by Jack Higgins
‘Assault with an offensive weapon. Borstal this time, Varley. A year, perhaps more. After all, you’re on probation already. The bench won’t like that.’
‘No, sir, please sir! Don’t get the police, sir! I didn’t mean it!’
‘Mr Oldroyd should make an excellent witness,’ I went on relentlessly.
He broke then, came apart at the seams and started to sob, a harsh, ugly sound, tears oozing from his eyes. There are those who would say that he was not responsible for what he was. That I should be sorry for him. Instead, I felt sickened by the very sight of him. He had given me hell for weeks and I was determined to have him off my back at all costs.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘No police. You leave at Easter, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Right, then you’re on probation as far as I’m concerned. The slightest hint of trouble and Mr Oldroyd and I will take the whole story to the headmaster, which means no letter of recommendation when you leave. You try getting a job without one.’
There was a knock at the door and Wally poked his head in. I nodded and he opened it further to allow the rest of the class to file past him solemnly. They stood behind their benches and waited expectantly.
‘Varley has something to say,’ I told them. ‘Haven’t you, Leonard?’
He ran his nose along his sleeve and stood up to face his final humiliation. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said in a muffled tone. ‘For the way I behaved. It won’t happen again, sir.’
I walked out then, nodding briefly to Wally, and left him to it. My legs felt weak as I climbed the stairs, no strength in them at all. The staffroom was empty, which was a blessing, and I went into the lavatory and was promptly sick in the bowl.
My hands were still shaking and I felt degraded by the whole wretched business. I lit a cigarette and sat in a chair by the staffroom window. Thunder rumbled again and it started to rain. I looked out over the mean roofs below and at the squalor around me. It was enough. There had to be something better than this, and I knew that I must get out at all costs.
In a sense, all I really did was follow Imogene’s advice, and I returned to my writing with renewed vigour, into the small hours on occasion, sitting up there in the turret room at my table by the window, the whole world quiet outside.
I discovered I had a gift, if that is the correct term for it, for hard, sustained, creative work. Twenty thousand words in a week and all good stuff.
I decided to try something entirely different, and as remote from Khyber Street and my general surroundings as possible. Looking for a subject, I returned to my old parody, however unintentional, of a Hemingway novel, and I discovered that, whatever else it lacked of the great man’s genius, it was in its essentials a good story.
I read each chapter through then re-wrote it, without any of its previous pretentiousness, as an honest and straightforward novel of adventure, reducing the original eighty thousand words to fifty thousand. Finally, I rounded it off with four new chapters.
Four weeks of incredibly hard work, mostly late at night as I have said, but I still attended the Trocadero a couple of times a week for I felt the need for relaxation and female companionship more than ever.
During this period I formed no new attachment, certainly nothing that lasted more than the particular evening involved. I saw several girls home after the dance, often travelling considerable distances by trams, and frequently to no particular purpose. A kiss at the gate or perhaps, to use one of Jake’s favourite phrases, a little mild erotic by-play, was my only reward, and usually I found myself faced with a long trudge back to Ladywood Park afterwards, the last tram having gone.
I seriously wondered whether I was losing my touch, but decided, during some of those long walks home, that the fault very probably lay in my own attitude. I hadn’t really got over Imogene and, I suspect, did not have the heart for another such liaison as yet.
The only unusual incident during those weeks concerned a young, rather plain, blonde girl who claimed to be seventeen, but who, on reflection, was probably younger.
She lived in an area of pleasant old houses near the university, high walls and lots of trees. It was raining, as I recall, and we had walked some considerable distance, discussing nothing more exciting than the latest films on show in the city.
I hadn’t as much as put an arm around her waist, but when we stopped in a doorway and I kissed her, she started to tremble violently, then moaned a little and slid down the wall.
I grabbed her in alarm, thinking she was having an attack of some description, but to my amazement she opened her eyes, teeth chattering, and demanded to know, quite plainly, when I was going to do it to her. Such naivety had a certain charm, but it filled me with considerable panic. I disentangled myself at the earliest possible moment and was away.
Jake, as usual, had some sort of explanation. ‘Nobody likes to have it offered on a plate, do they?’ he said cheerfully. ‘I mean to say, where’s the mystery? The adventure?’
‘Maybe so,’ I said gloomily, ‘but the fact remains that I turned down a dead cert. What’s wrong with me?’
‘Maybe you liked Imogene more than you realized, old sport.’ He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Never mind, spring will come again and you’ll be standing up on end as well as you ever did!’
I wrote the last chapter of the novel in a final burst of energy one Saturday afternoon, starring just after lunch and finishing at five minutes to seven. There still remained a certain amount of cleaning up to do and the finals to type, but to all intents and purposes it was finished.
I was tremendously elated and hurried round to see Jake. As it happened he’d gone out for the evening, which in a sense left me with no one to tell, for Aunt Alice and Uncle Herbert were having tea with friends and she’d warned me not to expect them back till late.
Some sort of celebration was obviously in order so I got a couple of pounds from the tin box at the bottom of the wardrobe where I kept my mad money, walked to the park gates and caught a tram to The Tall Man.
By the time I arrived at the Trocadero, I was pretty tight, full of a fierce nervous energy which, I suspect, was not simply the booze talking, but some sort of reactive process.
I hadn’t been on a Saturday for some time, had forgotten how crowded it could be. It was as rowdy as a fairground, with a hell of a lot of people on the floor for Ballin’ the Jack. I leaned against a pillar smoking a cigarette, waiting for them to finish, and for a while the noise seemed to recede, leaving me washed up on some quiet shore, on the periphery of things.
What on earth was I doing here? I asked myself. Who were these people? Faces. Looking back on all this, I believe that finishing the book had altered me in some fundamental way, an important step forward in the growth process if you like, although I was not aware of it at the time and believed myself to be sinking into some quite unjustified depression.
I was pulled back to reality by an interesting little scene which was being enacted in front of me as the dance ended. A young woman was trying to pull away from a rather rough-looking specimen in a tight-waisted, chalk-stripe suit, who seemed to be refusing to let go of her hand. He had long, black sideboards reaching to his jawline, in those days an infallible sign of the street-corner boy and spiv.
She had a nice voice and was trying to be cheerful as she argued with him, a plain, round-faced girl with rather frizzy hair and horn-rimmed glasses. As Jake used to say, all women are lovely in some way or other, and Lucy had superb legs and a delightful bottom, nicely tight in a tweed skirt.
The trouble seemed to be that he was insisting she stay with him and wasn’t taking no for an answer. Under normal circumstances I’d have minded my own business, but I’d had a drink or two remember, and I’d seen Alan Ladd handle a similar situation with his usual competence in a film only the weekend before.
I moved in fast and took her free hand. ‘Oh, there you are! Sorry I’ve been so long.’
She stayed surprisingly calm, the ey
es behind the rather thick lenses of the glasses widening slightly, and then she smiled. ‘I’m dying for a coffee.’
Sideboards glanced uncertainly at me. I gave him my best Alan Ladd deadpan look, cold, hard, a dangerous man to provoke, or so I hoped. It worked, or perhaps he just couldn’t be bothered. In any event, he turned and faded into the crowd.
Whether he had believed in me as Alan Ladd was a moot point, but Lucy certainly did, for it became instantly plain that I had achieved a place of heroic stature in her eyes. From the expression on her face I thought she might ask me for my autograph at any moment.
‘I just can’t think what to say.’
‘Don’t try,’ I said, at my most courtly, and led her onto the floor.
Where appearances are concerned, women are the most deceptive of all living things, and Lucy was an excellent example, for this plain, well-spoken, quiet young woman had a physical effect that left nothing to be desired. She had a sensuous body, that’s what it mainly came down to, and delighted in close contact, rubbing against me constantly, her cheek against mine.
It was completely unexpected, but that if anything only added to the excitement. I took her for coffee, we sat in a quiet corner table, and she leaned across to kiss me, one knee crossed over the other. I allowed my hand to rest on her thigh. She kissed me even more passionately, then excused herself, picked up her handbag and went to the cloakroom.
I lit another cigarette as I waited for her, and sat there gazing down at the dancers, more than a little pleased at the way things had gone. This was exactly what I wanted. A warm, sensual woman who wanted me as much as I wanted her, needed a man, if you like, in a way that Imogene never had.
The truth is that by then, love, and I mean physical love and large amounts of it, had become the most exciting thing in the world for me. An experience which never palled, and came up fresh as roses on a summer morning every time. Strangely enough, sitting there thinking about it, I was suddenly aware of some weird irrational guilt feeling, probably to do with my Methodist upbringing, but Lucy’s reappearance soon swept that out of the way.
We had one more dance, a slow foxtrot which brought us closer together than ever. Although it was only ten o’clock when I suggested that we left, she agreed with alacrity and went off to get her coat.
She lived in a cul-de-sac off the main road just past The Tall Man, in a large semi-detached house. There was a light on in the hall, but the glass sun porch was in darkness and I slid my arms around her waist from behind, pulling her close. She gave a long, shuddering sigh, arching her back, then strained against me, turning up her face to be kissed. Her body trembled, emotion I suppose, and she sighed again.
‘You were so wonderful back there, Oliver. So incredible. I just couldn’t believe it was happening.’
‘You don’t think I could have stood by and left you to that oaf, do you? A girl like you?’
Which was perhaps a trifle melodramatic as remarks go, but it seemed to be the sort of thing she expected, and I slipped a hand inside her coat and started to stroke her left breast. And then the unexpected happened. She disengaged herself, fiddled around with her handbag, produced a key and unlocked the front door. I shriveled instantly, the disappointment biting deep, but in the same instant things assumed an even rosier hue for she turned in the doorway, light streaming out from the hall.
‘You’ll come in for a while, won’t you?’
‘Will it be all right?’
She nodded. ‘There’s only my father and he goes to bed early.’
More promising than ever. I followed her into the hall and she opened a door to the left and led the way into a pleasant lounge. It was comfortably furnished, with a fitted carpet and a three-piece suite. She switched on an electric fire and drew the curtains.
‘Take off your coat and make yourself at home,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you a drink. I think there’s some whisky in the cupboard. Would that be all right?’
I assured her it would be just fine, and she found a glass and a cut-glass decanter and poured a generous measure, two good doubles combined. She would have made it more if I hadn’t stopped her.
She was damned naive and so keen to please me. ‘Have I done wrong?’ she asked, the eyes swimming anxiously behind the thick lenses. ‘Is that all right?’
I reassured her with a light kiss on the cheek. She excused herself for a moment and went out. I sat down in one of the easy chairs to drink my whisky. It was really very comfortable, the cushions over-ripe and stuffed with feathers. I got up to test the couch, which looked as if it might prove a more than satisfactory battleground, and Lucy came back.
I turned to my chair and knocked over a small occasional table with rather a clatter. She moved in quickly to right it. ‘Don’t worry, my father’s almost stone-deaf. He takes his hearing aid out when he goes to bed.’
She had got rid of her coat and was certainly even more attractive than I’d realized. The whisky talking, I suppose, but as she stood up from righting the table I put an arm around her waist and pulled her close. In my imagination she seemed to rotate in my hands sensuously, closing her eyes, the lips parting slightly, and the breasts swelled beneath the thin blouse.
She was trembling as she stood there, waiting, and I was filled with a sudden fierce pleasure that I could move her in a way I had always signally failed to move Imogene. It had a very satisfactory feeling of rightness to it. I was the master here. Male above female as it was ordained to be.
Wishful thinking or, more likely, the whisky increasing its grip. I sat on the couch and pulled her down beside me, then I kissed her, tenderly, but with considerable finesse, ready for the slow, careful build-up.
To this day, I am not too certain what happened next. It was as if Lucy lost her balance, sliding off the edge of the couch, pulling me down on top of her. I got the distinct impression that she was trying to beat me off, although her mouth stayed fastened to mine, the tongue darting in and out like a mad thing. Her legs threshed about constantly, and at one point I thought she was trying to put a knee into my crotch.
Suddenly I realized that, by some mysterious alchemy, she had managed to remove her pants. Her thighs spread on either side of me, knees raised. ‘It’s all right,’ she murmured into my right ear in a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone. ‘I’ve put my diaphragm in.’
Which fact alone should have occasioned me some suspicion, but by then I was thoroughly aroused. Within seconds of my entering her she started to shake and didn’t stop for quite some time. I finally managed to break free, which took some doing for she was as strong as a horse, and rolled on my back for a moment, taking some very deep breaths.
She kissed my ear. ‘Gorgeous!’ she whispered. ‘Absolutely heavenly.’
She reached for me again and before I knew where I was, I was back on the job, working away manfully while Lucy continued to orgasm. I’d heard of such cases, but had never experienced one until now.
When I broke free she was still in full flight, but I had very definitely given my all. Like the man in the song, I was tired and I wanted to go home. But she wouldn’t leave me alone.
What with that enormous whisky, on top of everything else I’d drunk that night, I just wasn’t in any fit state to rise to the sort of occasion she seemed to demand. It didn’t matter a bit, for the next thing I knew she was on top of me, legs straddled, the skirt rising.
She trembled and shook, eyes closed, her face wreathed in ecstasy. I suddenly knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that I had stumbled across that creature, who in spite of the frequency with which she invades the sexual fantasies of the average male, is in reality a rare bird indeed: the insatiable woman who can’t get enough of it.
She leaned down, covering my face with moist, openmouthed kisses, and a door opened and closed again upstairs. She gave an extra shudder, then disengaged herself, stood up and pulled down her skirt.
She put a finger to her lips, moved to the door and opened it slightly. I buttoned myself up hurriedly and h
eard a toilet flush. A stair creaked as someone started to come down, and she turned, face expressionless, and threw me my trenchcoat. As I pulled it on she picked up her pants, which were lying on the floor, and stuffed them under a cushion.
The door opened a moment later and a tall, skinny old man with the face of a desiccated monkey, and yellow, watery eyes entered. He wore an old-fashioned quilted dressing gown in some sort of wine-coloured silk and there was a hearing aid in his right ear.
‘Hello, darling, I thought you’d be asleep.’ Lucy kissed him on the cheek. ‘This gentleman was kind enough to escort me home.’
He glared at me like some virulent adder, moved to the fireplace and tapped a finger on the clock.
‘Gentleman?’ he said in a dry old voice that suited his appearance admirably. ‘And what kind of gentleman, pray, keeps a young lady out after eleven o’clock at night?’
The end part of his little speech rose to a crescendo. It was all of ten past eleven. I was tired and one thing was certain. After Lucy I had nothing left over for scenes of this sort.
‘I think I’d better be going,’ I said and edged towards the door. Lucy spoke to him briefly in a low voice. It sounded as though she said, ‘I think you should apologise, George.’
‘Oh, very well,’ he muttered and raised his voice, to call as I reached the door, ‘Perhaps I was a little hasty. Thank you for seeing my wife home safely. It was most kind of you.’
‘My pleasure,’ I said and got out fast.
Lucy had me by the sleeve as I went through the porch. ‘Please, Oliver, give me a minute.’
She closed the door, we were alone in the warm darkness. ‘You are one for the book, aren’t you?’ I said.
‘Lucille?’ he shouted querulously from inside.
‘The master calls,’ I said unkindly and opened the outside porch door.
She held on tight. ‘Can I meet you somewhere tomorrow?’
‘Good God!’ I said. ‘You really take the biscuit, don’t you?’
‘Please, Oliver, it’s a lot more complicated than it looks.’
