Rosie Dixon's Complete Confessions

“How awful!” I say.

“It was. We still lost. Really, Rosie, the standard of sporting achievement at St Rodence stands navel high to a prostrate garden gnome. If one of the girl’s got athlete’s foot it would be a breakthrough.”

“So we’re going to get thrashed by St Belters?”

Penny looks round carefully before replying. “Not necessarily. We have a secret weapon.”

I suck in my breath sharply. “Not drugs?”

Penny shakes her head. “Most of the First Nine are immune to any kind of stimulant.”

“The First Nine? But, Penny. Surely there are eleven people in a hockey team?”

“There are. Now do you see the kind of problems I have? We can’t field a team unless I threaten a couple of girls with extra forestry.”

“So what’s the secret weapon?” I say. “Are you lashing hypodermics to the hockey sticks?”

Penny looks at me thoughtfully. “Damn. I wish you’d come up with that earlier. We’ll have to save it for the cricket, now.”

“What’s the idea?” I squeal.

Penny lowers her voice and leans closer. “The Saranjit sisters. Have you seen them?”

“You mean, the two Indian girls? What about them?”

“They both played hockey for the Indian youth team. Rumna was right inner and Napum, goalkeeper. You see what that means?”

“One of them keeps St Belters out while the other bashes the ball in?”

“Precisely! And the beauty of it is that St Belters know nothing about them. They’ll be expecting another 14—0 win like last year.”

“14—0! What a thrashing.”

“Yes. And they only played twenty minutes of the first half. Apparently Miss Grimshaw abandoned the match because of the light.”

“It was too dark?”

“No she’d been drinking light all the morning and swallowed her whistle.”

“Penny, you are a tease!” I know what she says can’t be true because Miss Grimshaw only drinks cold tea. Penny does like her little joke.

“All right, you don’t have to believe me. It’s all in the past anyway. All I’m worried about is next Saturday.”

I knew the Indians were good at hockey but it is not until I see the Saranjit sisters having a work out that I realise just how good.

“The ball might be glued to their sticks,” I say to Penny, admiringly.

Penny snaps her fingers in irritation. “Why do you keep having these ideas when it’s too late?”

“Never mind about that,” I say, “have you got a full team together?”

Penny looks glum. “Yes, but at a price. The only two girls who don’t brandish a medical certificate the moment you step near them are the terrible twins.”

“The terrible twins?”

“Roxane and Eliza. Don’t say you haven’t come across them?” Penny shudders. “I suppose it’s feasible. They might have been out on a bender when you came.”

Something clicks at the back of my mind. “A couple of rather pretty girls who can look a lot older than their age? I think they were on the train that first day I arrived. Funny, I haven’t seen them since.”

“It’s not at all funny,” snaps Penny. “The American Sixth Fleet has only just pulled out of Southmouth. I’m amazed they didn’t go with it.”

“You mean, they went to Southmouth?”

“Rosie, those girls spend more time out of the school than in it. They only look in occasionally to change their underwear and pick up some more pocket money.”

“But how do they get away with it?” I say. “Why aren’t they expelled?”

“Expelled!?” Penny laughs hollowly. “The only thing you can get expelled from St Rodence for is non-payment of school fees. The school specialises in what it calls ‘difficult cases’. If your child has been chucked out of every school in the country for arson you can always let it weather out its days at St R’s.”

“I know a lot of the children come from broken homes,” I say.

“Yes. And they broke them up personally. We had one girl who ran off a mail order catalogue on the school printing press and sold the contents of her father’s country house while he was abroad.”

“Roxane and Eliza don’t sound the kind of girls who will want to play hockey.”

“They aren’t,” says Penny, grimly. “There’s only one thing that makes a trip to St Belters an interesting proposition as far as they are concerned: Men!”

“Men?”

“It’s co-ed, remember. If you see anything you like—watch it! We had a lay preacher who came to the school to preach on ‘The Joys of Self Denial’. Those two damn nearly layed him before he got through the gates.”

I watch the lithe, muscular Saranjit girls sprinting up and down the hockey field. “Sounds as if it could be quite a game,” I say.

By the time Saturday arrives I am in a state of rare excitement. It is a filthy day with rain bucketing down but Penny is not worried.

“It’ll hurt St Belters much more than us,” she says. “Napum and Rumna could play hockey on a river bed and the rest of them can’t play on any surface.”

I am surprised that we have a coach to take us to the game and say so.

“It’s the only way we can be sure of keeping tabs on them,” says Penny. “If we travel by public transport it’s too easy for them to sneak off. I remember when we played Seaford. I found half the team in the queue outside Confessions of a Window Cleaner five minutes before bully off.”

I look round the coach full of girls quietly reading Forum and swopping gatefolds of Viva. They seem harmless enough. I can’t see why the driver is padlocking himself inside the cab.

“Are we going to stop on the way, Miss Green?”

“Only for calls of nature.”

“Oh, Miss Green! Miss Oliphant always used to let us stop for a drink.”

“I remember the incident well, Letitia. The saloon bar of The British Queen was gutted and the coach burnt out. There will be no stopping!”

“But Miss Green!”

“No buts—and put that cigar out, Roxane! You’re supposed to be in training.”

There are cries of “rotten shame!” and “jolly swizz!” from all round the coach.

“Why are you crying, Fiona?”

“Dunnalot stole my eye shadow!”

“Eliza! Hand it back this instant!”

“It was a fair swop, Miss Green. She’s got my foundation cream!”

“I haven’t!”

“You have!”

“I haven’t!”

“You have! Victoria Bevan saw you polishing your grass snake with it!”

“She’s lying!”

“Quiet, girls!!” Penny has to shout to make herself heard above the noise. “Is this the way for us to go into battle? Bitter and divided? Of course not! Remember, we’re a team. The St Rodence First Eleven! Let your breasts swell with pride. Feel yourselves grow in stature as you prepare to hurl yourself at the throats of the enemy!”

“Hare krishnan!” says one of the Saranjit girls enthusiastically.

“When you grip the curved wand between your hands, let one thought run through your minds: Glory to St Rodence. Let there be no one of whom it can be said ‘She did not try her hardest on this day’. When that first whistle sounds, cry ‘God for Harry, England, and St Rodence!’”

There is a hushed silence as the words sink in. Then Eliza Dunnalot raises a hand. “You’ll have to stop the coach. I feel sick already.”

“You can see what we’re up against,” says Penny as we settle down with a pile of magazines confiscated from the girls. She points to one of the photographs, “I wouldn’t mind being up against that, either.”

“Penny! How could you. I think male nudes are disgusting. Don’t let the girls see you looking at it.”

“I think they’ve done a bit of retouching there.” Penny holds the magazine up to the light while I cringe.

We get to St Belters without further incident and my heart sinks when I see how large the school is. There are a lot of new buildings, too. So different to St Rodence where the science laboratory is situated in a prefabricated shed.

“Right, girls,” says Penny as the door slides open and the driver starts running towards the nearest building. “Good luck, and remember to control yourself at tea. I don’t want to see anyone filling their knickers with eclairs.” She steps to one side and I feel a thrill of excitement as our charges stumble out into a stiff north-easter. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten—Ten?

“I was waiting for this,” says Penny grimly. “Sometimes, one of them tries to stay behind in the coach and slope off when everybody has gone. No school spirit.”

This time, Penny is wrong. When we find Roxane slumped in the corner of the back seat there is plentiful evidence of spirit. An empty hip flask is in her hand and she is snoring loudly.

“Greedy little swine!” hisses Penny. “She never passes it round.” She starts to shake Roxane viciously. “Wake up! Wake up! You’ve got a game of hockey to play!”

“That was dreamy, Hank,” murmurs the girl.

“She’s never going to be able to play!” I say.

Penny sniffs the empty flask. “I think you’re right. This stuff would rot the elastic in your knickers. They’ve obviously been distilling gym shoes, again.”

“What are we going to do!?” I say desperately.

Penny stands back and looks me straight in the eye. “There’s only one thing we can do.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll have to play.”

“Me!? I’m useless at hockey. It’s dangerous.”

“Stop snivelling, Dixon. You sound just like one of the girls.” Penny bristles angrily. “You look young enough and none of the staff of St Belters have ever seen you before. What are you worrying about?”

“But the girls will know.”

“They won’t say anything. If we promise to let them stop at a pub on the way back they’ll play ball.”

“But, Penny—”

“No buts. I’ve got to go now. You get Roxane’s clobber on and I’ll tell the rest of the team.”

Penny disappears and I see her striding across the quad to be greeted by a man and woman both wearing academic gowns. Oh dear. What am I going to do? There seems to be nothing for it but to follow Penny’s instructions. After her stirring address I can hardly let the school down.

It is much easier to get Roxane’s clothes off than I would have imagined. I wish she would not keep calling me Hank, though. I drape my coat over her and scramble down the steps of the coach.

“Hello, darling. What are you doing after the game, then?”

The speaker barely comes up to the tip of one of my boobs and is wearing a scruffy blazer and a crop of what look like last year’s spots. “Fancy a suck of my lolly?” The odious little creep can’t be more than fifteen and has clearly mistaken me for one of the team. Maybe I should be flattered.

“Miss Gleen doesn’t like us talking to stlange boys,” I lisp.

“Don’t listen to her. I can show you a good time. Come up to my study and I’ll sport the oak.”

The very idea! I don’t know what he is talking about but it doesn’t sound very nice. Probably one of those Australian slang expressions.

“Let me pass!” I practically have to walk over him to get to the pavilion. What with that and him trying to put his hand up my gym slip I am in a state of nervous exhaustion before I get over the threshold.

“Are you all right?” asks Penny.

I tell her what happened and she takes my hockey stick and goes outside without a word. There is a shrill scream and when I look out of the window my erstwhile attacker is coiled up like a spring. Penny comes in and hands me back my stick. “It’s not just for playing hockey with,” she says.

“You struck him?” I say, horrified.

“A little something I picked up at Miss Bondage’s Kung Fu classes.”

“Kung Fu?”

“They were marvellous. Up to the time they stopped not one of our girls had been assaulted.”

“Why were they stopped?”

“Complaints from the headmaster of the local grammar school. Six of his boys had been raped.”

I hardly have time to consider the full implications of what Penny was saying before the umpire comes in with the captain of the St Belter’s team. “Shall we toss up in here?” she says. “It’s absolutely beastly, outside.”

She is not kidding. From the window I can see that puddles are beginning to form on the pitch. Only a handful of spectators are huddled under the surrounding trees. What a lousy day to make my comeback. When I left school I vowed that I would never touch a hockey stick again.

“Heads,” says Rumna who is captain of the team.

The umpire throws the coin in the air and it rolls under one of the benches. Quick as a flash, Fiona Fladger has retrieved it and put it in her purse. “Heads it was,” she says calmly.

“Oh,” says the umpire.

“We’ll choose ends when we get out there,” says Rumna, signalling that the tossing up ceremony has been completed. “Come on, team. Let’s get stuck into it.”

When I get to the pitch I assume that she must be referring to the mud. I stand on the ball while I am trying to stop it and it all but disappears.

“Good luck,” says Penny as I take the field for the bully off. “I’m just off to talk to James about next year’s fixture.” She is accompanied by a man with crinkly blond hair, flashing white teeth and a broad smile. I wish I had something to smile about.

“I should be back by half term—I mean, time.”

They go off, practically arm in arm, and I can’t help feeling jealous. When I entered the teaching profession it was with the hope of enjoying a meaningful relationship with an intelligent male teacher of the opposite sex. All I seem to have ended up with is a spotty little boy shouting “Wack it one for me, Big Knockers!” while he is carried away on a stretcher. It is all very disappointing.

“We’re playing downhill,” says Rumna. “Give it everything you’ve got!”

“Don’t start yet! My nail polish hasn’t dried.” Eliza Dunnalot waves her arms in the air and the whistle blows.

I was always a useless hockey player and it does not take me long to find out that time has not improved my performance. I take a giant swing at the first ball that comes my way and end up with a cold botty while the umpire blows for “sticks”.

“Hard luck, Knickers!” shouts Fiona Fladger and I realise that I have earned myself a nick-name.

Fiona is not the only person shouting. The St Belter’s coach stalks the far touch line screaming helpful comments such as “Smash them to a shapeless pulp, Belters!” or “Trample them into the ground, they’re useless!”—craggy profile, Ronald Colman moustache and parachute smock. She is really one of the most unattractive women I have ever seen.

Nothing is capable of making the St Rodence team play better but at least the flow of insults from the touchline makes them try harder. Fay Gosling stops asking for a tissue because her eye make-up is running and leaves the opposition right outer in an untidy heap on the ground.

“I’m frightfully sorry,” she says. “I was raising my wrist to see what the time was.”

Pheeeep! “Free hit!” Fay returns the ball hard to the umpire’s shins and there is a time lag of five minutes while a new official is found.

“Well played, Roders!” enthuses Rumna. “Keep at it! We’ve got them rattled!”

Rumna and Napum are fantastic and the only thing that keeps us in the game. In the first few moments Rumna intercepts a cross ball and streaks half the length of the field to side-step the goalie and sweep the ball into the net. At the other end Napum twice picks the ball out of the air while I am looking for it in the back of the net. Despite this and the increasingly determined efforts of the rest of the team we are still only drawing one all at half time. This is not bad but in the second half we have to play uphill and against a gale of almost hurricane proportions. The only thing in our favour is that the goal area we are now defending has collected a lot of water and is going to become increasingly difficult to play in.

“Fantastic effort, girls!” enthuses Penny who appears at half time. “I feel quite overcome.” She certainly looks very flushed and excited and it occurs to me, not for the first time, that she can get quite worked up when she really cares about something.

“Ollie! Ollie! Roders! Come on, girls. We can still do it.” Penny collects the powder compacts and the whistle goes for the second half. It has already been the most successful game in the school’s history—0–7 was their previous best half-time score—but St Belters start the half as if they intend to change all that. Urged on by their coach who is adding to the amount of liquid in the air by foaming at the mouth they come at us—very appropriately—in waves.

Napum is fantastic, but how long can we hold out? Fiona pretends to lose a contact lens she does not wear and Eliza twice collapses dramatically on the only dry patch of field but these are merely delaying tactics. The umpire warns us grimly that she intends to add on all time for stoppages. Penny appreciates the danger because I see her move closer to the touch line near the goal we are defending. As I watch she seems to be dragging a hose pipe out of the way.

“Watch it, Knickers!” I wake up only just in time to trip the St Belters left inner who is on the point of flashing past me.

“Foul!”

“Play the game, St Rodence!”

“Well played,” says Rumna as she trots past me. “Keep pressuring them.”

I drop back into our goal area and realise just how unplayable the pitch is becoming. It does have a steep slope and the rain is still pouring down but it is amazing how the water is collecting. The free hit fizzes into a small lake and everybody slashes at it as if frolicking in the waves at Frinton.

“Aaaargh!” Another St Belters player goes down clutching her head and their coach rushes onto the field.

“This is ridiculous!” she storms. “The game will have to be moved to another field. This pitch is giving these—these savages an unfair advantage. My girls’ superior skills are being blunted.”

“Absolute nonsense!!” shrieks Penny who appears on the scene with Elliot Ness swiftness. “My girls had to play into this goal. You didn’t hear us complain.”

“It wasn’t as bad, then.”

“Really! How feeble can you get? Perhaps you’d like to surrender the game?”

“Never! St Belters doesn’t know the meaning of the word surrender.”

“Just as I thought. A load of illiterates,” whispers Eliza, loud enough for everybody to hear. A mild scuffle has to be broken up before the umpire decides that the game will continue on the same pitch.

The whole of the goal area is now a lake and it is this that helps the game enter a telling phase. A group of players are hacking at each other and—occasionally—the ball when I suddenly feel something under my foot. I bend down and—there it is! A solid round object with a few lumps bashed out of it. In the sea of spray that surrounds me it is difficult to see what anybody is doing and I quickly pick the ball up and slip it down the front of my tunic—Ooh! It is cold. I have half a mind to leave it there until the match is abandoned but my sporting instinct gets the better of me—also the realization that a school as large as St Belters must have another ball.

Rumna is just coming back on the field having replaced the stick which she broke over the head of the once tricky left inner and I quickly retrieve the ball and throw it to her. Rumna is no slouch and before St Belters realise what is happening she is streaking up the field. She dribbles past one girl, two girls, enters the goal area and—WACK! The board at the back of the goal snaps like a broken toothpick. I try and jump in the air but it is difficult when you are standing ankle deep in muddy water. It is an amazing thing but although it has stopped raining the water still seems to be rising. I wonder if the goal area is situated over a spring? I look over to the touch line to see Penny’s reaction to our goal but she has retired into the trees. Overcome with emotion, I suppose.

“Come on, Roders! We’ve got to keep them out!”

“How much longer is there, ma’am?”

The umpire looks at her watch. “Twenty minutes.”

Twenty minutes! We will never be able to last that long. Most of our team are already on their knees. We wouldn’t be able to hold out if the rest of the game was played in a swimming pool. When I look around me I think it is going to be played in a swimming pool. The water is creeping up towards the half way line.

“There’s only one thing for it,” says Eliza. “Number forty-nine.”

“Right,” says Fiona.

I don’t have time to ask them what they’re talking about because St Belters sweep back to the attack. Minutes pass with us holding on desperately and then—“AAArrgh!!”

“Gosh! I am sorry, umpire. Are you all right?” Fiona’s hockey stick has nearly taken off the umpire’s left hand.

“You’d better have a look at it, Liza.” Liza takes the umpire’s wrist in her hands and feels it tenderly.

“Liza’s our first aid expert,” says Fiona comfortingly.

“I don’t think there’s anything broken,” says Eliza. “You didn’t get biffed on the head, did you? You look a bit dazed.”

“I’m all right.” The umpire flexes her stiff upper lip. “Come on, let’s get on with the game.”

“How jolly brave,” says Rumna. “St Rodence. Three cheers for the umpire. Hip. hip—”

“Pheeeep!” The umpire drops the ball and we’re off again.

“I can’t go on,” I gasp. “I’ve had it. I’m all in.”

“Hang on, Miss Dixon—I mean, Knickers. There’s only another couple of minutes.”

“A couple of minutes!?” I wheeze. “There’s nearly twenty!”

“No. Liza altered the umpire’s watch. Didn’t you see?”

Fiona skips off to flatten the St Belters right wing and I am left standing in amazement.

There is hardly time for an ugly brawl to break out in the deepest part of the goal area before Fiona’s penetrating voice is heard again. “How much longer, umpire?” The umpire tells Rumna to get off the girl she is standing on, and looks at her watch. Then she looks at her watch again. And again.

“Good heavens.” She shakes her head and an expression of great peace and contentment spreads over her face. Raising her whistle to her lips, she gives a long blast.

St Rodencc has won!!!

“Fantastic!” We all chuck ourselves into each other’s arms while the St Belters coach races on to the field in a cloud of spray.

“Are you mad, Miss Garth?” she screams. “There’s another twenty minutes, not including injury time!”

“Not on my watch there isn’t,” says the umpire curtly.

I can still hear the coach’s voice when I get over to Penny.

“Nice work,” she says. “Give me a hand with this tap, it’s a bit stiff.”

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Turning off the water. Brilliant wheeze, wasn’t it? I suddenly saw this hose by the pitch and—”

“You flooded the pitch!?”

“Keep your voice down! We don’t want everybody to know. It will destroy the girls’ confidence.”

“Penny, you’re absolutely amazing. I—”

Penny is not listening to me. “Oh dear,” she says. “I see Roxane has come round.” I follow her eyes to the sight of the coach driver being pursued across the hockey pitch by an excited Roxane.

“I do wish she’d put some clothes on first,” sighs Penny.

CHAPTER 4

“Well done, ladies.” I can hear the crackle of Miss Grimshaw’s stays as she leans forward.

“Thank you, Headmistress.” Penny and I bow our heads modestly.

“This was undoubtedly the finest victory in the school’s history—hic!” Miss Grimshaw closes her desk drawer and I hear the familiar chink of cold tea bottles. “However—hic! It was achieved at a cost.”

“We’ll be able to pay for the coach,” says Penny hurriedly. “It’s not as badly damaged as was first thought.”

“What I can’t understand.” Miss Grimshaw speaks slowly. “Is—hic! Why Fiona Fladger was driving?”

“Well, when the coach driver ran away we had to find someone. Fiona said she’d driven her father’s mini-moke.”

“More like mini-amok,” I say.

Miss Grimshaw winces. “Did the driver get away before—before they got him?” she asks. Penny nods.