Flying High

‘You ever look in the mirror? You look incredible clean, girl, like some kid’s Barbie Doll. You’re so pretty, you’re boring. But I thinks hard when I sees you and I waits till I sees your insides. Then I knows.’

‘What? What you know?’

‘You’re the spirit of the age, see? The times. What you are is what this place is. You’re what they calls an epitome. See, I likes to take what I can and I likes to get it right. I likes an accurate reflection and I likes to enter into the spirit of the thing, you get me?’

‘What you mean, Missis? Can’t you talk straight?’

‘Oh sure, little Gemma. I can talk straight. Yeah, I can do that. So. You want a man, right?’

‘I want Longman.’

‘Ah no, ducks, you want Foreman. I can get you Foreman. Come on, now. Let’s have a little sing. Join in. You know this one …

‘Dance, Foreman, dance.

Dance, my good men, every one.

For Foreman, he can dance alone.

Foreman, he can dance alone …’

‘No, Missis, not him.’

‘Ah, here he is, sweetheart. You just take a look in his trousers. Go on, don’t be shy. Go on, take a peek.’

‘No, Missis …’

‘Where’s the harm?’

All February Mum was like a zombie from Outer Space. She didn’t seem to notice me and Foreman rabbiting about in the house at all. In the morning she went down the Co-op and then she come back home at tea-time knackered and quiet and sat in front of the telly till it was time for bed.

Dix come in some nights with her kids and they all sits down by the telly and just watches and watches. It don’t matter what. They watches whatever. One night I gets up out of bed and I goes down to the front room and watches them. I get the flipper switch and fiddles around all over the shop. I give them a bit of Channel Four film in Frog where you has to read the words and they don’t seem to mind that and then we goes over to Newsnight with a couple of geysers droning on about the economy and they don’t turn a hair. I messes round till one. The silly buggers was lapping it all up. I finishes with this programme with some arty doctor chap blathering on about the meaning of life to a load of short-haired hippies and it was so boring I wanted to shiv the lot. But did my zombies bat an eyelid?

When I turns the set off they all got up, still being the Living Bloody Dead and Dix and her brood goes back home and Mum goes upstairs.

I says to Foreman about it when I went back. But he grabs me and starts to do it again and I forgets about them being crazy because you can’t think about nothing else when Foreman’s doing it.

He goes out every now and again does Foreman to get rat-arsed and he don’t let me tag along. So I goes over to Langley when he does and I tarts about down round the town centre. He don’t care. He knows I’ll bring him some cans back anyway.

I got a bank account now.

End of March Mum got pinched. She’d been thieving from the till and the fuzz arrive and haul her off down the nick for a couple of days. My Uncle Mick come over from Fosshampton and bailed her out. He said he thought she’d get off with a fine because she ain’t got no record and what the hell was the matter with her? I says I reckons she’s sick but she won’t see a doctor. He wanted to know who Foreman was and when I says he’s my bloke he cut up nasty. Starts bad-mouthing him. I give Mick a well-lethal shiv and he shut his mouth and pissed off sharpish. Good riddance to bad rubbish I told Foreman but he just grunted and rolled over.

I near on gived up school. Who needs it? Sometimes I goes in for Community Studies now and again so’s I can sound off and listen to them all agreeing with me like a load of sheep. It’s a bit of a giggle and I just does it for fun, see? I might go in for politics perhaps. I’d be good at that.

When April come I got this bad turn. It wouldn’t have happened if Foreman had stayed home like he was supposed to. But no, the bastard’s got a big thirst and he’s off down town. So I done my eyes over and nips across to Langley on the train. I done a few tricks and I thought I’d swank around the Town Hall bars and pick up some more trade but halfway along up the High I gets ill. Real ill. And while I’m trying to spew up and wondering what the hell it was I ate I hears this ripping sound and me best bloody dress starts splitting away at the seams. I got the sodding biggest bun in the oven you ever see. All at once. One minute a size twelve – the next I’m practically ten months gone! With my dress hanging around like I been in a hurricane. And Christ, did it sting! I starts bawling out and screaming and it being Saturday I gets a decent crowd. Some old classy bint comes out from one of the posh side streets and starts bossing my audience about. They get me an ambulance and about time too I says when I gets in because I’m wet all down my legs. Waters broken says one of the ambulance creeps and so I gets rushed into St Cath’s with all the deedoos going.

Didn’t take long to push the nipper out but it really bloody hurt. I ain’t going through that, never again. I looks down at my belly after and I got these bastard scars just above my hips. Stretch marks says the nurse. And my breasts are all hard and big and they’re leaking for God’s sake! They wants me to breast feed but I ain’t having none of that. Sodding disgusting. The kid’ll make do with powdered milk, I tells the sister and I gives her the mean eye. Stopped her mid-lecture, that did.

Mum come in to see me the next day and she just sits there beside the bed staring at the kiddie as though it was something amazing. When the bell goes, end of visiting, she gets up and stomps off without a word to me like ‘How are you?’ or ‘What can I get you?’ Charming.

Next day I gets up and nicks some clothes out of a side ward while the woman’s in the bog and I gets dressed and takes the babe and discharges myself. I’m going straight off to give the old girl a piece of my mind. What did she think she was doing playing a trick on me like that, hey?

‘Ah, you had the kiddie, did you, Nipper? Let’s have a look at her.’

‘Yeah, no thanks to you. I thought you was going to take care of me?’

‘Well, I did, didn’t I? Best to have the baby in a nice clean hospital with lots of doctors and nurses to keep an eye on you.’

‘I thought you was going to do it for me?’

‘What, you mean you thought it’d be nice having the kiddie out here by my insanitary little stream? I ain’t no midwife, sweetie, I never said I was. Or did you think I was going to have it for you? I ain’t no bloody conjuror neither.’

‘Ain’t you?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice. A harmless eccentric, that’s me.’

‘Where’s Foreman then? I stopped off home and he’s gone.’

‘Ah, yes. Well, Foreman got tired.’

‘What you mean, Foreman got tired?’

‘They all have to have their sleep, dear. You’re a demanding girl, see? You exhaust them after a while.’

‘But what am I going to do now? What about me?’

‘Oh, I got a treat lined up for you, sweetheart, but you has to wait.’

‘What treat? Why do I have to wait for it?’

‘You heard me talk about Littleman, ain’t you?’

‘Yeah. But Littleman’s invisible, you says.’

‘True. But on a certain night in the year he ain’t. He’s good solid flesh just the same as the rest of us.’

‘So what?’

‘He wants you. He wants you bad. He wants you so bad that he thinks he might spend the whole of his one night with you.’

‘Listen, Missis, why the shit should I get worked up about that?’

‘Language. Because, Nipper, Littleman’s better than Ringman and Longman and Foreman all rolled into one. He’s the best there is. The tops. And the things he can teach you. The power he can give you. Makes me feel faint just to think about it.’

‘What sort of power?’

‘Ooh, real power. The power to get what you want just like that. You can have money, clothes, servants, fast cars, villas in the South of France, men, anything you bleeding like.’

‘But I got that now.’

‘No, love, what you got now’s just a shadow of what you could have if you let Littleman spend the night with you.’

‘If it’s so good why don’t you go with him instead of me?’

‘It’s you he wants, sweetie. He only wants you, see? And as for me I get my thrills by seeing you enjoy yourself. I like your appetite, Gemma. It feeds me.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘Forget it. Just you nip up to Yalderton Ridge the last day of the month and I promise, you’ll have the night of your life.’

‘I don’t know. I’ll think about it.’

‘Don’t think about it, girl, do it. I ever let you down before?’

‘No. Well, I dunno. I might. OK? I might. ’Bye. See you.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

‘What?’

‘Your baby, Nipper. Your little baby what you’re going to give me to look after like you said you would.’

‘What you want her for, Missis?’

‘I got a kind heart, see? I reckons you might neglect the little one once you got your hands on Littleman. Give us the baby, sweetheart, and I’ll see she wants for nothing a mother can give her.’

‘I don’t know …’

‘Come off it, Nipper. You truly want a baby hanging round your neck once you’re gallivanting round the world with your men friends?’

‘Suppose not. All right. But I’ll check up on her, see?’

‘Good girl. You’d be unnatural if you didn’t want to see her now and then. You just come and ask and I’ll show her to you. OK?’

‘Yeah, suppose so.’

‘And don’t forget. Be up the Ridge on the thirtieth. You won’t regret it.’

‘Might.’

It was hard waiting. Even though it was only a couple of weeks I was close to busting. Most nights I went down town trolling but it was stupid. After Foreman it didn’t seem as if any guy I could find to screw knew how to do it. I started to dream about bloody Littleman and woke up howling. Mum took no notice. Once I’d got rid of the brat she’d lost interest. She was on the Social now because the Co-op wouldn’t take her back. Hardly surprising, silly bitch! Fancy thinking she could get away with lifting money out the till! Still, she was quiet enough and give me no cheek when I got iffy which I do regular when I has to go without it.

Christ, them days went slow. Sometimes I’d plan out what I was going to do once I’d got this extra zip the old girl had said I’d get. I’d buy myself a Rolls or better still, a Chevvy, and I’d get a hunk to be my chauffeur and I’d go on the biggest spending spree anybody ever went on. Other times I’d think up faces for Littleman – Nick Nolte or Kevin Costner – and then I’d think about what the rest of him’d look like and groan. Yeah, it was a shitty time for me. Had to go round with crossed legs most days.

When the day come I was in the bath all afternoon. I shaved my pits, my legs, near on everywhere. I done myself up real careful and got my black dress out so’s to look dead seductive. Not what you might call suitable for messing around in the woods up on the Ridge but the weather was fine and I’d got a spare pair of stockings ready.

In the bus going up there I was so fidgety I had to keep on changing seats. The bus creep tells me to sit down but I don’t shiv him because we can do without a sodding crash. Jesus, I was impatient. I kept thinking when I was the boss round here I’d get the buses to stop only two or three times. This bloody bus stopped all over the shop. It even bloody stopped when there wasn’t anybody wanting to get on. So I started to think about how I’d zap creeps when I come into my power. How I could even zap the old girl. Teach her a few lessons. A little respect. And then I goes back to thinking about Littleman. My hands is sweating and that’s a sure sign I’m ready for it. Christ, was I ready!

It was near dark when I gets off but I knows my way up the Ridge backwards since last summer and I belted up and tore through the wood heading for Ringman’s stone. There weren’t no sign of Littleman so I sat down to catch my breath. After a while I hears the old girl singing bloody Top of the Pops. I can do without this, I thinks, but I knows better than to interrupt. Somewhere away in the woods she’s droning on as usual:

‘Dance, Littleman, dance,

Dance, my good men, every one,

For Littleman, he can’t dance alone,

Littleman, he can’t dance alone.’

Oh, so Littleman can’t dance alone, hey? He needs a girl to make him dance. I’m bloody trembling now at the thought.

It were getting real dark but I knew Ringman when he steps out from behind his stone and I knew Longman and Foreman who come with him. I know them by their smells, specially Foreman. They comes up and touches me sort of gentle and exciting and in a little I begins to pant. They carries me into the wood and we comes to a clearing place and they puts me down very careful, still stroking away. Then I sees the old girl sitting on a log, smiling at me like I was her true nipper and she lifts her hand and points over to a dark corner and crouching there is Littleman. I wants him straight away. He’s big and blond and he looks at me like he ain’t ate for a year. Well, he can eat me all right.

‘Gemma,’ says the Missis, ‘let me introduce you to your dad.’

I begins to laugh and then I sees she ain’t joking. For a minute I wonder whether I should run off but my legs is all weak. I licks my lips and goes hot.

I says, ‘What the hell? I’ll try anything once.’

I takes off my clothes and lays down inviting in the middle of the clearing.

Headline story, Langley Evening Argus, 15 May 1992:

MURDER VICTIM USED IN SATANIC RITES?

The body of a young girl, found yesterday in woodland below Yalderton Ridge, was today identified as that of fifteen-year-old Gemma Hearnesley of 14, Coebrook Grove, Grigbourne. Her badly mutilated and partially eaten remains were discovered by a farmer’s dog in a remote spot below the Ridge.

Chief Inspector David Marsh of the County Constabulary, who is in charge of the case, stated categorically today that the police are treating Gemma’s death as murder. Police from all over the county were out in force this afternoon combing the area for clues to Gemma’s assailant.

Chief Inspector Marsh went on to say that although the body was naked and had remained concealed for about a fortnight, forensic reports showed that there was no sign of a sexual assault made on the victim. However there were certain indications at the scene of the crime which suggested that she might have been subjected to some form of black magic ritual, though the evidence as yet is far from conclusive. Her other injuries have been ascribed to scavenging animals.

Two men, Neil Hogarth (31) and Dougal Smith (23) were arrested in the early hours of the morning after tip-offs from local people. Both men are members of a group of New Age Travellers encamped on common land near Yalderton Heath and have been described as Satanists. Later they were released after questioning.

Mrs Lynda Hearnesley, the mother of the victim, was unavailable for comment. However, all day, letters of support and comfort have been arriving at her Grigbourne home from relatives and friends. This afternoon some of Gemma’s classmates delivered flowers and messages of sympathy to her door, shocked and stunned by the news of her death. Mrs Hearnesley’s neighbour, Mrs Dixey Foster, said that Gemma’s mother was too distressed to comment. She added, ‘Gemma was a lovely girl, popular with us all. Nothing was ever too much for her. When her mother was ill earlier on this year Gemma nursed her devotedly through it. We are all horrified to hear of her death and the sooner the police catch the madman who did this the better.’

Another neighbour expressed his opinion that the reintroduction of capital punishment would act as a deterrent for this type of crime.

DRAWING FROM THE FIGURE

Cynthia Chapman

Since she gave up teaching, Cynthia Chapman’s occupations have included market stallholder, pub pianist and running a fancy-dress hire business from her home in Kent. She has been writing for about five years and has had over thirty stories published in magazines. At present she is trying to find a publisher for her first novel while working on her second.

DRAWING FROM THE FIGURE

At twelve-thirty Mrs Oliphant removed her gardening gloves and laid them in the trug with the secateurs and bass. She straightened up from her task of staking delphiniums, conscious of a familiar twinge in the small of her back. Naturally one ignored this evidence of the advancing years; nothing was more boring than one’s own minor ailments. The way to keep young was to follow the excellent advice of all those newspaper columnists; get out and about and take up new hobbies and interests so that one simply didn’t have time to feel sorry for oneself.

However, she did feel a little sorry for herself when, just as she had arranged a lightly boiled egg and thin fingers of brown bread and butter on a tray, the telephone rang. She had to watch the egg growing cold as her friend Marjorie prattled on about nothing. As soon as she could she cut the conversation short.

‘You must forgive me, my dear – I’m due at my art class at half past one. That’s right, we’re going to tackle drawing from the figure this term. Yes indeed – one only hopes it won’t be too illuminating!’

After eating her spoilt lunch Mrs Oliphant hurried upstairs to change out of her pale-green cotton trousers and loose-fitting shirt. One did not of course dress up for an Adult Education class but on the other hand one did try to look fresh and summery. She selected a dress in a light, silky fabric patterned in soft shades of blue – reminiscent of the delphiniums that one loved so much – and white shoes with a sensible medium heel. Her fair hair was worn in a short, casual style that needed little attention, but she carefully reapplied the rose-pink lipstick that these days seemed more flattering than stronger colours. After spraying a little lily of the valley toilet water behind her ears she was ready.

Since her husband had died Mrs Oliphant had been to classes in Embroidery, Flower Arranging, Yoga (for which one had been obliged to wear a track suit) and French Conversation. This year’s choice – ‘Discovering Drawing’ – had made her feel quite adventurous, for although one had of course always adored Art it was amazing to find that one could actually produce quite recognizable pictures of assorted flowerpots, a bunch of bananas, or a jumble of kitchen utensils on a checked tablecloth.

This term the members of the class were ready to progress to ‘Drawing from the Figure’ and had been asked to pay an extra two pounds towards the services of the models. Their tutor Mr Redfern had stressed that the important thing about figure drawing was not to feel inhibited or discouraged by one’s early efforts but just to have a go. He was a likeable, friendly man and they had now got over their initial reluctance to call him ‘Teddy’ as requested. He was in fact rather like a teddy bear, stockily built, with fluffy golden hair balding at the crown, a cheerful, ruddy face, and eyes the colour of brandy. After two terms with him they all felt like old friends.

Teddy Redfern was in his early forties and had a liking for alcohol and young women; a combination which had cost him both his previous teaching job at a sixth-form college and his marriage. These days he still drank a little more than he should, but his weakness for young women was not catered for in his Adult Education classes, for the majority of his pupils were ladies of indeterminate age with more enthusiasm than artistic talent. Like Mrs Oliphant, they were charming, cultured and conventional, and if they ever detected whisky fumes on his breath they were much too well-bred to give any sign of it.

Now they were all busily engaged in drawing the young West Indian in jeans and T-shirt who leant against a table, his chin cupped in one hand, as if deep in thought. Teddy Redfern withdrew to the side of the room and surreptitiously lit a cigarette, tapping his ash out of the open window. Idly he listened to the snatches of conversation interspersed with ripples of ladylike laughter.

‘My dear, I was quite expecting a nude!’

‘Oh, we’re not nearly ready for that yet, are we?’

‘One does rather hope that one wouldn’t have to cope with a male nude to start with!’

‘But artists have to cultivate a detached viewpoint – just like doctors and nurses. The human body’s simply a machine, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, of course. It’s too silly to be apprehensive about drawing the nude figure – most of us are married women, after all.’

Teddy Redfern threw his cigarette-end out of the window and began to drift round the room, making bluff, hearty comments about the work as he went. No good being too discouraging, he thought, or he’d find himself without a class next year. Mrs Oliphant’s attempt seemed to him slightly more competent than those of the other ladies.

‘I say, Anthea – I do believe you’re improving all the time! That head’s really very good.’

‘Oh, do you think so? I felt I was making a frightful botch of it.’

‘Nonsense! Just have a bash at it and don’t worry too much over the results. That’s what life’s all about, isn’t it?’

As he moved on, a faint frown crossed Mrs Oliphant’s face, for she found this simple philosophy quite alien to her nature. One could hardly ‘have a bash’ at everything in life; either one felt that one could be moderately successful at something, or one didn’t.

It would be no use, for instance, having a bash at changing the flat tyre of one’s car, she thought some forty-five minutes later, standing in the car park feeling particularly helpless. One would just have to go back into the centre and telephone one’s garage.

As she walked up the steps Teddy Redfern swung out of the glass doors, talking away so busily to the West Indian boy that he nearly bumped into her. ‘… like a couple of balloons in a binliner. Ah – forgotten something, Anthea? I’d better come back with you. I’ve just locked up.’

‘Oh, no, no –’ she faltered. ‘It’s my wretched car; a flat tyre, and I’m afraid I’m a perfect fool when it comes to dealing with anything mechanical …’

‘Is that all? I’ll have it done in a jiffy. Can’t have you messing about with oily tools, can we? Don’t wait for me, Mick – I can get the bus.’

The young man rode off on a motor bike and Teddy Redfern accompanied her back to her silver-grey Golf.

‘Is your own car out of action?’ enquired Mrs Oliphant, watching him roll up his sleeves and set to work.

‘Yes, temporarily. Bit of a nuisance, but I think there’s a bus I can get in about twenty minutes.’