stopped. “Does it suit me?”

  “You look terrific in it. You’re definitely not going to meet Peter if you wear that.”

  “Good. I can just about afford it.” She paused. She could see two other women approaching, carrying clothes which they obviously intended to try on. Sally winked at Linda, always a sign that some mischief was afoot, and disappeared back into the cubicle. Linda could hear her changing out of the dress and pulling on her jeans. Then there was silence. The two other women were waiting impatiently. A shop assistant came past and the one of the ladies asked whether there was a second changing room.

  “No, there’s just the one,” then - raising her voice a little - she asked whether everything was all right in the cubicle.

  “Almost done,” came Sally’s voice over the partition, followed by a loud ‘raspberry’. Linda flinched with embarrassment.

  Another minute passed, during which the waiting ladies eyed Linda as though the wait was her fault. Inside the cubicle, Sally licked her forefinger again, pressed her lips against it and blew another raspberry.

  Then, in a penetrating and crystal tone, came Sally’s plaintive voice:

  “Hey, there’s no paper in here!”

  Linda choked, took one look at the aghast faces of the two ladies, and fled, convulsed with laughter. At that moment Sally opened the door, looked the ladies in the eyes, and said “No paper. Better bring you own” as she marched towards the check-out.

  Linda was waiting for her at the top of the escalator.

  “You’re awful! Those poor ladies - they’ll probably have coronaries!”

  “It made you laugh, anyway. Now it’s your turn.”

  Linda eyed Sally. They’d been here too often before: one egging on the other. It usually ended in disaster.

  “All right, let me think. Anyway, Mum wanted me to get some stuff from the supermarket, so let’s go there.”

  They made their way to Tesco and Linda tossed a few items into a shopping cart. She became frustrated by a supercilious customer who insisted on blocking the aisle with her trolley as she slowly scanned each shelf, taking products down and examining their labels in great detail.

  “Excuse me,” said Linda, “may we get past?”

  The lady gave her a frosty glance. “You should learn patience. It’s a virtue, you know.” She returned to the label, making no attempt to move the well-laden cart. Linda looked at Sally, who shrugged and silently mouthed “Silly bitch”. The lady added the can she had been reading to her trolley and, making no attempt to allow the girls to pass, moved slowly on down the aisle. Linda looked at her closely. She had the arrogant, pompous look of a ‘pillar of the establishment’. She wore a heavy tweed two-piece suit and a hat with a feather. Her shoes were of the ‘sensible’ variety.

  “Front pew,” Linda whispered to Sally. “Husband reads the lesson and invites the vicar back to the Hall for sherry afterwards. They last had sex on VE Day in 1945, and even then, she wasn’t very willing.” Sally smiled - Linda had captured the essence of the woman. They shuffled along in the wretched woman’s wake.

  A moment later, Linda’s eyes lit up. “Aha!” she said, conspiratorially.

  “What do you mean - ‘Aha’? Has her girdle snapped?”

  “Patience,” Linda replied. “It’s a virtue.”

  As they approached the end of the row of shelves, ‘Lady Muck’ was carefully comparing different brands of toothpaste. Linda quickly grabbed something off the opposite shelf and, to Sally’s astonishment, deftly inserted it in amongst the other items in the woman’s trolley. Sally raised a quizzical eyebrow when Linda caught her eye. Linda winked.

  As they turned the corner at the end of the row, Linda managed to overtake and propelled their trolley quickly to the end of a counter, close to the check-out station.

  “Wait,” she said to the perplexed Sally. “Waiting is also a virtue, probably.”

  When she saw ‘Lady Muck’ approaching the cashier along the neighbouring line of shelves, she judged the moment carefully, then shoved her trolley quickly towards the till. The carts clashed.

  “Look where you’re going, you stupid girl!”

  “Oh, so sorry!” said Linda, “Please, madam, you go first.”

  “Thank you,” said the tweedy figure frostily. “I should hope so, too. It’s rare to find good manners in the young these days.”

  She started pulling items out of the cart and placing them on the counter. She eyed the two girls.

  “You’re at the grammar school, are you?”

  “No, ma’am, we’re at Bexhill Girls’ School, if you know it.”

  “Of course I know it.” She was paying no attention to what she was unloading, simply placing things randomly on the counter for the sales girl to ring up on the till. “Might have known you were from a private school, you wouldn’t find those state school oiks showing any civility.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Linda was overdoing the unctuousness, but wanted to hold the silly woman’s attention. “Were you at Bexhill, by any chance?”

  “Good Lord, no. I was at a proper school, but I shouldn’t think you’d ever have heard of it.”

  She’d finished unloading her basket and the cashier was ringing up the items one by one. Linda held her breath.

  “Excuse me, madam,” said the cashier, “did you realise there’s a ‘two-for-the-price-of-one’ offer on these today?”

  “On what?” demanded the tweed two-piece.

  “On these.” She held up a box of condoms. “You can get twelve for the same price as six.”

  “What’s that you’re holding?”

  “Durex - there’s a special on them this week.”

  By now, both Linda and Sally were having the gravest difficulty keeping a straight face.

  “Where did they come from?” There was now a tinge of angst to the imperious voice.

  “Dunno, Birmingham maybe.”

  “I meant, how did they get into my shopping. I most certainly didn’t put them there.”

  “Look, madam, if you’re embarrassed, I can go and get the other pack myself.” Linda could have hugged the salesgirl.

  “I don’t want any blasted contraceptives. Just throw them away, will you.”

  “You sure, dear? They were in your basket.”

  “Of course I’m sure, and don’t you dare call me ‘dear’”.

  “Very well then, madam, but I’ll have to call the supervisor to credit you. I’ve already rung them up.”

  “To hell with your supervisor, I’ll just pay for them. Now please get on with it.”

  “Well, I can’t charge you if you’re not going to take them. It would confuse our stock-taking.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll take them then. Just put them in with the other things, but please get on with it, girl.”

  “So you’re sure you don’t want the other pack, even though it’s free?”

  Linda and Sally wondered whether the girl was deliberately winding up ‘Lady Muck’, or whether she was just thick.

  “Listen to what I say, girl!” roared Tweedy. “I don’t want those wretched things at all and I certainly don’t want two packets of them! Now will you just give me my bill?”

  “I getting very confused, madam,” said poor Tracy, ringing a buzzer beside her seat. “First you said you didn’t want the condoms, then you said you’d take them, now you say you don’t want them after all. I’ll have to get the supervisor to sort this all out.”

  “Cordelia!” a plumy voice boomed. A second tweed-clad figure marched out from between two rows of shelves. Linda instantly labelled her ‘Tweedle Dee’.

  “Cordelia, dear! Didn’t expect to see you here - I thought Johnson did the shopping for you.”

  “Oh, hello, Margaret. It’s Johnson’s day off, so I thought I’d pick up a few things myself. Didn’t expect to have to deal with a stupid girl like this.” She indicated Tracy, who looked up expectantly at Grace, the supervisor, who now stood beside her.

  “Now, ma
dam, how can I help you?” asked Grace, with as much sweetness as she could muster. Grace’s ethnic background was West Indian, so she treated Cordelia to a wide and gleaming smile.

  “Just tell this wretched creature here to get on with my bill. I don’t have all day to waste.”

  “So what appear to be de problem, Tracy?” Grace raised her eyebrows.

  “Well, Mrs Grace, this lady doesn’t seem to be able to decide whether she wants these condoms or not, and I’ve already rung them up. I think I may have confused her when I told her there’s a special offer on them.”

  “Good heavens, Cordelia, I hope you’re not buying those for Veronica. She’s much too young!” Tweedle Dee butted in.

  “I’m not buying them for Veronica,” boomed Cordelia. “Now can we just get on with it?”

  “Oh, I see, I see,” said Tweedle Dee, looking sideways at Cordelia. “Well, if they’re offering a second pack, I’ll take it for Buffy - might get him interested again. Maybe Miles could give him a few tips.”

  At that moment, an extraordinary figure joined the group. Linda hadn’t noticed that Sally was missing, but now what were unmistakeably Sally’s jean-clad legs arrived from between two aisles, surmounted by a bizarre costume. It consisted of a white, plastic dustbin-liner, the top of which had been knotted into what, if imagination was stretched to the limit, could conceivably have been interpreted as a representation of a condom. Two eye-holes had been hastily prodded into the plastic a few inches below the knot. The apparition held a clipboard, which, from her angle, Linda could see contained no paper and so presumably had just been seized in haste off one of the shelves. The other hand held a pencil. The pencil had not been sharpened.

  With an appalling simulation of a Birmingham accent, the vision spoke.

  “’Scoose me, ma’am. We’re condoocting a survey amungst our laidy coostomers to ensure we provoide complete satisfaction. We’d mooch appreciate your ‘elp. Now, first question, could you tell me ‘ow often you and yer ‘oosband ‘ave sex?”

  Cordelia turned puce. Linda quickly disappeared down an aisle, doubled over with laughter. Grace’s eyes grew to saucer-like proportions. Tracy’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Only Tweedle Dee found her voice.

  “If she’s like Buffy, once a year. After the Hunt Ball.”

  After that, things happened quickly.

  Cordelia shouted “Blast the lot of you!” and tried to barge through the gate at the till. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Open the damn thing!” she yelled. By now other customers were becoming attracted by the commotion. One of them, by chance, happened to be a casual correspondent for the local newspaper. He had voted Labour all his life and didn’t much like ‘toffs’, as he called them. He reached into his pocket for the notebook he always carried with him.

  Tracy regarded the struggling, tweedy figure in front of her. She resisted the temptation to press the ‘OPEN’ button which would release the gate. She hadn’t really considered such matters before, but she was - quite independently of the journalist - reaching the conclusion that she didn’t much like toffs either.

  “Don’t you want your things?” she asked. “Not even the Durex?”

  “I don’t want anything from your bloody shop and I’m never coming here again. Now let me out!”

  The crowd was greatly enjoying the spectacle.

  “Say ‘please’”, said Tracy.

  Cordelia was now apoplectic. “Just open this wretched gate, damn you!”

  “Now madam, I don’ like de way yo speakin’ to ma staff here. Please will yo calm down and act civilised.”

  “What would you know about civilisation?” the purple-faced matron almost spat the words. “I’m sure it doesn’t exist in whatever jungle you come from.”

  Racism, especially overt, is never a good idea. It was an especially bad idea when applied to Grace, who had suffered her unfair share of abuse over the ten years since she’d arrived from Jamaica, hoping to make a better life for herself and her family. She had developed a way of dealing with such situations.

  She turned to Tweedle Dee. “Perhaps, madam, yo’ would like to ask yo’ fren’ to cool down. Maybe she might even want to apologise to young Tracy here. Before I decide whether to call da police,” she added with slow deliberation.

  Tweedle Dee could see that things were getting out of hand and that a ‘spectacle’ was being created, that worst nightmare of the upper classes.

  “Cordelia dear, why don’t we just put your things in your bag, pay the bill, and go and have a nice cup of tea somewhere?” She started placing Cordelia’s groceries, including the disputed condoms, into her capacious shopping bag. She glanced up at Grace and whispered conspiratorially.

  “Poor thing’s a little overwrought. She didn’t mean what she said just now. She’s got nothing against blacks: why, I even saw her speaking to one the other day.”

  Grace’s smile was fixed. “Well dat’s OK den. Tracy, take de lady’s money an’ open de gate.”

  Cordelia and Tweedle Dee swept through and made their imperious way out of the store.

  Tracy looked up at Grace.

  “Thanks, Mrs Grace. But when did you start using that funny way of talking?”

  “Oh, sometimes you have to play the role people expect of you.” She patted Tracy on the shoulder.

  The crowd began to dissipate. The journalist folded his notebook and put it back in his pocket. His story, under the headline ‘Commotion in supermarket’, appeared on page 3 of the next edition of the Courier. Johnson discretely hid the paper before Sir Miles or Lady Cordelia saw it.

  The ‘condom’ melted away down an aisle, muttering “See you outside” to Linda.

  ***

  The girls were enjoying their day very much. They walked arm-in-arm down the High Street, replaying the scene in the supermarket and dissolving into fits of giggles at each turn of the story. Suddenly, Sally gripped Linda’s arm. “Look!” She nodded to the window of a café on the opposite side of the road. In the window, Lady Cordelia and Tweedle Dee were sipping cups of tea.

  “Once more unto the breach, dear friends!” announced Sally, crossing the street.

  “You and your Dickens! Why can’t you just speak plain English?”

  “And why can’t I choose literate friends?” Sally pushed open the door of the café. It was warm and full of people, so the two matrons didn’t notice Linda and Sally making their way to a corner table.

  “Why have you brought us here?” asked Linda. “I don’t want to watch those two old frumps stuffing their faces.” Tweedle Dee and her friend were sharing a large slice of Madeira cake.

  “Patience,” said Sally, “you told me it’s a virtue.”

  They each ordered hot chocolate and blueberry muffins.

  “I won’t be a moment. Don’t be in a hurry when our things come.” To Linda’s surprise, Sally slipped out of the restaurant again, returning a few minutes’ later clutching a paper bag.

  “How are Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee doing?” she asked.

  “It looks like they’ve just ordered another cake and more tea.”

  “Good. We need the place to thin out a bit.”

  “Why?”

  “Curiosity, Linda, unlike patience, is not a virtue.” Sally gave Linda a fake scowl and then busied herself emptying something into her glass of water, which she had lowered below the level of the table. She stirred her hot chocolate and then used the spoon to mix something into the glass. The two girls dawdled over their drinks and muffins, and gradually customers began to leave the restaurant until only half a dozen were left, including Lady Cordelia and Tweedle Dee. Linda noticed that the two women had been glancing in their direction and guessed that they had been recognised.

  “Almost time for the show,” said Sally. “Drink up and be ready to leave. Let’s call for the bill.”

  They attracted the attention of the waitress and paid the account. Sally left a more-than-generous tip. Linda raised a quizzical eyebrow at her fr
iend.

  “She’ll earn it,” was the laconic reply. “Ready?”

  “For what?”

  “The headline may read: ‘Shocking Scenes of Depraved Conduct’”.

  “Oh God! Why do I even know you!” Linda frowned.

  “Here we go then. You take my shopping bag. When we leave the café, you turn left and I’ll go right. Meet you at the bus station.”

  “OK.”

  Sally stood up, half concealing the glass beneath her jacket. She clutched her stomach.

  “QUICK! Where’s the toilet? I’m going to be ill!”

  She lurched towards Lady Cordelia and Tweedle Dee, retching graphically.

  “The TOILET! Where is it?” she shouted. “That chocolate drink: much too rich!”

  She floundered from table to table, griping and groaning, getting ever closer to her target.

  “Too late! I can’t hold it!” She was now right next to Lady Cordelia, who had started to rise from her chair in alarm. Sally turned her back to the two old dears, retched loudly, and deftly emptied the contents of the glass over the neighbouring, unoccupied, table. She placed the empty container discretely on one of the chairs. Linda, who had been rooted to the ground by her friend’s performance, registered that the contents to the glass - to the uninitiated - looked very much like the real thing.

  “Wait,” said Sally, grabbing a spoon off the table. “Carrot! I love carrot: shame to waste it!” She swept up a couple of orange discs which floated amongst the general mess, and spooned them down her throat.

  Linda, now galvanised, made towards the exit. Too late, she saw the manageress dash to the door and block it.

  “How dare you!” the rather formidable lady glared at the two girls. “I saw you,” she directed her glare at Sally, “I saw you furtively mixing up something in that glass of water. What was it?”

  Sally looked completely deflated.

  “Come here!” she marched over to Sally and grabbed her elbow. “Show me what you put in the glass!” Sally sheepishly produced an empty packet of vegetable soup from her pocket.

  “Right! I’m calling the police. Come with me.” She started leading Sally towards the back of the restaurant. “Maria, clean up the mess and please offer all our guests here anything they would like, on the house. Ladies,” the clientele was entirely female, “I apologise profusely for this appalling incident. Please allow us offer you anything you would like as some small compensation.” But the clientele wasn’t having any of it. To a woman, they rose from their seats, stony-faced, and started putting on their coats. The manageress realised that the situation was beyond retrieval. “Naturally, we’ll waive all bills. I am so sorry that your enjoyment has been spoiled.”