Confessions of a Personal Secretary

‘—3422,’ repeats the curly-haired waiter who has produced a pencil stub with the speed of light. ‘Y-a-a-ys, mad-oom. I think I can giva yow what yow want.’

I never find out whether he can or can’t because I have to leave to have my hair done. If you are five minutes late at ‘Hair Today’ they cancel your appointment.

The next time I see Penny is on the doorstep of ‘Learnfast’. It is on the Monday stipulated by Mr Kruger, and Sandor has indeed struck terror into my mother’s heart by ringing up and asking to speak to me. She is getting so sensitive that it worries me sometimes. Sandor may be a foreigner but, goodness gracious, there is nothing wrong with that. Even if he were asking me out to the pictures it would not be the end of the world. You would think that with the speed of travel and communications between countries we would all be becoming one big happy family, but it seems to be quite the reverse. The more we see and hear of each other the more we seem to dislike each other. It is sad, isn’t it?

‘Hi!’ says Penny. ‘I decided to take the plunge. Fascinating dump, isn’t it? Looks more like a back street abortion clinic.’

I blush and search my heart to find if I am truly glad that Penny is joining me at the Lft Sl o Fwt. Perhaps, in the interests of our friendship I should take a brave smile to my lips and say: ‘Penny! I didn’t expect to find you here.’

‘Neither did I,’ says the first girl at her finishing school to finish – she was expelled after three weeks when the under gardener became the over gardener behind the gardenias. ‘I did it on a whim. I don’t know what got into me – well, I do really. He was rather a divine—’

‘Quite,’ I say pressing the front doorbell. Could it be jealousy that makes me fed up with hearing about Penny’s endless sexual adventures? Or is it the note of rapture that always transcends them? Whenever I pick up a paper or magazine, people are continually complaining about their lack of sexual satisfaction or seeking advice on how to get more. Why should Penny always strike lucky with the love lollies? I can’t remember her expressing dissatisfaction with an ‘amorous joust’ as she is wont to call them since she purchased the silence of the night porter at Queen Adelaide’s Hospital Nurses’ Home with her body and found it wanting – wanting but not offering much in return by all accounts. Still, I must not be too unkind. We have been through a lot together.

‘Miss Dixon! Welcome to Learnfast. And you, dear young lady. Trip over our portal but mind your step if you understand me.’ Mr Kruger is clearly in a jovial mood and I see his eyes lighting up Penny like searchlights. ‘Have you come with your friend?’

‘That would be telling, cheeky,’ says Penny, gaily chucking Kruger under the chin. ‘I believe I have to fill in some dreary old forms before I’m allowed to pound the keys. Is that correct?’

‘Absolutely,’ purrs Kruger. ‘Come into my sanctum and I’ll take down your curricula vitae.’

I think I would have slapped his face if he had said that to me – especially after my near experience on my last visit – but Penny follows the man without a murmur. I suppose close examination of the petit point of life’s rich, varied tapestry has taught her how to handle people like that.

I am told to join ‘the others’ beyond a door bearing a card saying ‘Typing Class’ and when I enter, it is to find a group of girls and Sandor clustered round an upright piano. I think that perhaps we are going to start the day with a jolly sing-song but I am soon disillusioned. There are letters marked all over the keys and Sandor explains – with great difficulty since he hardly seems to speak any English – that these correspond to the arrangement of letters on the keys of a typewriter.

‘Listen carefully most,’ he says. ‘I now play you “Dear Sir, yours of the fifth ult to hand is,”’ and he begins to pound the keys making a din that bears no relation at all to music. The class listen hard and make notes – I mean the kind you take down with a pencil – but by the end of an hour and a half’s tuition there is not one of us that can play ‘Yours truly’. I can see why Kruger was stressing the importance of a musical background. There is also no sign of Penny. I am beginning to wonder if her interview with Kruger has made her think better of the whole enterprise when the door opens and she slips in looking rather flushed.

‘It’s hot in there, isn’t it?’ I whisper.

Penny nods and winks at me. ‘What a monster,’ she says. I nod understandingly. ‘Did he push it?’

Penny opens her eyes and flutters her knees in a gesture I find puzzling. ‘And how!’

At that moment, the door bursts open and Mr Kruger staggers in. I have never seen a man looking nearer to apoplexy. His face is scarlet and glistening with sweat and he feels his way along the wall to the goldfish bowl and gulps down most of its contents until the unfortunate fish is back-paddling against his lips. I noticed that the curls on the collar of his astrakan coat have all disappeared and that the fur now hangs limp and straight like André Previn’s hair.

‘Is he all right?’ I hiss.

‘It depends on your standards,’ says Penny. ‘I’d give him five out of ten for stamina with a two-point bonus for having a big one.’

Before I can ask her what she is talking about, I am called to the piano to play ‘We apologize for the delay’ without looking at the keyboard and the class is dismissed for ten minutes. When I get out into the hall where Sandor is selling doughnuts and paper cups of watery tea there is no sign of Mr Kruger, and Penny has gone to the toilet. The break is needed for I have found the morning’s work much harder than I had expected. At least there is some comfort in learning that most of the other girls feel the same.

‘I don’t know how I’m going to practise,’ says one of my fellow pupils. ‘We don’t even have a typewriter at home let alone a piano.’

‘A concertina will do the trick,’ says Sandor who seems to be able to hear any conversation that takes place within ten yards of him – though you can never get ten yards from anyone in the small semi-detached that houses Learnfast – ‘Your mother or other loved one can supply the squeezes. You apply the fingers to the notes. Maybe I sell you one, cheap, cheap.’

‘I wonder what you need for Fastwriting,’ murmurs another girl. ‘Probably a Lear Jet.’

But in fact you only need a pencil and a lot of inspiration. Sandor explains the principle, which is that you leave out all the letters that you don’t need in the words, and we copy out some texts and pass them round the form to be deciphered. Since all the texts are different nobody knows what they are going to get and very few people can understand anything. When I get mine back I cannot understand it either. It is all rather worrying. Especially as Sandor just shrugs and continues to read a book called ‘Open wider, please’. From the look of the cover I do not think it is about dentists. I would feel more reassured about Sandor if he did not wear a T-shirt with ‘I choked Linda Lovelace’ stencilled on it.

By three o’clock Mr Kruger has recovered sufficiently to pay us a visit and hope that we are all settling in well. He tells us not to worry if we find things difficult and says that both Fastwriting and Symphonic Typing – apparently that is what it is called – are such revolutionary techniques that we must approach them as if learning a new language.

‘You cannot take to them as a duck makes water,’ adds Sandor helpfully and Mr Kruger taps him playfully on the head with his clenched fist. Sandor falls to the floor and pretends to be unconscious. He is still lying there as we file out laughing. It has been a hard day and a little light relief is welcome.

In the days that follow, the work does not get any easier and I have to confess that I am not making the progress I had hoped for. Symphonic Typing is a dead loss as far as I am concerned and I am relieved beyond belief when we eventually sit down in front of a real typewriter. I have taught myself to play Chopsticks but that is about all Mr Kruger’s ‘unique piano method’ has done for me.

The typewriters are as old as the hills and rear up like steel wedding cakes, but at least they should provide me with the first step towards playing the only music I am really interested in at the moment – the rhapsodic, flowing beauty of more than forty words a minute. I run my fingers lovingly over the keys and – oh no! This is too much! I have put up with a lot from the Lft Sl o Fwt – including the totally inadequate toilet arrangements in the back yard: it is so embarrassing going out there and finding Mr Kruger and Sandor playing some form of quoits with the lavatory seat – but I do expect any typewriter, however ancient, to still have the letters visible on the keys.

‘Mr Sandor!’ My hand shoots into the air. ‘The lettering has worn off my keys. I can’t see anything.’

For the first time that I can remember, Sandor looks totally in command of the situation. ‘The letters were never on the keys in the second place!’ he says. ‘It is necessary for you to remember their position by your experience.’

Something inside me snaps. ‘This is ridiculous!’ I shout. ‘Typing on the piano was bad enough but if you think I’m going to sit down at a typewriter that doesn’t have any letters, you—’

‘Darling.’ Penny looks up from the copy of ‘Open wider, please’ that she is reading under her desk. She says that Sandor gave it to her in the back yard – I believe he gave her the book afterwards as a memento. ‘Don’t subject your underwear to unnecessary strain. Not having any letters on the keys is standard teaching practice.’

I glance round and see that the surrounding typewriter keys have less writing on them than the lavatory walls at Festival of Light headquarters. Oh dear. I blush scarlet and sit down hurriedly. ‘I was only trying to make a stand,’ I murmur to Penny.

‘You don’t have to make one with Sandor,’ says Penny. ‘He self-erects if you brush past his coat on the hallstand.’

‘Now, if the interruptions finished quite have,’ says Sandor singling me out for a crushing glance, ‘to work we will get down. First I give you letter, then you transfer it to typewriter. If at first, mistakes you make, worry not. It is the habit. Are you ready with your little pencils? Good! I begin: “Dear Mummy, it is very nice here in Sierra Leone and I am making lots of new friends. The sun is shining and …”’

In the weeks that follow I notice a very funny thing. All the dictation we get takes the form of letters home from Port Said, Accra, Dar es Salaam and the like, and all of it says what a good time the writer is having. After a while you begin to feel that it must be lovely in these places and a number of the girls can hardly wait to take up Mr Kruger’s oft repeated promises of overseas employment. Only one hurdle remains to their ambition: the final examinations for the Learnfast Diploma – or the Lft Dla as we call it amongst ourselves. Mr Kruger has explained that because of its revolutionary techniques the school sees little point in sitting its pupils for open examinations and prefers to set its own special tests.

‘Anyone Pitmans can pass,’ says Sandor. ‘But Learnfast, now difficult that is.’

He is right. I had been expecting a tough exam but my performance is abysmal. I do not finish my typing in the allotted time and what I do do is littered with mistakes. As for my Fastwriting, it is quite unintelligible. Not surprising when one is being dictated to by Sandor who can hardly enunciate in fractured English. I sign my papers with heavy heart – we have to sign all our work at Learnfast – and prepare for the worst. I think if I fail I will try again at one of the more traditional secretarial schools. There is no point in trying to duck the fact that the Learnfast techniques are too sophisticated for me.

‘The results disappointing very are,’ says Sandor the next day as we assemble nervously in the assembly hall – or front lounge as it might be called if the house was in private use. ‘Mr Kruger upset is. High hopes dashed are. Himself he will you tell. One on top of the other.’ Penny nods as if the arrangement does not come as a complete surprise to her and I decide that I might as well get the bad news over as quickly as possible and volunteer to go first.

When I go through the door of Mr Kruger’s office I am surprised to find that he is not alone. A brooding, dark-haired man is sitting beside the desk and studying me through piercing eyes no less magnetic than Mr Kruger’s. He wears a small moustache and reminds me of Omar Sharif.

‘Ah, Miss Dixon,’ says Kruger rising to his feet courteously as does the stranger. ‘Allow me to introduce Mr Hassan who is recruiting secretaries for some of his Middle Eastern ventures.’

‘Charmed,’ says Hassan bending over my wrist and implanting a small kiss on the back of my hand.

‘Likewise,’ I say. ‘But don’t forget, Mr Kruger. I don’t want to go abroad.’

Mr Kruger frowns and runs his finger down a list of names on his desk. ‘I’m afraid it’s not very easy for a young lady in your position to be too dogmatic about where she goes. Your charm and sweetness have made an indelible impression on us all but your examination marks have not come up to what we normally consider to be diploma standard at Learnfast.’

‘So I’ve failed?’ I say. ‘That’s what you’re trying to tell me isn’t it?’

Mr Kruger looks toward Mr Hassan as if expecting him to speak but the Arab courteously waves his hand, willing the Managing Director of Learnfast to continue. ‘Yes and no,’ says Kruger clasping his hands together and looking up at the ceiling. ‘As I have already intimated, your general expertise leaves something to be desired when considered against the technical qualifications of the average secretary practising in the Western Hemisphere, but in terms of the Middle East where standards are, perhaps, less exalted—?’ Kruger puts a question mark into his voice and raises his eyebrows towards Hassan who spreads his arms wide in another inscrutable gesture ‘—you might have something to offer.’

‘I can’t understand why,’ I say. ‘I mean, I don’t speak a word of Arabic.’

‘That is not important,’ says Hassan, his voice confirming the dark brown impression it made when uttering the word ‘charmed’. ‘English is the language of intercourse.’

‘Business intercourse,’ says Kruger hurriedly.

‘Precisely,’ says Hassan. ‘To have an English secretary is very much a question of prestige.’ He turns his dark brown eyes on to me and my resolve begins to weaken. Arabs have such a romantic reputation, don’t they? Despite eating sheeps eyes with their fingers and making their wives walk in front of the camel in case there are any mines left over from World War II. I especially like the Westernized ones – like Hassan. His beige silk suit fits so perfectly that it might have been sprayed on to his body and his heavy gold cufflinks must put a heavy strain on the stitches that hold the arms of his shirt to the rest of the sumptuous lawn material. Perhaps I am being too hasty in my rejection of a position abroad.

Kruger clearly senses the hesitation in my eyes because he coughs apologetically and glances at his watch. ‘Why don’t you have a private chat about it with Akmed?’ he says. ‘He can put you in the picture about it better than I can.’ He turns to Hassan. ‘You can use the interview room on the second floor.’

‘I have already installed myself there,’ says Hassan smoothly. ‘If Miss Dixon would care to accompany me I would be delighted to fill her in.’

‘Well-er, yes, thank you,’ I say. I mean, it is difficult to refuse isn’t it? Kruger is already rustling his papers and looking over my shoulder for the next pupil and I have nothing to lose by hearing what Mr Hassan has to say. I can always say no.

As we go out of Krugar’s office, Penny is waiting outside the door and I notice the way her eyes light up appreciatively as they dwell on my accompanying hunk of Eastern promise. ‘I’m popping upstairs with Mr Hassan,’ I murmur.

‘Dixon strikes again,’ says Penny clicking her tongue against her teeth in rather unsavoury fashion. ‘You sure know how to pick them, don’t you?’

I do not reply but follow the route suggested by Mr Hassan’s courteously extended arm. His manners are certainly impeccable. He was probably educated at King’s College School, Wimbledon or some other hallowed fount of learning in this country.

We turn right at the landing and Mr Hassan gestures me towards a room at the back of the house. I open the door and am surprised to see what at a first glance I take to be a coffee percolator bubbling away on the floor. I look closer and find that it has a couple of tubes running away from its top. Of course! It is a hookah, or whatever they call them. One of those water pipes that the Arabs smoke while the Turkish Delight and After Eights are being circulated. There are also some brightly coloured silk cushions littered about and an embroidered rug. I must say, they do cheer the place up. The picture on the wall of a woman drowning in a lily pond has never been a favourite of mine.

‘Rest yourself,’ says Hassan waving me towards the floor. ‘First, let me show you your flat.’

In fact I am not at all flat and I am just about to protest, when Akmed pushes an artist’s impression of what looks like a large apartment block into my hand. There is a clump of palm trees shown next to the sign reading ‘Shufti El Bints’ so I imagine it must be somewhere abroad.

‘Alexandria,’ says Akmed answering my unasked question as he throws himself down gracefully on the rug beside me. ‘Very near the sea. I think you would like it there.’

‘It does look nice,’ I say. ‘But surely it’s very expensive, isn’t it?’

‘The rent for the flat would be deducted from your earnings – I mean, salary,’ says Akmed. He flashes me a charming smile and extends one of the pipes from the hookah towards me. ‘You like to try? It is very much the habit when business is being talked in my country and we get down to business now, do we not? Insert it between your lips like so, and suck gently.’

Well, I am always game for anything above board and though I don’t really approve of smoking, one go can’t do any harm can it? I watch Akmed’s firm lips close round what looks like the ivory mouthpiece of the pipe and experience a strange sensation that it is difficult to put a finger on. A kind of mental shiver – more a tingle – runs through my nervous system when his cheeks hollow and he starts to suck. It is like bashing your funny bone against something. A disturbing sensation but fascinating at the same time.

Hoping that Akmed Hassan has not been talking business with any dirty old Arabs lately I slip the tube he proffers between my lips and give a nervous suck. A heavy fragrance hangs in the room and as the first whiff of smoke enters my nostrils I immediately identify it with the all-pervading odour. My, but it is strong! My head swims as I breathe out and a slight feeling of dizziness makes me close my eyes.

‘You like it.’ The tone of Akmed’s voice suggests that he is making a statement of fact, not asking a question, but I nod in a reflex gesture of politeness.

‘Mmm,’ I say, searching for the right words. ‘It’s very unusual. I’ve never come across anything quite like it before.’

Akmed smiles understandingly. ‘The world is full of new sensations. Now, perhaps you would explain your reservations about working in the Middle East and I will try to set your mind at rest. Perhaps you think that I and my fellow countrymen are – how do you put it – dirty wogs?’

‘Oh no!’ I say, taking another nervous puff at the hookah. ‘It’s not that at all – I mean, I don’t think you’re what you just said. Nothing of the sort. My dad put in oil-fired central heating before anyone else in the street. I think the pyramids are wonderful. They must have been terribly difficult to make. It’s just that I want to stay at home.’

I break off as another swirling mist envelopes me and I close my eyes. I feel as if I am floating above the ground. It must be something to do with the way the tobacco smoke is filtered through the water.

‘I think your services would be very much in demand,’ breathes Hassan rubbing the back of one of his fingers against my cheek.

‘That’s very kind of you,’ I say. ‘But I think my typing might let me down a bit.’

‘And I would be able to see you sometimes,’ husks Hassan. ‘We could drive to Sidi Shaba for dinner.’

‘I’d love to meet him,’ I murmur. ‘But are you sure I’d be able to cope – I mean, if I changed my mind and decided to come?’

Hassan squeezes my wrist comfortingly. ‘I am certain of it. You would not be alone at the Shufti El Bint. There are many girls who put up there—’ he smiles to himself ‘—girls from all round the world. And, as I have said, there would be me.’

‘And would I have far to go to work?’ I ask.

‘Much of your work would be done on the premises,’ says Hassan evenly. ‘Business in Arab countries is conducted in a much more fluid situation. Business men will come to you when they have need of your services.’

‘Gosh. It’s certainly different from this country, isn’t it?’ I say. Hassan’s proposition certainly deserves serious consideration but am I in the right mood to give it? I don’t know what it is about the man’s hookah but I have not felt so woozy since someone spiked the punch at the Eastwood Lawn Tennis Club Summer Ball. The room is swimming and Hassan’s handsome features remain my only point of focus. ‘You like the hubble-bubble?’ he asks.

‘I’m afraid that most of these new dances leave me cold,’ I say, wondering why he has changed the subject. ‘What kind of salary were you thinking about?’

Hassan does not reply but removes the pipe of the hookah from his lips and lets it drop between his legs. ‘Now we exchange pipes,’ he says. ‘Old Eastern custom.’

‘I don’t know if I can take much more,’ I say. ‘I feel a bit—’

‘Suck!’ There is a compelling edge to Hassan’s voice and the look of throbbing intensity in his eyes is so powerful that I have to turn away. I glance down and there is the heavy doorknob dome of Hassan’s – no! it can’t be!

‘Suck!’ Hassan’s spread fingers alight on the top of my head and begin to exert downward pressure. I must be having some kind of hallucination. I glance once more into Hassan’s eyes but find myself hypnotized by the mouthpiece of my hookah pipe which he guides sensually between his lips. He runs his tongue along its tip and then takes half a dozen quick puffs. Again I experience the near pain of identification with his act. What is happening to me? The downward pressure on my head increases and I obediently bend and take the fluted shaft between fingers and thumb. It could be a microphone or a— ‘Suck.’ The note of command has now left Hassan’s voice and is replaced by one almost of pleading. I close my eyes as another lazy, hazy wave breaks gently over me and part my lips. Wider, this time, opens my mouth and I feel the firm slippery surface buffeting my tongue. I return the pressure and, as if programmed by some secret force, repeat the actions that Hassan practised on the mouthpiece of his hookah. His hand falls to the back of my neck and kneads the flesh as one might fondle a dog. There is a sinuous urging in his movements and I respond to it, drawing more and more forcefully on the shaft between my lips until it seems that I must bring the liquid in the gourd bubbling to the surface.

‘Allah be merciful!!’ gasps Hassan. ‘Eeeegh! It is too much.’ With this remark, he jerks the pipe of his hookah from between my lips and kisses me passionately on the mouth. Well! you can imagine how taken aback I am! This is not at all the kind of thing I was expecting when I came upstairs to discuss job opportunities in the Middle East. I think too, that some of the potency of the pipe must have worn off because my last few puffs did not have such a head-clouding effect on me.

‘Mr Hassan!’ I draw back horrified and am even more disturbed to discover that the advantage-taking Arab’s pussy-pummeller is rearing into the air from between his legs – not that, unless you had led an incredibly sheltered life, you would expect it to be rearing from anywhere else. I try to scramble to my feet but Hassan seizes me and hurls me back against the cushions. To think that I was actually considering him as the major reason for going to Alexandria. Dixon, when will you ever learn?