by Janet Tanner
CHAPTER SIX
After three weeks of misery Sally woke up one morning and realised she was no longer in love with Pete. The fact that her stomach no longer turned over when he looked at her came as a surprise and disappointment – even unrequited love was better than no love at all. A fortnight after she had made this earth-shattering discovery she was amazed when he stuttered out an invitation to the cinema. Hoping to rekindle the fire Sally accepted, but it was no use. Close to, she discovered, Pete smelled of carbolic scop, a dreadful turn-off, and when he kissed her in the dark it was so wet and sloppy she longed only to search for her handkerchief and wipe her mouth dry.
During the next year Sally fell in and out of love a half dozen times and each time it proved to be just as disastrous. A few boys asked her out but never the right ones, never the ones she wanted to ask her, and Sally began to wonder how two people ever came to be in love with one another at the same time. It was a miracle that so many people managed it – and for long enough to get engaged and married. But perhaps they were luckier than she was, or just plain less fussy.
Paula certainly never seemed to encounter such problems. She had a string of boyfriends and no matter how badly she treated them there were always others lined up and waiting. But then of course Paula was so lovely she had only to look at a boy to have him crazy about her, Sally thought wretchedly.
Then, in the spring when she was sixteen, the miracle happened. His name was Edward Blake and he was nineteen years old – really grown up! Besides this he was stunningly handsome.
It was the beginning of the tennis season. As a member of the school team Sally was expected to stay behind after school to practise. One afternoon after an especially long session she was forced to catch a much later bus home than usual. She sprinted across the playground, hampered by her satchel and tennis racket, just as the bus was about to pull away, and leaped aboard. The bus was full and the conductor grumpy. ‘Hold on tight now!’ he called, ringing the bell. Sally staggered down the aisle, trying not to bang the other passengers with her tennis racket.
‘Let me take that,’ said a male voice and turning she found herself looking into a pair of startlingly blue eyes. ‘There’s a seat here,’ he went on, moving to let her in.
She sat down, settling her satchel on her lap and stealing another glance at him. Thick fair hair, a wonderful complexion – not a sign of a spot! – and those blue eyes! Sally felt a little flush of excitement creeping up her cheeks and she was acutely conscious of her gingham uniform dress and the beret which school rules said must be worn at all times when outside the school grounds. Failure to do so was punished by being forced to wear the hated beret for a whole day in school – for lessons, lunch, everything, a badge of shame Sally had so far managed to avoid. But just now she thought she would willingly endure any punishment if only she dared take her hat off without making it perfectly obvious she was making a pass at him.
‘You aren’t usually on this bus,’ he said and Sally felt her cheeks grow hotter.
Oh please don’t let me blush now! she prayed.
‘No, I’m late. I’ve been playing tennis.’
‘That explains it.’ He shifted the racket between his knees. ‘Do you play a lot?’
‘When I can.’
‘Are you good?’
‘Not bad, considering the shaky start I had. When I was a first year I was put in as ballboy and I didn’t know the rules. I kept throwing the ball back to the wrong player. Every time I thought I’d got the hang of it the service changed. And then I was sent to retrieve the balls from the headmaster’s garden. I was terrified of knocking on the door of the house to ask permission but I was even more terrified of going back and making a fool of myself because of my ignorance on court so I spent the rest of the afternoon skulking behind the sweet peas.’
He laughed. He had a nice laugh, she thought. They chattered until Sally realised the bus was pulling up at her stop.
She scrambled to her feet. ‘I get off here.’
He handed her her racket. ‘When can I see you again?’
‘Oh!’ She knew her cheeks were flaming now. ‘I don’t know …’
‘Are you getting off or not?’ the conductor yelled, his finger on the bell.
‘Can you get to Bath? I’ll see you on Saturday – half past seven at the bus stop,’ the boy said.
‘Yes, all right …’ She staggered down the gangway, shell-shocked, and walked home feeling as if she was floating on air but as Saturday approached the nervousness began. She could get a bus to Bath, but how would she get home again? Where would he take her? What should she wear? She didn’t even know his name but she did know that this time she was IN LOVE!
The question of what to wear was easily settled. Louise had gone back to Nîmes now but she had left Sally the white dress as a parting gift and even without the waspie-waisted basque it was by far the nicest thing Sally owned. She wore it with a pair of new white sandals and a lacy white cardigan her mother had knitted for her.
At a quarter past seven she got off the bus in Bath worrying that he might stand her up. But he was there waiting and looked more handsome than ever in a grey suit with a white shirt.
‘Would you like to go to the dance at the Regency?’ he asked.
‘Oh yes – only I’ve got to catch the last bus home and it leaves at a quarter to eleven …’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll have you on it,’ he promised.
The Regency had once been a Palace of Varieties. There was a bar selling alcoholic drinks and two milk bars, one at floor level, one in what had once been the balcony, and a huge multi-faceted glass ball which hung over the dance floor. A narrow gallery ran around the other three sides of the hall from which it was possible to watch the dancers or enjoy the band – a real band, at least a dozen musicians, all in uniform blazers and bow ties. Sometimes the big name bands came to the Regency – Kenny Ball and Ted Heath, Acker Bilk and The Temperance Seven, but tonight it was the resident band. The whole place seemed to be throbbing with the music they made.
Sally left her bag in the cloakroom and met Edward in the balcony milk bar where he had a strawberry milk shake waiting for her. She sipped it through a straw looking around with interest. The place hadn’t filled up yet but she noticed that the boys were congregating at the end of the hall beneath the balcony and on the left hand side while the girls were spread between the tables and chairs on the opposite wall, chatting and giggling and trying to pretend they were not waiting to be asked to dance. A few girls were dancing together as they did at the youth club hops and the dancing was of the proper ‘ballroom variety’ – waltzes, quicksteps and foxtrots. When Edward suggested they dance Sally was grateful for the lessons she had endured in the school gymnasium with Miss Smart the games teacher yelling ‘slow, slow, quick quick, slow’ in time to the music.
Edward danced well, guiding her with confidence, and soon he was holding her very close. Unlike Pete he smelled nice – Sally thought it was Old Spice – and when he pressed his hips against hers she was excited by the sensations it aroused, not revolted as she had been with the Teddy Boy at the youth club dance. Over his shoulder she glanced at the clock over the door – the hands seemed to be moving very fast and she was reluctant to say it was time she was going.
At last she could postpone it no longer – she had just ten minutes to get to her bus! She collected her bag and hand in hand they ran all the way – just in time to see the bus disappearing along the road.
‘Whatever will I do? Mum will kill me!’ Sally wailed.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you a taxi,’ he promised.
He’d never ask her out again now, Sally thought gloomily. But as they walked to the taxi rank he said: ‘Could you get into Bath in the week? We could go to the pictures,’ and she agreed happily.
Edward paid the taxi driver in advance and all the way home she sat in a happy daze. The curtains twitched as the taxi pulled up outside her house and her mother was in the doorway.
‘What on earth are you doing coming home in a taxi?’
‘Edward got it for me.’
‘Edward is it? Well all I can say is he must have money to burn!’
‘He just wanted to make sure I got home safely,’ Sally said smugly. For the first time in her life she felt she had outdone Paula, who had never, ever, arrived home in a taxi.
That summer was the most exciting Sally had ever known. Twice weekly she went to Bath to meet Edward, though ever afterwards he made sure she was on the last bus home. Sometimes they went to the cinema, sometimes they sat in coffee bars holding hands across the table, sometimes they walked in the park, and on Saturdays they almost always went to the dance.
Sally lived in a happy whirl marred only by worrying about how far she should go. After the first few dates when he had kissed and cuddled her and only touched her breasts through her blouse, he had started slipping his hand inside. Although she felt a little guilty about letting him do it Sally found she quite liked the feel of his fingers stroking her flesh and teasing her nipples but when he tried to put his hand up her skirt beneath her scratchy petticoats she tried to stop him.
‘Don’t, please,’ she begged, grabbing his hand.
‘Why?’ he asked, creeping up further.
‘Because.’
But he refused to take no for an answer and after a few unseemly tussles Sally decided it was easier to give in and let him explore inside the leg of her panties. At first it wasn’t too bad but soon his finger was prodding right inside her and that hurt, a sharp, squeaky sort of pain like someone drawing a fingernail across a sheet of plastic. As he prodded around all the dreamy romantic feelings she. experienced when he kissed her disappeared and all she could think of was when would he stop, and couldn’t he please just hold her again, very close, with the firm bulge of his body against her, far more erotic through several layers of clothes than his scratching, poking finger.
The next thing was that he wanted her to hold the bulge. The first time was in the cinema. In the darkness, under cover of which they had been kissing cuddling so much (with his hand inside her blouse) that she had not the first idea what the film was about, he took her hand and guided it down to his lap. Sally almost jumped as she encountered the rigid roll. She took her hand away, but Edward only replaced it.
What was she supposed to do? Taking a deep breath she gripped the roll and held onto it, not moving. She simply couldn’t bring herself to stroke or rub it. But Edward seemed satisfied. He kissed her fervently and they stayed that way until the lights went up and the usherettes began moving down the aisles with their trays of icecream.
Sally sat with her hands folded in her lap, squinting down to make sure her blouse was done up properly and embarrassed to meet Edward’s eyes. Presumably everybody else in the world did it she thought. But remembering still made her blush all over.
One thing she was quite certain of – she was in love with Edward and that meant she would have to continue to let him – or he would find someone else who would. Boys were like that – the girls at school said so. The trouble was that if you permitted intimacy you would be thought of as ‘cheap’ and perhaps be talked about as the girls at the dance had talked about Paula, only by the boys, which was worse, but if you didn’t no boy would be prepared to bother with you for long. The dilemma threatened to spoil Sally’s happiness but one thing she was certain of – whatever it took she would do it because she couldn’t bear to lose him.
‘Sally, I want you to do something for me,’ Paula said. Her voice had that familiar note that was halfway between wheedling and autocracy and Sally’s heart sank. When Paula used that tone it usually meant trouble.
‘What?’ she asked, rather aggressively.
‘Sally!’ Paula gave her a hurt glare. ‘I don’t very often ask you to do anything for me – and I did lend you my ear-rings when you went out with that Edward last week.’
‘All right – what is it you want?’
‘Help me get out of going to Gran’s on Sunday.’
Once a fortnight on a Sunday afternoon the girls went to tea with Gran Bristow in the little house that had once been their home. Sally quite enjoyed the visits but Paula had no patience for making conversation with Gran, who tended to have very old-fashioned, dyed-in-the-wool ideas and was easily shocked, and she hated having to eat her way through the ham salad and bread and butter, Victoria sponge and tinned fruit and cream which. Gran not only laid on but also piled high on her plate because she thought Paula much too thin.
‘Oh Paula!’ Sally scolded. ‘You know how Gran looks forward to seeing us. And Mum and Dad are going off on holiday on Saturday, so they won’t be popping in to visit for a couple of weeks.’
‘Exactly. That’s why you can tell Gran a white lie and she won’t know any different.’
‘What sort of a white lie?’
Paula’s face took on a vixenish wickedness. ‘ I did think you could say I had a cold because you know how frightened Gran is of catching colds. But it’s a bit boring and it is the middle of summer. So tell her I broke the heel on my shoe as we were walking over.’
‘Won’t she expect you to come over once you’ve been home and changed your shoes?’ Sally asked reasonably.
‘You can say I twisted my ankle when the heel broke,’ Paula improvised.
‘But why don’t you want to go to Gran’s?’ Sally asked.
‘It’s a drag. All my friends will be at the coffee bar.’
‘I’m not telling lies for you just because you want to go to the coffee bar,’ Sally objected. ‘In fact I don’t like telling lies for you full stop. If you don’t want to go you’ll just have to say so.’
‘Well, if you’re going to be like that …’ Paula said slyly, ‘I might just tell Mum what you and Edward get up to in the pictures.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sally demanded, but a scarlet flush was creeping up her neck at an alarming rate and flooding her cheeks.
Paula smiled, enjoying her sister’s discomfort – and the feeling of power it gave her.
‘As if you didn’t know! But if you really want me to go into details Valerie Mitchell was sitting not far from you last week. And she was pretty shocked, I can tell you.’
Valerie Mitchell lived in the next road and travelled to work on the same bus as Paula. What she had actually said was: ‘Your little sister has grown up, hasn’t she? Well, enough to have a good time in the back row at the pictures anyway,’ and she had certainly not elaborated. But Sally was not to know that and she was mortified.
Oh God, if Valerie had been shocked perhaps she was going too far! And if Paula should tell her mother she thought she would die of shame!
‘I shouldn’t think Mum would let you go out with Edward again if she knew what you get up to,’ Paula said carelessly. ‘But of course if you tell Gran about my broken shoe on Sunday there really won’t be any need for her to know.’
‘Sometimes I hate you, Paula,’ Sally said. ‘ Sometimes I wish you weren’t my sister. You really aren’t very nice at all.’
Paula shrugged, looking very smug.
‘Who cares about being nice?’ she asked. ‘Getting what you want is much more important. And I am going to get what I want, aren’t I?’
Sally nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said in a small, ashamed voice. ‘Yes, I suppose you are. You always do.’
In spite of all the worrying about it the next stage with Edward still took Sally by surprise when it actually happened. They were in a dark corner behind the bandstand in the park and had quickly gone through all the other stages, including the one Sally liked best, kissing and pressing the lower half of their bodies close together as if they were dancing. Tonight her skirt was rucked up almost to her waist and she found this was even better than usual because the bulge fitted neatly between her thighs and touched even deeper chords of excitement. So ecstatic was she that she did not notice Edward fumbling with his clothes until she became aware of moist clingy flesh, thrusting and rubbin
g. Her heart came into her mouth with a great choking leap.
‘Edward – stop it!’ she gasped.
He did not seem to hear her. He was rocking and moaning, his breathing heavy and catchy.
‘Edward!’ she protested, wriggling. She could feel the tip probing up the leg of her panties and she knew it should not be there. This was not just embarrassing, it was downright dangerous.
She put her hand down to push him away and he grabbed it, squeezing it around the erect penis and forcing her to rub it up and down. As she felt the muscular ridges pulsing and throbbing she almost sobbed aloud from a mixture of fear, curiosity and excitement, but at least the thing was no longer between her legs. Then she felt it jerk violently and Edward shuddered and bit her neck as warm sticky fluid spurted into her hand. She stood quite still not knowing what to do and after a moment he pulled away, reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped himself, his hand and hers. Then he threw his handkerchief into a bush.
‘Can’t take that home,’ he said with a shaky laugh.
Sally felt shaky too. She wriggled her skirt down over her thighs and when she risked a look she was relieved to discover Edward had done his trousers up again. Suddenly she longed to have him kiss her again and hold her close. That would somehow make everything all right. But he no longer seemed interested.
‘It’s time for your bus,’ he said.
Inexplicably Sally felt like crying. He held her hand as they walked through the streets but Sally could not feel any of the warmth she so desperately needed. It was a clear night and there was an enormous moon which was reflected in the dark waters of the river Avon – it should be so romantic, Sally thought, but somehow it wasn’t. She felt sadder than ever.
‘I’ll see you on Saturday, same time, same place,’ Edward said giving her a quick peck and pushing her up the steps of the bus.
On the way home Sally could feel people looking at her and wondered why. It was only when she got home and looked in the hall mirror that she saw the enormous dark red love bite on her neck. Quickly she covered the bruise with her collar. Heaven knew how she would conceal it at school tomorrow, especially as she had games. Perhaps face powder or foundation?
