Rosie Dixon's Complete Confessions

I am murmuring my agreement when I hear the sound of shrill, girlish voices outside the window. They seem to be excited and the volume is rising fast. Miss Grimshaw says something I can’t quite catch and strides purposefully to the window. I fall in respectfully at her elbow. Below us, the figure of a man can be seen staggering across the circle of gravel. He is wearing a T-shirt—or rather, was wearing a T-shirt. The tattered rag streaming from his broad sun-bronzed shoulders could have been nothing else. The man must be in his early twenties and is definitely a bit of all right in the fanciable stakes. As we watch he darts a glance over his shoulder and the look of haunted terror in his eyes is plain to see. He takes another step forward and collapses on the gravel.

“Blast!” says Miss Grimshaw.

Round a corner of the building stream about twenty girls wearing shorts and blouses. There is a collective shout of triumph and the prostrate man rises on his elbows and starts trying to crawl towards the house we are standing in. Miss Grimshaw throws herself at the window and wrenches up the sash.

“GET BACK!!” she bellows. “BACK! I say.”

The leading girls have now nearly closed with the man who has stopped crawling and curled himself up like a hedgehog. They stumble to a halt and stare up at the window resentfully.

“Back to your rooms!”

There is a moment’s hesitation and then the girls begin to split up into groups and file away. The man picks himself up and raises an accusing finger towards our window.

“I want to see ’ee, Miss Grimshaw.”

“Later, Hardakre.” Miss Grimshaw slams the window down and shakes her head. “Sport plays an important part in our lives here,” she says. “That was the Hare and Hounds Club simulating a kill.” She takes another swig of cold tea. “What was I talking about?”

“About the railways,” I say.

“Erosion of modern values … duty to uphold law and order … Capital Gains Tax …” Miss Grimshaw sways and collapses into her chair. “It’s those pills I have to take for my hay fever.”

“They’re terrible, aren’t they?” I say sympathetically.

Miss Grimshaw shakes her head and picks up a letter with “final demand” typed across the top of it. “Was Geography your only subject at Mingehampton?”

“I think there must be some mistake,” I say. “I came about the job of gym mistress.”

Miss Grimshaw waves a hand at my words as if they are distracting insects. “We can’t have you incarcerated in the gym all the time—anyway, we don’t have one. These days, during the grave shortage of teachers and—er, money considerations prompt us to double up as much as we can. I don’t think you’ll have any problem teaching Geography. After all, you did find your way here.” Miss Grimshaw laughs at her little joke and stretches out a hand to where the bottle of cold tea used to be.

“Well, if you really think—I don’t have any qualifications.”

Miss Grimshaw smiles knowingly. “Don’t worry too much about that. Many of our longest serving members of the staff don’t have any qualifications.”

It all seems too good to be true. Miss Grimshaw is talking as if I already have the job. I must appear keen.

“Pen—Miss Green mentioned the ‘Survival In The Seventies’ Course.”

“Ah yes.” Miss Grimshaw leans forward and places the palms of her hands together. “That’s a project very dear to my heart.”

I flash on my “tell me more” expression but it is unnecessary.

“I think it absolutely vital that we prepare our gels for the world that they are going to have to live in. A world in which oil, coal and even food are going to be in increasingly short supply. Here at St Rodence we bring our gels face to face with these realities from the earliest possible moment. Sometimes a meal is dropped without notice and I have discontinued the oil deliveries so that we can use the raw materials existing in the grounds.”

“I saw some girls sawing up trees,” I say.

“Exactly. And then there’s Miss Bondage’s Open Cast Coal Mining Class. At all levels we’re trying to back up the government’s economy measures.”

“It must save a lot of money, too,” I say.

Miss Grimshaw looks up sharply. “Money. Yes, I suppose that must be a consideration to some people.” The way she says it makes me feel ashamed. How could I have been so clumsy?

“I didn’t mean—” I say hurriedly.

“Don’t.” Miss Grimshaw fans herself with a letter from a firm called Humpbach, Straynes and Croucher. “We live in venal times. It’s understandable that the thought should occur to you. For somebody of my ascetic temperament money hardly enters into the scheme of things.” I nod, wishing that I could understand. Maybe, after exposure to this remarkable woman—“I believe you’ve worked with Miss Green before?”

“Yes, we nursed together.”

“Splendid gel. Her pupils worship her stud marks. I think we’ve got all the makings of a great hockey team this year. Probably our best since the palmy days of Mabel Atherstone-Hinkmore. A big girl but so light on her feet. She moved like a great fairy.” Dad often says the same thing when he is watching the telly. “I think we’re really going to give St Belters a game, this year.”

I nod vigorously and try and make my eyes glow with enthusiasm. Miss Grimshaw’s eyes are glowing with enthusiasm—or something.

“I’d certainly like to help.” I say.

“Good gel!” Miss Grimshaw tries to rise to her feet and then falls back into her chair. “You cut along and take tiffin with Miss Green. She’ll show you the ropes. I must get on with preparing my weekly jaw on current affairs.” Her hand stretches out towards a copy of Sporting Life. “Goodbye, Miss Nixon. Nixon—” Miss G. shakes her head quizzically “—it’s funny, I’m certain I’ve heard that name before somewhere.” Miss Grimshaw obviously has a very dry sense of humour. I have read about people like her.

“How did it go?” says Penny, when I eventually find my way to her room.

“Jolly—I mean, very well,” I say. “I think I’m in.”

“What did I tell you? This place would employ the Boston Strangler if he kept his nails short.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere with me,” I say. “And, talking of flattery, Miss Grimshaw spoke very highly of you.”

“I suppose she was pissed out of her mind, was she? In that mood she loves everybody.”

I like Penny but she can be very cynical sometimes.

“Are you going to take the job?” she says.

“You bet.”

“Right, let’s go out and eat.”

“Go out?”

“Yes. I don’t want you to change your mind.”

“Don’t you have to eat here?”

“I’ve got a free afternoon. Come on, we’ll go down to the village. I feel like a good natter.”

She also feels like four large gin and tonics as I find by the time I am on my second cider—it is strong, too. Not like the stuff Dad gets in at Christimas.

“I feel I should have spent more time at the school,” I say.

“You’ve got plenty of time to do that,” says Penny. “There’s nothing else to see that wouldn’t depress you. Did you notice my room? Like the inside of a coffin only the wood isn’t such good quality.”

“If it’s so awful, why do you stay here?”

“That’s one reason.” Penny indicates a tall, dark-haired man of about thirty who has just come into the bar. “Rex Harrington, the vet. I wouldn’t mind him vetting me, I can tell you.”

The man turns round immediately and I do wish Penny did not have such a loud voice. “Penny, my sweet,” he says coming towards us. “I bumped into Guy a few moments ago. He said you might be popping in for a drink later on?”

“It’s on the cards,” says Penny.

“And your charming companion, I hope?”

“I’ve got to be going back to London,” I say, thinking what sexy eyes the man has. “I’ve already missed the train I was going on.”

“Miss the next one.”

“Rosie, this is Rex,” says Penny. “Rex Harrington, Rosie Dixon.”

“Pleased to meet you,” I say.

“Likewise. What are you both having to drink?”

“I mustn’t have another one,” I say.

“Nonsense. I’ll be offended. What is it, cider?”

Upper class men always seem so sure of themselves. I find it difficult to refuse any suggestion they make. “Just a small one,” I say.

“And a large gin and tonic,” says Penny, holding out her glass.

“Does this pub ever close?” I ask. “It’s half past three now.”

“We operate continental licensing hours around here,” says Penny. “Now we’re in the Common Market it seems the least we can do.”

Rex Harrington is thoughtfully tapping two coins together at the bar and there is something about the way he is looking at my legs that makes me cross them immediately—what a good job he is not looking into my eyes.

“When is the next train?” I ask.

“You might as well wait for the six-thirty, now. It’s a fast train and it will mean that you can have that drink with Guy. It’s a good idea to keep in with the locals.”

I am feeling so exhausted that I don’t argue with her. I suppose it was all the nervous tension I burned up worrying about the interview.

“Here we are, girls. Chin, chin.” Rex raises his glass and I am off again.

An hour later—give or take a couple of hours—I am not quite certain where I am. Although it is still daylight, a strange dark haze hangs over everything and I move as if in a dream. In fact, I am not moving. I am in a car. The countryside stops pelting past the window and reassembles itself in the shape of Branwell Riding Stables.

“Good,” I hear myself say, “I feel like a drink.”

“Capital girl,” says Rex who is driving. “A chip off the old block, eh Penners?”

“Absolutely,” says Penny. “Don’t do that, Rex. You’ll ladder my tights.”

“I wonder who else is going to be there?” says Rex. “Do you reckon there’s a chance of a game of ‘Hunt the Horseshoe’?”

“What’s that?” I ask in my fresh, girlish innocence.

Rex winks. “It’s like ‘Hunt the Thimble’ only more energetic. Just the thing if you feel like a spot of horseplay.”

“I like games,” I say. I do, too. It is probably rather childish of me but I think they help make things go with a swing. I believe lots of people feel like that only they are ashamed to admit it. Once they get stuck in and lose their inhibitions they really enjoy themselves.

When we go through the door it is obvious that we are by no means the first to arrive. There is a great buzz of conversation and about a dozen people are standing around with drinks in their hands.

“Rosie, I’d like you to meet Buffie and Tillie and …’ I don’t remember any of the names but they all seem to have something to do with the land, except for one man who is a solicitor.

“Do you hunt?” says a man with a complexion like a frost-bitten strawberry. “You know, wearing the pink?”

“Are you?” I say. “I suppose it’s the air.” I think he says “we’re in the pink”, you see. It is all very confusing, especially when one has had a tiny bit too much to drink. If this has been a typical day, they certainly know how to knock it back.

“Do take something off if you’re feeling hot.” Guy is the perfect gentleman and helps slide my jacket off my shoulders. After Penny’s remark I am glad to say goodbye to it.

“You’re going to be a very pleasant addition to the scenery, Rosie,” Rex pours some more champagne into my glass. I can see why Penny likes the place so much. And they are all such gentlemen. Geoffrey could learn a thing or two from them after his crude approaches.

“Thank you,” I say. “I feel I’m going to be very happy here.”

“I’m sure you will.” Rex takes my hand and presses it to his lips. How romantic Chingford was never like this. Even the dances at Woodford Rugby Club never achieved quite this level of magic.

“Come on, Guy. I fancy a flutter on the gees, what?” The speaker’s moustache looks as if it was cut out of a de Soutter advertisement and he is jerking his head towards the stables.

“Yes! ‘Hunt the Horseshoe’!” The shout goes up on all sides.

“What is this game?” I whisper to Penny.

“You’ll find out,” she says.

“Oh, come on! I hate surprises.”

“Well,” Penny looks doubtful. “The horses are driven out of the stables, somebody throws a horseshoe inside, and everybody tries to find it.”

“Is that all?”

Penny looks as if she is searching for words. “Not quite all. There is room for manoeuvre.” She looks at her watch. “Maybe you could just catch the seven thirty.”

“No, no. I’ll stay for the game. Perhaps you don’t get it until you play it.”

“I think that’s about it,” says Penny. “You certainly don’t get it if you don’t play it.”

“O.K. everybody. Let’s go. Ciggies out please. Who wants to heave the horseshoe?”

“Me, me.” The volunteer has front teeth that protrude so far they nearly cover her front buffers—and that is some feat, I can tell you. This lady’s bust development makes Jane Russell look like Twiggy’s kid brother.

“Any tips?” I say to Penny.

“The men usually supply their own,” she says. What is she talking about?

I am feeling so dozy that I can hardly steer a straight course to the stables. I usually go flat out to win but I think that, today, I may have to set my sights a bit lower.

“Look out!” Penny pulls me to one side just in time. The horses are streaming out of the stable and one of them misses me by a hare’s breath—or is it a hair’s breadth? Either way it comes very close.

“Stand back, everybody! Let the dog see the rabbit—or should it be the rare bit?”

“Shut up and get on with it, Guy!”

“Are you ready, Melissa?”

“Ready!”

“Right! One! Two! Three! They’re orf!!”

I see a horseshoe go sailing into the air and everyone makes a bolt for the barn. Honestly! I have never heard a noise like it. Grown men squealing and hallooing like kids at a birthday party. It is the drink, I suppose, and I must say, I feel in fairly high spirits myself.

I am the last through the barn door and the sight that greets my eyes makes me realise how seriously they take the game. Hay is flying in all directions and there are couples literally grappling with each other to be first to the key. I even see one girl taking her clothes off. I suppose she is frightened of getting her dress dirty. Penny has taken Rex by the hand and is drawing him towards a rickety ladder that leads to the loft.

“Are you supposed to have a partner?” I ask.

Penny nods. “It helps.”

When I look round the stable I see what she means. Lots of couples are working very closely together and some of them are looking in the most amazing places. Surely you couldn’t get a horseshoe—? Oh well, it doesn’t matter.

“Tally Ho!” Major Phipps runs past me in his underpants and dives on top of Melissa Big Boobs. They are taking it seriously! I look towards the loft to see if Penny and Rex have had any luck and—OH! An enormous bale of hay is plunging down towards me. I stretch out my arms instinctively and stagger back under its weight. Penny and Rex must have dislodged something. Not just something! Another bale comes down and I go sprawling over some sacks of grain. My feet are waving in the air but the upper part of my body is pinned down as if someone is sitting on my chest.

“Help!” I splutter. “Get these things off me!” I wondered afterwards if that was the right thing to say. I mean, what other explanation can there be for someone sliding their hands up my skirt and tugging down my panties and tights?

“Stop it!” I scream. “What do you think you’re doing?” I can’t see who it is, and he doesn’t answer my question, but there is no doubt that he knows what he is doing. While I struggle helplessly, his spam ram pays an unexpected call on my spasm chasm. “You brute!” I sob. “You’re supposed to be looking for a horseshoe.”

“I don’t need any more luck,” says the filthy swine.

CHAPTER 3

“Eleven!?” says Penny.

“And big ones, too,” I say.

“But there were only seven of them, there.”

“Some of them must have had seconds.”

“Greedy little devils!” I am referring to the way a tray of doughnuts disappeared after junior school swimming practice.

It is two weeks after my introduction to life at St Rodence and I am now happily settled in under Penny’s protective wing—and, talking of protectives, what a good job that I am a little girl scout when it comes to such matters. Without the Pill that unpleasant incident in the stable could have had even more serious repercussions.

I never found out who my attacker was. There was a wild cry of “Wacko the froggies!” and I felt myself encumbered so to speak. When I struggled out from under the bales there was nice Rex Harrington picking pieces of straw from the knees of his cavalry twills and offering me his hand. I didn’t like to say anything, it would have been too embarrassing.

On the whole, I would prefer not to know. That way, I find it easier to put this latest assault on my virginity into perspective. As I have stated on many occasions, virginity is very much a state of mind with me and I am comforted to think that I was attacked without my consent by someone I did not see. In this way I feel no sense of loss or even of temporary removal. I am still free to offer the man I eventually marry the precious gift of my Maidenhead without Staines—I mean, my maidenhead without stains. But to return to the present.

“Mind you, I can’t say I blame them,” says Penny. “I’d be pretty hungry if I had to swim two lengths of the hockey field on an empty stomach.”

“And a tin tray,” I say. “Sometimes I think it’s a bit thick, charging extra for swimming lessons when we don’t have a pool.”

“We used to go to the pool in Pokeham,” says Penny. But they banned us after the attendant had a heart attack.”

“What happened?”

“Oh, some of the girls cornered him in the showers. It was just a bit of harmless horseplay that got out of hand.”

“There are so many extras, aren’t there?” I say.

“It’s the only way to keep a place like this going. You charge a fortune to begin with and everything else is an extra. The parents jump at the chance to make sure that their brat has more extras than anyone else.”

“But I don’t call sawing up logs, carpentry.”

“I don’t know. The wood’s got to come from somewhere, hasn’t it? Miss Bondage calls that backward integration.”

“I call it sharp practice. And what about ‘Vehicle Maintenance’?”

“It saves Miss Grimshaw a bomb on garage bills. I’m not grumbling, either. Last week I had a complete oil change and—”

“It’s not that so much,” I interrupt, “It’s the fact that the school charges the parents fifteen guineas and enrols the kids in the Village College Evening Classes for 60p.”

“That’s good business,” says Penny. “Miss Keynes frequently cites it in her ‘Business Studies’ course.”

Maybe I am too soft but it does seem a bit unfair, somehow. The spirit of “Survival in the Seventies” runs right through the school.

“I’ll see you at supper,” says Penny. “I want to talk to Ruben about some linseed oil for the hockey sticks.”

She goes off towards the pavillion and I think what a pillar of strength Seth and Ruben Hardakre are in the school community. Always hard at it. No sooner has the thought flashed across my mind than young Seth comes out of the bushes with Mademoiselle Dubois, the French mistress.

“We ’ave been laying in ze trail for ze cross cunt—country,” she says in her charming accent.

No wonder they both look so flushed and exhausted. How typical of the Hardakres that Seth should be prepared to give up his spare time in this fashion. Only the evening before I had found Ruben helping Mlle Dubois plan the route of a nature ramble.

I go on my way to the school, past the group of fourth formers picking edible toadstools for supper, and think of all the satisfactions there are to be derived from the life of a teacher. If only I found the rest of the staff, Penny excepted, more sympathetic. I always dread going into the mistresses’ common room. It seems like the reading room of the British Museum—not that I have ever been there but you know what I mean. If you open your mouth, people have complained about the draught before you have time to say anything. In fact, you soon get the feeling that you are not expected to say anything until you have been in the place for ten years. The person who does most of the talking is Miss Bondage, the assistant head mistress. She has a face like a boiled calf’s head and is always reading the newspapers and making “humf!” noises.

“Damn sex maniacs need a dose of their own medicine. I’d like to get my hands on some filthy pervert!” She looks round the room challengingly but nobody disagrees with her. Penny has certainly confided to me that she thinks Miss Bondage would like to get her hands on a sex maniac and that it would probably be her only chance.

“There’s rather an interesting article in the New Scientist on pre-post-revisionary repression factors in deprived adolescents—”

“Communist propaganda,” interrupts Miss Bondage. “Put them up against the wall and shoot them. Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Miss Marjoribanks who is young and sensitive runs from the room in tears closely followed by her inseparable friend, Miss Wilton. They have only been at the school slightly longer than me. I have tried to be friendly to both of them but if I talk to one of them the other becomes all moody and petulant. They are a funny couple.

“No stomach for the realities of life,” snaps Miss Bondage, stuffing tobacco into her pipe. “No wonder the world is in such a damn mess!” I make the mistake of catching her eye. “What do you think, Nixon?”

“Well, I—er think it’s very difficult,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

I wish she wouldn’t ask questions like that. “Well, you know, I think—er—of course, it’s only a personal opinion, but, I suppose for lots of young people today, it’s a question of finding it very difficult to know exactly what they do think.”

Miss Bondage stares at me. “And that’s what you think?”

“In a manner of speaking,” I say.

“Ridiculous! There’s only one answer: Martial law and a strong hand on the helm. I’d advocate Enoch Powell if he wasn’t too liberal.”

“Oh fiddle!” says Miss Honeycomb. “You’ll have to stand up everybody, the grass snake has got out again.”

“It’s ridiculous keeping the thing in here,” storms Miss Bondage. “Next time you confiscate something, keep it in your own room.”

“I daren’t. It’s too cold. Do you remember what happened to the hampster? It froze to death.”

“How do the girls keep them, then?”

“They take them into bed with them.”

“How very unhealthy!”

“None of the animals seems to have caught anything yet,” says Miss Honeycomb.

“It’s only a matter of time, mark my words. The R.S.P.C.A. streaming through the gates is just what we need.”

I am grateful that Miss Honeycomb has diverted Miss Bondage’s attention and even more so when Penny comes in to announce that we must pick the hockey team for the key match against St Belters.

“It’s a jolly swizz,” she says when we have retired to the snug at the Vole and Ratchet. “St Belters is a co-ed and their girls get a lot of practice playing with boys. They’re going to be a tough nut to crack.”

“Are we playing home or away?” I ask.

“Away. Not a lot of teams are prepared to come here. St Belters nearly cancelled the fixture when one of their girls was attacked by cockroaches.”

“How awful!” I trill. “Where did this happen?”

“In the dining hall, of course,” says Penny. “They only go where there’s food.” She shakes her head sadly. “Poor deluded creatures.”

“Is it just the food the other schools don’t like?” I ask.

Penny nods. “In the main. Several teams have been unable to take the field after lunching with us and there was one netball game when we ended up playing against two girls.”