Memoirs of a Dance Hall Romeo Page 8

  I moved cautiously around the tiled edge, which was rather slippery, to Imogene, who was standing with her face pressed against the glass. I opened the French window and was careful to bolt it again after she had slipped past me.

  She took a deep breath of the muggy, chlorinated air and there was a kind of ecstasy on her face. ‘Oh, Oliver, I can’t wait.’

  She hurried round the pool to the changing rooms. As I turned to follow, I slipped on the wet tiles and almost went in the water. I took it more cautiously after that and when I went into the changing room, she’d got rid of her dress and was unfastening her stockings.

  ‘Hurry up, slowcoach,’ she said as she slipped off her pants and dropped them on the pile on the floor.

  I watched her go, captivated by that superb body of hers, pale in the moonlight, ethereal, unreal. She disappeared from view. I heard a gentle splash, the sound of swimming.

  My heart was beating like a triphammer as I undressed quickly and followed her outside. I stood at the edge, peering about me, unable to see her, which was hardly surprising in all that steam.

  ‘Imogene, where are you?’ I whispered.

  There was no reply. I sat down on the edge and lowered myself into the water. It was extraordinarily pleasant. More like a warm bath than anything else, and there was that wonderful feeling of freedom that one gets when swimming with nothing on.

  I moved towards the deep end, vaguely alarmed. ‘Imogene!’ I called.

  She materialized from the mist, poised on top of the high-diving platform, a heart-stopping sight in the moonlight. She dived before I could call out to her, a perfect half pike which still made far too much noise for our situation.

  She surfaced within a yard of me, laughing, hair clinging to her face. ‘Isn’t it marvellous?’

  ‘You must keep quiet,’ I hissed. ‘You’re making too much noise.’

  I suppose I sounded pretty annoyed, but then we were in a vulnerable position, to say the least, if we were discovered. The attitude of authority towards a bunch of teenage boys caught in such circumstances was one thing. A man and a woman, a couple of teachers to boot, were something else again.

  ‘Don’t be angry, Oliver.’ She reached under the water.

  My heart was pounding nineteen to the dozen again and I cupped my hands over her breasts, treading water, for it was eight feet deep at that end.

  ‘You really are the most infuriating girl.’

  ‘Take me, Oliver!’ she said dramatically. ‘Now, as I am. Naked and unafraid.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve never tried it this way before.’

  An invitation impossible to deny, and I moved in at once eagerly. Of course the trouble with most sexual fantasy is that the reality simply can’t measure up and often for the most absurd of reasons.

  To the average man the idea of making love to that magnificent creature, drifting languorously in warm, translucent water, must probably sound like the final end to all things. Nirvana achieved.

  To start with, I had considerable difficulty in any kind of union at all below waist level, for in spite of the fact that she floated passively on her back, the currents in the water caused by my approach pushed her away from me.

  We went under twice before achieving the necessary connection, and any amount of times after that as I attempted to perform my part. We rolled and twisted in the water, blowing for air like a couple of whales each time we surfaced.

  Imogene seemed to find the whole thing enormously funny and shrieked with laughter, the sound echoing between the walls. I was in no fit state to prevent her, was not even able to help myself. When I went under again, I decided it was for the last time and threw in my hand. Imogene actually had to lifesave me to the side and heave me up out of the water. I lay on my belly, coughing and spluttering, while she pounded me on the back.

  ‘Poor Oliver,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were such a rotten swimmer?’

  A bitter reply formed on my lips, but I never got it out, for suddenly, there was a sharp tapping on one of the French windows. I glanced up and was appalled to see Smith peering in.

  It is doubtful whether he could actually see us, in spite of the moonlight, what with the mist and the shadows, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him.

  ‘Come on out of it!’ he shouted. ‘I know you’re in there. You can’t get away.’

  He moved to another window, peering in. To my absolute horror, Imogene dived into the water, swam under the surface to the other side and hauled herself out.

  ‘Imogene!’ I called desperately, but I was too late.

  She unbolted two of the French windows and flung them open. Immediately steam boiled around her, sucked out by the cold air. God knows what she looked like, looming out of the mist, touched by moonlight. A creature from another world.

  I saw Smith pause uncertainly beyond her. She flung her arms wide and intoned, ‘At last! At last! ’tis I, Astarte! Come for you, my beloved!’

  Smith gave a hoarse cry, took a hasty step back and fell over a rose bush. He scrambled to his feet, turned and stumbled away into the darkness.

  There was no time to dry off. I was into the changing room and my trousers by the time Imogene arrived. She couldn’t stop laughing.

  ‘Oh, that poor man,’ she said. ‘What will he think?’

  ‘Never mind that now,’ I urged. ‘We’ve got about ninety seconds to get out of here.’

  Which was probably looking on the dark side a little, but there was no sense in asking for trouble. She pulled on shoes, dress and coat and everything else went into her handbag. Extraordinary how difficult it was to wriggle into a jacket when soaking wet, but I managed it, buttoned my raincoat to my neck and stuffed underwear, shirt and socks into my pocket. Then we ran for it. Didn’t stop until we were halfway across the playing fields, Imogene laughing helplessly all the time.

  We finally reached the tram stop and she leaned against me to catch her breath. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked anxiously. ‘You look as if you’ve been caught in a monsoon.’

  She nodded. ‘Marvellous! What are we doing tomorrow night?’

  A tram arrived a few minutes later, which was a good job because it was getting damned cold. The conductor gave her a hand up, frowned and peered outside as he pressed the bell.

  ‘Hasn’t been raining up here, has it?’ he asked as he came for the tickets.

  ‘It’s been pouring on the other side of the fields,’ Imogene told him seriously. ‘Absolutely pouring.’

  The conductor glanced at her with a touch of alarm, then withdrew silently. I watched him standing out there on the platform, and he put his hand out to feel for rain at least half-a-dozen times before we reached Ladywood Park.

  Imogene hugged my arm. ‘That was marvellous, Oliver. It really was. What are we going to do tomorrow?’

  I think I gave Jake the laugh of his life when I appeared from the night like some fugitive from a chain gang. True to form, he got me a very large whisky, and ran a hot bath in which I soaked while I told him all.

  ‘What a woman, Oliver,’ he said. They must have broken the mould when they made her. My offer still stands. If you don’t want her let me have her.’

  ‘The trouble is you never know where you are with her.’ I sighed heavily. ‘Do you know what she just told me, cool as you please, before I left her? That she finishes at Khyber Street this week. She won’t be back next term.’

  ‘Where is she going?’ Jake asked.

  ‘Got herself a teaching post in the Bahamas. One of these three-year contract things.’

  ‘The story of my life,’ he said solemnly and placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘Make hay while the sun shines, old sport. It will soon be raining again.’

  But in a way I was rather glad, for I think I knew then that I couldn’t stand the pace, though I tried hard enough, God knows.

  We were together constantly for the whole fortnight of the Christmas holiday. In fact, I slept with her several times for she lived on her own in a two-roomed flat on
the far side of the park from me.

  I worked myself into a sweat with her on so many occasions that I lost count, but never succeeded in achieving any greater success than I had that first time in her little office at school.

  I was with her on the final night of all. On the following day she was to take a train for London and I was to return to the joys of Khyber Street.

  She could be serious enough when she wanted and was more subdued than I’d ever known her. I helped her pack and we went to bed just before midnight and made love, the end result being no different from usual.

  I got out of bed and went and sat at the window, smoking a cigarette. It was raining slightly, and for some reason I felt terribly sad and very much at the end of something. After a while, there was a movement behind me, a blanket was slipped round my shoulders and she sat on the window seat beside me.

  ‘That was lovely,’ she said.

  I thought she was just trying to be nice and reacted accordingly. ‘Is that a fact?’ I said bitterly.

  ‘I’m satisfied, Oliver, you’re not,’ she said. ‘It’s as simple as that. Not everyone is the same. We all have different needs. Why can’t you let it go at that?’

  She was right. I’d been a stupid morose idiot, seeing only what I wanted to see, and all because of the worst kind of male pride. I felt a sudden rush of affection for her and put an arm around her shoulder.

  ‘Promise me one thing, Oliver,’ she said suddenly. ‘Get out of Khyber Street. It isn’t for you.’

  ‘What do I do? Write the great novel of the century?’

  ‘Why not?’

  I reminded her that my latest effort, the short novel based on my experiences in the Army in Berlin, had been rejected by one of the best literary agents in London, although he had been kind enough to say I had promise and would be willing to handle me.

  ‘Write another book then,’ she said which, strangely enough, had been exactly the advice contained in the last paragraph of the agent’s letter.

  ‘All right, I’ll think about it,’ I said. ‘If it comes to anything, I’ll dedicate it to you.’

  ‘There’s my lovely boy.’ She patted my face. ‘Now let’s get back to bed.’

  I lay with my arm around her in the darkness for quite a while, listening to the rain. I thought she was asleep until she said quietly, ‘Oliver, don’t forget me too quickly, will you? I wouldn’t like that.’

  As if I ever could.

  5

  LUCY

  And the world’s shrunken to a heap of hot flesh straining on a bed.

  E. R. DODDS

  KHYBER STREET SEEMED MORE depressing than ever when I returned, squatting in the winter rain at the edge of the brick-field, black and ugly.

  Slater was still not fit for duty, as Mr Carter informed me on the first day of term, and I would be required to continue as before. Which didn’t set well with the top class at all, for they had been counting on Slater’s return and a resumption of the old ways.

  The many films and books over the years which have attempted to portray life in the downtown type of school have always seemed to me inaccurate in one major respect. They tend to portray indiscipline as an occasional outburst of major violence, most areas being covered, from attempted rape to vicious physical assault. In between we are expected to believe that young hooligans sit quietly at their desks while the teacher explains some intricate point of grammar on the board.

  In my experience, it was the general indiscipline that was so hard to bear, the constant undercurrent of insolence, the regular buzz of conversation, the refusal to do anything but the barest minimum of work. The blank, invisible wall of hatred was such that there were times when I felt very much as I suspect a German soldier must on walking into a crowded bistro in Occupied France.

  Things went from bad to worse during the first couple of weeks, and Varley and his friends were as difficult as it was possible to be. We were virtually back where we had started. To be honest, I had only myself to blame in some respects for I had allowed the iron control I’d achieved during the previous term to slip more than a little.

  I drifted in a mood of real depression, not caring very much about anything, I suppose, and missing Imogene. Strange how seldom we value what we have until we have lost it, and her replacement didn’t help matters. A small dark eager girl of twenty-one, who looked about sixteen and wore deceptively simple clothes that had obviously cost a great deal of money.

  She had one of those beautifully clipped, upper-crust voices that only the better kind of English public school seems able to produce. In view of all this, it was hardly surprising that her name was Harriet. We spoke briefly at a general staff meeting, for Carter had informed me that she lived in the Ladywood Park area. When I raised the matter, she seemed more dismayed than anything else. My general impression being that she didn’t care for me at all, I withdrew and left her severely alone.

  But matters were fast approaching some sort of crisis with the top class. The flashpoint when it came was, as is usual in such affairs, the product of a rather trivial incident.

  The weather turned strangely warm for the time of year, but only for a day or two. It was muggy and oppressive, rain in the offing, but at least it was dry, and I took the class out into the yard during a games period, to play rounders.

  Varley caused nothing but trouble from the start for, as was to be expected, he was the sort of human being who was only interested in having the bat in his hand. Stage centre or nothing.

  He insisted on batting first for his team, worked his way round the bases and joined the end of the line of boys waiting to follow him. He kept glancing at me furtively and I knew he intended to jump the queue as soon as he thought he could get away with it. I gave him a little rope, allowed him to bully his way up three places, but made no sign.

  God, how I loathed him, and the things I had learned about him since our first meeting hardly improved matters. A vicious, mindless lout who had used that belt of his as a weapon on more than one occasion in gang fights. He had appeared in juvenile court twice and was at present on probation for breaking into the local youth club leader’s flat, smashing everything in sight and defecating on the doormat as a grand finale. On top of everything else, he and his gang terrorized the entire district. And Carter didn’t want any trouble.

  Varley reached for the bat. I called, ‘Get back to the end of the queue and wait your turn, Varley.’

  ‘Who, me, sir?’ There was outrage in his voice at the perceived injustice of the suggestion.

  ‘Yes, you,’ I told him firmly. ‘Get back to your proper place.’

  He threw the bat a good fifteen or twenty feet from him, turned, and slouched towards the end of the queue.

  ‘Go and wait for me in the corridor outside the classroom,’ I told him.

  He glanced uncertainly from me to the class, realizing, I think for the first time, that when the chips were really down in any kind of public confrontation, he was on his own.

  Perhaps I had pushed him too hard. One should always leave people a way out, some possibility of a retreat, but I was too young to be aware of that particular rule of life. He walked past me very slowly, insolence and defiance in every step. A yard or two away he started to whistle, then produced a comb and pulled it through his hair.

  The class waited silently, not even a titter. There was an unnatural stillness. Somewhere thunder rumbled on the horizon of things and the swollen, grey belly of the clouds seemed ready to split wide open at any moment. I was hot, I was sweating and I’d very definitely had enough.

  ‘Two seconds, Varley, to get through that door,’ I called. ‘That’s all you’ve got.’

  The end of things for him, too, I suppose, and he spun to face me, snarling like a trapped animal. ‘Just you fucking well try to make me!’

  I started to run at him, he turned and made for the door, too late. The flat of my hand caught him between the shoulder blades, sending him headfirst through the doorway, to fall on his han
ds and knees by the steps.

  I stood just inside the door, breathing hard. ‘Now get upstairs.’

  I was aware of the woodwork room door opening, and Wally appeared. Varley crouched there for a moment then came up suddenly, that belt of his free in his hand, the badges glinting. I managed to grab hold of the end before he could strike a blow, and threw it into the corner.

  I can see his white, pinched face now as he rushed at me in the gloom, the hatred blazing in his eyes, for me, for the whole world. There was a flurry of ineffectual blows, one landing on my cheek rather unpleasantly, then he tried to put his knee into my groin. There seemed to be only one thing to do after that, and I punched him in the stomach as hard as I could.

  He doubled over in pain, and Wally grabbed him by the collar and ran him into the woodwork room, which was empty, for, by chance, he was enjoying a free period before taking my class.

  I stayed by the door, panting for breath, hands shaking. Wally shoved Varley down into a chair, came back, and offered me a cigarette from an old battered silver case with some sort of regimental badge on the cover.

  ‘What should I do?’ I said as he gave me a light.

  ‘No use going to Carter,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to handle it yourself. Unless you want to make a police job of it.’ He picked up the belt. They wouldn’t have much difficulty in describing this as an offensive weapon.’

  ‘But you don’t think I should?’

  ‘Not unless you want them to do the job for you.’ He took out his pipe and filled it methodically. ‘I’ll back you all the way, whatever you decide.’

  He had placed the belt over the end of the banister. I picked it up and nodded. ‘All right, give me five minutes with him, then you can bring the rest of the class in.’

  He went out into the yard without further comment and I entered the woodwork room and closed the door.

  Varley still sat in the chair Wally had pushed him into. I went behind the desk and stood looking down at him for a long moment. Then I threw the belt down with a crash.