Oh! I wonder where he learned to do that? I always remember Geoffrey as a rather useless kisser. Perhaps Raquel Welchlet has been giving him lessons? The thought makes me determined to demonstrate that big sister knows best.
“Oh, Rosie!” The inside of the windows is beginning to steam up.
“Geoffrey! Please!” Without me realising what was happening he has raided my reception area. How awful that I am so befuddled with drink and hunger that I am practically powerless to resist him.
“That’s nice, isn’t it?”
“Geoffrey!” Now the condensation is running down the windows in rivulets.
“Feel how much I want you.” Geoffrey takes my hand and guides it to—OH! This is too much! Can this be the boy who shyly pressed a cucumber sandwich into my fingers at the Eastwood Tennis Club Novices’ Competition?
“Geoffrey!!”
“I must have you!” Geoffrey presses something between my legs—I mean, presses something situated between my legs—I mean, presses a lever situated on the floor between my legs—and the back of my seat drops down to the horizontal position. Hardly have I realised what is happening than Geoffrey is trying to scramble on top of me. I have never known such a change come over a man. It must have been that German giving him ideas.
“Are you mad, Geoffrey!?” I screech.
“Mad with love!” Somehow—don’t ask me how he manages to do it—the great idiot gets his foot hooked in the driving wheel. The horn lets out a high-pitched shriek—and then refuses to stop.
“Get your foot away!” I shout.
“I have!”
One of the good things about a nurse’s training is that it teaches you how to handle yourself in an emergency: take a long, critical look at the situation and then—panic.
“You’ve turned the ignition on!”
Geoffrey turns off the ignition and immediately the horn stops and smoke starts billowing out of the front of the car. He turns on the ignition and the smoke dies down while the horn starts again.
“Do something!” I scream. All around us I can see people reacting to the noise and one or two cars switch on their lights and start to pull away.
“You’d better get out!” shouts Geoffrey. He is pressing every switch and knob on the dashboard and I hear something making a spluttering noise like a fuse burning down. “The wiring must have shorted,” he yells.
I don’t wait to hear any more but start scrambling out of the car. Unfortunately, for some reason that escapes me, my tights are round my ankles and I am blinded by the headlights of a car that is pulling away. How embarrassing! I try to pull my skirt over my knees and fall down as I hobble towards the protection of some bushes. This is the last time I will ever let Geoffrey Wilkes take me out to dinner.
I have just found myself face to face with a middle-aged man wearing a plastic mac—and, as far as I can make out, nothing else—when I hear a familiar wailing noise. A police car, with light flashing, is bowling over the pot holes. I had only intended to pull up my tights and then return to help Geoffrey but, maybe, I had better wait and see what happens. The police car screeches to a halt beside Geoffrey’s car and two men jump out. The noise of the horn is still deafening and the smoke like that on a Red Indian party line.
Oh dear! One of the policemen has a breathalyser in his hand. I recognise it because I thought it was something else for a minute.
“Don’t do that!” I whisper to the man in the plastic mac. What a disappointing evening this has been. It just shows what happens when you look forward to something too much.
“What time did you get in last night?” says Mum.
“Two o’clock,” says Natalie.
Needless to say, the question was addressed to me.
“We had a bit of trouble with the car,” I say truthfully. “I thought I’d better see it out with Geoffrey.”
“Oooh. You saw it out, did you?” says Natalie.
I ignore this piece of tasteless crudity and pop another piece of Ryvita into my mouth. For all I know the car may still be there. At least, the police silenced the horn before they took Geoffrey away. I remember how upset he sounded when they pulled all the wires out from underneath the bonnet.
That was at midnight. It took me two hours to get away from that horrible man and walk home. I have heard about people like him but I never thought I would be chased through a cemetery by one of them. I never thought people got up to tricks like that in cemeteries, either. Some of the things that were going on you would not believe if you were warned about them in the Sunday papers.
“The post is here,” says Dad. “There’s a big one for you, my girl. It must be your cards.” He drops a large buff envelope in front of me.
“I expect it’s the prospectus,” I say, trying not to let my excitement show as I slip my knife under the flap.
It is indeed. ‘St Rodence Private School For Girls, Little Rogering, Nr. Southmouth, Hants.’ There is a picture of a big house set amongst trees and rolling countryside, and an embossed coat of arms.
“Looks like a lunatic asylum,” says Dad.
Natalie laughs like he is Jack Benny.
“You recognise it?” I say. Once again, I can see that Dad is on the point of revealing that he has no sense of humour and it is as well that Mum steps in.
“Nice countryside, dear.”
“That’s one of the things that appeals to me,” I say truthfully.
“And having Southmouth so near,” says Natalie snidely.
“Perhaps you would care to elaborate on that remark?” I say grandly.
“Eeeoh I seeay,” minces Junior Nausea. “Fraytfully sorry and all that. Actually, you know, I was referring to the proximity of all those jolly jack tars. Do I make myself plain?”
“You don’t have to bother,” I say. “Somebody beat you to it.”
“Now, girls. Let’s have none of that.” Mum intervenes again. “If Rosie wants to go into teaching it’s up to us to give her all the support we can. Right, Harry?”
“Uum.” Dad sounds about as happy as Ted Heath finding that someone has locked up his organ and thrown away the key.
“There’s fourteen teachers,” I say. “And a broadly based curriculum.”
“That’s nice,” says Mum. “Your Aunt Enid used to play one of them.”
“What’s all this Oxon business after their names?” says Dad.
“Probably means they’re stupid,” says my pathetic sister.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I say. “B.A. Oxon means they’ve got an agricultural degree.”
“What’s the point of that at a girl’s school?” says Dad.
“It is in the country,” says Mum.
“They teach them to be milkmaids,” says Natalie.
I shut out their voices and read on about the acres of playing fields and the entrance scholarships won to Cheltenham Ladies College and Benenden. There is also a note from Penny:
“Dear Rosie,
Here is the official story. Don’t believe a word of it. The